The Forsaken (7 page)

“Maybe. But what if this is a message?”

“What?”

Jude replayed the words he had heard the runner spit out before three bullets ended his life. “What if something more is coming?”

“I’m not a fan of ambiguity. You’re leaving too much up to chance.”

“Be a skeptic, but don’t be blind to what’s right in front of you. Since when did Victor fit neatly in a box? What if he really is still out there? What if he’s not done with us yet?”

“Are you sure we’re still talking about Victor here, Detective?”

Before Jude could spit out another word, a brunette with a firm build approached them. “I’ve spent the last ten minutes watching the two of you go at it, and it sounds to me like Foster’s theory and mine are actually quite close. He’s smarter than he looks, Mike.”

With a grin, the chief greeted her. “Jude, this is Detective Rachel Sutherland.”

She extended her hand toward him but was rejected. “I’ve worked homicide for eight years in Syracuse. The chief contacted me this morning, told me about our friend here.” She pointed to the corpse, and then they all stepped back to allow for more personnel to squeeze into the already cramped space. “I left as soon as I could.”

“Sutherland?” Jude said, running through a slideshow of bad memories in his mind. “Daddy’s little girl all grown up. Are you back to clean up his mess?”

“My father died trying to protect this city from scumbags,” Rachel said with a twitch.

“Yeah, right.”

“Detective Foster and your father didn’t exactly see eye to eye, on anything,” Mike interjected.

“Hmm…This should be fun, then,” she said.

“What is she doing here?” Jude asked, his question sounding more like a demand. “I want this case.”

“And I might just let you have it.”

A flood of relief washed over Jude’s face.

“But Detective Sutherland’s going to help you. I called in a favor because you are too stubborn to work with anyone else here in my department, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let you indulge in another independent showdown. You work with her or Whitney gets the case.”

Jude leaned in toward Mike, ignoring the new distraction completely. “After all I’ve been through, the last thing I need is another opinion screwing with my head. I can lead this investigation to solution. I can solve it alone.”

“This is hardly the time to showoff, Foster. You want this case? You want my respect? Then you follow my orders.”

“You’re acting out of fear. I don’t need her help.”

Rachel nudged Jude’s shoulder. “I’m not deaf. So why don’t we cut the schoolyard antics. I’m not here to step on anyone’s toes. I’m here—”

“—because
you
can’t solve this case alone,” the chief concluded. “I know you’ve still got it in your blood, but you’re not ready.”

Jude studied Rachel’s frame. She had a neat and pretty face. Her dark hair was stretched back into a bun. A small but tight figure balanced out her conflicted demeanor. Standing at just above five feet, she still managed to come across as tough.

Rachel added, “Look,
boys
, whoever or whatever did this is out there. And every second we spend bickering is more time we lose. I’m here to help, and if it means getting my hands dirty with a chauvinist like you, fine.” Jude could tell she took pleasure in belittling him in front of the chief. “And just so we’re clear, Detective, that was anything but a sexual invitation.”

“No issue there,” Jude spitefully replied.

“Mike told me what happened. Between you and your last partner. Your hesitation is no surprise to me, but I am
not
going to constantly prove that I’m capable of playing in your realm because of the past. Believe me, I want to nail this guy as much as you do.”

“I hope that settles things,” Mike concluded, flushing out a cloud of dust from his lungs. “This dump is like a cellar. Okay, so the geeks will get the prints to the station as soon as they’ve verified them in at the lab.”

“There won’t be any prints, Mike. You know that.”

“Just need to be sure,” Mike said with a determined smile. “In the meantime, let’s all get some shut-eye. You know the drill; keep me informed.”

Jude rolled his eyes at Mike, who was already walking away. Rachel paced the floor, studying the body and the entire room, making notes. So professional. Like a good student fresh out of the academy.

He
had a photographic memory.

“So are you always this friendly to new folks?” she asked.

Jude ignored her. He took one final glance at the pale life as it was stuffed into a body bag.

“Stiffs,” Rachel commented. “No matter how many times I come across them, they still manage to give me the creeps.”

“Would you prefer to stay at home and paint your nails?”

“I haven’t painted my nails in years. But I might get around to painting the one in the middle so you have something pretty to look at when I’m flipping you off for sounding like a dick.”

He grinned.

Rachel had already exited the room when Jude located the torn piece of paper tucked behind some loose floor molding. Mike and Rachel had both missed it earlier. He reached for the page and read the distorted letters.

He will come with a vengeance…Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

His chest throbbed. One of the letters had dried red. The letter
U
was not written in any form of black ink, like the rest.

It was written in blood.

9

CHASE VALLACE TOSSED A
twenty on the stage and grinned when the dancer knelt to claim what she’d been working hard for. His eyes never left her curves, even though his mouth was busy shredding through his cheese-steak grinder.

He knew his chances with real, challenging, ambitious women were scarce, so retreating to this “den of demons,” as his overly opinionated mother pointed out every time she found a book of matches from The Red Coyote, was the legitimate option for someone with Chase’s more tainted nature.

Born Craig Jeffrey Vallace, he adopted the nickname Chase when he turned to investigative reporting at Stetson University. His mother never wanted him to leave home like he had, even if it was to pursue such valiant dreams as following up on poignant scandal or on one gritty story bound to paint a newspaper cover with new sins.

When he came here, it was to escape. To avoid his mother. To find freedom from the constricting chains of his seven to midnight career. Truth was that seven-to-midnight never afforded him even close to enough time to dedicate himself to digging up the scabs of this four-corner city. This block alone had enough crime to last half a lifetime. And he had an apartment right in the center of it.

