No Safe Place (Joe Hunter Thrillers Book 11) (8 page)

‘Joe, things are kind of hectic for me right now,’ said Bryony VanMeter as she stood in the back yard of a house a few miles to the south of Andrew Clayton’s place.
The storm had passed but water still cascaded from the eaves of the house and the nearby live oak trees. The waves out on Old Tampa Bay were rougher than she had seen them in years, but the storm had passed. Wisps of steam rose from the boardwalk at the edge of the sea, and from Bryony’s damp clothing. There were cops in numbers all over the place, and flashlight beams danced each direction she looked, reflecting off the wet walls and rooftops, as if their wielders expected to find a robber clinging to one of those surfaces in a desperate bid to escape discovery. They were wasting their time, because the home invasion crew had been and gone before the first patrol car arrived. Thankfully the homeowners were unhurt, and because the crew knew the game was up they’d fled the scene without any ill-gotten gains.

A cordon had been thrown in place, but neither Bryony nor any of the other cops on the scene believed the robbers were still inside it. The elderly homeowners had been disturbed from sleep by a ringing phone when the company responsible for monitoring their alarms called to check their authenticity via a code word. This was prior to alerting the police to the break-in to avoid a false call out. Only then did anyone know the house was actually under attack. When the husband hit the audible alarm and he and his wife barricaded themselves inside their panic room, and half their neighbourhood was roused by the wailing klaxon and flashing beacons the gang had fled, but not before a number of witnesses had stumbled from their front doors. There were thirteen eye witnesses at last count, but sadly not one of who could give a good description of the robbers or the vehicles they’d made off in. Perhaps the police would glean more facts with pointed questioning later, but right now Bryony felt everything about the situation was in chaos. She could do without Hunter complicating matters.

‘I won’t keep you,’ Joe said, in that matter-of-fact way of his, but he didn’t mean he was going to hang up, quite the opposite. He intended carrying on, but would be concise and to the point. That was one blessing.

‘Tell me,’ she sighed.

‘Clayton was just assaulted at his front gate. Could have been by the same man I chased last night.’

‘Parker Quinn,’ she said, recalling the identifying hair found on the dropped glove.

‘No, not Quinn, this was a totally different person. I met Quinn earlier, don’t forget.’

He had indeed. And Bryony trusted that he wasn’t mistaken this time. But if Hunter had seen the same man he chased yesterday evening, how could the glove he’d dropped contain hair matching the sample taken from Parker Quinn? She had an idea, and immediately looked for Detective Holker. She couldn’t see him, so began walking around the side of the house, towards the front drive where they’d left their car. Cops milled around, some working search grids in hope of finding evidence, but there was little hope. Bryony felt they were all wasting their time here, when the gang was already long gone.

‘Interesting,’ she told Hunter as she walked.

‘There was something weird about the incident,’ Hunter went on.

‘I hear you, Joe. It just doesn’t add up.’ She still couldn’t see Holker. ‘Give me what you have and I’ll issue a BOLO.’

Hunter described Clayton’s attacker, the same height and build as he had the person he’d seen scaling the wall. ‘He was wearing a dark coverall and wool hat with a peak. Couldn’t see his hair this time, but I got more of a look at his face. Definitely a white guy in his late thirties or early forties. Nothing distinctive about him though, except Clayton tells me he noticed a tattoo on the guy’s right hand. Spider web on the flesh between his thumb and index finger.’

‘Clayton didn’t recognise him, then?’

‘Claims not to, but I don’t buy it.’

‘And he didn’t say why the guy assaulted him?’

‘Another lie,’ Hunter said. ‘Supposedly the guy presented himself as a delivery driver, then when Clayton went out to meet him at the gate the guy accused him of murder, then punched him in the jaw.’

‘You witnessed the assault?’

‘I did, from a distance and through pouring rain, but to be honest I’d say my mother hits harder than that guy does. He dropped Clayton on his arse in the mud, but caught on the right spot it doesn’t take much doing, I suppose.’

Bryony rubbed a hand over her face. She had to ask the inevitable question. ‘Did this guy give any hint he’s the one that murdered Ella?’

