Phoenix: A Hunter Novel

by J. V. Speyer

  “How are you feeling, lawman?”

  Luis almost snapped at him, the absurdity of the question bordering on insulting. Then he got over himself. Lightfoot wasn’t being insulting, he was trying to make a realistic assessment of Luis’ capabilities. Luis needed to cooperate.

  “Terrible. I’m pretty sure I’m going into shock sometime soon, I’m in a lot of pain, and every once in a while, I’m seeing double. But none of that matters. We need to get out of here.”

  “Can we?” Mike took off his hat and scratched his head, once again revealing the terrible hole in his skull.

  “Absolutely.” Lightfoot winked at him. “Leave that to me.”

  Donovan jumped when the phone rang again, this time at two thirty. God, this night just seemed to be going on forever. This time, it wasn’t his phone ringing, but Kevin’s.

  Kevin’s rich voice was thick with fatigue when he answered it. “Agent Holcombe.” He paused. “Yeah. Send it over.” He paused again. “No, Donovan’s family showed up. His mom chased Morales to bed when he started to turn gray.” Another pause. “He got shot yesterday, Agent. Of course he shouldn’t be part of this investigation. But you couldn’t keep him out of it with a crowbar. Yeah. Oh. I’m not even going to try, but Captain Carey and her sons are—”

  Donovan closed his eyes as Agent Holcombe went into a longer speech. He could only guess what it was about.

  “Ma’am, I understand what you’re saying, but this is a special case. They have the motive, means, and opportunity to help us, and they’ve already provided information we hadn’t gotten any other way. It gives us boots on the ground all over southern New England, which is something we couldn’t afford otherwise considering the situation in Western Mass. And the entire weight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation couldn’t stop Patricia Carey from doing what she thinks needs to be done, as we’ve seen before, so we’re going to work with her in the best interests of Agent Gomes.”

  Donovan sat up straighter, pride surging through his body. All of these things were true. He’d spent a lot of time in his youth, especially during that last year of college facing the end of his relationship with Luis, bemoaning his family ties. Right now, he couldn’t be more proud.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Kevin’s shoulders lost some of their tightness. “I’ll pass that along. If you want to send that video over, we’ll give it a look. I know it’ll be hard, ma’am.”

  All activity in the room stopped as Kevin hung up. Donovan, his brothers, and his mother stared at Kevin.

  Then Patricia crossed over to Kevin and hugged him. “Thank you for sticking up for us. I appreciate it.”

  Kevin blushed but submitted to the embrace. “Thank you. You’ve already helped more than I can say. I didn’t have to exaggerate anything at all, and Agent Holcombe was just a little uptight about protocol. She’s the one who has to think about covering our asses if things go south.” He swallowed. “Which they might. Our kidnapper sent a video.”

  Donovan’s heart seemed to stop beating for a moment. “That’s unexpected.”

  “It is. Tammie was pretty mad too. We need to watch it, but I just want to warn you it’s going to be hard to see.”

  Donovan had to force himself to breathe. “Right. Thanks for the warning.” He went to the kitchen and fixed coffee for everyone. No one needed the extra caffeine. They were all jittery enough, especially Donovan, but he needed to do something with his hands or everyone would see them shaking.

  Not that he needed to be afraid of showing weakness. Not in front of these people, and not weakness about Luis. He was allowed to be scared for his partner. Still, allowing his hands to visibly tremble meant admitting Luis was in trouble, and Donovan wasn’t going to be ready to do that for a long time.

  He distributed the coffee and took his place in front of the laptop, between Kevin and Patricia. Kevin opened up the message and clicked on the video.

  Tammie didn’t waste time on niceties. She seemed to be in a completely dark room, lit only by the flash from her camera and a Maglite. Her reconstructed face, marred now by a hell of a shiner, was still stuck in its permanent grin, but her voice told the story of her rage on its own.

  “All right, listen up. Your boy here has the reputation of being some kind of super genius or whatever. Well, I’m here to tell you that reputation is seriously overblown. He thought he could run on me. On me!” The image shook, as if she were thumping her chest. “Like I wasn’t going to find his sorry ass. I had to take steps.

