Tomahawk (4 page)

"Then do your job then.  Instead of worrying about me and my resume, go out and find him."

He smirked.  "Our techs couldn't find anything at her place.  This will be a high priority for us I assure you.  Is she still here?"

"Yeah, she's upstairs resting right now.  I'll let her know that you guys are done there, so she can have a cleanup crew at her place ASAP."

Stone nodded before leaving. He took a quick look around Vic's house.  "I sense that the young woman upstairs is more than a friend of yours."  He paused.  "With the type of pain that was inflicted on her, I'm sure that you are looking for some sort of revenge. But I would think twice about it, Mr. Moore."  Stone walked out of the house.

Was I that transparent?  Did everyone know how I felt about her?  Everyone but her.  "Is the cop going to be a problem?"  I turned to look at my little brother still holding his cell phone.

"He knows that we could do his job blindfolded."  I rubbed my tired eyes.

Ryan sat down at the kitchen table.  "Vic, you know as well as I do, if he pushes I'll shove." 

Chapter 2

"So what's the story on Vic and the girl?"  Melissa glanced over to Drew.  "I know that we don't do pro bono."  Drew kept his mouth closed and shifted around in Melissa's small car.

"Doesn't Vic pay you enough to get the other part of your car?  I feel like a sardine."  If the temperature wasn't 20 degrees, Drew would have rolled the window down to get some more space in the car.

She sucked her teeth.  "Don't change the subject.  Somebody better tell me what the hell is going on."  Tossing her blonde her off her shoulders.

"If you must know.  Tonya and Vic dated a few years ago.  Everyone thought that they would marry and then one day they weren't together.”  He shrugged his massive shoulder.  “Soon after, Vic left the Secret Service and I followed him out to work with him and the team."

"It has to be more than that.  She hates him. You can feel it rolling off of her. And he's still in love with her. Isn't he?"

"No and yes.  She doesn't hate him.  He broke her heart and yes that man will never stop loving her."

"Then why break up?  I swear men are so dumb sometimes.  They have a good thing and they screw it up," she said while shaking her head.  "Do you think they'll get back together?"

Drew gave her a hard look.  "Make a left right here."  They turned into the parking lot of Walmart.  Tonya's car was covered with at least eight inches of snow.  "You drive her car back."

Melissa got out the car before cursing him.  She pulled out the key from her parka and walked to the car, and then she saw it.  There were large foot prints around the driver side of Tonya's car.  "What the hell?"  Melissa bent down on her knees.  Someone had been lying down in the snow by the driver's door.  She could see that it was a big person, probably a man.  Melissa lay down in the snow in the already man-made ditch.  The collar of her parka was coming up to her face which she pushed off with mittened hands.   When she saw it her breath hitched in her throat. She was paralyzed with fear.  Between the door and underneath the car, she faced a cellphone taped to a brick of c-4.

I found myself back at my bedroom door.  Ryan was still digging on Mel's computer.  I stood there not having anything to really say to her, but wanting to tell her everything.  Tell her the real reason that I had to let her go.  She wouldn't understand.  My answers would lead to more questions, and then before you know it she would know everything about me, the ugly things the brutal things.  The thing that turned me from a man to a monster.  Explaining wouldn't help her current situation in the least.  She would end up hating me more than she already does, if that was possible.

Pressing my ear to the door I strained to listen, nothing.  Maybe she was asleep.  The temptation of holding vigil at her bedside grew stronger. What if she had another nightmare?  I put my hand on the knob to turn, and then heard footsteps behind me.

My little brother stood at the top of the stairs and sighed.  "You need to come back downstairs.  I have something that you may want to see."  I took one more look at the door and followed.

"What?"

Ryan sat back down at the head of the table rubbing his eyes.  "I thought you may want to see this."  The wooden chair screeched as he pushed back to give me room to look at the monitor.

I didn't know if it was fatigue or I couldn't put what I was looking at together.  "Ryan, what the hell am I looking at?"

Ryan cursed under his breath as if hating to tell me.  "I dug into Tony's medical records."

"Why?  I'm sure that this."  I pointed at the computer. “Has nothing to do with what's going on right now."  I took a look at my brother's face and fear washed over me.

