C. Barry - Redemption

“You know who you’re messing with?” he shouted. “You know who I am?”

A fist drove deep into his belly, and he buckled and choked. Something hard hit the back of his head, sending stars across his eyes. He started to fall, but he was hoisted to his feet. Through the blood and rain, he glared at the punk he’d flipped off. There were another six or seven figures that he could see. One of them was standing in the back, watching.

“You think you’re bad?” Alexander spit.

The punk grinned and flashed a silver blade as he walked up to him. “Yeah, old man. We do. And you’re gonna find out just how bad.”

His hatred was so great, Alexander felt no fear. “Fuck you.”

Reya stood in the rain and watched the gang stab and beat Alexander to death. Even if she wanted to help him—which she didn’t—she was forbidden. It was his time to die, regardless of her brief intervention. All she could do was offer his soul a reprieve.

Occasionally, Alexander let out a cry or a curse that reached her ears through the ping-ping of rain on the streets. When he fell, they picked him up and hit him again.

And with every blow, she felt a small bit of justice for the women he’d tortured and raped. For the lives he’d taken. For his long-suffering wife. For the trail of tears he’d left.

Finally, he started begging for his life. Echoes of women’s voices begging for mercy drowned him out in her head.

Reya shoved her hands inside the pockets of her long coat and looked down the street. Water dripped down her face and from the tips of her long black hair. Lights gleamed long lines across the wet concrete.

And tonight, there was one less bastard in this world.

“Seriously, he called 911, stayed until the local cops showed up, and admitted to killing the victim,” Martin said as he walked with Thane to the interrogation room. “He’s got to be certifiable. What gangbanger does that?”

“Maybe he found God,” Thane said.

Martin laughed. “I have a better chance of getting struck by lightning.”

As someone who’d personally sworn off God years ago, Thane had to agree. “Who’s the victim?”

“Alexander Wolken.”

Name didn’t sound familiar.

Martin read off the sheet he was carrying. “Worked as a sales rep for a luxury car dealership. A wife, no kids. No tickets, no warnings. He’s clean.”

Didn’t make sense. “DNA testing?”

“Already ordered,” Martin said. “If he follows the pattern, he’s dirty. Fifty bucks says we’ll find a match in a DNA database,” Martin replied, closing the file.

“Hundred bucks says it’s a murder,” Thane added.

Martin shook his head in disgust. “All the work we do. Ever notice that you and I are the only ones who give a damn that these assholes are dead?”

The thought had crossed his mind. At least the woman had good taste in her murder victims. If she was choosing them because they were bad, how was she finding them? Why was she targeting them?

They stopped in front of the interrogation room, and Martin put his hands on his hips. “You want me to come in with you?”

Thane shook his head. “I got it. See what you can find on Alexander.”

Martin grinned. “Hey, at least this was no freak accident. And we got a witness account that she was there. This guy’s description of her matched perfectly.”

It was the break he’d been hoping for, but he couldn’t get too excited yet. Thane waved her photo. “Let’s get a positive ID first.” Then he opened the door and stepped inside. Louis Gonzales looked up from behind the table with a look of arrogance and attitude. The interrogation room was painted white, top to bottom, broken only by a door and a long bank of mirrored glass.

Thane took a seat across the table from him.

“I already told you everything,” Louis said. “I got no more to say.”

And he had spilled his guts. Given names of the members in his gang, admitted to killing the victim, and even told them his past crimes. That wasn’t what Thane wanted. Louis had just signed his own death warrant. He probably wouldn’t even make it out of the precinct alive after giving up his gang. The question was, what would make Louis do that?

“I know and we appreciate it,” Thane said. “If your gang finds out—”

Louis’s dark gaze pinned him. “I did what I had to.”

His conviction stunned Thane, and that took some doing. Here was a guy who’d killed people with his bare hands, and now he’d gone all righteous? He didn’t look insane, but you never knew.

“Why did you turn yourself in?” Thane asked, deciding that direct was the best tack. “Why now?”

Louis scowled at him. “What, you think I’m lying?”

“No. No, I think you are telling the God’s honest truth,” Thane said. “It’s a courageous thing for a man to do.”

Louis puffed his chest out a little. “That’s ’cause I’m a good man.”

He believed that, Thane realized. “You said you ran into a woman.”

“Yeah,” Louis replied, nodding his head.

Thane slid a photo across the table between them. “Is this her?”

Louis’s expression softened as he gazed at the photo. He picked it up and stared at it for a long time. “That’s her. Who is she?”

An excellent question. “I don’t know yet. You never saw her before?”

Louis shook his head, but he kept his gaze on the photo. “Nope.” He paused and added, “She walked right through us.”

Thane asked, “You let her pass?”

“No.” Louis glanced up from the photo. “She walked right through us. Like a ghost or something.”

Thane leaned forward. “So you didn’t touch her.”

Louis said, “I told you, she was a ghost. A black ghost. She went clean through me.”

There was no lie in Louis’s eyes. He saw what he saw. “What did it feel like?”

He licked his lips and said, “It kinda burned.”

Thane waited. There was more.

“I couldn’t breathe,” he said. He tapped his chest, where he wore a solid gold cross. “Felt like a furnace inside me.”

Then Thane noticed a mark under the metal cross that Louis wore around his neck. “Can I see your chest?”

Louis didn’t hesitate. He simply pulled the chain aside and revealed where the sign of the cross had burned into his skin.

“Does it hurt?” Thane asked, not knowing why. What did he care?

Louis put the cross back and shook his head. “It feels good. Feels right.” Then he eyed Thane. “You trying find her?”

“Yes,” Thane said.

Louis smirked. “You ain’t going to find her. She’s a ghost, man.”

Thane was trying not to think about that. Chasing ghosts wasn’t part of his job. Technically it was, but seriously. “Keep the photo if you want.”

Louis nodded and carefully slipped the picture inside his shirt.

“Why did you turn yourself in?” Thane asked again, hoping this time he’d earned an answer.

Louis leaned back and tipped the chair up on two legs. For long minutes, they sat across from each other in silence. Thane didn’t mind. He was a patient man.

Finally, Louis said, “I left home when I was twelve. Left my mom, left the school she tried to make me go to. I was sick of getting beat up and getting nowhere, you know? I figured without me around, my mom could get out of that neighborhood.”

Then Louis dropped the legs of the chair onto the floor as he looked away. “She didn’t leave though. I think she was waiting for me to come home. One day she got killed on the street when a guy tried to rob her.”

Thane had heard this story many times, but this time, he felt the tug. It was bad for a cop to do that. It made the job unbearable. “I’m sorry.”