Ashes to Ashes (43 page)

“Why would she have lied?” Lucky said,
mirroring Scott’s own thoughts. “Are you a killer, Scott?”

Scott was caught off guard. “No,” he choked.
“I’m not a killer.”

“Why do you think you killed someone,
then?”

For a moment, Scott couldn’t speak. He just
began to pace again, his feet clopping against the wooden
floorboards. “What do you mean? I know that I killed
someone…because I killed someone. I put a gun to my roommate’s head
and pulled the trigger. I can still see the blood exploding from
his scalp. I can see
all
of the blood that I’ve spilt over
past days. My hands will never be clean of it. Never.”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure what?”

“Are you sure that you killed
anyone
?”
Lucky asked. “If you are not a killer…then why would you kill
someone? It doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Scott agreed. His
mind felt like it was full of static. The buzzing surged around in
his head, shocking his thoughts. He wasn’t the kind of person that
would murder…but he knew that he had killed Owen, the two thugs,
and most likely Lucky’s hired gun.

“You took a pill,” Lucky began. “One that you
didn’t understand. What makes the most sense, Scott? That you had
vision of your own death, which put you on a spree where you have
shot and killed three…four people? Or that you are having a bad
trip, caused by some nasty drug you just ingested? Are you on a
mission from God, Scott, or some higher power that granted you an
out of body experience before revealing to you the details of your
own death? Or are you in your apartment, dealing with a bad trip
brought on by some wicked, dirty drug? Think about the events since
you took that pill. Really think about it. Do you see what I am
saying?”

Scott did. It became of jumble of desperate
images and actions.

“Surreal,” he mumbled.

“Unreal,” Lucky stated. “Not just surreal…but
unreal. As in…a hallucination. As in…none of this is happening,
right now. Isn’t it possible? Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Scott accepted. “No,” he corrected. “I
don’t know. Fucking quit it.”

Lucky began to howl. It almost sounded like a
wolf. And it made Scott’s hair stand up on his neck. “This is too
easy.” He continued to roar. “You dumb fucking kid. Thank you for
all the fun, though, Scott. But our time is almost up. You can’t
show up with your gun blazing and take a man like me without any
type of consequences.
That…
my boy…is
unreal
. I have a
plan for everything. Everything.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I appreciate the pill and understand the
implications…the consequences of events, because things unfold like
a chain, seemingly random but not. With practice, I have armed
myself against possibilities…of all shapes and sizes. I have
learned to arm myself against…destiny…if you want to call it that.
I have become one well-thought-out son of a bitch,” Lucky said, his
laughing fit dying down. “It comes from years of dodging bullets.”
He glanced down at his arm. Scott halted his pacing and followed
Lucky’s line of sight. There was a small scar on Lucky’s upper arm,
one that Scott had easily overlooked. “GPS device. In the meat of
my arm. If I were to ever get abducted, my friends would know. They
will then monitor the police while cleaning up any loose ends they
deem necessary. They will throw the police off my adductor or
abductors trail, because I do not need the cops to come to my
rescue. And then, once things are clear…they are to come…and get
me.”

“How are you going to explain that to the
police? Our blood will be on your hands,” Scott informed. “No
getting around it.”

Lucky came back with, “I’m sure that I could
come up with a scenario that explains why my kidnappers are
dead.”

“What if your men get here too late? What if
I had already killed you?”

The uproar of laughing returned. “I would
have seen it coming,” he replied. “Even if there was a slim chance
of it…I would have seen. The pill would have showed me.”

“But our future is not set,” Scott said. “I
was supposed to be killed by Owen. And I changed that. I could
still decide to kill you.”

Suddenly, the single lamp that was lighting
the living room went out. Light was instantly sucked away, leaving
blackness in its place, engulfing the entire house. All flowing
thoughts turned still inside of Scott.

Oh shit.

“Too late,” Lucky reported, continuing to
chuckle.

