Hostile Takeover (Vale Investigation Book 1) Read online

  I moved forward, past a row of identical desks laden with identical fittings and stacks of paper. A sound disturbed the silence in the distance, a muffled scream … Marion.

  I quickened my pace, ran down another row of desks, turned a corner, and cruised through a conference room. There were three private offices on the far side with identical wooden doors. The last one on the right was ajar.

  I made a run for it, kicked the door wide open, and fired the moment I had a lock on my target. No time for second-guessing.

  “Aim and shoot, son. Just aim and shoot,” my Navy Chief at Great Lakes used to say in that thick Southern drawl of his. It was a lesson I’d retained, the kind of behavior that had saved countless soldiers’ lives, including my own. On the battlefield, there wasn’t room for anything else but your training.

  The floor-to-ceiling window behind the goon in front of me fractured as my bullet hit him right between the eyes. Gray matter and blood had just enough time to splatter on the glass before it all turned to splinters. No time to celebrate, though. I scanned the room for more thugs. My eyes found Marion in an instant. She was kneeling at the foot of a desk, fear plaguing her face while tears spilled from her eyes.

  Weapon at the ready, I continued the sweep as I made my way over to my clients’ daughter. A flurry of movement on the right got my attention. I threw myself behind a five-foot steel cabinet just as the first bullets flew my way. I returned fire, wasting two more precious bullets on a blurry shape I hadn’t had time to identify, much less get a bead on.

  The girl screamed. I glanced over at her to see if she was hurt. She wasn’t. She’d recoiled as far back as she could, curled up into a tight ball of fear in the room’s back left corner. She looked scared but unharmed. As I took it all in, I realized she was in decent striking distance of the door. Two or three long strides and she could be out of here. On the other hand, my jumping behind that filing cabinet had taken me further inside the room. I was almost equal distance between the entrance door and the large hole where a window used to be opposite it.

  Vito’s man, whom I now saw was some short, ginger-haired teen punk, had retreated further into the room. He was sandwiched between the gaping hole I’d made and a tall promotional display consisting of rows and rows of paint cans. My bullets had hit two of them; red and pink paint pooled on the gray-carpeted floor. I could make out the man’s reflection in the ex-window’s shiny frame, reloading his gun. Lucky bastard … he had a spare clip while I was down to my last bullet and my options thinning as fast as the sun was setting.

  I turned to Marion. She was a frightened ball of crumpled clothes and wild dark hair. I could barely make out her face.

  “Marion,” I hissed at her, “can you hear me?”

  I didn’t get a response, but I kept talking. “You’re going to be all right, Marion. Your parents sent me to get you.”

  That got a sliver of recognition from the girl, making her uncurl an inch or two.

  Two more bullets crashed into the metal filing cabinet. “You and that girl ain’t getting out of here alive, Pops!” Ginger shouted.

  “Don’t listen to him, Marion, listen to me!” I urged. “Look at me, Marion. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

  Three more bullets clanged against my shield cabinet to argue otherwise. But I saw a shy pair of brown eyes turned upwards and got my first real look at Marion Townsend. Although she was a mess, she was definitely the girl from the picture. The thin eyebrows came from her mother and the round cheeks from her father.

  “Run,” I mouthed to her. “Run!”

  She shook her head.

  “Go on!” I kept mouthing. “Run!”

  She shook her head again.

  Of course, it wouldn’t be that easy. This kid didn’t know me from Adam and on top of all that I looked like I’d just lost a fight with Rocky. I caught her gaze and willed her to believe me.

  “Please, Marion!” I whispered. “It’s time to be brave. Just get to your feet and you’ll be home in no time.”

  Her lips trembled, but she nodded and uncurled her legs. She was wearing blue jeans and a Bugs Bunny sweater. I smiled at that, I was a fan too. Marion was short and thin, and I hoped she’d move fast. Two or three quick strides in the right direction and she’d be safe.

