William Bernhardt - Silent Justice - A Ben Kincaid Novel of Suspense

“You can kill me,” Ben whispered eerily. “But you can’t stop me.” He reached the third level of the classroom, then stood on the tabletop, his back facing the windows.

“Don’t try to cheat me!” the man shouted. He jumped up on the first-tier table. “You can’t leave till I have what’s mine!”

“I can. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“I will! I will stop you!” The man giant-stepped to the second-tier table-top. He and Ben were now barely three feet apart. “I’ll kill you!”

“No, you won’t. You’re not a killer. You’re just a poor pathetic wretch. I don’t know what happened to you. I know you lost something you cared about very much. I don’t know what it was, but I know it was something important to you. So important you think you have to get it back. You can’t go on without it.” Ben paused. “But you won’t get it by killing me. That’s why you won’t do it.”

“ I will! ” the man screamed, rushing forward. Ben grabbed the man’s free hand as soon as it came within reach and, heaving with all his strength, flipped the man backward. He thudded against the back wall, his head level with the back windows.

Two seconds was all the sharpshooters outside needed to identify their target and take action. Six high-powered bullets crashed through the glass. All of them hit their mark. The man with the shotgun fell, half on a chair, half on the floor. His blood-soaked head hit the desktop with a sickening thud.

Barely a second later, people began swarming through the front door of the classroom, paramedics at the forefront. They carefully rolled Brunner onto a stretcher and carried him to an ambulance waiting outside. Other medics began talking with and helping the students, gingerly escorting them to freedom.

After a few minutes had passed, a police sergeant approached Ben. “The man who held you hostage is dead.”

Ben nodded silently. He wasn’t surprised.

“Do you have any idea what it was he wanted?”

“No. But I know who you should ask. The Tiger. Professor Canino. That’s who the man came to see.”

The sergeant’s eyes widened slightly. “Haven’t you heard?” He shook his head. “No, of course you haven’t. You’ve been trapped in here for ten hours.”

“What?” Christina appeared behind him, listening intently. “What is it?” The sergeant turned slightly toward her. “We’ve been looking for Professor Canino since that lunatic first mentioned him. We can’t find him. He’s not in his office, he’s not at home. He’s not anywhere. He’s vanished. Without a trace.”

Six Years Before

TONY MONTAGUE WATCHED THE gaily colored hexagons swirling above his head like a kaleidoscopic whirlwind. A breeze rippled across his face, a pleasant refreshment in the midst of this 102-degree Oklahoma heat. The cool air allowed his brain to settle into a more tranquil, reserved state, like the nirvana that usually followed the second shot of tequila, except without the booze. He found himself mesmerized, hypnotized even, by the multicolored pageant. The red, the blue, the yellow, the speed, the repetition, the endless cycle, over and over again—all of it made him …

All of it made him sick, actually. Nauseated. Rarely had he managed to acquire motion sickness when he wasn’t moving, but that’s what was happening now.

“Are you going up?” He felt a slap on his shoulder and realized it was Bobby Hendricks, chief supervising accountant for his division. “The line is short.”

Tony shook his head. “I’m not much of one for Ferris wheels.”

Bobby smirked. “Getting too old, huh?”

“When I was six, I didn’t like Ferris wheels.”

“Then why did you come?”

Tony hesitated. He wasn’t sure he knew the answer to that question himself. Why had he come on this company outing, a bus ride down the turnpike to Frontier City? He hated amusement parks. He saw quite enough of his colleagues at the office, thank you, and he never socialized with them. So why was he here?

“I don’t know,” he said. “Guess I thought if I cozied up to the boss, I might get a little more than the usual six percent annual raise.”

Bobby laughed, then slapped him again on the shoulder. “You were wrong. So, are you coming or not?”

“Not.” He watched as Bobby and some of the other faces from the office raced toward the gigantic spinning contraption. He had to get away from here, and quick. It was making him ill. The Ferris wheel—and everything else. Everything about this. Everything about his life. Everything.

Tony spotted her near the concession stand—the Double D Cowpoke Corral, to be precise. He’d gone in to get a Coke to settle his stomach. She was sitting at one of the picnic tables nursing some kind of drink. She was tall and thin and looked to him like someone you’d expect to see smiling down from the cover of Elle magazine. But there she was, sitting at a chipped and faded picnic table at Frontier City—alone.

He knew it was stupid, but he couldn’t help himself. Maybe it was the intoxicating swirl of the Ferris wheel still working on his brain, undermining his common sense. Maybe it was the sad truth that he had nothing to lose, because his present life was so empty. Whatever the cause, he found himself walking toward her, eventually taking a seat on the opposite side of her table.

To his surprise, she did not appear annoyed. Not particularly pleased, but not annoyed, either.

“Waiting for someone?” he asked.

Her head turned slowly toward his, but her eyes did not leave her cup. “No. Why?”

“I—thought maybe you were waiting for your kids.”

“No. I don’t have children.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.”

“You’re here … by yourself?”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“No. I just …” He shifted awkwardly, knocking into his Coke in the process. He caught it at the last possible moment before it spilled. He felt like an idiot. Who did he think he was? Casanova? Casanova was never such a klutz. “Most people don’t come to amusement parks alone.”

Her eyes rose slightly. “Are you here alone?”

“No. Well … no. Feels like it, though.”

She responded with a barely perceptible nod. “I just wanted to be someplace where … where people are happy.”

Tony fell silent. He didn’t understand. And then again, he did.

“Where will you go next?” he asked.

Her eyes were strangely vacant. “I don’t know. I have no idea.”

He stretched his arm impulsively across the table. “You should come back with me.”

Again he feared she would be annoyed, but she wasn’t. A tiny smile played on her lips. For the first time, her eyes met his. “Is that so?”

“Yes. Come with me. Please.”

“Why should I?”

“I’d make you happy. I want to make you happy.”

“Where would we go? Another amusement park?”

“No. This is no place for someone like you. A woman like you—you deserve to be … I don’t know. You deserve to be on some island in the South Pacific, relaxing on a lounge chair on the beach, maybe a couple of servants to bring you drinks served in the shell of a coconut.”

Her smile increased. “My, my. You do think big, don’t you?”

“Oh, I’ve barely begun. After you spend a leisurely afternoon on the beach, you retire to our beach house—no, our hacienda. A big spread, with fountains, and an Olympic-size pool, and … and … our own personal tennis court. Ours would be the biggest spread on the island. In fact, I think we’d own the island.”

“Stop me if I’m wrong, but this fantasy you’re spinning might be somewhat expensive. Should I assume you’re a billionaire?”