Chris Mooney - The Dead Room

Darby squeezed the trigger.

The shot blew out the back of the police commissioner's head.

Darby ran back to the main bay to Pine. She checked his pulse, and was unsurprised to find him dead. He had bled out.

She wiped down the Glock with her shirt-tail and dropped it on the floor.

Standing back behind the desk with her laptop, Darby used her shirt to pick up the shotgun. She dropped it next to Chadzynski, thinking about Sean Sheppard lying in a coma, brain dead, like her father.

Darby got down on her knees, warm blooding spilling out across the floor and touching her skin. She searched Chadzynski's pockets. No flash drive but she found car keys.

She switched to the shotgun she was carrying and opened the door. The police commissioner's sleek black Mercedes sat a few feet away.

There were no other vehicles in the car park.

She turned on the gun's tactical light and ran through the rain to the front of the building. The door and windows were boarded. She looked for a number – there, a sign above the door. She shielded her eyes from the rain and read the faded letters: DELANEY'S AUTOMOTIVE GARAGE.

Sitting behind the wheel, the shotgun resting on the floor of the passenger seat, she started the car. The Mercedes had a GPS navigation system built into the console. Her location was displayed on the screen. Perfect.

She drove away from the building, then turned around so she could watch it.

The wipers thumping back and forth, she dialled Randy Scott's mobile number.

'Randy Scott.'

'Please tell me you're still at the lab.'

'I am.'

Sweet relief flooded her.

'Darby.' His voice was hesitant, nervous. 'I don't know if -'

'Don't talk, just listen. I need Dan Russo's address.'

'I don't have access to the homicide database.'

'I know, I'll give you my password. Go in my office -'

'I can't. They've sealed it off.'

'Who sealed it off?'

'The commissioner was here earlier and she… she told us that you tampered with evidence. She has half the Boston police department looking for you and Coop.'

'It's bullshit. I'll prove it to you. I have Chadzynski's confession recorded on my phone. I'll send it to you, then I'm going to lead you to her body. You and Mark. I want -'

'She's dead.'

'Listen to me. I need you two here to secure the scene. First, I want you to go to the fingerprint database and give me the address that's listed with Dan Russo's name. Will you do that?'

'Hold on.'

Darby pulled out of the gate. The garage sat at the far end of a dead-end road. She looked at the tenement-type buildings and thought she was in East Boston or Chelsea. She suspected this was a neighbourhood used to gunshots. There was a good amount of distance between the garage and the buildings. With the rain, she doubted anyone had heard anything.

Randy finally came back on the line and gave her a Wellesley address. She plugged it into the GPS.

'I need you to write down an address,' she said.

'Go ahead.'

Darby gave it to him. 'I want you to come here with Mark and photograph and document every piece of evidence. Go in through the side door and you'll find a laptop computer on a desk; there are audio files on it. You're to confiscate that immediately. Under no circumstances are you to let anyone touch it. Put it into evidence and don't let it out of your sight. After you're done, call the police. Tell them everything I told you.'

'Got it.'

'Can your phone accept audio files?'

'As far as I know it can.'

'I'll send you the audio file of my conversation with the commissioner.'

She hung up and called directory inquiries. There was only one listing for Russo. It matched the address Randy had given her.

Darby drove, dividing her attention between the road and the phone. She sent a copy of her recorded conversation to Randy and Mark. She also sent a copy to Coop.

Jamie could no longer see clearly. Kevin Reynolds had wasted no time in hitting her after she'd refused to answer his questions about the whereabouts of his partner, Ben Masters. Reynolds had hit her face so many times her eyes had almost completely swollen shut. When she still refused to answer, he kicked her in the chest so hard her chair had toppled against the floor, where she screamed the word 'stay' the entire time.

Thank God for Michael. Michael had kept his cool. Michael was still hiding, protecting his brother instead of trying to be a hero.

Reynolds had kicked again and again – in the stomach, in the shins; he had slammed his foot down against her hand and broken several of her fingers. Finally her mind snapped from the excruciating pain and she admitted to killing Ben Masters. It shamed her, admitting this. Reynolds wanted details. Wanted to know how she had killed him and where she had buried him. She came close to saying it. She was delirious with pain and could no longer think clearly. And in the midst of all of this her mind clutched the brass ring, the only thing that was keeping her alive: the location of Ben's body. She had to convince Reynolds and Humphrey to take her out of the house so they could drive to the location of the body. Once the house was empty, the kids would be safe, and Michael could call the police.

Jamie lay sideways against the floor, struggling to breathe. She was pretty sure Reynolds had broken several of her ribs.

'Take… you,' she said.

Reynolds stood somewhere in front of her. She could hear his sneakers pacing the carpet near her head, and he was breathing hard – not from the physical exertion but from anger.

'Take,' she said again. 'Take… ah… ah… you.'

Humphrey said, 'She's speaking.'

Jamie cracked an eye open and saw Reynolds's blurry shape leaning close to her.

'What's that, hon?'

'Take… you… ah… there.'

'I want you to tell me where he is.'

'Take… take… you.'

Humphrey said, 'Let her take us there, Kevin. What's the harm?'

'I still don't believe her,' Reynolds said. 'I think she's got him stashed away somewhere. I'm smelling a trap. This cunt is real crafty, was going to ambush me this morning. Ain't that right, sweetheart?'

Reynolds leaned in closer. 'You were a cop. You know who Ben is, don't you? Your husband told you, I know it. Ben's worth more to you alive than dead. You call one of your friends on the force and tell them what you saw in the basement?'

Jamie licked her lips. It took a great effort to speak. 'No.'

'You're more stubborn than your husband. But I'm aiming to fix that.'

Jamie thought she heard a car door slam shut.

Humphrey said, 'Clean-up crew is here.'

'Tell them to pull into the garage,' Reynolds said. 'I want to load her into the van.' Footsteps walked past her and then she felt Reynolds grip the back of her chair and pull her up into a sitting position.

Now she felt his breath, heavy with booze and cigarettes, against her ear. 'I'm going to get you to talk. I don't care how long it takes or what I have to do, one way or another, you're going to tell me every little detail.'

Darby took the corner too quickly. The tyres skidded across the wet pavement as she pulled on to a long suburban street full of big homes and nice lawns. Lots of space between the houses, lots of the windows dark. She drove out of the skid and heard the GPS's computerized voice giving her the directions. The house she was looking for would be on her left, less than half a mile up the road.

Tearing down the street, she saw a brown van parked in a driveway. Through an open garage door, she took in the quick movements of three men dressed in suits and carrying big plastic tackle-boxes and large briefcases. Her attention was fixed on the man lighting a cigarette by the van's open door – the man who had checked her car for bugs, the head of Chadzynski's Anti-Corruption Unit, Lieutenant Warner.