Justice

by Dustin Stevens

Slumped down into the corner, a healthy amount of blood spatter covered the white walls and the front of the door to the apartment on the left, most of it arranged in a random pattern save the vertical streaks that had resulted from her body being tossed into the corner and sliding to the floor.

  A few feet away lay a second victim, this one being who Greene had warned him about on the way up.

  Anybody with a television, or a newspaper, or even a passing awareness of the city around them, was intimately familiar with Lynda Cantwell. A former city councilwoman, she had been elected to represent The Bottoms and the surrounding areas for three consecutive terms before it was found out that the small property she owned there was for nothing more than the purposes of filing to run for office.

  Once investigators started looking into things, it was discovered that the parcel didn’t even have a structure on it, let alone a place she called home.

  After a long and loud public outcry, and even harsher backlash from Cantwell, she was unceremoniously dumped from office.

  An eventuality she swore she would fight to the bitter end, even going as far as vacating her posh Polaris condo on the north side for a new place in the district she had fought to represent for so long.

  A move that had apparently now left her lying on her side, body curled into the fetal position, most of the rib meat blasted from her left flank.

  Behind her, the doorway to her apartment was standing open, red mist spackling the wall to either side and the floor behind her.

  Between the two, blood had fanned out from each in a wide arc, the two beginning to comingle in the middle, the light above reflecting off the surface.

  In just a few short hours, it would congeal and start to mildew, drawing in flies by the droves.

  Which meant Reed needed to make quick work of the place and turn it over to the Crime Scene Unit.

  Chancing another step forward, Reed rested a hand on the banister, taking in the image before him, committing as much as he could to memory before forging ahead.

  The brass downtown was right to be concerned.

  This was going to be a nightmare.

  Chapter Eight

  The area was what Sydney Rye liked to refer to as a target-rich environment, a phrase she had picked up from Top Gun years before, the short expression about the only positive thing she could recall from the film.

  Something about leading men that stood four inches shorter than she did just didn’t quite do it for her.

  Never before had she been to Columbus, but that didn’t mean the area she was in wasn’t immediately recognizable, the sort of place that every major city in the world had, whether the powers that be wanted to acknowledge it or not.

  Outfitted in the newly-rented SUV, Blue lying flat in the back seat, she made a point of rolling slowly through the streets just north of downtown, the windows down, drawing as much eye contact as she could from the people congregated on the corners.

  For most any other woman, what she was doing would be considered a mortal sin, putting a target on herself that could get her killed or raped or both.

  For her own purposes, the end goal was something much simpler.

  She was going shopping.

  For more than a half hour, she rolled through the streets, seeking out exactly what she was searching for, an even mixture of the right type of people and inadequate lighting. As she made her rounds, she became increasingly aware of the minutes sliding by on the dashboard clock, of the lack of response that was being made each time she attempted to make contact.

  With each try that went straight to voicemail, the feeling of dread rose within her, the tiny sliver of herself that still believed in hope clinging to the notion that the radio silence could mean any of a number of things.

  The phone had been damaged. The girl was on the run and couldn’t talk.

  It had been stolen, or confiscated, or even simply misplaced.

  Each time such a thought rose to the surface, it was beaten back into obscurity by the larger, more pragmatic side of her, the part that knew if there wasn’t an answer it likely meant there would never again be one.

  That the girl had been silenced.

  With that brought a whole new litany of questions, each as concerning, as speculative, as the one before, though for the time being Rye would have to be content to leave them to the side.

  It was time to focus, to get what she needed so that she was equipped to handle whatever lay ahead.

  Not until her fifth circle of the area did she spot what she was looking, her target seeming to have appeared from nowhere. Standing well beyond the twin cones of the sodium lights on the opposite side of the street, his silhouette was just visible as she made the corner, barely lifting her foot from the brake and letting the SUV idle forward.

  As she did so, she used the automatic controls on the door beside her to lower all of the windows at once, the move one that she and Blue had improvised years before, had near perfected on a similar run in Bucharest.

  Or perhaps Marrakesh.

  It was so damned hard to keep track after a while, many of the incidents blurring together.

  Feeling the cold night air flood into the car, Rye snapped her focus back to the scene at hand. Reaching out, she twisted down the lights on the dashboard in front of her, the interior of the car almost completely blacked out, her features hidden from view.

  Little by little she crept forward, careful not to be too urgent, to not spook the man as he slowly ambled forward out of the shadows, the two sides converging together along the side of the street, nary another breathing soul visible in either direction.

  “Hey, you lost, honey?” a man asked, employing the same tired approach as most every other person in his profession Rye had encountered over the years.

  Just barely visible in the cloaked shadows, he looked to be right at six feet in height, his head and face both covered with grizzled hair splashed with hints of gray.

  Wearing heavy canvas pants and a long duster hanging open, his true size and shape were anybody’s guess.

  “Naw,” Rye said, forcing herself to employ a singsong tone that she fully despised, “just, you know, looking to have a little fun.”

