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Stacy and Brandon stared at each other for a long moment.
Stacy broke the silence. “It’s over. Put the gun down, or this won’t end well.”
He shook his head defiantly. “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot.”
Brandon steadied the revolver pointing at Stacy with his right hand while the left hand trembled, holding the box tightly in its grip with a slender finger hovering over a red switch.
Stacy held out a hand. “This can all be over very quickly. Give me the gun, Brandon. This is in your best interest. We can go home.”
He pulled back on the revolver hammer. “I said, don’t move!”
“Okay, fine,” Stacy said, backtracking. A burst of cold air from outside hit her back, although the Kevlar vest strapped to her chest provided a good barrier against the chill. Now several feet underground, she couldn’t hear any more gunshots.
“Let’s just talk, okay.” Stacy crouched down. Brandon lowered the revolver pointing at Stacy as he also slinked down. “I’m going to set my gun down first, and then we can talk, okay?”
Stacy placed the weapon down carefully in front of her. She slowly rose and took another deliberate step forward, stepping over the Glock with both boots.
Brandon twitched.
“Easy. Easy,” Stacy said softly.
He also took a step forward, and he and Stacy were now only a few feet apart. With the extra step, Brandon was more defined under the yellow light. His left hand shook with more force.
“Let’s just relax,” Stacy said. “We’re both cops. Both on the same side.” In the back of Stacy’s mind, she wondered if he would play along and then shoot her anyway. “We need to go. There are injured people here, Brandon. They need our help.”
Brandon blinked twice. “I’m sorry about that. But I can’t be arrested. I can’t go to prison.”
Stacy placed her hand over her chest. “That’s a different issue for later. Right now, we must get out of here and get some help. These men are our colleagues, our friends.”
Brandon looked away. “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Not too badly, anyway.”
Brandon was lean, gangly, and handsome in a vaguely gothic way. He wore baggy jeans and an oversized green tee shirt. Brandon had a pallid, slightly starved look as if he hadn’t eaten well or seen sunlight in a long time. Eyes rimmed with purple circles, his fingernails speckled with black, he had a pointy chin but wide cheekbones and surprisingly brilliant-green eyes. The crease in his arm between the forearm and elbow was taped with a bandage.
“I know you’re caught up in a bad situation.”
Sweat began to bead on Brandon’s forehead. “I’m not going to jail!” he screeched. “I’m not a bad person!”
Stacy watched Brandon give a one-eyed blink. His left hand holding the trigger shook more jarringly.
“So, what are you going to do?” Stacy asked. “Shoot me and pull that trigger? And then do what? Blow up the place? Kill yourself?”
Brandon glanced at his trembling finger. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“For what? Because people think you’re a dirty cop?” Stacy looked up and casually turned her head from side to side. “What’s going on, Brandon? Are you hooked on drugs? Is that what started it? You’re hooked. You can’t stop, and you can’t afford it. And so you become something—someone you’re not.”
Brandon shook his head dismissively.
“We know everything!” Stacy shouted, her voice getting away from her in the moment. She took a long pause and lowered her tone.
“The entire investigations division has been watching you for weeks now. We know the man killed in East Cleveland knew you and that he was a runner for you. They examined the sign-in and sign-out logs during shift changes at the station. There was a pattern of you leaving work early before the shift was over and then leading an organized meeting with your buddies while still in uniform. They believe that the CPD gave their blessing on your activities.”
The rivulets of sweat began to dribble down his nose and land on the dimple in his chin. “Shut up,” Brandon barked. “You know nothing about me!” Brandon straightened his arm and placed a finger tighter around the revolver trigger. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t know anything about your brother or where he is.”
Hearing that made Stacy rock back a bit in her stance. She tried not to focus on what Brandon had said about Chance. Stacy put her hands up, palms facing Brandon. “Okay, fine. Then why all of this? Why meet and do business with the same people we are trying to protect the citizens of Cleveland from?”
