Out of Promises (23 page)
Authors: Simon Leigh
The snow fell harder, reducing visibility to almost impossible. Car headlights failed to penetrate the white wall and horns blared out from nowhere and everywhere. Wheels slid on the road losing their grip while other people walked an unsteady shuffle on the sidewalk, anxious not to fall victim to the snow’s will.
Valerie’s car though, was not slowing down. Bill drove dangerously to get to Lucy as fast as he could, weaving in and out of the traffic, occasionally losing control for a split second with his experience paying off.
The windshield wipers struggled to clear the screen from the pressure of snow and speed and Valerie wondered if he even realized it was snowing. Or dark.
‘Bill, you’re scaring me,’ she said, bracing herself on the plastic dash. ‘Will you slow down!’
They passed a lone car that had smashed into a street light.
‘I’ll try.’
‘What’s the rush?’
Southbrook passed by quickly, light after light blurred as they sped past another accident and she knew they’d soon share the same fate.
‘Answer me, Bill.’
He didn’t answer her and remained fixated on the road.
‘Bill?’
‘What?’ he snapped.
What the hell is wrong with you?
This wasn’t reassuring her she could trust him. If anything, she grew more suspicious. He seemed to change back and forth between moods and she couldn’t understand it. Then something occurred to her, something she hadn’t thought of before. ‘How do you know where Lucy lives?’
Busy dodging traffic, he didn’t answer at first, fighting the wheel to gain control.
Eventually, along a straight road, he replied: ‘Freddie told me. Look, we can’t waste any time, that’s why I’m driving fast.’
‘You’ll draw attention to us. Slow the fuck down. There’s no point risking our lives just to ask her some questions.’
‘We’ll start with Lucy. Then maybe Matherson can tell us something if we go to his office afterwards.’
‘What? We can’t go there.’
‘Sure we can.’
‘Jackson is still there. No, we can’t.’
‘Right, right.’
Lucy’s apartment block was coming up fast.
The wheels of the sedan screeched at the side of the road as Bill stomped on the brakes.
The parking lot was almost full and the building looked silent with few lights on.
‘Come on then,’ she said, unbuckling her seatbelt. ‘Let’s go talk to her.’
He said nothing.
She hit him on the shoulder to try and wake him up. He wasn’t paying attention, which puzzled her even more.
The apartment block doors burst open.
Valerie said, ‘Bill! Look.’
He looked through the snow over the road at the entrance to see Lucy being dragged from the building by a large man. She was in her pyjamas having gotten ready for a comfortable night in front of the TV, but she now was struggling to fight free from the man’s grip, her feet slipping on the snowy ground as he pulled her towards a van waiting in the lot.
‘What is wrong with you?’ Valerie asked. ‘We have to help her.’
‘Oh, nothing.’
Lucy’s loud screaming and crying worked with more lights coming on in the windows.
‘Bill!’ she shouted and hit him again, this time harder. ‘We have to help.’ She opened the door and got out. ‘Fuck this. And fuck you.’
Bill watched her run through the snow towards the van, soon realizing the severity of the situation. He opened his door and screamed, ‘Valerie, come back.’
A gust of wind blew against her, picking up pace and sending the snow down in a diagonal line. She didn’t hear him shout.
The van’s lights came on and the engine started.
Bill crossed the road to meet her, watching from behind a parked car. ‘What are you doing? Get back in the car, we can follow them.’
‘She’s being kidnapped, we have to help her. Why did you drive so fast to get here and then do nothing when something happens? What’s wrong with you?’
Lucy was an innocent in this whole thing and Valerie felt she needed to help her for Freddie’s sake. Leaving Bill, she ran to the van.
The side door slid open and Lucy was pushed inside before the door was closed. Three seconds and she was gone.
Valerie wasn’t far behind now and could hear Lucy banging on the inside.
At the rear, she yanked the door open.
Lucy backed off in fear, cowering in the corner and shivering. Valerie put her finger to her lips and Lucy understood, albeit confused.
Reaching out a hand for her, Valerie didn’t hear the footsteps, and before she knew it, her world was turned to darkness.
‘Sir, we’ve got Lucy. Valerie too.’
Bill watched in horror, guilt flooding his mind.
What have I done?
He got to his feet and ran across the wet snow towards the car as the van pulled away from the curb, leaving at speed and disappearing out of sight through the blizzard.
Bill hopped in his car and sped after.
The van’s lights were a blur just a hundred yards ahead. He put his foot down, shortening the gap between them knowing full well that if the van got to its destination, it was all over.
For fuck’s sake, Val.
The van driver was unaware of his presence as he gained ground, patiently waiting until they came to a straight up ahead.
Half a mile later, he took his chance.
Turning off his lights, he pulled up alongside. The driver still didn’t notice him, which made the next part a hell of a lot easier.
No matter the danger, it had to be done.
With a sharp turn of the wheel, he rammed into the left side of the van sending it into a fishtail. Paint scraped and sparks flew as metal on metal collided, the car’s passenger side window shattering. The van driver tried wildly to get back in line. Bill pulled away and readied himself to ram it again when his wet shoe slipped from the pedal and he lost his footing on the accelerator. Keeping the wheel turned, he tried to catch the van’s back end – a manoeuvre the police used a lot in car chases: The P.I.T. manoeuvre. But it failed. The van just swerved and sped up.
