Bloodtrail Copyright Š 2015 by Kevin Paul Tracy All rights reserved. No part of this story (e-book) may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or book reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Edited by Terry Wright Cover Art by Terry Wright ISBN: 978-1-936991-94-5
Dedication For David, the best guy I know.
Acknowledgements Thanks to my editor, Terry, and as always to Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (RMFW.org). Thanks to Mom and Sue for encouragement and support. Finally, special thanks to our soldiers and sailors and their families for their service and sacrifice.
~1~
By Kevin Paul Tracy
CHAPTER 1 “Aren’t you going to count it?” “You know better than to screw me, Kate. And I know you know better. So I trust you...in my way.” Kathryn Desmarais shrugged off his comment and watched the tall black man take the briefcase she had brought off the table and set it next to his chair. In the same motion, he hoisted an identical case from the left side of his chair and placed it on the table. They sat under a tilted umbrella outside a little café on Atlantic City’s famous, now antiquated, boardwalk. It was a starry night, clear, with most of what was left of last night’s full moon. Out on the promontory the amusement park lit up and sparkled like a cluster of diamonds. She missed the daylight, but the night held its own kind of beauty.
~2~
She wore a white linen tank top with spaghetti straps, a billowy summer skirt, and sunglasses with a tiny Ferrari logo directly over the bridge. Her companion wore big, clunky motorcycle boots with buckles, a pair of heavy black denim pants, a black sleeveless shirt, and a leather touring cap. His leather jacket was draped over the chair behind him. Bad move for him if things went south and he had to make a quick exit. But he was cock-sure and arrogant, treating her in a very chauvinistic little-lady kind of way. He looked like the type who, years ago, would also be wearing about ten pounds of gold around his neck, wrists and fingers, but this gentleman’s only vanity was a gold Rolex on his left wrist. She suspected she knew where it’d come from. “I hope you aren’t insulted if I at least look inside this one.” She indicated the briefcase he’d swapped for hers. He grinned at her, shark-like, spun the case a hundred and eighty degrees and stopped it with the long fingers of his right hand on top like a spider. Smiling again, he then used both hands to slide the case across the small table between them. “Combination’s four-five-six on the left and oh-one-nine on the right.” She thumbed the tiny wheels next to each latch and snapped them open. Lifting the lid she took inventory as best she could at a glance. It seemed to her all the jewelry she’d seen on the photographic inventory given to her by the insurance company was there — minus the gold watch that they’d take back from him soon — but they’d have to go
~3~
through the collection more thoroughly later. Taking a jeweler’s loop out of her pocketbook by her elbow, she picked up a piece at random – a diamond brooch – and peered at it. He shoved the lid of the case closed on her hands. “Geeze, lady, d’you want someone to see?” She gave him a withering glare. “Chill.” Her voice was glacial. She forced the lid back open and went back to studying the brooch. He rose from his chair. “Fuck this.” “Where are you going?” She didn’t look up. “You’re flashing that shit around like it ain’t nothing. I’m outa here.” “You aren’t going anywhere.” He froze and looked around as if expecting to see men with guns closing in. “Aw shit, you are a cop.” “No.” She pointed to the briefcase beside his chair. “I haven’t given you the combination to that case yet. So relax a minute, will you?” He slowly sat back down. She examined a jewel-encrusted bracelet, outwardly unperturbed by his paranoia. “You don’t seem like an international jewel thief. You’re jumpy.” “I’m a fence. I just sell the stuff.” “Is this stuff from some place exotic? London? Paris? Rome? Cairo? Lot of thieves like to hop the ocean before fencing their loot.”