Ryan rubbed his head. "I’m not as savvy as Mel, so I just piggy backed on what she was about to look at. It looks like Mel was working backwards, from last night back.  Maybe we were dealing with a serial rapist.  They have pictures of her. Mel was just trying to match up anything.  But I found something else."  He looked down.

I turned to the computer that seemed to mock me with its big technical terms.  I was a military man, a man that followed and gave orders.  This was foreign to me.  I paused and closed my eyes and started to read.  I read Tony's ER report from five years ago. It was dated three months after her and I broke up.  "Dear God," I whispered.

Ryan's head was still down.  "I'll spare you in scrolling down. She almost died."

Tony had suffered an ectopic pregnancy.  Ignoring my brother, I scrolled down.  The jest was she was at work and fainted.  She was rushed to the hospital. Her fallopian tube nearly ruptured; she lost the baby--my baby--our baby.  Tony had stayed in the hospital for nearly a week.  Alone. 

"It wasn't your fault and it wasn't hers either."

"You think that I would blame her for that?  Damn, Ryan.  I know the shit I've done in the past wasn't right, I admit that, but do you think that I would blame her?"  I shook my head.  I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear this house down. 

"Didn't say you would.  Just saying that if you run up there and talk to her about it....it will do more harm than good.  I'm sorry for bringing this up to you, but I thought you should know."  Ryan's eyes were rimmed with tears.  My selfish nature. I’ve always felt I had a claim in her.  That other people couldn't love her the way that I did and could.  Ryan was hurt. That would have been his niece or nephew.  Drew was family just as much.  They would hurt for her.

I stood up straight and looked away from the computer.  "Thank you for telling me."  I grabbed my coat and headed for the garage.

"Where are you going?"

"To find something to hurt."
 

Chapter 3

Like my late father would say, the streets were slicker than snot.  I drove faster not caring.  The tight grip on my steering wheel made my wrist ache.  I pressed on.  I didn't time myself, but I know that I made it to Logan's Circle in a matter of minutes.  I threw the car in park and jogged to the modest home.  I knocked and waited then knocked again.

The door flung open.  "I've already spoke to you people. Now leave me alone."  I caught the door with my foot before Brian Battle could close it.

"I have a few more questions."  I stepped into his house. It wasn't what I expected.  I thought his home would be decked out in everything Brian Battle.  It was just a simple house.

"Look, I've talked to some other guy about an hour ago.  I don't know what happened to her."  The big man looked like he had been crying.  Welcome to my world.

I continued to walk and took a seat in his family room.  I looked around and knew this is where the money went.  Top of the line stereo, surround sound, and a TV bigger than the wall that held it up.  "I just have a few questions for you.  How long have you and Ms. Irvine been dating?"

I noticed the flash of pain cross his face. "We broke up not too long ago.  Look, I said that I spoke--"

"I don't give a damn who you spoke to.  You are talking to me now.  Just answer my questions and I will be out of your hair...for a while."  I stretched my legs out.  "Now, who broke up with whom?"

Battle rolled his eyes.  "She broke it off with me.  She dumped me.  Why I don't know.  I thought that she and I were doing fine, then out of the blue she said that it wasn't working and she left."

"I've spoken to her and she says that you were the one that broke it off."  I leaned back.  Battle and I were roughly the same height and weight.  The way that I was feeling at this particular time, I would break every bone in his lower body if I wanted to.

Battle sat across from me on the long gray sectional couch.  "I don't know why she would say that.  I loved her."  Battle smiled looking up to the ceiling.  "When I met her, she didn't even know who I was."

"Is that a good thing?"

"For me, yes. Most broads know my stats better than I do.  Gold diggers."

"How did the two of you meet?"

"I spoke at her school.  You know encouraging words from a football player.  I can find my way around a football field but not an elementary school.  I got lost and she helped me find my way to the gym where I would be speaking the last hour of classes.  I asked her out, she said no."  He laughed.  "So I hounded her for a while until she finally agreed to go out with me."

"You hounded her?  So you are the type of guy likes to have things his way?"  I stood before I knew it.  "When she broke it off with you. I'm sure that you didn't like it one bit.  You followed her to the store, then you hurt her. Didn’t you?"