The loud, heavy patter of feet overhead created an echoing thud inside the storm cellar. No words were spoken. A thin mist of dust from the old floorboards above came loose, and the granules fell in slow motion between them.
Stacy pointed to the chaos above. “Our friends have made it inside. It’s not going to be long now before the rest of the group is either shot or in handcuffs.”
Brandon looked up for a second. The sounds of feet on the sagging floorboards grew heavy and softer with each step.
“I can help, Brandon, but once my friends come down here, it’s over.”
Brandon lifted an eyebrow and his mouth tilted. “Will I go to jail for the rest of my life?”
“That depends,” Stacy said. “Pointing a gun at me and threatening to blow up this house doesn’t help.”
His eyes became watery, his voice quivered. “Don’t you know what they do to ex-cops in prison?”
Stacy heard footsteps behind her. She held her gaze on Brandon, whose body now trembled. Stacy fixed a stare on the trigger and was ready to pounce if Brandon’s grip on the device loosened.
“What’ll it be, Brandon?”
As Brandon bit down on his lower lip, Austin burst into the room with his M4 carbine pointing straight at Brandon.
Stacy held up a hand, stopping the charge. “He’s got a device with a trigger. The whole house is probably wired to explode.”
Stacy called out to Brandon. “It’s over. Put down the gun, and give us the device.”
Brandon’s eyes darted back and forth between them. He licked his lips and smacked them together. “No. No way. I’d rather us all die before I go to jail.”
Austin breathed heavily behind Stacy. “The house upstairs is secure,” he intoned.
“Come on, Brandon,” Stacy said in a pleading tone with an edge to it. “We’re not going to play games forever. Do you want to be shot?”
Brandon shook his head.
“Then do what I said and put the gun down and give me the device.”
A beat passed. Then, the ceiling above bowed down, and the quick blast of a gunshot could be heard overhead.
Both Stacy and Brandon looked up. Brandon’s face grew stern and menacing, and he lowered the revolver and prepared to press down on the device trigger.
The scene seemed to devolve as Stacy watched in disbelief.
“No!” Austin called out.
Stacy quickly grabbed the Glock .40 from the strap on her belt and fired at Brandon, clipping his shoulder. White-hot light flared off the end of his arm.
Brandon screamed and staggered back. The device lolled loosely in his hand, and Stacy charged him, plowing a shoulder into his chest and knocking him against the cinderblock wall.
Stacy felt the air being whiplashed out of Brandon as they hit the wall, and his body went limp. Stacy reached over and grabbed the trigger. As they both slid to the ground, Stacy pressed her body harder against Brandon, making it impossible for him to squirm away.
Austin came over and took the device. Everyone was panting, trying to draw in the cool stale air in the cellar that pooled around them.
“Take the team and get away from here,” Stacy commanded. “I don’t trust these guys. They may have motion-detecting explosives triggered like the one that already blew up.”
Austin stirred behind Stacy but didn’t move. “No. I’m not leaving you here alone.”
Stacy ignored Austin and grabbed Brandon by the shoulders and slammed him into the wall. A gaping head wound on the back of his head bled down his neck. Brandon tried looking at Stacy, but his eyes danced around in his head. Brandon couldn’t focus his attention on anything.
He moaned, and Stacy lifted his shirt. Too shaky to resist, his arms flayed about like they had no muscles in them.
Austin called out to her. “Stacy...”
Satisfied, Stacy pulled down his shirt. She grabbed the left arm and ripped off the bandage. A small puncture mark in the bend of his arm had bruised, bled, and turned a sickly purple.
“Fresh puncture,” Stacy said, straining to stand him. Stacy knelt and pulled up the leggings on the sweatpants.
“Help me get his shoes off,” Stacy called back.
“Back off, Stacy! Now!”
Stacy ignored Austin. She lifted one of Brandon’s legs on the floor and slammed it straight into the ground. Brandon whimpered and tried pushing Stacy away.
“Where’s my brother,” Stacy hissed. “Where’s Chance?”
