The Redeemer

by Dan Padavona

  She scurried back, afraid she’d spooked him, when another shadow closed in on the shooter from behind. Wolf.

  On the beach, Gardy stood with his hands in his pockets. He kept them there so one hand stayed close to the Glock, but that wouldn’t save him if the sniper pulled the trigger.

  Wolf was close. Almost on top of the shooter.

  The sniper sensed Wolf and spun around, but with his high-powered rifle centered on the beach, he couldn’t defend himself. Wolf shoved the sniper to the ground and stuck the point of his blade into the soft flesh below the man’s chin. Bell rushed out of hiding with the Glock aimed at the shooter.

  “Don’t kill him, Wolf.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? He would have cut us down and never lost a minute of sleep.”

  “Do as I say.”

  Bell swung the gun at Wolf, and the serial killer shot her a wry smile before he pulled the knife back. Hearing the commotion, Gardy broke his cover and ran toward the grove. Bell turned her flashlight on the sniper.

  “You the one who shot at us in Virginia?” she asked, pulling the rifle out of the man’s reach. When he didn’t answer, she stepped down on his hand, eliciting an angry moan as she pressed the Glock to his head. “Tell me who hired you.”

  Taking the flashlight from Bell, Gardy swept the beam over the shooter, hissing when he realized how close he came to being shot. He drew the Glock from his holster when he saw Wolf.

  “How did Wolf find out about the meeting?”

  “Apparently he reads the same websites as Weber,” Bell said, grinding her foot down.

  The shooter winced, but he refused to speak. Reaching down, Gardy ripped off the black hat and revealed the man’s shaved head. Stubble dotted his face, his skin wrinkled and parched from too many years under the sun. Bell placed him in his forties.

  “I’ll make this easy for you,” said Bell, kneeling so she was face-to-face with the shooter. “We’re already aware Senator Ewing contracted you to murder us, and Don Weber at the FBI made the call. Give them up, and we’ll let you live.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The man’s voice was hoarse and gravely. His smug grin stretched the width of his face.

  “The last man who tried to shoot me ended up with a bullet in his forehead. Right here.” Bell jammed her finger above the man’s eyebrows. “Why protect Ewing and Weber? They’ll toss you away after they finish with you. Don’t think they won’t sell you out to save themselves.”

  The man spat. The glob landed on her sneaker.

  “Nice,” she said, wiping her sneaker off in the sand.

  “You aren’t gonna do shit,” he said, grinning. “You’re federal agents. What will the government say if you shoot an unarmed man?”

  “Check him,” Bell said.

  Gardy searched the man’s pockets and shook his head. Except for the rifle, the man came unarmed.

  “See? What did I tell you? Haul me into jail for aiming a rifle at the surf.”

  “You aimed at my partner.”

  “Prove it.”

  Wolf lurked in the shadows, his gaze fixed on the shooter. He lifted his eyes to Bell, and an unspoken agreement passed between them.

  “You’ll give us a full confession,” Bell said, smiling. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

  “Stupid bitch. Place me under arrest or let me walk.”

  “Your benefactors marched you into a meat grinder. Allow me to introduce you to a man Don Weber ordered you to shoot tonight. His name is Logan Wolf. Does that name mean anything to you?”

  Gardy glanced at Bell and opened his mouth. She shook her head. The sniper kept grinning, but uncertainty leaked into his eyes.

  “Maybe you’ve heard of him. He’s the FBI agent who went rogue in 2013 and became the nation’s most wanted serial killer. Does that ring a bell?”

  The sniper’s eyes moved between Bell and Wolf.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “He slaughtered dozens of men we know of. Who knows how many more? Wolf slit their throats and spilled their blood, then he placed sacks over their heads. Rumor has it he hides their faces so the spirits of the deceased can’t look at him anymore.”

  When the man’s stoic expression failed, Wolf snaked a hand into his pocket and removed the sack.

  “This is insane, Bell,” Gardy said, rounding on her. “We can’t stand by while Wolf murders this guy, no matter how reprehensible he is.”

