Days of Reckoning

DAYS OF RECKONING

a novel

by CHRIS STOUT

Copyright © 2010 Chris Stout

Cover copyright © 2010 Michelle Hess

This book is a work of fiction. Characters, places, events and names are all products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons – living or dead – or any location or event is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Chris Stout.

Edition: December 2010

Mount Calvary Summer Camp, Central Ohio

Thirteen Years Ago

The plaintive voice of her little brother snaked through Miranda Leider’s head like a twisted mantra. “Donnie made me do something. To his thingy. With my mouth.”

Justin was eleven, two years younger than Miranda. She’d grown up looking after him. Justin had always been slight and small for his age and suffered at the hands of his peers accordingly. Miranda had inherited her father’s protective genes and hunter’s instinct. She also developed an early sense of reciprocity and had no qualms about doling out equal parts punishment to those who tormented her hapless brother. But she had no idea what could make up for this heinous act.

It started at night, midway through a three-week stay at summer camp. Miranda was on her way to the restroom facilities when she heard the sound of whimpering. She searched the stalls and showers of the girls’ room, but her side was empty. She left and listened by the door leading to the boys’ facility. The sound came again, from somewhere in there. After making sure no one was watching, Miranda stepped inside.

“Hello?” she called out.

The whimpering stopped. “Sis?” a small voice replied.

Miranda’s throat tightened. “Justin? Where are you?” She went from stall to stall and discovered her brother huddled in the last one. “Jesus! What happened to you?”

Justin didn’t reply. Miranda knelt by him and examined his battered face. One eye was swollen shut, and his nose was bent at an awkward angle. She tried to put an arm around him, but he winced. “Who did this to you?” He didn’t reply. “Come on then, let’s get you to the nurse.”

Justin whimpered and protested, but allowed his sister to help him up and lead him out of the bathroom.

#

Mrs. Becker, the camp nurse, answered her door groggy and irritated. “What is it?” Her voice was thick with sleep, but the sight of the pummeled boy woke her up. “Good God!” she exclaimed, forgetting she was at a church camp. “Bring him in, quickly!”

She had seen kids beaten up before, but never here at camp. While she cleaned and disinfected Justin, she barraged the boy with questions. “Who did this? Why were you out so late alone? Where is your counselor?” Justin responded that it was dark, he needed to use the bathroom, and several boys had attacked him there. He hadn’t seen any of them.

Miranda asked to stay with Justin while Mrs. Becker went to inform the camp director. “Of course, dear, you can use my cot if you like. For certain I won’t need it tonight!”

After the nurse left, Miranda sat in a plastic chair and kept watch over Justin as he drifted in and out of sleep. She leaned her head back against the wall. The room went fuzzy, and she was out cold.

“Well yours does too!” Justin knelt by her chair and was quiet while she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Then he said, “I know who beat me up.”

Miranda bolted upright, remembering where she was. Her body ached from falling asleep in the chair, but she forgot about it when she saw her brother looking up at her through one open eye.

“Are you sure?”

Justin nodded. He squirmed into a more comfortable position on the floor. “It was Donnie Andrews,” he whispered.

That made sense to Miranda. Donnie was a boy in her age group, and was known for being a classic bully. Miranda was surprised, however, that he had beaten someone this severely. “Why didn’t you tell Mrs. Becker?”

Justin lowered his gaze. “Because…” His voice trembled. “Because Donnie made me do something.” Miranda’s stomach knotted.
Please God no
– “To his thingy. With my mouth.”

“Okay Justin, okay,” she said. She brushed his purple cheek gently with her hand. “I won’t tell. But I swear I’ll get him for you.”

The next day Justin went home with their father. Miranda elected to remain at camp. She hugged her Dad goodbye and waved at Justin’s bandaged form in the back seat of the family car. He returned the gesture, putting a finger to his lips. Miranda winked; his secret was safe with her.

She exacted revenge that weekend, when her group, including Donnie Andrews, went for a nature hike.

Since they were the oldest campers there, the counselors allowed Miranda’s group more freedom to explore the woods and hills. Donnie wandered off to check out a ravine. Miranda followed him discreetly, using tactics taught by her father when she learned how to hunt deer. They worked; he was completely oblivious to her presence, and none of the rest of the group paid her any attention as she worked away from them.

The ravine was mostly shale and sand, representing one of the end points of a glacier during the last ice age. Donnie tossed a few small stones across it at a tree stump on the other side. Most of his attempts fell short; the ravine was over fifty yards wide and a good hundred feet deep.

Miranda’s right toe struck something hard. She bit her lip to keep from crying out and looked down for the culprit. She found a fist-sized rock half-buried in the grass. Keeping one eye on Donnie, she bent down and dug around the rock. The boy remained immersed in his one-sided game of catch. Miranda worked the stone free as he let another one fly. He bent over to replenish his supply. She waited until he stood up and then threw the rock at his head.

Her aim had always been good, whether it was a softball, baseball, water balloon or hunting rifle. This time was no exception. The rock caught Donnie squarely in the back of the skull with a wet crunch. He screamed once and pitched over the side of the ravine.

Bullseye.

