Текст книги "Silent Justice"

Автор книги: Rayven T. Hill

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About This Book

After the gruesome murder of a school counselor, the victim’s overwrought husband hires private investigators Jake and Annie Lincoln to track down the young suspect wanted for the brutal murder.

The senseless slaughter continues as the distraught fugitive struggles to retain his sanity and control his unstable mind while striving to evade a police manhunt.

The Lincolns’ own lives are put in danger when their search finally brings them face to face with the desperate man, who seems determined to inflict revenge on his enemies at all cost.

SILENT JUSTICE

Rayven T. Hill

Published by

Ray of Joy Publishing

Toronto

Dedication & Acknowledgements

Thanks to Merry Jones for her hours of editing and proofreading. Many thanks to my beta readers, whose comments, suggestions, and insight, have helped streamline this story and smooth out a few bumps. And not least, thanks to my wife for her patience. (1001)

Connect with the Author

You can go to my Web Site to contact me, or sign up for my newsletter to get updates on future releases.

Follow me on Facebook, Twitter or contact me by eMail at [email protected].

Even though this book has been thoroughly edited, typos or factual errors may have been missed. Please eMail me if you find any errors.

Books by Rayven T. Hill

Blood and Justice

Cold Justice

Justice for Hire

Captive Justice

Justice Overdue

Justice Returns

Personal Justice

Silent Justice

Web of Justice (Coming Next)

Table of Contents

About this Book

Dedication

Connect with the Author

Books by Rayven T. Hill

CHAPTERS

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | Epilogue

Also by Rayven T. Hill

Coming Next

About the Author

Tell Your Friends About Silent Justice

Chapter 1

DAY 1 – Monday, 8:49 p.m.

NINA WHITE leaned back in her swivel chair and glanced out the large window in her office. The street, a hub of activity during the day, was now strangely quiet and peaceful. A car drove by slowly, its headlights cutting a narrow path through the gathering darkness. It pulled to the far side of the street a hundred feet away and its lights died. A dark figure sat unmoving in the driver seat.

Nina yawned and turned back to her desk. Although on rare occasions she had worked into the wee hours of the morning, she didn’t often work past five p.m. But enrollment at Richmond North High School was growing and her workload grew along with it. She decided it was time to pack it in for the evening and perhaps get some rare time with her patient husband. She could get a fresh start early in the morning.

She glanced out the window again. The driver of the car had disappeared and she craned her neck to see if she could spot him. There were no houses along this street, the school property taking up the whole of one side, a block-long park on the other.

She closed the folder on her desk, stood, and tucked it into a file cabinet. She felt pleased with her day’s accomplishments. Lately, her evenings had been spent developing a new guidance curriculum. As school counselor, it was her job and her pleasure to provide students the support they needed to succeed in school and fulfill their dreams. Their dreams were her dreams and she took her job seriously.

Nina retrieved her handbag from the bottom drawer of her desk and stuffed a folder of notes and ideas she had been working on into the bag. Flicking off the office light, she stepped into the darkened hallway, closing the door behind her.

Most everyone was gone for the night. Right now, the school’s only occupants would be the security guard, sleepily making his rounds through the dimly lit hallways, and the cleaning crew that faithfully scrubbed the day’s accumulation of dirt from the corridors and classroom floors.

She went to the exit doors, stopping long enough to dig her key ring from her bag, and then unlocked the door and stepped into the warm evening air. She carefully locked the door behind her, using the bright streetlight to select her car key from the ring before going into the darkness of the school parking lot.

She glanced down the quiet street. The vehicle that had stopped earlier was no longer there. The park across the street had been vacated, children and sun lovers now nestled securely in their homes for the night.

At the rear of the building, the cleaning crew’s van was parked at a service entrance beside the security car, the only vehicles in sight except her own. Her car sat in its usual space, backed up to a high wooden fence at the far end of the lot. It was further to walk, but overhanging trees kept the car cool during hot summer days.

As she neared her vehicle, she pressed the key fob and was welcomed by a pair of beeps and a distinct click as her car doors unlocked.

Behind her, a bright light cast a long shadow ahead of her. The light drew closer and she turned. It was a car. The same car that had been parked across the street from her office a few minutes earlier.

The engine roared as the vehicle gathered speed, heading straight for her. She waved her arms frantically. Didn’t he see her?

She froze in the headlights a moment, then her handbag fell from her shoulder as she lunged to one side. She felt a breeze as the car whipped through the spot she’d occupied a moment before. Her handbag tumbled and rolled, destroyed by the tires of the vehicle.

She clambered to her feet, her heart pounding furiously in her chest. Someone was trying to kill her. Why?

Her body shook all over, her breathing rapid and shallow, and she found it hard to think clearly.

