Out of Promises (32 page)
Authors: Simon Leigh
Baker looked at his watch: 16:00. The light was fading. He was standing with McGowan in the chill outside Hellman’s Business Centre. The area had been cordoned off with tape and all that remained were the two of them, some uniformed officers guarding the entrance, and the remnants of the employees from the other businesses being questioned. Matherson’s office had been left an empty shell with almost everything removed and packed away to the station.
McGowan said, ‘We need to find the missing ledger pages.’
‘For all we know one of the officers who searched his office has it. Who knows who’s bent and who’s not.’
‘Can’t exactly search everybody.’
‘I guess we’ll have to wait for lab results on what we did find,’ said Baker, just as his cell rang. He answered it and wandered off away from McGowan like he was some outcast that didn’t belong.
McGowan knew it was the undercover, but he also knew Baker had him locked away in his head. He just needed to find the combination. He watched him anxiously chatting away getting excited over something and he felt envious, almost jealous, though he understood it. He also understood that his years of loyalty had left him an outsider and with him coming from the times when everybody was crooked, he was regarded as damaged goods, with nobody doing anything to prove otherwise.
Baker came back. ‘We have a lead.’
‘Yeah? Your undercover guy was it?’
‘Give it a rest.’
‘Come on, I know you have one. We’re together on this so why are you leaving me out?’
‘Safer that way.’
McGowan didn’t respond. Was it safer or just misguided paranoia?
‘We need to hurry, Matherson’s been taken from The Golden Palace restaurant and I have details of a major deal going down tonight in the heart of the city at The Truman Building.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Not bullshit.’
‘You sure it’s reliable? Seems a bit farfetched, somewhere so exposed like that.’
‘My source has never let me down before. It’s as reliable as it’s ever going to be. It also proves Matherson wasn’t here and Bill and his friend were alone.’
‘So they were alone,’ he said, dismissively. ‘Doesn’t mean shit. They’re working for him.’
‘Come on, we need to get back to the station. Send someone to speak to the owner of the restaurant.’
McGowan opened the car door. ‘You have to admit, the Truman Building is a bit public isn’t it?’
‘Will you stop questioning it? The intel is sound.’
‘I just don’t want you to have egg on your face if you’re hanging too many hopes on this guy.’
Bakersfield, a quiet suburb of Southbrook renowned for its expensive housing and high class population. It was basically the place to come when you retire, to live the high life before death inevitably takes hold. It was the kind of place Valerie wouldn’t feel at home with, no matter which part of her life brought her here.
For safety, she left the cab three streets away and walked to Lucy’s parents’ house.
With darkness quickly encroaching on that late winter afternoon, her weary legs struggled to get into any kind of rhythm while the snowflakes she’d been expecting fluttered gently to the ground.
Right now the neighbourhood was peaceful, but soon enough the rush hour would filter its way here and turn into another jam of cars bottlenecking their way along the quiet streets to avoid the tailbacks on the main drags.
Each house she passed had a good amount of land bordered by hedges and fences and each house had a short driveway. Some had gardens, some had stones and cement, some were paved, but they all had one thing in common: the stars and stripes gently flapping in the wind.
Patriotic.
She spotted the house that Freddie had explained in great detail through one of his many conversations about the love of his life. It had two levels, was made of brick and still looked solid and new, even now, forty years since it was built during a city restoration and expansion project.
All the lights were off.
She held back, scanning around, casting her gaze at every nook, window, and car she could see. Few lucky people who’d made it home before the rush were unloading their cars and kids ran around throwing snowballs without a care. Nothing of concern was happening so she moved up the driveway and around to the right where she was met by a seven foot high gate built with such precision that there were no gaps to look through and she couldn’t see over it. So she scaled it, up and over to the back of the property where she found something unexpected.
Bill didn’t know whether to run or not. What had he done? Fucked it all up is what he’d done and he just hoped that wherever Valerie was, she was safe. If he chose to run then he knew two things would happen: he’d be found and his sister would be dead. And then he’d be joining her.