Miranda moved quickly to check her kill. By the time she got to the edge and looked down, Donnie was a bloody heap on a ledge about forty feet below. She could see where he had bounced before coming to a rest; while the sides were steep, they were not sheer. She sat down and half climbed, half slid to where the boy lay.

When she reached him, Miranda felt for a pulse, but the gesture was unnecessary. If her rock hadn’t killed him, the fall had. His neck was broken and the back of his head had been further crushed by the impact of landing. A large, flat piece of shale lay broken in two where his head hit it. Miranda reached into her pocket for a whistle and blew sharply on it three times. The distress call would bring every counselor in earshot running. It would be easy. Donnie wandered off and got too close to the edge. Perhaps the loose sand gave way. Miranda heard him cry and came over to investigate, but there was nothing she could do.

Chapter 1

Sparta, Ohio

Present Day

Miranda Leider ran easily along the path that circled the town’s man-made reservoir. At twenty-six she was a police officer now, and on this night she was hunting again.

After a mild winter, folks were out at night enjoying the warmth of early spring. The nights were just cool enough to jog comfortably in running tights and a sweatshirt. Over the past three weeks, three women had been assaulted along the jogging trail. Two were coeds from Sparta College, where Miranda was finishing her Masters’ Degree in Law-Enforcement. All the attacks happened on cloudy nights like this one, and all of the women had been running alone. Miranda volunteered to make herself a target. She hadn’t been with the department long, but she’d handled herself well enough on the firing range and in the self-defense courses that no one argued with her.

The jogging path ran across the reservoir dam, which was well lit, and took a turn into the woods, which was not. Miranda slowed her pace as she neared the turn and forced her breathing to relax. No one had been hit yet in this stretch, but if Miranda were the attacker, this would be the next place she chose. Her sneakered feet padded softly on the pavement. A small Beretta .32 rode gently in a snug undershirt holster. Miranda also had an earpiece with a mic clipped to her sweatshirt. “Just about to turn into the woods,” she breathed. She didn’t receive a reply, so she had to take it on faith that the cruiser parked nearby heard her.

The trees closed around her. Once upon a time the town had installed small lamps to light the path, but most of them were either burned out or broken. Miranda slowed further to let her eyes adjust to the gloom and maintained an easy, steady pace. A few moments later, she thought she heard her footsteps echoing, but when she adjusted her speed again the sound was mismatched, and Miranda knew she had company. She didn’t remember any other joggers on the path behind her before she entered the woods. This person managed to either move along behind her without being noticed, or had been waiting in the woods for her to pass by. Her pulse and breathing quickened. Miranda forced herself to slow back down. Her father taught her that getting nervous was a fast way to alert her prey, since animals were so sensitive to human sweat and jerking motions. Miranda didn’t speak into her mic. She keyed the mute button three times and hoped someone heard the signal that she wasn’t alone.

Her first priority was to put the newcomer in front of her. Much less chance of being surprised again that way. She slowed to a mere trot. The footsteps behind her fell and matched her pace. She moved to the side of the path and knelt down, as if to tie her shoe. An ordinary fellow jogger or a smart attacker would have kept on moving past her. This one, however, took her pause as a sign of vulnerability and came upon her in a rush.

She always believed that simple and direct was always the best policy, so Miranda stayed kneeling. She caught a quick glimpse of a masculine figure in a dark sweatsuit, and a brief flash of steel when he produced a knife. As he fell upon her, she punched up into his groin and rolled out of his path. The man crumpled to the ground with a gag. Miranda reached under her sweatshirt and drew the small Beretta. At the same time she disconnected the radio mic from the unit at her waist. She stood and approached the man who was gasping on the ground.

He had dropped his knife. Miranda kicked it into the center of the jogging path, away from him but still in sight. She paced around the doubled-over form and listened for the sound of her back-up approaching. Except for the occasional gag at her feet, the woods were quiet. Miranda waited until the man recovered his breath and then she kicked him in the ribs.

“Here’s the deal,” Miranda said when the man stopped choking. “I can shoot you now and save everyone a lot of trouble. Or you can make a confession and go to jail. There’s a special bus waiting to take you up to London Correctional Institute.” She referred to the state maximum security prison outside of the capital, Columbus. “You and I both know you’ll probably walk if this comes to trial. But if you don’t cooperate now, I know some folks up in London who will make sure that trial never happens. They’ll be happy to break in some new meat.” Miranda knew the value of having contacts on both sides of the law. Her brother had been in and out of trouble since he was a teenager, and to protect him she had made sure to have friends on the inside to keep an eye on him. Justin wasn’t in prison now, but the men she knew who were would be happy to help out if she asked. Even though she was young, a pretty face behind a badge could do a lot to procure special treatment for certain prisoners. Failing that, a new plaything was always welcome.

Miranda waited another minute. “Do you understand what I’ve told you?”

The man gasped. “I know my rights. I ain’t gotta tell you nothing.”

Miranda shrugged in resignation. Her mind was made up. “Very well.” She kicked him in the ribs again, and then in the face until he was unconscious. She holstered her pistol and plugged the earpiece back into her radio. The bastard wasn’t worth wasting a perfectly good bullet.