Bill soon realized the damage to the car was greater than the damage to the van. He had to back down. Something else had to be done.
My weapon.
He reached for his gun from its pocket holster – his small Smith and Wesson revolver – and moved up to the front again, aiming at the driver’s height. A car blasted its horn and veered off to the left, missing him by inches. The van driver saw him and rammed into him making him swerve before regaining control. Bill tried the gun again, this time pulling the trigger. The bullet smashed through the window and into the driver’s shoulder. Success. Again, he rammed the van, this time mounting the sidewalk setting it on course for a street light, which smashed through the centre of the hood and into the engine bay.
Bill got out of the car and walked to the driver’s door. Slouched over the wheel, though still awake, the driver’s face was a bloody mess; the airbags hadn’t deployed. Before he could even lift his head, Bill shot him without a second thought, shortly after, shooting the passenger.
Lucy was screaming in the back; Valerie wasn’t. He tried sliding the side door, too bent and obscure to open freely.
Shit.
Walking to the rear door, he grabbed the handle and was pushed back on to the cold ground. Valerie jumped out with Lucy.
‘Bill?’ she asked. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
He caught his breath and said, ‘Saving your ass. You’re welcome. Are you all right?
‘What the fuck happened?’
‘I stopped the van after you took off, that’s what the fuck happened. And again, you’re welcome.’
Lucy didn’t move, standing and freezing in her pyjamas.
Bill covered her with his trench coat.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
‘Come on, we’ll explain everything.’
She backed off.
‘It’s OK, Lucy,’ said Valerie. ‘You can trust him.’
Bill smiled. ‘Where’s Chloe?’
‘Erm, she’s, erm. At my parents.’
Valerie nodded. ‘Good.’
‘Come on, we better get out of here before the cops arrive.’
Matherson was lost, pacing up and down in his office. Deep in his heart he felt the end coming, his business changing and his own little empire crumbling before him. Cook watched and waited patiently. He didn’t mind. After all, he had nowhere else to go. No jobs, no orders, nothing. Right now he was all Matherson had.
‘Why hasn’t Sharpe checked in?’ asked Matherson. ‘Why?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Try him again.’
Cook rolled his eyes and dialled Sharpe’s number, again.
Matherson looked on, hopeful. ‘If he doesn’t answer I don’t know what I’ll do.’
The phone went straight to voicemail. ‘Nothing, Mr Matherson.’
He banged his fist on his desk. ‘Dammit! I need him for this shipment coming in. We can’t afford to lose another one.’
‘What would you like me to do?’
‘We need to leave this office and go somewhere safe,’ he said, still pacing. ‘If something has happened to Sharpe then it’s logical to think somebody may come here.’
‘Where shall we hide?’
Matherson stopped pacing. ‘Hide? Fucking hide? We’re not hiding, Cook. We’re regrouping. I’m not a coward so don’t ever suggest that I am.’
‘Of course, Mr Matherson.’
‘We’ll go to The Golden Palace.’
‘I’ll bring the car around.’
‘See that you do.’
They walked to the exit together.
‘Cook?’ said Matherson. ‘Don’t let me down, remember what happened to Freddie.’
With a final glance back, they made their way to the elevator, head held high.
It was almost midnight when Baker walked through the revolving doors into a hive of noise at the precinct. Prostitutes. Drug dealers. Violent partygoers. All being questioned by officers before being thrown into a cell for the night. There was even a hobo being restrained in the reception after deliberately causing trouble, simply as a reason to be put in a warm cell.
In the offices, McGowan moved from his desk to greet him. ‘Bet you wish you’d stayed with Fraser, huh?’ he asked with a smile.
‘Kinda. What else did you get from him?’
‘Not much. Just that this Preston guy called Bill while he was at Fraser’s shop and sent them to Ada’s. He doesn’t know anything else.’
Baker took a seat on the corner of McGowan’s desk. ‘Seems it was Bill and Valerie who shot her.’
‘Yeah, they have some explaining to do.’
Baker asked, ‘You still think they did it?’
‘Sure do. What makes you think otherwise? They stole evidence, they were sent to Ada’s house to kill her perhaps, they knew Freddie, or Valerie did anyway. Oh, and a body was found dead in Bill’s office.’
‘Yeah, but something doesn’t add up.’
‘You keep saying that. Tell you what, while you think what it is, I’m getting a coffee,’ he said, standing up. ‘You want some?’
Baker nodded. ‘Sure.’
McGowan left leaving him wondering what it was that was eating at him.
Baker sat with his eyes closed going through everything from Wong to Northbrook to Ada Trent. Then something clicked.
He went to find McGowan in the kitchen, who was alone watching the coffee bubble away in the maker.
‘The bullet found at the church that killed Freddie came from the same weapon that killed Wong six years ago.’
‘So?’
‘So Bill was a cop back then, right? You said yourself he was a good man. Could he really be the same murderer?’
