Chance Reddick Box Set 1

by David Archer

  She was trying not to let her concerns show through, because she didn’t want the boys to pick up on it. Carmelita kept telling her to relax, that Chance was a good man and would be home soon, but the longer she went without hearing from him, the more concerned she became.

  Finally, she collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table with the other three ladies. Her fears began to come out, and she had just started to voice them when the sound of gravel crunching on the road out front caught her ears.

  She leaped from her seat and ran to the front door, and then her eyes went wide when she saw an antique pickup truck towing a huge trailer pull into the yard. Chance got out from behind the wheel and walked around the truck, and then a short older lady got out beside him. Gabriella let out a squeal and ran out the door and down the stairs, threw her arms around his neck and leapt up into his arms. She kissed him passionately, and then suddenly remembered that his guest was watching.

  She pushed away from him so that he put her down on the ground, and then turned to face the old woman.

  “Gabriella,” he said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I brought my grandmother with me. She would’ve been all alone back in Kentucky, and I…”

  Grandma backhanded him in his belly, and then opened her arms toward Gabriella, who burst into a smile and hugged the old woman.

  “Oh, I’m so glad to meet you,” Gabriella said. “Chance has told me so much about you.”

  “Same here, my girl,” Grandma said. “He has talked about you for the last two thousand miles, I think.”

  They all went inside, and Grandma was introduced to everyone else. The boys came running in from the backyard, where they were playing with the Johnson children, and Chance almost ended up on the floor when they got hold of him. He got down on his knees and hugged them both, and then they were headed out again to play.

  “Chance,” Jerry said when it was his turn to come in and greet the returning wanderer, “sure is good to have you back.” He clapped Chance on the back, and then went out to fire up that big grill. Before long, the smell of bear meat steaks was floating around the air, and everyone had moved outside. Chance and Jerry had brought out a couple of benches from the barn, and carried out some chairs for the ladies to sit in.

  Grandma was sitting next to Gabriella, and they were both watching Chance. He was standing by the grill with Jerry, both of them nursing bottles of beer as they speculated together on the best way to cook bear.

  “You can relax,” Grandma said after a little while. “He may leave at times, but that boy loves you. He’ll always come back to you, and it will be that love between you that will help him do that.”

  Gabriella looked at her, her eyes slightly wary. “But, why would he leave? He said it’s all settled, that there’s no more problem with the cartel.”

  “Oh, that’s all done,” Grandma said. “But Chance, he’s got something inside him that he’s probably never going to be able to control. I tell him he’s been touched by the angel of justice, but he only laughed when I say that. I’m not sure what it is, but he’s got this thing where he always has to help when he feels someone is being done wrong. His grandfather was the same way, and I was married to him for more than fifty years, so I know a little bit of what I’m talking about.”

  “Well, I’m glad he likes to help people,” Gabriella said. “But what does that have to do with leaving?”

  “Because he’ll hear about somebody who’s in trouble, and he won’t be able to stop himself. If it’s somebody innocent, he’ll have to drop whatever he’s doing and go to help them, no matter what it takes. I’ve seen it, these last few months since his sister died. Hell, I’m probably even partly to blame.”

  Gabriella looked at her for a moment, then just smiled. “He was there to help me when I needed it,” she said. “When the cartel sent men to kill me, to kill all of us, he saved my life. If he needs to go and help people sometimes, I will understand, and I will be here for him when he gets home.”

  Grandma smiled. “You’re a smart girl,” she said.

  Over by the grill, Jerry and Chance had decided that the meat was doing fine. They sat on a bench and took a drink from their bottles, and then Jerry looked over at Chance.

  “You heard about Dr. Naples, right?”

  “Yeah,” Chance said. “They ever figure out who did it?”

  “Nope. They said they figured out it was four Mexican guys, just going from the descriptions they got from somebody who saw them leave the house, but there’s no trace of them anywhere around. Damn shame, you asked me.”

  “Yes,” Chance said, “it really is. I only met the doctor a couple times, but he seemed like quite a guy.”

  “He was, he really was. Of course, they say when tragedy comes, it always comes in threes. It was only a few months ago that his oldest son was killed in a car accident, but in Reno. That was first, then Doc getting killed was second, and I just heard today that his granddaughter was raped and left for dead just the other night. Somebody found her and got her to the hospital, so she’s going to be okay, but the cops picked up the three guys who did it—truck drivers, local bums—only they messed up somehow, and the judge had to dismiss the charges yesterday. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? The girl was only sixteen years old, and these men are all in their thirties and forties. They raped her, beat her and threw her out on the side of the road to die.” He shook his head.

  Chance sat there quietly for a long moment, then took a pull on his beer. When he brought the bottle down, he turned to Jerry.

  “And where does this girl live?”

  BOOK 2

  ANGEL OF JUSTICE

  PROLOGUE

  The light coming through the window was bright enough to hurt, as Maggie Bingham rolled over and tried to close her eyes tighter. It didn't help, because the curtains were wide open and the sun was beaming in through the glass with nothing to even slow it down. Damn, she would have sworn she closed those things last night.

