Chapter 10 #2
The chief’s eyebrows rose. “They’ve taken Dr. Lee?”
“Yes. She’s been kidnapped, and the assholes just phoned me, looking for money that they think my father kept from them.”
“Did he?”
“God only knows,” Wilden replied, with a shrug.
“My father was a massive asshole. No argument there. I have no idea what deal these guys made. They were extorting veterans out of their monthly paychecks. That tells you everything you need to know about what kind of guys they are. I’m here because Vivian’s missing, and so is Jackson. ”
“Shit, I’m going to Jimmy’s place now.”
“I’m coming too.”
“No, you’re not,” the chief snapped.
“Oh hell yeah I am,” Wilden declared. “I already brought this up with him.” Wilden pointed to the young cop that he saw while they were taking Larry to the ambulance. “And you guys didn’t do shit about our report,” he snapped, glaring at the cop.
The chief flushed. “Is that true, Sam?”
“I didn’t think Jimmy had done anything really bad, but then Paul told me how you’d put him on leave. I assumed you knew all about it, so I didn’t say anything else.”
The chief shook his head. “God damn it, now we’re going no place fast.” He glared at Sam. “That’s not how we operate here. I don’t care who Jimmy thought he was protecting.”
“It’s got to be his school buddy Cooper,” Wilden supplied.
The chief shook his head. “Isn’t he his cousin?”
“Could be a relative or just a friend. Regardless it’s Cooper and Larry,” Sam replied.
“Great, so lies all around,” Wilden said, his tone deathly low. “Paul was right there when Jimmy told us that he had no family ties to those two assholes.”
“I had no idea what was going on here,” Sam protested.
“Which ones are those?” the chief asked Sam. “Remind me.”
Sam replied, “The two we let loose this morning, who most likely now skipped town.”
Wilden rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t mean—”
“Hold on,” the chief interrupted. “Just because they were here now doesn’t mean they were involved earlier.”
“Maybe not,” Wilden interjected, “but they’re a pissy pair, and I don’t have any time for this. They’ve picked up two people I care about, and the shit’s gonna hit the fan if we don’t solve this.”
The chief glared at Wilden, and then his phone rang.
“What the hell is this now?” he swore. “Who’s this?
” he barked into his phone. “Make it quick, I’m in the middle of an emergency.
… Bloody war department?” he muttered, and then his expression changed as he just listened now.
“Holy crap. … Yes, sir. … Yes, sir,” he stated, his gaze shooting to Wilden.
“Yes, we’re on it. Yes, yes, I understand.
We’re on it.” He disconnected and glared at Wilden.
“I don’t know what kind of powerful friends you called in, but nobody gets to rip my ass over shit I didn’t do. ”
“That depends on whether Jimmy and Paul are involved or not,” Wilden snapped, giving him a hard stare. “So far, all your department has done is give me the runaround.”
The chief turned to the other cops, who had all come to witness the argument. Now they all shuffled their feet and looked down and away. “God damn it,” the chief yelled. “You’re all on notice, and so is this department. One more screw up, you’re all fired, and there will be court charges.”
The men stared at each other in shock, then at Wilden, who nodded. “Go ahead, start fucking around with me again. I’m just waiting for it. Each time I talk to you guys, I’m recording it from now on. So take note.”
“Easy,” the chief said. “We don’t need more trouble.”
“You are still not getting it. This is how your department operates,” Wilden pointed out, as he glared at the young cop, Sam. “You knew and didn’t do anything.”
Sam wailed, “I didn’t know how bad it was. I sure as hell didn’t know Paul or Jimmy would do something this stupid.”
“How do you know he has?” the chief asked Sam.
“Jimmy’s not answering his phone, and his mama told me how he’s planning to go out of town and that he’s upset about some police ruling.”
“I haven’t done any damn ruling,” the chief noted, “but you can bet I’m going to.”
Just then, a dispatcher called from the front office. “We’ve got a line on Dr. Lee’s car.”
“Where is it?” the chief asked.