Stacy looked down at the tops of both feet and examined the spaces between the toes. She lifted her boot.
"He wasn't taken to the hospital to see me after my injury, and that is your fault. Why was the car hit by that truck? Do you owe somebody a favor? I swear to God, I'll break every one of your toes one by one until you tell me."
Before Stacy could say or do anymore, Austin pulled her away.
“Enough, damn it.” Austin pulled back, and Stacy stumbled, falling back and knockingAustin into the ground.
Brandon collapsed back against the wall and slid down, holding his bleeding shoulder and crying.
Stacy pushed herself up and spun around to face Austin, who had also risen to his feet.
“What the fuck was that? He’s been handled.” Austin’s voice was like ice.
“I think he knows a lot more,” Stacy said, wiping the dust off her lips and spitting on the ground.
“About the drugs or about Chance?”
Stacy eyed him. “They’re both connected.”
“Maybe, but maybe not. We can find that out after we take him into custody,” Austin said.
Brandon moaned again behind them. The humming scream of sirens sounded from outside.
“He’s fine,” Stacy replied, securing and holstering the dropped Glock 22. “The bullet just grazed his shoulder. I want the bastard alive.”
“That bullet fired at close range could’ve blown his damn arm off.”
“Am I missing something here? He had a gun pointed at me, not you, and he was seconds away from blowing us up.”
“Stacy...”
Stacy turned around and immediately looked down, wiping the dirt from her vest.
“Hey,” Austin said, pushing Stacy in the chest. “Look at me.”
Stacy locked eyes with her partner in a steely gaze. Austin turned around and set his jaw and stared right back at Stacy with intent.
“Hold it together. I can’t take the risk of you fighting on after the round is over.”
Stacy pressed her lips into a thin line and let a second pass, avoiding giving back the first inappropriate comment that crossed her mind.
“I’m fine. I’m just doing my job, Sergeant Cerrera.”
Austin lifted an eyebrow and cocked his head. “Go outside and cool off. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Do that,” she said, clipping Austin’s shoulder with her own. She crouched down and climbed out of the cellar. Cops and paramedics were canvasing the clearing and the spaces around the house. The sky above had changed from a watermelon pink to a soft yellow, but a numbing chill still made Stacy shiver. Thin plumes of smoke from the explosion still hung in the air, close to the house.
Across the yard, Stacy could see one of the men was being placed on a gurney and then lifted into the ambulance.
Two other members of the SWAT team gathered around as the ambulance drove away.
Stacy walked toward the front of the house. The wraparound wooden porch was bowed in the middle, and the boards were faded and chipped. First responders walked carefully but quickly around the depressed areas, often looking down to make sure they weren’t stepping into a soft spot that would give way.
Another team member came out of the house with an arm heavily taped and in a sling. Behind him, one of the uniformed cops held an M4 carbine away from his body, almost like he expected it to fire.
“Got another suspect down inside,” the cop said to a paramedic that approached the porch. Stacy surmised that the suspect must have been the victim of the gunshot she’d heard earlier in the cellar.
With a patch that said Barry, one of the SWAT team members approached Stacy, carrying an evidence bag.
“Lieutenant.”
“Barry.” She tossed a look at the ambulance as it drove away. When she looked back, Barry looked forlorn and glanced at the place where his body had rested.
“He’s in pretty bad shape, Lieutenant. It was some type of explosive device in the ground. We were making an assault on the house, and then boom! I searched behind the house and found more of these humped mounds in the ground. They had the whole damn place wired.”
Stacy nodded and took another look at the scene unfolding in front of her.
“I wanted to show you this,” Barry said. He opened the bag and removed the contents.
Stacy stared. “What is that?”
Barry held several partially filled sheets of paper with numerical data written on them. The corners and ends of the pages were stained a light brown.
Stacy squinted and looked closer. Her mouth dropped open.
“There is some type of dirt or grease smeared in the same places on all of these pages.”