Owen stood by Annika as the rain came down, the umbrellas of little use in the Chicago storm. Her eyes were wet, and her black dress had been bought for this somber occasion, styled to emphasize her pregnancy.
She wasn't pregnant, not anymore. But she'd been pregnant before and she carried the false bump convincingly.
He hated the lies, but understood their necessity.
There was no minister here. Just a small crowd, mostly keeping their distance from each other. He and Annika huddled under one umbrella; the rain had been a blessing, keeping any crowds or curiosities at bay.
Sin had asked him to bury Lee next to Samantha and Bethany—his first wife and their daughter. Though Lee had purchased the three plots together when he laid his family to rest, it had taken Owen months to convince the authorities that this man was in fact Lee Maxwell, missing these nearly ten years.
DNA tests had finally solved his problems, but running them quietly, making sure the cemetery kept it out of the press had taken coercion, money, and his badge. The rain made it better.
Several FBI agents stood quietly in attendance. Though their dark suits hid them among the raindrops and the funeral goers, their eyes were on alert, hoping Sin would show herself. They were ready to take her in.
Gavin Reil—formerly Nicolae Stelian of the Vasilescu family, but only witness protection and Owen knew that—stood to Owen's left, several yards away. He held an umbrella, but his expression was stoic as he stood in the downpour. He was here in an official capacity, but had considered Lee a friend, and had known him far better than Owen had. Somewhere inside, Nick was mourning. Or maybe he’d come to terms with Lee’s death in the months it had taken to get here.
Todd Maxwell stood alone on the other side of the open grave as they lowered the shiny casket, devoid of flowers, into the earth. His suit was ruined and he cried openly. Owen knew he had daughters, but they weren't here. Probably had never met their uncle Lee. Todd was the only one left to mourn.
About ten other people stood in attendance. Several co-workers from Lee's days as an accountant with Black and Associates remembered him from before everything went south, before Sam and Bethy had been shot down, before Lee went crazy and fell off the grid. Maybe they felt guilty that they worked for the company that had been exposed as a key player in the Kurev mafia. Maybe they were just gawking.
Samantha's father had shown. He stood silently, alone, her mother having passed several years before. His stoicism matched the downpour and he didn't even speak to several friends of his daughter’s who remembered happier times with the couple.
They had all been asked to show ID to attend. The FBI had insisted.
Cynthia May Beller, known associate of Lee Maxwell and wanted woman, did not show.
No one suspected the green-eyed, blond woman who stayed dry-eyed through the ceremony, her hand resting casually on her own round belly.
Her ID had passed and she spoke only to Samantha's father, saying that she'd been a friend from school, had visited Sam and Lee and met Bethany when she was tiny. She was sorry she hadn't made it to Samantha's funeral, and she was here to rectify that. The man shook her hand and nodded, but didn't speak.
Owen watched the whole exchange, listening quietly from several feet away.
After the dirt was thrown with no fanfare, she turned and left, following several of the other attendees through the wet grass and out through the gates.
Putting his hand on Annika's back and holding the large umbrella with the other, he motioned for them to follow.
Nick didn't smile much when he got the mail, but today he did. Though the mail was addressed to his new self, Gavin Reil, it was meant for Nick.
Months of physical therapy had overlapped months of interrogation, but Owen Dunham and Dana Block had played the FBI like a fiddle for him and his deal had come through.
He would pass his ninety-day mark with the Bureau next week. He was only a consultant, no badge. He could never have one after what he'd confessed to.
He'd given them some of the people from Vasilescu, making it clear from the opening negotiations that he would pick who he leveled evidence against and they could take it or leave it. They had nothing on him.
In the tunnels under the Kurev mansion, he'd been afraid. After Sin had dropped him and Lee had been shot, he realized that he was going to live. His lung was collapsed, and he needed surgery, but he'd make it through.
The gunshots and her screams of rage and fear had brought in the cavalry. To this day Nick didn't know if she would have left Lee's body behind to save him or not.
As the footsteps had come down the hallway, Nick had scrambled for a gun, his hands and legs not working well enough.
Luckily, it was Owen who had come in.
He'd pulled them out, driven them to a hospital and managed to get both men admitted under false identities. Two weeks and three surgeries later, Nick began the process of turning states evidence.
The Mechanic had picked the house behind the Kurev mansion as the drop point for his demanded exchange. So when Owen arrived and found the carpet up and the door exposed, he'd come down. It was probably the thing that saved him. Sin, too.
There was no telling what would have happened had they still been there when the pounding footsteps of whoever had been coming from the Kurev house arrived.
He hadn't been with her when she'd had the baby. He'd seen her once a week later when she passed through, not telling him where she was headed. He knew he would see her again, he just didn't know when.
