T. Bunn - Winner Take All

Hamper catapulted over his chair and launched himself into Marcus.

Marcus dropped his jaw to his collarbone to keep Hamper’s hands from locking around his throat. He launched a series of pent-up blows, going in low and hard. Hamper grunted when Marcus found the soft flab beneath his ribs. But Hamper’s fingers kept weaseling in, seeking a lock on his neck. Marcus saw the fear in Hamper’s gaze, the wild rage. And matched it with his own. A portion of his brain took note of Wilma shouting for more guards and the deputy grunting and cursing as he sought to unwind Hamper’s arms. Hamper screamed and blew spittle in his face. The prisoner had himself a good laugh over a bad man going down. When Hamper’s thumb came within reach, Marcus bit into the fleshy portion of his palm. Hamper’s scream hit a new note. Marcus put everything he had into three more punches, two into the man’s flabby gut and a strong right jab directly at the heart.

The fight left Hamper in a whoosh of putrid breath. Marcus spat out the sweaty mouthful and backed away. A second guard shoved himself into the overcrowded room. Black limbs the size of a pro wrestler’s pinned Hamper to a massive chest while the first guard cuffed him. Hamper struggled futilely and rasped, “I’ll kill you.”

“Deputy, why don’t you show our new guest to his suite.”

Hamper sought to hold himself in the room with a foot on the doorframe. “You’re dead, Glenwood.”

“Oh, I think your killing days are over.” Wilma waved them off. “Charge him with assault. I’ll be back directly to see what else we can cook up.”

The prisoner gave Marcus a yellowed grin. “You’re a lawyer?”

“Yes.” His jacket was ripped down one sleeve. Marcus took it off and used it to wipe his face. “Unless the DA wants to weigh in otherwise.”

“Not me, counselor.” Wilma looked almost as happy as the prisoner. “Now that I’ve seen that left of yours at work, I’d best keep you on my side.”

The prisoner turned to Wilma and declared, “I like this dude’s style.”

“I can serve only as a temporary adviser,” Marcus warned. “Potential conflict of interest means I can’t represent you.”

“That makes it in my book.” Wilma waited until the kicking and screaming diminished down the hallway. “Counselor, why don’t you join us for round two?”

Working through Skyler Cummins’ account took the better part of two hours. Marcus left the building utterly drained. Sometime while he was inside the day had passed into twilight. He glanced at his watch. Six-thirty. The day seemed far older. Ancient, in fact. Full of dirty secrets and stained motives and plans that cared little over who got mauled in the process. He turned on his phone and dialed Dale’s numbers. No answer. Yet another worrisome development.

His phone rang just as he was shoving it back into his pocket. When he answered, Kirsten breathlessly announced, “I caught the only nonstop from La Guardia to Wilmington. Can you believe it? I made it by a hair.”

“When do you get in?”

She caught his tone. “Tell me what’s the matter.”

“This,” he replied, “has been a really long day.”

“But a good one.”

“Yes. I suppose so.”

“And it’s about to get even better.”

He clenched his eyes shut. Fatigue pummeled him with bruising force. “Kirsten, I’m pretty certain I know who was behind the kidnapping.”

“So do I.”

“But I don’t know why.”

“I do.” She lowered her voice to a whisper and told him about her meetings with Evelyn Lloyd and the oncologist.

Marcus rubbed his face hard, striving to force blood through his sluggish brain. “I have to go to the DA with this.”

“You can’t.”

“Kirsten-”

“Just listen to me, okay?” Swiftly she related the call from Goscha, and the conversation with Reiner.

“Dale doesn’t have ten million dollars.”

“I know.”

“Putting together the five has wiped him out.”

“The second offer did not come from Dale. I’m certain of that much.”

“Then why is Reiner coming to Wilmington?”

A pause, then, “Do you have any idea who bought Dale’s house?”

“He said it was kept anonymous. My money’s on Kedrick Lloyd.”

“It’s a bitter thought, but I think you’re right.”

A silver Explorer with dark-tinted windows cruised slowly by. “I can’t keep this from the authorities.”

“Reiner said if we bring in the police, they’d kill the child.”

“The DA has to know.” And Dale. He would have to tell the man what was happening. If Dale could be found. “Wilma Blain is a good woman, Kirsten. I think we can trust her.”

A pause. “All right. But be careful.”

“Give me your flight details.”

“No, Marcus. I’m a big girl. If you’re so busy I’ll make my own way into town.”

He was in no state to argue. He turned his back to where the Explorer had pulled up and parked on the darkened street away from the station. “This is not how I wanted the day to play out.”

“The day,” she breathed, “is not over yet.”

He clicked off the phone, but could not bring himself to rise from his station on the wall. He punched in Dale’s mobile number. One more try, then he would go speak to Wilma Blain.

Marcus could not tell what was more surprising, the fact that Dale answered or the sound of footsteps scraping up behind him. “Dale?”

It was the last word he spoke for a very long while.

The Wilmington airport was a scene straight from the fifties. Kirsten deplaned via roll-up stairs and walked across the tarmac to the main building. She searched for Marcus, knowing he was probably tied up with Dale but disappointed just the same that he was not here. She did not want to work on the case. Not tonight. First she wanted some serious face time with this man. See if the reality held a candle to the fantasies. She had to smile. It was probably good for everybody concerned that their first meeting not be here in public.

She called Marcus at the Hertz counter, but he was not answering his phone. Rental contract in hand, Kirsten stepped out into the dwindling daylight. Two weeks away and she had already forgotten the intensity of a Carolina summer dusk. She took a deep breath. She could actually smell the sea.

The Hertz spaces were at the back of the airport’s miniature parking lot. By the time she found her car, the night’s velvet cloak was gathering more tightly. The first stars appeared, tiny beacons to all the secrets she kept sealed in her heart. For now.

A silver Explorer cruised along the bank of rental cars. The windows were opaque, as though the night had been painted across the glass. The lights were off. The Explorer continued slipping up quietly toward her, a rude intrusion into the warm stream of things to come.

Then the door opened. “Hello there, dolly.” The overly taut features formed a rictus grin as he moved toward her. “Don’t that sound like a song to you?”

She did not need to smell him to flee.

But she had not taken two steps before the fist gripped her hair and plucked her back so sharply her feet kept going right out from under her. The pain of her hair being pulled out by its roots was a brilliant light behind her eyelids.

Sephus Jones did not try to break her fall. Instead, he fell with her, or at least his arm did. The fist in her hair directed her head toward the fender of her rental car. She partly caught her weight with one hand, but the fist in her hair was pulling hard now, and her skull struck the metal with such force she lost consciousness.

The next moment she lay sprawled out on the pavement, her head shrieking the pain and fear her mouth could not seem to form.