Flight of the fallen, p.9
Into The Fire (Mason Ashford Thriller Series Book 4), page 9
Kyle had bristled, telling Mason he’d already selected eleven bravo, the Army’s code for infantryman.
“I want to get in the shit,” Kyle told him. “That’s what you’re doing.”
“You’ve got options, Kyle. Get a degree and come in as an officer,” Mason had said before laughing. “You could be the one giving me orders.”
“I’m tired of waiting for my life to start,” Kyle had responded.
A dissonant blast of a car horn rocked Mason out of his thoughts. He waved the car around, getting a middle finger in response as the car whipped around him before speeding north on the two-lane road.
Without intending to drive there, Mason found himself along the stretch of country road Detective Voss had described the previous day. The pickup idled down the road while Mason examined the roadside, searching for signs of the accident. Less than a mile later, a glint of sunlight drew his attention. He pulled over and came upon a debris field starting nearly thirty feet from the road. Bits of shattered glass and broken plastic extended another fifty feet into a fallow field, the remnants of the wreck mixed into overturned dirt.
Wide ruts scarred the soil where a heavy vehicle drove onto the field. Mason followed the path left by the tracks, stopping in front of a patch of disturbed earth surrounded by footprints.
Under the harsh afternoon sun, Mason surveyed the crash site, discovering only the beginnings of a sunburn for his efforts.
Back in the pickup, he patrolled the surrounding roads. Following the tarmac until it ran out, he then diverted onto shaded dirt paths, trespassing onto property with unknown owners. Backtracking and heading south on an anonymous two-lane road, burnout marks appeared through the heat haze rising from the pavement.
Mason pulled over next to a sign advertising homes for sale. A smiling family beamed down at him. He walked the distance between the tread marks, measuring with footsteps. Next, he swept through the gravel accumulated at the sides of the road.
“Gotcha,” Mason said, picking up a dull brass casing. He found a second, then a third a few feet away. Each casing carried a S&W 9MM stamp on the back. Mason sniffed the opening, getting a gentle hint of burnt toast. He couldn’t be certain with the faint scent, but he gauged that the casings couldn’t be more than a few days old.
Mason shook the spent casings in his hand, his eyes drawn back to the sign with the smiling family.
During the summers of his misspent and sometimes boring youth, Mason and his friends had entertained themselves with the rural tradition of shooting at road signs and the occasional billboard.
No bullet holes marred the sign. Whoever the casings belonged had fired at something—or someone—else.
Mason arrived back in Pine Village and parked the pickup around the corner from the auto repair shop. The twisted metal remains of his father’s vehicle rested in the same spot Mason had left it, still in a pool of its own fluids, the mix smelling both sweet and charred in the fading afternoon sun.
Will, the mechanic from the previous day, wrenched on the same car as before. The windows Beck had shattered still spiderwebbed in the doors. The mechanic spotted Mason strolling through the parking lot and ducked inside, his hands moving in a flurry on a chain as the garage door lowered with an echoing boom.
Mason ran a hand along the top railing of the pickup bed, the body jagged and contorted. He followed it along to the tailgate, hanging limp on the back of the pickup. Lifting the tailgate, Mason found a small hole puncturing the stamped sheet metal. The metal flared out on the opposite side.
He climbed into the bed of the pickup, the wrecked vehicle groaning like a ghoul as it shifted under his weight. Mason found a barbed piece of copper embedded into the bulkhead. The piece curved from a broken end until it flattened into a blunt edge.
The metallic gleam was familiar, but it took Mason a moment to place it. When recognition hit, his jaw clenched. It was the broken face of a hollow-point bullet, its deadly flower having bloomed on impact.
Mason had witnessed the effects of hollow-point rounds during his time as a deputy US marshal. Hollow points spent their energy within the few inches of penetration, leaving a wide cavity as the projectile mushroomed within its target. The hollow point had flowered open as it hit the tailgate, but the increased surface area had slowed the projectile, causing it to break apart.
Someone had chased Ben Ashford through the night, firing at him as he fled.