She gave the address, which was more of a location. “It’s up by Gary Park.”
“It’s those goddamn cabins in the back.” Wilden swore, taking off in a run.
“Hey, wait,” the chief called, but Wilden was already in his vehicle, both dogs with him, ripping out of the parking lot. The law enforcement group loaded up and came tearing out behind him. There would be hell to pay later at the station, but that was their problem.
Wilden had a more important problem, … finding Vivian before anything worse happened to her—and Jackson.
Vivian sat in the cabin, her arms pulled back, her wrists tied and already shredded.
She felt the slipperiness of the blood as she fought the binds behind her back.
The men, all three of them, sat talking.
The fact that they hadn’t even attempted to hide who they were was already a sign she didn’t want to contemplate.
She knew she had only one way out of this.
They had taken her from her own business, so she could only hope to get out of this on her own.
How the hell was Wilden supposed to find her at this point?
Yet, she couldn’t lose hope—not now, not when she’d finally gotten past the pain of losing her mother, the money hit with her business partner pulling out, all the extra work she had been through, and finally finding somebody interesting, fun, and caring to spend time with.
She wanted to spend time getting to know Wilden and figuring out where they went from here.
She wanted time, space, and energy to do all the things these assholes were taking from her, and she didn’t appreciate it.
It was making her mad, something that almost made her laugh.
She used to be such a calm, quiet person, and now here she was, spitting mad over choices that other people were taking from her.
One of the men, the one called Larry Hinkle, turned to her and laughed. “Look at her. She’s already pissed off.”
She glared at him. “Damn right I am.”
He laughed. “She’s a mouthy bitch. We should slap her around some. That’ll teach her a lesson.”
One of the guys said, “We aren’t doing that shit.”
“You think you’re calling any shots? Like hell.” Larry flushed red with his temper.
She’d seen it before, when he was being dragged around by Sarge, and later when he was being loaded into the ambulance, spilling all kinds of profanities.
“Now I’m on the hook for this,” Jimmy wailed. “You didn’t have to bring me into this shit. What the hell am I gonna do with this?”
Larry shook his head. “You didn’t have to get yourself involved in it, now did you?”
Cooper then chipped in, “Just wait until your mother finds out what kind of shit you pulled in on yourself.” The two others laughed at Jimmy’s expense, with big booming cackles.
Suddenly Larry turned, staring down Cooper.
Silence fell, and everyone stopped laughing, watching Larry like he was a viper that could strike at any time.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be a snitch, Coop.”
He groaned. “I didn’t know what else to do, Larry. I mean, once they started to blame me, I could tell that they were getting really pissy about it.”
“And you?” Larry turned to Jimmy, the cop, who had supposedly arrested them.
“I didn’t know what else to do, so I posted the paperwork to get you two out. And I came here to talk to you guys. Only here you are with her,” he muttered, staring in exasperation at Vivian. She just glared right back at him, and he sighed. “Shit is really gonna hit the fan now.”
“It absolutely is,” Cooper agreed, waving his hands about, “but we need money to get out of town.”
Larry snorted. “And Jimmy here, you’re the one who didn’t want to work for a living and how this was all bullshit. Nobody else was getting paid more than you, and you were just as good a cop as everybody else, right?” Larry reminded Jimmy. “Remember all that whining?”
“I wasn’t expecting all this, Larry. This is getting out of hand, and that man? … Wilden Hookman? He’s not some broken-down vet.”
“You trying to scare me?” Larry snarled.
Jimmy shook his head. “I’m, … I’m trying to warn you. This is what happens when you start taking people from their jobs and homes because you think they owe you,” he said.
Larry shook his head. “And, Jimmy, you’re gonna have to start paying the piper sometime too.”
“But it’s not as if I think anybody owes me,” the cop began, hanging his head. “I just didn’t want to do the same work.”
“Which is the same fucking thing. You didn’t want to work, and, because you didn’t want to work, you were looking for another avenue, and that avenue happened to take you into our work,” Larry explained, with a droll look over at his bad-cop partner.
