by David Archer
Cardwell was staring at him, and her face was pale. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “You can’t possibly…”
Chance raised the Maxim and pointed it directly at her face. “Elizabeth Cardwell,” he said, “I bring you justice for all of the people whose lives you have ruined.”
Her eyes went wide and she started to protest, but Chance pulled the trigger once. The bullet struck her between the eyes, eliminating most of her face as it blew her brains out the back of her skull. Her body stood for another two seconds, and then collapsed straight down into a heap.
Chance looked down at what was left of the woman who had brainwashed an unknown number of people, then walked over and got back into her car. He drove it out of the park and took it down into the city, parking it where it was a safe bet it would quickly disappear forever. He walked about five blocks before he spotted a taxi, then took it back toward the restaurant to reclaim his truck.
He broke down the Maxim and tossed out the used barrel as he drove back toward the motel, then locked up the truck and went into the room. He dug out the last of his extra barrels and put it into the gun, then took out his phone and called Josephine.
“Hello?” the girl answered.
“Josie, it’s me. How’s Pete?”
“He’s doing pretty good,” she said. “He’s awake, do you want to talk to him?”
“Yeah,” Chance said with a smile. “Put him on, please.”
There was some shuffling noises, and then Dixon came on the phone. “Bill? What’s happening?”
“I just thought you’d like to know that Dr. Cardwell had that meeting with the angel,” Chance said. “I picked up a little bit of information, though, and I thought you might want to be the one to share it with Jensen.”
“Okay, sure,” Dixon said. “Lay it on me.”
“There is a man named Connor McGregor, apparently a nephew of the late Mr. Finnigan. He’s the guy she’s been sending to activate her zombies. Pretty good chance he knows who at least some of them are, so they need to pick him up pretty quick and put some pressure on him.”
Dixon chuckled. “I know McGregor,” he said. “He’s a punk, the kind of guy who thinks he’s a lot tougher than he really is. I’m sure Bobby knows him too, so he’ll probably have some fun with that one.” He lowered his voice. “So, Cardwell is…”
“Meeting her maker. I’m not sure that’s a meeting to want to sit in on, though. Her body will be found in one of the south Vegas parks, probably anytime now.”
“That’s good to know,” Dixon said. “I don’t think I ever would have slept again if she was still running loose. Listen, Bill, you probably don’t want to stick around much longer. Get out of here, go someplace where nobody asks a lot of questions and just let me know how you’re doing from time to time. And, oh, you might want to think about changing your name again. I understand one of those FBI agents is complaining that she can’t find any record of you before six months ago.”
Chance let out a sigh. “Sounds like good advice,” he said. “I think I’m going to head out now, try to beat the rush hour traffic. I’ll keep in touch, Pete. I still have to stand up at your wedding, remember?”
“I remember,” Dixon said. “I just can’t remember the name of the guy I asked.”
Chance chuckled. “Do me a favor and tell that pretty girl of yours I appreciate all her help. You take care of her, Pete, and I’m sure she’ll take good care of you.”
They said their goodbyes and Chance ended the call, then packed up his things and headed out to the truck again. He tossed his bag inside and slid behind the wheel, then took out his phone again and called Gabriella.
“Hey, baby,” he said. “Yolanda’s been released, and everything is back the way it should be. How would you feel about me coming home?”
He could hear the smile in her voice through the phone. “I feel like throwing a party,” she said. “A very special one, just for you and me.”
EPILOGUE
As Chance drove north, Special Agent Sherilyn Roberts sat in the temporary office she had been assigned at the sheriff’s office and looked through all of the notes that had been taken on the case. There was something she was missing, she was sure of it, but she just couldn’t put her finger on it.
A sudden burst of excitement in the squadron caught her attention, and she got up to find out what the commotion was all about. Detective Jensen, the one she had been working with on this case, was standing there with a look of shock on his face.
“Jensen?” Roberts asked. “What’s going on?”
Jensen turned and looked at her, and his face looked drained. “It’s Dr. Cardwell,” he said. “PD found a body in Stevens Park, the south side of the city. Turns out to be Elizabeth Cardwell. Looks like somebody decided to make our work easier, because they put a bullet through her head.”
Roberts’ eyes went wide, and she stared at him for a moment. “Let me guess,” she said. “9 mm, right between the eyes?”
“I don’t know yet,” Jensen said, “but something tells me that I won’t be surprised if you’re correct.”
“Yeah,” Roberts said. “Neither will I.” She turned and went back into the office, and took out the photographs she had printed from the jail security cameras. It showed a young man with short brown hair, a young man she had been told was Bill Simmons. Unfortunately, there was no William Simmons anywhere in the state of Nevada who was close to his age, and the one whose drivers license had been copied at the jail didn’t seem to exist only a half a year earlier.
“Just who are you, Mr. Simmons?” Roberts mused. “And why is it people end up dead when you’re around?”
