Cloaked in Blood
Authors: LS Sygnet
Tags: #deception, #organized crime, #mistrust, #lies and consequences, #trust no one
by LS Sygnet
COPYRIGHT 2013 LS Sygnet, Smashwords
Edition. All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be used or reproduced in any manner without permission except in
the case of brief quotations.
This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are fictional or used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or
persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All rights
reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or paper print,
without written permission from LS Sygnet.
Daddy’s Little Killer
Beneath the Cracks
Forgotten Place
The Chilling Spree
Always Watching
Sins of the Father
Cloaked in Blood
Dedication
In memory of my father, a man who taught me
to love unconditionally,
to cherish humor, and in all things, keep my
word and work hard.
I miss you every day.
Contents
My mind was racing before Johnny and I got
home from the Sanderfield crime scene. In all the excitement,
I hadn’t had a moment to call Dad back. Was he worried?
Or was Johnny right? Could he have been present at the time
Sanderfield was murdered? Time of death was etched in stone,
thanks to the multitude of calls at the time of the shooting.
Fifteen minutes before I called Dad.
In Sweden.
The image of the man at the crime scene
haunted me. His face was covered with bandages.
Something was familiar about his gait. I recognized it
eventually. No, it wasn’t my father.
It was far worse than that, but impossible
at the same time. The shock of black hair that was styled in
a way I couldn’t forget, the sure long stride, even though it was
blocked by a throng of spectators.
Rick Hamilton was dead. I killed
him. I saw him die. I saw his body hours after I shot
him in the head. I watched his coffin sink into the
ground.
But that gait. That hair.
I shuddered.
“Helen.”
My eyes darted left. We were sitting
in the garage.
“Are you all right?”
“Mmm.”
Johnny’s forehead wrinkled. “Honey, I
shouldn’t have let you talk me into letting you come out to
Hennessey Island with me. Are you –”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just
confused. Sanderfield is really dead.”
“Well, Maya hasn’t officially made the
identification, but yeah, based on witness accounts, it was him
leaving the Island Hotel Resort and Casino this morning.
She’ll roll his prints –”
“I’m familiar with the procedure when a
visual ID isn’t exactly possible, Johnny. It sort of shoots
the theory that he’s behind the human trafficking ring straight to
hell though, doesn’t it?”
“Probably,” he sighed heavily and dug the
fingers of his right hand into his hair. “Then again, if he’s
just another lower level player, a piece put into place to insure
that the business doesn’t fall apart, who knows?”
“If he was a chip, why kill him? If he
was supposed to smooth things over in Darkwater Bay, return
everything to the status quo before I showed up and Lowe got
arrested, it makes no sense to assassinate him, Johnny.” I
paused and picked at a speck of lint on my pants. “And how
did his security detail not see anything after he was shot?
How is it that such a precise hit was made without so much as
nicking one of half a dozen men surrounding him precisely for the
purpose of protecting him from something exactly like what happened
this morning?”
“Excellent questions.”
“You know the answer as well as I do.”
Johnny chuffed a long, slow breath through
his nose. “It was professional.”
“It was more than professional,
Johnny. This was a strike delivered with such precision, it
was downright surgical.”
His fist thumped the steering wheel of the
Expedition. “Yeah, Chris said the same thing.”
“It struck him as military?”
“He said there are maybe five, six snipers
in the world that he knows of who could hit a moving target like
that with a single shot and not the men escorting him.”
“So… we think this is military?”
Johnny laughed. Hell, the whole thing
was so frustrating, we could do little else but laugh.
“It couldn’t have been,” I finally spoke
when the laughter died down. “Just because it looks like one
thing doesn’t mean there isn’t a killer out there who
isn’t
military capable of that kind of accuracy.”
“Could be former military.”
“Johnny…”
“You said he was in Sweden.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And he was never a
sharpshooter.”
“We’re never gonna find this guy, are we?”
he asked with a sort of calm dejection.
“No.”
“Helen, we can’t just give up.”
I thought about the past couple of months,
the abduction of Danny Datello’s daughter, his subsequent murder by
Special Agent Alfred Preston, my abduction, the human trafficking
ring and all roads that seemed to point to Terrell
Sanderfield. Now he was dead. Was that the point?
Kill the players we might’ve linked to the crime and kill the
case.
“Honey –”
“I know,” I said. “We’re out of
leads. We’re out of suspects.”
“Except for Melissa Sherman.”
“Yeah,” I laughed. “She’s not
talking. And at this point, what kind of case does Zack
really have against her anymore? Anybody that might’ve
testified against her is dead.”
“We’ve still got Lyle Henderson.”
“He’s eighty-some years old, Johnny.
