No Safe Place (Joe Hunter Thrillers Book 11) (25 page)

‘Come on, come on, somebody answer, goddamnit!’

Leaning out the car window, frustrated by the lack of response she was receiving from pressing on the buzzer, Bryony VanMeter pushed open the door and went directly to the control panel alongside the gate to Andrew Clayton’s property. A red light blinked intermittently above the keypad. She keyed in a code she’d used to get through on previous occasions, but the gate remained resolutely shut. Realising the code had been changed, she stabbed at random numbers, but there was as much chance of winning the lottery as hitting the correct sequence. Stubbornly the light stayed red. There was a “call” button on the pad, under it a small microphone and speaker. She pressed, waited, but got no answer. Leaning into the mouthpiece, she again pressed the button, though she already felt it was a pointless exercise. “It’s Detective VanMeter. Anyone there?’

She took out her cell. Hit the stored number for Clayton’s phone. It rang out.

‘Goddamnit!’

She was already returning to her car. She should call Joe. But again she knew she’d be wasting her time, and the last thing she wanted was for him to try and deter her from joining them. She wasn’t stupid. She knew Joe’s agenda matched her own, but he was playing loose and free with the timescale. He’d informed her that the family was going to travel up to a second rental home on Lake Tarpon for the weekend and had even given her the address, but she sensed he was bending the truth when he mentioned they wouldn’t leave until after Cole returned from school on Friday afternoon. Wait until she saw him, she was going to bend his goddamn ear for telling her lies. He was trying to do his own bit to help, but it was actually causing inconvenience she could do without, having to chase him like this.

She spun the car in the drive and headed for the highway, where she took a left and hit the gas for all it was worth. She used the in-car radio to request back up, and was reassured that Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputies were en route. Officers from Tampa PD also responded but would take longer to make it to the lakeside scene.

She’d come from the hospital, having checked on Detective Holker. Dennis was the proverbial bear with a sore head. He was mending, but still unable to return to active duty, and wouldn’t be fit for the rigours of the job for weeks yet. He was exasperated as all hell, and more so because he wanted to be up on his feet again and chasing the bad guys. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been mentally giving their case the attention it deserved: he had a lot of spare thinking time while lying in his sick bed. As Bryony had also considered, there was something decidedly wrong with what had previously been pieced together concerning Ella’s murder, and what had led them to concentrate solely on Royce Benson. They both believed that Royce was their man. But there was something they were missing.

Holker had called her from his bedside phone, and asked her to check out some of the evidence collected during the search of Tommy Benson’s house. Bryony had dutifully attended the evidence depository at Franklin Street HQ, and checked against listed evidence seized in the course of the search. Due to Holker’s request, they had hit on something important enough that it was a game changer, and she’d driven directly to the hospital to tell him the news in person.

The iPad from which the emails had been sent accusing Andrew Clayton of murder matched an item stolen during one of the home invasion robberies. During the course of their investigation, and through subsequent admissions during the interrogation of those arrested at Tampa Heights, the gang had been implicated in three of the six known robberies, as well as the one aborted at Sunset Park when their plan was scuppered by the triggering of a silent alarm, and they had to flee empty-handed. Property found at the office complex matched items taken during those same three robberies, but two, and especially the incident at the Clayton house, remained unproved in connection to the gang. The iPad was identified as property stolen during one of the unsolved cases. It didn’t implicate the Tampa Heights crew; it told a different story all together.

One man could have accomplished the murders of Jed Boaz and Parker Quinn, and both detectives were positive Royce was responsible, but for the workload at the Clayton house he’d have needed help. What they’d all missed was the fact that there was not one but two gangs active in the Tampa Bay area, and one of them was still in operation, and Royce Benson was managing their activities to achieve his own goal.

Joe Hunter thought they were up against one man, and had prepared to help catch him.

Sadly he was in for a rude awakening.

Bryony hit her lights and siren, pushing the car to its limit up the highway towards Oldsmar.

