Hostile Takeover (Vale Investigation Book One) Read online

  “Y-you’re the one who called me?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir,” he said quietly. “I would have been glad to tell you all this on the phone. But I understand why you did what you did.”

  I licked my lips, took a shaky breath. “So what…what happens now?”

  “If you like, we can keep Line on machines for a little while longer,” Menendez offered, helping me to my feet. “Sometimes patients come out of these things with no—”

  “No bullshit, Doc,” I said with harshness that surprised me. “What are the chances of that?”

  To his credit, Menendez didn’t take any offense. Adjusting his glasses a little, he answered, “It’s very, very unlikely. But the final decision is yours.”

  I glanced at the doctor and shook my head. He looked a question at me, not wanting to assume anything.

  “I don’t want her to live like that,” I whispered.

  “Like I said, it’s your decision,” Menendez reassured me. “If you like, you can say goodbye before we shut down the machines.”

  I noticed some uniforms out of the corner of my eye. The doctor held up a hand in the police’s direction like a traffic cop, backed up by a shake of his head. I nodded and said, “I’d like that.”

  He herded me inside the room, where a heart monitor gave its monotone beat in counterpoint to the machine maintaining it. Most of the room was dark, but there was a light on over the bed.

  The girl in it wasn’t my Line.

  Oh, it was definitely her face, the same one that laughed at my antics and begged me to spend more time with her, to take her swimming. This little girl was too quiet, too still to be my Line. I knew what that meant. Whatever made her Line…that was long gone.

  I walked over to my little girl and sat down next to her. I could feel Menendez just behind me, giving me space. I stroked her brow, felt the tears sting my eyes as I realized I’d be doing this for the last time. She had scrapes on her cheeks, and a cut on the side of her head that was sewn closed.

  My throat tightened as everything I wanted to say fled my mind. There was nothing to say, nothing to do. All that was left was just pulling the plug and letting her go. I kissed her on the forehead and choked out the words. “Bye, sweetheart. Daddy loves you…so much.” As I leaned over, tears cut at me again.

  Menendez stood behind me. “You don’t have to be here for the shutdown.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said. “Any reason why we can’t do it now?”

  “No,” the doctor said with a soft sigh.

  A few seconds later, he flipped off the final switch on the machines that sustained Line’s shell of life. I held her hand tightly until the heart monitor flatlined.

  The tears came in earnest after that.

  Chapter two

  Help Me Through The Night

  I was still sitting in that chair when they wheeled Line out of the room covered with a sheet. I heard more footsteps come in and someone say, “Now can we talk to him?”

  “You can try,” Menendez replied. “But I can’t promise he’ll have much to say.”

  The person he was talking to harrumphed and I heard heavy footsteps walk over to me. I glanced over to see this new arrival pull over a chair to face me from the side. He looked like a cop straight from Central Casting: beefy face, broad build, a noticeable paunch under the faded dress shirt. The tie looked like it survived both World Wars. I noticed some penny loafers on his feet when I glanced down.

  “Mr. Vale, I’m Detective Sergeant Jeremy Morgan,” he said gruffly. “I realize this is a difficult time, but—”

  “Difficult?” I spat.

  Morgan’s eyes flashed a twinge of annoyance, before he added, “Your wife and daughter were killed by a hit-and-run driver at the corner of Hwy 28 and Mount Peter Road. We’re trying to track him or her down. Anything you can tell us might help us with that.”

  I noticed that Morgan wasn’t alone. Some uniformed cops stood to his left. They all had bland, apologetic faces that lacked the practiced compassion Menendez expressed. To them, this was just another night on the job. To me, this was the end of my life as I knew it.

  I told them what little I could. I hadn’t spoken to my wife or daughter since early that afternoon. Marissa took Line to visit friends just outside the city limits. Judging from the timing of the accident, she was probably going home.

  Home…

  My night was spent on the security job. And no, I couldn’t imagine either of them having an enemy in the world, never mind one that would do something this horrible to them.

