The Devil's Snare: a Mystery Suspense Thriller (Derek Cole Suspense Thrillers Book 4) (11 page)

She was no more than two feet into the kitchen when she saw Crown.
 

Lying in a pool of blood that created a sickly smelling, maroon colored halo around her head, Crown looked much too still. Nikkie’s instincts snapped, and instead of rushing to Crown’s side, she scanned the kitchen. Seeing nothing, she raced, gun still leading her way, through the house, checking behind each door as she cleared every room in Bo’s house. As she made her way back to the kitchen, she pulled out her cell, dialed nine-one-one, then knelt beside Crown.

 
The nine-one-one dispatcher took the information, and said to Nikkie, “Police and emergency services are on their way. Can you see if the victim is still alive?”

Nikkie reached down and felt the side of Crown’s neck. Crown was face down, her ragged breath causing a sickening gurgling sound as it pressed against the pooling blood. “She has a pulse,” Nikkie said. “But it doesn’t seem right. Weak and inconsistent.”

“Is there anyone else in the house with you and the victim?” the dispatcher said, her voice calm, reassuring.

“I cleared every room. We are alone.”

Movement from the backyard captured Nikkie’s attention. “Hold on,” she said. “Someone is in the back yard.”

“I strongly suggest you do not engage …”

Nikkie stood and moved towards the french style doors that led from the kitchen out to the backyard porch. She pushed open the door and scanned the backyard. From the corner of her eye, she caught more movement. This time, she was certain the movement was directed. Steadily holding the gun towards the direction of the movement, she paced across the back yard deck, down the two stairs then across the yard towards a row of pine trees, each no higher than ten feet high. The trees were planted so close that their low hanging branches provided cover for anything, or anyone intent on not being seen.

“Come out from the trees, slowly with your arms above your head,” she said in a voice teeming with confidence and calmness. “Don’t make me come in there. This won’t end well for you.”

A quick flash of movement coupled with the sound felled sticks and pine needles make when something of size shuffles through them was her only reply.

“The police are on their way,” she called back. “Do yourself a favor and walk out towards me. Slowly.”

She heard more sounds, more movement coming from further down the line of pine trees. Whatever was making the sounds was not complying with her demands but was, instead, moving further away.
 

Nikkie stole a glance to where the pine trees ended and saw thick and dark woods no more than one hundred yards from the end of Bo’s property line and from the end of the pine tree line. She increased her pace to a jog, running sideways, gun pointed towards where she assumed the hidden suspect was moving and her eyes jumped from the tree line to her path. The last thing she needed was to trip over anything Bo neglected to clean up from his back yard.
 

She reached the end of the pine trees, still unable to catch sight of the person she assumed had attacked Crown. She began to hear the scream and wail of distant sirens. “The police are almost here. There’s no way you’re getting away. You either walk out on your own or I’ll send some lead in to find you.”

A hooded figure raced away from the pine trees, carving a crooked path across Bo’s neighbor’s back yard and towards the woods. He was fast. Too fast for Nikkie to give chase, considering the forty- or fifty-foot lead he had on her. She lowered her gun and memorized everything she could about the man sprinting away. She took several steps further towards the woods, clearing her view from the final pine tree. She saw the man—whom she estimated to stand around five foot ten, weighing around one hundred seventy-pounds—stop when he reached the edge of the woods. The man turned, pulled back his hood, smiled then waved at Nikkie. She raised her gun, fully intending on trying an impossible shot, then lowered her gun as the man casually slipped into the cover of the woods.

As the sirens grew closer, she holstered her Glock, ran back into the kitchen; she knelt beside Crown and felt her pulse grow weaker and listened to the gurgling noises coming from Crown’s throat turn quiet.

ˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇ

Derek left the fire station, jumped into his car and followed the Ravenswood rescue vehicle. Going to the hospital instead of directly to the scene was not an option. He believed Crown, and whatever condition she may be in, was his responsibility. He took her son’s case and he encouraged Nikkie to invite Crown to the initial interview with Bo. He was going to the scene.

As he drove—keeping up with the speeding rescue vehicle—he speed dialed Nikkie’s cell. Her voice was too sullen and sounded too watery for Derek. “Nikkie, what the hell happened? Is it Crown?”