  “Then we won’t watch,” she said, lowering the gun as Wolf slid the knife against the sniper’s throat. “Come on, Gardy.”

  Wolf’s eyes smiled back at Bell as she left him alone with the gunman. The man’s protests turned to screams as Bell and Gardy walked away.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Whirling lights painted blues and angry reds against Detective Larrabee’s house. A throng of neighbors came outside to watch, some holding beers and claiming the bitch got what she had coming, others wide-eyed and covering their mouths with their hands as the crime techs ascended the front steps, little baggies covering their shoes.

  Officer Vargus, the policeman who’d accompanied Larrabee to the beach house and found Bell inside, stood in the doorway. His face looked pale and drawn, his eyes unfocused as he checked the credentials of everyone entering the house. The first on the scene, he’d discovered Larrabee in the upstairs bedroom, the walls and carpet soaked with blood. The memory of Larrabee’s bloody outline against the wall was one he couldn’t exorcise. As though the killer hoisted the detective to the ceiling before he tore her to pieces.

  Chief Sahd, gray-haired and harried after the emergency called him away from dinner night with his wife, nodded at the two crime techs passing him.

  “She upstairs?” When Vargus only glared at Sahd, the chief touched his shoulder. “Vargus, what happened here?”

  “Don’t go up there, Chief. You don’t want to see what he…Jesus, it doesn’t even look like her.”

  Sahd nodded grimly and pushed past, but the chief would probably clamor down the stairs a minute later. Vargus would give Sahd points if the man didn’t vomit in the bushes.

  The hulking officer felt as if he’d shrunk several inches since arriving at Larrabee’s. He studied the onlookers, most of them looky-loos and rubberneckers who wanted to glimpse a dead cop. They’d have to wait a long time. The CSI team had a helluva mess to sift through.

  Vargus bit his tongue over the thought. That mess upstairs was his partner, a woman he admired. To Vargus, Larrabee seemed bulletproof, invincible. The murderer who killed her was no ordinary man. He was a demon wearing human skin.

  Another squad car arrived as Vargus scanned the crowd. Fair Haven Beach didn’t attract serial killers. He recalled a handful of murders during his ten years on the force. But he knew enough to suspect the killer stood among the crowd. Blending in. Watching. He studied the faces, passing over animated expressions of horror and elation and honing in on the rapt and silent. These were the most likely killers among the mob. The faces of death.

  A hand grabbed his shoulder, and Vargus swiveled around to Chief Sahd staring at him. Sahd looked as if he’d aged twenty years since viewing the murder scene.

  “You have any idea who did this to her, Officer?”

  Vargus couldn’t focus. His attention kept drifting back to the crowd.

  “Vargus, who did this?”

  Shaking his head, Vargus guarded the door as the medical examiner’s car pulled to the curb.

  “Larrabee got in over her head with that FBI agent.”

  “Agent Bell?” Sahd narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying there’s more going on than this serial killer case?”

  “Just a feeling. Detective Larrabee held nothing back, but she hid her activities after that agent arrived.”

  “The killer targeted one of ours, Officer, and I want him caught before sunrise. I’ll handle the crime scene. You find this Agent Bell. I want to know what hell she dragged Detective Larrabee into.”

  CHA
PTER NINETEEN

  Gardy cringed every time the sniper squealed. Bell did her best to block out the horror, to compartmentalize the unthinkable. She couldn’t. It sounded like Wolf was carving a live pig inside the grove.

  She looked up when the vegetation parted. Two shadowed men shuffled toward the road. Wolf clutched the unknown man by his jacket, keeping the shooter on his feet.

  “His name is Grant Schlosser, and he’s prepared to make a full confession, including the fire he started at your apartment and the bomb he placed under your SUV.”

  Wolf tossed Schlosser forward, and he fell against Bell’s rental, his hands leaving bloody palm prints on the trunk. He lacked part of one ear, and a long, gory trench cut from Schlosser’s cheek toward his eye.

  “We can’t take his confession like this,” Gardy said. “This is torture.”

  “As long as he implicates Ewing and Weber,” Bell said. “I’ll sleep like a baby, regardless.”

