Blood Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (35 page)

We had just blown beneath the first overhead girder
of the eastbound bridge when Ben’s cell phone began to ring. My
heart jumped into my throat as he swerved around yet another
oblivious driver, while at the same time fumbling for the warbling
device. After barking an angry slur at the vehicular obstacle, he
flipped open the cell and pressed it against his ear.

“Storm… Yeah… Yeah…
Dammit!
Any sign of ‘er
yet? Jeezus… No, nothin’ here… Yeah, but she had a good ten minutes
on us, so she could show up at any minute. Better keep an eye out…
Yeah… Good deal… What? Yeah, we’re just crossin’ the river now. If
the idiots’ll stay the fuck outta my way, we should be there in
ten, fifteen tops. Yeah… See ya’.”

Folding the phone shut with a flick of his thumb, he
shoved it back into his pocket then grabbed the steering wheel. I
felt better now that he was guiding the van with both hands instead
of just one—but, only slightly better.

“Hubcap chasers didn’t find Beebee,” he said,
casting a quick glance at me before returning his attention to the
road.

“I pretty much gathered that from your reaction,” I
replied, breaking my self-imposed reticence with more than a little
internal trepidation.

He huffed out a heavy breath. “Shit… Guess I can’t
really blame ‘er. I’d prob’ly do the same if it was my kid. Know
what I mean?”

“Knowing you, probably,” I agreed. Obviously he
expected an answer, so I had little choice but to talk. Since we
were still traveling in a straight line, I went ahead and asked,
“By the way, did you know about that little secret?”

“Hell no.” He gave his head a slight shake to
punctuate the response even more. “I was told she was a niece. But,
lemme tell ya’, I’m bettin’ somebody up on high knew about it.”

“It kind of explains something I was wondering
about,” I offered. “I wasn’t quite sure how she reconciled her
particular set of strict values with a niece who was involved in
the whole vampire scene—and apparently bisexual at the very least.
That didn’t really seem to fit with her holier-than-thou
attitude.”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Extended family is one thing.
But your own kid is somethin’ completely different. Ya’ love ‘em no
matter how much you think they’re fuckin’ up.”

“Yeah…” I replied. “I suppose that might explain why
she claimed she was her niece, too. Some part of her still had to
spare herself the perceived embarrassment.”

After a brief pause Ben shot another quick glance my
way and asked, “So, you two doin’ okay? Both of ya’ been pretty
quiet.”

“As well as can be expected.”

“What about you, Firehair?”

“The same,” she replied, her voice pitched slightly
higher than usual.

“You havin’ a
Twilight Zone
moment or
somethin’?”

“No. Just a fear of low altitude flight.”

“Of what? Oh… you mean… Jeez, c’mon, my drivin’
ain’t that bad. I don’t hear Firehair complainin’.” On the heels of
the comment, he jerked the van to the right then quickly back to
the left while growling, “Fuckin’ assholes.”

Felicity yelped in time with the maneuver then a few
seconds later sighed and said, “Yes, Ben, it is that bad.”

He shot a look over his shoulder. “Yeah, well,
that’s just how it is sometimes.”

“Please keep your eyes on the road then,” she
appealed. “I’m not ready to die just yet.”

“Gimme a break.”

“Just keep your eyes on the road, please?” she
appealed.

“Relax. I know what I’m doin’.”

I heard my wife quietly mutter, “Gods, I hope
so.”

“So anyway,” Ben reverted back to his original train
of thought without ceremony. “No Albright yet, but you can bet
that’s where she’s headed. As far as the house itself goes, the
Overmoor coppers are pretty sure they saw a light go on then back
off through one of the basement windows.”

“That’s where the killer was in the vision,” I
acknowledged. “The basement.”

Ben snorted. “So, were ya’ plannin’ ta’ tell anyone
about that part?”

“Sorry. But, I had enough trouble convincing you
about the address as it was, don’t you think?”

“So you’re blamin’ me?”

“The situation, mostly. But, yeah, maybe just a
little.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he replied in a dismissive tone.
“So you pick up on anything else we should know?”

