by Michael Kerr
“You deserve nothing but a bullet, Cady,” Logan said as he put pressure on the trigger. “You’ve made a fortune out of others’ suffering, and now it’s over.”
“Let me buy my life,” Nick said. “There’s a lot of money in the house. You can have all of it. It’s in a safe behind a framed picture behind the bar. You can just take it and leave.”
This reminded Logan of the scumbag at Cape Cod, Patrick Fallon, who had also offered him money, which he had taken, after a young woman that Fallon had abused killed the man with a pair of scissors.
“Come on, Logan, make a deal,” Cady said. “You’re not a murderer. The combination to the safe is five-oh-two-five.”
The boat swayed at the moment that Logan pulled the trigger, and Cady spun and rolled forward into his shins. The bullet plowed into the deck, and Logan was bowled over. He recovered quickly, but Cady was literally fighting for his life and was pumped up with adrenaline.
With his left hand gripping Logan’s right forearm, Nick brought it up, swung it out and down with all his force on the bottom handrail and watched as the gun fell from Logan’s now deadened fingers. They both landed heavy blows on each other, and then staggered apart and faced each other, breathing heavily.
As Nick considered leaping over the side and into the river, Logan slipped off his rucksack, ripped open the Velcro fastening on a side pocket and withdrew something that Nick could not make out in the gloom.
Logan darted forward, grasped the other man by the waistband of his pants and head butted him as he pulled the pin of the fragmentation grenade, stuffed it where the sun don’t shine and let go of the lever.
Nick didn’t know what had happened. He felt the solid lump at his groin and heard Logan say, “Fire in the hole”, before heaving him up and over the handrail.
The grenade had a four second fuse. As Nick hit the water and sank beneath the surface there was still two seconds to go. He stuck his hand down his pants. One second left. Just time to grip the grenade, and then Nick Cady came apart like the great white shark in Jaws, as the underwater explosion transformed him from a human being into fish food.
Logan leaned back, away from the side, and a water fountain shot up and was full of various sized chunks of unidentifiable flesh, organs and bone. The noise of the blast was deep and subdued and thundered through the hull.
Logan picked up his rucksack by a strap and made his way quickly around to the dockside, to jog down the gangway and onto the pier.
“Armed police, stop or I’ll shoot,” Bruce Tucker shouted as the giant figure raced towards the house, not six feet from him.
Logan had the benefit of motion on his side. He angled to the left, swinging the rucksack, which caught the guy across the side of the head and knocked him off his feet.
Kneeling down and disarming the stranger who’d identified himself as a cop, Logan frisked him and found a wallet with a shield in it. Maybe he really was a cop, but that was not a ‘get out of jail free’ card to Logan’s way of thinking.
“Who are you?” Logan asked Bruce, pointing the gun he had confiscated at him.
“Lieutenant Bruce Tucker, Fort Myers PD. You’re under arrest.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Logan said, and reversed the cop’s gun and hit him twice across the temple with the butt, hard enough to knock him out.
He hesitated for a couple of seconds and decided that Tucker’s backup piece would be an illegal, untraceable handgun, and that it would have the rogue cop’s prints on it. He also took the wallet and shield, then thought what the hell and headed for the patio doors. It took him less than a minute to pull the picture back, enter the code, open the safe and put the banded blocks of bills he found into his rucksack.
As he made to leave he heard a female voice call out, “Is that you, Nick?” He ignored it, went out the way he had entered and jogged around the side of the house and across to the garage complex, to get in Harold Dunn’s Ford Fusion and start it up. Thirty seconds later he was driving out of the property. The gates were wide open.
He thought it through and decided that there would be no comeback. The snake’s head had been cut off, so to speak, and at least one outfit in Fort Myers had been closed down. The cop that he’d put to sleep had most likely worked for Cady. If the police had been summoned, then they would have attended in force, and he would now be dead or hooked up and in the back of a unit, with a bleak future ahead of him.
He stopped twice. Once in the back lot of a sleazy nightclub to change plates with an old Chevy, and again at the Taco Bell on Pandella Road. He was starving, and used the drive through and asked the teenager behind the glass for a double order of triple steak stacks, cheesy fiesta potatoes, salsa dip and coffee. If Boo wasn’t hungry, he would eat all of it. Funny how sex and violence were activities that had always given him an appetite. Not that he’d had sex for a while. It was something he took pleasure in sparingly, when it seemed right and was with a person that he cared for; like Kate Donner.
He parked in the lot outside the room, knocked on the door and said, “It’s me, Boo, open up.”
Boo limped over to the door and opened it. He was so relieved to see Logan that for a moment he forgot about the pain in his splinted leg. And the smell of the Mex food from the brown paper sack that Logan was holding made him salivate.
“What happened?” Boo asked.
“What needed to be done got done,” Logan said. “It’s over.”
“Did―”
“Cady’s history. Let’s eat this before it goes cold.”
EPILOGUE
THEY left the motel at nine a.m. Logan had one or two things to do before leaving Fort Myers. He stopped at a post office, bought a box and sharpie and went back to the car. He had amassed a few wallets and cell phones, so wiped them carefully with a sock from his rucksack as he placed them in the box. He didn’t wipe the cop’s gun and ID. He hadn’t touched them without gloves on.