  I gave her a nod and turned my head away from her. Ginger was hiding behind his paint display, probably lining up his next shot. With the Colt held in my right hand, I counted down from five with my left. When I ran out of fingers, I pushed my fist in the direction of the door. Marion bolted for the exit and I ran forward to place myself in the line of fire. Vitorini’s man missed the girl, but he didn’t miss me.

  A bullet ripped through my left arm, and a haze of red clouded my vision. I careened towards Ginger, dodging a couple more shots on the way. My vision blurred as I felt my body giving up on me. I forced myself to keep moving, to keep running. When I got close enough to make out my target through the haze, I aimed, shot … and kept running.

  I couldn’t stop. My feet weren’t responding anymore and the momentum carried me forward, right through that mess I’d made of the window. I had just enough time to hear the crunch of the glass beneath my boots before I fell.

  A misspent childhood watching The Bugs Bunny Show every Saturday hit me and I chuckled as I said to no one but me and the gods, “Eh, look at me, I’m Wile E. Coyote!” Then it all went black.

  ***

  Death smelled surprisingly nice. Every part of me hurt, and I was uncomfortable as hell, but at least death smelled sweet.

  I rolled over and forced my functioning eye open. It was now dark and—I blinked, once, twice—what I was seeing looked an awful lot like the building I’d just made a graceless exit from. Why, it even had the same gaping broken window on the third floor.

  A silhouette came into this confusing picture. It took me a moment to focus on the man towering over me, but I knew that face. Forties, short brown hair, bushy eyebrows supporting a mile-long and all-too-familiar scowl.

  I don’t know how but I managed to find enough strength to giggle at the sight. In retrospect, it might have been the concussion talking, but at that moment I found it hilarious to have drawn the short straw yet again.

  “There’s no way a guy like me could get the winning ticket and just die, is there?” I croaked.

  “Shut your mouth, Vale,” Detective Lieutenant Jeremy Morgan said, pulling out a pair of bracelets. “You’re under arrest.”

  Chapter two

  Every man’s dreams

  Against the odds, I’d done it. I’d saved Marion Townsend. She would sleep in her bed tonight. Safe and sound.

  And I’d survived to tell the tale. Sure, I wouldn’t be able to squeeze my own OJ for the next month, but the doc in ER had assured me that I’d live to drink it. They’d reset my ribs and thumb, sutured up my arm, and bandaged everything else. Too bad that wasn’t the end of my problems.

  “Name?” a young female police officer asked at the intake desk. Her tone suggested that she’d been doing this all night and she couldn’t wait for her shift to end.

  I bit down on a nasty retort and decided it would be over faster if I complied. Damn, if this wasn’t a farce. I was tired, most of my body felt like a punching bag, and I couldn’t wait to go home and sleep off the day which had yet to dawn. “Bellamy Vale.”

  She typed it down and kept asking questions without looking up. “Profession?”

  “Private investigator.”

  “Date of birth?”

  “February second, nineteen eighty-five.”

  We kept playing twenty questions, with me answering like an automated teller, until she asked, “Charges?”

  I perked up at that one. Try as I might, I couldn’t imagine what Cold City’s finest was arresting me for. “Rescuing an innocent child.” I grinned, arching my right brow high on my forehead. “No
w that’s a serious offense.”

  Detective Lieutenant Morgan, who’d been standing one step behind me and breathing down my neck the entire time, pushed me to the side to say, “Damaging public property.”

  I turned to him. “Wait, what? What public property?”

  “Gardenias,” Morgan continued, still addressing the clerk. “A whole lot of ’em.”

  That didn’t compute somehow. “What?”

  Morgan turned to me with a smug smile that made me itch to punch him. “Gardenias,” he repeated, as if speaking to a child—a slow one. “The shrubs you landed on and destroyed.”

  I couldn’t remember doing that, but then I didn’t remember much of the trip to the ER either. But something had smelled nice when I woke up, I remembered. “I landed on some flowers?”