‘Couldn’t say,’ said Hunter, ‘and now Clayton isn’t speaking to me. Maybe if you come over he’ll speak to you…’

‘Can’t, Joe. Like I said it’s kind of hectic right now. We’ve had another home invasion.’ She scanned the nearby faces for Holker, and though she recognised a few of her fellow officers, her partner wasn’t among them. ‘Before you ask, they got away. But at least this time nobody was hurt.’

‘That’s one good thing at least,’ Hunter agreed, though his tone implied differently. ‘Something I have to throw by you about that,’ he went on.

‘Not now, Joe. I’ve enough on my plate as it is.’

‘I hear you. That BOLO you mentioned putting out? The guy was driving a dark blue Toyota, a Corolla maybe, with Florida plates. It was a little beaten up and had bumper stickers: one of them said WPB, another said “Southern Fried Florida Native”, and was set against a confederate flag.’

‘WPB,’ Bryony ruminated. ‘West Palm Beach, you reckon? So the guy’s an out-of-towner?’

‘Or his car is,’ Hunter said. ‘Doesn’t prove who he is, but it’s something that might help identify the car.’

Bryony heard her name called. She turned and saw Holker walking out the front door of the house, accompanied by another man, this one tall, and square shouldered, with a mop of dark curls crowning his long face. She recognised Kyle Mercer, a District 3 detective who’d also been seconded to the task force. It appeared from Holker’s grateful handshake that Mercer had accepted the lead investigator role on this aborted home invasion. As Holker clipped down the steps towards Bryony, Mercer offered her a “
WTF?”
expression. She’d seen similar on the faces of many of her colleagues since arriving late to Sunset Park: raised eyebrows and a tight-lipped grimace.

‘Joe, I gotta go,’ she said into the phone. Without waiting for his answer she ended the call. Holker was almost upon her.

‘We’re wasting time here,’ he said, echoing her feelings. ‘Let’s go.’

Their car was at the end of the drive; thankfully it wasn’t penned in considering the fleet that had converged on the residential street. Holker strode for it.

‘You still intend going for Quinn?’ Bryony asked.

‘We need at least one positive result tonight,’ Holker said without turning or breaking stride.

‘Lets go get him then.’

‘You’ve changed your tune,’ he said, ‘earlier you thought we’d be wasting our time with Quinn.’

‘I just learned something that changed my mind. I’ll tell you about it on the way there.’

Holker turned so abruptly she halted in her tracks or else she’d bump into him. ‘Tell me now,’ Holker said.

‘Quinn isn’t the one personally harassing Clayton, but I think he might be behind the one who is.’ Bryony decided she’d tell Holker about the guy who’d just assaulted Clayton once they were moving, but right now he needed something. ‘And if he’s put someone up to harassing Clayton, who’s to say he didn’t originally send someone to hurt him through his wife?’

I kicked out of the easy chair in the sitting room, reaching for my SIG out of reaction to the soft clunk that had roused me.
I dropped my hand, changing the move to a scratch at my waistline; I didn’t want Cole to know I’d almost drawn on him. But there was little chance of that. He stood fidgeting in the doorway from the hall, dressed in wrinkled Spiderman pyjamas, and his empty juice bottle lying between his bare feet. His wavy hair was mussed, standing up on one side where his head had met the pillow, and his green eyes were wide, though cloudy with sleep. I’d turned out most of the lights on the ground floor while I sat guard, but had left on one in the kitchen and it cast a faint ambience along the hall and up Cole’s right hand side, his left was in silhouette. He would only see me as a dim figure illuminated by the meagre starlight coming through the large windows, and only when the ragged clouds allowed. I reached for the switch on a table lamp, and flicked it on. Cole blinked, then rubbed the balls of his thumbs into each eye socket.

‘Cole, you OK, buddy?’ I asked softly.

He smacked his lips, rubbed them with the back of a fist, then his gaze fixed on me. He took a half step backwards, as if unsure of my presence. I wondered if he’d staggered down here in a daze, and had only fully wakened when the lamp came on. ‘I…I’m thirsty,’ he croaked.