  “I wasn’t planning on hurting him. All he had to do was stay downstairs like a good little piggy. He’d have been just fine. He wouldn’t have had to do much. The water would have kept him asleep, so he wouldn’t have even gotten bored. I’m not a bad person. I’m an EMT for fuck’s sake. I save lives. I don’t go around hurting people.

  “But he made me do it. He made me fix it so he couldn’t get away. Because he was stupid. He couldn’t just sit there like a good boy, he had to go off and play hero.”

  The camera and the light moved. Donovan saw Luis’ face, with a huge bruise over the temple. Luis was unconscious and covered in grime and filth. He’d lost his jacket somewhere along the way, and as the camera panned down Luis’ body, Donovan could see his wrists were bound with zip ties. His skin bulged a little over the restraint, showing it was too tight.

  Tammie didn’t stop. She trailed down Luis’ still form until she got to his legs. His right leg bled profusely. Donovan could see bits of bone through the injury, or at least he imagined he could.

  He dropped his coffee.

  Luis’ legs were bound at the ankles. Tammie had taken his shoes too and left him on the floor. Donovan could just see dirty linoleum under his partner’s still form. It had probably been black-and-white at some point. Now, it was just gray.

  She brought the camera back up to her face. “You can see your boy’s in a bad way here. I’d almost feel bad for him, if it wasn’t for the fact that he forced me to do this. I would have been perfectly happy to leave him in peace downstairs in the cellar. He had water. If he drank it, he’d have been perfectly good until my demands were met. Hell, he’d probably never know he’d had a problem. Instead, now he made me put a bullet in his leg. Stupid fucker.

  “So my conditions have changed. You bring Santo Gelens to the Whole Foods parking lot in Dedham at exactly seven in the morning, or the next bullet goes into this fucker’s brain.”

  The video ended.

  Donovan stared at the laptop screen. The colors were too bright. Even the room itself was too bright. His family was breathing too loud. The hum of the electric lights was a buzz saw in the back of his head.

  This was Luis. Luis, who had saved Donovan’s life several times over. Luis had been shot in the chest and still taken down the serial killer who’d shot him. Luis had survived a near drowning and destroyed the ghosts behind it. He wasn’t supposed to be bound and still. He was supposed to be fighting, running, and showing everyone else up.

  “We’ve got till six to find him.” Patricia stood up. “My guess is that this psychotic little troll is close to Dedham. That’s why she picked it. That eliminates most of the defunct facilities south of Boston as well and everything out of state. There’s construction on I-95, and she’s not going to want to get caught in traffic.”

  “Good point.” Kevin’s voice was subdued. “You’ve got a BOLO out on the shag van, right?”

  John gave him a thumbs-up. “No hits so far. Staties in Danvers, Attleboro, and Haverhill did pull over similarly customized vans leading to significant narcotics arrests, but that’s not here or there.”

  “It’s a win for the good guys.” Patricia shrugged. “Luis got his start in Vice, if I recall. All right. Foxboro, Westborough, Waltham, and Medfield all have abandoned mental health facilities that fall within our criteria. We’re cutting it too close to wait for sunrise to search the premises so we’ll have to go in now. I’ll get Cecelia and her people in Waltham on the sites there. Davy and the other b
oys can help out in Foxboro. Westborough and Medfield will be more problematic.”

  Donovan saw Kevin’s quizzical glance and answered the question he hadn’t asked. “The decision makers there are family on my dad’s side. They might be open to helping, but they’d have to be approached carefully.” His own voice echoed in his ears. “I’ll call Lieutenant Power. Captain Power, I mean. He’s probably asleep, but he did say to reach out if we needed anything. And, frankly, we need it.”

  Patricia’s eyes gleamed with quiet pride, but she just nodded. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  Donovan grabbed his phone and fled to the bedroom, where Tria was nesting in Luis’ laundry. She’d done that ever since they brought her home. What would she do if they couldn’t save Luis? Eventually, the scent would fade from his clothes. Tria would be devastated, and Donovan wouldn’t be able to console her because he’d be a useless and blubbering sack of grief in the corner.

