Read A Rush to Violence Online
Authors: Christopher Smith
A RUSH TO VIOLENCE
A Spellman Thriller Series
By Christopher Smith
BOOK ONE
PROLOGUE
May
New York City
The dog, a Great Dane who ultimately and unfairly would be blamed for Kenneth Miller’s brutal and untimely death, sat at the end of Miller’s desk with a leash in its mouth and an unapologetic well of anticipation in its eyes.
It was noon and time for their daily walk. The dog stomped its paw down on the gleaming parquet floor and made a whimpering sound.
Miller looked away from his journal. “Two seconds,” he said. “You can see I’m writing.”
The dog nuzzled Kenneth Miller’s arm with his nose and Miller, the 76-year-old tycoon who made his fortune by skillfully taking his family’s old money and turning it over and over in the market with the sort of financial finesse that makes new money, put down his pen and looked at the dog, whose eyes were lifted to his. “I suppose you want to go out,” he said.
The dog, Blue, made a sound that sounded like a happy growl.
“And I suppose you want me to go with you?”
Again the paw, this time striking the floor impatiently.
Miller ran his hand over the dog’s smooth, bluish-gray coat and removed the leash from its mouth. “You know,” he said, “with the exception of Camille and Emma, you’re the only one in my life who knows how to have your way with me. The others would kill to possess that quality. They’d want it bottled and preserved for future use.”
He folded the piece of paper, put the paper in an envelope, wrote Camille’s name on the envelope and carried it over to his wall safe. He put it inside and entered the private code that would seal it there. Then, he strapped the leash to the dog’s collar and leaned down toward his ear. “But they’ll never have it. Not like you. You’re special, aren’t you, boy? You love me for me.”
Miller stood and Blue, who years ago took to his obedience training like a pro, immediately got to Miller’s left and sat down. Miller always kept a supply of treats in his pocket and he gave one to the dog. “So, where to today?” he asked. “The usual?”
Blue barked.
“I thought so. Let’s go. We’ve got five miles ahead of us and I think that after today, we both could use the walk.”
They stepped out of Miller’s library, which was one room out of twenty in his lavish penthouse apartment on Sutton Place, and the moment they did so, Miller saw out of the corner of his eye a blurring rush coming toward him.
He was struck hard in the head by a heavy object, which knocked him to the floor and to the gray edges of unconsciousness.
He shook his head, tried to get up, but the room was spinning. His vision was clouded. He could hear tapping on the floor. He blinked hard and watched Blue being taken away from him by someone else. The dog was led back into the library. Miller heard the door click shut.
Blue barked. That dog meant everything to Miller. He tried to get on his feet but a dark plastic bag was slipped over his head. Someone’s hands tucked beneath his armpits, he was lifted up and urged toward the winding staircase. Whoever it was, was far stronger than he.
But Miller struggled.
He may have been older now and no longer the once-celebrated quarterback of the Yale football team, but Kenneth Miller was nothing if not in shape and in spite of his age, he wasn’t weak. He took his elbow and rammed it hard into the ribs of the person behind him, which was enough to make his assailant rear back and lose the grip on the plastic bag, which Miller tore off.
Gasping for breath, he spun around and faced his killer just as the person charged toward him.
It all happened so quickly, his mind couldn’t fully process it. He couldn’t tell if the person coming at him was a male or female—they were wearing dark clothes, a black Lycra ski mask and then they were upon him.
Miller grabbed a vase on the table beside him and threw it just as he was about to be taken down.
The vase struck the person in the chest, crushing the momentum. The attacker slipped on the marble floor and with a hard whack on the head, became unconscious. Unbelieving, Miller stood there, calling out for help. Where was his staff? Why weren’t they here? And then he remembered.
It was Sunday
. They had the day off. He was alone.
He walked over to the body and pulled off the mask. He stared at the face with disappointment and pulled away from it just as the door to the library opened and the person who took Blue away appeared.
“You can’t get us all,” the person said.
“Why are you doing this?” Miller asked.
“You know why. You forced this situation. We know where you were today. We know what you’re in the process of doing.”
“In the process?” Miller said. “There is no process. It’s
done
. I signed the paperwork.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Miller laughed. “Yes, I did. You can kill me now or let me die naturally because it won’t matter. You’ll never have my money. Ever.”
And with that, the person leaped forward and dropkicked Kenneth Miller in the gut. The force was so great, there was nothing he could do to prevent the inevitable. As he flew back toward the winding staircase, Miller saw his life’s mistakes flash before him. Still, even in the face of death, he only regretted one thing. He’d never see his beloved Camille and Emma again.
His back struck the stairs hard and he rolled over into something that resembled a crude somersault. His face smashed against one of the walnut rungs and he was aware of his nose and his front teeth breaking. His shoulder gave and when it did, it seemed to dissolve. Then his leg caught on one of the rungs and somehow, this twisted him up high into the air.
For a moment, Kenneth Miller soared. And as he turned in the air, he saw exactly how his life would end.
He was heading straight for the intricately carved newel post at the bottom of the staircase. On it was a bronze statue of the Greek god Neptune, who held in his right hand a large iron trident.
Miller’s chest connected easily with it. The trident impaled him with such force that his body slumped over it as it drove through him, ripping through his back and jolting out his spine.
The room started to spin. The lights began to dim. Death was closing in, but it hadn’t touched him yet.