  Morgan remained tight-lipped and looked at me as if I was a moron. That was pretty much the default setting for his face. I responded with my trademark Cheshire Cat smile, which had got a lot of ladies into my bed and pissed off alleged tough guys like Morgan no end.

  The young woman kept typing, not caring one bit for our antics. A minute or so later she handed me a sheet of paper with the city’s crest emblazoned at the top.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, seeing the fine on it. “Three hundred bucks? For some damn flowers? The hell’s wrong with you?”

  The woman’s eyes shot up to me at that—they were green and would have cut me in half if they’d been lasers. “Do you want to add ‘Verbal assault on a police officer’ to the list?”

  I shut my mouth and turned my own murderous gaze on Morgan. The smug bastard kept smiling.

  Detective Lieutenant Morgan and I had never got along. I had to admit that he was a good cop who worked homicides more thoroughly than most guys who’d got to his rank. But he seemed to have a real problem with private investigators. Our paths had first crossed when I’d been hired to look into some local jewelry thefts. On day three, one of my suspects turned up dead and Morgan figured he’d found the triggerman when he ran into me. Everything between us had been going downhill ever since. I wasn’t sure if he disliked every PI as much as me or if I got special treatment. But he hated my ass and I wasn’t too fond of him either.

  I yanked the money out of my wallet, tossed it on the desk, turned on my heel, and started for the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Morgan demanded, his basso voice reverberating against the precinct’s tiled floor.

  “Home,” I said, my voice making a less impressive performance through exhaustion.

  I could hear him right on my heels but didn’t turn back or slow down. Christ, I just wanted this day to be over already. He reached for my arm, undoing some of the doc’s handiwork in the process, so he could force me to face him.

  My patience was wearing thin. I was maybe two more bad insults away from lashing out at him, badge or no badge. In the shape I was in, I’d probably lose, but I’d passed the point of caring somewhere between the ER and the precinct.

  “What now, Morgan?” I growled, not bothering to hide my disgust. “You’re gonna fine me again?”

  “You best stay out of my sight, Vale,” he growled back. It looked like he was making his own efforts to keep the anger at bay, but he didn’t bother keeping the scorn out of his eyes. “There’s something not right with you,” he went on. “I can feel it. Next time you interfere in police business, mark my words”—he stepped closer to my face, so close I could feel his breath on my skin as he breathed, just above a whisper, through clenched teeth and tensed lips—“you’re going down.” His unblinking eyes stayed locked with mine for a few extra moments.

  I should have nodded and walked out. I should have kept my mouth shut. But then again, as my boiling blood was telling me just then, he should have known better than to keep poking the hornet’s nest with a sharp stick.

  “That girl would be dead by now if it wasn’t for me,” I said, tone scathing. “I’m the one who saved her, me! And where were you, Detective … handing out parking tickets?”

  Morgan took a step forward, eyes darkening as he uncurled one of his fisted hands to point an accusatory finger at me. “Based on that scene you left for us to clean up, you could just as easily have got her killed, you moron. You need to learn your place in the food chain, Vale. This case was police business, not some glorified crusade for a two-bit hustler like you who’s read too many Spillane novels.”

  “Jealous much?”

  It hurt to smile at him, but boy, was it worth it to see him turn red with anger. I had no doubt that if we hadn’t been in the middle of the precinct, Morgan would have done to me what my bullet had done to that window. With one last smile, I turned my back on him and walked out of the building.

  A chilly night greeted me outside. I shivered at the autumn cold. The pain meds had started to wear off and a killer headache settled in. I hailed a cab and fell asleep on the way home.

  By the time I was paying off the driver, thirst was overwhelming me. I longed for some cool water and then maybe something stronger. A stiff drink to take the place of the meds.

  I found a carton of milk in the fridge door and swallowed a glass down in one go. The thirst for something more was still there, and it was almost enough to make me reach for the whiskey bottle that sat on my kitchen counter. It was a twenty-five-year-old Bowmore that ranked as one of the best on the planet.