  He pushed the thought away. They’d save Luis, because no other options existed. He owed it to Luis, and he needed to do it for himself. Luis was the love of his life, and he wasn’t giving up.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and called Captain Power.

  Power picked up right away. “Carey. Any news?”

  “We’ve narrowed his possible location down to four abandoned psychiatric facilities, sir. We do know he’s badly injured and unable to assist in his own rescue.”

  “Well, shit.” Power breathed deep. “What do you need from me? Give me something to do, Carey.”

  Donovan’s stomach settled just a little bit. Captain Power was a godsend. “We’ve got family able to check out two of the locations. The Westborough and Medfield police have folks from my dad’s side of the family. If Mom, my brothers, or I ask for help, it could blow up in our faces.”

  “Yes, it will. I know the captain out in Medfield. We’ve had words. Let me handle it. What’s your deadline?”

  Power never wasted time or minced words. Donovan wouldn’t either. “The kidnapper will execute Luis if we don’t have him at an exchange site in Dedham by seven. She changed the time after he tried to escape.”

  “Crap. Okay. It’s going to take me a minute to pull together enough people, but I’m hoping we can get it done. I’ll keep you posted. We might have some angry local LEOs by the time we’re done, but right now, I don’t give a good goddamn.”

  Donovan almost sobbed with relief. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re welcome, son. Get back to work and find your man.”

  Donovan hung up.

  The bed was a mess. Donovan hadn’t bothered making it after he napped. He’d had other things on his mind. It wasn’t as if the state of the bed was important when Luis was out there suffering God knew what.

  Donovan knew “what” now.

  Luis wasn’t the most domestic guy. He liked their house, but he liked it because Donovan was in it. He hadn’t even unpacked in his old apartment. When they got him home though, he was going to be in a lot of pain. Donovan wanted to do something to lessen that pain as much as he could.

  From a practical perspective, he knew he couldn’t do much. The bullet had shattered bone. Maybe things looked worse in the dark than they were, but the wound had looked catastrophic. Donovan couldn’t exactly numb the injury. He could give Luis a clean and comfortable home to return to, and it started with the bed.

  He stripped the bed and put new clean sheets on it. He made sure each pillow was perfectly placed, and he even found a clean comforter to top the bed with. The old sheets made it into Tria’s heap because they had Luis’ scent too.

  It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Donovan nodded once, looked around, and went downstairs to report back to the others.

  He cleaned up the coffee he’d spilled too. It was only right.

  Chapter Ten

  Luis checked his phone. He still didn’t have a signal, and the screen was cracked thanks to its unceremonious tumble to the ground. Still, he could see by the face that it was 2:45 in the morning. He had no idea what time he’d been brought in, and no clue what schedule Hyena Lady was operating under.

  The pain in his leg was agony in layers, like an onion or a gift-wrapped present padded by tissue paper. The crutches helped, but they were ancient, wooden, and not adjustable. Hyena Lady hadn’t shot him with the intention of killing him. She’d shot him with the intention of immobilizing him, and so far, it was working.

  Sticking those crutches into the ribs she’d bruised wasn’t a picnic either, but he could ignore that.

  “We need a plan.” He looked around at his ghostly companions, who stared back at him.

  “Yer friends are working to find ye. Ye know that.” Lightfoot glanced at the door.

  “It’s true.” A part of Luis, the part that still spoke with his father’s voice, had its doubts about all of that. He knew Donovan would be beside himself with worry though. Donovan wouldn’t just let him rot down here.

  He ground his teeth and edged toward the door. The first step made the whole room swim, like when the controls on a television went haywire. He couldn’t afford to pass out. He had one more shot at getting away.

  “They’re looking for me, but Hyena Lady is here. She’s here, she’s got my gun, and she’s likely to take me out when she sees them coming. She knows where I am. Even if you go back to Donovan right now and tell him exactly where I am, it will take him time to get here. He’ll have to marshal reinforcements, and they’ll be pretty obvious even if they come up with sirens off. They’d need lights to see.