‘Drop the bag, and show me both ya hands, asshole,’ said the gunman facing me from the dimness inside the cabin.

I was standing in the open threshold, a sitting duck, and there was no hope of making a leap out of his sights before he could pop a round or two in my body. I dropped the bag, kicked it to one side, and held up both hands.

‘Good. Now git inside and close the door with your heel. Try anything else and I’ll shoot ya.’

The gun was fitted with a suppressor. He wanted me inside, the door closed tight, so that when he shot me there’d be no hint of my dying that would carry to any neighbours. I doubted anyone would hear a damn thing anyway, even if the door was wide and I let out a strangled cry. Exhaling in regret, I did as commanded, and kicked the door shut behind me.

‘Are you armed?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Don’t fuckin’ lie to me.’

I shrugged.

‘Git your arms high, asshole. I wanna see under your jacket.’ The gun jerked up an inch or two as the gunman emphasised his point. He lowered it again, aiming at the centre of my chest, regaining a more viable target than my skull. I lifted my arms, causing my jacket and T-shirt to ride up, displaying a lack of weaponry in my waistline. The gunman grunted. ‘Now, turn around. Hands still high.’

‘I’ve a gun in my belt,’ I admitted. The alternative was he’d spot my SIG and, pissed at my lies, he might shoot me while my back was turned.

‘Turn around,’ he commanded again.

I turned. My hands still reached for the ceiling.

I hoped he’d do something rash like press the gun to my head while he removed my weapon from my belt, where there was a chance I could surprise him by spinning abruptly, where I might be able to take away his gun before he got me back in his sights. He was cautious though. He moved closer, but not within striking distance.

‘Use the thumb and index finger of ya left hand. Take out the gun and throw it away. Nice an’ easy now.’

I didn’t move.

‘You haffa problem with your hearin’ buddy?’

‘I heard you loud and clear,’ I reassured him. ‘Just not too keen on throwing away a good gun.’

‘I’ll shoot ya,’ he warned.

‘I believe you. But it doesn’t change anything. You’re going to shoot me, so I’d prefer to keep the gun incase I get a chance to shoot you back.’

‘Who the fuck d’ya think you’re messin’ with, buddy?’

‘Actually, I did wonder,’ I confessed.

As Rink had previously mentioned, it’s true that nobody is infallible. Certainly not me, it seemed, because I’d walked directly into the kind of trap I’d hoped to set to catch a killer. We’d all understood that much of our plan’s success was based upon pushing Royce Benson into making an ill-timed assault on his final targets. But he’d beaten us all to the punch, and I admit to stinging with embarrassment in being caught so flatfooted. While we’d been wasting time plotting, he’d acted, and had set up his own little trap, that I’d now sprung. I’d have congratulated him on his foresight and for taking the initiative, if he was around to accept the accolade. Because the gunman before me wasn’t the guy I knew as Royce. The hand holding the gun didn’t have a spider web tattoo, and though he bore a passing resemblance to both Royce and Tommy, he was older than both. This, not Tommy, I realised, could have been the guy who I’d spooked out of the trees that time, the man responsible for dropping the glove seeded with forensic evidence framing Parker Quinn. Then again, possibly not, because Tommy’s dying words were that he’d been “paid to run”, and Tommy had done so on both occasions I’d come across him. Nevertheless I wondered how many relatives the Benson clan stretched to, and how many of them were helping Royce on his revenge trip.

All along, the mystery of the transportation of the stolen goods from the Clayton house had itched like a burr in my mind. Earlier I’d concluded that the ill-fated Tommy had helped his cousin empty the house to make the scene look like a bungled robbery. Maybe Tommy had, but in hindsight, I now understood that even two men weren’t enough to complete the task – not if Royce’s priority was setting up the murder scene. The truth was, the murder had been only one facet of the robbery, and Royce had the assistance of his own loyal crew of burglars to do the heavy lifting. He hadn’t snuck into Clayton’s office to steal the code for the gate. He didn’t need to do that. After Clayton and Cole drove away, he’d entered the house alone, killed Ella, then while inside and at his leisure had disabled the gate’s locking mechanism from the master switch inside the house, allowing his buddies to drive up to the house with the vans and manpower necessary to move the goods.