Are people really going to believe that he’s this human trafficking
mastermind, that he ordered the assassination of his own step-son
to hide his crimes?”
“Sully Marcos killed his brother in
law.”
“And I killed my ex-husband.” Yes, I
know
I killed him. The memory is as fresh in my mind
today as it was the day that it happened. Still, those
bandages…
“I really wish you wouldn’t say that,”
Johnny said.
“Why not? How am I different than any
of the monsters you chase, Johnny? Why do I have the right to
be free when –”
“Because it was suicide,” he said.
“Leave it alone.”
“I can’t,” I said. “Johnny, I can’t
live with this anymore. I can’t help you chase monsters when
I look in the mirror and that’s what I see looking back at
me. Someone who broke the law in the worst possible
way. How can you possibly believe that I’ll be a fit parent
when…”
“You
aren’t
a monster.”
“Well, I’m not a good person either.”
Johnny opened the door and slid out of the
SUV. “Come inside, Helen. I’d like your take on what
happens next.”
He knew as well as I did that it was a dead
end. We had no leads, no idea who killed Sanderfield, no way
of really linking the dead senator to the human trafficking
case. It was over. All that was left was the
prosecution of Melissa Sherman, and nobody really left to testify
against her – except for Crevan, Dev and me. Her shyster
attorney Curtis Marcel would have a field day shooting holes in the
iron clad case against her. There was reasonable doubt all
over the place – former FBI Agent Alfred Preston’s dying
declaration, Destiny Gerard’s confession that Datello had offered
his only child to Sherman in a legal adoption, no real or concrete
evidence that Andy Gillette was working with Gerard and Sherman
beyond my testimony. The fact that I was rescued from my
ordeal in less than mentally sound condition only helped the
defense. Hell, they could argue that I couldn’t know what was
said or done because of delirium.
By the time I shuffled behind him into the
kitchen, Johnny was already on the telephone. Had he called
someone, or did I simply miss the ringing in my distraction over
today’s bad news?
“No, she’s right here.”
He held out the phone.
“Who?”
“David,” Johnny said quietly.
“Hey,” I said.
“How are you hanging in there, dear
one? I wanted to talk to you at the crime scene.”
“It’s all right, David. I understand
what you’re facing.”
“I’m not so sure you do, Helen.
Listen, I’m being called back to D.C. on another matter for a few
days. I just wanted to let you know that even though I won’t
be able to say goodbye in person, that we’re not giving up on this
case.”
“What case?” I snorted softly. “David,
there’s nothing left now, and you know it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve still got
the financial records from Sanderfield’s campaign. Lyle
Henderson is still a person of interest. The case against
Melissa Sherman –”
“Is weak, and we both know it. You’re
never going to get anywhere with Henderson. It’s over
David. Sanderfield’s killer is long gone.”
“Since when do you give up this
easily? This investigation is far from finished, Helen.
Sanderfield might not have been the top dog, but I’m not convinced
I thought he ever was. Think about his position for a
moment. He might well have been a pawn, someone with
government standing that could – and actually did in part – undo
all the good OSI did in Darkwater Bay.”
“Why are you going back to Washington?”
David laughed. “The Marcos case,
Helen. They’re making another run at dismissing the
charges. Seems Sully’s legal team wants to argue that Eddie
Franchetta’s deal has enticed him to give false testimony.”
I snorted. “And they think it’ll
fly?”
“Eh, Sully thinks Franchetta might be the
one who absconded with the missing money from his account with your
late husband now.”
I dragged my lip through my teeth. “He
might be right, David.”
“That doesn’t erase the mountains of
evidence provided by his nephew,” David said. “And since that
information was obtained legally in an investigation you performed,
I’d say we’ve still got him dead to rights. Don’t let this
latest bit of wrangling worry you.”
“Are you telling me that Marcos doesn’t know
that Danny turned on him?”
“We weren’t planning to introduce that
evidence unless there was no other choice. And why should we,
when Franchetta substantiated everything Datello’s documentation
provided? Better a living witness, one who was responsible
for pulling the trigger, than the files of a dead nephew simply
bent on revenge for the murder of his father.”
I hadn’t thought about it that way. I
wondered if David realized the bone he’d just thrown us with our
case against Melissa Sherman.
“Helen, are you still there?”
“If Sully had no idea that Danny was
providing evidence against him sixteen years ago when David Ireland
was murdered, or that we recovered proof that he was planning to
turn on his family –” my eyes met Johnny’s.
“The threat to Celeste Datello didn’t come
from Marcos’ family,” Johnny said.
“No, it didn’t.”
“What didn’t?” David asked.
“Never mind. Go back to D.C. Do
your thing there. Don’t worry about our case out here,
David. You just gave us what we needed to push forward with
our own conundrum with Melissa Sherman.”