Stolen Lives : The Lives Trilogy Book 1 (29 page)

CHAPTER TWO

Indianapolis, Indiana

His idiot partner had tipped him off accidently by calling to let him know that two Feebs showed up at the precinct carrying a warrant and telling a story about his involvement in a nationwide human trafficking ring.  His partner knew it couldn’t possibly be true.  

It’s not possible, right?  Some sort of mistake, right? his partner had asked.

He had fooled his partner, just like he had fooled everyone else.  He was, after all, much smarter than any of them. 

He had just finished his workout at the gym but had to get back to his house, and in and out before the Feebs showed up.  Get in and out undetected.  Had to hurry, because he knew they’d eventually come to the house if he didn’t show up at the station.  He had no intention of doing that, though he had told his partner that he’d be there to straighten it all out in about an hour.  He thought that might buy him some time.

He told his partner to chill.  That was his partner’s favorite word, and it was one of the many things he had hated about his partner.  That and his picking his teeth with his long-ass fingernails after each and every meal, listening to hip-hop crap on the radio trying to fit in with the Spades and the Spics on the force, and drinking green tea like a fucking Yuppie. 

He hated his stupid-ass, farm-boy partner, and if the opportunity ever presented itself, he’d take his .45 and pull the trigger sending a slug smack dab into the middle of his forehead so it would rattle around in his empty skull and blow a baseball-sized chunk out the back.  Would serve him right, the stupid asshole.

He had seen the first reports of the human trafficking ring bust while working out at the gym.  He had stepped off the treadmill and grabbed a towel, wiped down his face and draped it across his shoulders.  He grabbed his water bottle, drank deeply and walked over and stood at the back of a crowd who had stopped their workouts and watched one of the several flat-screened TVs mounted on the wall.  Three of the screens were tuned to CNN; two to ABC; two to CBS; and three to ESPN.  No one paid any attention to the ones tuned to ESPN.

The group he stood behind listened to and watched a talking head while a videotape played on the half-screen showing cops wandering around the street and walking in and out of a building in Chicago.  EMT trucks and cop cars had been coming and going all morning, but the cameras hadn’t shown any of the passengers. 

He had recognized the building in Chicago, because he had been there many times. 

Every now and then, it would cut away to Kansas City or Long Beach.  The stories were the same:  A human trafficking ring had been busted.  Prominent local, state and national political officials, sports and entertainment figures arrested.  Kids - all boys who had been kidnapped and held captive, some for more than two years - had been freed and taken to local hospitals to be checked over before they were released to their parents.

Walking nonchalantly to the locker room, he had gathered his things and left without showering.  He had to get home and get moving.  He had things to take care of.

Driving slowly, taking care not to draw any attention, he parked a block from his house on a side street of a normal-looking tree-lined drive with white picket fences and bright, sunny flowers growing under front windows and around mailboxes, with bicycles, skateboards and scooters in driveways.  He sat in his car with the window down breathing deeply of freshly mowed lawns.  He got out of his car and locked it but didn’t bother to wipe it down because a simple check on his tags would tell everyone who it had belonged to.  By the time they got around to looking for it, he’d be long gone anyway.

Slowly, he surveyed the streets and houses for anything and anyone out of the ordinary.

Nothing.

He crossed the street to the alley and walked down it as if it were something he did every day.

At six-two, two-hundred and twenty pounds, he moved like the athlete he was.  After all, he worked out at the gym three or four days a week with free weights and pounding a heavy bag every now and then.  He jumped rope for twenty minutes every day and ran six to ten miles before dawn in any kind of weather.  He was proud of his body and the shape he was in, viewing it as an asset, a weapon. 

He knew this day would come eventually and had been planning for it for a long time.  He had stashed money away and had created an account at a different bank from the one he used to pay the bills.  He had created two other identities, complete with social security cards and drivers licenses using a weasel from the streets who specialized in creating identities.   One of the many weasels he had cultivated from his years on the force.  He had secured credit cards with large available balances under both names, along with a car titled and registered in a garage of a townhouse in a northwestern suburb of the city leased under the name of one of the identities he had created.

Knowing the day would come is different from the day actually arriving.

He had rehearsed.  He had planned.  He had already tied up loose ends.  Like the Weasel. 

The Weasel no longer existed.  Body gone.  Any evidence vanished in a fire described as suspicious, more than likely arson, and it was done so there was absolutely no possible blow back to him.

At the back of his house, he paused at the garbage cans lined side by side in the alley pretending to tidy up a bit but watching and listening for anything out of the ordinary.

Nothing.

He moved quickly to the backdoor, pulled the screen door back and used the key he had pulled from his pocket to unlock the deadbolt.  He entered quickly and shut and locked the door behind him and pulled his gun from the pocket of his navy-blue Indianapolis Colt hoodie as he did so.

No sound. 

Moving quickly, he went to the guest bedroom, knelt down and loosened the thread in the carpet just to the left of the closet and lifted it up revealing a ten by ten square piece of three-quarter inch plywood.  He used the point of his key to work around an edge of it and lifted it up revealing a drop box of sorts.

He pulled out a fully loaded, unregistered Glock .9M and two magazines loaded with .9M hollow point bullets.  The serial numbers had been filed off making the gun temporarily untraceable, courtesy of another one of his weasels, this one a cocaine dealer who supposedly died in a drug deal gone bad.  Not coincidently, the bullets found in his skull came from a Glock .9M just like the one he shoved into his waistband.  Temporarily untraceable, because the firing pin, like any other firing pin, had a serial number, few, if any gun owners, knew about.

Underneath the gun were ten banded bundles of cash, all fifties. 

A half-million.  Emergency money.

Underneath the money were a passport and a wallet with a driver’s license and social security card of one of his identities, two credit cards in the same name and a set of keys.

He took a careful look out of the corner of the living room window, and satisfied that there wasn’t anything unusual, he pulled the hood over his head and left the house as easily and as quickly as he had arrived.  He carried two duffle bags, splitting the money evenly between them and threw some clothes on top to help conceal it.

Four easy blocks away was a metro bus stop that would take him downtown to the station where he’d catch another bus to the North side suburb where his townhouse was located.  The trip would take him thirty-seven minutes. 

He knew this because he had rehearsed.

He was ready to disappear.  At least, for a while, but he would be back.  He had some unfinished business to attend to.

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