by David Archer
Chance had realized his true calling. His grandmother called him the Angel of Justice, but to Chance, he was simply a man who had to see justice done.
A couple of months later, the daughter of an old woman who was a friend of his new family awoke one morning to find that a month was missing from her life, and she was charged with murder. Chance had gone to look into the story, and had been shocked to realize that someone was using some form of mind control or brainwashing to turn ordinary people into killers.
With the help of an older, alcoholic private eye named Pete Dixon, Chance had broken the case and the girl had gone free. He learned a lot from Dixon, and had helped Pete find justice for a situation of his own while they worked together.
The satisfaction he’d felt working with Pete had left him wanting more. Only a month after returning to the ranch, Chance had convinced Gabriella to sell, and their new life in Henderson had begun a short time later.
Pete Dixon had been surprised when Chance walked into his new office.
“Chance,” he’d said. “What can I do for you? Got another crazy case to work on?”
Chance grinned. “Not yet,” he said. “Actually, I was hoping you might take me on as an apprentice.”
Chapter 2
Gabriella was at the table when Chance parked his old truck in front of the house, and she looked up as he entered. Her eyes went from delight to shock in a split second, and she was up and by his side only a moment after that.
“Omigod, omigod, Chance, are you hurt? What happened?”
“It's not my blood, babe, chill out. I’ll explain in a minute, I'm gonna go wash off and change, back in a few.”
She followed him into their bedroom, impatient to hear the rest of the story. Chance grabbed some underwear, clean slacks and a button down shirt and headed into the bathroom. Gabriella followed him right inside, then reached under the sink to get a clean towel.
“Here, I just washed a load of towels for us yesterday. You've been using the same towel for a week, and that's just nasty. Use this one.”
He took it and she turned and walked out, closing the door behind her. Chance couldn’t help but let a grin spread across his face. He and Gabriella had been married a little less than a year, but she took care of him as if she had been doing it all of her life.
He showered and washed his hair, watching the red and gray and other colors run down the drain as the remains of a chuteless skydiver came off him, then got into the clean clothes and slipped his double shoulder holster on before went back to the kitchen. His twin Maxim integrally suppressed automatics had become so familiar that he felt naked without them.
“You smell a lot better,” she said with a smile. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him, then let go to pour him a cup of coffee. She set it on the table as he settled into the chair, then looked at him. “Okay, so tell me the whole story, now.”
“What story?” Grandma asked as she entered the room. She got her own cup of coffee and sat down at the table.
“Pete sent me out to the Excelsior Hotel to work on a shoplifting case,” he said. “Somebody has been hitting the jewelry store off its lobby almost every morning for the last month, taking small items like earrings and such, but nothing is showing up on security video. I went in as soon as they opened and pretended to be a customer, just browsing around and watching everybody else, but nobody seemed to be taking anything. I was just about to leave and try again tomorrow when I noticed that one of the sales clerks was showing a customer some small stuff, and then I noticed some of it missing when the customer left. I was pretty sure the customer hadn’t taken anything, so I confronted the clerk and found the missing items in her pocket. Case closed.”
Gabriella seemed shocked. “What did the owner say?”
Chance grinned. “He fired her on the spot, then called the police. She’s probably sitting in a jail cell, waiting for someone to come bail her out.”
“Okay,” Gabriella said, “but how did you end up all bloody?”
Grandma’s eyes went wide. “Bloody?”
Chance grimaced. “It was while I was coming out of the hotel,” he said. “Some guy fell out a tenth floor window as I was leaving and missed me by about three inches. He splattered me with blood and other things, as you could tell. I had to wait around for the cops to get there, and then I had to wait for everybody else to tell their version of what happened. It got pretty confusing, but finally they let me come home.”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” Gabriella said. “Do you know what happened to him?”
“No, but it was probably an accident. The guy was screaming like he was scared to death, so I personally think he just fell.”
“What did Pete say?”
“I haven’t actually talked to him yet,” Chance said. “I need to get down to the office anyway, I’ve got a check for him from the owner of the jewelry store.” He got to his feet and leaned down for a kiss, then put another one on his grandmother’s cheek. “I should be home in plenty of time for dinner. Tell the boys that if their homework is done by the time I get here, we can play Megawar.”
Gabriella smiled and nodded. The boys had recently gotten Chance involved in their online computer game, and he seemed to really enjoy it.
Chance slipped on a clean jacket to cover the guns, then walked out and got into the truck again, tossing the fouled blanket into the back. He started it up and pulled away, headed toward the office he shared with Pete Dixon.
The clock on his stereo said that it was getting close to lunch time. He took out his phone and called Pete.
“Want some lunch?” he asked. “I'm on the way to the office and can pick something up, that okay with you?”
“Sure,” Pete said. “Swing by Chuck’s place, get a couple of those Italian beef sandwiches. Those things are big enough we don’t need any fries or anything.”
“You got it,” Chance said. “It’s right up the street, so I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Chuck’s was on the next corner, so Chance pulled in and went to the drive up window. Italian beef was their specialty, so they always had plenty of them ready throughout the day. Chance ordered three of them with a big bottle of root beer, then headed toward the office again.
