American Lease (A Dylan Cold Novel Book 1) (13 page)

“Hey Betty, is Kevin around?” Abbey asked the woman at the dispatcher’s desk.

“Hi Abbey. I don’t think Kevin has gone out yet. Hold on one second.” Betty rose from her desk and disappeared through a door.

Dylan bounced from foot to foot. He was not terribly comfortable in the presence of police. Furthermore, he was nervous that even though he had been cleared of wrongdoing in Officer Farley’s death, the men who were his friends could still hold a grudge.

“Come on through, Ab.” The woman held the door open and smiled warmly.

Abbey led the way like she had been here before. There was only one person in the room and he was sitting at one of the several desks that were arranged in pairs. A small sign that read “Officer Glover” was on top of the desk, the officer talking on the phone. Abbey sat on the edge of the desk facing the policeman and Dylan pulled a chair over to the side of the desk and sat.

“No mom, stop. I told you we’d get it done before the first snowfall.” He paused and listened. “Well, I have work to do. You know being a cop is a real job.” More listening. “Okay, love you, too. See you tonight.”

“Hey Kev,” Abbey said before the phone was even in its cradle.

“Hi Abbey. Is this official? I need to get out on patrol.” Officer Glover was quick but not rude.

“Yeah, I would call it official. This is Dylan… Dylan. I know you know who he is, but I don’t think you’ve been properly introduced. He was the poor guy kidnapped after, well, you know. Anyway, he was telling me about a stack of papers on the front seat of the kidnapper’s car. I think they’re related to the American Lease, and I was wondering if I could take a look at them?” She seemed hopeful.

“Unreal. A good guy gets killed and everyone thinks some stupid stack of papers is going to find the murderer,” Officer Glover said. “The state police went through them and said they were nothing of value.” The young cop set his jaw firmly.

“Who else has come in to look at the papers?” Dylan asked curiously.

“It’s not just coming in to look, it’s coming in to ask about them. We’ve had two different people claim that someone in a car that fits the description of the
killer
stole something from them. They were just hoping to get to look through the evidence to see if their stuff was in the pile.” Officer Glover emphasized the word “killer” while glaring at Dylan.

“Did you show them anything?” Abbey asked.

“No. The only person we’ve let see the evidence is the guy from the FBI and he’s back there again right now,” he answered.

“Do you know why the FBI is involved? I thought the State Police would be responsible for the investigation.” Abbey looked at her friend a little sideways.

“I guess it’s because there was a kidnapping involved and it crossed state lines.” Officer Glover shrugged his shoulders.

“Do you have paperwork from them claiming jurisdiction?” Abbey probed.

“Above my pay grade, Ab. I’ll take you back there to meet him now if you want. But seriously, after that, I have to get out on patrol.” The officer stood from his chair and turned toward the back of the room.

The three walked casually from the open space full of desks to a short hallway with four doors. They stopped at an open door on the right side. There was an older man sitting behind the desk doing paperwork.

“Chief, you know Abbey Holt, right? She and Mr. Cold stopped in to ask about the stack of papers pulled as evidence from the shooter’s car. I figured they could talk to the FBI guy while he was here and answer any questions he might still have.” Officer Glover hadn’t discussed this with them beforehand, but it seemed rude to interrupt an officer.

“FBI guy is here again?” the chief asked with a contorted face.

“Yeah, said they had a new lead and he needed to go through the documents again.” Kevin was growing less sure of his actions with each sentence.

“Did he say why the digital copies weren’t good enough? I thought the FBI had forensics experts to look over this sort of stuff?” The chief shook his head and pushed further back from his desk.

“Is the FBI supposed to present you with a document or any proof that they have jurisdiction over a case?” Dylan asked.

“Son, I went through your file. I know your legal experience was not gained in a classroom. Just leave jurisdiction and procedural details to us. We know what we’re doing.” The chief looked a little miffed.

“Well, the way he’s been watching my house, and the fact that his name is Agent John Smith, just made me think that I should pay a little more attention to the details of his involvement.” Dylan lied about the first name, but he had a hunch.

“His first name is really John?” Officer Glover asked with a smirk.

A flash of recognition shot across the chief’s eyes. His cheeks flushed slightly and he pulled himself back in toward the desk.