“Where are you?” she replied. “She’s not good. The paramedics are working on her now and the sheriffs want to ask me a lot of questions.”

“I’m on my way.”

The sheriff that had stopped Derek before he crossed the yellow police tape that was still being strung up, was now escorting Derek around the back of Bo’s house. Once in the back yard, Derek saw Nikkie sitting down, speaking to a plain-clothed detective on the deck. Derek quickened his pace, jumped the two stairs and headed through the open doors and into Bo’s house.

“Hold on,” the detective snapped. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“I’m Derek Cole, I’ve been hired…”

The detective raised his unusually large hand, quickly waggled his thick fingers, and said, “Mr. Cole, your associate told me about you already. I’m sorry, but I can’t allow you inside the house. The EMT’s are still working on your employee and the entire house is a crime scene.”

“I need to see Crown,” Derek said, his voice cracking with fear and anger.

“That’s not going to happen,” the detective said. “Matter of fact, I need both of you,” he said, pointing his finger at both Nikkie and Derek, “to either walk around to the front of the house and wait for me there, or head down to the sheriff’s station and wait there. Your choice.”

“What’s wrong with waiting here?” Derek asked, more in control of his voice and emotions. “Since you’ve already begun interviewing my associate here, I have to assume my being here won’t jeopardize the integrity of the crime scene.”

“And your assumption would be wrong.” The detective, who stood six foot four, had a thick, barrel chest and hair as white as Derek had ever seen, was now standing, arms crossed, looking directly at Derek. Obviously, Derek realized, this man was not a fan of anyone trying to persuade him to see things differently. “I was polite when I asked you to make a choice but my politeness is being kicked in the balls by my impatience right about now. So, either wait out front, or wait at the station. And wherever you decide to wait, make damn sure you stay the hell out the way. Clear?”

Derek matched the detective’s stare. He had plenty of experience dealing with police detectives and knew any further arguing would be likely to create a tense atmosphere, making the chances of Derek working closely with the sheriff’s department unlikely. “Sorry,” Derek said. “I know what you need to do here and the last thing we want to do is to interfere. We’ll wait out front but please let us know how Crown is.”

The detective nodded his head, gestured towards the way Derek had approached, then turned, walked inside and drew the blinds closed.

“She doesn’t look good at all, Derek,” Nikkie said, her eyes heavy with tears.

“If I know Crown, death is probably scared shitless of her. She’s too damn stubborn to check out.”

“You didn’t see her.”

“I didn’t, you’re right. But I will. And you will, too. We’ll both see her when she’s sitting up in a hospital bed, snapping orders at us. She’ll be fine.”

Derek leaned against a sheriff’s cruiser while Nikkie paced. They had left the backyard and the company of the yet-to-be-known detective nearly twenty-five minutes earlier, and still they waited. Crown was still inside where both Derek and Nikkie assumed she was still being assisted by the paramedics.

“She’s been in there an awfully long time,” Nikkie said. “That’s not a good sign.”

“They need to stabilize her before transporting her to a hospital,” Derek replied, calmly. “Maybe secure her airway, or stop her bleeding. Or, she’s awake and giving our big-handed detective a description of her attacker.”

Nikkie gave Derek a long look. Her eyes were heavy with tears but his were a bit too clear for Nikkie’s comfort. “You don’t seem to be all that worried,” she said.
 

Derek traced the scar on his cheek, looking off towards the front windows of Bo’s house. There were still sheriff’s and medical personal coming and going, and he caught sight of John Mather a couple of times, but the house and the area with police and medical professionals strutting about were much too similar to another scene Derek had been to.
 

That scene was when he was a cop and his wife was being held at gun point inside a bank. At that scene there had been cops and medical personal moving about, too. That scene had his wife’s face pressed against the picture window with a deranged lunatic standing behind her, his gun pressed hard against her temple. Back then, it was his fellow City of Columbus Police Officers that demanded protocols needed to be followed and that he was likely to get himself and others killed if he was allowed to gain entry to the bank.
 

