Alpha Kill - 03 (26 page)

Soper’s house swarmed with people: cops, crime scene techs, ambulance crew. Apart from Venn and Harmony themselves, Drake was the only one left alive. Venn checked out the body of the bald-headed man outside the window, the one he’d hit with the ricochet, and recognized the driver of the SUV from last night.

Soper himself was out back, dead. He’d taken an ax in his chest. The weapon had been chopped back into the block where it belonged afterward, so that the surface of the block was sticky with blood. Venn thought there was something sick about that.

He and Harmony repeated their account of how things had gone down to the local cop in charge of the scene. The cop scratched his jaw.

“Doesn’t add up,” he said. “The numbers are wrong. Who killed this guy with the ax?”

“There must have been another one of them out back,” Venn said. “Whoever it is, is long gone.”

Harmony said: “The woman. Last night, outside Beth’s apartment. The man who shot at me and Beth from the car is the guy Drake called Herman. But there was a woman in the car with him.”

The crime scene cop frowned. “A woman ax killer? You reckon?”

Venn said: “You find any vehicles out there?”

The cop shook his head. “No. Way I figure it, they parked way down the street. This guy who got away, this Herman, probably went over the wall into the forest, then took the car and got out of here.” He tilted his head. “Drake’ll give him up, anyhow. We’ll get him.”

“If Drake survives,” said Venn. “He’s gut shot. They can go either way.”

One of the first things Venn had told the cops was to get an arrest warrant for Douglas Driscoll, and to look for a missing eight-year-old boy. Drake might have been making that part up, but Venn didn’t think so.

He also called Fil at the office, brought him up to date, and asked him for the license plate numbers on the trucks that were regular visitors to the Bonnesante Clinic. Fil said he’d already arranged for an APB to be put out on the trucks.

After the interviews at the Newark station house, Venn and Harmony took her Crown Vic back to Manhattan. Neither of them said a lot on the journey. There was too much to process.

At one point, Harmony said: “So Vincenzo must’ve called Driscoll right after we paid him a visit. Driscoll told him to feed us Soper’s name, then sent Drake to ambush us.”

“Looks that way,” said Venn.

Shortly before they arrived at the office, Venn took a call from his FBI contact, Dennis Yancy.

“Joe. God dammit, man.” He sounded euphoric.

“This is the last time I’m doing your job for you, Yance.”

“You ever consider joining us?”

“The Feebs?” Venn laughed. “No chance. I’ve seen what they’ve done to you.”

“Listen, I just got a call five minutes ago from the Feds in Albany,” said Yancy. “That’s where Douglas Driscoll lives. They arrested him.”

“Great,” said Venn. “Any lead on the kid?”

“They’re working on it,” said Yancy. “But it seems Drake wasn’t bullshitting. We’ve tracked down the boy’s mother, in Ohio. A woman Drake had a fling with, not long before you arrested him all those years ago. Seems the kid was abducted from outside his school yesterday afternoon. Drake’s never actually met the boy, and doesn’t correspond with him at all. But he clearly feels paternal enough about him for Driscoll to have been able to use him as leverage.” Yancy sighed. “Who’d’ve thought. Even an asshole like Gene Drake has a human heart beating inside him.”

*

T
he four uniformed cops were still there in the office, together with Beth and Fil. Both of them looked worn out.

Beth got up and took a step toward Venn when he and Harmony came in. There was a time, Venn thought, when she’d have flung herself into his arms.

“Are you all right?” she said.

“Yeah.” He felt weariness begin to drag him down like a canvas tarpaulin. “Yeah, I’m all right, Beth. You did good. You too, Fil.”

Venn sagged into a chair. Beth drew another one up and sat down, close, but not intimately so.

“Is it over?” she whispered.

“It’s over,” he said.

Venn thanked the four uniformed officers and told them they could leave. He looked at his watch. Eleven fifteen. He hadn’t had breakfast.

“Feel like a bite?” he said to Beth.

She glanced at Fil and Harmony, as if wondering whether the invitation included them. “I’ve eaten, but –”

“We should talk,” Venn said.