His juice bottle oozed a few dregs on the floor. It was the sound of the plastic sports bottle dropping from his lax fingers that had startled me out of the chair. I silently admonished myself for snoozing on the job, but not too hard because no harm was done. I’d missed a barefooted child coming downstairs, but things would have been different if someone had tried forcing a way inside. I moved towards him, and he looked from me to the bottle. He sighed heavily, but didn’t reach for it.

‘Let me get that for you,’ I offered and scooped the bottle up. ‘You want me to refill this for you?’

He nodded, then scrunched up his nose. I laid a hand on his head as I passed him in the doorway, gave his hair a quick tousle, and he turned to follow me to the kitchen. His bare soles sucked at the tiles as he trod behind me. ‘What’d you like, Cole? Juice again?’

Clayton had prepared a jug of Cole’s favourite fruit drink, and left it chilling in the refrigerator. I pulled open the door, and the contents inside tinkled, as the vacuum seal was broken. I reached for the large plastic juice container. The boy shook his head. ‘Just water please.’

‘You sure?’ I said, and showed him the jug.

He wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

‘You’re the boss,’ I said, and winked at him, as I set the container back in the fridge. I looked for bottled mineral water instead, but there was none. ‘Tap water OK for you?’

Cole looked at me as if I was speaking an alien tongue.

But on reflection I was. He didn’t understand the nuances between the English language spoken either side of the Atlantic. ‘I’ll run the faucet, get it nice and cold,’ I said, and he got me.

‘You speak funny,’ he said.

‘Do I? What, you mean like Donald Duck?’

He snorted out a laugh, but wasn’t exactly impressed with my comedic skills.

I set the tap running at the kitchen sink, felt the water with my fingertips and found it tepid. While it chilled, I picked up his bottle off the counter where I’d set it down, and gave it a shake. Some purple gloop was gathered in the bottom, full of sediment. I twisted off the cap and upended the bottle and the mush slid out, though there were still a few crystallised lumps sticking to the bottle. I held the bottle under the tap, got it about half full, then put my thumb over the bottle’s neck and shook. I splashed the gunk into the sink, and watched it sluice away under the running water. Being so full of impurities, I wondered if the water was safe to drink. The sediment was probably mineral, I decided, and filled the bottle anyway. On inspection it looked pure enough, so I twisted on the ergonomic cap and handed it back to Cole. He took an immediate glug, and smacked his lips with an audible sigh.

‘Sounds as if you were
really
thirsty,’ I said. My conversational skills with nine-year-olds were limited. But then his were too. He only grunted in answer. We simply stood there while he took another drink. ‘Maybe you should take it easy, or you’ll be in the bathroom all night.’

‘Do I have to go back to bed?’ Cole asked, and I thought I saw a faint tremor pass through him.

‘You’ve school tomorrow,’ I said, ‘can’t have you falling asleep in class.’

‘I’m scared,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to go back to sleep. In case it comes back…’ his words petered out. I wondered if the storm had troubled him, but as far as I knew he’d slept through the thunder and lightning. It wasn’t the storm though. How much had he heard when I’d come back to the house with his dad? Had he learned Clayton had been attacked, and feared it would be his turn next? But he’d said “it”, not “he”.

‘In case what comes back?’ I asked.

‘The dream.’

‘You had a nightmare?’

He scuffed his bare toes together.

‘I hate scary nightmares too, but they can’t hurt us,’ I said.

He wasn’t convinced.

‘It can see me when I sleep with its big eyes,’ he said, and it made me ponder what kind of boogieman he’d conjured. Since his mother had been murdered I made myself a bet he’d suffered a few tortured nights.

‘It’s not real, Cole. It’s just a bad dream, and can’t hurt you in real life.’

‘Detective Bryony said the bad men hurt my mom, but she’s wrong. I think it was the monster with the big eyes that hurt her.’

‘Detective Bryony wasn’t wrong,’ I assured him. ‘And she’s going to catch the bad men responsible and put them in jail for a long, long time.’

‘It got my mom,’ he stated as if he hadn’t heard me, and his lip trembled. ‘I was asleep when it got her, and it might get me the same way. I don’t want to ever sleep again.’

How the bloody hell did I answer? The only way I could. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you,’ I promised. ‘Now come on, let’s get you to your room. And don’t worry; I’ll be right outside your door all night, OK? Nothing will touch you. I won’t let it.’

