Dead Burn

  DEAD BURN

  by

  Jennifer Chase

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  JEC PRESS

  DEAD BURN

  Copyright © 2013 by Jennifer Chase

  Author Blog/Website: http://authorjenniferchase.com/

  This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

  PROLOGUE

  “After thoroughly reviewing the evidence of this case, the court has determined that there’s insufficient evidence to proceed.”

  Low muffled cries filtered throughout the courtroom.

  Judge Christensen peered over his reading glasses at the defendant and his high-priced attorney. Disdain was evident in his voice inflection with the distinct syllable emphasis on the word in-suf-fi-cient.

  He took a stilted breath and continued, “Timothy Devlin, you are released from these proceedings, and free to go.”

  The young man grinned and eagerly shook his attorney’s hand. He stood up, dramatically turned to the courtroom gawkers, and raised his hands in a cheesy victory salute. His sinister grin turned into a full-faced smile. It was obvious he loved every minute of the attention he garnered. He had beaten the system with the help of his pit-bull lawyer.

  A commotion broke out in the courtroom galley among onlookers. A few angry voices boomed above the escalating noise, “Rapist! Rapist!” and “Evil shouldn’t be allowed to go free!”

  Murmurs, gasps, and cries continued to echo throughout the courtroom. It made it difficult to differentiate statements between the angry words and oppositions.

  The prosecutor tried to compete with the crowd’s outbursts as he stated to the court, “With prejudice your honor.”

  “Noted,” replied the judge. He stood up. “Clear the courtroom now!”

  Four sheriff’s deputies moved from their strategic vantage points to guide the men and women from the courtroom. It took a few minutes, but they accomplished their arduous task.

  Assistant District Attorney Joshua Richards bypassed most of the crowd, skirted out of the courtroom, and did not pause to hear more critiques about his job performance. There were a few additional shouts of profanity and evil doom-wishers before the only remaining occupants were the defense counsel and the defendant.

  The noise level instantly ceased to that of an abandoned classroom.

  Chad Bradford slipped the rest of his court notes back into his designer brief case, still with a look of smug satisfaction on his face. That made fourteen rape cases acquitted in the past six months. It didn’t matter that this case was pro bono; more high profile cases with a heavy price tag would soon follow. His smile still radiated as he slipped the lucky gold pen back inside his jacket pocket.

  Everything that any halfway decent attorney needed stared right into their faces; they just had to know where to look, and how to slant it to their advantage. It was simple. He had the best job in the world – power, money, and an endless supply of sex.

  Who could ask for anything more?

  A cell phone buzzed from inside his pocket. Quickly he retrieved it, and the text read: Baby meet me – u won’t be sorry

  “You off to celebrate?” The newly freed defendant asked.

  “Maybe for an hour and then it’s on to the next case,” reflected Chad. “You going to be okay getting out of the courthouse without being mobbed? I could have a deputy escort you.”

  “Nah, I’m outta here.” The young man smoothed his hair, which seemed to stoke up his smirk once again. “It’s been real.” He shook Chad’s hand again and then sauntered from courtroom.

  Chad took a moment to breathe as he gathered his thoughts on some of the upcoming cases currently sitting on his judicial plate. He had an interview at Soledad State Prison with a serial rapist charged in seven cases, and the victims kept mounting; it could be as many as thirteen by the end of the week. Without DNA evidence, the case did not scare Chad in the least, but amped his adrenaline with a new manipulative courtroom challenge. He would have his private investigator Zig Rodriquez gather dirt on all of the female complainants. By his estimation, the district attorney’s case would soon crumble and blow away in the wind. He would play the criminal justice system and win once again.

  His cell phone buzzed again.

  This time the text message instructed Chad to an address in the downtown area. It made him smile. A quickie in the afternoon was what he needed to refocus his energy.

  He left the empty courtroom.

  * * * * *

  Chad eased his sleek black BMW up to the curb and kept the engine idling, his GPS directed him to an abandoned location. He stretched his neck precariously as he leaned across the passenger’s seat and peered out the window, trying to get a better vantage of the dilapidating building.

  The business had been an independently owned hardware store throughout the late eighties and into the mid-nineties, but remained vacant ever since. They couldn’t compete with all the super stores and Internet sites monopolizing the consumer market.

  The storefront windows, which once housed large displays, were now boarded up with heavy plywood and swathed with flyers of lost items and pets, work at home scams, and black and red graffiti emblems from rival gangs. Adjacent storefronts, torn down five years previously, had only chain link fences marking their once existence.

  The only other car on the back alley was a rusted Toyota truck missing the back tires and driver’s side window. Some flyers had scattered along the broken sidewalk and continued to tumble down the street. The breeze kicked up another notch as more litter blew along the pavement.

  “What the hell?”

  Chad looked around and double-checked the address once again from his phone. He was at the correct location, at least according to his phone application.

  He dialed Abby’s number and it went immediately to voice mail. He listened for a moment to hear her sexy voice apologizing for not being available before he ended the call. It must be some kind of kinky game.