~4~
“Nah,” he said, clearly trying to match her casual tone. “This stuff’s from New York. Lady sold it to me so damn cheap I knew she had to be strung out on crack or meth or something. When I asked her where she got it she said it was her own collection. Said she had to sell it because her husband had lost his job, but I knew she was lyin’. Said they’d get it all paid for by the insurance company, and that I believed. But she was sellin’ it to feed a habit. I mean, I seen her hollow eyes and her snifflin’ like she had a cold. I ain’t stupid.” Yes you are, Kate thought, or at the very least you’re an amateur. But instead, she said with just the right show of vague interest, “I wonder who she was. I mean she and her husband must be loaded to be able to afford jewelry like this. Must be famous, at least.” “Mandy Lord, that’s who. Yeah, I knew her. Seen her on T.V. plenty of times.” “Bingo!” Jackthrope’s voice erupted in her ear through the mini receiver. “I knew it was the wife. Okay, Kate, you call it. We have all we need, so when you give the signal we’ll come in.” She closed the case with a sense of finality and lowered it next to her own chair, a signal to the watchers that the buy had been completed. Sampson, dressed like a homeless man, and Jules, dressed like a skateboarder, appeared and flanked the fence, trapping him against the table. He looked over his shoulder in alarm, then up at Kate as she smiled and waved her pinky finger at him. As realization dawned on
~5~
him, he rolled his eyes ruefully and craned his head back as if mentally berating himself. Kate stood to retrieve both cases as her two fellow operatives struggled to force the man to lay his chest across the table so they could search him. He appeared not to resist, letting his shoulders droop, but Kate’s acute vampire intuition sensed his ruse. She opened her mouth to give Sampson and Jules a heads up, but the fence suddenly went rigid and flung the two men back. His hand appeared from across his body and swung around to his left side, holding a gun. The .45 boomed. Suddenly, a hulking shape leaped out of the shadows of a nearby alcove, and in two great steps the blond Brahma bull that was Horace Drake grabbed the fence by the back of his neck and lifted him off the ground. With his free hand, Drake twisted the man’s gun arm behind his back with so much force that Kate heard the shoulder pop out of its socket. The helpless man screamed, boots rattling inches above the boardwalk, and he let go of the gun, which clattered to the pavement. When the gun had gone off, bystanders had scattered or hit the boardwalk. Kate picked herself up off the deck where she must’ve thrown herself out of reflex; she didn’t remember diving for cover. The briefcases still hung in her grasp. She glared up at Drake. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Her boss, Willem Jackthrope, echoed her question. “What the fuck
~6~
is he doing here?” The COO of International Investigations, Inc. marched up to them and snatched the cases from Kate. His ruddy, pocked visage sneered as usual under his unpatched empty eye socket. “You told me he was going to stay home this time.” Drake looked from Kate to Jackthrope, then back to Kate again, his iron-jawed face showing no strain from holding the man aloft. “I couldn’t...” His eyes showed a defensive anger and a realization that this was not the time to argue with Kate. He dropped the man. The fence staggered and struggled to keep his feet. Drake marched off into the gathering crowd. It took less time for order to reassert itself out of the chaos than one would expect. Most people were still unclear as to exactly what had happened, but as no one appeared injured, the crowd returned to their prior pursuits. Sampson and Jules regained custody of their suspect, who seemed unable to decide whether to remain conscious or not. They slammed him across the table again, and Sampson entwined the man’s limp arm with his and yanked. The man screamed as his shoulder popped back into place. Kate berated herself for missing the gun. Had she suspected he’d been armed she would have taken him to a more secluded spot, away from civilians, before calling in the troops. Fences don’t carry guns on principal. Unarmed, they present no threat to their customers and are
~7~
therefore safer themselves. They are rarely robbed because they are usually connected, and other customers would not take kindly to it. It’s a quick way to become hunted by the bad guys. “Nice work as usual, Kate.” Jackthrope looked in the direction Drake had gone, as if expecting to see that he hadn’t gone at all, but only stood a few feet away. But the big man was nowhere to be seen. “The insurance company will be happy,” he went on, “though their client, Mr. Lord, won’t be happy with his wife. She’ll probably get two months in a detox program and a slap on the wrist.” “As long as we get paid, who cares?” “Nice job keeping him talking, Kate,” Sampson said from behind the fence, who was now handcuffed. “We got his confession on tape.” Sampson was a senior operative under Jackthrope, had been working for the man longer than anyone else at the firm, even Kate. He was tall, brown bristle-cut, clean-shaven, with a lanky physique that belied the iron-band muscles beneath. An ex-marine, he was handy for such takedowns but was also an accomplished investigator in his own right. “Yeah,” Jackthrope agreed. “Movie critics bemoan the cliché of the talking villain, but it ain’t a cliché. Most of these guys, they want to tell you all about it. They want the world to know how slick they are.” Sampson chuckled. He and Jackthrope had a rapport that the others didn’t share with the old man. A rapport Kate once enjoyed, until— “You need to control your lapdog,” Jackthrope told Kate.