The cops had grabbed the home invasion crew based at Tampa Heights, and everyone with the exception of Bryony and Holker were trumpeting about their success in ending the crime wave. But I also recalled Bryony telling me that evidence sifted from the derelict office complex implicated the Tampa Heights Crew in only “some” of the robberies. Some but not all. The reason they hadn’t found evidence relating to the other home invasion robberies during the raid, and in particular the one at the Clayton house, was because there was a second gang in operation. Not only had we underestimated Royce Benson, we’d also misjudged the resources he had at hand. This man was only one who was helping him, and it worried me how large the gang really was.

‘Where’s Royce?’ I asked the gunman.

‘Ya shouldn’t concern yourself with Royce. The only person ya hafta worry about is me, asshole.’

‘I’m not worried about you, you dick,’ I said. ‘If you were going to shoot me, you’d have done it by now.’

‘Don’t try me,’ said the gunman, but there wasn’t much conviction in his voice. He was a robber. And possibly a violent one at that, but he didn’t strike me as a stone cold killer. Royce held the distinct family honours on that title.

Unnecessarily, he took a step closer towards me. ‘Put both yer hands on yer head. Twine yer fingers together. Do it motherfucker, or I swear t’ God I’ll plug ya.’

I placed my palms on my head as instructed, but only loosely fed my fingers together. Hopefully he’d seen cops grabbing the entwined fingers of a felon, holding them steady while they patted them down. What he might not understand was when cops did so a second armed officer was usually on hand to cover them. To remove my gun, he’d first have to put his own aside if his other hand was tied up holding mine.

The son of a bitch didn’t grab my hands.

He kept his distance.

Called out to another of the crew to come in.

The door swung open inches from my nose, and in stepped another man, this one bearing no family resemblance to the Bensons. This guy was younger, maybe in his early twenties, and he had the sour disposition of many immature reprobates who raged at the world in general.

‘Is this dickweed giving you trouble, Lonnie?’ the new arrival growled.

‘Won’t do as he’s told, Mike,’ said his pal.

‘That so?’ Mike was holding a sawed-off shotgun that he took pleasure in ramming into my guts.

The air left me in a rush, and I bent slightly, my abdominal muscles contracting in agony. In reflex my eyes began to squeeze shut, even as my mouth opened wide to suck in the air displaced from my lungs. I tensed against the instinct, and my gaze remained clear enough to spot a third man crouching by a front tyre of Clayton’s SUV, in the act of extracting a knife he’d just jammed in the sidewall. There was only one good reason for disabling the vehicle: it was so I’d no way of following them, or of trying to get to the real targets of Royce’s trap if I managed to escape. It told me that I wasn’t scheduled to die just yet. Maybe they had orders to hold me here until Royce was finished with Clayton, when he’d return and dispatch me at his leisure.

That was good.

It told me that there was an advantage hidden within the dire situation I’d blundered into.

To Bryony, I’d pledged I wouldn’t kill Royce Benson unless I had to. Well, I’d made no such promise concerning these bastards.

I played up the agony in my guts, wheezing some more, and surreptitiously lowered my arms to massage my belly. Mike grinned at my apparent discomfort, pleased with the amount of pain he’d inflicted, and behind me Lonnie was slow to register I’d lowered my hands. Neither of their minds was on shooting me and that was the brief opening I’d been hoping for. As the third man stood from puncturing the remaining front tyre on the SUV, I straightened at the waist, twisting away even as I swept the shotgun aside with a cupped left palm.

Behind me Lonnie yelped in shock, and he did the unthinkable. He transposed his surprise onto the trigger of his gun. The silenced pistol made a dull clacking sound, and the corresponding thud of the bullet striking flesh was equally as dull, and almost simultaneous. Mike took the bullet an inch or so above his navel. His eyes widened in disbelief, and he had no concept of sitting down, or that I’d continued the scooping motion, liberating the shotgun from his relaxing grip.

