Blood Red

“Guys, I’ve been set up.” He knew how lame it sounded, but it was all he had.

“Hey, Richie.”

“Yeah, Danny?”

“Look, he resisted.” Holdstedter backhanded Brian with an open hand. He hit the ground and groaned, his entire face feeling like it had been slapped. Holdstedter had big hands.

“That was the only one, Danny Boy. We don’t want this dick walking on a technicality.”

Holdstedter picked him up, lifted him completely off the ground with frightening ease and set him on his feet. He smiled into Brian’s face. “He wouldn’t think of trying that sort of shit. He’s got to know I’ve got weapons of his with his greasy fingerprints all over them. I mean, it’d be easy to put one in his dead hand and say he tried to shoot first, if he did something really stupid like trying to weasel out on a technicality.”

Boyd walked over. “You got weapons of his, Danny? ’Cause I thought we’d confiscated his shotgun.”

“Yeah, we did. It’s in evidence lockup. One firearm.”

They let that sink in. They still had his pistols. Brian nodded his head to make clear that he understood.

“Let’s get this asshole to the lockup.”

Brian sat in the back of the car without saying a word, numb to any sort of thinking or actions.

Holdstedter yawned in the passenger’s seat.

“I need coffee, Richie.”

“I need food, Danny.”

“Diner?”

“Diner.”

“We dropping shithead off first?”

“Nope. He can sit and savor the sweet smell of freedom for a while.”

“More like the smell of your cigars.”

Boyd turned his head and blew a heavy cloud of cigar smoke into Brian’s face. “Whatever makes him happy. Gonna smell better than sitting in a lockup room with Dirk Lockley.”

“Richie, are we that lucky?”

“Oh, yeah. Dirk is in for the night. He tried to hit a convenience store and Coswell nabbed his stupid ass.”

“What is it Dirk is always saying he’d do to a cop if he ever had a chance?”

“Fuck ’im up the ass and make ’im lick his cock clean.”

Danny laughed. Brian closed his eyes and prayed he wouldn’t have to deal with Lockley. The man was a giant mountain of fat and muscle. His bowels seemed ready to leave his body any way they could.

The detectives pulled up in front of the Silver Dollar Diner. They made sure to lock the doors when they got out.

Brian watched them walk away until he saw the figures on the roof of the brick and chrome building. In the neon light, he saw Angela and five college girls that he knew intimately.

“Boyd! Boyd! Fuck’s sake! Boyd let me out of here!” He screamed as loudly as he could, trying to break the cuffs that held his wrists together in the small of his back. All he got for his trouble were a few lacerations.

Boyd and Holdstedter probably heard him, but they didn’t respond.

He looked up as the six women on the roof dropped down to the parking lot and walked his way. Every one of them was smiling, baring wickedly sharp teeth.

He was still screaming when they peeled the roof of the car away and reached for him.

Chapter 19

I

Boyd drew his weapon and ran for the door when he heard the sounds of metal bending and glass shattering. They were enough to get him to turn, but it was the bloody shriek that came out of Freemont that made him draw his pistol.

Sounds like that weren’t supposed to come out of people.

Danny was right behind him and as soon as he was out the door, Danny had his back covered and was shifting to the right.

“What the fuck?” Six women, some clothed and some naked, were pulling Brian Freemont out of what was left of the Crown Victoria. Freemont was screaming like there was no tomorrow. Maybe for him there wasn’t. In the glow of the parking lights, he recognized each and every one of the girls. One of them was Freemont’s wife. She was nude, her body glistening it was so pale, her belly distended with the unborn baby she was carrying.

The others were all younger, mostly pretty, and all of them had files on his desk. He’d dealt with the families and friends of all of them in the last few days. They were all among the missing persons he was investigating. He took all of that in instantly.

He also took in the fact that they were going to kill Brian Freemont if he didn’t do something about it.

“FREEZE!” He lowered the pistol to just over their heads.

Danny was already waiting for them to do something stupid.

Freemont’s wife looked over her shoulder at Boyd and shook her head. “He’s my husband, I’ll kill him if I want to.”

One of the others laughed: Danielle Hopkins, if he was remembering names as well as he usually did. She looked like she’d covered herself in white clay and let it dry and flake off. Her lips were blue and if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought a corpse was laughing at him. His skin suddenly felt too tight. Her face barely moved, even when she moved her mouth, like some of the muscles wouldn’t work. Her eyes were staring at him and he thought he could see something moving in her hair.

“Put him down and back away, ladies. I don’t want to hurt any of you.”