He drifted solemnly through the door to meet Preston in the living room with Cyrus beside him, standing to attention, ready to serve his master.
‘Preston...’ Bill began.
‘Where’s Valerie?’
‘She’s gone. I couldn’t find her.’
‘She’s gone has she? And you didn’t see her at all?’
He was uncomfortable for sure, feeling the onset of sweat wetting his forehead.
‘I think you’re lying. You have a nice bruise forming on your cheekbone.’
Bill said, ‘Why didn’t you send your lackey out after her?’
Cyrus stepped forward, but Preston held him back.
Bill grinned and felt a sense of satisfaction seeing the animal tamed. ‘Does he sit too?’
‘Bill, I sent you
out after her, not Cyrus. You know he can’t run with his leg as it is. You know, when you should have helped him in Freddie’s garage.’
This time Cyrus smiled.
‘Whatever, she’s gone.’
‘Because of you. Got a thing for the girls haven’t you? First that bitch informant, then Lucy and Chloe, now Valerie.’
‘Lucy and Chloe?’
‘That’s right. They’re here in the basement with Lenka and, after some forceful negotiating, Lucy told me how you helped her. How you smashed the van from the road.’
‘What did you do to her?’
‘Go and see for yourself.’ He clicked his fingers.
Cyrus rushed towards him, walking straight into his fist.
‘Don’t come near me,’ Bill said, hitting him again.
The blow hurt him, but Cyrus came at him again, tackling him to the ground.
Bill fought and wriggled to get free when Cyrus head butted him, busting his nose.
Preston clapped in his wheelchair. ‘Take him to the others.’
Cyrus dragged him out of the room and along the hall to the open basement door. From Cyrus’s grip, Bill looked down into the depths of the home, looking into darkness.
Cyrus pushed him passed the stair lift, through the door at the bottom, and into the basement where they found Lucy sitting against the wall with a bruised face, black eye and cut lip. She was holding Chloe, who was unharmed. Matherson was tied to a chair beneath the light bulb and Lenka was standing, watching. She stared at them with the stern, Russian smoulder that was so common to that part of the world, speaking good English with a thick Russian accent that would usually make Bill grin, but not this time. ‘Finally,’ she said and started laughing. ‘Matherson has been trying to persuade me to come back to him.’
Cyrus laughed with her and they left them alone, locking the door.
What Valerie found behind Lucy’s parents’ home was the body of a dog, taken out silently by a knife. Beside it, some dry bloody footprints lead into the house. She also found blood on the door handle. Her stomach sank.
Shit.
Through the window she could see a large kitchen with a dining table in the centre. Work surfaces and appliances filled the edges, broken by an archway in the centre of the far wall filtering into the main living area.
Pulling her jacket over her hand, she pushed the handle down. The door swung open and a waft of heat warmed her. Taking out her gun, she walked inside pushing the door carefully behind her.
The place was a comfortable contrast from the bitterly cold wind, though the heating must have been on for some time as the warmth she previously felt soon changed into a smothering blanket. An unnerving silence trickled throughout the house. She feared the worst. Lucy’s parents should be there. She knew they didn’t go out very often and who in their right mind would leave a warm house for the harsh cold when they didn’t need to? After the week she’d had so far, this was just another log on the fire.
Along the stone floor, the bloody footprints moved deeper inside, fizzling away on the carpet in the front room. With her gun held tight in both hands, she moved forward.
Each step was a loud, slow clock ticking over, stopping at the carpet’s edge where a large living room stretching the length of the house awaited her. It held the usual items expected in a living room: a TV, sofa, table, stereo, and pictures on the wall. Everything had its place, whether neatly tucked into a draw or on a shelf somewhere. Being so tidy gave the room a spacious yet soulless character.
She moved to the wooden staircase, which disappeared up along the far wall, aiming her weapon up into the darkness. Careful to avoid the squeak from the dated wood, she took each step slowly, placing her feet at the edges of each one until she reached the top. The hallway was dark with four doors: two along the right, one on the left, and one at the end for the bathroom. The door closest to her on the right spilled unnerving white light into the hallway.
