False Prey: A Wildfire Novella (Wildfire Saga) (9 page)

“That wouldn’t be on account of this being an election year, and your decision wasn’t very popular with the locals, now would it, Your Honor?” asked Danny, pen hovering over his notebook.
 
He watched in satisfaction as the color rose up the old man’s shriveled neck.

“That, sir, is an insult—a poorly made one at that,” spat the Judge.
 
He slowly got to his feet.
 
“I think we are through here, young man.”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor, I meant no offense,” Danny replied, jumping to his feet.
 
He decided then and there that there was indeed something else going on in Brikston.
 
Screw Mr. Nice-guy.
 
He turned to leave, then turned back, pen in the air, poised almost like a sword.
 

“But, just for clarification, the young man that had been assaulted by the police, arrested, then turned loose—on your orders—has been compensated by the city for his mistreatment, correct?”

“I haven’t the foggiest—”

“Because, from what I saw at the arrest—yeah, I was there, interviewing the people in the mob, on the phone with Axel Putnam, you know, from CNN.
 
You’ve heard of him, right?”

The Judge sighed and the effort seemed to deflate the old man.
 
His wide shoulders slumped and he looked truly pathetic enveloped in the flowing black robes of his office.
 
He looked down at the desk and seemed to lean over it for support.
 
“Son,” he said in a tired voice.
 
“I swore, a long, long time ago to always do what is right by the law and my conscience.”
 
He looked up from his desk.
 
His eyes looked rheumy and tired.
 
“I believe I did that today.
 
I have a clear conscious about my decision to turn that young man loose.”

“Can I quote you on that?”

The old man drew himself to his full height.
 
“You’re damned right you can.
 
I know this is an election year, but at my age, I’m not going to throw away my principles to win an election—I’ve been in office for fifty-seven years, you know.
 
I’ll be dog-goned if I’m going to start compromising now.”
 
He shrugged.
 
“I truly think that Korean boy is a spy.
 
But,” he said, raising a bony finger.
 
“I was elected to be impartial—and there wasn’t enough evidence to hold him on anything.
 
The only option was to turn him loose.”

“The people in town seem awful mad about things as they stand…”

The judge gave Danny the hairy eyeball.
 
“They can go pound sand.”
 
Then his face softened and he sank back into the chair again.
 
“I can’t really blame ‘em, no sir.
 
This flu business,” he said, waving one wrinkled hand in the air.
 
“It’s got everyone scared.
 
They’re worried the old Scorched Lung is back.”
 
He shook his head.
 
“With President Denton dead…the way he died…all the stories about people getting sick all over the country.
 
Can you blame them?”

“No sir, I surely can’t,” replied Danny, writing furiously on his notebook.
 
“Can you tell me if the officers involved in the situation have been disciplined in any way?”

The judge smiled, like he was privy to a great secret and wanted to tell but wouldn't because watching Danny try to figure it out would be so much more fun.
 
“Now that’s a question I’ll have to defer to the Chief.”

“Is he in?
 
I’ll just pop over and ask him, then,” said Danny, hoping the threat would be enough to get more out of the old man.
 
Instead, the judge merely sat back down in his chair and closed closed his eyes.
 

He leaned back and opened his rheumy eyes.
 
“He’s just across the hall outside the Clerk’s office.
 
Got anything else for me, Ace?
 
As you said, I’m a busy man…”

Danny stood.
 
“No, Your Honor.
 
Thank you.
 
You’ve been very helpful.”
 
Danny turned to leave and had his hand on the doorknob when the Judge’s voice caught him.

“Just do yourself a favor and be careful, Mister.”

Danny paused and looked at the old man across the oak-paneled chambers.

“There are…people in this town you don’t want to upset.
 
I’ve survived in office this long because…well, I guess I’m the oldest person in town and people still respect that here.
 
But mostly, it’s because I don’t go upsettin’ the applecart too much, you catch my drift?”

Danny stared at the judge for a moment.
 
“I do, Your Honor.”
 

“Good.”

Danny raised his notebook in salute.
 
“Thanks again.”

He closed the door to the judge’s chambers and froze.
 
Standing at the clerk’s desk was Officer Perkins, the great blue gorilla himself, chatting amiably with the overweight, overly-perfumed, overly-flattered clerk.
 
His body language showed he was completely interested in whatever she was saying.
 
His eyes, though, they found Danny’s and were cold as sheet metal left outside in January.

Danny swallowed and walked forward.
 
As he passed the two civil servants, the cop turned sideways and his wide shoulder brushed Danny’s, throwing him off-balance.
 
The clerk gasped as Danny’s flailing hand knocked a container of pencils to the floor.
 
Danny winced at the sound.

“Careful, sir,” rumbled the huge cop with a smile as Danny righted himself.
 
His eyes were humorless gray pits.
 
He knelt to pick up the pencils in a long, sinewy movement that had to be calculated to emphasize his coiled strength.
 
“You really ought to watch where you’re going.”

“Sorry,” Danny muttered and hurried out of the office.
 
As the clerk’s throaty laugh followed him into the hallway, Danny felt a tingling between his shoulder blades.
 
He imagined the cop’s cold stare boring into his back.
 
He picked up his pace and turned the corner, leaning against the cold marble wall and letting it sap the fear from his body.

“I’m too old for this rookie shit,” he grunted once he had caught his breath.
 
“I’m the reporter.
 
I’m the one with the power to expose these bigots for who they are.”
 
He gathered his dignity about himself like a cloak and made his way toward the police station down a side corridor, his footfalls ringing hollow in the empty hallway.
 