“The vision was a bit disjointed, and some of the
imagery was classic la-la land, as you call it. But, if I’m
remembering correctly, just beyond the front door is what appeared
to be a living room…”

He interrupted. “You got a floor plan?”

“Some,” I answered. “Not all.”

“Hold on,” he snapped.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his cell and
flipped it open once again. With a quick stab he hit redial and
then speaker. The phone beeped then trilled briefly. On the second
ring it was answered.

“Sergeant Madden,” a woman’s voice said.

“Sergeant Madden, it’s Detective Storm, you got
anyone from SWAT handy?”

“Yeah, just a second…”

There was a brief pause, and we could hear a mix of
voices, then someone else came on the line.

“This is Lieutenant Penczak.”

“Lieutenant, Detective Storm, Major Case. I think I
might have a partial floor plan on the house for ya’.”

“I’ll take it,” the man replied.

“I’m handin’ ya’ over ta’ Rowan Gant,” Ben told him
then thrust the phone at me.

I took it from him quickly out of an attack of
self-preservation since he was already paying more attention to it
than the road. As I grabbed the phone I stabbed my finger toward
the windshield and shook it. My friend just rolled his eyes but
returned his focus on the blurred white lines in front of us.

“Lieutenant,” I started. “The front door opens into
what appears to have been a moderate-sized living room. Maybe
fifteen feet wide by fifteen deep, best guess. There’s trash
everywhere, but I don’t recall any major obstacles. On the back
wall, there’s an arched doorway that leads directly into a hallway
running parallel to the room. If you go to the right, it T’s with
another corridor coming in on the left. Down that corridor, there
is a charred door that leads to the basement. It’s on the right,
about mid way.”

“What about the back?” Penczak asked.

“Sorry, I’m afraid that’s all I have.”

“That’s all right. It’s more than we had a minute
ago,” he replied. “So how do you know all this? Have you been in
the house?”

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean, sort of?”

Ben reached over and snatched the cell phone from my
hand. “Trust me, Lieutenant, you don’t want ‘im to explain it. Are
you ready to go?”

“We’ve got spotters on the house. There hasn’t been
any activity for almost fifteen minutes now, so we’re setting up to
move into position soon.”

“Good deal,” Ben grunted. “We’ll be there in
five.”

“We’ll hold the party until you get here.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he replied with a definite note of
sarcasm. “Captain Albright show up yet?”

“Not that…” The lieutenant’s reply was cut short by
a burst of static and a voice in the background. When he spoke
again he simply said, “Hold on…”

There was a clatter as if the cell phone was
dropped, or at least tossed onto a hard surface. Over the tinny
speaker, we could hear the muffled sounds of physical activity
along with several unintelligible words being barked. Even though
we couldn’t make them out, the brevity and tone told us they were
probably a series of commands.

“What’s happening?” I asked Ben.

“Dunno, but it doesn’t sound good.”

We exited the highway and shot through an
intersection, slowing only enough to avoid a collision and make a
quick right. A languid forever later, a voice came back on the
line.

“Storm, you still there?”

“Yeah, Madden, what’s goin’ on there?”

“It’s gone to hell in a hand basket,” she replied.
“A spotter just put eyes on a woman entering the back of the house.
He’s pretty sure it was Captain Albright. SWAT is already
moving.”

“Goddammit…” Ben moaned. “Don’t you have a friggin’
perimeter set up?”

“Of course we do,” she replied harshly. “We have no
idea how she breached it.”

“What a fuckin’ mess,” my friend huffed.

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“We’re about three minutes out,” Ben told her. “Do
what ya’ gotta do.”

He snapped the phone shut then tossed it onto the
console as he slowed at another intersection then quickly
accelerated the van while threading it through the cars that were
still coming to a halt.

Three minutes became five when Ben missed a left
turn from his hastily scribbled directions, and we were forced to
double back up to the main thoroughfare from a narrow dead-end
street. A quick flash of his badge saw us through the vehicular
barricade at the end of South Millston, and thirty seconds later we
had coasted down the block-long hill to a cluster of emergency
vehicles scattered haphazardly around the T intersection at the
bottom.

