A stiff embrace, then the women separated. Stella raised a fist and brought it down hard on her chest. Turned and began weaving toward the finish line.
In my peripheral vision I saw uniforms clotting up on the infield, materializing like storm troopers out of a mist.
Beside me, Gus was barking into his phone. Suicide bomber. White tunic. Pink scarf.
A vicious claw clamped down on my heart. I knew protocol. Knew that in seconds snipers would focus their crosshairs on Stella’s brain stem and fire.
The next few moments flashed by like blurred images outside the window of a speeding train.
Ignoring Gus’s shouted pleas, I lowered my head and muscled my way to the edge of the track. Once there, I sprinted toward the finish line. When Stella emerged from the crowd, ten feet up, I checked for one critical detail. Almost cried with relief. Clutched in her right hand was a triggering device.
Body still acting without permission from my higher centers, I rushed up behind her, fingers death-gripping the chin strap of the red equestrian helmet. Sensing danger or hearing movement, Stella spun.
For a blink, our eyes locked. In that heartbeat joining I recognized a passion I knew only too well. The fire in the brain that blocks reason. The flame in the heart that allows only blind compliance.
And I saw something else. Inked on Stella’s right cheek were two interlocking J’s.
Conflicting emotions blast-beat a death metal cadence inside me. Fury. Loathing. Pity.
Stella had succumbed. Had become the very thing I’d battled my whole childhood.
Still.
I didn’t want her dead.
Acting on instinct, I slid my left leg forward, bent my knees, and swung the helmet with all the strength I could muster. The rigid outer shell struck Stella’s right temple with a sound like a rock hitting concrete.
Stella’s head snapped sideways. Her brain sloshed right, slammed hard, then ricocheted left and collided with the opposite inner surface of her skull. Tiny vessels ruptured at both impact sites.
Stella’s lids fluttered, then her eyes rolled up. As her body crumpled, her hand went limp.
The detonator fell free. I kicked it across the ground.
“Move away!” A voice bellowed at my back.
“She’s out cold!”
“Move away!”
“Don’t shoot! She’s a sixteen-year-old kid!”
“Now!”
I stepped back, gaze whipping from Stella to the trio she’d just left. Landmine remained huddled with Shirley Scranton. They hadn’t yet noticed all the blue closing in. Not so Bronco. He was gone.
Fuck! Which way?
Eyes skidding, searching, I began plowing toward gate three. Twenty yards, then, to my right, curses and catcalls, a ripple of outrage snaking fast.
Bronco was moving like a buck caning tall grass. On his head was an Irish flat cap. The aviators had been replaced by black plastic frames holding clear lenses. Reading his direction of movement, I swung the same way, cutting the angle.
Never slowing, Bronco yanked off and tossed the suit coat and tie. He was fast for a guy in steel-toed boots. But not fast enough. When we hit the tunnel I’d drawn to within thirty feet.
The narrow cavern was wall-to-wall revelers. Bronco skimmed along one side, knees and elbows pumping. I followed, breath sounding like thunder in my ears, footfalls like buckshot bouncing off cement.
At one point I heard a series of pops topside. Gunshots? Had Stella resumed consciousness and attempted to rise? An amplified bugle made it impossible to interpret the sounds.
Bronco hooked right at the end of the tunnel and drilled through the jam on Central Avenue. I bull-charged the same path. Those we knocked aside took us for two more rude drunks.
Until Bronco pulled a Kahr P380 from his boot.
People screamed and scrambled to get out of the way. I was glad for their scattering, if not for the gun. The extra space allowed me to kick into high as I fired onto Fourth Street.
The years of jogging twenty miles each week were paying off. My legs were staying strong. Still I felt like I was running through one of my nightmares. Like my feet refused to move fast enough.
Eventually, Bronco veered left and skirted the side of a pharmacy. A few loping strides, then he charged across the street and disappeared into an armada of RV big rigs moored in a vacant lot. I was seconds behind.
Rounding the outermost Winnebago, I saw only amber sun slashing the narrow passages intersecting at right angles between the rows of trailers. No Bronco.