Pete had his feet up on his desk and Josie, his receptionist and girlfriend, was sitting in her wheelchair beside him. The two of them were watching the television that was mounted on the wall. Chance glanced at it, and was surprised to see the back of his own head, with the police detective’s face in the center of the screen.
“Check it out,” Pete said, “the announcer says Detective Brannigan is 'questioning a witness' who happened to be on site and saw the death of Walter Whittington. He was a doctor, here for a conference on new techniques for preventing scarring in surgical patients. No information on how he happened to fall, and the police say there's no sign of any kind of foul play in the room that he fell out of. That's about it, except they managed to get a shot of the body as the coroner's people were covering it up, and I suddenly realized the guy standing there with all the gore all over him was my new apprentice.” He looked up at Chance. “You look a whole lot cleaner, now. Been home for a shower?”
Chance nodded, then shook his head in disgust. “I hate the news,” he said, “especially when they try to play on something tragic to boost their ratings. If you ask me, the guy came into town for his big meeting and then went out last night and had too much to drink. Everybody thinks Vegas is the party town, but if you party and get wasted while you're away from home, accidents can happen.” He looked at the TV again. “Hell of a way to go, though. I just about got sick.”
Pete nodded. “Yeah, probably. It's still a bummer, though. I guess he had a family back home in Topeka. Too bad he won't be going home to them. Where’s my sandwich?”
Chance passed it over and handed another to Josie, then sat down in the other chair. He unwrapped his own sandwich and took a big bite, then reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew the
check he had received that morning. “Here,” he said. “I solved the case.”
Josie snatched the check out of his hand and Pete smiled. “That was quick,” he said. “You catch the thief?”
“Yep. It was the girl working the counter. Whenever she was showing off the pretty little diamonds, one or two of them would end up in her own pocket. Caught her red handed, and her boss was furious. She got fired and arrested at the same time, and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving little thief.”
They had just finished eating when the front door opened and a woman walked in. She was probably in her mid twenties, stood about five foot three, had long, blonde hair that hit the middle of her back and a definite Nordic look to her features, but it was the incredible figure she sported that had both men staring at her. She was wearing a sleek blue dress and sported a necklace that held a beautiful gold pendant with several small rubies set in it.
Josie, on the other hand, was watching her like a hawk. The foil that had wrapped the sandwiches was instantly balled up and tossed into the trash as Pete looked up at the lady and smiled. “Welcome to Pete Dixon Investigations,” he said. “What can we do for you today?”
She blinked, then squinted as she looked toward the sound of his voice. “Oh, hi,” she said. “Sorry, it’s a little dark in here after being out in the sunlight. Are you Mr. Dixon?”
“I am,” Pete said, still smiling and earning a glare from Josie. He noticed and added, “and this is my fiancee, Josie, and my associate, Chance Reddick. How can we be of service?”
The young lady came over and cast a quick smile at Josie, who returned it cautiously, then sat in the chair beside the one Chance was occupying. Josie started to wheel herself toward her own desk, but the young lady gave her a pleading look that made her stay put. “Mr. Dixon, my name is Christina Johnson. A friend of mine told me you might be able to help me out. I'm afraid—well, I'm afraid I'm coming to ask you to find out what my husband is up to.”
Pete’s smile faded slightly. If there was one thing he hated, it was the typical ‘stalk the cheating spouse’ type of case. “I see,” he said. “I take it you are beginning to wonder if he might be stepping out on you?”
Christina’s eyes went wide. “No, no, that’s not it at all,” she said. “Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn’t mean to give you that impression. No, that’s the furthest thing from my mind.”
“No, no,” he said, “the apology should be mine for making an assumption. Forgive me, but usually when a lady asks about something her husband is doing, it means…”
“Yes, I'm sure it does,” Christina said with a sad, little smile. “It just didn’t occur to me that I might sound like that.” She shook her head. “Maybe I should just start at the beginning. As I told you, my name is Christina Johnson, and my husband is Darrell Johnson. We’ve been married for almost five years now, we’ve got one boy who’s almost four and we’re not unhappy. There are just some things that—some things I don’t understand.”
Pete nodded politely. “Okay, just tell us at your own pace,” he said. “Take your time, we’re not in any hurry.”
Christina glanced at Chance again, then turned back to Pete. “I’ve known Darrell since high school,” she said. “He was a couple of years ahead of me, but he and my older brother were friends. He was always hanging around the house, and somewhere along the line, it just dawned on both of us that we were somehow destined to be together. When he graduated college five years ago, he asked me to marry him and I said yes.” She licked her lips. “The only problem was that he had taken a job with the government, and he said I couldn’t ask questions about what he did. Something about it being top secret, and I was okay with that.” Her eyes fell to the floor for a moment. “Until just lately, that is. Every once in a while, he has to travel to somewhere else around the country for a few days at a time, and lately he’s been kind of nervous and irritable when he gets back. That only lasts a couple of days, usually, and then everything goes back to normal, but—after the last trip, I found something in his bags that shook me up. I was unpacking them, and getting ready to wash his clothes and send his suits out to the cleaners, when I noticed a reddish stain on the collar of one of his shirts.”