Sliding his finger under the flap of the thick envelope, he popped the seal and grinned. The note came from the Dunham family, announcing their newest daughter, Georgia Reese Dunham.
For a moment his heart stopped.
Reese.
Probably the closest nod they could give to the baby's origins. A nod to both him and Sin and the friend they'd both lost.
Georgia. Perfectly in keeping with their older daughters, Charlotte and Virginia. But again a note to where this baby had likely been conceived, where her birth parents were last together.
He looked at the picture, the round face so much like Sin's. Like his own infant picture, and he could see traces of Lee there, too. But she looked enough like Annika and Owen that he hoped no one would ever question it.
The page was thick, and he frowned as he turned it over.
A sealed envelope was stuck to the back of the high grade announcement paper. This one had no return address, but the front was set to be mailed to Todd Maxell.
Nick held it for a moment. The Dunhams couldn't send it themselves, but he could drop it in a distant post box when he got the chance. He'd never actually met Lee's brother—not as Nick and not even at the funeral as Gavin.
It was a week later that he dropped the envelope in the mail for Maxwell.
As the vellum left his fingertips it took a huge weight with it, setting him free of Nick's mistakes and Nick's past. He turned to the sunshine and walked into Gavin Reil's life.
She didn't know why she was here.
It was a seedy bar and she wasn't even drinking. Just a coke. She ate some peanuts from the bowl and thought that if she hadn't lived the life she had, the unclean bowl would kill her. But these days, probably nothing would.
She hadn't died giving birth, though she wouldn't have been horribly upset by that outcome.
She hadn't cracked in half when she'd made it to the cabin and cleared their stuff out from under layers of dust and bugs and leaves.
Sin had finally gone back to the last place she’d shared with Lee, bolstered by the picture in her heart of Owen and Annika leaving the home with their new baby. The midwife had been paid very handsomely to put their names on her certification and never acknowledge that Annika had not actually given birth to the child.
Sin had never thought of the baby as anything but theirs and held her only once before handing her over.
Holding the infant was something Annika insisted on. She wouldn't take the dark-haired girl unless Sin did it. So she'd held her, looked for Lee in her tiny face, and softly brushed her head.
But it hadn't been a problem to give her away. The Dunhams were her only chance. Being Sin was dangerous and so was being with Sin. If Lee couldn't survive their life, how could a child? And the Dunhams wanted her. The rightness of it sat well in her heart and she didn't live with regrets.
But thoughts plagued her.
She dreamed of her sister Wendy and the baby that died in her when Wendy died. So young. So long ago. Sin had now lived without Wendy for longer than she'd had her.
For months while she'd been pregnant, Sin lived above the surface. She had a fake ID, moved to an apartment in a mid-sized city. She saw a doctor for her check-ups, and worked part time in a shop—almost the way she had for cover when she was a teenager, before Lee had insisted they be dedicated. She'd gotten the proper care, then moved away as she approached her due date.
She'd followed the news and the police reports about the dismantling of the Kurev holdings. Much of the art in the tunnels had been stolen; not surprisingly, some of it dated back to World War Two and pilfered Nazi treasures. While the house had survived scrutiny, the tunnels were damning. The guns were militia level. The police force had been shaken down for Kurev sympathizers, leaving Chicago PD decimated in one of the most thorough Internal Affairs cases in history. Nick had helped put that in motion.
Vasilescu had been dismantled, too, the reigning theory that attorney Phil Megan had taken over after Emilian Vasilescu had died a handful of years ago. Megan—from prison—insisted police detective Nick Stelian had been the real head of the crime family, but no evidence supported it. Only Nick's subsequent disappearance gave any credence to Megan's story. But another rumor suggested Megan had him removed to make him seem guilty.
Sin had laughed when Gavin told her he thought Megan was full of shit.
He'd had some plastic surgery, courtesy of the US government, but she still saw Nick in him. Years of practice kept her from slipping up with the name.
She'd stopped by his place after the baby was born, showing up in his living room one night. Slightly out of shape from having birthed another human, she didn't make as quiet of an entry as she'd planned and he walked out to meet her.
But that had been several months ago.
The cabin was now dismantled, cleared of any evidence. Storage lockers in various states held her prized possessions; spare keys were buried on their property out west. She'd camped there and trained. She'd moved again. Trained more.
And wondered why she didn't have a short shelf life.
She was still here.
Lee insisted he'd lived much longer than he expected to, but Sin had never thought of herself as dying, just as going on. But all she was doing now was going on.
Her husband had lived four hours after leaving the tunnels. Broken physically and losing blood that couldn’t be stemmed, he’d managed to grab her hand before he was wheeled into surgery.
