Everything I Die For Page 4

  Taking a sip of lukewarm Tito’s, Jonathon reached deeper into the cupboard’s depths and extracted a thin, previously opened box of Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn, the kind saturated with butter or a butter-like substance—with one unopened bag inside. His eyes lit up again. “Okay, I stand corrected. Screw the sadness, for these…are a few of my favorite things.”

  Jonathon set down his mug, ripped open the plastic, and tossed the bag into the microwave. He set the time, tapped the start button, and watched the bag expand under the food nuker’s hazy, grime-covered interior light. It popped away inside, inundating the room with a buttery, saline aroma.

  Steamy-hot, buttery bag of popcorn in hand and a near-bombastic smile on his face, Jonathon hopped merrily down the stairs and around the building onto the sidewalk paralleling H Street. He sniffed the air while stuffing handfuls of popped kernels into his mouth, chomping down and swallowing most of them while remnants stuck to his lips and orphans fell to his shirt. This was as agreeable as he’d felt in a long while. In fact, he could feel his mood making a slight change for the better, and he suddenly felt inspired to take a little stroll, figuring he wouldn’t be visiting Washington again in this lifetime, or the next.

  Jonathon looked ahead toward the bustling areas of Capitol Hill along Massachusetts Avenue. He strolled along the sidewalk carelessly, but about a minute into his walk, an unlikely occurrence served to remind him that returning to the city might not have been such a bright idea after all.

  A car parked near the intersection of H and Massachusetts beside a fourteen-story federal building suddenly exploded into a thousand pieces. Glass and metal debris shot into the air and covered everything in sight as the vehicle flipped over on its side, engulfed in flames. A mushroom cloud of angry black and gray smoke wafted into the air above.

  “Shit,” Jonathon uttered, his brows elevating. Unstartled by the calamity, he simply stopped walking, chewed and swallowed the remnants of popcorn in his mouth, and replaced them. “That’s not something you see every day.”

  Several car alarms nearby were triggered by the shockwave, and a group of screaming bystanders, some bloodied, were sprinting away from the scene. A small group of others injured by the blast were scattered about on the ground both beside and around the vehicle. The federal building sustained considerable structural damage, and every window in every building nearby had been shattered into microscopic bits of silica and dust.

  A screaming woman, panicked, wide-eyed and dragging a child by the arm, sprinted in Jonathon’s direction. “Oh my Lord! Oh my God! Did you see that?” she panted, her other hand to her chest. “What in God’s name was that?”

  Jonathon looked upon her with indifference, then smiled and winked at her youngster. “Looked an awful lot like an explosion to me.”

  “Really? I can see that! I know what an explosion is.” She pointed to the fiery scene. “We were in CVS right over there when it went off. Do you think anyone was hurt?”

  Jon nodded. “I’m certain of it.” He pointed a greasy index finger down the street. “Especially that one guy right over there with half a leg. That shit’s gotta hurt. Don’t see the other half anywhere, though. Too much smoke.” A pause. “Nope, wait,” he said, angling his finger a bit to the right. “There it is.”

  The woman’s face twisted up. “Oh, Jesus…oh, Jesus!” She covered her mouth with her hand. “What could’ve caused it?”

  “His becoming a partial amputee?”

  “No! The explosion!”

  “Oh, that.” Jon shrugged. “Well, based on the pervasive building damage, bodies and body parts strewn about, a car lying on its side and other random carnage, I’m guessing a car bomb.”

  “A car bomb?”

  Jonathon’s hands went into motion as he spoke. “Sure. You take a bunch of parts and build a bomb—forgive me, I’ve constructed several myself before, but for the life of me I can’t recall the ingredients list offhand. Anyway, you put it in a car, connect it to a detonator, and make it go boom somehow.” He grinned. “This is your first time, isn’t it?”

  The woman gave him a stern, unapproving look. “First time? First time for what? Seeing a car blow up like that? Yes! Of course it is!”

