Payback by Randall Denley

Author:Randall Denley [Denley, Randall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BISAC
Published: 2020-07-21T22:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-EIGHT

Stillwell sat in her borrowed cruiser and kept an eye on the uniforms guarding the crime scene. They had a simple job but she still wanted to make sure they did it. Ever since she’d gotten involved in this investigation, everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. Her own vehicle had been destroyed in the fire, along with her laptop, her uniform and all her personal stuff. Fortunately, she had downloaded her files onto a memory stick that was safe in her pocket.

They had driven an extra car down from Pembroke, so at least she had wheels, but the car was nearly miled-out and there was a faint whiff of puke coming from the back seat. Couldn’t smell much worse than she did, though. She felt like a chain smoker’s ashtray.

Stillwell cranked up the heat. Her feet felt like blocks of ice and her hands were numb and clumsy. Borderline frostbite and nearly burned alive all on the same day. What a fucking job. It wasn’t just a job, though. The killer had made it personal. No way he didn’t know she was in that hotel. Her goddamned car was parked in front of it.

When he killed Lloyd Alcorn, he had been taunting her with the brazen way he did it and his bloody spray-painted numbers. That was a meaningless mind fuck, she was pretty sure.

Now, it seemed like he wanted to add her to his death toll, but like she was an afterthought, not even worth tracking down specifically. If she wanted to put a good spin on it, maybe the killer thought she was a threat, getting close to catching him.

If only.

The coroner, crime scene guys and fire marshal’s investigators were all scheduled to be on the scene at first light, but she wasn’t anticipating that they would discover anything she didn’t already know. There was a bullet hole in the middle of Willy Walsh’s forehead, or his skull, to be more accurate. He had been executed, just like Alcorn. The sight of the poor little bastard’s body was going to stick with her for a while. He had been reduced to bones and black, charred flesh. Done like dinner.

Stillwell knew she had been lucky. There had been smoke detectors in the hotel, but they hadn’t gone off. Walsh was probably too drunk to get up on a ladder and change the batteries. She’d been having a dream, one she was having regularly now. Her mother had been running towards her, waving her arms, trying to warn her about something. The dream had caused Stillwell to wake up with a start and then she smelt the smoke that was just beginning to ooze under her door.

She should just have gotten Redner out, left Walsh to fate, but that wasn’t her nature. Instead, she’d wasted time looking for him, lost time that had almost proven fatal. When she’d looked up that brick wall and seen that her desperate sheet rope was on fire, she’d thought that was it, but she was close enough to the verandah roof to jump.

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