  “Knowing she’s caught, trapped, she’d shoot me on general principle. She’s not getting her guy back, and if she’s involved with Santo Gelens, she’s not exactly concerned with the sanctity of human life, you know what I mean?”

  “Bah.” Lightfoot waved a hand. “That doesn’t make her daft enough to slay a lawman in cold blood. That’s something that would get her hanged for sure.”

  Luis managed a grimace. He’d been trying for a grin, but a grimace was all he could get. “We go for lethal injection these days. And, yeah, kidnapping and murdering a federal agent usually does get a person a date with a needle, not that I approve of stuff like that. But here’s the thing. She knows all the ways in and out of here. I doubt Donovan, his state police buddies, or even Kevin know those.

  “Right now, I’m the only living person who can get my ass out of this.”

  Mike’s face had grown pinched, at least as pinched as a mostly skeletal face could get. He reached out and put a hand on Luis’ arm. “I’m glad you made that little rider, Gabe. You’re not alone.”

  “He’s never alone.” Lightfoot leered at Mike. “You can bet your hat on that.”

  Millie sniffed as though she disapproved, but she managed to grin. “That’s enough of that, men. We do need a plan. What is it you think we should do?”

  Luis took as deep a breath as he could. A SEAL he’d been with briefly had taught him one of the breathing techniques they used to keep themselves cool in the face of panic. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Box breathing, they called it. Luis could barely remember the SEAL’s name, but he remembered that. It was helping him now. “Does anyone know where we are in relation to where her vehicle is?”

  Lightfoot disappeared. He reappeared a few seconds later. “There’s a ground-level door at the end of this hallway. It takes us to that great cart of hers. An ugly beast it is too.”

  “It could be a custom 1970s shag van with a goddamn wizard on the side, and I wouldn’t care, as long as we could get it out of here.” Luis stood up. “Our plan is to get down this hallway, go through the door, and get out of here.”

  Mike crossed his arms and shook his head. “I can see a flaw with your plan already, Gabe. The demon is keeping an eye on you. You’ve already tried to escape once. Believe me—I know from experience. Once you’ve tried to make a run for it, no one ever just figures you’ve learned your lesson.” He laughed darkly.

  “The lad’s ri
ght.” Lightfoot scowled. “I hate to admit it. We need a plan for dealing with Hyena Woman. Right now, I’m the only one who can do anything to her, and I can’t do much.”

  “And she’s got my gun, unfortunately. Which puts a damper on things I can do about her.” The crutches dug into Luis’ chest, making his chest ache.

  Millie brightened a little. “Oh, but we’re not completely helpless.”

  “It feels like it.”

  Millie held her head up high. “We’re forgetting someone. The cursing man. The one who throws . . . stuff.”

  Luis remembered back—was it only a few hours? Time had no meaning down here. “The hairy one. He’s a little volatile, isn’t he?”

  Mike grinned. “We’re all a little volatile, I suppose. Maybe he was able to hold it together a little better before he got locked in a cell for a century. It’s worth letting him out. I mean look at me. You let me out, Gabe, and here I am being a productive member of society already.”

  Lightfoot rubbed his hands together. “It doesn’t matter if he gives us his name or not. He’s going to make the perfect distraction.” He disappeared.

  Luis looked at his companions. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “Has the captain ever steered you wrong before?” Millie tilted her head to the side. Bones crunched, echoing off the walls.

  “Well, no. But he did kill a few dozen people, to include a businessman only about a year and a half ago.”

  “I’m sure he had his reasons.” Millie shrugged.

  Luis chuckled softly. Lightfoot had reasons, and most of them wouldn’t stand up to much in the way of moral scrutiny. Then again, Millie had been confined for being a disobedient wife. That didn’t stand up to much scrutiny either.

  Lightfoot reappeared with the hairy man Luis had encountered in the first solitary confinement room.