  Jonathon cocked his head. “Cool. You know, there’s a first time for everything. My profession has put me a hair too close to those things on occasion…I’ve seen cars blow up like that more times than I can count, but I’ll never forget my first time. You and your kid probably won’t either.”

  The woman scoffed and placed her hands over her son’s ears. “You’re scaring my son.”

  “Lady, a car bomb just blew up in the street,” Jonathon said. “You’re lucky he hasn’t soiled himself.”

  “I-I just don’t believe this is happening,” she lamented, ignoring his remark. “This is America! This isn’t supposed to happen here! We’re not in…Beirut.”

  Jon chuckled. “Give it time.” He then waved and sent a thumbs-up to the little boy, who looked terrified.

  “Give it time?” the woman snapped. “What on earth is wrong with you?”

  Jonathon laughed uproariously. “Are you kidding? What on earth isn’t wrong with me, lady?” He shoveled a pile of popcorn through his lips. “Got any further questions?”

  The woman told her son it was time to take their leave. As they departed, she said, “Come on, sweetie, we’ll go this way. Don’t worry, we’ll find someplace safer.”

  “Where, Mommy?” the boy asked.

  “I don’t know. But we’ll find something. Somewhere.”

  Jonathon shoveled another handful of popcorn in his mouth before rotating his head over his shoulder. “You might consider finding a spot where there aren’t any cars. No cars, no car bombs. That’s my advice, take it or leave it.”

  Jon lingered until he began to feel his sobriety approaching. It wasn’t long after that he decided to heed his own advice.

  Five

  Clarke County, Virginia

  Deputy Jeff Sturdivant slid into the driver’s seat of his cruiser, shifted into drive, and waved goodbye to the trooper as he pulled away from the accident scene. He’d been the first law enforcement officer to arrive, the closest unit in proximity not already engaged when the call had initially gone out. At the point the Virginia State Police had arrived, his services were no longer required, as his department and others like it weren’t typically tasked with collision investigations.

  Jeff accelerated westward along US Route 50, heading toward his normal area of patrol. Glancing down at the cupholder to his right, he reached for a Styrofoam coffee cup and brought it to his lips. He’d stopped for breakfast just before receiving the call, and his coffee had been piping hot then. He’d recalled feeling the scalding temperature even through the insulating waffled cardboard used to protect the consumer’s grasp. Right now, it didn’t feel nearly as scalding as it once had been, at least not according to the feedback he was getting from his fingertips and his lips. It wasn’t even close to lukewarm, but he wasn’t about to throw it out. Hell no, not after spending a hard-earned dollar and ninety-nine cents on it.

  While continuing along the practically vacant highway, nearing the town limits of Boyce, the radio came to life, and a familiar female voice belonging to his dispatcher Linda Parsons emitted over the speaker. “Unit one eleven, this is dispatch calling.”

  Jeff returned his chilled coffee to the cupholder and reached for the mic. Right before he keyed up, Linda called again.

  “Unit one eleven, do you copy? This is dispatch. Over.”

  “Keep your granny panties on.” He cleared his throat and keyed the mic. “This is one eleven; go ahead.”

  “Hey, Jeff. Glad you came back—you had me worried for a second. Can you advise your twenty?”

  Jeff simpered, then shook his head in minor disgust. Clarke County was small both in terms of area and population. It was considerably the most rural county in all of Northern Virginia and maybe even the entire state, having remained as such
thanks to the slow-growth planning put in place by the county’s agricultural and equestrian majority—lots of old farms and ranches, old family names and plenty of old money. The tax revenue the county took in was considerably higher than those neighboring it, and had always provided a surplus of funds, a good portion of which had continually been allotted to the public safety department. As such, the Sheriff’s Department had been able to afford nearly every high-tech law enforcement device and gadget utilized by modern departments in the big cities, including but not limited to state-of-the-art GPS tracking and digital encrypted radio systems with mobile repeaters in every one of their incoming-model-year cruisers.

  If Linda needed to know Jeff’s ‘twenty’, or rather his 10-20, meaning his current location, she didn’t have to ask. She could’ve uncovered it using a few unsophisticated mouse clicks, which even a person with her reduced skill set was capable of.

