The Depth of Darkness (Mitch Tanner #1) (16 page)

About two miles later I pulled into Lana’s
neighborhood. She lived in a small bungalow style house adorned
with pale blue siding and white trim. I pulled into the driveway
just in time to see a man emerge from behind her house.

I opened the door and stepped out, using the
vehicle as a shield. I drew my weapon and aimed it in the guy’s
direction. “Who the hell are you?”

The man stopped, dropped something on the
ground, lifted his arms in the air and said nothing.

Slowly, I made my way around the vehicle,
keeping my pistol aimed at the guy. I cast a quick glance over my
shoulder to make sure no one approached from the other side of the
house. The guy was dirty, covered in dirt or soot or something
similar, from head to toe.

“You don’t answer me, I’ll shoot,” I
said.

He pointed at the truck parked in front of
the neighbor’s house. “Replacing the chimney,” he said with a heavy
Hispanic accent.

“Why aren’t you parked in front of her
house?”

“It was blocked.” His hands shook.

I got close enough to read the patch on his
shirt and the ID attached to the lanyard around his neck. He’d told
the truth. I holstered my weapon, keeping an eye on him while I did
so.

“Can I grab my tools?” he asked.

I nodded. “I’m sorry about that. Kind of on
edge today. Know what I mean?”

The guy nodded, probably out of fear. He had
no idea what I was talking about.

“You see anything funny out here today?”

He shook his head. “Can I just finish my
job?”

I nodded and watched him head to his truck
and put his tools away. It felt like the humidity had reached its
peak for the day. At least, I couldn’t imagine it getting any
higher. My forehead was already coated in a sheen of sweat. I
decided to walk around the perimeter of the house before heading
inside. Best to check things out. I hadn’t been aware that Lana was
making improvements. She’d said nothing about it. Or if she did, it
was during a game and I’d tuned her out. It’s happened on
occasion.

I reached the backyard and saw that the
chimney was in a few different stages of repair, or disrepair. It
looked like they’d removed the exterior bricks and had already
started to rebuild the bottom with new brick. The flue looked new.
The sun reflected off it, creating a bright ball. I imagined the
rest of the parts were being replaced as well. I continued on and
saw Envy at the back door. She’d placed herself between the rear
sliding door and the Venetian blinds. She walked back and forth
pressed up against the glass. She stopped and looked at me. Her
mouth opened and let out a meow that I never heard.

I continued around the house. Everything
seemed normal. There were no broken branches on the hedges. The
windows were closed and intact. The rear gate was shut and the
padlock untouched. The trash cans were nestled between two shrubs
at the corner of the house, like they always were. I stopped at the
front door, pulled out my keys and unlocked it. Cold air rushed out
as I walked in. The air conditioning must have been set at sixty.
No wonder Envy paced the back door. Cat had to be freezing and the
sun had warmed the glass. I wasn’t sure if cats actually got cold
or not, but it sounded reasonable.

I made my way through the house. The smell of
potpourri was heavy. Envy’s food bowl was next to the pantry door.
I filled it to the top then I changed her water and kitty litter. I
didn’t mind going above and beyond the call of duty.

As I walked over to the fridge, I pulled out
my cell and checked for missed calls. There were none. No good
news, and more importantly, no bad news. Inside the fridge I found
a Mich Ultra. Not my beer of choice, but I cracked it open anyway.
It was cold and slid down my throat easily. I checked my forehead.
The sweat had dried.

Lana’s laptop was on the kitchen table. I
lifted the lid and powered it on. I had my own account on the
computer. I logged in and pulled up my personal email, which
contained nothing but a bunch of junk mail. I then opened another
tab in the web browser and went to the site for the department’s
web mail. The first message said that I’d been suspended for two
weeks for striking Fairchild. The suspension was pending appeal, so
I was to report to work as usual tomorrow. I’d be the office maid
for the day was what it would amount to. Might as well stay home.
Not like I was going to win the appeal if Warren oversaw it. The
next message was from Kettle. He’d come through on his report on
the theft of the van. Unfortunately, the report didn’t contain
anything new.