“And you thought it was lipstick?” Pete asked.
Christina nodded. “At first, I did,” she said, blushing slightly. “But then I looked closer, and it had soaked all the way through, and there were spots of it all down one side of his shirt. I could tell it wasn’t lipstick; in fact, I was pretty sure it was blood.” She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them again. “I asked Darrell about it, I thought maybe he had cut himself shaving or something, but all of a sudden it was like he was freaking out. He grabbed the shirt away from me and told me not to go through his things, and then he took it outside and shoved it into the trash can. When he came back in, he went through all the rest of the things that were in his bag, looking everything over, then he came and told me he was sorry for the way he acted. He said I was right, that he had only cut himself shaving, and that he should have already gotten rid of that shirt. He said it was no big deal, but—the way he freaked out when I asked him about it, I just knew there had to be more to it.”
Pete and Chance exchanged a glance, then Pete turned back to the girl in front of him. “Do you know who it is he works for? What part of the government?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “His pay comes from the Department of Justice, that’s what it says on our bank account for the direct deposits. The only thing he’s ever told me is that he’s some kind of consulting expert, they use him to help figure out how to solve some sort of problems. Up until now, it’s just never been that big an issue that I don’t know, but ever since he came back last week, he’s been different. I just don’t understand what’s going on with him, it’s almost like he’s a different person. He seems okay most of the time, but every once in a while, there’s a look on his face like he’s just not sure who I am, or who he is.” She licked her lips again. “Like yesterday, I told him that my brother is coming by this weekend, and he looked at me like he had no idea who I was talking about. If I try to ask him what’s going on, he just laughs it off and says everything is fine, but I know it’s not.”
“So, you’d like us to follow him?” Chance asked. “Try to find out who he actually works for and what it is that he does?”
Christina turned to look at him. “The day he took that shirt away from me, he had to go out for a while. I went out to the trash can and got it, and—I don’t know why, but I took it to my best friend, Rhonda. Rhonda is a lab technician at the hospital, and I asked her—I asked her to check that blood, see if there was anything unusual about it. She just did a quick test to see what blood type it was, and it came back as A positive. The problem is that Darrell’s blood is O negative. That wasn’t his blood, but I don’t dare ask him any more questions about it.”
Chance looked at Pete, who shrugged.
“Christina,” Pete said, “there’s one question I always ask whenever I'm offered a case involving a married couple. Are you absolutely sure you want to know the answer to these questions?”
The girl looked into his eyes for a moment, then slowly nodded her head. “I'm sure,” she said. “Listen, I just found out two weeks ago that I'm pregnant with our second child. At this moment, I'm afraid to tell him. Until I know what’s going on with Darrell, I'm not sure that I—that it might not be a mistake to let him know.”
“Are you afraid of him?” Chance asked. “Has he been threatening at all, toward you?”
“He hasn’t made any threats,” she said slowly. “But, yes, I'm a little bit scared of him right now. I'm telling you, there’s something different about him. I just need to know what it is, so I can decide what to do.” She sniffled, and fumbled inside her purse for a handkerchief. When she found it, she dabbed at her eyes. “I need to decide whether to ask him to give up this job, or even if maybe I should just leave. There’s something that’s not right, and I'm simply n
ot going to let my kids live in that kind of situation.”
Pete nodded. “All right, then,” he said. “We’ll take the case, but you should know that we charge a pretty healthy retainer, and we bill a hundred and fifty dollars an hour, plus expenses. Can you handle that?”
Christina smiled. “That’s no problem,” she said. “Money isn’t an issue. I wrote a series of children’s books over the last few years that have done quite well, so I have money of my own.” She reached into her purse and withdrew an envelope. “I wasn’t sure how much it would cost, so I brought this. Is ten thousand enough? For the retainer, I mean?”
Josie accepted the envelope from her without blinking. “That’ll be fine,” she said. “If we don’t bill that much, I can refund the difference.”
Pete chuckled at her, then looked back at Christina. “Now, tell us as much as you can about what you know, concerning your husband’s work.”
“Darrell is a genius,” she said. “I'm not being facetious, I mean the kind of genius who breezes through college in half the time it normally takes to get a degree. Even when we were in high school, he was in advanced classes that were college level, and had his bachelor’s degrees in both finance and accounting before he ever got his diploma. Two more years in college got him his Master’s degrees, and he graduated at the head of his class. A few weeks before that, he was approached by several different job recruiters, and one of them was Uncle Sam. He took the job they offered, he said, because it paid extremely well and had the best possible benefits.” She gave a wistful smile. “We were planning to have children, even back then. Insurance benefits and such were always important to us.”
“And he said he’s some kind of consultant or expert?” Pete asked.
“Yes,” she said. “To be honest, I think he’s like a forensic accountant or something. He said once that what he does is help the DOJ figure out ways to keep track of money, and I figure he means money that belongs to somebody else and might have been gained illegally.”