  Maggie opened one eye and saw that the clock on her bedside table read 7:26. She was due at work at nine, so it was time to roll out of bed and get a shower. She tossed off the covers and twisted herself until her feet could lower to the floor, then sat still for a moment while a wave of dizziness passed. Her head was splitting all of a sudden, then she tried to remember just how much she had to drink the night before. As far as she could recall, she'd only had the one glass of champagne. Surely she wasn't that big a wimp, was she? A single glass of champagne to give her a hangover?

  The dizziness passed after a second and she padded into the bathroom. Everything around her seemed a little dusty, and she mentally chided herself for not being a better housekeeper. She took care of morning necessities, then climbed into the shower and let herself enjoy the hot water streaming over her head. It helped, easing some of the pain and at least lowering the frequency of the throbbing.

  When she came out of the bathroom, she got into her closet and chose her usual simple skirt and blouse. There wasn't any need to dress fancy for work, because all she ever did was sit in her cubicle and occasionally speak to a customer on the phone. It took her only a few minutes to dress and apply her minimal makeup, and then she found her purse where she apparently dropped it in the living room and wandered out to her car.

  When she put the key in the ignition and turned it, the engine cranked over slowly and almost didn't start, but finally it caught and she breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe it was time to get a new battery, but she'd have to worry about that later. She put the car in gear and backed out of the driveway, then headed downtown toward Lewis Accounting, where she worked for the last six years.

  She put the car in the parking lot, grabbed her purse and started toward the back door. She saw a couple of people she knew, though not well, and it seemed like they were staring at her, so she stopped when she got to the door and tried to look at her reflection in the window. It wasn't a very good one, so she couldn't tell for sure, but she thought she looked all right. No telling what
their problem was, so she opened the door and walked up the stairs to the second floor like she always did. It was just about all the exercise she ever got, and she couldn't afford to give it up.

  When she emerged onto her floor, a couple of people glanced toward the door and then froze. There was some muffled whispering as she walked past their cubicles, and then it seemed like everyone was staring at her. People further away were standing up to get a better look, and she was starting to panic. Unconsciously, she ran her hands over herself just to make sure she was fully dressed and wasn't wearing underclothes on the outside, but then the world took another nasty twist.

  She got to her cubicle and started to set her purse down on her desk, but everything looked different. The picture of her mom was gone, replaced by a photo of a family, a man, a woman and two kids. All of her desk accessories were gone, and there were others in their places. She stepped back and checked the number on the flag that marked her cubicle, and it was hers, so she looked around at everyone else who was still staring at her.

  “Somebody want to tell me what's going on? Why is there somebody else's stuff at my desk?”

  Most of the people suddenly found something much more interesting to look at, but Judy Lambert, who sat in the cubicle next to hers, stood up and walked directly to her.

  “Maggie? Okay, that's really you,” Judy said. “Where have you been? Everyone's been so worried.”

  Maggie scrunched her eyes and looked at Judy. “What are you talking about? Worried about what?”

  Judy chewed her bottom lip for a second, then looked Maggie in the eye. “Maggie, you've been gone for a month,” she said. “You just didn't show up one day, and nobody seemed to know where you were. Everybody was worried, we thought something terrible happened to you. But a couple weeks went by and there was no sign of you, so Mr. Lewis finally hired somebody to replace you.”

  Maggie was staring at her, her eyes now wide. “That's crazy,” she said. “Judy, we were at the party for Mr. Lewis's wife just last night, remember?”

  John Tompkins, who worked in the cubicle on the other side of her, stood up and looked toward them. “Maggie, that party was on the twenty-ninth of September. Today's October twenty-eighth, so you've been gone almost a whole month.”

  “No,” Maggie said. “No, that's not possible. What is this, some kind of prank or something? Is this one of those TV shows, where they try to make you think you've gone crazy?”

  A dozen people were up now and slowly surrounding her. They all seemed concerned and were speaking softly, comfortingly.

  “Maggie,” she heard from behind her, and turned to find her boss, Charles Lewis. “Maggie, why don't you come in my office for a minute? Let's see if we can sort this out, shall we?”

  With her ears ringing from the way her blood pressure was starting to soar, she nodded slowly and followed him to his office. They walked inside and he invited her to take a seat in one of the big wingback chairs, then gave her a glass of water.

  “Maggie, I’m not sure what's going on,” he said, “but we haven't seen you in several weeks.”

  “But, the party,” Maggie said. “You threw a party right here for your wife, when she got her degree. That was just last night, wasn't it? I was here, I know it was just last night.”

  Lewis narrowed his eyes. “Maggie, that was a month ago. Yes, you were at the party, and then we didn't see you again until just this morning. We had the police looking for you, and your family and all your friends were looking for you. We honestly thought something bad happened to you on the way home from the party that night. Your mother said it didn't look like you'd even made it home, that nothing in your house was disturbed. Nobody knew where your car was, or anything. Are you saying you don't remember any of that? Where you might've been, or what you were doing?”