Though his voice was raspy and shallow, she managed to hear him and soak in what he spent his last energy on.
He’d told her he was dead before she found him.
At first she’d taken that to mean ‘before they met,’ but after hearing Lee’s medical report from Owen, she realized he meant this time. The Mechanic had killed him. He was dead before Sin and Nick came in. The damage was too extensive. The surgeons couldn’t have saved him even if he hadn’t been shot. His words rang even truer after she heard that.
“I was always waiting for you. I lived longer than I ever thought I would, and better than I ever imagined. I accomplished so much, because I was with you. But you were always the stronger one.” He’d stopped and slowly sucked in more air before continuing. “You and our child are the true sum of my life’s work. So you have to go on. When you stop, I stop.”
He’d squeezed her hand and she’d seen what was in his eyes before he’d closed them for the last time. Though he technically died on the surgical table, he was gone before they’d wheeled his body down the hall.
Sin had disappeared before they could take her, knowing it was what Lee wanted. Though she’d waited for word from Owen, wishing the outcome would be a good one, that Lee would wake up from surgery, she’d not been surprised by the verdict.
She’d thanked Dr. Dunham and hung up the call, trusting him with Lee’s remains. Then she’d picked up the already packed bag and left the hotel room where she’d awaited the news, walking out into her solo life.
She’d grown more pregnant, given birth, and given her child to a better world. Then she’d walked out into yet another phase of her life, this time wondering how many times she could do it.
Though she was alone again, she was lighter.
Sin had relived the night in the tunnels under the Kurev house more times than she cared to admit. She’d second-guessed her every decision—thinking the Mechanic was dead. But even looking back she couldn’t figure out what signs she’d missed. She wished she’d done more, but she was trying to get them out of there. Fast.
In the end, Lee had saved her.
Twice.
He’d pushed her out of bed in the cabin when Churkin and the Mechanic had come to kill them. And he’d saved her again, by jumping in front of her. He’d made it clear later that he was at peace with his decisions and she had to be, too.
He’d lived longer than he’d thought. And he’d been given a rare second chance. Lee had not been able to save Sam and Bethy. But he’d saved Sin and their baby. He died having righted the one failure that had always driven him.
He’d died for her.
Lee had come full circle.
Truthfully, so had she. She’d begun so many years ago when her home was invaded and she’d lost everything. This time she hadn’t lost herself. She’d saved her daughter. She’d found Lee.
And now she had to find a way to go on. To make it worthy of his sacrifice.
Though she lived with no burden, she had no major goal. She wandered, almost lost.
She wore her sais, her knives, carried a gun when possible. But there was nothing to do.
Picking up the Coke once more, she took a sip only to be confronted by the wet clunk of ice in an empty glass.
"Need another?" The bartender asked.
Sin shook her head. She could easily identify the man in a line-up though she'd never looked at him directly. She could ID everyone in here, knew who was carrying and who was trained. One of the guys in the corner was a cop.
Old habits died hard.
She was putting a bill on the bar when the woman at the end sputtered, "What a pig."
Several patrons looked over, then up at the old TV above the bar. Not a new model, it threatened to come crashing down at any moment. The color was too blue, too bright, the man on the news too orange.
But the story grabbed them all.
A college professor at a school in nearby Denver was wanted for trafficking some of his students in exchange for grades. He'd been caught when the third one failed to return home at break.
Sin turned to leave, the professor’s name stuck in her head by default—an excellent memory and years of training still inherent in who she was. The need to find the missing student, or at least set the situation to justice, suddenly grabbed her.
The gravity and necessity of who she was settled once more into her bones and she pushed her way out the heavy front door into a dark night, at last having a direction.
Two steps down and she was in an alley between two buildings. The bar was old and tucked into a dead part of town. Only the faintest traces of neon lit dirty brick walls that corralled three sides of the rough asphalt. It glistened with old rain or old beer, reflecting rainbows and taking Sin back to a memory of another alley, of Lee, and a fight.
Only this time no one was around, just her and her memories of a decade ago. She hadn't known in that alley fight that she would love that man, have his child, spend what was left of her life striving to make him proud, but here she was.
Denver wasn't far.
The police couldn't do what she could do.
The old standards still applied—do the research, be certain, be swift.
There was no one around to see as she reached into what looked like the flap of a pocket on her cargo pants. The sai pulled free easily and for a moment it danced in her hand as she walked down the alley toward her own justice.
Thank you for reading Justice.
Climate change is causing sinkholes, avalanches, floods and...Mutations. Can the Mazur family survive when humans are no longer the dominant species?
The first book in The Black Carbon Series is The Hunted.