~8~
She looked past him to show him his insult didn’t land. “I told Drake to stay home.” “And you expected him to listen to you?” “There’s a first time for everything.” “Sheesh,” Jackthrope said, walking with her, back toward where they’d left their cars. “I don’t get it, Kate, you and him. You aren’t together. He acts like a stalker, but you refuse to call the cops or get a restraining order. Guy gives me the creeps.” “He’s protective.” Kate shrugged. Jackthrope frowned. “I offered him a job once. At least he’d get paid for tagging along. He’s big, good in a fight, be great for protection jobs. He turned me down flat.” “He doesn’t need money. He’s got more than he could ever spend.” Indeed, to say that Drake was wealthy was as if to say a pomegranate had a few seeds. Drake’s net worth amounted to roughly over seventy million dollars, his share of the compensation divided among the survivors and the families of those who didn’t survive the Litchner affair a year ago. It was during that case that Kate met Drake and bound him to her, more out of expediency than any real design. For the most part, she found now that he suited her, aside from his stubborn insistence on being within reach of her any time she placed herself in danger — needless danger, as he never tired of pointing out to her. Still,
~9~
Kate was used to working alone, and it was irritating to have him constantly under foot. “Anyway,” she said. “I‘ll see you at the office tomorrow, ‘kay?” Jackthrope studied her. He seemed to shudder. She’d never seen him do it before the recent changes in her. In fact, she had never known Jackthrope to be thrown off his stride by anything. But in the last year he seemed barely able to contain his awe and revulsion of her, what she was, what she had become. She wondered, not for the first time, whether it had been a mistake to tell him the truth about the change in her. At the time it had seemed simply the thing to do — she trusted Jackthrope like a father. But it had changed their relationship. He didn’t look at her the same way anymore, and they would probably never be the same to each other ever again. That made her sad. “Okay,” he said. “See you at sunset, bright and early. I have a missing person assignment for you to start on, so get some rest...or whatever your people do.” She looked around for anyone who might have overheard him. Sampson and Jules were walking the fence toward their caged SUV, and no one else was within earshot. Still, she gave Jackthrope a shut-thefuck-up glare. He walked off. Kate made her way to the parking lot nearby, to a sleek,
~10~
champagne-silver Lexus SC 430 convertible. It was Drake’s car, which he’d loaned to her. The engine roared to life and she sped toward the expressway and the long drive back to Manhattan. It was a clear, warm summer night and Kate reclined her seat slightly to enjoy the play of the breeze over her face. The only way to maintain her sanity, at least for now, was for her to cling to what her life had been before. She loved being a private investigator. It was what she’d done for five years now, who she had been, who she still desperately wanted to keep on being. Her job made her feel normal again, even human...sometimes. Relaxed now, Kate suddenly became aware of an acute burning pain in her stomach. “Ah shit!” She leaned forward to see a hole in her tank top. “Damn.” She pulled it up enough to see her flat abs and an equally sized black hole just to the right of her belly button. Blood leaked out, but not a lot. She sighed and sat back in the seat again. That was very annoying. Sure she’d set the guy up. But why’d he have to go and shoot her?
~11~
CHAPTER 2 Drake owned a house on Long Island. By no means a mansion, still it held its own in the company of some of the more posh houses that surrounded it. It had a perimeter wall with electric eyes throughout the grounds and closed circuit security cameras covering the entire exterior. All of this equipment came with the house when he bought it at a police auction. It once belonged to a minor functionary of a mob family who had gone to jail along with most of his peers while the kingpin and his kin skated free. Drake had, however, done some renovating on the inside. Kate pressed two buttons on the remote clipped to the visor of the car, and the gate swung open as she pulled up to it. The other button opened the garage as she drove up the curved drive. The gate closed behind her as she passed through. The garage was one of the things Drake had had renovated, expanded and enlarged, in order to hold the collection of cars and motorcycles he had amassed. She parked and pressed the garage button to close the door behind her. Gleaming metal
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gods ranked in files on either side of her as she climbed out and walked to the house – Harley-Davidson, Porsche, BMW, Sazuki, Jaguar, Formula One... The garage let into a hallway that passed between the kitchen on one side and a formal dining room on the other, one that Drake, to Kate’s knowledge, never used. At the end of the hall was another perpendicular hall that led to either side, with a rail over which one could look down into an expansive, sunken sitting room. This room had two sets of stairs on either side leading down to it, a large river-rock fireplace to the left, a wet bar to the right, and one giant vaulted glass wall overlooking the gardens and grassy slopes that swooped down toward the lights of houses below, sparkling in the night. With her enhanced vision, Kate could also make out the ocean in the distance, glinting under the moon and stars. Down the hall to the left were Drake’s personal rooms, and to the right were the public areas of the house. She turned left and found Drake standing just outside the infirmary he’d converted from a walk-in pantry. “Told you it was a cake walk,” she said. “Hardly,” he grunted. “Didn’t expect the gun, did you?” It was by no means a fully stocked clinic, but for the minor operations that would be needed on such wounds as Kate would get, which healed themselves rather rapidly, it was sufficient. “Nobody expects a Spanish Inquisition.”