With the items packed in the cardboard box and taped shut, he addressed it for the attention of the Chief of Police at the Sarasota Police Department on Adams Lane, took it into the post office and sent it on its way. He then used the only phone he’d kept to call the police in Sarasota and ask to speak to the Chief. Said that he had vital information concerning a murder inquiry that he would not divulge to anyone of a lower rank.
Acting Chief of Police Jane Hex took the call, stated her rank and name and said, “I need to know your name, sir.”
“No you don’t,” Logan said. “I’m calling you over a situation in Fort Myers. I don’t know who to trust there, due to Lieutenant Bruce Tucker being in the pocket of the now deceased racketeer, Nick Cady.”
It was less than a two minute conversation. Logan spoke and Jane Hex listened. He told her about Cady’s setup, and of the Bunker at NC Transport that had been used to hold victims of human trafficking. “The more you dig, the more you’ll find,” Logan said. “A trip down to Cady’s house will be an eye-opener for you. And there’s a parcel in the post to you with handguns and wallets in. I daresay your forensic department will find a lot of interesting latents.”
“Were you involved?” Jane asked.
“I was involved up to my neck in bringing Cady down. Think of me as someone that did some wrong things for the right reasons.”
Ending the call, Logan used the cell one last time to phone Cody’s Country Store.
Tom answered. “Yeah?”
“It’s me,” Logan said. “No names.”
“Any news?”
“Yeah, it’s a done deal. The danger has been eliminated. The woman and girl can get back to their lives. You’ll see some of what went down on the news.”
“Good job, Lo…Be careful out there.”
“And you. Who knows, I could turn up out of the blue one of these days for some of your spare ribs? In the meantime I’ll send you a package. It’s money that our late friend no longer has any use for. A third of it is for you and your wife. The rest is for the guests you’ve been lo
oking after.”
Logan ended the call, removed the SIM card, wiped the separate components, and then dropped them on to the ground and smashed them with his heel. He then used the side of his boot to scrape the pieces into a storm drain.
Climbing back in the car, Logan buckled up, smiled at Boo as he put the Ford in Drive and said, “So where exactly in Alabama are we headed for?”
About The Author
I write the type of original, action-packed, violent crime thrillers that I know I would enjoy reading if they were written by such authors as: Lee Child, David Baldacci, Simon Kernick, Harlan Coben, Michael Billingham and their ilk.
Over twenty years in the Prison Service proved great research into the minds of criminals, and especially into the dark world that serial killers - of who I have met quite a few - frequent.
I live in a cottage a mile from the nearest main road in the Yorkshire Wolds, enjoy photography, the wildlife, and of course creating new characters to place in dilemmas that my mind dreams up.
What makes a good read? Believable protagonists that you care about, set in a story that stirs all of your emotions.
If you like your crime fiction fast-paced, then I believe that the books I have already uploaded on Amazon/Kindle will keep you turning the pages.
Connect With Michael Kerr and discover other great titles.
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www.michaelkerr.org
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Also By Michael Kerr
DI Matt Barnes Series
A REASON TO KILL
LETHAL INTENT
A NEED TO KILL
CHOSEN TO KILL
A PASSION TO KILL
The Joe Logan Series
AFTERMATH
ATONEMENT
ABSOLUTION
ALLEGIANCE
The Laura Scott Series
A DEADLY COMPULSION
THE SIGN OF FEAR
Other Crime Thrillers
DEADLY REPRISAL
DEADLY REQUITAL
BLACK ROCK BAY
A HUNGER WITHIN
THE SNAKE PIT
A DEADLY STATE OF MIND
TAKEN BY FORCE
DARK NEEDS AND EVIL DEEDS
Science Fiction / Horror
WAITING
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE STRANGE KIND
RE-EMERGENCE
Children’s Fiction
Adventures in Otherworld
PART ONE – THE CHALICE OF HOPE
PART TWO – THE FAIRY CROWN
Table of Contents
Kindle Edition, License Notes
Also By Michael KerrDI Matt Barnes SeriesA REASON TO KILLLETHAL INTENTA NEED TO KILL
According
“I’m
PROLOGUETHE
CHAPTER ONEDEBBIE
CHAPTER TWOLOGAN
CHAPTER THREEWOLF
CHAPTER FOURON
CHAPTER FIVEJUST
CHAPTER SIXLOGAN
CHAPTER SEVENVINCE
CHAPTER EIGHTLOGAN
CHAPTER NINELARRY
CHAPTER TENTHE
CHAPTER ELEVENNICK
CHAPTER TWELVETOM
CHAPTER THIRTEEN“WHO
CHAPTER FOURTEENVINCE
CHAPTER FIFTEENLOGAN
CHAPTER SIXTEENONE
CHAPTER SEVENTEENLARRY
CHAPTER EIGHTEENThe
CHAPTER NINETEENKAREN
CHAPTER TWENTYNICK
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONEALAN
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWOLOGAN
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREENICK’S
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTHEY
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVENICK
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTHE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENNICK
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTACE
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINENICK
CHAPTER THIRTYGINA
EPILOGUETHEY