  “No,” I told myself as my hand froze in mid-air and I closed my eyes. “Not tonight.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair while I let that particular bottle continue to gather dust on the counter. Some mistakes are not to be repeated, and I poured myself another glass of milk instead. I took it with me to the living room.

  I owned a small flat in the building. It came with a tiny kitchen, a modest living room that benefited from a balcony, one bedroom, and a bathroom with a working shower, toilet, and sink. The wardrobe in the bedroom was just big enough for my clothes, spare bed sheets, shoes, and the cookbooks my mother kept offering and that I never read. The bookcase in the living room was just large enough for my mismatched collection of paperbacks and encyclopedias. It stood behind a comfortable sofa and opposite an LCD television. It wasn’t much for a guy my age, as my mother liked to remind me when she was asking me why I didn’t remarry, but it was mine and it was home.

  I flipped the TV on and landed on HDL, the Headliner news channel. The late news was on and I turned my absentminded gaze to the screen. A guy was in the middle of a piece on a veggie restaurant that I’d never visit. I downed the last of the milk and crossed the living room to open the balcony doors, then stepped out to enjoy the real reason I’d put my late wife’s life insurance payout towards this place.

  The fresh seaside smell hit me full in the face and I reveled in it. It was too dark to see the ocean, but I knew it was there. It lay in the gap between the hotels that had sprouted on the shoreline like mushrooms in damp shade. My balcony had one spot that offered an unobstructed view of the ocean to where it met the sky on the far horizon. I’d installed a plastic chair there and for just a second thought about plopping down in it for a few minutes.

  “And now we join Candice Kennedy, live from Anglia Street, where a man was found dead earlier tonight,” the news anchor said in the background.

  The hells with it … I’d fall asleep if I decided to sit down out here. I tuned back to the news to focus on something other than my exhaustion.

  “Yes, Jim, that’s true,” Kennedy’s voice agreed in a soft Texan accent. “Ethan Nicholls, sixty-two, was found dead tonight in front of the Cinema Leone. Nicholls was well known and loved in the neighborhood. He was a pillar of the community and the owner of the charming old cinema here on Anglia Street, where you can hear the flicker of the projector and watch a black-and-white film every Saturday.”

  I returned inside and glanced at the screen. The young blonde
dressed in a dark-blue trench coat and standing in the night street had to be Kennedy. A bright light was on her, separating her short frame from the surrounding darkness. Around her, the night was punctuated by the red-and-blue flashes of the police cruisers’ gumball lights.

  “An official statement has yet to be issued, but we can already report that Mr. Nicholls was found dead in the street right outside his cinema,” Kennedy continued, the camera panning to the right to show the sidewalk where it happened. Patrol cars hid the view, but there was an unmistakable impression that something bad had happened.

  “According to several witnesses, Mr. Nicholls’ death, which has been attributed to a wild animal, was gruesome.” Despite the circumstances, pride showed on the blonde’s face as she reported her next find. “A source close to the investigation told me earlier that several teams have been dispatched in the neighborhood to look for a wolf. Zoo officials have yet to comm—”

  I flicked the TV off and moved to the shower. Something about that report annoyed me as the water washed the blood and pain of the last few hours from my skin. A lone wolf in the streets of this city? What next … alligators in the sewers?

  I’d just got out of the shower when she showed up. Same entrance as usual. One second she wasn’t there; the next, she sprawled languidly on my bed. That always gave me the creeps. And how in all the hells could she always have such perfect timing? But I knew better than to question how she appeared from nowhere, disappeared without a trace, or knew the things she knew.

  We were old acquaintances and she had seen into my soul and beyond. I had no problem with her seeing my nakedness. And even if I did, I was too worn down to care anyway. I flicked the bedside table lamp on, walked past her, ass-naked, and reached for a shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Someone else may have tried to educate her on social behavior, but I’d long ago given up on the hope that she would ever come to grips with a concept as trifling as privacy.