He made time for The Red Coyote, though. The dancers here treated him the way Mother never could. They gave him the attention he didn’t wish to dole out to would-be lovers he knew might one day leave him. After all, his toothy, dubious grin, receding hairline, and bloated gut always missed the mark when it came to attracting modern women, and he finally grew tired of chasing heartbreak and letdowns.

“Dance for me, baby. Dance real nice and slow.” Chase smiled, transfixed by her sliding up and down the pole. He swore it was something spiritual that occurred, and he was just doing his part by giving this girl his undivided interest.

Chase licked his lips before downing his second glass of Miller Lite. Beside his beer lay his other delicacies: straight shots, a Molotov, and a few martinis. Chase’s orange frizz—what he adamantly referred to as hair, at least at the rear of his greasy scalp—had surrendered to far too much pomade and slick goo. For the time being, he was struggling to grow a goatee as well, but Dad hadn’t passed down the proper genes to make it fill in like it was supposed to.

The dancer pulled his attention in more intently as she swung around. Satisfaction splashed against his eyes when she slid sensually off the stage and rubbed her body against his, desperate almost. He saw bills sticking out of her lacey outfit, and he searched his pockets to add to them.

The dim lighting of the club permitted him to stay focused on the evening’s entertainment. Of course, he hadn’t noticed that his Blackberry had six missed calls, four voicemails, and two unread text messages. He wasn’t oblivious, however, to the other men hungry for the dancer’s interest. Chase saw it as a taunt that she blew him a kiss and ignored the greedy come-ons of her other spectators. With a wave, he offered a fifty-dollar bill. He was out of cash.

In mere moments, his purchased treasure was through with her routine, and the stage lit back up again, preparing for another club favorite. Chase didn’t much care who followed. He’d gotten his fix for the night. As he watched the dancer he’d claimed a hundred times in his mind disappear behind black velvet, he checked his texts and finished his grinder before leaving the club.

Once outside, his cell vibrated. “Yeah?” Chase answered, half inebriated. “Who’s that chirpin’?”

“It’s Frank! I’ve been trying for the last half hour to get a hold of you. I even called your dimwitted mother. Where are you?”

“Now, hold on. Don’t start cracking on the old broad. That’s my department.”

“Hardly amusing at a time like this, Vallace. Where are you?”

“Me?” Chase said, feeling the world start to spin around him. “I’m at this quaint little place. I think you’d really like it, Frank. But I’m not too sure wifey would.”

“You’ve been drinking, on my time. I swear to—”

“Relax, boss. Chase’ll deliver. What’s it…What’s it you need?”

“I need you to do whatever it is I pay your pathetic carcass for. Report. I just got news of a crime scene, less than ten minutes from the center of the city. And I can’t for the life of me think of a good reason for you not to be there. Are you waiting for me to fire you? Is that what you want?”

“Lost track of time, that’s all. Take a midol or something. I’ll get on it,” Chase slurred.

Frank breathed heavily into the other end. His disappointment and frustration came out like cigarette smoke. “There’s been a murder, and you’re out wasting the night away. That’s classic, Vallace, really, it is. Forget it. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, but it’s too late. I got somebody else on this one.”

“Stop yankin’ my ch-chain-chain. Told you I’m on it, so cancel that last order, yeah? I’ll get you the goods. Just send me the coordinates, Scotty.”

“I better see one killer story in a few hours, or you can find yourself another boss to disappoint.”

The phone call went dead.

* * *

“Cops,” Chase groaned hours later as he began typing the first sentence to what he knew would be a mundane article. Naturally, he’d have to spice it up a bit with a few cursory details. He stared out his office window. It was going to be a long night with no one and nothing but Red Bull to keep him company. He was almost back to sober.

He’d written trash before, even worked for an illegitimate tabloid for a few years before he took the ridiculous salary
The Post
offered. As Frank’s minion, he’d acquired a set of skills that he often called upon when he was writing articles with no angle. Skills, loosely translated as the
elaboration
of certain details.

“When are you going to get a life?” his mother badgered when he conveyed that he’d be pulling an all-nighter at the office again. “When are you going to settle down and meet a nice gal?” Obviously, for the last forty years, she’d been watching the life of a ghost, not realizing that he’d never become that kind of assembly-line sap. He didn’t have the stomach for it. He was born for the pen. His thoughts, however repulsive, revolved around stories and not being fulfilled in the good, American way that happiness seemed to be packaged.

But still, the thing that gnawed at him, really bugged him deep down, was that he still was a nobody. As far as this city was concerned, he was merely a miniature string of letters pasted in a section of a dying newspaper. No one recognized his face. Hardly ever even spelled his name right when they sent him hate mail. His favorite was when they called him Dr. Vaseline. Not even close to Vallace, but that one made him chuckle, even if, at the same time, it filled him with anger.

He hated being labeled so pedantically. So formless. So void. He was well aware that nobodies only ever got noticed when they did what no one else could, when they shone at the center of a crowd of people. That’s how a nobody got remembered.

As his fingers raced across a sticky keyboard, he knew that if he was at the right place at the precise times, and if he mixed fiction with accuracy in a pristine manner, then this case with Jude Foster and his new partner would be the case that could make Chase Vallace, nobody reporter for
The Post
, shine.

Chase let his imagination run wild, throwing in tidbits of facts into his article. Sentences were born, aborted, and reborn with new appendages and joints. He stitched selected words together with poise and precision. Detectives like Jude Foster, after all, weren’t ready for cases like this one, not by a long shot.

Speaking of, how did someone as stained as Foster manage to slip back into his position as lead detective in so short a time? Perhaps he was a prime suspect. Perhaps he possessed similar traits to the ghost killer from yesterday. A certain Victor Sedeiko. Chase relished the opportunity to unleash more arrows of doubt at Foster, a once-upon-a-time knight within this metropolis.