In his last few moments of life, he heard Blue trotting quickly down the stairs. And then the dog was beneath him, looking up at him, his expressive face stamped with something Miller hoped was sorrow. Maybe rage.
The dog was standing in the growing pool of Kenneth Miller’s spilled blood. He looked up at the top of the stairs, where the murderers would be, and then back again at his master. Just as Miller’s mind winked out, he saw Blue look down at the blood and then, with unexpected force, stomp his paw in the center of it.
CHAPTER ONE
TWO MONTHS LATER
July
New York City
From the moment they contacted him, his dreams became hyper real.
Everything was vivid—the smells, the colors, the sense of touch. And even the voices, in spite of how young they sounded, were just as he remembered. His memories of events were correct right up until the dream ended. Then, they severed everything he knew.
Tonight, it was mid-afternoon and he was with his daughters. Katie was five and he was teaching her how to catch her first ball.
They were having a father-and-daughters’ day in the park, his marriage to Gloria was in the shit, but he was with Katie and his oldest daughter, Beth, who was sitting in the grass watching them in her usual summer attire—a white tank top and a pair of shorts. Her brown hair hung just to her shoulders and curled up a bit at the ends. Her forehead was shiny with perspiration. When she knew she had his attention, she smiled at him and sometimes waved. But in those moments when she thought he wasn’t looking her way, her face was dead with expression.
It was hot. He remembered that. If the air was moving, none of them felt it. Nothing seemed to move that day with the exception of them, those around them and the dogs trotting throughout the park sniffing trees, bushes and other dogs. The trees were still. The grass was motionless. Though they’d been there a good hour, even the sun had anchored itself to the sky and seemed unwilling to scan across it.
It took over a dozen attempts for Katie to catch the ball, but when success came, it was sweet. He lobbed it just as softly as he had before, but this time it sort of sank into her open arms and when it didn’t fall out, the shock on her face was real. She clutched the ball to her chest and turned to her sister, who clapped and cheered even though her dark eyes gave away the turmoil she was holding back.
She had just turned eleven a week before and she was old enough now to sense what was coming. Her parents’ relationship was dissolving. Their fights were no longer carefully tamped down. Instead, they often escalated to the point of shouting. She was bearing witness to an emotional unraveling too many of her own friends had gone through before her.
This was Manhattan, after all, the city of the crumbling family. She knew what was happening. There were times when he felt that if he and Gloria did go through with the divorce that Beth, at the very least, would be relieved on some level because the fighting would end.
At least, that’s what he told himself.
Looking at her now and seeing the sorrow on her face, he knew better. They were just telling themselves that to make their decision easier.
Katie ran over and gave him the ball. Her curly blonde hair was matted to her forehead, but at least she was smiling and her smile was real. She was too young to know that her parents had screwed up. He kissed her on the cheek and she ran back, expecting to catch the ball again.
But this time, when he tossed it to her and she caught it, the men in the trees appeared. They hooked the backs of their knees around thick branches, dropped down like bats and swung until they became motionless. Upside down, they stared at him. One man cocked his head at him. Meanwhile, below, other men emerged from behind the trees and from within the bushes.
Their appearance wasn’t something he remembered because it never happened. Still, there they were in his dream, casually loading their rifles in the open as if that was something one did in Central Park.
When a breeze picked up, it became a wind. The sun, so motionless before, rapidly arced across the sky, dipped behind the trees and the once-hot air cooled. Families and their dogs left in haste, leaving just him, Beth and Katie to face men who now lifted their rifles.
Katie saw none of it. She threw the ball, giggled as it soared the distance between her and her father, and then she jolted forward when her head exploded onto the cut grass.
Without expression, Beth watched her sister fall. Then she stood, her arms held open as if she welcomed what was coming. They peppered her with bullets, he watched her fall back and then he felt himself sharing a similar fate as a hail of bullets seared holes through his chest.
He fell to his knees with such a crashing thud, it woke him.
His eyes snapped open and he gave a start. Jennifer was sleeping beside him and stirred. The room was dark. He was covered in perspiration. He slipped out of bed, went to the master bath, closed the door and turned on the light. He drank water from one of the faucets and then splashed his face with it. He grabbed a towel from a holder and looked at himself in the mirror. He was a man of forty, but in spite of how young he looked at middle age, he felt as if he had lived twice as long.
Tomorrow morning would be difficult. It would require his absolute focus. Right now, Jennifer couldn’t know what he was experiencing. He had to handle this on his own and get rid of this on his own.
Everyone would be safer that way.
He turned off the light and went back into the bedroom. All he could see was her shape in the bed. He stood there in the silence, tried to shake off the dream, but it was difficult. He saw Katie’s head blowing apart and Beth choosing death over life. He pushed the images away and for a while, they retreated.
He got into bed and turned to look at Jennifer. When it was morning, Marty Spellman would once again be the husband she knew.
* * *
When the sun rose, Marty went through the motions as if it were just another day. He had coffee, he showered and then he found himself standing naked in the dressing room mirror. He was aware that she was behind him. In an effort to keep the moment light, he pinched a fold of skin at his side. “I’m getting fat,” he said.
“You’re not getting fat.”
“I’m so getting fat.”
“If you’re getting fat, then please describe to me what fat means to you.”
He turned to his wife, who was dressing for work at Channel One, where she was its star investigative reporter. He showed her the fold between his thumb and first finger. “That’s fat.”