“I can get in that bank,” he had said. “I know this place. There’s a back entrance with a key pad, and we have the code.”

“Officer Cole,” the captain in charge of the scene had said, “you need to stand down and let our hostage negotiators do their job.”

That scene ended with Derek cradling his dead wife’s body as cops—his co-workers, friends and supervisors—scrambled around the scene, collecting evidence and doing their absolute best to avoid eye contact with him.

This time, this scene, was different but held hints, held reminders of his past. It wasn’t his wife inside and it wasn’t his fellow City of Columbus Police Officers keeping him outside. Whoever the deranged person who had committed the attack was not standing in the front window, but had run into the nearby woods after throwing a sick smile of contempt or pride back at Nikkie. Still, for Derek, the scene was poking hard at a section of his brain, the part where vivid and unwanted memories are stored away.
 

Actually, the scene was kicking the shit out of that brain section, demanding it jump to life and flood Derek with whatever unresolved emotions and feelings were still left milling about in his subconscious mind. So unresolved were Derek’s anger, pain and sense of utter and complete loss, that several months after his wife Lucy’s death, he created the scar on his cheek.
 
The scar he was again tracing with his index finger, absentmindedly remembering sticking the gun into his mouth, squeezing the trigger, right at the moment he saw the briefest flash of his wife’s smile in the corner of his mind. The image had caused him to turn his head a critical few inches as the bullet slammed through his teeth and out his cheek.

“You’re only seeing my outside,” Derek replied to Nikkie. “Inside me isn’t all that pleasant.”

Nikkie, perhaps understanding that Derek’s mind was flipping back and forth, crossing the years between the present and the day his wife was murdered, smiled at him. She walked over closer to him, caressed his arm, and said nothing.

“You’re not going to start singing some Barry Manilow song to me, are you?” Derek said.

Nikkie’s brow furrowed and a stifled laugh leaked out. “I know he wrote a lot of songs, but I can’t remember any that were about two friends standing outside of a crime scene, while another mutual friend was lying in the kitchen of a house after being attacked. “

“Then maybe I should have asked about a Neil Diamond song. Hell, that guy wrote more songs than Dylan. He must have written one appropriate for this scenario.”

“Honestly, Derek,” Nikkie said as she leaned against the sheriff’s car beside him, “you have the weirdest thoughts of anyone I’ve ever met.”

Derek squinted his eyes then, with his chin, gestured towards a man standing next to Bo’s garage. The man was speaking with a sheriff and two members of the Ravenswood Fire Department. “See that guy standing over there? The one with his arms crossed and the receding hairline he’s doing a horrible job of trying to cover up?”

Nikkie said, “Yes. What about him?”

“His name in John Mather. He’s a lieutenant with the fire department. Notice how he hasn’t looked our way since we’ve been standing here?”

“Actually, I hadn’t noticed him till you pointed him out so, no, I didn’t notice he hasn’t looked our way.”

“Well I have and that is telling me something.”

“Telling you what?” Nikkie asked.

“I spoke with Lieutenant Mather at the fire station. I was speaking with him while the department was being toned out for this emergency, actually. He told me that he and I needed to talk about Bo and about whatever is happening in Ravenswood. He said we shouldn’t talk at the station and that he would contact me and arrange a time for the two of us to talk in private.”

“And?” Nikkie said.

“And I know he saw me standing here but he hasn’t let on that he recognized me. It’s like he doesn’t want anyone at this scene knowing that we’ve spoken. The young fire fighter standing next to him knows John and I spoke at the station, but I’m pretty sure John doesn’t want anyone else to know.”

“What do you make of it?”

“That whatever Lieutenant Mather wants to say to me is something that other people, probably one or more of the people at this scene, don’t want me knowing. Mather needs to get something off his chest or maybe he just has a suspicion he needs to share.”

“And there’s no one else but you he can share it with,” Nikkie stated.

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

Some radios began squawking outside, sending a few members of Ravenswood Fire Department into motion. Some, including John Mather scurried into the house, while others walked more casually towards their rescue vehicles. Less than a minute later, the ass end of Mather appeared at the front door. He was slightly bent forward, his hands securing and pulling the stretcher that Crown was lying on.