  Jeff keyed the mic. “Dispatch, one eleven. I’m on Route 50 westbound, approaching Lord Fairfax Highway, just passing the Waterloo McDonald’s. Go ahead.”

  “Okay, ten-four. Looks like you’re gonna be the closest unit, then. I just got a call, report of a possible domestic assault on Gunbarrel Lane down the road from you. Came in on the nine-one-one line. Think you can drive by there and do a welfare check?”

  Jeff sighed and shook his head again. Linda’s lack of professional, formal radio procedure had always annoyed him and was fast approaching intolerability.

  Out of ninety-five counties in Virginia, Clarke ranked seventy-third in population, with a total of around fifteen thousand inhabitants calling it home. It was ninety-first in land area, totaling just over one hundred seventy-six square miles. There was a total of twenty deputies in the county’s Sheriff’s Department, and it sported one of the lowest crime rates in the Commonwealth. Still, in Jeff’s humble opinion, those quaint, small-town features did not in any way justify the careless utilization of over-the-air informality.

  If continuing in this fashion was to become the way of things, they might as well rid themselves of their unit numbers and start using handles like the bandit truckers did on the ungovernable citizens band.

  “Dispatch, this is one eleven. My laptop is up, online, and connected, just like it always is. You can send the info anytime. Mark me as en route and responding.”

  Linda’s voice came back after a pause. “Ten-four, Jeff. I’m sending it to you now…if this doggone computer would just make up its mind. Oh, by the way, sorry about all that trouble we were having earlier with the online lookups and such. Everything—the DMV, NCIC and VCIN have all been giving us loads of grief ever since those planes started crashing. They’re back up now, intermittently, and I got that registration info you requested earlier. I’ll send that too if you want.”

  “Of course I want, you reject,” Jeff said, then keyed the mic. “Ten-four, dispatch. You can send that info along as well so I can file it with my report. If you haven’t already, copy VSP, as I am no longer on the scene.”

  The radio went silent a moment. Jeff slowed his cruiser and watched his laptop’s screen for incoming messages.

  Finally, Linda came back to him. “Jeff, any way you could public service the office?”

  Clarke County was notorious for spotty, unreliable cellular service, irrespective of the carrier. A glance at his Samsung’s signal-strength icon only substantiated the point. “Negative.”

  “Okay. Think you can go to tac?”

  Like all deputies in the force, Jeff knew Linda’s question meant she wanted him to switch to their tactical channel. It was a set of VHF frequencies on which they could communicate directly with no other stations in between except the public safety department’s unmanned repeater. And thanks to the implementation of some advanced, mil-spec software, it was also encrypted and therefore as private as a phone conversation…or at least as one used to be. “Ten-four. One eleven going to tac.”

  Jeff pressed the channel up button until he reached the tactical channel, then keyed up again to announce his presence. “One eleven on frequency.”

  “Hey, Jeff, it’s Linda.”

  Jeff sighed loudly. “I know who you are, for the love of God.” He keyed the mic. “Go ahead with your traffic, dispatch.” He unkeyed. “You dolt.”

  Linda’s voice returned nervously. “Well, I wanted to go to tac because I didn’t want to say this over the air. You never know who’s listening. But the black SUV you called in earlier…it’s coming ten forty-five.”

  Jeff’s left eyebrow shot up in response to the ten code. It’d been some time since he’d last heard it. “Stolen? Well, do tell.”

  “That’s affirmative. The truck returns to an Anthony Foltz of Capitol Hill in northwest Washington, DC. He reported it forty-five just a little while ago, but it’s noted here that it could’ve been gone for a day or maybe longer—not sure how he didn’t notice his car being gone, but whatever. It was last seen in some hotel’s underground garage. Have you ever heard of a place called the Mayflower?”