Bam was upstairs asleep, vulnerable. She
would be unaware of what was about to take place. Everything inside
of Scott told him to get to Bam at any cost. If Lucky’s men were
making their way into the house, like snakes in the dark, he had
but a few seconds to get to her and hunker down for the looming
fight. They would have to barricade themselves in the bedroom with
their backs to the wall. It would be their only chance.

Where was the handgun that he had had early?
Scott tried to remember.

A little yellow illumination barely broke
through the room’s curtains, coming from a streetlight across the
road, giving Scott’s eyes just enough for his pupils to slightly
expand. He could make out the outline of Lucky, who he believed was
still facing him. Scott couldn’t fully see Lucky’s head but he was
sure that the man was staring, maybe even glaring. His help had
arrived. He was indeed king of the castle, with all the power in
his mighty grip.

Going to Bam would involve leaving his
prisoner behind, but he didn’t have much choice. Killers were at
his doorstep and Lucky Barrett would have his way, or so Scott
believed. But he would make sure to give them hell in return. He
might just make it out of the whole mess alive.

Not likely, he immediately admitted.

Rustling sounds came from the kitchen.
Creaking. Shuffling. Scott tensed. A footstep? Possibly. Scott took
a step toward the staircase. Another step. The gun was upstairs, he
recalled. Damn. He took another slow step. The figure of a person
suddenly appeared in the entranceway between the living room and
kitchen. Scott instantly went into a startled action, bolting
toward the steps. As he rushed he heard a soft explosion of air. A
gunpowder flash. Something hard fractured the hardwood at his feet,
barely missing Scott’s body.

Scott took the steps two at a time, as fast
as he could manage, up and away from the man and toward Bam.

Chapter 51

Oscar was a man of his word and called the
Oak Hill PD along with Detective Phillips as they pulled along the
road a couple house down from the address that Ginger had managed
to scrounge up. He told Ashe that the local law were on their way
and would be a few minutes behind them. That comforted Ashe. They
would have back up, but they would also be the front line, taking
point and calling the immediate shots, instead of some possible gun
happy strangers with a name to make for themselves by capturing or
killing a known fugitive. Ignorance in their current situation
could put Scott in more danger than he was already in. Even
everything seemed to be thrown into disarray and disorder, he felt
better to be the first one to enter the insanity, instead of the
other men with guns and badges.

After getting out of Oscar’s car, Ashe was
instantly tense. He glanced down the road to the small house where
Scott might be. He couldn’t make out any lights from where they
stood, which only gave him a view of the side of the building. The
house appeared to be dark, but that might prove wrong whenever they
got closer. It also seemed quiet from their distance, but when they
grew nearer that assessment could also change, as well. He didn’t
know what would be waiting inside the house, if anything at all. At
that point, anything could take place from that point on out.

Oscar called Ashe to the back of his car. As
Ashe came around, he noticed that the detective again had the trunk
open. Reaching over to the psychologist, Oscar handed Ashe a heavy
black vest. It had the words POLICE scrolled across the front and
back. Slipping off his blue windbreaker, Ashe put on the
bulletproof clothing before slipping the windbreaker back on over
it.

“You still know how to shoot?” Oscar asked in
a low voice.

Ashe nodded. “I still go to the range.” He
then stubbornly added, “But I don’t want any gun.”

“We don’t know what is going on inside of
that house,” Oscar insisted, with his usual tone of authority. “You
are going in armed or you are going to stay right here by the car.
You’re choice. You can’t be naïve enough to deny the possibility
that Scott could be too far gone to trust.” The detective always
kept a metal gun safe in the back of his vehicle, sealed shut and
kept shut by a keypad lock. Reaching in, he unlocked the miniature
safe by punching a short number code into the keypad. He then
opened it, letting Ashe grab a glimpse inside. He saw two small
handguns and what might have been several extra clips. After
snatching up what Ashe believed could have been a small 9
millimeter, along with an extra clip, Oscar went to hand the pistol
and clip over to him. “Take it?”