BOOK 3
HIGH STAKES HUNTING
Chapter 1
Good moods are like weather, and subject to sudden changes. The weather that morning had been crisp and cool, the sky clear and bright. Chance Reddick had stepped out of his house with a smile on his face, ready to see where life would take him and confident that he would rise to any occasion.
Unfortunately, his good mood wasn’t destined to last. It took a nose dive a couple of hours later, about four seconds after he stepped once more out into the sunshine. A sudden, totally unexpected scream sounded somewhere above him, and he looked up just as a man's body hit the concrete right in front of where he stood.
A human body falling from the tenth floor of a hotel goes splat when it hits concrete, and Chance suddenly found himself liberally splattered in blood and gore. His clothes were basically ruined, and a dozen people around him started screaming their heads off, while quite a few of them found that breakfast didn’t go well with seeing such things.
As a result, his mood was pretty much ruined. It was hard, he thought to himself, to maintain a positive outlook when something that should only happen in a low budget thriller intrudes on what had started out as a decent day.
He wiped his face off the best he could with his already ruined sleeve and the tail of his shirt. Someone had already called 911 by that time, so he stood and waited patiently for the cops to get there. A few of the people stayed with him but most of them took off like rabbits, so when a police detective drove up with a couple cars full of uniforms, he let the others tell their stories first. Chance fought down the urge to puke, himself, keeping his eyes averted from the body most of the time, but the sheer shock of seeing the man hit the ground right in front of him kept drawing him back.
Five witnesses will almost always produce five different stories. Two of them insisted that they had looked up just before the scream and saw someone push the guy, and the others all gave different descriptions of what they saw and heard. Chance replayed the whole scene in his mind, and he was pretty certain that none of them had even noticed the scream; they only looked when the body went whack! and blood splattered all over him. Sadly, though, some people like to grab their fifteen minutes of fame any way they can, so telling their “stories” made them feel important, even if they had to make them up on the spot. The dete
ctive and his officers talked to them while the CSI people took pictures and made measurements. A couple of the uniforms kept the TV crews back, but Chance could see their cameras aimed in his direction, trying to get a shot of the body. He kept his back to them; Chance always tried to avoid TV cameras, mostly because of his chosen hobby. It wasn’t that he was terribly recognizable, but he did occasionally leave a witness who might be surprised to spot his face on the small screen, and might even recall where he or she had seen it before.
When they were finished with the bystanders, the detective turned to Chance.
“So tell me what really happened, here,” he said. “You look like a man who notices details.”
Chance pointed at the now covered corpse. “I’d just come out the door behind me when I heard someone scream, up above. I looked up, but didn't see anything because the body passed my field of vision too fast. I heard it hit, and got splattered with all this gunk, and by the time I realized what had happened, he was already looking like that. Well, the blood puddle wasn't that big, yet, but you know what I mean.”
The detective nodded. “Think he jumped, like it was suicide?”
Chance shook his head. “I don’t think somebody would scream if he was deliberately trying to kill himself. Everything I ever heard about people committing suicide, they either scream in rage and anger, or they smile because whatever problems they have are nearly over. This guy was screaming like he was scared to death, but I guess it could be he just got too close to the window ledge after too many drinks last night. He wasn't screaming anything like, 'No, don't ,' he was just screaming, like an 'Oh, crap! ' kind of thing.”
The detective sighed. “Okay. Couple other people say they think they saw someone push him. You didn’t see anything like that?”
Chance shrugged. “I didn’t, and I looked up as soon as I heard him. Of course, I was standing almost at ground zero, so maybe I didn’t have the best view.”
“Yeah, maybe. Okay, I’ve got your info, so we'll be in touch if we need anything else. You can go.”
“Thanks,” Chance said dryly, and went to his old Chevy truck. He dug an old blanket out from behind the seat, one he kept there for emergencies, and put it over his seat before he got in and drove back towards home. He was starting to smell, so he wanted to shower and change as soon as he could.
Chance Reddick and his wife, Gabriella, had recently sold their ranch about three hours north of Las Vegas, and had moved down to Henderson, just outside the famous Sin City. Between the money they got from the sale and another chunk that had a less honorable origin, they didn’t need to worry about working for a living. Gabriella was happy to stay home and raise her kids, two boys who would soon be joined by a baby sister, and Chance—Chance just wanted to do his own thing.
Sometimes that meant tinkering with his old truck or going hunting with the boys, but there was always his hobby. That was what really kept him satisfied, and let him feel like he was doing something good for the world. It wasn’t because he was a particularly nice guy, though most people would tell you that he was one of the nicest they had ever known. Chance’s hobby involved the fact that he actively looked for people with problems that he could help to solve. In particular, he looked for people whose problems were best helped by eliminating whoever was causing the problem.
A year earlier, Chance had been a fairly happy college student. He had grown up in the small town of Silver Bell, Kentucky, raised by his grandparents after a tragic auto accident had taken his parents from him and his little sister, Robin. The farm he grew up on was a working farm, but his grandparents also raised horses and Chance became known as a master horseman by the time he was in his early teens.