  Gardy wore an incredulous look on his face. He didn’t want any part of Wolf’s confession methods.

  “This isn’t the man who killed my sister,” Wolf said, jabbing the point of the knife against Schlosser’s jugular. “But I bet he knows who did.”

  Schlosser’s Adam’s apple bounced as he swallowed hard.

  “I know other men are involved, but I don’t know names.”

  “You lie.”

  “I swear.”

  “They paid you well, I trust,” Bell said, lifting the shooter’s chin to examine his wounds. “They better have, because your pain is just beginning if I find out you’re lying.”

  Gardy opened the back door. Bell shoved Schlosser inside. Fixing the gun on Schlosser, Gardy slid into the backseat beside him.

  Bell gazed at Wolf in the moonlight. Determination and hate lit a fire in the serial killer’s eyes, yet his shoulders slumped with the exhaustion of a man who’d shouldered horror for too many years.

  “You’d do well to disappear, Wolf. This time forever. I’ll clear your name in Renee’s murder, and Ewing and Weber will pay for what they did to us, but I can’t protect you.”

  “This night doesn’t end until I find Christina’s killer.”

  “Sorry, Wolf. You’re not coming with us. You found your way here, so I assume you have transportation nearby. Get in your car and drive. Don’t stop until you find a coast you don’t recognize.”

  “Such a shame our time together must end. We could have made an incredible team, the two of us. Imagine what we could accomplish if we fought on the same side.”

  “I’ll never be like you.”

  “You already are.”

  Bell shifted her feet. She sensed Gardy’s eyes on her from inside the car.

  “Remember what I told you. This is your only chance if you want to remain a free man. I need to go.”

  Bell turned away. Wolf clutched her shoulder and spun her around. She stared into his eyes, two lost souls peering back at her. Her breath quickened, fingers sliding toward the Glock.

  When he pressed his lips to hers, she fell back against the door, head swimming with a million reasons to push him away.

  She didn’t.

  His kiss rippled warmth through her body, sent pins-and-needles down her legs. When he pulled away, she’d lost track of time. He strode into the dark, a low chuckle riding the wind as he disappeared.

  “Until we meet again, Agent Bell.”

  Bell touched the door handle and waited. The silhouettes of Gardy and Schlosser in the backseat barely registered in her mind. Finally, she tugged the door open and slid behind the wheel. As she fired the engine, Gardy’s eyes found hers in the mirror. She looked away before the hurt grew unbearable.

  Bell pulled onto the road and turned the car around. The sooner she brought Schlosser to the police station, the better. She wanted this nightmare to end. After the courts convicted Weber and Ewing, she’d call it a day. Walk away from law enforcement, corruption, and murderers forever. She was young enough to enter another field. Maybe follow her parents to Arizona and forget the last two years happened.

  The village lights glittered in the distance when the van rammed them from the side. Tires screeched. Then the car spun across the median and flipped into the ditch.

  Her vision spun. The scent of burned rubber met her nose as she struggled to work the feeling back into her legs.

  The spiderweb of fractured windshield caved in toward her face.

  “Gardy?”

  No answer. She tried to turn her head, but agony stopped her dead.

  A door opened and shut. Footsteps.

  Bell searched for her gun and found it on her hip, but her body lay wrenched around the steering wheel, preventing her from retrieving the weapon.

  “Gardy, wake up!”

  The door flew open. Hands groped inside and tugged at her arm. The seat belt, the only reason she was still alive, held her fast. The madman severed the straps with his knife and hauled her from the vehicle. She collapsed against the blacktop, body screaming as he reached for her again.

  He hoisted Bell by the neck and threw her into the ditch. Rocks tore at her back. She scrambled to her hands and knees, but he was too fast. Relentless.

  His arm clubbed the back of her head and turned the world upside down. A boot caught her under the chin and snapped her neck back with a spray of blood.

  As she rolled onto her back, he pocketed the knife and produced a camera with a glowing screen. The brightness seared her eyes, but when she tried to look away, the madman snatched her chin and forced her to look.