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The Hunted
Chapter 1
Joule could hear the dogs in the distance, and she broke into a run. Just barely in earshot, they rustled the underbrush in the woods behind the houses.
The approaching clouds had brought them out early tonight, and she hadn’t calculated correctly. Breath huffing, arms pumping, she ran down the street and hung a sharp righthand turn. Her feet pounded the pavement as she heard the first deep bark—faint, but within range.
She had another turn to make, then the tenth of a mile up her dead-end street before she could close the door behind her. They lived in the last house, and right now she wished they didn’t. Her breath was coming hard, but she didn’t slow down. The sky was darkening rapidly, and that would only make things worse.
Her house was less than two-tenths of a mile from the place she’d been raiding, but she couldn’t cut through the woods—not with the cloud cover rapidly coming in. So she was taking the long way because, although it was not safe at all, it was safer than the alternative.
She could almost hear her mother, worrying at the window. But her parents were smart enough to close the curtains anyway… even though she wasn’t home. At least, she hoped they were. If they didn’t do it, the dogs would get them, too.
Joule listened to the slap of her sneakers on the pavement, thinking it would keep her focused. It didn’t stop her from seeing the blur of movement behind the Dunford house. The Dunfords were dead, the house empty. Still running, she counted. Just the one dog. So far.
She might be able to take on one of them, but they never traveled alone. She could only see one, but she was certain there were at least three others—if not ten—right behind him.
She could see the roof of her house over the slight hill and found some stamina to pick up her pace again. Halfway down the street, she passed a mental checkpoint. She could see her whole house from there.
But she could also see the lone dog that had braved his way out into the street.
He stood between her and her home, pacing on soft paws. His eyes seemed to glow, reflecting light almost like a cat’s. Though he changed direction, he never stopped staring at her.
It was over.
She wasn’t going to make it.
The dog had seen her.
She had seen victims of the dog packs before. She’d seen a few of her neighbors—or the pieces left of them—after they had stayed out too late. Their sense of smell sucked, but once the dogs saw you, they were relentless. Smart. Operating almost from a hive-mind. No one had ever survived an encounter to tell whether that was really the case.
Though she didn’t let the dog see her eyes flick, she gauged the distance to a tall tree she had picked out. There was no telling if it would work. She had no idea if they could climb up behind her. No evidence that they were or weren’t strong enough to topple a tree. But she was relatively tall for her age, and if she gave a determined jump, she could grab the lowest branch and scramble up. She only had to make it until morning.
The Cranston house had bank notices pasted all over it. It was definitely abandoned, so she’d picked up two small computer units when she was there. Now they felt heavy in her hand, like a decision that would change everything.
She hefted the bigger one at the dog. Though she missed his head—where she’d been aiming—Joule managed a glancing blow off its side. Still, it was a mistake.
The whining yelp the helldog let out summoned its friends. Though Joule was bolting for the tree, it was still too far away.
Two dogs appeared in the road before her, cutting her off before she was even halfway there. Running home had been her only real plan. Now, she turned on a dime, heading the other way, and spotting three more dogs emerging from behind the house.
For a moment, she stopped moving. They had her on three sides. She’d seen what they did to the people they caught, and she could only pray death would be quick, though she knew it would not be painless.
But they move in packs, she reminded herself. Thus, they’d likely been together before spotting her. The chances they had managed to surround her—when they’d only just now been willing to step out into the darkening twilight—was low.
She had to bank on it. It was her only chance.
With a lightning-fast dash, Joule bolted through the empty space. One house stood there, and she prayed it wasn’t locked. The inhabitants were gone. The wife was dead by the dogs, the husband and daughter disappeared. But whether they’d moved away or if the dogs had gotten them, too, Joule didn’t know.
The knob turned under her hand, the only good luck of the darker-than-usual afternoon, and she stumbled harshly through. Turning, she slammed the heavy door shut, feeling the weight of a dog pounding against it as she slid the bolt shut.
She might be inside, but she likely had less than a minute.
The dogs knew she was in here. She was their prey, and once spotted, they would not give up. She’d seen more than ample evidence of the dogs having broken into houses—ramming down doors, hurling themselves against windows, however many tries were necessary to get through—just because they’d spotted someone inside.
Hearing the first dog make an attempt at the window on the porch, Joule dashed upstairs. She was looking for something specific.
In the hallway, she passed a shotgun carelessly left leaning against the wall. These people had tried. They hadn’t known the dogs were hard to kill with bullets and axes and baseball bats. As she passed, she caught a whiff of food rotting from the kitchen. No, they had not left willingly.
The window behind her shattered, and she heard the scrape of nails on hardwood floor. One dog, two, three… too many to count. They were inside the house and behind her, racing up the stairs.
Joule looked up and spotted what she’d been looking for.