Panic hit me like a rockslide.
I pulled out my burner and dialed Gus. Got voicemail. Pant-whispered, “RVs, Oakdale.”
Disconnected. Stood motionless, face flushed, shirt soaked and stuck to my skin.
From inside Churchill Downs, an announcement, then music, the lyrics muted by distance, but familiar.
The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home….
Far off, crowd noises. People rushing in panic? Nearer to me, a car engine. A cat. Gasping.
Quick scan. A tire iron lay on the Bago’s back bumper. I lifted it and, moving gingerly, crept forward. Two lines of campers, then, shoulder blades pressed to an Airstream the size of cruise ship, I peeked around to check the laneway to my left.
Bronco was doubled over, back to me, so close I could hear the phlegm in his throat, smell the noxious mix of his sweat and cologne. The black specs were gone, the cap. But the long spider fingers still gripped the pistol.
Clutching my weapon two-fisted, I cocked my arms high, a batter at the plate. I was tensing, imagining the soft flesh behind Bronco’s knees, when his torso came around like a snake on a branch. Straightening fast, chest still heaving, he pointed the Kahr straight at my head.
We will sing one song for my old Kentucky home….
The tire iron sliced the air with a high-pitched whir. Landed on bone with a sickening crack. The gun flew from Bronco’s hand and bounced off the orbital rim above my good eye.
Tears blurred my vision. Blood. I ducked sideways. A second too late. The spider fingers wrapped the iron, yanked, and twisted. The shaft slipped through my grasp. One end kissed the side of my head.
A roaring filled my ears, overpowering all sounds but those inside my body. The scene that followed played to an internal symphony of inhalation and pulse.
Bronco wet his lips. Before he could strike again, I stepped back and kicked out. Connected. The iron winged up, then joined the gun on the gravel.
Bronco’s mouth went feral with a silent cry. He came at me swinging wildly, one hand a fist, the other a useless collection of bones and tissue inked with two J’s. Trembling and heaving, he locked both arms around me and squeezed. I felt a pop, air explode from my lungs.
Twisting hard, I broke free and brought my elbow up against the side of Bronco’s nose, felt it shatter, saw the pain register before I hit him again, this time below the nostrils with the heel of my hand. He staggered back against the Airstream, head torqued, blood spurting.
There were people around now. I saw mouths move, maybe goading me on, maybe admonishing me to stop.
Adrenaline and caffeine had me wired from hell to tomorrow. Ignoring the gawkers, and the agony in my rib cage, I hit Bronco again, so hard his skull slammed and dented the metal.
Suddenly, like synchronized puppets, the heads circling us whipped toward Churchill Downs.
Toward the sound of an explosion? Sniper fire?
I kept hammering.
Bronco’s head lashed from side to side, whipping blood and saliva across his face and mine. Trails gleamed on the outer panel of the Airstream, dark and shiny. I hit him again. Wrapped his throat in a death grip as he had once wrapped mine.
Time passed. Seconds? Eons?
Then Gus was dragging me away, one hand on each of my shoulders.
I tried to shrug free. Gus held me like a vice.
“Stop!” Just a movement of lips.
No one circled us now. The onlook
ers had vanished.
I let go. Bronco slid to the ground, hands cupping his nose. I looked down at him, hate-fueled, half-grabbing my breath.
Slowly, inevitably, the fire began to cool, leaving a nasty burning low in my gut.
“Landmine and Scranton?” I shouted to Gus, too loud.
“—FBI—” A fragment of his reply broke through.
“Stella?” Palming blood and spit from my cheeks.
Gus took my arm, eyes full of something I couldn’t read.
Legs shaky and unsteady, I allowed myself to be led.
The air was muggy and filled with the sounds of traffic, birdsong, and frond rustle. I could smell honeysuckle and fresh-cut grass, taste salt on my upper lip.
Because I was sweating inside a long-sleeved black jersey shift. Bad choice, but my only dress.
Not yet June and the low country was in full summer mode.
