Savage Echoes (The Nickie Savage Series, Short Story Prequel) (4 page)

When her ears stopped ringing, she heard loud splashes. She regained focus just as the man lifted from her like a crane had hooked his back and flung him through the air.

Oh crap, Duncan. She winced at the thought of his temper.

It was like watching a short fight between rabid dogs. "Duncan, stop!" Rarely did Duncan lose control, but the few times he had were enough to last her a lifetime.

He straddled the man. One of his hands twisted the center of the man's shirt while the other cocked back in a fist.

Crawling to them, she held out her hand. "Duncan," she whispered.

She could see the wheels turning in his head as his chest rose and fell in rapid succession.

Defiantly, the man jutted his face toward Duncan. "My home," he repeated.

Duncan growled and lifted from him.

She was wet and cold and her head hurt like hell. "We don't want your home," she said. "We're looking for a girl, a young girl." Out of her back pocket, she pulled a soggy picture of Serena Flats and held it out.

He 'humphed' and stood. Taking the picture, he held it an arm's length away, then squinted. Still not ready to stand, she stuck her hand in the inside pocket of her jacket and took out a pair of reading glasses.

When she held out the glasses for him, he hesitated. "I don't like cops." He moved his glare to Duncan.

"I'm not a cop," Duncan grunted like it was a four-letter word. How could that make her smile at a time like this?

"I don't like them either some days," she said. "Put the glasses on, will you?"

He did so, turned his back to her and hunched over the photo. "My home. I don't like cops," he repeated. Then, she heard him mumble, "I have a daughter." He held the picture out behind him, leaving his back to her. "Never seen this one. Only drifters down here. I don't like cops." His head twitched as he walked toward his
home
.

His home consisted of some blankets and a few piles of junk piled in one of the tubes that drained into the underpass. Sure enough, there was the TV. How did he get power? What did he do when there was a hard rain?

"Thank you for your time." And the wet clothes and the lump on the head. "I'm sorry I startled you. I'm not going to report this." She dug back into her jacket and leafed through some business cards. Choosing the one for the homeless shelter, she held it out to him. "You need a place to stay when a hard rain comes."

He took it but not without reminding her that this was his home and that he didn't like cops.

"We've got two more stops." Duncan's voice came from the other end of the tunnel. He was squatting down, sifting through some gravel with his hands.

She left the man her glasses as she walked to Duncan.

* * *

"I'm soaked and I smell like I'm homeless."

Duncan looked Nickie over from head to toe. Wet, yes. Smelly, no. He wouldn't try and argue the point.

She continued as they walked, "I'm going to grab a shower before I stop by the boyfriend's and the absent teacher's homes."

When they reached their cars, she turned to him with her steel gray eyes. The wet clothes hugged her in places he shouldn't be admiring at that moment. She wasn't long and thin like most women wanted to be... quite literally like every other woman he'd dated. She was fit and all woman. Her makeup was running, and she looked at him with contemplation. "I'm not kissing you looking like this," she said just before he covered her lips with his. It wasn't his fault. She'd challenged him. He wound his fingers through the damp waves and pulled her into him.

Taking the challenge, always taking the challenge, she grabbed hold of his shirt and pressed her female shape against him. This wasn't the pleasant peck he'd planned on. He should have known better. Opening for him, lips danced and tongues meshed. How could he ever live without this woman?

The small moan that escaped her mouth nearly made him take her then and there.

Expectantly, he felt her hands on his chest as she pushed him away. Licking her lips, she opened her car door before he had the chance. "That's for helping today. Don't go check out the other two locations." At that, she paused, turning to face him head on. "I mean it. Duncan—" But he was already turning to walk away.

Chapter 4

Duncan stood with his legs wide, eyes on the target. With confidence, he squeezed the trigger of his Beretta 9mm. He didn't care for guns. The noise reverberated in his mind and his memory, regardless of the hearing protection. The feel of the kickback threatened to bring him back to his stint in the Middle East. The need outweighed the memories. The memories were as clear as if they were happening at that moment. Which was why he considered his eidetic memory a curse. The Chinook, the bazooka, the hole the size of a small car, the blood.

He was dating a cop—a cop who seemed to get herself into the kind of trouble that could use a steady trigger finger and good aim.

The more he dug up on Nickie's past, the more it connected to the present.

Bam. Bam. Bam. He'd always had good aim regardless of his feelings about weapons. He would wait another fifteen minutes for her call before he went out to the other two sites.

Dating a cop was definitely a learning curve. A smile curled the corners of his lips as he took the next handful of shots. And this cop was a learning curve worth the time.

The job for the governor's assistant was one of the first painting jobs he'd solicited in over ten years. Work rained on him, and he was grateful. This job, however, was more than a painting. More than a paycheck. This guy had something to do with Nickie's past or her present, Duncan wasn't sure which, but he was going to find out.

He checked the safety and pulled out the magazine. Placing them in his case, he removed his hearing protection.

* * *

The captain's wife managed several homeless shelters around Seneca Lake. With hair still wet from her station locker room shower, Nickie pumped Dave for information without throwing the homeless man under the bus. She hoped to find him some kind of assistance he might accept.

She caught Dave up on where she was with the Serena Flats case. The clock was ticking. It would be a late night, but there would be no sleep with a twenty-year-old woman missing.