  “How do you know this was a hit-and-run?” I asked, as Morgan wrapped up his questions.

  The sergeant looked like he was weighing the merits on telling me anything. Then he said, “There were skid marks next to the vehicle. Also, we found some debris that indicated a hard impact by the other vehicle in question.” He paused. “Unfortunately, we’ve yet to find any witnesses who could testify to—”

  “Well, find them!” I snapped, throwing the impotent anger I was feeling in Morgan’s face. “Somebody has to have seen it, right?”

  “We’ve just started our investigation,” he said, pushing back on my outburst. “I promise we’ll do our best and keep you in the loop. But right now, this is all we know.”

  I got up from my chair. “That’s as good as saying you don’t know anything.”

  Two of the cops came up behind me, but I was done. Everything just slipped back into numb nothingness. I know Morgan said something after that. The only clear thing I can recall was his promise to get me a copy of the police report. After that, the officers steered me out of the room.

  My memory was still a little fuzzy about what happened after. I do know that the next stop was the morgue. They pulled the sheet off Marissa’s face, which was a little bruised up from the accident, but nothing disfiguring.

  That same empty feeling I had from staring at Line’s face came back to me. Once I squashed it enough to talk, I identified the body as my wife. I had to look away after that. I was out of tears but the pain of what was happening seemed never-ending. The officers then escorted me to my car, promptly ignoring me once I got into the driver’s seat.

  I put the keys in the ignition, but felt no desire to crank the engine. I just sat there for a while, but it felt too cramped, too confining. In the end, I opened the door and stepped back out, the rain stopping again.

  I started walking. Our house…my house…was only a few blocks away from the hospital, easy enough to get to by foot. It took a while longer than if I were driving, but time no longer had any meaning. In fact, nothing had any meaning anymore. There were only the tasks I could set in front of me to keep me occupied.

  Before long, I was in the Emerald Foothills neighborhood, a residential section that sat right at the base of the mountains at the edge of Cold City, within spitting distance of the city limits sign.

  When I got home from the Navy, Marissa and I looked into getting a house on the coast. Line shared my love of the sea, and I wanted her to be close to it. But these houses cost too much, so we settled for something closer to the mountains. My little girl was disappointed, but I told her that it would be okay, I’d take her to the beach every weekend I could so she would learn how to swim like the mermaid she wanted to be. A fresh round of pain stabbed at me as I remembered her laughter.

  All too soon, my house loomed in front of me like the House of Usher. This morning, it seemed like a safe haven, a shelter from the storms of life. Now it felt like a place I no longer belonged to…Too big, too quiet, too empty. It took everything I had just to walk up the front porch and unlock the door.

  The sound of my footsteps in the house rebuked me with every echo. I knew I couldn’t stay here, not tonight. Maybe tomorrow, maybe when the pain wasn’t so fresh…but not tonight.

  I willed my feet to go to the kitchen. A pair of pots sat on the
stovetop; Marissa must have been planning to cook when she got home. I felt a lump in my throat as I saw a vegetarian spaghetti recipe laying out next to the stove. I shook my head and opened the overhead cabinet to the right. A bottle of Jack Daniels No. 10 stood on the top shelf, just out of reach enough for me to get on my toes to grab it.

  My mission accomplished, I wasted no time walking back towards the front door, stepping outside and locking it behind me. As far as I was concerned, it could stay locked forever, right alongside all the memories associated with it. Moving on their own, my feet circled around to the backyard.

  Most of the yard was dominated by a small dingy boat I bought a few weeks ago. It wasn’t in the best of shape, but it was still seaworthy for short stretches. I planned on fixing it up in my spare time, then using it to take the family out on cruises off the coast. A blue tarp covered up the inside, keeping the rain off it, like a makeshift roof.

  I’d done enough thinking for one night…hell, one lifetime. I unscrewed the bottle of Jack and took a swig. It went down like burning kerosene, but I didn’t care. It was making me feel something other than my pain.