He hopped down from the bed and stalked around the pickup, searching for more impacts. An incessant itch drew Mason’s attention to his hand. Opening the clenched first, he found the fragment sticking out of his palm, a trickle of cherry-red blood surrounding it.
Plucking the shard from his palm, Mason dropped the metal fragment into one of the empty casings. As he studied it, something buzzed in his front pocket. With his free hand, he reached for his phone.
“Hey, Olivia.”
“Are you on your way?” Supervisory Special Agent Olivia Butler asked. “Martin’s is packed, but I got us a couple seats at the bar.”
Mason swore to himself. “Olivia, hey,” he said. He pushed a casual tone into his voice. “I’m really sorry, but I won’t be able to make it. Something came up.”
“Mason. I got lunch seats at Martin’s Tavern on a weekday. That alone is reason to celebrate. Whatever it is had better be good,” Olivia said. “And don’t give me some bullshit. You know I could have your phone tracked.”
Mason pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it, as if an electronic tracker would make itself known.
“Tell me you’re not looking at your phone right now,” Olivia said.
“No. No, of course not,” he replied. “It’s been a long couple of days. I’m back home in Indiana. My dad was in a car accident. He didn’t make it.”
Fingers snapped on the other end of the line. Mason imagined Olivia signaling for a check. He wouldn’t put it past her to flash her FBI shield for faster service.
“Oh, Mason, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay. Really. I left in a rush and forgot about our drinks date after I was released—”
Olivia’s tone went sharp. “Released? From the hospital? Or from jail?”
“I’ll leave that to your imagination.”
“Mason, what the hell is going on over there?”
Mason leaned against his father’s pickup. “High school grudges don’t fade, apparently. A guy I played football with in school is now a deputy sheriff, and he saw an opportunity to put me and my sister in jail overnight.”
The line went silent. Mason again looked at his phone, this time to ensure the call hadn’t dropped. “Still there, Olivia?”
“Y-yes,” she stammered. “I didn’t know your father was still alive, and I had no idea you have a sister.”
Mason picked at a flake of paint on the bed of the pickup. “Had a brother, too, but it’s a long story.”
“Had?”
The flake of paint wedged under Mason’s thumbnail. “The bureau’s background checks aren’t what they used to be,” he said.
“Come on.” Olivia sighed. “I already feel like shit.”
“His name was Kyle. He joined the Army right out of school, a couple years behind me. He was killed by an IED in Ramadi.”
“And now your dad is gone too,” Olivia said. “What about your mom?”
Mason dug the paint out with the tip of an incisor. “She passed shortly after Kyle. Doctor said it was from a heart attack, but everyone thinks it was because of Kyle. He was her favorite. My dad held me responsible for Kyle’s death, and then for Mom’s.”
“How could that be? He made his own choices. You couldn’t have stopped your brother’s death.”
Other than Claire, his deceased wife, Mason hadn’t told anyone about his family. Talking about it made him feel somehow lighter.
“Do you have brothers or sisters, Olivia?” Mason asked.
“I’m an only child.”
“Then you don’t know what it’s like. Kyle was my shadow growing up. If I played third base, he played third base. When I learned to drive a tractor, he was next to me, working the levers.”
Olivia jumped in. “So when you joined the Army, Kyle followed.”
Mason continued. “My father wasn’t supportive of enlisting. He wanted me to stay and run the farm, but I wanted out of Indiana. Maybe he knew it would pull Kyle away from him and he’d lose two sons instead of one. Anyway, Kyle followed me into the service a few years later. After Mom died, my father shut me out. We’d barely spoken in years.”
“Does he…did he know about Baltimore?” Olivia asked.
A little over a year ago, a shootout on a yacht in Baltimore had left several men dead, including men Mason had served with. Olivia had nearly joined the list of casualties until a doctor stabilized her in exchange for his life. The scars hadn’t faded. Neither had the memories.
“If he did, he never mentioned it,” Mason said.
Olivia exhaled. “I still have nightmares about that night.”
“Give it time. They will fade. They always do,” he said.
Olivia’s voice brightened. “What are you doing in Indiana now?”