  Well okay, I can play too.

  He finally turned off the engine and sat a moment before he disengaged the door locks. This place would definitely take his mind off work. He could use some down time with a little adventure to feed his soul. He hoped that no one would jack his car in the meantime.

  Chad opened his door and stepped out, he still monitored his surroundings, but it was quiet and deserted. He shed his suit jacket, grabbed his brief case, and put everything into his trunk, except for a small handgun he casually dropped into his trouser pocket. He didn’t want to be another crime statistic, and this was one instance being a lawyer could get him killed.

  As he walked back to the front of the car, he caught a brief refection of himself in the window, and it always amazed him that he was so handsome with dark brown hair and a medium muscular physique. No wonder Abby found him so attractive and many others for that matter.

  “How the hell do I get into this place?” He muttered to himself.

  Chad secured his car alarm with a gentle push of a button from the gold keychain.

  Nothing had changed on the quiet street, no one appeared, no slow moving cars checked out his expensive ride, and no homeless people materialized from tucked away locations in the alleyway asking for spare change.

  It was dead quiet.

  One of the sections of the chain link fence was broken and forcibly curled backward, as if a huge wind had transformed it. He decided to scope out the building and easily squ
eezed through the metal barrier.

  Pieces of trash, rotten food, various sized recycling cans, and weathered cardboard littered the empty lot, but didn’t mask the unappealing sweet-sour stench.

  Chad tried not to inhale too deeply as his stomach churned the more he thought about the snaking filth all around him. He hoped that the interior of the building was clean and sanitary as he unconsciously wrinkled his nose and pursed his lips tightly together.

  He made his way around to the back of the building, carefully examining each step in order not to soil his Italian, handmade loafers. A metal door caught his eye. It led directly to the alley and it appeared strangely out of place. The doorknob glistened bright silver, sparkling clean, without smudges or fingerprints. It imbibed the late sunlight and expelled a star shadow trail with long sliver points, reflecting around the alley.

  The high-tech door stood out against the run down building. There were no available windows, just more disintegrating pieces of plywood bolted onto the building, layer after layer, from the years of neglect.

  Chad swallowed hard as his mouth went dry, licking his lips in nervous tension. He blinked his eyes several times to try to stop the slight dizziness that crept into his view. It made the door and the crumbling building vie for his attention.

  He stared at the doorknob for what seemed like an hour, but in reality, barely five seconds had passed. Finally, with his right hand, he reached for the grip and twisted. It turned easily in his grasp.

  He let go and backed up two steps, still staring at the closed door.

  Something deep inside told him to retrieve the .22 from his pocket.

  It could be so easy to leave and return to his car, but an unseen force pushed him to move forward, if not for some great sex, then at least out of fundamental curiosity.

  Chad was out of his element and he liked the feeling of being in control of his destiny in a foreign setting, and never knowing what could jump out at him. The adrenalin surged through his veins, down his arms and legs, and pumped in unison with his heartbeat in an orchestras’ tempo. It kept perfect time.

  Chad grabbed the door handle, turned it, and pushed the door inward. A whoosh sound from the suction of the tight weather stripping dulled the ordinary outdoor noises. A crazy heartbeat now hammered in his ears. He felt the small gun in his left hand, smooth, precise, which made him feel invincible, like a superhero in an action movie.

  He entered.

  The door automatically closed behind him with barely a sound.

  The long corridor was almost completely dark, but low lights appeared from the molding along the bottom of the walkway. The windows were now part of the building, and not even a crack of daylight shone through the haphazard boards.

  “Abby?” Chad announced.

  He was surprised that his voice seemed weak and small. He wasn’t expecting to play hide and seek in an old building, and now his nerves had transformed into anxious energy.

  A thought suddenly occurred to him, this place would make a perfect location for a surprise party. His birthday was next week. That welcoming thought soon faded. He licked his dry lips, moved his chalky tongue, and he realized that his palm left a sweaty residue around the pistol.

  “Okay, you got me.” He tried to sound casual. “I followed the bread crumbs.”

  Silence greeted him.

  Chad glanced down and noticed that the floor looked clean; it was as if someone had meticulously swept it, and he thought he could smell a hint of industrial floor polish. Odd, he considered as he continued to move forward, deeper into the building.

  The corridor led into another part of the structure through a doublewide doorway, which once housed a holding area for inventory merchandise as well as the main hub for shipping and receiving.

  His eyes adjusted to the darkened rooms.

  Several plain brown boxes sat in the far corner.

  The two heavy doors slammed shut with such an incredible force that made Chad jump, goose bumps instantly raised on the back of his neck and down his arms. He quickly moved toward the closed doors, but there weren’t any doorknobs or handles to open them.

  “Okay, you can come out now.” He didn’t care that his voice sounded nervous.

  “Mr. Bradford” A calm man’s voice with disturbing clarity filled the room.

  Chad spun around, but there wasn’t anyone in the room with him. The voice seemed to materialize from nowhere, and yet everywhere.