~13~
“Really?” he said. “Monty Python quotes?” Drake was a big bear of a man, sandy-blonde hair, axe-beak nose, jaw so square it could teach an actual square a thing or two, and a fulllipped mouth that usually cocked crookedly in humor at everything his blue eyes beheld. It was not smiling now. “Just trying to lighten the mood,” she said. “Try harder.” Kate walked past Drake, and he fell in behind her as she doffed her tank top and hopped up onto the edge of the examination table. He frowned as he pressed his fingers around the entry wound. “Thought we agreed you were going to mind your own business tonight,” Kate said. He pressed a little too hard and she grunted from the pain. “I...I...can’t...” he said. “The bond...it won’t let me.” Kate remained silent. This was the paradox of their relationship. She was independent, enjoyed solitude. And yet a year ago, during the fog of the Litchner affair, she’d bonded him to her without fully understanding what that meant. Darkthorne had called bonded humans drones, described them as the bridge between them, what they were, and the real, physical world. Drones were still human, but were linked to their host by an unbreakable emotional tether. This came with a very strong protective impulse that Drake could no sooner shed himself of
~14~
than he could have cut his own umbilical at birth. In the end, she’d done that to him, and chafe as she did now at this shackle that bound them, she could hardly criticize him too sternly for his inability to control it. In the end, he was more a victim of it than she. “I’m not smothering you anymore, am I? But fuck, Kate, you got to give me something.” He didn’t approve of her job, often made it clear that her job — more than almost any other job she could find — risked exposing her and her secrets. “What do you want from me?” she snapped. But she already knew. He had suggested at the beginning that she take a desk job at the offices of International Investigations, Inc, Triple-I, instead of working as a field operative. Or that she not work at all and spend her time traveling or doing all of the things she had always wanted to do. He had more than enough money and had offered to split it with her. He certainly didn’t need it all. As a single man with only a ninth-grade education, he frankly was at a loss as to what to do with it. “How about a little consideration for what it does to me when you let yourself get hurt like this,” he said. “No exit wound. The bullet’s still in there. Going t’have to get it out.” She turned and lay face-down on the examination table as he gathered a steel tray full of sterilized utensils and wheeled the tray over next to her. There was little need for modesty between them. Their bond was like family, like brother and sister. No lust ever did nor ever could
~15~
infringe upon that. The whole idea of leaving her real life, as she thought of it, frightened Kate. What she was, what had been done to her against her will, frightened her all to hell, even after a year. She struggled to come to grips with the concept of immortality. That she would outlive everyone – Jackthrope, Ken, Linda, Sampson, even Drake — saddened her. Her entire future seemed to loom over her like a giant black abyss, threatening to overwhelm and consume her. What would happen to her? What would she become? Was it possible she’d eventually turn into a monster, like Darkthorne? She shuddered. “Better the goddamn stray slug get me,” she said, “than hit someone else.” The .45 fired at the boardwalk, that was why she’d picked herself up off the ground without remembering having fallen. The force of the slug had thrown her off her feet. With her heightened senses she could now feel the exact position of the slug in her body, nearer her back than the entry point. Had she not been so distracted by other things she’d have noticed the wound almost right away. He grunted in answer. For the next ten minutes she guided his hand verbally as he used scalpel and clamps to locate the slug and remove it. He was no surgeon, but through their link he was able to locate the bullet with very little searching. It wouldn’t do to have her taken to a regular hospital. It was even iffy whether it was safe for Drake to be taken to
~16~