  And Bell saw Larrabee’s butchered body, the detective’s blank eyes staring accusingly.

  She swung her leg and struck his ankle, tripping him up. His arms pinwheeled before he slammed shoulder-first against the blacktop.

  The maneuver bought her enough time to retrieve the Glock before he sprang to his feet. She squeezed the trigger. The bullet punctured the madman’s shoulder and knocked him against the van. She recognized the vehicle from the parking garage. Several large bulks stood behind tinted windows. A shiver rolled through Bell as she imagined what lay inside the barrels.

  One hand clutching his shoulder, blood spilling between his fingers, the killer battled back to his feet. She squeezed off a second shot. It sailed wide and took out the van’s side mirror. He stalked across the dividing line while Bell dragged herself to the shoulder. He kicked the gun from her hand when she tried to center the weapon, and it skidded through the gravel and came to rest in a patch of weed and tall grass growing in a bordering meadow.

  Bell scurried after the lost weapon. He grabbed her ankle and dragged her into the road.

  The blade caught the starlight as he leered down at her.

  “Come home, little one. Time to sleep.”

  The knife flashed at her face when another gun blast thundered over her head. The killer flew backward and landed on his elbows. A fresh wound bubbled blood from his thigh. Bell twisted her head. Gardy slumped over the ruined car, the undercarriage steadying his grip on the Glock. The next shot sailed past the killer and blew a hole through the van. Losing his balance, Gardy tumbled to the pavement.

  The scuff of boot against blacktop was the only warning Bell received as the killer loomed over her. Powerful hands gripped her hair and yanked. She slid across the road, the cruel surface tearing her knees while she fought to spin away.

  With one hand he threw the van door open, the other buried in her hair and ripping locks from her scalp. The van trembled as he stepped inside. An overwhelming death scent rolled out of the vehicle. Now inside the van, he dug both hands into her hair and tugged. Her body lifted off the pavement as her neck arced backward.

  She landed inside the death van. Eyes glassed over, she stared at the doubled visions of barrels stacked along the walls. This was the end. He was too powerful.

  The growl of another motor pulled the killer’s eyes to the road. An SUV skidded to a halt and fishtailed toward the van. Bumpers slammed, and the killer toppled ont
o the macadam as Bell cleared her head. She prayed the police had arrived, but she knew better. Wolf came back for her.

  Knives cut through the air. Bell slumped against a barrel as something shifted inside. While she blocked out the image of what lay inside the barrels, Gardy yelled from across the road. He’d pulled himself onto the overturned car again and aimed the Glock at the two serial killers.

  “Move!” Gardy yelled, motioning Bell to get out of the line of fire.

  “No, Gardy. You’ll shoot Wolf!”

  Wolf yelled out and stumbled. A red line formed and soaked his shirt. The maniac swept the knife at Wolf when Gardy’s gunshot caught the killer’s arm. He spun toward Gardy, an unstoppable force. Before Gardy could fire again, the killer clutched his neck and squeezed. Gardy’s eyes bulged, tongue lolled out as the killer lifted him off the ground and the gun tumbled from his hand. The agent beat his fists against the maniac’s face. The killer grinned, his teeth stained red.

  Though every bone in her body begged her to stop, Bell pushed herself out of the van and across the road. Wolf circled from behind. Together, they closed in on the killer. Gardy’s neck appeared on the brink of snapping when Bell leaped atop the killer’s back and raked her nails across his eyes. He threw her off, yet she’d freed Gardy, who lay crumpled in the road. Was he breathing?

  Bell sprang up and slammed her fist against the killer’s face. The maniac’s eyes crossed a moment before Wolf drove the knife into his back. As the killer slumped over, Bell leaped and wrapped her thighs around his neck. He landed on his knees and brought his head up. For a split-second they locked eyes. Then Bell twisted her hips and snapped his neck.

  The killer twitched once and lay still.

  Bell crawled away. She kept imagining the killer’s hands around her neck as she touched her throat and glanced over at Gardy. Her partner’s chest swelled and receded. Thank God.