  Jeff set the mic on his thigh. Something about this report seemed awfully fishy. The SUV wasn’t old by any means. The damn thing was practically brand new, and knowing that, he was surprised it had gotten this far away from home without being noticed, tracked, or disabled remotely. All modern vehicles had these capabilities, using common manufacturer-installed devices. “Linda, didn’t the owner have some sort of—LoJack or something on that thing?” he asked, keying the mic. “How did it get all the way out here without him or anyone else knowing about it?”

  Linda came back, her voice hesitant. “Jeff, I don’t know. I’m only reading what’s on the report. I understand what you’re asking, but I’m only telling you what I’m reading. And there’s nothing on there about that or like that.”

  “Well, you need to get moving on it. First things first, advise VSP. Send them the info and make sure they’re aware, and I mean right now. Get off the radio with me and call them up on the phone if you have to. In fact, see if you can send another unit back to the scene directly while I’m tied up with this domestic, and have him relay the information to the trooper.”

  “Jeff, I’m sorry—I really am, but all other units are tied up with traffic stops and all sorts of craziness. It’s like the whole world went nuts overnight…I don’t have anyone else available.”

  Jeff sighed. “Fine. I’ll go, then. I’ll do it myself.”

  “But what about the domestic?”

  “It’ll have to wait,” Jeff said, switching on his sirens and lights and making a U-turn. “A stolen vehicle takes precedence.”

  Jeff rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand as he contemplated. A stolen vehicle? In this county? This close to his hometown? There must’ve been a reason for having come all this way from the city. Had its purpose been to support a crime of some kind? Or a series of crimes?

  The driver and his passenger definitely hadn’t looked like they’d belonged here. And there was something about them, something Jeff didn’t exactly trust. They were approachable, nice and presentable, yes. But they were far too…approachable. Too nice and far too presentable. Add to that, they were way too poised. Unbothered by what had transpired. It was almost as if they hadn’t cared. It was like they’d been hypnotized. But who were they?

  Whoever they were, it was now clear they’d committed a crime—a serious one. They’d taken someone’s vehicle with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of it. And that was grand larceny—grand theft auto. Or maybe even a carjacking, a violation of Virginia Code 18.2-58.1, punishable anywhere from fifteen years to life in prison. Jeff was going to need to have a chat with the owner, this Anthony Foltz subject, to ascertain the full story.

  His department’s primary mission was providing a safe community through customer-service-based policing. And these well-dressed, well-postured perps had just brought a stolen vehicle into Jeff’s jurisdiction, totaled it, and managed to depart the scene without further incident. They’d even killed a trio of locals i
n the process. No…they’d committed manslaughter—vehicular homicide. Involuntary, yes, but homicide, nonetheless.

  But where had they disappeared to afterward? Jeff didn’t know. But he was going to find out before things got out of hand, and that wasn’t about to happen, not in his county. Not on his watch. The continued safety of his community depended on it.

  Six

  Winchester, Virginia

  Nihayat al’ayam plus 1 day, 9 hours

  When he saw the pearl white Mercedes’s sleek profile headed his way, Chris launched himself from the roadside onto the pavement, a hand raised over his head to catch the driver’s attention. Barbie and Jessi had been right on time, and he’d only needed to walk about a quarter of a mile from his home to their rendezvous point.

  After a disagreement with his dad and some stealthy text messages with his girlfriend and her cousin, Chris had found a way to sneak out of the house under the radar, for the most part. Though his exodus might have seemed unobserved, he had a feeling that his sister Violet might’ve known something about it. The girl wasn’t addicted to stimulants, nor was she an insomniac, she just didn’t require much in terms of sleep for some bizarre reason. If she had seen him go, she might’ve even assumed his plan, which would place her in a prime position to announce his disappearance if and when the situation warranted. But that was just Violet.

  Chris loved his sister, but she did have a tendency to be a supreme pest to him. She wasn’t a tattletale or a meddler, but her priorities and Chris’s were far from being one and the same. Violet’s loyalty to their family, particularly their father, superseded many of her other countless inherent traits. And that loyalty had gotten in Chris’s way at the most inopportune times more often than not.