Entering the room, she found a flickering TV with the sound off. The bed was covered in blood.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. There was blood everywhere, the remaining corpses of Lucy’s parents sprawled out on the bed.
Fuck.
She left the room and stopped in the hallway to think. Other than go to the cops, she was out of options.
Shit, where are Lucy and Chloe?
The bathroom door at the end of the hall opened. She didn’t see or hear it. A gunshot fired, missing her and finishing in the wall. She bolted back to the stairs, firing back and dotting the door with bullets.
‘You Valerie?’ a man’s voice yelled.
She scurried down with heavy footsteps in the hallway bounding after her. Racing for the exit, more bullets whizzed by her, smashing the glass in the door. She took cover by one of the kitchen units and waited for him to come after her, her heart pounding as she fumbled to check the gun in her hand. Two shots remaining.
Shit.
‘Are you Valerie?’ he asked again from the living room.
‘Fuck you.’
‘We need to talk.’
‘I’ve done enough of that today.’
‘Valerie, you need to come with me.’
The words were empty. She wasn’t listening.
‘Whatever, I’m leaving.’ She fired one of her last two shots at him around the corner and opened the back door.
The snow had gained momentum, reducing visibility greatly, but that didn’t concern her. What did were the five men standing in a line with M16 assault rifles pointing at the house.
‘Valerie!’ yelled the voice behind her before she was hauled back inside and the door was slammed shut.
She swung around, catching the guy on the side of the head with the revolver. He fell and she jumped on him, jamming the gun in his face. ‘Tell me who the hell you are!’
‘Please don’t shoot me.’
‘You shot at me first you son of a bitch.’ She hit him. ‘Who are you? Three seconds.’
‘All right, all right. I work for Rodriguez.’
‘Who the fuck is that?’
‘Rodriguez, he used to work with Matherson.’
Wow. Seventeen years ago she last saw him. She was told he died on the line of duty. Now that was bullshit too. Was nobody dead?
‘Rodriguez died. Tell me the truth,’ she said, kneeing him in his gut. His cell phone fell out of his pocket. She picked it up and smashed it on the floor.
‘Hey, if I don’t check in someone will come looking for me.’
‘Dead people don’t use cell phones,’ she said.
‘Look, Preston has Lucy and he murdered her parents. We don’t have time for this.’
‘And you work for Rodriguez? You’re all full of shit. It’s just lie after lie and I’ve had enough. You work for Preston don’t you?’ She kneed him again and pointed to the back of the house. ‘Are they with you?’
‘I don’t know who they are,’ he said, clutching his side.
‘Tell me the truth God damn it.’
‘I am. I can prove it.’
She dared a peek outside. They were still there waiting for something. ‘Tell them to leave so I can go.’
‘Valerie, we arranged for the truck to smash into the cops chasing you.’
‘What?’
‘The cops chasing you earlier today, we arranged for the traffic lights to go out and the truck to hit them so you could escape. We have people in the security hub. Look, I’ve been on Bill’s tail for a long time, even before you met him. We know he works for Preston. We know everything. We know you’ve not done what the media are saying. We did what we had to so we could to help you.’
‘Help me? Where were you when Bill took me to that house? Where were you when we went to Ada’s house?’
‘I lost track of you.’
‘You’re not helping me at all.’ She picked up his gun, emptied it and dropped it on the ground. ‘Do you even know why Bill works for Preston?’
He didn’t answer her.
‘I’m going to walk out of that door now, tell your men to stand down.’ She opened the door.
‘Valerie, no!’ he screamed as they opened fire.
She hit the ground with a spray of bullets peppering the kitchen, cutting through everything in its wake. Glass and smashed tiles littered the floor, covering her.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she yelled.
‘Keep down,’ he shouted, grabbing his pistol. After reloading it he shot back blindly through the windows. The bullets kept on coming.
She belly crawled her way over the carpet and to the stairs with him in tow.