“So check his badge if you’re worried about who he is. I have work to do; enjoy your
Scooby Doo
game.” The chief dismissed them with a wave of his hand, lowered his glasses and returning to the paperwork.

Officer Glover opened the door to the conference room where Agent Smith was reviewing the stack of papers. Dylan followed closely, hoping to catch a glimpse of a nervous reaction to being caught at something. Even though he was prepared for it, what Dylan saw surprised him.

Agent Smith was stuffing the stack of papers into a leather messenger bag. He looked up to see Officer Glover walk through the door. Without missing a beat, Smith lowered his head and charged toward the room’s only exit.

“Hey!” the policeman exclaimed.

His verbal response was not enough to stop the moving man. Agent Smith—though it was looking less likely that he was actually an agent—slammed his shoulder into the cop’s chest and drove him backwards.

Officer Glover was driven into Dylan, who was able to partially turn and push Abbey back down the hallway before all three fell to the ground. Smith planted his foot on the blue uniformed chest lying in the doorway and hopped over Dylan, who watched from the floor.

“Stop!” Abbey yelled, to no effect.

The man with the bag of evidence raced down the hall and slammed his body into the fire door at the end. Alarms sounded and the door flew open. He was outside and ran without ever looking back.

Officer Glover struggled to get to his feet. His first hand plant found Dylan’s crotch and resulted in an audible expression of pain. The second time he looked for firm ground to push off, he instead landed on Abbey’s knee. The three interlopers separated themselves and got to their feet one at a time, Abbey rising first.

“Don’t just stand here. GO GET HIM!” The chief was in the hallway barking orders at Officer Glover, the only officer in the building.

“On it, Chief!” Glover replied and raced down the hall.

Abbey and Dylan gave chase, too. They were not invited, but it felt like the right thing to do.

Out in the parking lot, the trio slowed to a walk. There were no cars moving or any engines running. Smith had completely disappeared.

Officer Glover spun around once and then started methodically inspecting the cars in the lot. Not running could be the most clever escape plan ever.

Dylan had already moved his search past the police station’s parking lot. Agent Smith had driven by his house at least twice and followed him once. His car would be easy to spot: big, black and official-looking.

“What the hell?” Abbey wondered aloud.

“There!” Dylan shouted and pointed.

In the parking lot of a small grocery store, the man calling himself Agent Smith was just approaching a black Ford Crown Victoria. Dylan didn’t wait for the others; he took off at a full sprint. He was at the top of a small, grassy hill between the two lots when the engine started.

Behind him, Officer Glover and Abbey ran toward a patrol car. Dylan would undoubtedly get to the imposter first, but he was going to need significant backup in a hurry.

When he was three-quarters of the way to the semi-official vehicle, the wheels spun and squealed as it slowly moved in reverse. The rubber found traction and suddenly the car rocketed backward out of its space.

Dylan had to slow his pace abruptly when the car he was chasing reversed roles and sped toward him instead of away. He jumped to avoid being hit by the bumper and landed with a thud on the lid of the trunk before rolling up onto the rear window.

A gunshot rang out and the rear window exploded around him. Before he could grab hold of anything, the car stopped with a screech and then shot forward. Dylan rolled off the trunk and crashed to the ground.

He was sore all over and there was the burning sensation of a scrape on his elbow and another on his hip. Dylan slowly rolled to his stomach and moved a knee up under his body. Placing his palms on the ground, he pushed himself up just in time to see the patrol car roar onto the entry road of the grocery store.

With sirens blaring and lights whirling, Officer Glover brought the car to a halt diagonally across the exit from the plaza. Before he exited the vehicle, more shots rang out. The front window of the police car exploded, followed by a headlight and then the hissing from a punctured tire. The black Crown Victoria continued to accelerate up the drive.

The right two tires of the fleeing vehicle jumped the curb and went up onto the sidewalk with a squeal. Fake Agent Smith scraped his door on the disabled patrol car and sped directly out into traffic. He headed west toward Milton Park—and away from the bustle of Nashua.

Dylan carefully rose to his feet. He bounced slightly on each leg to check for damage beyond scrapes and bruises and was relieved to find none. There hadn’t been a solid plan when he started running toward the car but if there had been, it would not have involved getting run over.

