"Chain Reaction" Power Failure Book I

by Andrew Draper

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Locating Sean Murphy wasn’t a big chore for Kelly Ingersol. Murphy’s careless decision to shop the stolen technology around, coupled with his choice of recreational additives, left a trail her Boston contacts and their criminal connections couldn’t miss.

  She’d sat waiting outside his condominium for two hours yesterday and three so far today. The routine quickly got old…and cold. Scanning up and down the frozen street, she began to wonder if he would ever return home. Ironically, her persistence paid off only minutes later when she saw a solitary figure approach the door.

  About damned time!

  Hood pulled up against the sub-zero temperature, the unidentified stranger huddled in the doorway. Kelly watched as a cigarette lighter flared and the stranger’s face became visible through the small but powerful binoculars she held to her eyes. The woman inhaled deeply at the cigarette, causing the ember to glow brighter, making her face an eerie blend of blood red and coal black. Kelly watched as the woman continued to puff, stealing a series of guarded glances up and down the street.

  “That’s it.” Kelly said, her voice a low whisper in the otherwise silent car. “You’re safe. Now go inside and get what you came for then lead me to Murphy.”

  As if she heard the words, the woman on the steps flipped the cigarette into a snow bank and extracted a key from the pocket of her ripped and faded jeans. Taking one last look over her shoulder, she opened the street door.

  Kelly waited for a light to come on in the building before she exited her car and quickly strode across the frozen pavement.

  Once a four-story clapboard home for a single family, the white Colonial-style building was now divided into four up-scale condo units, one on each floor.

  Reaching the entrance, she, too, checked the quiet neighborhood for any signs of unwanted attention before closing the street door behind her. She moved quietly up the narrow flight of stairs to the second floor. She glanced at the brass plate on the door facing the street. She tried the knob and found it unlocked, swinging the door silently out of the way.

  Peering around the edge of the door into the living room, she saw no sign of her target. She silently entered the apartment and moved through, toward a hallway on her right.

  Standing motionless, she heard muffled sounds beyond, in the shadows at the end of the hall. Stopping at a partially closed door near the end, she waited, listening intently. Kelly pushed it open a fraction of an inch and saw the woman from the street, back toward her, busily pulling clothes from an open dresser against the wall to her left. On the bed, a small duffel bag sat half filled.

  Kelly listened silently as the woman groused, throwing another shirt into a pile on the bed.

  “For Chrisssake! I’m not your fuckin’ errand girl,” the woman cursed. “You want your stuff, next time, get it yourself…lazy bastard!”

  Reaching into her purse, Kelly felt the cold yet comforting steel of the small automatic. Drawing the weapon, she checked the safety and stepped silently into the room.

  “Going somewhere?” she said, her firm voice breaking the silence in a booming echo.

  The woman packing the suitcase emitted a small scream and turned around.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  With the hood down on her shoulders, Kelly could now see the woman’s face. Pock-marked and gaunt, the woman showed the tell-tale signs of the meth addict.

  The woman swallowed hard, gathering a shred of courage before speaking again. “You can’t come in here without a warrant!”

  Kelly quickly swept the room with her eyes and leveled the pistol at the woman’s chest.

  “Who said I was a cop?”

  “You’re not a cop? Then get the hell out of here before I call them.”

  “I’m looking for Murphy. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.” She answered, body stiffening in fear.

  The dim light coming from the table lamp washed out the addict’s heavily blemished face, throwing harsh shadows on her emaciated features.

  Kelly closed the distance between the two and pointed the weapon at the woman’s forehead. “I think you do. Tell me where Murphy is.”

  She repeated her demand, cocking the hammer. The terrified woman put her hands up in defense, face now ashen. She pleaded. “Really, I don’t know.”

  Watching the waif’s eyes expand in naked terror, Kelly frowned a deep, sinister sneer. “I’m going to give you three seconds to tell me where he is. If you don’t, I’m going to shoot you. When the police eventually find your body, they’ll conduct a perfunctory investigation…before they shelve it. Do you want to become another unidentified body in an unmarked grave?”

  The woman’s face went completely white and she began to shake, her entire body wracked by small tremors. “All right, I’m telling you the truth. I really don’t know where he is. He sent me to get his passport and some of his stuff.”

  Kelly eased the gun away from her face and continued the questioning. “He’s planning a little trip I see. Where and when are you supposed to meet him?”

  Standing a little taller, the woman reached toward her coat pocket.

  “Easy!” Kelly warned as the pistol again rested between the other woman’s eyes.

  Moving very slowly, the waif produced a cell phone. “He’s gonna call me in about 15 minutes.”

  Kelly lowered the pistol and considered her options for a few seconds. “Okay. I think we can do this the easy way. For the next hour or so, you and I are partners. I think you’re a smart girl. You do as I say and you can walk away from this with a little cash. You screw up and it’s a toe tag. Understood?

  The woman silently nodded.

  “Good.”

  Kelly took five one-hundred dollar bills from her wallet and showed them to the frightened woman. “Consider this a little finder’s fee for Murphy.”

  Kelly placed two in the woman’s trembling hand.

  “You get the rest when you deliver Murphy to me.”

  Again, the shaking girl nodded passively.

  The minutes passed in silence for the two women as the waif chain-smoked and finished packing the clothes she’d selected from various piles in the small bedroom. Nerves on edge, both women flinched as the cell phone broke into an electronic version of a well-known rap song.

  The junkie answered the call. “Hello?”

  Kelly held her ear against the back of the speaker, taking it all in.

  “Susie, did you get the stuff I asked for?” the caller’s voice scratched.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Meet me at the Charlestown Bridge, on the Navy Yard end, in twenty minutes…and don’t even think about being late.”

  With a loud click, the line went dead. The waif snapped the phone shut. “You heard, twenty minutes.” She said, looking at the floor.

  Kelly motioned toward the door “I’ll drive. Let’s go.”

  The cars moved slowly as the rush-hour traffic clogged the six lanes of Interstate 93 as it wound through Boston’s North End. Taking to the surface streets, the pair turned onto Washington St. and approached the Charlestown Bridge entrance. They traversed the bridge in strained silence before Kelly found a space in a public lot at the Boston National Historical Park and shut off the engine.

  She turned to her new-found partner. “Okay, Susie. Here’s where you earn your money. You get Murphy and bring him to this end of the walkway along the bridge. I’ll do the rest.”

  “How do I get him to follow me?”

  “I don’t care how. Tell him you left the passport in the car or something. Use your imagination.”

  “Then what happens to me?” Susie asked, the resurging fear plainly visible on her drug-ravaged face.

  “As soon as I cuff and stuff Murphy, you go your merry way… five-hundred dollars richer.”

  “That’s it?” her eyes opened in frightened disbelief. “How do I know you won’t shoot me after I bring him to you?”

  Kelly looked dee
p into the sunken eyes of the frightened woman. “I’m a businesswoman and dead bodies are bad for business. I’ll only shoot you if you force me to. Follow the plan and you get the cash. But, you better not screw up. Now go.”

  Watching the waif step from the car, Kelly peered into the thickening darkness, then backed into a space hidden among the shadows, keeping an eye locked on her new “partner”. Reaching in her coat pocket, she wrapped her gloved fingers around the pistol’s Mother of Pearl handle. The firm feel of the weapon comforted her.

  She stared down the empty street as the gaunt woman traversed the bridge ramp before disappearing into a pedestrian tunnel, the passage wallpapered with billboards for local political candidates. She braced against the biting cold in the car. Listening to the wind whipping in off Boston harbor, she waited…but not too patiently.