I was doing my perspiring outside Charleston’s First Baptist Church. Beyond the curlicue iron fencing, Church Street stretched as a still life in Southern genteel—shuttered windows, balconied courtyards, overprivileged geraniums bubbling from window boxes and pots.
Inside the three sets of doors at my back, the memorial service was winding to a close. Gus was in a pew. Opaline Drucker. Peter Crage. Others I didn’t know.
I tried but couldn’t go in. Call me heathen, or damaged, or plain old nuts. I spent my youth with people under the influence of zeal. Or whatever.
Organ chords leached out into the day’s glare. Voices warbling “Amazing Grace.” They were swinging into a second chorus when Roy Capps exited, stepping quick, like a guy trying to beat the parking lot rush. On seeing me, he stopped short, surprised or embarrassed.
“Ms. Night.”
“Detective.”
“How’s it going?”
“I’ve spent merrier afternoons.”
“You’re telling me.” Nodding toward a gravestone propped against the wall to my right.
We both took a moment to study the epitaph. The engraving was fresh, like white bone carved into the dark gray marble. Names. Dates of birth and death.
My gaze lingered on the final line.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
“Would have helped if Drucker had reported the con right off,” Capps said.
“A lot of things might have helped.”
My words hung between us in the humid air.
“Shirley Scranton talking?” I asked.
Capps snorted. “The old harpy’s got stone cojones. Actually, she’s fairly young. Fifty-four.”
“Bronco and Landmine?”
“Turning on each other like hammerheads on blood.”
My eyes drifted back to the headstone. “How’d Stella end up with these mutants?”
“She was injured by the blast and blundered into the street. The woman riding shotgun in the Forester—”
“Tibby Icard.” The murder vic in Bronco’s photo. The woman whose reaction had troubled me.
“Yeah. Icard planned to drop the kid at an ER. Not sure her motivation. Anyway, it didn’t happen. Shirley Scranton saw Stella’s capture as a ticket to fame and glory. Shock the world with footage of a nice middle-class kid blowing herself up for the cause.”
“What’s the story on Jihad for Jesus?” Feeling a wave of anger, thick and tangled.
“The group wasn’t large, maybe a few dozen. Those with criminal records need not apply.”
“Just God-fearing Christians willing to kill.” I swallowed. “What was Harkester’s story?”
“He and his brother enlisted in the army straight out of high school, did that buddy thing, served together five times in Iraq and Afghanistan. Three years ago, the brother was killed in a suicide bombing at a checkpoint north of Baghdad. Harkester chose not to re-up, dropped off the grid. Last August he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, died thirty-four days later at Northwestern Hospital in my fair city.”
Four months after bombing a Jewish girls’ school. I tried to muster sympathy. Came up empty.
“Was the target always Churchill Downs after the Bnos Aliza fail?”
“Scranton was considering several options, thus the dispersed troops—Chicago, D.C., L.A. You know what swayed her?”
I shook my head.
“American Pharoah. She read about the horse, assumed Egypt, assumed Islam.”
I could think of no response to such stupidity. Such insanity.
“Scranton kept each group in the dark about the others,” Capps went on. “About the target.”
“Except Bronco.”
“Yeah. Bronco was her go-to guy.”
“Landmine must have wondered why he was shunted to a feed store in Indiana.”
“Landmine’s not a deep thinker.”
A carriage clopped by, guide yakking history, tourist faces pointed our way. The horse was brown and looked hot and bored.
“Scranton bankrolled everything,” Capps said. “Owned the building on Argyle Street.”
“Generous. Provided housing and her daughter.” I pictured a Sox cap lit by the moon. “Where’s Kerr now? Denise?”
“Locked up in Louisville.”
“What’s she facing?”
“They could hit her with accessory, aiding and abetting, conspiracy, the list is long. And there’s the matter of the passports. But I doubt she’ll be charged. Apparently her IQ barely claws out of the seventies.”
“And she was raised by a lunatic.”
“And that.”
A match flamed in my chest as the parallels slammed home anew. Kerr had been shaped by childhood forces beyond her control. I’d missed the signs.