People were coming out of the store and some of the neighboring businesses. Dylan walked gingerly toward the disabled police cruiser, worried that he might be first on the scene to another dead cop.

As he approached the car, the passenger door popped open and Abbey climbed out. She jogged toward Dylan, concern all over her face.

The sirens from the patrol car went off but more could be heard in the distance, coming fast. Dylan hoped they would speed by in pursuit of the evidence thief, but had a feeling that they were coming here to check on their friends and colleagues.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Abbey asked as she inspected his bleeding elbow.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You know I wasn’t planning on getting hit,” Dylan smiled, hoping to relieve some of the tension.

“That was some serious shit. That guy really did not want to be caught. I think he would have died rather than let us stop him.” Abbey was in shock.

A new patrol car, sirens whaling, pulled into the drive and skidded to a halt inches from the rear of the shot-up vehicle. The driver jumped out and raced to the driver’s side door where Officer Glover was standing, trying to make sense of the scene.

Moments later, the tow truck that had been used to collect Dylan’s abused pickup squealed onto the access road. It drove on the grass around the patrol cars and directly for Abbey and Dylan. Jim climbed out and ran toward them, though Abbey could not see him because she was busy inspecting Dylan’s injuries.

“Ab, are you okay?” Jim’s voice was raised somewhere between anger and concern.

“Well you got here awful fast.” Dylan was growing suspicious of everyone in town.

“Abbey, what the hell happened?” Jim ignored Dylan completely.

“Jim, what are you doing here? I was with Goob at the station and some guy pretending to be an FBI agent stole a bunch of evidence,” Abbey answered, though it was incomplete truth.

“Are you okay?” Jim held onto her shoulders and looked squarely into her eyes.

“Pretty shaken up actually.” Abbey let her body relax and the reality of the events that just occurred washed over her.

“Come on, let’s get you home.” The tow truck driver put his arm around Abbey’s shoulder and slowly walked her back toward his rig.

As Jim helped Abbey into the passenger side of his truck, the town ambulance and a fire truck rolled into the plaza entrance and came to a halt. A shootout and car chase would have been significant in any town; in tiny Brookford, it was a major event.

Dylan slowly limped toward the town vehicles and watched the tow truck with Abbey in it drive away. A tinge of jealousy pulsed through his body and raised long-hidden emotions that scared him more than any gun ever would.

Getting home wasn’t too bad. He was only a little past the police station when a pickup truck from one of the farms rolled past. Dylan accepted the offered ride and he sat in the truck bed and thought of his youth as they rolled through the country lanes.

The FBI agent was a fake.
He wished that fact had surprised him more than it did. He felt like a fool for not raising a stink the first time the guy abused him. But that was during his ‘woe is me’ phase, which was not officially over.

Chasing after the fake agent and making contact with his car had given Dylan a rush he hadn’t experienced in a long time. It was like the high he got from drugs, but better because it was clean.

Most of his construction work had involved following directions and completing tasks. He was good at it, but it was easy, no mental stimulation. Custom cabinetry may have been a better fit to keep him challenged, but you couldn’t just do what you wanted for a builder. If Mark would take him back, maybe they could talk about transitioning to more custom work.

Dylan spent the rest of the short ride thinking about how football had been all about problem solving and why he was good at it. Combining the movement of his body with the critical thinking in his brain made him feel relaxed.

At his apartment, all was quiet as it should be. In the morning he would call Eliza, comfortable that it was safe for her and Ryan to come home.

He opened the door and stepped into his apartment. A fist met his face from the right side and knocked him to the floor. If he had been tense and ready, the blow would still have been strong enough to knock him over. As it was, his eyes grew heavy and he fought to stay conscious.

His left hand awkwardly found the floor and he struggled to think of what to do next. Something in the apartment was missing, but it could have been the tunnel vision taking over.

“Stay down, quarterback,” his assailant growled.

The laces of a shoe caught him square in the face and helped the blackness win.

When Dylan finally came to he was sitting at his own small kitchen table. Both arms were duct taped to the surface of the table, palms up. He stretched his upper lip over his teeth and felt dried blood crack before the faint taste of blood became obvious on his tongue.