‘Everyone has demons, you know that. But it doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. They’ve left a string of bodies in their wake. They did this, I’m telling you.’
‘We can find out if he was on shift that night, if he was then he wouldn’t have been at Amber Heights, right?’
It was now after midnight and the night had seamlessly drifted into Thursday. They’d left the accident in a hurry when sirens we heard in the distance, ditching the car a few blocks away and walking through the freezing cold to Lucy’s apartment.
‘The police came to see me,’ Lucy explained. ‘I had to identify Freddie’s body.’ She was trembling, not from the cold, but from the adrenaline pumping through her, spilling water from the cup between her hands. ‘Please tell me what’s going on.’
Bill kept quiet, hypnotically watching the walls.
Valerie looked at him. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘Thank you for saving me,’ said Lucy.
Bill stayed in his daze.
The snow and wind picked up, howling a high pitched wail making Valerie think of her childhood again. She watched through the window at snow swirling like a shoal of fish, picturing a lonely child, freezing and hanging on for life, just as she had. The similarities between then and now were easy for her to see; the loneliness, the feeling of a world against her, being forced into doing something she didn’t want. In some ways she felt she was better off back then. At least nobody noticed her. Sure, it was hard, but being alone and feeling isolated beat being chased from all sides, right? She thought so. Turning away from the window, she asked Lucy: ‘Do you know who it was that tried taking you?’
‘No. He came up behind me while I was in the kitchen. I remember it clearly, the hand around my mouth, his arm restraining me before pulling me from my apartment. He obviously knew what he was doing as I didn’t hear a thing. I’m just happy Chloe is with my parents.’
‘This place isn’t safe anymore,’ Valerie said before asking Bill, ‘You know anywhere she can stay for the night?’
No response from him.
God damn it.
‘Bill!’ she yelled.
‘She can hide out at my apartment until morning. Can you go anywhere after that?’
‘Yes,’ she said, taking a sip of water. ‘My parents with Chloe.’
‘OK then,’ he said before continuing with his daze.
Valerie asked, ‘You’re sure he didn’t say where he was taking you?’
‘I’m positive.’
For the next few minutes, the three of them sat in an uncomfortable silence, none of them wanting to talk about the elephant in the room.
Then Lucy finally said it: ‘They say you two killed Freddie. I saw the news. Why didn’t you tell me when you came to me?’
‘I was Freddie’s friend. He didn’t mention me very often I know, if ever at all. We were close, just friends though. I found him in the church the night he was murdered. I was sent to kill him, but I didn’t, you must believe me. I wanted to warn him.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘I didn’t tell you this morning because I didn’t know how to. I had other problems to consider too. Things I can’t tell you. But I promise you, Lucy, I will find out who murdered him. And as for being a suspect, I have no idea how the cops know anything about me. Or Bill. I’m sorry.’
Lucy’s gaze dropped. ‘I told the cops about you. You really freaked me out this morning and a Detective Baker came to see me. He’s the one who told me about Freddie. I’m sorry.’
Valerie understood where she was coming from, seeing it as her own fault that her name was all over the news. She asked Bill, ‘Did you know a Detective Baker?’
He shook his head.
Lucy said, ‘We should go to the police, tell them you’re innocent. Detective Baker can help.’
‘No! Absolutely not,’ Bill snapped.
‘Why not?’
‘I used to be a cop. They’ll throw us in a cell and do their own thing. We’re better off trying to find out on our own.’
Valerie said, ‘Anybody could be watching this place. We need to leave. Lucy, get some things together.’
She agreed and walked into the bedroom.
Without averting his gaze from the wall, Bill said to Valerie, ‘I’m sorry I got you into this mess.’
‘What? I got you into this mess. I came to you.’
He stood up, walked over to her and kissed her.
She tried to pull free, then embraced it. Her feelings for him were strong – magnified now by the touch of his lips on hers. It had been a long time since she had been with a man and she wanted him. Even though he was sometimes strange and disconnected, she liked it and he’d been her knight in shining armour more than once today.
Lucy was watching them. ‘Is this really the time?’
They pulled free of each other.
Bill walked over to help Lucy with her bags and Valerie walked into the hallway.
At his office window deep in thought, Preston was watching the snow falling through the dark. Although there wasn’t much to see, watching the snow was a calming sight, each flake swirling before ending its existence on the window.
Cyrus walked in behind him, closed the door, and out of fear and respect, he waited.
Preston watched his faithful servant through the reflected glass, standing patiently with his hands in front of him, proud of the man he’d crafted into his loyal number two.
Preston said, ‘Something troubling has come to my attention.’
‘What is it, sir?’
He slammed his fist on the desk. ‘Valerie was at Lucy’s apartment. They had her, they fucking had them both.’
Valerie was on her way here?
‘Not sure I follow, sir.’
‘Valerie should have been on her way here, instead she was at Lucy’s, with Bill no doubt. And just to help things along, the van crashes and they escape. What the fuck happened? Coincidence? I doubt it.’
Cyrus stood to attention, quiet.
Preston said, ‘Travis called. Matherson has taken the cowardly route and run away. Get some men together, we know where he is.’
‘I’ll make the necessary preparations.’
Preston grinned.