Although I tried to steer him for the stairs he dug in, and it was surprising how much traction he generated with those tiny bare feet. I was nervous about being tactile with the kid, but maybe all he needed was a reassuring hug. I laid a hand on his shoulder, gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘Don’t you believe me, Cole?’

He again ignored my question and instead posed one of his own. ‘Do you dream, Joe? Like nightmares?’

I dreamt all right, and they were probably worse than the ones the boy suffered. His nightmares were populated by imaginary bug-eyed monsters while mine were more depraved, replays of incidents from my past. Dead people came to me in my sleep, and it was as if they wanted to claw me down to the same hellish place they resided now.

‘I do,’ I said, ‘but do you know what I do when I’m scared? I laugh.’

‘Eh?’

‘You heard me. I laugh, because I know something the scary things don’t. I know I’m dreaming and that I control their actions, not them. I laugh at them and chase them away with good thoughts.’ I knelt down in front of Cole, meeting him eye-to-eye. ‘That’s what you should do. Laugh at the bad thing.’

‘I would,’ he said, then paused, a little unsure of his next words. ‘But in my dreams my mouth doesn’t work.’

‘Well that is odd,’ I agreed, and I touched a finger to his forehead. ‘But it doesn’t stop you thinking, which is all a dream is don’t forget. So next time you’re afraid, just think how funny it is and send the bad thing packing. And if that doesn’t work and you wake up, just give me a holler and I’ll send it packing for you. Deal?’ I held out a bent pinkie, and Cole squinted at it in confusion. ‘What? Kids don’t do pinkie deals these days?’

Cole shrugged, but offered me his own pinkie, and I wrapped mine round it. ‘That’s like a solemn bind between brothers,’ I told him. ‘And brothers always look out for each other, right?’

‘Right,’ he said, and we shook. His enthusiasm wasn’t great, though. ‘I haven’t got any
real
brothers. Have you?’

‘I did,’ I said, thinking of my half-brother John. ‘And you’ve met Rink. He’s like my brother now. We look out for each other like real brothers; it’s what we do, and now you’re one of us.’

‘Did you make a pinkie deal with Rink as well?’

‘Yep,’ I said. ‘And you can too when he comes by tomorrow. But you’d best get some sleep first, or you’ll be napping while he’s here.’ I stood, and used the moment to turn him and walk him for the stairs. This time he padded alongside me, but I rested my steepled fingers between his shoulders to keep the momentum going.

Clayton was waiting for us at the head of the stairs, dressed in boxers and a t-shirt. He’d lost the spectacles.

‘Something wrong?’ he asked, and they were the first words we’d shared since he’d sulked off earlier.

‘Not now,’ I said, speaking for us both. ‘Cole had a bad dream, but he’s a brave lad and isn’t afraid anymore.’

‘You OK, son?’ Clayton asked.

‘I’m fine,’ Cole said, and went directly past his dad, holding himself rigid. I wondered what was worse; that Clayton didn’t offer his son a hug or that Cole didn’t welcome one. Clayton simply watched the boy return to his room and close the door. He looked back at me, rubbed a hand over his shaved head.

‘Kids, huh?’ he said, and moved his hand to his jaw.

‘Don’t you want to tuck him in?’

‘It’s like you said; he’s a tough kid. Doesn’t do all that touchy-feely stuff with me.’

‘He’s missing his mom,’ I said, trying to give him a hint.

‘Yeah, well he’s not the only one.’ Clayton touched his mouth, then inspected his fingertips, as if there’d be something to be discovered.

‘Mouth still sore?’ I asked.

‘Nah, not too bad.’

I aimed a nod at his forearm. ‘You get that when you fell down?’

Clayton rolled over his arm to look, and it was as if he’d noticed the purple bruise for the first time. He frowned, then rubbed his hand over it as if it were dirt to be brushed away. ‘Must have done. Didn’t feel it,’ he said.

I didn’t reply.

Clayton dropped his hands by his sides. Watched me.

‘I told Cole I’d be outside his bedroom if he got scared again.’

Clayton shrugged. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’

With his announcement he turned on his heel and returned to his own room. As he walked he cupped his bruised arm with his other palm, massaging it as I’d noticed him doing in the past.