I did a check of the local news sites as well
as a couple of the major ones. The locals all had coverage of the
murder and kidnapping. They hadn’t pieced together Dusty Anne
Miller’s murder as being related. It was then that I realized I’d
missed the autopsy. I pulled out my phone and made a note to call
in for the results first thing in the morning.

I checked my work email one last time before
shutting down the browser. A message from Fairchild had come in not
a minute ago. I moved the mouse to the message to open it. Before I
could, someone knocked on Lana’s front door. Not a normal knock.
They pounded on the door, ignoring the doorbell. The only ones I
knew who did that were cops, and not the friendly ones.

The banging never stopped. Debby thought
she’d go mad before too long. In between the pounding on the walls
beyond the room, she heard Beans’s wheezing. How much longer would
he last? When would the men come back? She had to go to the
bathroom and was sure Beans did as well. She decided to bring the
subject up.

“I really have to pee,” she said.

Beans made a sound like he rolled over or
lifted up. It was still dark in the room. “Me, too. Go in the back
corner on your side and I’ll go in mine.”

“What if the room is slanted and it rolls
back toward us?”

“Then it does.” Beans paused, took a deep
breath, then laughed. The sound eased the knot in Debby’s stomach.
He added, “I’m going to hold it a bit longer.”

“Me, too,” she said after a moment of
contemplation. “If only they’d come back.”

“How long do you think we’ve been down here?”
he asked.

She reached for her wrist, but her watch had
been taken from her. It had a button you could push that would
light up the dial. “I don’t know. I’ve slept a couple times, I
think. But I have no idea for how long. Could have been a couple
minutes. Could have been all night.”

“Yeah,” he said.

She knew when Beans slept and when he was
awake. His wheezing slowed to a rumble when he was asleep.

The banging got faster.

“What do you think they are doing?” she
asked.

“I don’t know. How do we know it’s them? What
if they just dumped us off in a shed somewhere and that’s coming
from something close by?”

Debby glanced up and looked to the side. She
could see tiny pinholes of light coming through the floor. “We’re
under something, Bernie. I don’t know what. But when I look to the
side I can see a little light above us.”

Beans started sliding along the floor. She
shifted her gaze and saw his outline heading toward the front of
the room. It amazed her how much better she could see in the dark
now.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Checking this door.”

“For what?”

“Maybe it’s unlocked.”

The thought hadn’t crossed Debby’s mind. “Why
would they bring us out here and then leave the door unlocked?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Maybe they’re
dumb. Maybe it’s a game to them.”

She didn’t doubt that. Anyone who would take
two kids probably wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar. Not that she knew what
that was either. It had been an insult her brother had tossed at
her once. In front of her, she heard Beans pound on the door.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I can’t find a latch or knob,” he replied.
“I’m seeing if anyone’s out there.”

“What if
they’re
out there?”

“Then they can come open this door.”

“But what if they hit you for banging on
it?”

“Then let them. They can kill me if they want
to, but they’d better open this door!”

She’d never heard Beans curse before. She’d
only ever heard him raise his voice once as long as she’d known
him.

And then, the door opened. The light that
flooded the room was bright. Brighter than Debby had ever seen
before. It was like the sun had come in through the opening. Beans
screamed. A moment later he landed on the floor in front of her. He
cried and clutched his right arm. Debby shielded her eyes with her
hands, blocking the source of the light. She saw a man crouching
just inside the doorway. It was the guy who’d watched her in the
school building, and later stole Beans from the recess yard.

“I told ya to shut up,” he said. “Keep at it
and I’ll do the same to your other arm.”

Debby glanced down and saw that Bean’s wrist
bent unnaturally.

“Please,” she said as her eyes flooded with
tears, “he needs his inhaler. His asthma is really bad and he’ll
die if he doesn’t get it.”

“Which one is he?”

“What?”

“His name, girl.”

“Bernard Holland,” she said.