“The fact of the matter is, you’re not getting out of it now, so you might as well just relax. ”
Jimmy slumped in his chair and muttered, “I just feel as if I made a big mistake.”
“Yeah, you did,” Larry agreed, “but too late to fix it now. You’re also too damn soft. You’ll never make it in our world, and you know that.”
“I wasn’t trying to make it in your world,” Jimmy explained, “but you guys were all talking about how much money you were making and how great it was.”
“Who was talking about that?” Larry asked, frowning, and the guys turned to look at him, apprehension and a hint of fear in their eyes.
Jimmy shrugged. “You guys were. Every time I’m here, you’re always talking about all this money.”
“There ain’t no money,” Larry declared, spitting on the ground. “That’s the problem. Hookman, … that slimy bastard son of a gun, he’s the one who ended up with all the money.”
“He doesn’t have any money,” Jimmy declared, staring at Larry. “I don’t know where you guys got that. He’s gone, and there was nothing on record about any money. It’s not in our official files.”
Larry shook his head. “We know that he had money because he got it from Jackson Russell, and if John hadn’t up and died—”
“Somebody shot him,” Jimmy announced, “so I don’t know that you can be mad at John because he up and died.”
“Yeah, someone shot him, all right,” Larry muttered, and his face turned all shades of happy. “I wish I knew who.”
“Me,” Cooper declared.
Jimmy turned to stare at him.
So far, Vivian had gotten from all the back-and-forth that Cooper was Jimmy’s cousin. She saw shock in his cop cousin’s gaze, and she froze.
“You shot him?” Jimmy asked.
“Hell yes, I shot him. He wouldn’t tell us where the money was. He was keeping it from us, and the agreement was that we would split it, but he wasn’t up for giving it to us,” Cooper explained. “So, what was I supposed to do?”
Jimmy muttered, “I thought Larry would have shot him.”
“I would have,” Larry conceded, “but I’m not that stupid. You fucking idiot, you moron, Cooper. Jesus, are you out of your mind?” Larry groaned. “What were you thinking?”
“What? What did I do?” Cooper asked.
“You’re supposed to force him into telling you where the damn money is first,” Larry snapped, staring at him in disgust, “not kill him first. Good God.” He got up and started pacing. “I can’t be involved with a shooting. I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“You were involved in all of this as far as I’m concerned,” Cooper stated, smiling at him, yet giving him a nasty look. “I mean, you’re always such a little pretty boy, and now here you are, freaking out. It’s kind of funny.”
Larry spun around and glared at him.
Jimmy raised his hands, adding, “It’s not fucking funny. I can’t have this.”
Larry turned on him. “Yeah, well, Jimmy, what did you think was going to happen when you took days off from work to come out here? You’re obviously part and parcel of it.” Larry sat down hard and stared at Cooper. “Why the hell did you have to shoot him?”
“Because,” Cooper smiled and shared, “I wanted to. I was just fed up with all the bullshit lies Hookman told us—all the crap—all the little bits of money that we were stuck with, when he had the real money, and he wouldn’t give it to us.”
“So, how will you get the money now?” Larry demanded.
“She’ll get us the money,” Cooper declared, turning to her.
Jimmy looked over at her with relief. “Oh, okay, so she’ll get it.” Then he frowned and looked back at the big bad wolf. “Wait. How’s she going to get it?”
Larry yelled, “Oh, Jesus Christ. Aren’t you supposed to be a cop? What the fuck?” He turned to look at his partner. “Why is he even here?”
Cooper shrugged. “Yeah, okay, so he’s a bit young and na?ve, but—”
“Young, na?ve? Are you kidding me?” Larry laughed. “He’s the fucking loser here. We can’t have some loser cop involved. He’ll bring all kinds of people down on our heads.” He got up and, without warning, turned and shot the young cop right in front of her.
Vivian was too shocked to even scream. She watched in horror as Jimmy froze, an equally shocked look on his face, and then ever-so-slowly collapsed right in front of her.
Blood pooled around him, and she sat here, frozen.