by Jim Heskett
She pointed. “Looks like it’s higher in elevation than the valley floor.”
“Yeah, it’s sort of at the ‘top’ of the holler. Not in the valley, but overlooking it.”
“Does it overlook the cabin where Lukas Maslow died?”
Harry tilted his head left and right. “Not directly, but it’s not too far from there. Only a few minutes’ walk.”
“Do you have heat maps or anything else useful?”
“Unfortunately not. Just the civilian views for now.”
“Tell me about Rourke Mannafort.”
Harry blew out a sigh. “Basically, I told you everything I know. But I’m planning to dig a whole lot deeper.”
Serena put her hands on her hips and looked past Harry, unfocusing her eyes. She looked like a computer processing information.
“So if Ginny received vapes from Thomas, and Thomas works for Rourke Mannafort, it’s reasonable to put Rourke at the top of this vaping hillbilly cartel.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it a cartel, but your logic checks out.”
She pointed at the screen. “And this is the guy who sent the two goons after you last night?”
“I don’t have verified proof of that, but it’s possible.”
“Do you want me to check it out?”
He considered this option for a couple of seconds and then nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“Are you sure? I said I wouldn’t leave your side.”
“I want you to do this. Consider it an order, if that helps.”
She crossed the room, dug around in her purse for a moment, and then drew the biggest handgun Harry had ever seen. She walked across the room and set it on the desk in front of him. He jumped a little when it thunked onto the wood. She set a fully loaded magazine next to it.
Harry looked up at her. “You’re going right this second?”
“Don’t leave.”
“Why?”
She pointed at the wall to the east. “Stay here until I come back. I think Kemba is still at his barbershop. You’re still certain he’s not the killer?”
“As of this morning, I’m pretty sure he’s not.”
She looked at the wall and frowned, then she turned back toward the gun. She tapped on the slide rail with a sharp finger. “Stay here. Get Kemba if you need help.”
Then she fled from the room and jumped in her car. Harry could only watch as she peeled out of the parking lot at his request. He hoped he wasn’t sending her to her death.
33
The assassin stayed within the foliage. Moving from spot to spot, she kept the trees between her and the moon to cut down on the shadows. She’d swapped her purple top for a black hoodie before parking her car off the side of the road in the holler. Then, a slow ascent on the hillside, shifting from tree to tree. She could see the lights from Rourke Mannafort’s “estate” as soon as she’d started climbing.
But instead of going straight for it, she decided to swing around the property from below it, trying to get a sense of her points of entry. This would’ve been much easier in the daytime, but she’d only found out about this place within the last hour.
Serena kept her P320 in one hand and a serrated hunting knife in the other. She skulked, staying low and moving slowly. Despite the urgency she felt, she forced her body to remain cautious. That was how she had stayed alive when infiltrating a jungle hideout in Thailand. That was how she’d stayed alive when a hitman had hunted her through the back alleys of Cairo. Or a similar incident in New York. Or Sydney. Or London. Resisting the body’s natural urge to hurry was one key to mastery of it. At least, that was what she told herself, and so far it had worked to her advantage.
Many times Serena should’ve been bested. She had landed inches away from death on too many occasions to count. She’d ousted despotic rulers from glittering gold palaces with nothing but a length of piano wire. Males twice her size had faced her and succumbed to her skills every time. And in the end, Serena knew it wasn’t her gender or the size of her biceps that determined success or failure. No, outcomes were a logical combination of planning, improvisation, and luck, and the equation took place solely in the mind.
While the assassin couldn’t control luck, she did her damndest to bend it to her will as often as possible.
So Serena kept to the trees as she climbed the hill on a slow and circling ascent. And when flashlight beams bounced off a tree to her right, she dropped prone. Looking back, she spotted three lights carried by three men, walking on a parallel path to hers, up the hill.
She turned her body toward them for a better look. She hadn’t brought her green NVGs because she found them bulky and awkward, but she did have a pair of yellow-lensed sunglasses that helped her filter out glare from the flashlights and maintain most of her night vision.
Now, she watched them from her silent post. Three men with flashlights and long rifles on slings, chatting with each other in hushed tones as they hiked. They could be a perimeter sweep team, or a hunting party with a specific goal. Or, they could be three hillbillies who’d gone for a walk. Too hard to tell from here. They didn’t seem tense or wary, and they barely seemed to check their surroundings as they hiked.
“Come on,” one of them said, loud enough to echo across the hillside, “we’re late!”
They picked up the pace, and Serena used the distraction of their increased noise to shuffle toward them, on a path that would put her directly behind. If these people were headed to Mannafort’s compound, she could probably walk right in behind them, bypassing any security. Maybe if they were late for something, there would be too much activity and movement for anyone to notice her. Or, that plan could fail spectacularly the first time anyone laid eyes on her.
Too dangerous. Instead, she would deal with them outside. That meant she had to hurry.
She stayed low and moved whenever they made any sound. The angle of the hill kept her cloaked in shadow, but she had to gauge each step to keep out of their collective peripheral vision.
Thirty seconds later, she found herself directly below them as they lumbered up the steepest part of the hill.