  “Mr. Bradford, do you know why you’re here?”

  “What is this? Who are you?” He kept turning slowly expecting to see someone enter, but no one did.

  “It’s your sentencing.”

  “What? I don’t understand…”

  “You have sinned and now you must pay the price.” The voice changed to a higher pitch.

  “You’re out of your mind! Open the doors now!” He remembered that the gun was in his hand. Jabbing it out in front of him, he moved it in jerky motions from corner to corner.

  “That isn’t going to save you.” The eerie voice narrated like a parent reprimanding a naughty child.

  “Is this some kind of sick joke?” Chad moved around the room, even though there wasn’t anywhere to go.

  “It’s no joke.”

  The monotone inflection of the voice wormed inside Chad’s head, and deep within his core. He knew it was human, but he pictured a futuristic robot presiding over him.

  “I said open the doors now!” The lawyer demanded.

  “Do you know how ridiculous you look? You’re weak and pathetic. You had much more confidence spewing lies in the courtroom.”

  Chad felt his heart pounding faster as he gasped for air. It was years since his panic attacks had surfaced, due to work related stress, but now in the darkened room that familiar dread of anxiety crept back into his body.

  “C’mon Mr. Bradford, you know exactly why you’re here.”

  Chad waved the gun to each dark corner and squeezed off two shots, bullets zinged around the room. He realized that there were small speakers in each corner where the phantom voice emitted. He aimed the gun and fired several more shots at those general areas, but the blasts only managed to hurt his eardrums.

  Chad dropped his empty gun on the floor. “What do you want from me? You want me to apologize for my job? Is that it?”

  “Your greed spreads more filth. You covet, commit adultery, and most of all… you knowingly defend rapists and murderers.”

  “Oh, so I’m guilty. Guess you just skipped over something called the Constitution, due process, and innocent until proven guilty.”

  “You have free will and you’ve chosen your sins… so now you’ve sealed your fate.”

  “Who are you?!”

  No response.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you!” Chad kicked his gun and the weapon slid across the floor to a couple of stacked boxes. “Coward!” He managed to say. “Show yourself!”

  In desperation, Chad tried to find a way out of the room. He ran his fingers over the doors and down the walls. There weren’t any gaps, cracks, or hardware that would allow him to pry it open to escape.

  Chad caught the distinct odor of smoke and spun around to face the boxes. The cubed cartons began to burn. A small flame ignited from each of them and cast a macabre light around the room. He could see wires and small plastic boxes, along with what he counted to be six small speakers.

  “Let me out of here!” Chad beat his fists on the doors, but it barely made an audible sound. The doors were steel reinforced and heavily insulated.

  Within minutes, smoke filled the room, and floated effortlessly in ghostlike apparitions.

  Chad coughed and gagged.

  He dropped to the floor and slowly crawled to one corner. He tried to breathe in a normal manner, but gasped for air in between violent fits of coughing.

  After three minutes, he faded into unconsciousness and slumped against the double doors. He never heard or felt the explosion that obliterated the one room in the old hardwar
e store.

  The carefully orchestrated burn completed its job.

  The intensity of the blaze ripped apart Chad Bradford’s bones, and it included a quick decapitation, which left few charred human remains.

  The fire had burned down to a smoldering, smoky remnant before the fire department arrived on the scene.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Saturday 2300 Hours

  The black SUV sped down the dirt road in the middle of the night, bouncing left and right from each uneven dip in the broken pavement. The gravel and dirt battered the undercarriage with a high-pitched sputtering noise. Dust encrusted the windshield distorting the view ahead, but the neglected street conditions didn’t slow the urgency of what was at stake.

  Emily Stone rode shotgun, solemn, spine straight, with an unwearied attention. She stared straight ahead at the rushing road, but her mind remained only on the two nine-year-old twin sisters abducted from a neighborhood playground only three days earlier.

  Anxiety rolled through her mind, but she didn’t externally show it, not even to her partner. Her biggest fear was arriving at the rural compound too late. It was something that she would not allow herself to contemplate in her covert pursuits – ever.

  She worked tirelessly to piece together the clues from the playground, family members, and the surrounding camera technology, which eventually prompted her in the right direction. The rest was pure intuition and dogged experience.

  “How many more miles?” Emily asked, tapping her fingertips nervously on the armrest.

  “Rolling up to sixteen-five.” Rick stated as he turned his head to look at his impatient partner.

  Emily double-checked her cell phone again on the directions – it was approximately nineteen miles to the location. She knew that the rural site wasn’t marked on the digital map and that they were relying solely on technology updates, and some much welcomed luck to find the exact location.

  “Maybe we should have alerted authorities?” She said.

  “Em, your instincts are always right on. The police would have stormed the location in military formation and both of those girls would be dead before they even got out of their cars. The best plan of attack is to find and rescue the girls, and once they’re safe, then call in the local cops.” He looked at her. “It’s been our protocol and it’s worked well.”