Splashes of luminance played across the fronts of
the houses from active lightbars, casting an angry harshness across
the entire scene. However, the strobing lights seemed to be the
only things garish about the tableau. Everything—and everyone—else
appeared to be almost somber.

Ben levered the van into park then switched off the
engine as he watched the uniformed officers milling about in the
street. On the sidewalk we could see a few members of the SWAT team
who appeared to be casually chatting, their weapons pointed toward
the ground in a somewhat relaxed posture.

“Yeah…” my friend breathed. “It’s all over but the
paperwork.”

I scanned the area as I unlatched my seatbelt and
allowed it to slowly recoil through my fingers. The metal buckle
eventually struck the upper stop with a dull thunk as if to
highlight his comment. After several seconds and multiple sweeps
with my eyes, I said, “I don’t see Albright anywhere.”

“Yeah…me neither,” Ben muttered with a slight nod.
“And that ain’t good. Let’s just hope she’s either bein’ a nuisance
or warmin’ a seat in the back of a patrol car.”

We climbed out of the vehicle and into the cold
night air. There was a palpable chill that transcended the
physical, for me at least. I glanced over at Felicity as she slid
the door shut on the side of the van, and from the way she shivered
then cast her eyes around, I could tell that she was feeling it
too.

“Detective Storm?” a questioning female voice called
out from several yards away.

I heard my friend respond, “Yeah. You Sergeant
Madden?”

By the time Felicity and I came around the front of
the vehicle to join him, Ben was facing a sprightly, uniformed
woman with a shoulder length shag of medium brown hair. She was
resting one forearm casually atop her high-riding sidearm with the
thumb of her other hand hooked into her belt. Being of average
stature like the majority of the people on this planet, she was
forced to look up at the tall Native American cop in front of
her.

They had dropped their voices back down to a normal
level, so the ambient noise of radios and other officers kept us
from making out their conversation until we drew close. We probably
hadn’t missed much, but when we were only a few steps away, the
first intelligible thing we heard was the tail end of a sentence
from Madden. “…still inside. I’ll warn you, it’s not pretty.”

“It never is,” Ben sighed.

“These two with you?” Madden asked, leveling a
stone-faced gaze on us as we stopped near Ben.

He nodded. “Yeah. They’re consultants for Major
Case.” He wagged his index finger between us. “Rowan Gant, Felicity
O’Brien. This is Sergeant Madden, Overmoor Police.”

“Sergeant,” I said, reaching out and briefly shaking
her hand. Felicity did the same.

Madden lowered her forearm back to its waist level
prop then jerked her head toward the house. “I’m not sure what kind
of consultants you are, but I was just telling Detective Storm it’s
definitely not for the squeamish in there.”

“Unfortunately we’ve seen our share,” I replied.

“Sorry to hear that.”

“So, how many?” Ben asked.

“Two that they’ve found, and that’s counting the one
Captain Albright shot,” she replied, focusing back on him. “Both of
them are in the basement. The upstairs is pretty much empty, but
they’re going through it again just to be sure.”

“Was it a clean shoot?”

She shook her head. “I’m not the one to ask. It was
already going down when SWAT made entry. We heard two shots coming
from the interior. Sergeant Gordon was first in, and from what I
understand, he saw what was probably a muzzle flash light up the
stairwell. But he was still in the hallway and hadn’t made it to
the basement door yet.”

“Same weapon?”

She shrugged. “One of the vics has two holes in him,
center mass. Two shots, two holes, so that’s how it looks.”

“He have a weapon on ‘im?”

“That’s being determined,” she offered carefully,
glancing at us then back to him. “We’ll know more as soon as they
talk to Captain Albright.”

“Yeah,” my friend muttered in response to the veiled
comment. “I got ya’… So how is Albright doin’ anyway?”

Madden shook her head. “I’m not really sure.
Physically she looks fine, but she hasn’t said much. Just
surrendered her weapon, flashed her badge, and then sat down in a
corner. They’re working on bringing her out right now.”

“Yeah, well I’m sure ya’know one of the vics is
prob’ly one of ‘er relatives. Her…” He gave a barely perceptible
pause as he caught himself and then quickly finished the sentence
with, “Niece.”

“Would that be Judith?”