“I’ll catch up,” said one, which made Serena drop down. She watched one of the three break off and head toward a large tree to the side. He was now thirty feet above Serena on the hill, unzipping his pants. He set his rifle next to the tree and let out a joyful groan as he peed on the bark.
With his back to her, she pushed toward him. Swiftly, eyes on her feet to avoid making too much noise. She stowed the pistol and kept the knife in her left hand, leaving her right free. As the man swayed a little, she assumed he was probably drunk. A sober man would’ve waited until he’d returned to the compound to pee, where he had the safety of his home base.
Unless they weren’t expecting any trouble at all. But the fact that they had taken their rifles with them suggested otherwise.
As she narrowed the distance to a few feet, she checked to make sure she wouldn’t reflect off anything. She raised her hands, ready to wrap him in a bear hug as his pee stream faded to a trickle.
Then he spun and lashed out a fist at her. She tilted her head back as a set of knuckles swiped within millimeters of her nose. Since luck had failed her, now she had to improvise a new plan. Fast.
With the guy now facing her, his fists raised. Then, he seemed to remember his rifle as his head angled toward it.
Serena took her chance. She jumped forward and used her free hand to snatch the man’s wrist. Then she gave it a sudden counter-clockwise turn, forcing him to pivot away from her to avoid dislocating his shoulder.
He cried out, a quick yelp. She moved in and stood right behind him as she released his wrist. She then wrapped a hand around his mouth and put the blade to his neck.
Still, he didn’t stop trying to break free of her grapple. So she wrapped her legs around his. She used her ankles to spread his stance, then they toppled to the ground with her on bottom, and him on top, both of them facing the sky. With a q
uick and calculated decision, she’d chosen to put him on top so she could control his limbs, but also because she realized his pants would still be unzipped. She’d rather not have his pee-dribbling member poking her in the back or stomach, so this seemed like the least gross choice.
Serena pressed the blade to his neck. “Not a word.”
He bit down on her hand and she pressed her lips tight. The urge to scream consumed her, but she fought it back. Instead, she pressed the knife a little closer, drawing blood.
“If you move again, you’ll cut your own neck,” she said. He squirmed for a couple more seconds before the message seemed to sink in and he finally stilled.
“Better,” she said. “Are you and your two friends on perimeter duty, or are you scouting?”
She removed her pulsing hand from his mouth and held the knife a tiny bit closer. Fortunately, he’d wised up by this point and didn’t scream.
“I ain’t saying shit.”
She pressed a little harder with the knife, tearing his skin and sending a trickle of blood down his neck and onto her. “You feel that?”
“Yeah,” he said, teeth gritted.
“I’ll ask you again: are you scouts or rotation guards?”
“Neither,” he said. “We went over to Robbie’s to play cards. But then we were all told to come back to the estate.”
“Why?”
“No idea. Just a drop-everything-and-come-home order.”
“Okay, fine. Let’s talk about what kind of security you have up there at your estate.”
She looked toward the hill as the first set of car headlights appeared, leaving the compound. Then another.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
“I really don’t. But if you’ll let me go, I can find out.”
More headlights. Soon it became clear to her a caravan of cars was leaving the property. As she pondered this, she saw a flash out of the corner of her eye. The man above her jabbed his hand into a side pocket on his pants, and he drew a short blade.
She saw the glint in the moonlight and had less than a second to react.
But instead of dragging the knife across his throat as she had done many times before, she cracked the hilt of her knife on his temple with three rapid blows. After the third, his eyes shut and the hand holding the knife relaxed.
She pushed him off of her, then crawled away and studied him for a moment to make sure he wasn’t faking unconsciousness. When she was satisfied, she put away her knife and drew a small field kit from her back pocket. Then she bound him up with duct tape to make escaping by himself much more time-consuming.
She checked her clothes for bloodstains and found a small wet spot on her shirt, but it wasn’t bad. Probably not visible on a black hoodie.
She looked at the unconscious man in the grass, the flesh wound on his neck already clotting in the cool night air. A bump from her knife blows had already started to form on his forehead. “I was going to let you walk out of here, you idiot. But you had to mess it up.”
First she checked her phone and found she had no service here in the holler. Typical. Then she stood as the caravan of cars and trucks descended the winding road. She had to get back to Harry, as soon as possible.
34
Harry accepted the cup of coffee. Kemba lifted a bottle of bourbon, but Harry shook his head. He settled into one of the barber chairs, and Kemba the other. Last night, during their porch conversation in the rain, these two hadn’t been able to look each other in the eye. While still awkward, they’d made great strides toward reducing the tension in the room. Harry had felt most of the suspicion evaporated, and the big barber had no trouble holding eye contact.
Harry thought about the hand cannon sitting back in his office. He’d stowed it in the desk, the bottom drawer with the lock. Even with Serena’s grave warning, Harry couldn’t bring himself to shove it in his pocket. It had been so long since he’d put in any time at the gun range; he felt sure he’d shoot himself in the foot the first time he wrapped a finger around that trigger.
“Are you usually player, or Dungeon Master?” Kemba asked.
