Gregg Hurwitz - The Kill Clause

“Point taken. Hypocrisy realized.”

“Everyone thinks they can own justice, but you can’t. It’s not a commodity. There is no ‘my’ justice. There’s just ‘Justice’ with a capital J.”

“Is breaking into Kindell’s house and busting his water pipe ‘Justice’ with a capital J?”

“Hell no. It’s just vandalism.” Her eyes, pristine green, hid a glimmer. “I said I had clarity. I didn’t say I had maturity.” She let out a soft laugh, then her face hardened the way only hers could-mouth drawing taut and chiseling out her cheekbones, squaring her jaw. “Don’t think I’m sitting here in judgment of you because I’ve managed to string together a few thoughts in the past twenty-four hours. I’m not.”

They sat for a few moments with the night breeze and the eucalyptus branches scraping overhead. “I can’t do it anymore,” Tim said. “The Commission.”

“Because it’s getting out of control?”

“No. Because it’s wrong.”

The sound of Kindell tripping and splashing echoed in the canyon, then faded into cricket-broken silence.

“They’ve been double-playing me from the beginning. I’m getting out, and I’m taking Kindell’s files with me.”

“What if they won’t give them to you?”

“I’m getting out anyway.”

“Then we’ll never know what happened to Ginny.”

“We’ll find some other way if we have to.”

Tim slid the unregistered. 357 from his hip holster, released the wheel, and spun it so the bullets fell one after another into his palm. He handed Dray the bullets, then the gun.

He got into his car. When his beams flashed past Dray, she was still sitting on the hood, staring out at the dark of the canyon.

•Rayner’s front door was open, sending out a shaft of light into the night. As Tim pulled nearer, he saw that the driveway gate had been pried from its tracks and shoved open, its end post describing an arc in the concrete. Tim left the Beemer across the street, hit a jog, and slipped through the gate.

Groaning issued from inside. Tim approached the front door fast, painfully aware of his lack of weapon. At the base of the foyer stairs, Rayner lay on his back, propped up on one elbow, his shoulders and head resting against the newel post.

Tim saw blood on his face, his chest.

Tim stepped onto the porch, and Rayner jerked back, startled, until he recognized him. A path of blood led from the conference room, terminating at Rayner’s resting place-he’d dragged himself across the foyer. A phone perched in an alcove at the base of the stairs remained well out of his reach.

Tim stopped before the doorway and made an interrogative gesture.

Rayner’s voice came jerky and weak. His upper lip was split, right through his white mustache, and his bathrobe was torn on the right side. “They’re gone now.”

He raised a blood-soaked bathrobe sleeve, a pajama cuff protruding, and pointed with a weak, tremulous hand toward the far side of the foyer.

Tim leaned forward and saw Ananberg’s body sprawled facedown near the door to the library. The excruciating angle of her limbs-one arm bent backward at the elbow, her right leg caught beneath her so her hips rose in an awkward tilt-made clear she was lying as she’d fallen. Her cream chemise was spotted with blood.

Tim entered cautiously and used his elbow to shut the door so he wouldn’t smudge whatever prints may have been left on the door handle. He inhaled deeply, caught a whiff of explosive residue. His thoughts were stampeding, a swirl of furious movement.

He crossed to Ananberg and checked her pulse, though he already knew. A fall of sleek hair blocked her eyes. Tim wanted her to brush it away with the heel of her hand, rise sleepy-eyed, and crack wise about his startled expression, his shirt, a flaw in his logic. But she just lay there, inert and cold. He pulled her hair out of her face for her, ran his fingertips gently down her porcelain cheek. “Damnit, Jenna,” he said.

He glanced through the open door of the conference room. Despite his limited view, he saw that the picture of Rayner’s son had been thrown on the floor. One of the paper shredders was jiggling and giving off a repetitive whine, stuck on something.

Rayner’s voice rasped at him. “Call 911.”

Tim had already flipped open his cell phone. As he demanded an ambulance to the address, he peeled back Rayner’s bathrobe. Tattered fabric fluttered around the gaping wound in his side. One of his ribs was visible, a white sheen in the rich, dark glitter.

When Rayner spoke, Tim could see that his front teeth were both chipped, and he knew it was from having a pistol rammed into his mouth. “They dragged us out of bed…tried to get me to open the safe. I wouldn’t.” He raised a hand, let it fall. “Jenna tried to fight…after I got shot… Robert lost his cool…snapped her neck with atwist of his hand, just like that… Jenna, Jesus…poor, proud Jenna…” He tugged at the burnt edge of his robe, his fingers tense and pinching. He was dying, and they both knew it.

Tim’s head buzzed with disbelief. “They’re ruthless.”

“Without Franklin around to reign them in anymore…”

“What did they take?”

“The not-guilty case files. Thomas Black Bear…Mick Dobbins…Rhythm Jones. And they took Terrill Bowrick’s.” His voice was warbling now, growing weaker.

Even through his heightened concern, Tim felt a stab of relief that Kindell’s binder had been left behind.

“I tried to stop them… If they kill indiscriminately… it will ruinwhat we are…my doctrine…”

“Were there any other files in there? The ones you were reviewing for the second phase?”

“No.” Rayner double-blinked and looked back at Tim unsteadily. “Nothing.”

The four stolen binders contained weeks, maybe even months, of man-hours. They had the complete details of the police investigations. Locations, addresses, relationships, habits. Endless trails for locating the accused.

Essential intel for planning a series of hits.

“I’m calling the authorities, getting them on the trail.”

“Absolutely not. You…can’t. An investigation…the media… It’ll destroy my message… my name…my legacy…”

Rayner’s arrogance and pride still drove his every thought, even here, even on the cusp of death. His mouth was slightly ajar, enough so Tim could see the protrusions of his chipped front teeth. His gums were rimmed with blood. Tim had no good answer for why his store of disdain was greater for Rayner than even for Mitchell or Robert-for anyone, in fact, save himself. The reek of shamelessness, perhaps. His father’s scent.

“Robert and Mitchell aren’t interested in naming names…” With great effort Rayner tilted his head forward off the post to look at Tim directly. “If we leave them be, they’ll leave us be…”

“There are innocent people at risk of being killed.”

“We don’t know that.” Rayner’s eyes were a jumbled mix of desperation and stifled panic. When he spoke again, the wound in his upper lip spread, a seam between two flaps of skin. “The kill clause…Mr. Rackley…or did you forget? The Commission is…dissolved.”

“The kill clause also states we have to tie up loose ends. You don’t consider this a loose end?”

The whirring of the paper shredder continued in the background with maddening regularity.

“I’m a professor of social psychology…a prominent advocate… Don’t undo my life’s work. Don’t ruin what I’ve tried to”-he lurched forward, racked with pain-“accomplish here because of those two…maniacs. They’re not our business… What they do nowisn’t part of what we were… The press will pollute everything…” His eyes tearing, Rayner pressed a hand to his side in a futile attempt to stanch his bleeding. He looked desperate and utterly crestfallen. “Please don’t drag…my name through the mud…”