  I crawled under the tarp and into the boat. Once I lay down, I took another swig…and another…and another. I don’t remember finishing the bottle before I passed out.

  *

  Morning brought pain.

  Not the pain of my grief, but the pain of the mother of all hangovers. My head felt like FIFA used it for soccer practice. The rest of my body ached from the damp and the cold that seeped into the boat under the tarp. My clothes felt so grungy, dirty and nasty that I may as well have slept on the ground.

  I pulled off the tarp to reveal a cloudy day overhead. The sky hung low, but the clouds were white enough to let me know the rain had stopped for a while. Still, I saw some darker clouds coming in from the direction of the coast, which meant more rain later today.

  Even with how lousy I felt, I was strangely fine for a few precious seconds. Sure, I could stand to be cleaned up a little and my temples were screaming for aspirin, but it was pain and circumstances I could eventually get past, and all felt right with the world.

  I looked at my phone, and that peaceful feeling collapsed like spring ice in the sun. There were so many texts waiting for me, some from Bob, from the guys at work, from relatives I made a point of staying out of touch with, and some family friends I wasn’t ready to face. Apparently, word was getting around.

  I deleted everything. I couldn’t face them, wouldn’t face them. I didn’t need anyone’s condolences right now. I needed some goddamn answers.

  I accidentally pulled something else out when I grabbed the phone: a card listing the contact number for Detective Sergeant Jeremy Morgan on it. Guess he must have given it to me last night. A glance at the time showed that it was just a couple of minutes until noon. Maybe he found something while I was hibernating.

  The phone picked up on the second ring. “Detective Sergeant Morgan.”

  “Sergeant, this is Bellamy Vale,” I said, my voice rasping from the gunk that clogged in my throat overnight. “I was just calling to see if there was an update on…” My voice faltered for a minute before I finished with, “on my family’s case?”

  I heard a suppressed annoyed grunt before Morgan said, “I’m afraid there’s nothing new we can tell you at this time.”

  “Nothing?” I asked, feeling a heavy hopelessness settle over me.

  “Look, Mr. Vale…I promise you that the moment we have something, we’ll be in touch. But right now, please…Let us do our jobs.”

  The sincerity of his plea made me sigh into the receiver. “I understand, Sergeant. Sorry to bother you.”

  “Understandable,” Morgan assured me. “We’ll be in touch.”

  He hung up the phone before I could get my goodbye in. Guess he and Bob went to the same charm school. His voice reminded me of his fellow cops’ faces from last night. I knew he’d do his best, but he just didn’t care…at least, not like I cared.

  I thought back to the accident site. The corner of Hwy 28 and Mount Peter Road was a major hike from the house, but so what? I had nothing but time. I might as well use it.

  I stretched out my limbs a bit before I walked off in that direction. By the time I reached the bucolic intersection, the dark clouds I spotted earlier had grown bigger and closer. Rain would be coming sooner rather than later, and I felt a twinge about getting soaked. Then I realized how little I cared.

  The tranquil landscape was a good match for my indifference. Cold City was a few miles to the west of here, but you’d have thought it was much further. The grey worn asphalt and extensive layout of trees were dwarfed by the mountain on my right. This was one section of land that the city council had yet to acquire for real estate purposes, thanks to a century of tangled legal rights. Anybody who wanted to get out of Cold City and wanted to avoid a suburb came out here.

  The wreck of my wife’s Ford Focus still lay by the side of Hwy 28, well away from any incoming traffic coming from either road. The vehicle fell down a small drop-off, coming to rest in the middle of a pine grove. Its hood was all but smashed in, and the windshield was in even worse shape. Only jagged pieces of glass remained around the edges of the latter; the rest was scattered like pebbles in the high grass around the car. Even so, the main body of the Focus was surprisingly intact. If you spotted it from the road, you might even think it was still in one piece.