Nina hesitated a moment and then raced toward her car. She stopped short as the driver hit the brakes hard, squealed to a stop on the asphalt, then spun around and stopped. The attacking vehicle faced the side of her car, its headlights flooding the door. As the driver revved the engine, she recoiled in horror.

He was waiting. Waiting for her.

She glanced toward her handbag. Even if she could get to it, her cell phone was probably destroyed, and she could never make it safely into her vehicle before being rammed. The fence behind her car was too high to climb. There was no choice but to run back across the parking lot to the school and hope she could outrun her attacker.

She spun around and sprinted across the lot at full speed. Tires squealed behind her and she glanced over her shoulder. The car moved forward, straight toward her.

She would never make it.

Nina stopped short, turned to face the vehicle, tensed her leg muscles, and held her breath. The car missed her by inches as she dove aside at the last second. She stumbled to her feet as the vehicle braked and circled around for another try.

Her strategy wasn’t going to work. She frantically tried to think of a way out of the deadly situation. She raced for the passenger side of her car and tugged at the door handle. The door swung open.

She lunged inside, fell across the front seat, and scrambled to a sitting position. Her eyes bulged and panic overtook her as the other car sped toward her head on. There was a roar, then a crash, as the vehicle swerved and rammed the passenger-side door. It closed with an explosion of shattered glass and twisted metal.

But she was unharmed.

She howled in exasperation coupled with intense fear. Her keys. She had dropped her keys when she’d lost her handbag. She squinted through the windshield and saw them, twenty feet in front of her, glinting in the soft moonlight. And off to her left, the deadly car relentlessly persisted, lined up to T-bone her vehicle on the driver side.

There was no protection, no way of starting the vehicle, and no one to help. She dove headlong through the empty window, gouging her side on a shard of glass as she scrambled to escape the death trap.

She landed hard on her shoulder and hit her head on the asphalt. She lay still a moment, stunned, trying to clear her senses and catch her breath as the attacking vehicle roared somewhere close by.

Her keys. She had to get her keys.

She stumbled to her feet, dazed and hurting, and staggered toward her key ring. It was her only chance. She’d dodged the vehicle once and she could do it again. She would grab her keys, make it to her car, and get as quickly and as far away as possible.

Nina raced to her keys, crouched down, and scrambled to pick them up as tires squealed behind her. She turned to face the killing machine, its headlights nearly blinding her as it roared closer. She waited, poised, and ready.

Now.

Too late. The deadly machine struck her, knocking her off her feet and tossing her to the asphalt. She landed on her back, stunned and unable to move. One leg felt broken, the other weak and useless. She attempted to think clearly, to still the panic overwhelming her senses.

Tires squealed again. An engine raced.

She struggled to sit but fell back on her elbows. As she gazed helplessly toward the oncoming vehicle, she saw her murderer’s face for the first time, illuminated by the moonlight.

It was a face she recognized. A face from years ago.

Chapter 2

DAY 2 – Tuesday, 6:25 a.m.

ANNIE LINCOLN AWOKE early and her eyes popped open. She took a deep, gasping breath and stared at the ceiling in the dim bedroom. Getting back to sleep was the last thing on her mind, the first thing being the horrendous nightmare she had endured.

She was bound by rusty chains on the fourth floor of a dilapidated mansion, somewhere in a secluded spot, deep in a dark forest. Blood-red tears trickled from the eyes of her abductor as he watched her, his painted lips curled into a sadistic smile. He held up a blood-stained knife and promised to cut off her fingers, one at a time, until she told him the truth.

She had no idea what the truth was or what he wanted to know. She felt no pain as the bloody knife cut through her fingers, and she watched them fall to the floor at his feet, wondering if she would be able to replace them.

It was somewhere around the seventh finger when she awoke, her trembling body covered in chilling sweat. She brought her hands up. Even in the dim room, she saw her fingers were all there, and she breathed again.

She turned her head. Jake was still fast asleep, a contented look on his face, oblivious to what she’d endured. Looking at him made her feel secure, and her shaky chills subsided. She rolled out of bed, her mind foggy, and staggered to the shower. She let the steaming water wash the horrifying memories away.

She wondered if her nightmare had a meaning, or if they were dregs of the worst experiences her mind held. Lately, along with her husband, she’d had more than her fair share of those.

When Jake had been laid off, they’d transformed her successful freelance research business into Lincoln Investigations. It had taken awhile to get the new firm established, but now, the small Canadian city of Richmond Hill they called home supplied more than enough clients to keep them busy. As well as tame chores like background checks and research for regular clientele, they often encountered villains of all varieties.