Lonnie was terrified when I spun the shotgun on him. He’d just shot his friend, and his mind was in a state of chaos. He took a second or two to realise that he should point the gun at me. By then it was too late for him. His only saving grace was that I didn’t instantly blast him to death, but used the gun barrel to club aside his gun. I heard the sickening crunch of breaking bones, and his wrist went floppy. The silenced gun fell from his outstretched fingers. I didn’t halt my movement, I continued swinging in a circular loop, backhanding the barrel against his jaw. Lonnie’s head jerked almost a full one-eighty degrees, and the centrifugal force worked on his neck, then his upper torso, and he pirouetted away from me, a spray of blood-flecked saliva painting the air before he collapsed on his front on the floor.

By then I was no longer looking at him, but turning again, preparing to meet the next assailant.

The third robber had charged up the stoop, and his only weapon to hand was the blade with which he’d punctured the SUV’s tyres. It was sharp, serrated down one edge, a vicious close-quarters weapon that’d seriously ruin my day. But he’d made the old mistake of bringing a knife to a gunfight. I fired the liberated shotgun, the buckshot tearing out a chunk of his pelvis before he got within stabbing distance. He collapsed, and it was partly on top of his gut-shot pal, Mike. I slammed the smoking barrel on the top of his head, almost in an act of mercy.

Mike was still conscious. Even severely injured, he could prove dangerous if he had another gun, or even if he snatched up the dropped knife. I lunged in and snapped a kick under his chin, and he went out like a doused candle, splayed in the doorway.

I swung quickly to cover Lonnie. He had a broken wrist and most assuredly a broken jaw. Groaning, semi-conscious, he was no immediate threat. I made a rapid check of my surroundings, collecting the dropped weapons, and thought that all was clear. But before I’d fully relax, I bobbed a quick look outside. There was nobody apparent. If there had been others of the gang in hiding, I’m pretty sure they would have come out once they knew I’d been secured, and especially when things kicked off so violently. I took it that the trio had been left here to capture me, with Lonnie entering the cabin through a window at the back in order to spring the trap while Mike and the knife man waited in the trees, and Royce and whoever else was helping had took off after the Audi when Rink drove it away. I hurled the shotgun and the silenced handgun into the nearest copse of trees, but held on to the knife, slipping it into my boot.

I grabbed for my phone.

Rink didn’t answer.

Bad.

I wanted to get after him; to help him fight off the assault I believed was already underway.

But first I rang Bryony.

‘Joe! What’s going on?’

‘It’s happening, Bryony, an attack on Clayton,’ I said in a rush. ‘How close are you?’

‘Already on my way to Lake Tarpon. Why did you-’

I cut her short. ‘There’s no time for that. I’m at Clayton’s fishing place, but the others have gone to the second cabin we spoke about. Things just turned nasty here, Bryony, but I think I got the best of it.’

‘What the hell’s happened? Did you catch Royce?’

‘No. There are others. Royce has his own crew.’

‘I know, Joe. I know.’

I was unsure how she’d come to the same conclusion as me, but then wasn’t the time to debate our theories.

‘What’s your ETA?’ I asked.

‘Ten minutes.’

‘Too long,’ I said. ‘I can’t wait. Go directly to the other place, but have some of your pals come here. Three down. All in need of immediate medical assistance.’

‘Oh, shit, Joe…?’

I hung up.

The SUV was out of commission. I’d no idea if the trio had transportation nearby, or whether the plan was for them to be picked up after I was dealt with, and I’d no time to check. I looked across the lake, to where the sun had sunk below the horizon. Pinpoints of light danced like lighting bugs in the purple haze. Clayton had told Cole that he could probably spot me from where the safe house was located. My mind made up, I charged down the boardwalk for the jetty, hoping the pirogue I’d spotted came equipped with an outboard motor.