  “Oh,” the man said, his eyebrows rising as he took a half-step forward, “well, what you got in mind?”

  “I don’t know, what you got?” Rye said, dangling the bait out there, knowing the man would be unable to keep himself from snapping at it.

  A faint smile crossed his face, his lips peeling back to reveal stained teeth. Lifting open the left flap of his jacket, he reached inside with his opposite hand and said, “I think I got something here you’re going to like.”

  If the movement hadn’t been so obvious, the sequence as basic as something Rye might have tried years ago when she first entered this business, it just might have worked.

  In one quick flash, the man grabbed the butt of a gun, drawing it from deep in the folds of his coat. Shuffle stepping forward a few inches, he jabbed the barrel of it toward her, the smile gone, replaced with a snarl that pulled back both nostrils.

  Doing her best to play the part, to not let him know just how badly he’d messed up quite yet, Rye let her mouth drop open. A splash of fear came to her features as she froze, her eyes wide.

  “Now listen here, bitch,” the man said, coming a few inches closer as he again jabbed the gun her direction. “Here’s how this is going to go. You’re going to put the car in park, and you’re going to step outside.

  “If you try to drive away, I’m going to shoot you. If you scream, I’m going to shoot you. If you do anything else I don’t like, I’m going to do things to that pretty little body of yours, and then I’m going to shoot you.”

  With the last words, the man covered the final expanse of space between them, giving Rye the opening she’d been waiting for. Bringing her lips together, she pushed out one low whistle, a sound so shrill, so faint, that it was barely perceptible to the human ear.

  But exactly what
the coiled beast in the back had been waiting for.

  On cue, Blue sprang forward off the seat, a mighty bark rolling out from his diaphragm. Lunging his oversized head through the open window, his shoulders pressed into the sides of the frame, the movement rocking the SUV under his weight.

  Stunned by the sudden emergence, the unexpected explosion of movement and sound, the man’s eyes grew wide, his body standing rigid, transfixed by the display.

  Giving Rye exactly what she needed.

  Using her left hand, she jerked back on the handle to the SUV. Smashing her shoulder into the untethered frame, she sent the door hurtling at the man, his gun hand passing through the open window as the outside ledge smashed into his nose.

  With her right hand, she snagged the gun as his fingers loosened, the blow from the car crushing his nose into a bloody spray, a mash of skin and bone pulp stretched across his cheek.

  On contact, the man’s knees melted beneath him, a guttural moan sliding from his throat as he toppled backward, blood and viscous fluids rolling down over his lips and off his chin.

  For an instant, he was unable to react in any way, gravity and the force of the shot doing all the work for him, his eyes crossing.

  Not until seconds later did his nerve endings catch up with the intense signals they were being given to process, his fingers rising to his face, pressing down tight.

  Her heart rate still exactly the same as it was upon arrival, exactly the same as it was sitting on the plane hours before, Rye stepped from the car. Leaving the door open behind her, she stood over the man, watching as crimson streaks oozed between his fingers, striping the backside of his hand.

  “You want to know your first mistake?” she asked. “Stepping within range of the door.”

  Beneath her there was no response, the man writhing in pain, not so much as even glancing up at her.

  “Want to know your second one?” she asked.

  Drawing her foot back, she snapped it forward from the hip, letting the entire length of her leg become a whip, momentum propelling it forward, driving the pointed toe of her boot into his midsection.

  The force of it lifted the man from the ground, his hands pulling away from the bloody mash of his face in a vain attempt to break his fall as he was deposited back on the sidewalk in a tangled heap.

  “Calling me a bitch.”

  Chapter Nine

  By any available definition, Crime Scene Unit Chief Earl Bautista was a big man. Standing several inches above Reed Mattox’s 6’3”, he outweighed the younger detective by more than a hundred pounds, a fact accentuated by the bib overalls he wore at all times.

  Height of summer or coldest of winter, the only things that ever changed were his choice of undershirt and the thickness of his beard, the top of his head shaved clean.

  Given that it was currently March, he had opted for a t-shirt and a short array of stubble, making it clear he was already hopeful for summer to soon arrive.

  As was Reed, and most everybody that had endured enough cold weather for one year.

  Standing three steps down from the second-floor landing, Bautista’s width covered most of the staircase, forcing Reed to stand one stair lower, peering around the larger man.

  For more than three hours Reed and the criminalists had worked in concert on the scene, the time slipping on toward morning. Not once throughout had anybody noticed the hours moving by, intent on the macabre scene before them, doing their best to decipher whatever had taken place hours before.

  As best they could tell, things were still a bit of a jumble, a litany of theories strung together by nothing more than guessing and some prayer.

  “How you see it?” Earl asked, raising one thick paw to his chin and scratching at the grizzled fur beneath it.

  Raising his eyebrows, Reed tilted his head to the side. Since arriving, he had known the question was coming, just as he knew it was only the first of many times he would be asked it in the coming day.

  At least this time it was only Earl on the front end, somebody that would have no further self-interest in the answer than wanting to successfully do his job and move on.