She stepped from the shower, wrapped herself in a comfortable towel, and blow-dried her shoulder-length hair. She frowned and squinted in the mirror. Perhaps she was mistaken, but for a moment, she thought she saw a gray hair sprouting among the blond. Must’ve been the light.

By the time she got back to the bedroom, Jake was already stirring, his six-foot-four inch body almost reaching both ends of the bed. She leaned over and helped him wake up with a kiss on his warm lips. He opened his eyes and his warm lips turned into a warm grin.

“Good morning,” he said. He rubbed his hand through his short dark hair, then stretched, yawned, groaned once, and asked, “Sleep okay?”

“Slept great,” she lied, straightening her back. Actually, it was mostly the truth, except for her early-morning nightmare, now fading away.

She felt Jake’s eyes on her while she dressed, and then he tumbled out of bed and yawned as she left the room.

Seeing their eight-year-old son always brought another bright point to her day. She padded into his bedroom and gently jiggled him awake. Matty opened his eyes, rolled over, and lay still. One of these days they would get him an alarm clock so he could get himself out of bed.

“Let’s go, Matty. Time to get up.”

“I’m up,” he said, and she knew he would soon crawl out of bed, get dressed, and appear in the kitchen, ready for breakfast before trudging off to school.

She went downstairs to the kitchen, stood at the sink, and gazed out on the fresh new morning. The early sun shone down from a cloudless sky, promising another beautiful day. She didn’t want to waste it by staying inside, but work waited in the office. After breakfast, there were some urgent background checks to do for a client.

Jake came down the stairs, said good morning again, and then went to the basement. His vigorous workout routine would take him a half hour, then after a shower, he would be starving and waiting eagerly for something to eat.

As she started breakfast for herself and her guys, she thought about a phone call she had received the day before. A woman was adamant her husband was having an affair and she didn’t know where to turn. Annie had told the woman she’d call back the next day. Jake wasn’t too keen on stakeouts, but she wanted to run it by him before she made a decision.

After breakfast was out of the way, Jake helped Annie wash up the dishes while Matty got ready for school. North Richmond Public was only two blocks away, and Matty usually walked there with his best friend from next door. Kyle was a year younger than he, an inch shorter, and the son of Annie’s good friend, Chrissy.

Kyle banged on the back door, Matty let him in and the two boys ran upstairs. They would have a while to hang out before they needed to leave for school.

Jake was making a pot of coffee. Annie dried her hands on a towel and left the kitchen. She poked her head back in. “I might have a job for you,” she said and left again.

“Be there in a minute,” he called.

Annie went into the small office off the living room and booted up the iMac. While she waited, she slid over a file folder and flipped it open.

The woman who suspected her husband of cheating had sounded heartbroken on the phone, positive she knew who her husband’s lover was. If true, that knowledge might make this case a whole lot easier to take care of. Besides, there was nothing urgent for Jake to do at the moment.

The name of the woman was Crystal McKinley, a part-time retail clerk. Her husband was Jeffrey, a criminal defense lawyer.

Jake walked slowly into the office, balancing two cups of coffee filled to the brim. He set one in front of Annie, took a seat in the guest chair, and sipped at his hot drink.

Annie flipped the folder around and slid it toward him. “How would you like to catch a cheating spouse?”

Jake took another sip, set his coffee on the desk, and picked up the folder. He opened it and scanned the single page inside. “Names. Addresses. Everything’s here.” He looked at Annie. “What does she need us for?”

“She needs proof,” Annie said with a shrug. “They always want proof.”

Jake nodded slowly. “Okay, I’ll get it for her.” He closed the folder and tossed it onto the desk. “Should we go see her first?”

“So, we’ll take the case?” Annie asked.

“We’ll take the case.”

Annie picked up the phone and called Mrs. McKinley, drumming her fingers on the desktop while she waited. Three rings later, a woman answered.

“Crystal McKinley?” Annie asked.

“Yes.”

“It’s Annie Lincoln.”

There was silence on the phone, then a whispered voice said, “My husband is still home.”

“May we drop by and see you this morning about nine thirty?”

“Yes, that’s fine,” the hushed voice said, and then the line went dead.

Annie hung up. “Her husband’s still home. She can’t talk, but nine thirty is good.”

Matty poked his head into the office. “We’re going to school now.”

“Have a great day,” she called, and he was gone. Annie heard the front door open and then close a moment later.

She looked at her watch. They still had plenty of time before their appointment with Crystal McKinley. In the meantime, she would get a few small tasks out of the way.

Chapter 3

Tuesday, 8:25 a.m.

JASON PUTTWATER was only a lowly substitute teacher, always ready to fill in when the regular teacher didn’t show. Whether their absences were because of real illness or feigned, Jason didn’t ask or care. He was there. He loved kids and planned to be a full-time teacher someday soon. He had all the qualifications—he was a hard worker who had tons of degrees and the desire to teach.