  My eyes fell on a series of skid marks coming from Mount Peter, where a string of residences cut into the formerly-virgin forest. Judging by the size and width of the tires, it belonged to a good-sized vehicle, like an Escalade or a Hummer. On the opposite end of the road, I spotted some of the debris Morgan mentioned. Traffic was sparse, so I ran across the road to get a closer look.

  I kneeled down to find smashed glass from the turn signal and headlight, along with what looked like pieces of a fender. I noted the matte black finish on the fender fragments and frowned. Who knows how many vehicles on the road had that paint. Even just sticking to big vehicles wouldn’t narrow it down.

  I ran back across the road to get a better look at my wife’s car. I told myself that looking inside would help tell me things the outside wouldn’t. But I knew better.

  The blood on the seats brought it all home to me. This is where Marissa and Line lost their lives. Then I saw something that broke my heart.

  A few feet from the passenger side door, covered in blood, was Mr. Royal, the purple plush bunny I bought Line for her last birthday.

  I walked over to it, feeling the sorrow build again. It was like looking at their dead bodies all over again. Line loved that bunny so much, she took it with her everywhere.

  I wish I’d known it was here before going to the hospital. Maybe I could have given it to her before…

  The grief hit me again, knocking me to my knees as I cried.

  If I’m honest, I did a lot more than cry. I bawled, I howled, I did everything I could to express the ugly sorrow that was driving me mad. I felt some of the windshield fragments under my knees, but I didn’t care, not about that, not about anything else.

  The skies opened up, dropping heavy raindrops on my head. The water mixed with my tears while lightning split the sky. I used the cover of the storm to yell as loud as I could. My throat was hoarse by the time I was done cursing God and the universe.

  Finally, I picked myself up, grabbing Mr. Royal as I got to my feet. I held him as close to my chest as I wanted to hold my wife and daughter. A roll of thunder made me loosen my grip and look at the bunny’s bland, innocent face.

  “Whatever it takes,” I whispered, “whatever I have to do…I’m finding him. I’m finding him, and I’m killing him.”

  A louder thunderclap answered my vow, as if God Himself were giving me His blessing. I felt a little better after saying it. I’d just been wallowing before. Now, I had a purpose, a reason to
keep going.

  *

  Eight hours later, I realized I was going to have to call it a night. The rain had long since stopped, leaving me in soaked clothes that stuck to me like slime. I shivered, a consequence of the cool night air hitting my drenched clothing. I took another swig of the beer that I picked up at a convenience store a mile back. It was my second one for the day. The first one helped me wash down the turkey sandwich I grabbed for lunch.

  I was spending the entire day trying to retrace the route of my family’s killer. Every residence along Mount Peter got a close inspection. From the location of the debris, the skid marks and angle of the car, I knew that the impact had to have been on the right side. But there wasn’t a single one of the oversized vehicles I spotted that had so much as a scratch on them. One or two had a busted turn signal, but the rest of the car was always too unblemished. So I kept walking and looking.

  One detail about the scene bothered me. Near as I could tell, the driver just plowed straight through them from Hwy 28, completely ignoring the stop sign. Of course, it was night and raining. But he still should have seen them, and definitely should have hit his brakes a lot sooner than he did. Why did he just keep going?

  That question tormented me as I looked.

  But exhaustion finally got the better of me. It was time to call it a night.

  It took me another two hours to walk home. By the time I got there, I was staggering. One glance at the house, and I knew where I’d be spending the night.

  I barely had the energy to crawl under the tarp before I collapsed back in the boat. Once my head hit the wood, I slept a mercifully dreamless sleep.

  Chapter three

  Dark End Of The Street

  When I came out of my booze-and-exhaustion-powered stupor the next morning, I went back to the hospital. Amazingly, my car hadn’t been towed in the roughly thirty-six hours since I’d parked it. Then again, it was a hospital. Much like airports, it wasn’t uncommon for cars to stay in the same slot for a couple of days, maybe weeks. The minute I pulled out of the parking lot, I aimed it back towards Mount Peter. I was determined to make a second inspection of that road.