The guy scooted back through the opening then
slammed the door. It bounced open a few inches, allowing enough
light into the room that she could see everything in it, which
wasn’t much more than her and Beans. There was a bucket in the back
corner. She tried not to think of what it contained. She heard the
sound of the door slam shut and the light disappeared.

“Are you okay?” she asked Beans.

“My arm hurts really bad.”

She reached over and stroked his hair. She
heard the sound of something scraping against the door and then it
was pulled open again. The man crawled inside. A wave of putrid
body odor washed over Debby. She resisted the urge to throw up. The
guy placed a bag on the floor. From the bag he pulled out a sling
and tossed it to Debbie.

“Put that around his neck and his arm through
it. It’ll keep it from becoming any more damaged.”

Debby started to wrap the sling around Bean’s
neck when something hit her side.

“There’s his inhaler. If he dies, it’s on you
now.”

She choked back her tears and focused on
placing Beans’s arm inside the sling. The man started to retreat
through the doorway and closed the door. Debby glanced down,
located the inhaler and scooped it up before the room went
dark.

“Here’s your inhaler,” she said, searching
for Beans’s good hand.

He took it from her. She heard the compressed
medicine being shot into his mouth in a puff of air a few seconds
later. The wheezing and crackling sound that had accompanied his
every breath faded at once. He exhaled with a sound of relief.

She waited a beat, then said, “Beans?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you have anything that could help us in
your backpack?”

“Maybe. Why?”

“Because he left it by the door.”

I’d fussed at Lana at least a dozen times
about the fact that her door didn’t have a peephole. With
everything I’d seen, it didn’t make sense. She never saw my point.
There’s windows there, she’d say. Yeah, there were windows on
either side of the door, but she had to slide the curtains over to
look through. And it’s not like the glass was tinted. Anyone
standing outside could see her. So I had little choice but to take
my chances and open the door. I held my pistol in my right hand and
cracked the door with my left.

Special Agents Vinson and Braden stood on the
porch, side by side. Their Ray-Ban knockoffs shielded their eyes.
They’d removed their jackets, exposing holstered weapons. Couldn’t
blame them for doing so, either. The heat and humidity demanded
it.

Braden robotically said, “FBI. We need to
speak with…”

I guessed they didn’t recognize me. I said,
“What’s up, guys?”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Vinson
said, lifting his sunglasses and pushing them on top of his
close-cropped dark hair.

“Who were you expecting?”

“We’re here to question a Lana Suarez? Is she
here? You’re not questioning her are you?” Vinson eyed me. “We were
told that you were not only off the case, but also suspended. If
you’re in here—”

“Who’s side are you guys on?” I asked.

“How do you mean?” Braden said. He looked
more relaxed than his partner. Guess every duo needed some
balance.

“Mine or theirs?”

“We’re not on any side,” Braden said. “We
report to Special Agent Dinapoli. We do what she tells us.”

I tucked my pistol behind my back in my
waistband and pulled the door open. The humidity went to war
against the frigid air conditioning. I stood in the middle of the
battleground. Frozen sweat began to form on my body.

“Is she here?” Vinson said.

“Dinapoli?”

“Lana Suarez.” Vinson maintained that
stone-faced look. Couldn’t even get the guy to crack a smile.

“No, she’s not. She’s at the hospital. She
was injured when the kids were taken.” I pointed to my leg then
head. “Broke her leg and sustained a concussion.”

Vinson said, “How do you know all this? Did
you go to interview a witness when protocol forbade you?”

Forbade? Fancy lingo for the FBI guys.

“No, I did nothing I was forbade to do.” I
contemplated how much to tell these guys. Since my relationship
with Lana wasn’t a secret to Huff and the other detectives, I
figured I could mention it to these two. “Lana and I have a
relationship. My visit was for personal reasons.”

“Is she still at the hospital?”

I thought about giving the guys the run
around and sending them to the other side of the city to Nazareth
Hospital. I figured I could convince them she had to be transported
there because of the head trauma.