Mason welcomed the change in subject. “Something isn’t right about my dad’s death. His blood tests at the hospital showed he’d had a massive dose of heroin shortly before his accident. He wasn’t a drug user.”
“Is that why you got arrested? Pissing off the wrong people?”
“I choose to exercise my right to remain silent,” Mason said.
“Okay, Mason. I get it,” Olivia said. “Anything I can help with?”
“No, I don’t— Wait. I’m going to text you something.” Mason pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket—the one he’d recovered from the floor of his dad’s truck the day before. He’d examined the sheet earlier. Other than a series of dates, he hadn’t been able to parse the rest of the numbers. “I found it in my dad’s pickup, but I don’t know what it is. Can you have your nerds look at it?”
“First you stand me up for drinks, which I’ve already forgiven you for, by the way, and now you call my team a bunch of nerds?”
Mason forwarded the image of the numbered sheet to Olivia’s phone. “You’ve called them worse.”
“Daily. Power corrupts and all that.”
“Rain check on the drinks,” Mason said.
“You’re on. And Mason?” She paused. “Be careful. You have a knack for finding trouble.”
“Usually it finds me. This time might be different,” he said.
A white Toyota RAV4 pulled up next to Mason. The window eased down. Rylee Blackwood turned down the stereo and smiled at him.
“You look like hell,” Rylee said.
“What’s going on? Who’s that?” Olivia asked.
“I gotta go. Don’t forget about the picture I sent you.” Mason hung up on a protesting Olivia.
CHAPTER 20
The cheerful sounds of a television streamed through the door as Jimmy Chambers rang the bell. Three crisp knocks followed. The cacophony of noise faded as footsteps approached the door.
LaTanya Moore’s voice called from the other side. “Who is it?” The light behind the peephole went dark.
Jimmy cleared his throat. “Green County Sheriff’s Department, ma’am. We spoke earlier today. About Kyle.”
The door eased open. LaTanya craned her neck out the door, checking for other officers. “I told you before; I don’t know where Kyle is,” she said. The toddler peeked from behind her mother. “Please leave.”
“Kyle’s missing. I have zero leads,” Jimmy said. “There’s a good chance you were the last person to see him before he disappeared. Anything you can offer is helpful.”
“I don’t want to get involved,” LaTanya said. She put a hand on her daughter’s head. “I can’t get involved. I have more to think about than Kyle.”
“I get it.” Jimmy nodded. “Your name won’t make it into a report. I’m not even here in an official capacity. Something happened to Kyle. He didn’t run off. I think you know that.”
“What if I do? Do you think I’m going to tell you? I’m not risking losing my baby.” LaTanya shifted in the doorway, shielding her daughter. “Or worse.”
Jimmy inched away from the door. “Kyle was a good cop. You trusted him with a key to your place. You knew he was a good man.”
LaTanya shuddered. Tears budded and fell. “Was a good man? You think something bad happened to him?”
It slipped past Jimmy that he’d started speaking of Kyle in the past tense—a quiet admission that he knew, deep down, Kyle wasn’t coming back.
“I do,” Jimmy said.
“Hold on,” LaTanya said, closing the door. She returned a moment later, her daughter in one arm. Keys dangled from the same long Boilermakers lanyard.
“Ten minutes,” she said. “I need to get this one dinner and down for bed.”
Inside Kyle’s apartment, Jimmy asked, “How often were you over here?” Color rose to his cheeks. “I’m sorry—”
“It wasn’t like that,” LaTanya said. “Once a week or so. I’d bring the baby monitor over after I got Ada down. Between school and my little girl, I don’t get a lot of down time. We’d stream something, or game.” She waved at the television. “Do you know how nice it is to watch something other than Paw Patrol?”
“I don’t, but I get it. What did you talk about?”
LaTanya walked around the coffee table. “Everything. I’d complain about class. He’d bitch about his coworkers.”
“What did he say about me?” Jimmy asked.
“Not much.” LaTanya laughed as Jimmy reddened again. “That’s a good thing. Kyle only talked about the people he disliked. He griped about your bald friend so much that I recognized him on sight.”