Then more shots fired from the front slamming into everything.
Then it stopped.
‘Why have they stopped?’ she asked.
‘To reload.’
Another wave came thrashing through, tearing the house apart.
They made it to the upstairs hallway, taking cover in a bedroom beside the one with the bodies. It was Lucy’s childhood room, kept in pristine condition like lots of parents did to keep hold of the memory of a once young and playful girl now grown up and flown the roost.
‘Will you come with me, please? Rodriguez can arrange for your safety.’
‘You shot at me.’
‘I wasn’t sure who you were, and for that I apologize.’
‘Shove your apologies.’
‘We have Cook.’
‘What?’
‘Look, Cook isn’t who he seems either.’
She looked out at the front lawn. The snow continued to fall and the bullets kept on coming into the house below. There was nobody else on the streets, curtains were drawn and lights were out, almost as if the gunfire had made everybody disappear. She counted five people in all at the front and five at the back. Ten people she and this stranger had to deal with.
‘They must think we’re still downstairs. What did you bring with you?’ he asked.
‘Just this revolver and an empty Beretta.’
Then the shooting stopped. Not just for reload this time. She looked out and watched them methodically march towards the house, keeping in a perfect line. She wasn’t scared. After the day she’d had she didn’t really feel anything. But she was trapped again. Trapped in another bedroom in another strange house.
First they heard the back door being kicked open, and then the front.
‘They’re coming,’ she said.
Shit.
Beneath them were the inaudible sounds of their attackers.
‘We’ll just have to hold them off. We have the advantage up here,’ he said. ‘You take the bathroom down the hall and I’ll take this bedroom. We’ll pick them off in the crossfire, OK?’
‘That’s the best we’ve got?’
He nodded.
He was right. She couldn’t exactly go through the window this time.
‘I’ve only got one round left,’ she said.
He reached into an ankle holster and pulled out another gun. A smaller one, a revolver, not much bigger than the one she had but used the same ammo. He emptied it and gave her the rounds. She reloaded and headed for the bathroom.
She pushed the bathroom door closed, leaving just enough room to see along the hall, watching her new friend do the same thing in the bedroom.
The men were hunting downstairs. Angry exchanges between them were heard and she knew it wouldn’t be long until they were bombarding her with bullets. She figured maybe thirty seconds.
It didn’t even take that long. Torch lights from their weapons shone from below, bouncing off the walls like thick spotlights until one of the men appeared, shining his light in her face through the gap. He’d seen her and she knew it. He fired a three round burst through the bathroom door. Before he could fire anymore, he was dead, caught off guard by the other guy.
Thank you.
Another one came up. He was dead before both feet were on the hallway carpet.
There were too many for both of them to hold out. Valerie’s advantage was she hadn’t fired her gun.
The bathroom window was too small for her to climb through so she’d just have to wait until he’d picked off as many as he could and then rely on luck for the rest.
From the road, a vehicle screeched to a halt. He was right.
If he didn’t check in they would come.
The side doors of the van parted and a barrage of bullets raged out like horizontal metal rain wrecking the already battered house beneath her. Screams and blood curdled wails haunted the downstairs rooms until everything came to a complete silence.
‘Valerie!’ shouted the guy.
She opened the door.
He was down the hall ready to leave. ‘We need to go. Rodriguez sent backup.’
‘Wait, how do you know they’re his guys?’
‘I recognize the van. Come the fuck on.’
She went with him.
The downstairs was a total mess. The house was an unrecognizable bloodbath. Corpses dotted the carpet leaking blood everywhere. Some of the faces were young, just boys really.
Rodriguez’s man picked up the phone that Valerie smashed in the kitchen. ‘Can’t leave this behind.’
Another person appeared in the doorway. ‘We need you two out of here, now. Take your car and go to the warehouse, it’s safe there. Rodriguez’s orders. We need to be out of here, the cops are on their way.’ He left them and the van sped off.
‘You coming?’ the guy asked her.
‘Well I’m not staying here.’