The linemen of the year stood with his hands out.  "No, man. It wasn't like that at all.  I never forced her to do anything.  I wouldn't do that to her.  She said that she needed some time and that we were going too fast, so I backed up."  Battle smirked and shook his head.  "All she is to you is some case, huh?  That woman was just about everything to me.  I wanted to build something with her. She didn't want me."  He made large fists at his sides.  I could see the pain in his eyes, the pain of loss. I had the same look for months after Tonya left.  "You find who did this and let me handle him.  Name your price and I will give it to you.  I want my hands on this guy."

Get in line.

"And where have y'all been?  The two of you been gone for hours," Ryan said. He was still looking for anything pertaining to Tonya.

Melissa threw off her parka.  "We've been stuck with DC bomb squad."  Before Ryan could say anything, she continued.  "Someone put a brick under her car, rigged it so if anyone would open the car door it goes boom."

"My God!  Who wants her dead?"  Ryan rubbed his face.  It was only 7:13 am and he felt like he had lived a lifetime in just a few hours.

"Where's Vic?"  Drew sat on the end of the kitchen island.

"Somewhere probably making a fool of himself.  He left a few hours ago."

Melissa looked back at the stairs.  "Have you been upstairs to see about her?  Have you questioned her?"

Ryan was surprised at her tone.  "Why the hell would I question her?  We know her. You don't.  I have no idea why this is happening to her, but I know that she didn't put this on herself." 

Ryan was in her face, but she didn't back down.  "A school teacher was dragged to a field
beaten, her house trashed, and a bomb strapped to her car. And nobody wants to question her on what she's been up to.  This is crazy."  Melissa threw her hands up.  "If this wasn't someone that you all know, we wouldn't be looking from the outside in.  We would look from the inside out and all of you know it.  This girl could have got me killed and nobody wants to ask her any questions.  She's into some shit and I can see it all over your faces, even if you don't want to admit it.  She's dirty or she’s dealing with someone that is or screwing someone that is."

Hopping off the island, Drew got in between Ryan and Melissa.  "Mel, if I were you I would watch my tongue."

"Or what?!  You gonna hit me. Give me matching bruises like the chick upstairs?  What if I opened that car door, huh?  I would be dead. You saw when they disarmed it.  It was loaded with ball bearings and tacks. If the blast didn't kill me, I'm sure the holes in my body would.  If the two of you don't have the balls to go talk to her, I will." 

Melissa turned on her heels and headed for the stairs.  Drew grabbed her around the waist.  "Mel, don't make me do this."  The two struggled. Melissa swung at Drew, which he ducked.  "Please, Mel."  He took her by the neck adding mild pressure to her throat at her carotid arteries. He caught her before she fell.

"Put her on the couch." Ryan pointed.  Where the hell was Vic?

"She is gonna be pissed when she wakes up."

The sound of the door opening made both men grab their weapons.  "Well, it looks like I should just pitch a tent in the yard," Stone said, walking into the kitchen.  "Where's the man of the house?"

"He went out to get some air," Ryan said.  Crossing his arms over his chest, Ryan blocked Stone from advancing further into the kitchen.

"I think that I would like to talk to Ms. Irvine again"

"Why?"  Drew stood next to Ryan.

Stone smirked.  "This has gone further than any sexual assault and kidnapping case.  If the bomb--"

"She was raped?"  Drew turned to Ryan in rage.  "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Vic didn't want her to be embarrassed by it.  He was going to tell you."  Ryan turned his attention back to Stone.

"Like I was saying, as I'm sure you both know, we couldn’t find any trace evidence from the bomb.  Now we have to add attempted murder and vandalism.  She has to know something."  He turned and walked up the stairs.

Drew began to follow and Ryan caught his arm.  "Let him talk to her."

Walking back to the kitchen, the men sat back at the table.  "Really, asshole. You knocked me out," Melissa said while rubbing her neck.

"Here we go.  I did it so I wouldn't have to put my foot in your ass, and could you please lower your voice. The detective is upstairs talking to Tony now."  Drew slumped back in the chair.

They heard the panicked footsteps coming down the stairs.  "Do you think this is a joke?"

Ryan stood. "What are you talking about?"

"Where is she?  She's gone."