one, either, though he was very much more human than she. He dug deep into her. She grunted as the pain jolted her. He could feel her pain through the link of their bond, and she knew he’d never intentionally do anything to hurt her, but she cried out anyway as she felt the slug being drawn out of her tissues. She heard the clank as he dropped the bullet into the tray. Stitches would not be necessary, but he covered the incision with gauze and surgical tape. It would be fully healed by the next sunset. The bullet hole in her stomach was already puckered and pink. She sat up and reapplied her clothing. “Going in to work tomorrow night. Jack has a new assignment for me...missing person. I don’t think there will be any danger in that, do you?” He didn’t answer. “Can we try this again? You do your own thing tomorrow, all right?” “S’pose,” he said grudgingly. He did have a life, after all. He had stayed in touch with a few of the other mercenaries from Litchner’s mob, all retired and wealthy now, and they all spent time together going on motorcycle tours, racing their cars at the track, and other such macho things. Most of them had girlfriends. Drake had never shown any interest in women. Kate wondered if that was a side-effect of their bond, a sort of eunuch effect. She hoped not; she already felt guilty enough about what she’d done to him.
~17~
Drones, Darkthorne had called them, but Kate didn’t like the mindless, slave-like images the term evoked. She just referred to Drake as her best friend, a term that she’d never used before in her life...for anyone. But it suited. “You aren’t going to make it to your apartment by sunrise,” he said. “I’ll have to find a deep dark closet in the basement.” “That won’t be necessary.” He motioned her to follow him, led her back up the passage toward the private end of the house, and then turned abruptly through a door two short of his own. The suite was quite elegant — the main room had a sunken center and there were bay windows overlooking the lawn and the lights of the neighborhoods below, very much like the central room of the house only smaller. There was a kitchenette and then two rooms off the main to each side. One he showed her was appointed for an office and the other a bedroom, which had a very large bathroom adjoining it. There was considerably more floor space here than in her old Manhattan high-rise apartment. These were probably guest quarters, originally. “I had this room modified for your use, just in case.” He led her into the bedroom and closed the heavy, reinforced vault-like door behind them. “The entire room was gutted and rebuilt with titanium-mesh reinforced concrete on all six sides. There are no windows and even the bathroom door is five inches thick and closes like a vault. Once sealed
~18~
from the inside, there is no way to enter the room from the outside, and explosives can’t punch through. When you’re in here, no one is getting to you. Not without some down and dirty excavation.” It was cartoonish overkill, Kate thought, but not a single ray of light would pierce through, and that she liked. Sunlight didn’t kill her directly, but its effects rendered her as helpless and weak as an infant. This was not a restful weakness, but a painful, sickening anemia that overtook her with trembling and bone-deep aches. It was probably why Darkthorne had still preferred to slumber away in the coffin he’d been buried in so many centuries ago. No matter how thick the curtains over any window, she still felt some effect from sunlight. Even in her own apartment, where she’d done some unauthorized remodeling of her own to make the bedroom as light-proof as possible, she still slept fitfully. In this room, probably not. This entire room was a coffin. Or tomb. Discomfited by the thought, she shook her head to clear it. “What?” Drake said. “I told you before.” She frowned. “I’m not moving in.” “Shut up.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s a contingency. Nothing more. Jesus, get over yourself.” They laughed, breaking the tension. She gave his arm a squeeze. “Sleep tight.” “You too.”
~19~
He turned and left. She felt the air go as still as death in the wake of the closing of the outer vault door behind him. ***
To find out what happens to Kathryn next, go to www.twbpress.com/bloodtrail.html where you can watch the video trailer and explore the links to purchase from TWB Press, Kindle, Nook Press, and other online booksellers.
About the Author
First published as a teenager, Kevin Paul Tracy has been writing fiction and non-fiction since childhood. As a writer he has traveled extensively, spanning half the globe. In that time he has held just about every odd job imaginable, from handyman to corporate flunkie, from short order cook to teacher, from pinsetter to cave spelunking guide. He currently lives in Vail, Colorado, with two very charismatic St. Bernards.
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