Robin was five years younger than Chance, so she was just entering high school when he went off to college in Louisville. He had always been protective of her, but his protective nature went into high gear in his second year of college, when he came home for Christmas and saw that the little girl he had left behind had blossomed into what could only be considered a lovely young woman.
She had also become rebellious, and was dating a local boy who was connected to a less than desirable family. He was from Guatemala, and rumor held that his family was involved in the drug cartels that seemed to be spreading throughout the country. Chance tried to convince Robin that he was bad news, just as their grandparents had already done, but she wouldn’t listen.
And then, just a few months later, came the call he could never have expected. Robin had been out with Jorge the night before, and had gone to the neighboring town of Hinckley. A rival faction in the drug cartel that Jorge’s father served had decided to send the old man a message. They had laid in wait for Jorge and then opened fire on him in his car.
Robin was killed along with him, and Chance and his family were devastated. Only hours later, before Chance could even get home, Grandpa had succumbed to a heart attack brought on by grief and stress, and then it was only Chance and his grandmother.
Chance helped his grandmother take care of the funeral arrangements, and grew frustrated when the police seemed to have no idea how to catch the killers. He had grown up all his life under the influence of his religious grandmother, which led to a discussion that afternoon about justice.
The local police were terrified of the cartel, because they simply were not equipped for the drug war that was about to erupt. Jorge’s father, Manuel Baldizon, was what was called a ‘General’ in the cartel, responsible for all of the drug business within a given area. It was a different General who had ordered Jorge’s death, one who was hoping to take over Baldizon’s territory. The Guatemalans believed in retribution; this rural area of central Kentucky was about to look like El Salvador.
Chance wanted justice for his little sister; Baldizon wanted revenge for his son. It dawned on Chance that night that the two of them had something to gain by working together. Chance had approached the Guatemalan General and made an offer. If the drug war could be prevented, he would personally be willing to track down and kill the men who had killed Jorge and Robin.
Baldizon had been impressed, both by his courage and his determination to see justice done. He agreed, then provided Chance with the names of the people who had actually pulled the triggers and sent one of his own men to help Chance in his mission.
His heart racing, Chance had gone to meet the killers. He confronted them at their home, announcing that he had come to claim his sister’s honor from the men who had killed her, and they had laughed. One of them reached for a gun to deal with this young upstart, but Chance was faster. The old thirty-eight that had once been his father’s almost leaped into his hand, and the killer fell dead an instant later.
The second man stared in shock, until Chance’s pistol drew him back to reality. The police found both bodies the next day, and quickly announced that the killers had died in what appeared to be a falling out over drugs and money.
Chance had gone home, both shocked and invigorated at what he had done. He kept reliving the incident in his mind, and every time, he felt a thrill. It slowly dawned on him that he was one of those people who seemed to enjoy killing, and began to worry that he might succumb to the desire again.
Baldizon had recognized that in him. When Chance had returned to tell him the job was done, the General made him an offer. If Chance would work for him, he would get the opportunity to feel that rush again, with all the power of the cartel to help him avoid any consequences.
Chance had refused, then gone home to tell his grandmother what he had done. A few days later, he returned to school, but the memory of that thrill would not leave him alone. It was only days later that he returned and accepted the position with Baldizon.
And then he was sent to Nevada, to try to track down a large sum of money that had been allegedly stolen by a former friend of the old General. That old friend had passed away, but his much younger widow would almost certainly have the money hidden somewhere, he was told. Chance was ordered to find the money, and then k
ill the woman.
That would’ve been the end of it, if Chance hadn’t come to realize that the girl was innocent. The truth slowly came to light, that the real thief had been Baldizon’s most trusted man, who had forced the old friend to hide the money for him, and was trying to use Chance to silence the only person who might be able to reveal that fact. Chance had gotten to know the girl and had fallen in love with her. To save her life, he had single-handedly challenged the cartel.
And he had won. When the truth came out, Baldizon not only thanked him for revealing the truth and exposing the traitor, but then released him from the commitment to serve the old man. As a reward for exposing the truth, Chance and his new love were allowed to keep the millions that had been stolen.
Chance had come to realize that it wasn’t the violence and killing that gave him the thrill he felt. It was the knowledge that justice had been served. He had known even then that he would need to find that rush again.
Chance had packed up his grandmother and taken her with him back to Nevada, where he was soon married. When the farm was sold a couple of months later, the money only meant that Grandma would never want for anything.
Grandma had quickly fallen in love herself with Gabriella, Chance’s new wife, and her two sons, and all three of them adored her, as well. Chance settled in to life as the man of the ranch Gabriella had inherited from her late husband, and tried to let go of his need for justice.
However, a short time later, he heard about a young woman who had been gang raped and left for dead, and how the monsters who did it had escaped prosecution on a technicality. The three of them were found dead not long after, all of them executed by a bullet between the eyes as they begged for their lives.