His ambition, to put it the way he’d been taught in teacher’s college, was to ensure today’s students become the productive, well-adjusted adults of tomorrow.

At any rate, he was young and determined to shoot for what he deemed to be a worthy goal.

He pulled into the school driveway and waved at the principal, who was climbing down from his Range Rover, parked in a preferred spot by the front door. The principal paid him no mind, brushing an invisible fleck of dust from the front fender of his machine. He buffed it with his sleeve and strode the other way, swinging his black leather Gucci briefcase.

Being a substitute teacher, Jason didn’t qualify for any of the half-dozen parking spots by the front door. No, he had to park all the way at the back of the lot beside the office staff and the handful of other substitutes.

He didn’t care all that much, anyway. It gave him something to gripe and complain about when there was nothing else to gripe and complain about. Not that he liked to gripe and complain, but sometimes you had to let it all out. No use allowing it to build up inside. Not that it ever did.

Jason liked to arrive early for no good reason. He just did. He usually parked along the back row and was inside the school before anyone else, but today, as he gazed toward the back of the lot, he saw another vehicle in his favorite spot, right underneath an overhanging oak, stealing all the shade.

It also appeared someone had dumped a bag of garbage on the lot not far from the back fence. People had a habit of doing that sometimes. He would drag it over to the utility door on his walk to the school and dump it into the chute. If he didn’t do it, nobody else would. He didn’t mind.

The only thing was, as he drove closer, it started not to look like a bag of garbage at all, but rather had the shape of a human body. As he bumped along in his ten-year-old Honda, he leaned forward and peered through the windshield. His eyes grew wider and wider, finally bulging almost as large as his gaping mouth when he drew closer to the object.

He touched the brakes hard, his mouth still open, his breathing stopped, and he stared in disbelief.

He shook his head, threw the car in park, and swung from the vehicle. He approached the body slowly, glancing around several times at nothing in particular, and finally stopped five feet from the bloody spectacle.

He breathed now, a lot of breaths, rapid and shallow ones. His throat felt constricted, but he couldn’t turn his eyes away from the horrendous sight on the asphalt in front of him.

It was a woman, he was pretty sure of that. At least, it had long dark hair and high heels. Well, one high heel. The other one was missing, the remaining one only halfway on the stockinged foot. The dark hair had streaks and patches of red in it, and Jason knew it wasn’t professionally done like a lot of women seemed to be doing these days. Nope. Those streaks were blood, and it wasn’t just in her hair, but all over her clothes and the surrounding pavement.

The face was nose-down to the asphalt, the long, bloody hair fanning in all directions. One arm and both legs were twisted in awkward positions, perhaps snapped in more than one place.

Jason hadn’t seen such a bloody mess since he was twelve years old and used to blow the crap out of groundhogs and rabbits with his father’s old shotgun.

But what caught Jason’s bulging eyes was a strange pattern of blood by the woman’s right hand. To him, it looked like she’d tried to use a finger to write something in her own blood. He moved around the mangled body, crouched down, and cocked his head.

Yeah, it was writing. It was a scrawl to be sure, but what else could you expect from someone in her condition? The scrawl said, “Adam Thor,” but the “r” trailed off like she had taken her last breath before she finished it.

Adam Thor. Strange name—if indeed it was a name. What else could it be? Had to be a name. Maybe it was her killer’s name. Jason had heard about people doing that kind of thing before. The dying person’s last message.

He stood, moved back a couple of feet, and stared at the horrifying mess. It seemed to him the only way something like this could’ve happened was by getting run over by a vehicle. Perhaps a couple of times; it was hard to tell. It was overkill, that was for sure.

It was either a case of road rage, or parking lot rage in this case, or somebody had wanted this person dead. Or both. Either way, it was like nothing Jason had ever seen before, and he glanced uneasily around again.

He scratched his head, wondering if the vehicle parked in his spot had something to do with this whole nasty affair. He looked down at the body. It wasn’t going anywhere real soon; he might as well take a look at the car.

Even before he reached the vehicle, he could see the mangled passenger-side door. It had more than likely been rammed by the same vehicle that had run over the poor woman over there. He went to the side door and stopped. The window was broken out and glass lay all over the ground and inside the car.

He’d better not get too close or touch anything. The cops wouldn’t take too kindly to anyone messing up the crime scene. He knew that much.

He hoped he hadn’t trampled on any of the blood around the body. He checked the bottoms of his shoes. Nope. It seemed to be all right.

He strode back to the mess on the ground, stared at the body a moment longer, and then figured it was probably time to call the cops.