As he walked farther away he felt his confidence returning.
 
We’ll see who needs to be careful.

C
HAPTER
7

The doorknob rattled, jarring Thomas from his painful slumber.
 
He rolled onto his side and groaned at the pain in his ribs then cracked his good eye open to look at the door.
 
The knob rattled again.
 
He heard a whispered voice on the other side of the door.
 
A quick glance at the alarm clock showed the time was just shy of 2pm.
 
Danny Roberts, the reporter—his protector for the time being—had only been gone a few hours.

“…want any trouble…”

Thomas sprang fully awake at those three muffled words.
 
It was from a second voice, he was sure of it.

Suddenly someone pounded on the door hard enough to make a little dust drift down from the top of the door frame.
 
“Hey, you Korean bastard!
 
We know you’re in there!
 
Open up and this’ll go a lot easier on you!”
 
Someone else hooted in the background.
 
That made three.

Oh Jesus, they found me!

The door shuddered again.
 
“If you don’t open this door, I’ll bust it in!”

Fear propelled Thomas to ignore the many screaming nerves in his abused body.
 
He rolled himself off the bed and got to his feet as quickly and quietly as he could.
 
He padded to the bathroom in bare feet, hoping that there was a window or something he had overlooked before.
 
There had to be another way out—

“…break the window, Carl…”

“Lemme get my truck, we’ll smash—”

“Stop it!
 
Please!
 
If you promise not to do anything stupid, here—take the keys…”

Thomas froze, half-in, half-out of the bathroom.
 
His eyes darted over the spartan room.
 
Two beds, a cheap table, two ancient chairs, an old, low dresser with four rickety drawers, and an even older dinosaur of a TV.
 
Two mirrors, one behind the TV, one in the bathroom.
 
No other exits besides the big window and the front door.

I’m trapped.
 

A key rattled in the lock.

Where the hell are you, Danny?
 

Thomas lurched forward on his badly bruised legs and turned around looking desperately for a weapon, anything he could use to defend himself.
 
No tools, no pieces of wood, no pipes, no nothing.
 
His heart began pounding in his chest, a cold sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades.
 
He grabbed his cell phone off the dresser and backed into the bathroom.
 
With shaking hands, he tried to get the phone to turn on.

The damn thing didn’t recognize his unlock password.
 
He tried a second time with his swollen fingers.
 
The phone wouldn’t let him get past the unlock screen. Thomas looked at it in utter disbelief.

“Seriously!?”

The front door swung open and Thomas looked up, half-crouched with the phone clutched in both aching hands.
 
The light from outside silhouetted the first figure through the door.
 
It was the local man from the church that had threatened him with a knife.
 
Mosby.

“Well, look who we got here…”
 
The angry man smiled and stepped into the room.
 
His accomplice—the one at the church who’d had a bat—stepped across the threshold behind him.

“S-stay away from me!” Thomas shrieked, one hand holding the phone like a club.

Mosby laughed.
 
“What you gonna do, throw it at me?”
 
He looked at his partner and elbowed the bigger man in the ribs to the laughter of the next two men who slipped into the room.
 
They were carrying ropes and one had a roll of duct tape.

Thomas opened his mouth to scream for help when he heard the phone chirp.
 
He held it in front of him like a shield.
 
“I’m calling the police, right now!”

Mosby laughed.

Officer Perkins’ large frame filled the doorway.
 
The cop stepped in and removed his hat.
 
“Don’t bother,” he rumbled.
 
“We’re already here.”
 
The other cop, McCuller, still wearing his flu mask, followed Perkins in through the open door.
 
The locals stepped aside and let the cops move forward, Mosby right on their heels.

Every step they took into the room, Thomas slunk back towards the bathroom.
 
He reached for the door to seal himself off and missed because he couldn’t take his eyes off the huge man bearing down on him.
 
He yelped in surprise and fell backwards.

“You promised!” called a voice behind the locals.
 
“No trouble!”

“Shut up, Chadwick,” Perkins sneered.
 
He easily kicked the bathroom door aside as Thomas tried to close it.
 
“Knock it off, Ping-pong.
 
We only want to talk.”

Thomas froze.
 
“W-what?”

Perkins bent down and hauled Thomas to his feet—not very gently, but without causing harm, either.
 
Thomas cowered and tried to escape the giant’s iron grip.
 
He squirmed in silence and settled for keeping his head as far away from Perkins’ face as possible.
 
The cop swung him into the room like a rag doll and forced him to face the locals, one meaty hand on either arm, holding him in a vise-like grip.

McCuller spoke, the mask moving with his jaw.
 
“The judge made a mistake when he turned you loose.
 
We aim to…correct that oversight.”

“What?”

“That all you can say, Ping-pong?
 
‘What?’
” asked Mosby, with a wink for Perkins.
 
The big cop chuckled.

“My name is
Thomas!
”

“Whatever, Ping-pong—or Yap-Yap or whatever the hell your real name is.”
 
The other locals laughed.

“Be that as it may, we’re here for a confession,” said McCuller with a slight nod of his head.
 
His muffled voice almost sounded reasonable.
 
A murmur rippled through the group as heads nodded and eyes narrowed.

“See?” asked Mosby, looking at the others.
 
“We only want to talk.”

Thomas looked at McCuller.
 
“I’m not confessing to anything. You’ve got to get this guy off me!”
 
He glared at Officer Perkins.
 
“My arm is broken already...”

“Look—we only—” began Mosby.