Opening Moves

on him, tackling him just like I’d taken down Vincent Hayes on Sunday night. My shoulder screamed at me as we collided with the concrete.

Behind me I could hear the woman coughing, struggling to breathe.

At impact, Basque’s gun spun across the ground, but he still had the scalpel and made use of it, driving it into my right thigh. A fresh burst of pain sprayed through me, but I was able to wrench his arm back to control him. The scalpel was still sticking out of my leg when I cuffed him. Looking toward the woman, I knew I needed to clear her airway if she was going to make it.

His gun wasn’t jammed, so I picked it up and aimed it at him. “You move, you try to run, you’re going down.”

He didn’t acknowledge that, just lay there, cuffed, watching me silently, not trying to escape. Reserved and calm. He still hadn’t spoken a word.

I ran to the woman. As gently as I could, I tilted her head to the side to help drain blood from her mouth.

Now that I was this close to her, I was able to see the extent of her injuries. There were ghastly wounds in her abdomen, her chest, her throat. I’d never seen anything like it. Maybe Basque had heard me coming and cut her in ways to make sure she wouldn’t survive in case he was caught or killed.

I couldn’t imagine that there was any way to save her. Not with injuries like this.

Come on, Pat! You have to help her!

She spit out a mouthful of blood and grabbed a breath.

As I tried to stop the bleeding from her throat, I heard Basque from behind me: “I think we may need an ambulance, don’t you, Detective?”

He sounded cool and relaxed, and that just served to make his mockery all the more infuriating.

I could feel myself slipping into the furious darkness, the abyss that lies within each of us.

The demons.

Keep the demons at bay.

I refused to acknowledge Basque and focused on the woman.

But she’d almost bled out.

I wanted to reassure her, tell her that everything was going to be alright, that help was on its way, that she just needed to relax, but I knew those words would be lies. This woman was dying. Sirens were approaching-from the sound of it, a couple squads and at least one ambulance, but the paramedics were never going to make it in here soon enough to save her.

There are times when a lie can be a gift, if even a small one, and now I told her, “Shh. It’s going to be okay. You’re alright.”

She nodded and instead of terror in her eyes, there was a sweep of peace. She knew I was lying. And she forgave me.

She closed her eyes, maybe so I wouldn’t have to be looking into them when she died. Then the gurgling stopped, her hands went limp, and though I tried to stem the bleeding and revive her, it was impossible.

At last I rose, hands bloody from trying to save her. Pain raged through my shoulder and my leg, but it was nothing like the pain ripping through my heart.

I faced Basque.

A tight fist of anger balled up inside me.

Going to him, I yanked him to his feet to read him his rights, but he was still focused on the woman. “I guess we won’t be needing that ambulance after all.”

That did it.

Brutality.

Evil.

Man’s inhumanity to man.

I punched him. Hard. Connected solidly with his jaw and he flew backward, still cuffed, and slammed to the ground.

And then I was on him. I hit him again, heard the bones in his jaw crack. The back of his skull smacked solidly against the concrete.

I raised my fist a third time, thought of that scalpel still in my leg, what I could do with it, thought of yesterday when I’d left Griffin’s knife beside him, thought of justice and what it means and how it fails and what to do when it does.

A life for a life, isn’t that what they say? Justice the way it was meant to be?

Radar told me he believed in a reckoning. Well, we could have reckoning right here and now.

The sound of sirens in the parking lot rang through the slaughterhouse. The officers, the EMTs would probably be here in less than a minute.

“Why do you do this, Pat?” Taci had asked me.

“To keep the demons at bay.”

Basque was looking directly into my eyes and I was looking into his, as if we were poring through each other’s souls, seeing if, perhaps there was no difference there after all.

His lip was split open from when I’d punched him. Blood smeared across his teeth. His tongue tapped at the blood, then retreated into his mouth. Then he spoke, even through the pain of his broken jaw. It must have taken great effort, hurt terribly, but he managed to keep his tone calm. However, even he couldn’t stop his words from sounding juicy and uneven from the shattered bones. “It feels good, doesn’t it, Detective? If feels really good.”

I felt a final tug toward the darkness, toward the part of my heart I’ve tried to tell myself isn’t there, toward the things that lead us over the edge.

Dark things.

I squeezed my fist tighter. Cocked it back.

I could hear officers calling, entering the slaughterhouse.

The scalpel.

The gun.

End this.

No! You’re not like him, Pat. You’re not capable of the unthinkable.

Yes, you are.

We all are.

Anger is a response, not a choice. We can only choose what to do with it. Let it lead us around on a leash, or-

“Do you know where Tod Walker is?” I asked Basque.

“No.”

“This week, these abductions, was that you?”

“No.”

“Do not lie to me.”

“It was not me.”

Two officers flared into the room, weapons raised. “Down!” one of them yelled. “Step away from-”

“No, that’s Bowers,” the other one cut in.

I saw the ice in Basque’s eyes again, just as I had at the acquisitions firm, and the realization of what he was capable of, what all of us are capable of, struck me, chilled me, repulsed me.

I stood, then stepped back and let one of the other officers lean over Basque.

A scalpel is a good slicing weapon but not a good stabbing one and even though the blade had gone into my thigh a couple centimeters, it wasn’t nearly as severe a puncture wound as it could have been. It might bleed a little, but I was tired of having that thing sticking out of me. I reached down, braced myself, pried it out.

One of the officers was watching, his mouth agape. I tossed the scalpel to the ground. “Evidence doesn’t leave the scene of a crime.” Jammed or not, I retrieved my SIG.

More officers flared into the room and it was over. We had Basque, we were taking him in. He would spend the rest of his life in a cell. Justice? Maybe not, but at least it was a step in the right direction.

I was splashing the blood off my hands in a pool of dank water near a cattle stall when Ellen came jogging around the corner. “Pat!” She was out of breath. “We found Radar.”