Jimmy forced a grin. “One thing everyone can agree on is that Leo’s an asshole.”
LaTanya eased Ada to the floor. “He said you were a good deputy.” Ada headed for the couch and picked up a gaming controller.
“Kyle didn’t trust me enough to tell me what he was into,” Jimmy said. He went through Kyle’s cabinets. “Did his demeanor change over the last few weeks?”
“Can’t say,” LaTanya admitted. “We didn’t talk much the last couple of weeks. Kyle was always out.”
Jimmy paused. “Yesterday, you said you dropped off a package a few weeks ago. Yellow envelope with red lettering. Do you remember that?”
LaTanya turned on the television for her daughter, then handed her the remote. The little girl knew her way around a controller. “Yep. It was a letter-sized envelope and felt dense, like there were a bunch of papers inside.”
“We looked for the envelope earlier. It didn’t turn up,” Jimmy said. He finished in the kitchen. “Does it look like anything’s out of place?”
“Play, Mama,” Ada said.
“That’s odd. It should turn on.” LaTanya tapped buttons on the remote. The television didn’t find a signal. She went to the entertainment center and moved the gaming console. The plastic shell slid free in LaTanya’s hands.
“That’s not supposed to happen,” she said. “Kyle loved gaming. He took care of his console.”
The plugs hung loose from the back. Jimmy eased the console from its shelf. Stuffed inside the device, he found a neatly folded piece of paper. Below the creased sheaf of paper, Jimmy yanked a simple school notebook from the casing. Bent lengthwise, the notebook barely fit into its tight confines.
Jimmy flipped through the pages. Columns of letters, numbers, and amounts zipped past.
He held the notebook out to LaTanya. “Does this make any sense to you?”
LaTanya recoiled as if Jimmy held a rattlesnake. “I’m not touching that.”
“You’ve seen it before?”
She shook her head. “Once. Right before Kyle disappeared. He left it on the counter one day and I stupidly picked it up. Kyle freaked out, then apologized. I’d never seen him like that before.”
Jimmy asked, “Did he tell you what it was? What the numbers mean?”
“I don’t think he knew, but he said it was the key.”
“The key….” Jimmy turned the notebook over. Other than the ledger, the pages lacked any markings.
He dropped the notebook and unfurled the thick bundle, revealing a simple topographic map annotated in marker.
LaTanya shuffled next to Jimmy. She stared at the map.
“Does this make any sense to you?” she asked.
“It’s Pine Village. See this intersection?” Jimmy pointed.
“What are these circles? Did Kyle draw those?”
Jimmy folded the page, carefully matching the creases. “I don’t know yet. I need a closer look.” He stuffed the paper into a pocket.
“Whatever it is, I hope you find out what happened to Kyle,” LaTanya said. “He said he trusted you. Kyle didn’t say that about many people.”
“I’ll get to the bottom of it,” Jimmy said with more conviction than he felt. He hesitate for a moment, then held out the notebook. “Can you keep this safe?”
“Jimmy, I don’t want to get involved. I said that.”
“If you knew Kyle, you’re already involved,” Jimmy said. “This notebook could be the key to finding out what happened to him. If something happens to me….”
LaTanya took the notebook. “What do I do with it?”
Jimmy took the notebook and flipped to the last page. He scribbled something on it.
“Call that number if I’m not back in two days,” he said.
LaTanya sighed and stuffed the notebook into the pocket of her hoodie. She held out a hand to Ada. “Come on, little one. It’s time for dinner, then bedtime.” She hefted the toddler in her arms. “Be careful, Jimmy.”
“Thank you for your help,” Jimmy said as he followed LaTanya out the door. “I meant what I said. I won’t mention your name anywhere.”
Obscured behind a line of manicured trees, Leo Blackwood gripped the steering wheel as the lights in Kyle’s house flicked on. As the sunlight faded into night, he watched Jimmy and the neighbor woman move around the living room. A few minutes later, they both left. Jimmy headed back to his car and the girl off to her house, the brat kid in tow.