She gazed at him, then nodded.

On their way out, Venn caught Harmony’s eye. He saw something there. Something suggestive, almost lewd.

No. She had it wrong. He was going to tell Beth they needed to make a clean break. That they couldn’t have anything to do with one another, ever again.

She’d come to him for help, and yet again she’d almost gotten killed. He was radioactive, and she needed to stay away.

Maybe this wasn’t the best time to bring it up, given how fatigued they both were, how rattled by the events of the past couple of days. But Venn felt a pressing need to resolve this, and
now
.

They stepped out into the cold October morning sunshine. Across the parking lot at the rear of the building was a diner which served good brunches, and Venn turned in that direction.

Two things happened next, almost simultaneously.

He registered the black Toyota SUV, surging across the parking lot in a howl of rubber on tarmac.

And he cannoned sideways into Beth as the gun sticking out of the passenger window began firing.

––––––––

B
eth slammed against the side of the nearest parked car and dropped to the tarmac, barely managing to break her fall with her outstretched hands.

For an instant, she couldn’t breathe, shocked by Venn’s sudden shove and by the impact with the ground. And by the paralyzing noise of the gunshots.

Yet again, the gunshots.

It wasn’t over. It would never be over.

Dazed, Beth rolled on her back. She saw Venn crouched down behind the next car along, his gun out.

Without looking at her he gestured wildly with his free hand, urging her away, further on down the line of cars.

Half-sitting, Beth scrambled away.

She watched Venn duck his head to peer under the car he was behind, then extend his gun arm beneath the car and fire.

From the other side of the car there was a yell.

A couple of seconds later, a man rolled across the hood of the car. Blond-haired, his foot bloody, and with a gun in his hand.

Venn, still crouched by the car, swung his arm across and fired at the man as he dropped off the hood beside Venn.

The man fell heavily onto his shoulder, his hand opening and his gun spinning and skittering across the tarmac of the parking lot, straight toward Beth.

She stared at it as if it were some malignant being.

Venn shot the man again where he lay.

Before Beth had a chance to process any of it, she saw a shape move like a blur round the other end of the car, Between Beth and Venn.

A woman’s shape, in a bright-colored dress.

Beth opened her mouth to scream a warning but no sound emerged. She stared as the woman fell onto Venn from behind, even as he started to stand up.

Then the woman’s hands were on either side of Venn’s neck, bunched into fists and...
pulling
. 

Beth watched Venn rise to his feet, his own hands coming up to his throat. He was at least six inches taller than the woman, probably more, and he lifted her feet off the ground. But she clung on, wrapping her legs round his thighs.

The word hit Beth’s bewildered mind.

Garrotte
.
She was garrotting him.

Venn twisted this way and that, making no sound but a horrible strangled wheeze. He slammed himself backward against the car.

Still the woman clung on, like some bizarre hybrid of monkey and limpet.

The horror flooded in, then, invading Beth’s mind like a river bursting its banks.

The drug dealers pressing their guns to her head, back in her old home.

The explosion of the Jeep’s window outside her apartment as the shots erupted outside.

The endless violence and death...

Beth felt her vision swimming. Her throat was choked tight, and her chest pounded like a drill.

If she’d had strength in her limbs, she’d have got up and run. Run until she reached the sea, then carry on running, even as the water claimed her in its silent embrace.

Something flicked on to her face. Something wet.

She put her hand up, stared at her fingers.

Blood.

As if through the wrong end of a telescope, far away, she saw Venn staggering, dropping to his knees once more.

His fingers, up at his throat, were coated in red.

His thrashing had flicked his blood on to her.

As if in a dream, Beth picked up the gun in front of her, the one belonging to the blond man. Absently, she marveled at how heavy it felt.

She hefted it in two hands, extended her arms.

Venn, on his knees, was no longer trying to shake the woman off. She was back on her feet, standing behind him, her bunched fists still pulling.

Beth pulled the trigger. Felt the bucking of the gun, the recoil slamming back against her palm.

The blond woman was hurled to one side, something that looked like a rose blooming in the middle of her back. Her hands, wrapped in the ends of the garrotte, dragged Venn sideways with her.