"I called her apartment again," she said. "I didn't tell her roommates about the second call, but they're beginning to sound worried. Serena missed their plans to meet up for dinner at the pizza joint down the street from their place."

Reassembling her gun, badge, cuffs and phone to her belt, she briefed Dave on the boyfriend and the absent substitute teacher. "I'm on my way to hunt them up now."

"I'd tell you to let third shift take over until tomorrow, but I know I'd be wasting my breath. Don't go alone. Take Lynx. He hasn't left for home yet."

She'd gotten Duncan clearance as a civilian consultant to listen to the first 9-1-1 tape, but she wouldn't know how to explain to Dave about the underpasses. She also knew better than to check out a lead by herself.

Running her hands over the top of her damp hair, she answered, "Yes, sir."

As she left his office, he said, "Don't call me 'sir.'"

Smiling, she popped into Eddy's office. It was supposed to be her office after the unfortunate incarceration of the previous captain moved everyone around. Scumbag piece of shit. But she didn't want the emptied office.

He was messier than she was. She was afraid to touch anything. At least her desk was clean.

Knocking on the open door, she strolled in and studied his case board as she spoke. "I've got names and addresses on Serena Flats' boyfriend and for a substitute teacher who didn't show up for her lab this afternoon. You up for tagging along?"

"Tagging along?" He grabbed his police issue jacket. "Do I get to play with the siren?" he said sarcastically.

"It's late, Eddy. I just meant you don't have to come along if you don't want."

"I work here, too. Of course I have to go with you. Even if I'm just tagging along." He spread a smile from ear to ear. No wonder she'd been stupid enough to sleep with him.

A missing girl, distraught parents, dead end after dead end, and a day that for most of upstate New York was coming to an end. Riding with Eddy was more than she was willing to tolerate. Take him along, okay. Ride with him talking a mile a minute all over town, no. "It's late, Lynx. We're driving separate." Ignoring his pause, she tied her hip-length brown raincoat at the waist and briefed him as they walked.

* * *

Duncan rolled a few hundred yards along the shoulder of Highway 34. He stopped long before the bridge. It was dark and would have been quiet to most ears. His were never quiet. He could hear the small squeak of a bat as it circled. The occasional rustle of leaves could mean anything from a large rodent to deer. And water.

He checked that his Beretta was secured in the belt at his back before starting the short hike to the bridge. The creek flowed smoothly. No rocks. Only mud and grasses so far. The incline was shallow, the floodplain heavy with tall, dead plants. Parts had been matted down. Were they from the footprints of the animals that were rustling the leaves? Or from a man who liked to kidnap young women?

With his hand resting on his gun, he climbed down. The water sounded familiar. He stopped at the edge of the tunnel and listened. He heard nothing but the steady stream. Slowly, he cocked his head around and peered into the large, concrete tubing. It was easily eight feet in diameter with a steady stream of water three feet wide. Remembering the smaller tubing, he craned his head to see if there were any blankets. Or bodies.

Water trickled from each of the smaller tubes in this tunnel. Convinced he was alone, he took his hand from his gun and started in. The gravel crunched beneath his Armani slip-ons. He walked the distance of the underpass and out the other side. Retracing his steps, he stopped this time at the smaller channels that intersected the main drainage system. The tunnel was long enough to duck sunlight. He used his flashlight app and looked down the long passageway. A handful of tiny pairs of eyes reflected red against the beam. Rats. It took more than that to give him the chills. He'd served in the Middle East.

Squatting down, he scooped up some of the gravel and shone the light on it. His brows furrowed as he brought the tiny pebbles in for a closer look. He looked around as if an evidence bag might pop out of nowhere, then stuffed the rocks into the front pocket of his jeans.

* * *

"Would you like a drink while we're here?"

Nickie looked at Eddy like he had three eyes. "I'm not going to honor that statement with a response. The boyfriend's roommates may have been blowing us crap or could have gotten the place wrong." The bar was scattered kids in their early twenties. Too early for this age to be out. The few that were there looked too young to be drinking. Nickie decided then and there if anyone called her ma'am, she was going to book 'em.

Ordering a single club soda, she leaned against the only remaining spot at the small bar and scanned the place. The music was just as frigging loud as a late Saturday night. Eddy stepped close to her and placed his hand on her lower back.

She let her glance drop to his hand, then back up to his eyes. Her sagging lids must have spoken for her.

He lowered his lips to her ear and said loudly, "We already stick out. Work with me here, Nick."

Shifting away from him, she scanned the area. The picture of the boyfriend was clear in her mind. Maybe not as clear as it would be for Duncan, but clear enough. Thinking of Duncan made her second-guess if she should have brought him instead of Eddy.

Duncan was probably sitting on his stool in front of his easel, brows pulled together, concentrating on a canvas in front of him. She warmed at the image just as she spotted the boyfriend. He stood at a table big enough for two with three other boys his age. He didn't look distraught that his girlfriend had been missing since seven a.m.

Getting Eddy's attention, she jerked her head over her shoulder. "Let me try this alone for now. I don't... stand out as much without you. You look like a cop."

He gave her a look like she'd just run over his cat, but took her spot at the bar anyway.