  “Best I can tell,” Reed said, “looks like Cantwell was the target. Her apartment is on this floor, the door is open, her body is halfway inside.”

  To that Earl grunted in response, saying nothing, letting Reed get out his theory before adding anything.

  “Also,” Reed continued, “inside of the place has been tossed pretty good. A jewelry box in the bedroom has been ransacked, as has a small safe in the hall closet.”

  “Any idea what was inside?” Earl interjected.

  “No,” Reed said. “Her daughter was here earlier, too hysterical to be much good at the time. Gilchrist managed to get her calmed down and over to the station, so I’ll have a talk with her once we’re done, see if she has any ideas.”

  Again, Earl nodded, his thick head bobbing slightly. “Being who she is, might not have even been the point.”

  Feeling his brows slide up his forehead, Reed nodded, the same thought having been bouncing around his head since Greene first gave him the name hours before.

  After such an overtly hostile removal from office, and the amount of vitriolic lashing she had given to the area and its residents, building a list of people that felt personally wronged by her would be lengthy and exhausting, to say the least.

  “Right,” Reed said, “not to mention, whatever they were after might even still be inside.”

  Extending a hand before him, he jabbed a finger to the opposite corner, to the spot where the second victim had been removed just prior.

  “Best I can tell, they were interrupted by the arrival of that poor girl, forced to blast her as well before making a getaway.”

  Without the girl’s body, there was nothing more than the long stripes of pink and red running along the corner walls, congealed dots of blood spattering the door beside it.

  On the ground was a small circle showing the bare floor where her bottom had been, a sticky mat of blood covering most of the remaining space.

  “You get an ID?” Earl asked, his voice the same graveled tone it always was. Whether that was a result of the man’s proclivity for unfiltered cigarettes or just his demeanor in general, Reed wasn’t sure.

  Just knew that every encounter he’d had with the man had gone in much the same way.

  “Library card and driver’s license were found in a purse upstairs,” Reed said. “Along with a school ID for St. Anne’s.”

  “Student?” Earl asked, a hint of surprise finding its way in.

  “Teacher,” Reed corrected. “Sister Alice Hartong.”

  “Hmm,” Earl side, the top of his head rising just slightly in understanding. “Explains the outfit.”

  “Yep,” Reed agreed, falling silent as a pair of men in white paper overalls continued to move about the space before them.

  For several moments, there were no words between them, only the occasional sound of tools being used, the shuffle of booty-covered feet moving over the floors.

  “You?” Reed eventually asked.

  “Not a ton so far,” Earl replied. “Looks like the murder weapon was a shotgun, standard buckshot as the round of choice.”

  “Excessive,” Reed inserted.

  “Extremely,” Earl said, “which leads me to believe the man was either an amateur or trying to make a point.”

  Having spent most of the night working the area, Reed didn’t have much faith in the former, no matter how much he wanted to.

  Had a feeling Earl didn’t either.

  “So he was looking to make an example of the woman that had so openly derided this place?” Reed asked. “Let her know just how bad things could get?”

  “Maybe,” Earl said. “Possibly, even.”

  “But definitely not an amateur,” Reed said, more of a statement than a question.

  Shifting his weight to the side, Earl crossed his arms over his torso, letting his forearms rest atop his midsection.r />
  “You know I never like to commit definitely to anything, especially this early, but I will say this. The entire landing is covered in blood, and thus far we haven’t found a single footprint and all the windows inside Cantwell’s apartment were locked.”

  To that, he added nothing more.

  He didn’t need to.

  Chapter Ten

  There was no need for Clarence Koob to use the ridiculous knock that his employer required every time they met, this being a work visit that didn’t include the old man or his eccentricities. Twisting the knob in his hand, he pushed the door open a few inches, letting it swing into the room, without taking a step forward.

  Twelve feet away, the man he was coming to see sat with his head cocked back over his shoulder, his features drawn tight, before recognition set in and his body visibly relaxed.

  With it came the removal of the small metal circle beneath his armpit, his weapon trained to fire should anybody but Koob be standing at the door.

  Arron Hirsch was the first person Koob had thought of when Gerard said he was putting together a field expedition. Going back more than ten years, the two had cut their teeth together in British Special Forces before parting ways, each turning to the private sector.

  Having no illusions of being anything more than mercenaries for hire, they had spent years chasing top dollar, using their mutual lack of anything resembling a conscious to engage in tasks that most others avoided.

  A direct result of so much time in Her Majesty’s employee, for sure.

  By the time Gerard entered the scene, looking for the best and willing to pay whatever it took to acquire them, their names had floated to the top of most every discussion on the topic.

  For years, Koob had kept tabs on his old comrade, though any interest he held had nothing to do with friendship or even professional competition. Driven purely by survival instinct, it had been in an effort to always be aware of where the man was at all times, a sign of respect to his tremendous skill.

  A tactic that Hirsch had later admitted to as well.

  And they both very much still adhered by, even as they worked under the same regime.