Hush Hush by Erik Carter (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📗

backslapping, bribe-taking bunch of crooked cops. It’s so much bigger.” She took a deep breath, steadying her resolve. “They run a prostitution ring. It’s called the Well. They give these girls an option: get arrested and go to jail, maybe prison, or join the Well. High- and low-end call girls. ‘Refined’ and ‘crude’ are the terms they use.”

She scoffed, chewed her lip harder, vigorously, like a worn-out piece of chewing gum.

Something else was about to come out of her, something she was fighting on the inside.

She took another deep breath.

“I’m one of the refined,” she said quietly.

Thoughts fluttered through Silence’s mind, joining magnetically, only to form a vortex that funneled back into the depths of doubt, the sole thread of cogent thought, the only connecting element being Amber Lund.

Amber, the dead woman, the daughter of a disappointed father, a father who was a part of a corrupt police division, one running a prostitution ring.

Amber, who was conducting an investigation of her father’s police division, searching for her long-lost surrogate uncle, a man who was also involved in the division.

Amber, who was found with drugs in her body.

Amber, whose best friend was a prostitute.

He looked at Jonah.

Amber, whose love of her life had betrayed her.

She was a woman whose emotional life had been in shambles, right after she was married, right after things were supposed to get better for her. Maybe she’d turned to the world of her father, a dark, corrupt world full of drugs and illegal sex. Silence had seen it before, both in his previous life as a police officer and certainly in his current life as a vigilante assassin—people hitting rock-bottom, self-destructing within the patterns they’d been exposed to all their lives, when there seemed to be no other choice.

His attention strayed over Jonah’s shoulder to Beasley’s picture-perfect townhouse beyond.

Beasley. The key to it all. The person who would lead Silence to the answers about Amber.

And even though Beasley might have been a piece of shit, the bastard was in trouble. Plus, it certainly seemed like the guy had turned his life around.

For that reason alone, aside from the fact that he was the key to the investigation, Beasley was worth saving.

Kim spoke again. “And I—”

“Hold that thought,” Silence said.

He dashed toward Beasley’s front door. A moment later, he heard Jonah and Kim run after him.

At the porch, he put his finger on the doorbell. Stopped. He’d heard something. On the other side of the door. Footsteps. At a run.

Silence pounded on the door.

A shadow flashed across the glass of the peephole.

The door swung open. Beasley stared out at them, looking terrified. He’d taken a beating, his left eye swollen shut.

“You can’t be here,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because he’s here. I … I think he’s here again. I heard something … out back … just before you knocked.”

“Who?”

“Oh, God. Did you hear that? He’s back. You have to leave! He thinks I’m working with you.”

Beasley went to shut the door. Silence threw his hand into the gap, the edge of the door thudding to a halt in his palm.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Some guy. Some enforcer. From the Well.”

A face flashed through Silence’s mind. The blond, curly-haired man, the one who’d been following them all day.

Silence had no more time for questions, delays. He shouldered the door hard, slamming Beasley back. His shoes squeaked on the tile of the entranceway.

He drew his Beretta from the shoulder holster.

“Get out,” he said.

“I can’t leave! He told me I can’t. He threatened my daughters!”

Silence had even less time to argue. If there really was someone in here, not only was Beasley’s life in danger, but now so was Silence’s.

He looked out the door. Jonah and Kim stood on the doorstep, both wide-eyed.

If Beasley was correct and this enforcer was here—

A sound. From upstairs.

Silence bolted to the side, grabbed the handrail, bounded up the steps, three at a time.

To the second floor. Plush carpeting. Built-in shelving on the far wall, loaded with brushed nickel picture frames, photos of Beasley’s daughters. Three doorways. One open, two closed.

Another noise. This one from the ground floor.

Shit.

A violent shuffle. A muffled scream of pain. Another scream, this one from outside the townhouse.

Kim.

Covering himself with the Beretta, Silence returned to the stairwell, cleared the corner, looked down.

And saw Beasley.

On the floor.

Throat slashed. A massive pool of blood spreading on the tile surrounding him. Coughing, blood spouting from his mouth.

Silence leaned over the handrail, looked through the open doorway.

The other two were gone.

Where Jonah and Kim had stood moments earlier, there was now just brickwork and white vinyl railing, bathed in bright sunlight.

Down the stairs. A glance to Beasley. He was nearly expired. Another glob of blood shot from his mouth. His breathing crescendoed. A gurgling exhale. And his head rolled to the side.

The last couple steps. Silence swept his Beretta before him, clearing the threshold. To the door. He looked back at Beasley.

Yes, quite dead.

For a brief moment, Silence had seen light on the horizon, answers about Amber Lund’s fate, a resolution to the chaos.

And just like that, his hopes were expired. They drowned in the pool of blood spreading on the tile around Ray Beasley’s lifeless neck.

Well, shit.

He cleared the doorway. Looked outside.

And saw the man who’d been following them all day.

The curly-haired, blond man, on the far side of the long lawn that fronted the townhouses, running down the sidewalk to the Honda Accord and clutching Kim’s wrist. She stumbled behind him, screaming.

Jonah was just behind them, in pursuit. He grabbed Kim by the free arm, tried to pull her from the man’s grasp, but Mr. Accord sidestepped, slugged Jonah across the jaw. A wet, dull crack, and Jonah collapsed.

Shouts, screams from the sports bar. A few good Samaritans dashed across the street toward the chaos.

Mr. Accord threw Kim into the car through the driver side, and with a quick, practiced motion, he was immediately behind the wheel. The Accord fired up, the tires chirped, and the car zoomed off just as the good Samaritans ran up.

Silence