He blinked a few times to try and get his bearings and clear his sight. There was no way Abbey’s friends were pissed enough to do this.

As he scanned his small apartment, his assailant sat quietly in the living room.
At least we’re alone
, he thought.

A few minutes later, Agent Smith, or whatever his real name was, stood and walked over to his prisoner.

“I’m glad I can drop the FBI charade. Restraining myself with some foolish notion of fairness was unproductive,” he began.

“You call this restrained?” Dylan asked.

“Oh, we’re just getting started. Now that you’ve reminded the world about the lease, we cannot continue searching in silence. We will be the first to find it, though you probably won’t be alive to see.” His British accent was thicker than it had been.

Dylan remembered that he did best on the offensive. “Well, I know as much now as I did when you were pretending to be an FBI agent. Why don’t you untape me and we can have a fair conversation about where I think this document is and where you should put it.”

“You know more, and have more, than you let on. I’ll get what I want from you; I’ve cracked tougher men.”

“You have the stack of documents, which I never had and have never read. You have all the clues. What could I possibly tell you?” Dylan asked.

“Where is the insignia?”

“Seriously, you guys lost something else? If I ever meet the person who has the lease, I’ll make sure they know you’re too stupid to be a real threat.”

“A small sterling piece, slightly larger than a coin. I’m sure you’ve seen it. There is an inscription on one face and an image of a leaf on the other. I am surprised that you haven’t figured out how serious I am.”

The man who had pretended to be with the FBI rose from the couch and walked into the kitchen. He stood directly in front of Dylan and maintained his placid expression. His right hand rose, holding a syringe.

“I don’t think you understand how serious I am when I say I am not involved with this thing you’re looking for,” Dylan answered, eyeing the needle.

“This syringe holds enough heroine to overdose a horse. It was intended for you, but as I searched for the insignia I came across your little stash.” He held up the small baggie Dylan had bought at the gas station.

Dylan strained against the tape holding his arms to the table. He could take a beating, but he didn’t want to be found dead with a needle in his arm.

“I don’t know anything,” Dylan said firmly.

The man stepped over to Montana who had been lying on the floor watching the two men. He pulled a dog treat from his pocket and Montana’s tail began to wag. Dylan watched helplessly as the man fed his dog the treat and quickly squirted the contents of the syringe into his mouth.

“NO!” Dylan cried and thrashed violently, knocking his chair over and moving the table until it collided with the counter.

The golden retriever licked his lips and smacked his gums. After less than a minute, he laid his head on the floor and his tongue slid out.

Dylan watched closely as Montana’s chest rose and fell.

“We can agree that I am serious?” the man said. He opened a drawer and pulled out a spoon, then walked to the stove and turned on a burner. Both rocks were taken from their baggie and placed into the bowl of the spoon. He added a drip of water from the sink and then held it over the flame.

“I don’t have the coin thing. If you let me live, I’ll help you look for it,” Dylan pleaded.

At the stove, Agent Smith gave a crooked smile and turned off the flame. He rested the spoon in the counter and placed the tip of the needle in the liquid that had formed. He pulled the plunger back and lifted the syringe for inspection.

“My guess is that this is enough to kill you. What you tell me next will determine how much of it I inject into your blood.”

Dylan’s mind raced. He had left the coin with Abbey, but knew that was not a fact he could share. He needed something credible but generic.

Smith, or whatever his real name was, approached the table and placed a hand over Dylan’s right arm, inserting the needle into a bulging vein before he folded his hands on his stomach.

“Harvard,” Dylan said, and dropped his head in defeat.

“The university?”

“Yeah. The cops sent it to Harvard to see how old it was and if they could identify where it came from or if it meant anything,” Dylan lied.

“That is the first logical thing you have ever said.”

Dylan looked across the room to where his dog lay. Montana’s chest was no longer rising and falling—he was completely still.

“I am going to kill you,” Dylan said as his assailant grasped the syringe and injected its contents into his vein.

The rush was amazing. When swallowing pills, there was a delayed gratification— this was almost instant. He felt a blast of energy and confidence and smiled as he prepared to lift his arms off the table.

Then everything went dark.