“Well, I’m DM’ing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign in town right now, but when I can, I play as Sir Pointy Sword, the Dwarven Paladin.”
“Pointy Sword?”
“I created the character when my son was eleven. I let him pick the name, so here we are.”
Kemba nodded. “That's adorable. I play a half-orc barbarian, usually. Did you become the DM because nobody else would?”
“Pretty much. I had to beg and plead just to get enough to join the game. Everyone else in this tiny town of Eureka Springs already either had a full, long-running game, or took a hard pass on starting a new one.”
“D&D is still pretty nerdy to a lot of people. Especially people who look like me. I went to a convention in Tampa once, and I swear I was the only Black attendee in the entire conference hall.”
Harry sipped his coffee. “That must’ve been uncomfortable.”
“At first, then I won the raffle and someone recognized me. NFL player at a D&D con? I was a celebrity after that.”
“You wouldn’t think the crossover between Dungeons & Dragons players and NFL fans would be high.”
Kemba chuckled. “The crossover with NFL players is even lower.”
“Fair enough. What was the raffle prize?”
“A set of fifth edition D&D books I already owned.” He shrugged. “I gave them away. It’s still nice to win.”
Kemba smiled and Harry smiled, and it felt weird to sit here with a man that Harry had considered a killer twenty-four hours ago. All day long, Harry had been thinking of vaping, the New Day Church of the Sinner, and now Rourke Mannafort. If there was a magical thread that connected all three, Harry had no idea where to begin looking for it.
“How is the case going?” Kemba asked, perhaps reading the consternation on Harry’s face. “Is it okay for me to… I don’t know the protocol.”
Harry tilted his head left and right. “I don’t know the protocol, either. I only know how my old boss at the agency in Fayetteville used to do it, but I’m not sure how many of that guy’s habits I should adopt.” When Kemba frowned in confusion, Harry decided to clarify. “Go ahead and ask me anything. The case isn’t going great. I don’t know who killed Lukas Maslow, and every lead seems to send me in a loop.”
“Are the police getting close? They haven’t been back to talk to me since the day of the break-in.”
Harry shook his head. “Last I heard, the cops were leaning toward a robbery-gone-wrong at the cabin. They don’t have a murder weapon, and it’s the fourth day, so it’s starting to get pretty thin. Usually, these things are wrapped up in a day or two. Any longer, then people leave town, rain washes away clues, memories get muddled. You gotta solve these things quickly because nature is working against you.”
“It’s a strange feeling knowing there’s nothing I can do.”
“Most people can’t do anything. About anything.”
Kemba appeared to consider this as he held the coffee near his face. “I feel terrible about Lukas. I wish I could’ve helped him.”
“Even though I knew him since I was a teenager, I couldn’t help him, either.”
“How about leads?”
“I’m working on one, but it’s a flimsy trail. It’s probably best if I don’t give you too much detail.”
“Sure, sure. I’m just worried about running out of time, and then all those ‘loops’ close off.”
Like a bolt of lightning, a realization about Ginnifer Applewhite occurred to Harry. She’d given him the name of her dealer, which had led Harry to the name Rourke Mannafort. But, when looking at the situation in practical terms, Ginny had ratted on her dealer. In a small town like this, spilled secrets could travel at the speed of light.
There could be consequences. Whether or not Ginny had killed Lukas Maslow, the ones pulling the strings
would come for her. Once word got out that she couldn’t be trusted and would talk to the authorities, then she would be too much of a liability.
Harry stood. “I have to go. I think someone is in danger, and I can’t believe I didn’t realize it until just now.”
Kemba set his coffee down, confused concern on his face. “Okay. Should I go with you?”
“No, it’s better if you stay out of this.”
Kemba cocked his head in confusion, but he didn’t argue as Harry hurried out the front door. Wind whipped his face as he hurried along the sidewalk. He marched back toward his office, keys in hand, shaking slightly in his nervous fingers.
He entered and opened the bottom drawer, and then he stared at the pistol.
“Go ahead, Harry,” he mumbled. The private investigator took the gun and hefted it, feeling the unnatural weight pulling on his wrist. He inserted the magazine and then racked a bullet into the chamber. After a few breaths to calm his nerves, he felt ready. Well, not exactly, but he felt something reasonably close to it.
Then he left by the front door and turned around to lock it. By the time he saw the flashes in his peripheral vision, it was too late.
A set of hands grabbed Harry by the shoulders. He felt the gun slipping away from his grasp as they dragged him back and tossed him into the backseat of a truck cab. Then a fist smashed into his face and everything went black.
35
Harry smelled queso before he opened his eyes. He had a sense of his location, but when he looked around, he couldn’t believe it. He was in too-tight handcuffs, sitting in a chair in the cramped kitchen of Maria’s Burritos. Harry had never been in the actual kitchen before, but there was no mistaking it. He recognized a stack of red plastic baskets lined with paper, which Maria used to serve chips and salsa.
Given the hour, everyone had likely gone home already. Harry had to hope it was true, because the alternative meant Maria and her staff were either injured or dead.