Reluctantly, Ashe accepted the gun. And that
was when he remembered the handgun on Oscar’s belt. He glanced at
the solid peace of hardware on his old friend’s hip. Black metal.
Wood grip. It was a Browning Hi-Power. Ashe only knew the name
because he was present when his friend had raised the money to buy.
He was also present when he was finally cleared by the police
higher-ups to use the piece while on duty, even though it was not
the standard issued weapon but his own personal one instead. It was
always on Oscars hip, as if it was another appendage, which was why
Ashe had actually forgotten about its existence.

With the small gun heavy in his hand and the
larger gun familiar on Oscar’s hip, reality was beginning to sink
deeper into Ashe’s brain.

“What have you done, Scott?” he mumbled under
his breath.

Ashe kept the gun out, instead of hiding it
under his windbreaker. The safety was on. He put the extra clip in
the pocket of his windbreaker.

“The gun is loaded,” Oscar informed Ashe,
even though the psychologist was fully aware of the fact. “You just
need to put the first shell into the chamber.”

Ashe nodded and slid the bullet into
place.

Once Oscar had his vest on, he ordered Ashe
to follow him, not beside but behind. Ashe listened, as always,
remaining a foot behind the detective, handgun pointed safely at
the ground, but ready for anything that might come their ways.

As they walked slowly up the road, Ashe felt
his senses heighten. He could hear their feet crunching against the
street. He could see better, more fully into the night, the colors
of the homes, the glare of the streetlights, and the stillness of
the town’s calm block. He could smell the fallen water that sat all
around them. He could feel the constant chilled breeze that
continuously swept across his cheek. And he all at once felt the
rain as it suddenly began to pour down on them again.

“Fuck,” Oscar swore. “We could have done
without that.”

Ashe concurred completely.

Thankfully, the windbreakers had hoods, but
hoods could affect their sight, give them tunnel vision. Ashe
pulled up his hood anyway to block out the pounding rain, but Oscar
chose to fight against it and leave his hood hanging at his back.
Ashe became slightly guilty for having his hood up, because it
suddenly didn’t seem all that brave. And he wanted to be brave for
his son. But he also figured that the rain could affect their sight
as much as a hood. So, his hood remained over his head while
Oscar’s continued to hang unused.

They eventually reached the dark house where
Amber Barrett supposedly rested her head. Leaving the road, they
began to cautiously creep up and over a gray sidewalk and onto the
driveway of the dark structure.

The house was an underwhelming two-story
building. It was covered by pale vinyl siding, several years old by
the wear on the surface. The windows seemed short but thick and
sturdy, modern, maybe, possibly installed within the last year or
so. The grass of the front yard was mowed regularly. Hedges lined
the driveway and they were also maintained on a regular schedule.
Two vehicle garage. The house reminded Ashe a little of his own
home. Over all, just like his own home, the building appeared
utterly harmless, as if an old couple were living out their golden
years inside.

The looks were most likely deceiving. Ashe
tightened his grip on the handle of his gun.

Using the driveway would be quieter than
slopping through the puddles of the drenched front lawn, Ashe
understood. It wasn’t the first house that Ashe had slithered up to
in the dead of night. He knew the drill. He knew it well. They
would follow the path of least resistance and less noise. Stealth
was the key. And they would only have the ability of stealth until
Oak Hill PD showed up with their light flashing, so they needed to
take advantage of the surprise while they had it.

He wished there was a way that they could
talk the Oak Hill’s finest into approaching the situation like
Oscar and himself had, with ease and subtlety. That wouldn’t
happen, though, Ashe was sure of it. Oak Hill PD would view it only
as a hostage situation and approach it as such, with force,
containment, and communication. It was protocol, one that Ashe and
Oscar were breaking by acting as they were.

There didn’t seem to be any rules or
regulations that Ashe had not broken in the past couple of day. It
didn’t matter to Ashe. It apparently didn’t matter to Oscar,
either, and he was a police officer and had the most to lose by
spitting in the face of regulations. The detective was aware of it,
of course, and yet he still continued up the driveway toward the
quiet house. Ashe was grateful to his friend, who was risking a lot
for his son, more grateful than he could or would say.