  Maggie's wide eyes were staring at him, and her mouth was open as she shook her head. “But this is impossible,” she said. “I remember last night, and I remember getting home. Then I woke up this morning, and the only thing different was that I had a headache. There's no way I could've been gone for a month, I'd remember something.”

  “I will confess it seems like you would,” Lewis said, “But I have heard of cases like this before, where people have some sort of episode and have no memory of it. Have you ever had anything happen like this before? A block of time you just can't remember?”

  She started to protest that such a thing was ridiculous, but then she remembered that she had experienced losses like that in the past. That was back when she was using drugs, though, and she hadn't touched anything in over two years. She actually got her two-year chip just a few days before the party. That was one of the main reasons she didn't drink, because she didn't want to take the chance that she might slip and do something else.

  “I don't know what to say,” she said. “I just—I’m just so confused right now. I mean, to me, that party was just last night. You even said good night to me as I was leaving, I remember that perfectly.”

  “Yes, I remember that,” Lewis said. “But it wasn't last night, Maggie. Listen, I can probably give you your job back, the girl at your desk right now is just a temp. But I think you should take a few days and try to figure out what happened, first, don't you? Have you talked to your mother? I know she's been terribly worried, she's called here several times to see if we've heard from you.”

  Maggie nodded slowly. “Yeah, I, uh, I should probably go see her. I just can't understand how this could happen. I mean, I just don't get it.”

  She set the water glass on the table beside the chair, then got to her feet. Mr. Lewis stood behind the desk.

  “Maggie, I hate to ask this,” Lewis said, “but is there any possibility that you might have taken something that could cause a lapse like this?”

  Maggie clenched her teeth, because she had half expected the question. “No,” she said. “I haven't been using drugs. None, not even prescription medicine. I put all that behind me a couple years ago, and I don't take anything but natural remedies that I get from my naturopath. There is no way in the world I would go back to using, because I barely survived it the last time.”

  “Okay,” Lewis said. “Forgive me for asking, but I needed to hear you say it.”

  Maggie turned and walked out of his office without another word, then stayed on the outskirts of the cubicles until she got to the exit. She walked down the stairs and out the back door as quickly as she could, then got into her car and collapsed into tears.

  It took her a couple of minutes to get herself under control, and then she took out her phone. When she powered it on, the battery indicator flashed and then it turned itself right back off. She found the car charger and plugged it in, but it would be a minute or two before it would actually come on. She started the car and put it in gear, left the parking lot and headed toward her mother's house.

  It was only a fifteen minute drive, and the phone still didn't want to come on by the time she got there. She left it charging as she got out of the car and walked toward the front door, but then the door burst open and her mother came running out, screaming her name. The two of them almost fell to the ground when her mother embraced her, and then her sister came out the door to join the crying, hugging display. Maggie was trying to explain once again that she had no idea what had happened, or where she had been for the last month.

  They went into the house and her mother made coffee while they sat at the kitchen table. Maggie related everything that had happened that morning, and her sister, Marilyn, started telling her about all that had been done to try to look for her while she was missing.

  “At first, the police just figured you ran off,” Marilyn said. “It wasn't until your boss started asking them to help that they finally did, but all they really did was try to see if you were using your credit cards or your phone. They couldn't find any activity on either one of them, and that made them start to wonder if something really bad had happened.”

  Her mother took up the story. “I
guess they were thinking maybe somebody kidnapped you, or killed you or something. Oh, Maggie, you can't begin to understand how I felt when I saw you get out of your car. It's like a miracle, like a prayer that's been answered. That's all we've been doing, just praying that you would come back safely.”

  “But why can't I remember anything?” Maggie asked, tears starting down her face again. “Mom, I haven't been using drugs, I haven't done anything out of the ordinary. I remember the party last night, I remember working yesterday—well, the last day I remember, anyway. Everything before that is perfectly clear, I can even tell you what I had for dinner every night that week. But now there’s this gap, and I have no idea where I was or what I might've been doing. Can you even begin to imagine how terrifying that is?”

  Tearfully, her mother nodded. “I know it has to be,” she said. “And you honestly don't remember anything at all?”

  Maggie shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “It's like I stepped from one moment, when I went to bed that night, straight to this morning when I woke up.” She chuckled, but it was without humor. “Maybe I fell through a time warp.”

  “Hey,” Marilyn said, “maybe you're one of those people who can move through time. If you learn to control it, that could be awesome.”

  “Don't be ridiculous,” her mother said. “There is a logical explanation for this, and we're going to find it. People don't just skip over time, that’s impossible.”

  They talked about different possibilities while they drank some coffee, but nothing seemed to make any sense. After about an hour, Maggie's self-control seemed to be getting stronger, so the three of them went back to her house to look around for clues.

  “We let the police in,” Marilyn said, “but they said they couldn't find anything to indicate where you might've gone. Nothing seemed to be out of place, and they didn't find your purse or your car here. Wherever you went, you took those with you.”

  “Then why couldn't they track my credit cards?” Maggie asked. “I mean, you’d think I would've needed money, right? It's kinda hard to do anything without money.”