“Scranton stabbed her own son?” I knew the answer.
“She denies it. But the knife was from her kitchen and John’s blood was in her car. We’ll get her.”
There was an undercurrent to his voice. I believed him.
“Have you ID’d the fourth bomber? The guy Landmine capped on Rose Avenue?”
“Janois Thomas. Jano. His uncle died in the U.S. embassy bombing in Lima in 2002.”
Capps’s gaze slipped to the courtyards and geraniums and retreating buggy. Up the block, an old man in a bow tie and suspenders was encouraging his poodle to pee on a hydrant.
“How did Scranton rope people into her lunacy?” I asked.
Capps’s eyes came back to my face.
“Her kids had no choice. The others she recruited through an organization that helps the families of terrorism vics. By the way, it was Scranton who spotted your online posts. And this is rich. The dog hair found in the Forester came from her Rottweiler. We’re thinking a bomber was in her house, picked it up, and transferred it to the SUV.”
“Nailed by your own pooch.”
“His name’s Infidel.”
“One of the email handles on Kerr’s computer. Brilliant.”
Capps nodded.
“Who sent the threatening email to me in Venice?
[email protected]?”
“Bronco.”
“Bronco also made the original ransom demand?”
“At Scranton’s direction. They figured why not score a little cash, maybe send the police down a blind alley. They forced the quote out of Stella, at that time living in a little funhouse in the crawl space of Scranton’s house.”
“She willingly posed for the pic Bronco sent with his email?”
“Wrapped the belt around her own throat.”
An image began to shape up. I quick-slashed it into oblivion. Changed direction.
I knew how they’d gotten their explosives into Churchill Downs—faked credentials for the vendor area, and Landmine planted inside at a feed store supplying the barns—but not the final plan.
“How was the Derby supposed to go down?” I asked.
“Triggering by signals from three different cellphones. Scranton was to handle the Lockheed Martin tent from the far side of the infield, near the tunnel.”
“For a swift exit.”
“Landmine was
dressed as a waiter. He was to get the second bomb up from the food service area hidden in a cart, stay close enough to the Godolphin suite for detonation, far enough out for a safe getaway. Bronco was dressed as security to get access to the horse barns. Stella was to stand on the finish line.”
“Four bombs, not three.”
“Apparently Stella was iffy until the last minute, and mere frosting on the cake. After detonation of the Lockheed Martin bomb, with news rats broadcasting their close-ups worldwide, she was to blow herself up, taking out survivors and immediate first responders.”
“Good thing we were there for the go-down.” Too pumped.
Capps took a moment. Then, “You have a chip on your shoulder, Ms. Night. And an aversion to authority. That combination will not serve you well.”
“I—”
Capps cold-checked me in mid-retort. “Going lone wolf was reckless and irresponsible.”
My throat clenched.
“Thank you.”
That caught me off guard. Unsure I’d heard right, I said nothing.
Moments later, the center set of doors swung open. With the organ exhaling something appropriately uplifting, people filed out.
Leading the exodus was Gus, in a pin-striped black suit over a black silk tee. Shiny black loafers, white socks. A flicker in his expression, then he crossed to us.
I made introductions. “My twin brother, August Night.”
“Gus.” Extending a hand toward Capps.
Capps reached out. They shook.
“Literally?” Eyes ping-ponging between Gus and me. “Twins?”
“Spit don’t lie,” said Gus.
Years back, home on leave and overserved, I’d agreed to an online DNA test. Gus’s idea. We’d gotten our pie chart and bazillion-in-one probability statement confirming the story we’d been told while growing up. I suspect Gus took it further, maybe talked Beau into running samples through CODIS, looking for a cold hit on dear old dad. Didn’t ask. Didn’t care.
“Note the green eyes.” Gus widened said eyes.
“Irish mother,” I said.
“I’m black Irish,” Gus said.
“That’s not what the term means,” I said.
Capps had the confused look of a man whose cable has gone out in the middle of the game. He opened his mouth to comment. Reconsidered and closed it.