Figures were approaching fast from the building. Harmony, and a couple of others.

Beth closed her eyes, slumped forward until her forehead touched the ground.

––––––––

T
he November rain gusted down in sheets, sending people scurrying ant-like in search of shelter under canopies and inside stores.

Venn and Beth sat in the warmth of the coffee shop, the windows steamed up, and watched the world outside.

It was the same coffee shop they’d met at before. The last time had been on that Sunday night a month ago.

Venn was glad of the cold, wet weather. It meant he could wear a scarf. The dressing beneath looked ridiculous, he thought, like he was Frankenstein’s monster with his head sewn on.

He’d been lucky, the ER doctor told him. A few more fractions of an inch and the garrotte would have breached his jugulars, or his carotids. He’d have a scar, and he hadn’t been able to speak in anything more than a croak for a week afterwards. But he was alive.

“Thanks to you. Again,” he murmured.

Beth raised her eyebrows. “What’s that?”

“Nothing. Thinking aloud.”

He’d stayed in hospital overnight. Beth had been at his bedside until he’d finally shooed her away, insisting that she rest.

Since then, they’d met up most days. To grab lunch, to be interviewed together about all that had happened. Mostly, just to talk.

There was one topic they’d avoided.

Beth had been on leave of absence form work for the last month. Her acting head of department, now that Soper was gone, had banned her from setting foot back on her wards.

“You’re too much of an asset for me to lose you to burnout,” the doctor said. “Take as long as you need. Get yourself healed.”

So Beth rested, and went for long, solitary walks, and read. And Venn had to admit, she looked a lot better. Less drawn, and without the wariness in her eyes.

He’d asked her about the PTSD symptoms, the flashbacks. She still got them. But there hadn’t been all that many, and she was able to ride them out better without feeling shaken for hours afterward.

Douglas Driscoll had been charged with the illegal harvesting and trafficking of human organs. He’d sung like a canary, as the saying went, giving the Federal investigators not only Bruce Collins and his wife Olivia, but also most of the senior staff members at the Bonnesante Clinic. He further confessed to arranging the jailbreak at Horn Creek.

And to kidnapping Gene Drake’s son. The boy was found in a cellar within 24 hours, alive and unharmed. Physically, at least.

Drake himself was out of hospital, minus some of his large intestine and one of his kidneys. He was currently recuperating in the infirmary back at Horn Creek.

The blond man and woman who’d attacked Venn in the parking lot were identified as Herman and Gudrun Schroeder. A medically famous pair of brother-and-sister psychopaths, Venn learned with interest, though amazingly neither had criminal records as adults.

And the last of Drake’s gang, Howard Rosenbloom, had been found cowering in the SUV in the parking lot. He gave himself up without a fight, and was beginning a thirty-year accessory-to-murder sentence.

Now Venn studied Beth across the table. She’d asked him here, and something in her voice told him they were going to have to confront the issue they’d both been avoiding.

He felt dread gnawing in the very depths of his belly, like a tapeworm.

Quietly, Beth said, “I can’t, Venn.”

He watched her eyes. It was what he’d been expecting her to say. He nodded gently.

“I mean I can’t not see you,” she murmured. “Can’t break away from you. Even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.”

He gazed at her. Between her lashes, wetness glimmered.

“I thought all of the killing, the violence, could only drive us apart,” she said. “But I was wrong. It’s the opposite. It’s bonded us. You and I have been through things together that few couples could ever dream of experiencing. And even though they’ve been terrifying things, things id never want to go through again... they’re part of our history. Part of
us
.”

Venn didn’t know what to say. Instead, he reached across the table, took Beth’s hand. Squeezed it until he was afraid he might hurt her.

“Let’s take it slowly, okay?” she whispered. “I’m getting better. But I’m still far from okay. Let’s just go with the flow.”

They sat there like that, holding hands, with the rain trickling down the glass of the window beside them, the rivulets sometimes separating, sometimes combining again.

––––––––

THE END

––––––––

J
oe Venn is back hunting a serial killer in
Sigma Curse
.