Jeffery Deaver - Solitude Creek

The ocean was not far away and Darth could hear the water smashing on the rocks, the seals, gulls. Good. It covered up the noise of their movement.

‘I’m saying, we should book.’ Wolverine was in a navy jacket. Baseball cap, black, backward. Darth was wearing jeans, a black shirt and hoodie. Darth liked to think of him and his friend by their code names when they were out fucking up somebody’s house or a church. Felt like soldiers, felt like superheroes.

They were both slim, young. Darth was bigger, older by a year and change, though they were in the same grade. The two hid behind a bush that smelled of pee, and his knees felt moisture from the fog-damp sand.

‘Dude?’ Wolverine whispered more desperately. ‘Now! Let’s history, man. We gotta get out of here.’

Darth shifted. And: clink, clink.

‘Jesus, quiet!’

Darth set the backpack down carefully and rearranged the cans of red spray paint, put a T-shirt between them. Hoisted the canvas satchel once more.

‘Really, man.’ Wolverine wasn’t exactly living up to his nickname. But Darth was patient with his friend. The bitch got freaked a lot. And, church, Darth was a little tweaked at the moment too, with some asshole prowling around, getting closer.

But he was leader of the crew and he now commanded, ‘Chill.’

Wolverine nodded.

Okay, he was a pussy but he also was the one who’d spotted somebody coming through the park. Sure, they ought to leave. Darth didn’t have any hassle with that idea. But they fucking couldn’t because the fucking Jew had found the bikes and rolled them into his garage. Just after they’d tagged the wall, and got over the fence out of the yard, some bitch from across the street had come out and started screaming, stop, what’re you doing, how hateful and who did they think they were...

Blah, blah...

They didn’t want to get seen so they’d run in this direction and hidden in some bushes, watching Goldshit come out, spot the bikes, cart them away and — fucker — throw them into the garage.

Then the flashing lights.

And now the footsteps.

Who? Goldshit? The woman who’d snitched?

But why would they be here? No, it probably was a cop. And if so they’d be armed with a Taser and a Glock and one of those big fucking flashlights that could cave your head in. When Darth had been in juvie, he’d celled with a kid whose head’d been caved in by one of those.

Footsteps getting closer but still half a basketball court away.

‘Why’re we waiting?’

The why was something Darth didn’t have the time — or the inclination — to explain: that if Darth’s dad found out his bike was gone, out would come the branch and Darth’d get bloody.

Closer. The probably cop was moving slow but headed in their exact direction.

Darth nodded toward a garden shack at the back of Junipero Manor.

They slipped closer to the lopsided structure and crouched between it and a tangled bush. The cop didn’t have a flashlight out. Just was walking slowly, stopping, listening. Playing it cautious, as if the dudes he was after were stone cold. Anybody who’d sneak up to a house and write, Die Jew with a fat-ass swastika on it, probably was.

And, yeah, Darth thought, guess what? We are.

Totally stone cold...

Darth whispered, ‘Got an idea. I’m going to lead ’em off.’

‘But you’ll... What’re you gonna do?’

‘I’ll head that way into the park, make some noise or something and then you can run.’

‘Yeah? What’ll happen to you?’

‘Nobody can touch me,’ Darth whispered, mouth close to ear. ‘Track and field, remember? I’ll be fine.’ Darth’s father had made sure he’d gotten trophies in every event he could in T and F (it’d be the branch if he didn’t).

‘You cool?’

‘Yeah.’ His friend’s green eyes looked uncertain.

‘Okay, just stay here and... give me sixty seconds to get into position. When you count sixty, run — that way. Asilomar. And just keep going. They’ll start after you but I’ll make a shitload of noise and lead ’em off.’

‘Okay. Sixty.’

Then Darth gave a smile. ‘Yo. We did good tonight.’

A nod. A fist bump.

‘Start counting.’ Darth moved as quietly as he could into the woods away from the shed. As he did so he looked around. Ah, there, excellent. He found a perfect weapon. A rock about ten inches long, sharp at one end. He picked it up and hefted it. Good, good.

Darth had no intention of running. He was pissed off that they’d been pushed into a corner and pissed that the Jew had taken his bike. What he was going to do as soon as Wolverine took off was come up behind the cop, distracted by the noise of his friend’s footsteps.

Then Darth’d slam the rock into the cop’s head, knock him out.

And get the asshole’s gun, which would be a slick and smooth Glock or Beretta or something.

He felt a chill of pleasure and enjoyed a brief fantasy of his father coming into his bedroom, pushing him down on the bed, facedown, lifting the branch... and Darth twisting away, grabbing the automatic from under the pillow and watching his father’s terrified face stare into the muzzle of a fucking nine-mil.

Would he pull the trigger?

No. Yes. Maybe.

He silently made his way around the cop, looking carefully where he put his feet.

Okay, Wolverine. Up to you now.

About fifteen seconds left in the count. He gripped the rock and moved a bit closer to him.

Only, wait, weird. It wasn’t a him. It was a woman. Was it the bitch across from Goldshit’s? No, no, that didn’t make sense. It’d have to be a cop, just a woman cop.

Could Darth drop a girl?

Then decided: What the fuck difference does it make? Of course he could.

Then he had a weird thought: Wolverine — his real name was Wes — his mother, Mrs Dance, was a cop. What if this was her? It was too dark to see anything but long hair. But then Darth, well, Donnie Verso, remembered that Wes had said his mother was out of town. Some big case she was working on.

So, whoever she was, it wasn’t Mrs Dance.

Okay. He moved a bit closer, then paused, kneading the rock. He crouched and got ready to sprint up behind her and take the bitch out. In less than a minute he’d have his gun.

Kathryn Dance continued toward the large Victorian house on the far edge of the park.

She was disappointed to see that while the porch lights were on the rest of the house seemed dark. Too bad. Despite O’Neil’s assessment she was still inclined to lay the crime at the feet of a biker gang. The family here might have heard the throaty clatter of a ’cycle engine, maybe peeked out of the front window and gotten a good view. Make and model of the bike possibly, descriptions.

Still, someone might be home. That a lead was unlikely was no reason to ignore it.

Unleashed...

As she approached the large, rustic yard surrounding the house, she paused once more. Now she heard footsteps. Two sets, in fact. One in front of her some distance away; others, closer, to her right, moving behind. She squinted into the darkness but could see nothing. Deer, most likely. The population of the critters around here was huge.

Of course, she wondered, too, if she’d been too hasty in dismissing the possibility that the perps were still here. True, an ordinary perp would be long gone. Hey, let’s get the hell out of here. We’ve done the deed. Enough. But this wasn’t a burglary or mugging or ‘Let’s torch the Porta Potti for the hell of it’ kind of vandalism. This was different. And it wasn’t unreasonable to think that the perps in this case would remain to watch the reaction, the dismay of the victims.