Hollow's Eve Read online

  When he arrived, he scoped out the two-story house, moving inch by careful inch through every part of the grounds to make sure that he was alone. Then he hid out in the foyer of the abandoned house, peeking out the front window and waiting.

  Another minute passed.

  Then he heard tires crunching gravel.

  A ways down the dirt road, right where it turned onto the highway, a sedan and a beat-up van moved toward the front of the house and stopped several yards from the door.

  Hoyt, Messer, the cook from the diner, and an unknown man dressed like a trucker piled out of the car and the van and stood behind their doors with guns in their hands.

  Vincent saw the cook turn to Messer and Hoyt and shrug. Messer then moved in front of the sedan. “Vincent!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

  Vincent waited.

  Think…

  “I want to see her first!” Vincent blurted out.

  All eyes fell to the house.

  “Come on out here, pal,” Messer said. “Easy way or the hard way.”

  “To hell with you! Show me Brandt or I’ll start shooting. And don’t think that I don’t know that the FBI is starting to sniff out your bullshit!”

  Messer and Hoyt exchanged looks. It was somewhat of a bluff on Vincent’s end—but he had bluffed correctly.

  “Okay,” Hoyt said, moving toward the back of the van. “Your call, Vincent.”

  Hoyt, along with the cook, threw open the back door to the van. Brandt, her hands bound and mouth sealed with duct tape, was pulled from the back and put on display for Vincent.

  Hoyt stood behind Brandt, coiled his arm around her neck, and pressed his Glock to her temple.

  Vincent lit up when he saw Brandt. Her appearance was tattered, but her eyes still fiery.

  “Come out now,” Hoyt ordered Vincent. “You have five seconds. Otherwise, your partner here is dead.”

  Vincent counted the seconds off as he thought of his next play.

  You have to move.

  You have to move now.

  Vincent saw the cook was inching toward the front of the house with a shotgun in his hand, nerves pouring off him in thick sheets of sweat.

  Hoyt was using Brandt as a shield, Messer was hiding behind the driver’s-side door of the sedan, and the trucker was lingering near the sedan.

  Vincent knew that this wasn’t going to end well if he gave up, that he and Brandt were boxed in and the only choices were to comply or to fight.

  Vincent’s decision was to fight.

  He stood back, aimed at the cook through the window, curled his finger around the trigger—and that was when Brandt threw the back of her head into Hoyt’s already busted nose. Hoyt screamed in pain and fell to his knees as Brandt spun around and threw yet an elbow into his face.

  “Son of a bitch!” Messer shouted as he turned and raised his gun.

  Vincent saw that the cook now had his back to him as he turned to the commotion behind him.

  Now!

  Vincent raised the Beretta and pulled the trigger. Three shots buried themselves in the cook’s back, spun him like a top, and dropped him to the porch with a thick and hard thud.

  Vincent then took aim in Messer’s direction and fired off two more shots, the rounds missing Messer as he dove into the sedan.

  Brandt retrieved the Glock from a disoriented Hoyt and raised the weapon just as the guy at the rear of the sedan raised his own. She fired off two shots that hit him in the heart, stopping him dead.

  Messer turned the key, threw the car into reverse, and backed out the dirt driveway.

  Vincent emerged from the house. Brandt stood up. Both of them ran after the sedan as Messer turned the car in a one-eighty and sped off for the highway—in the direction of Hollow Green.

  “Shit,” Brandt said.

  Vincent turned to her. “That was risky as hell,” he said. “You have no idea how lucky we just got.”

  “Oh, I know. Believe me. We only had two options left: kill or try to kill. Right?”

  Vincent smirked, relieved to be alive and just as relieved to see that Brandt was too. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  A groan came from behind them. Vincent and Brandt turned to see Hoyt trying to stand up straight.

  “You know what,” Brandt said. “I have some questions for Mr. Broken Nose over here.”

  “Yeah.” Vincent pocketed the Beretta and moved toward Hoyt with a clenched fist. “Same here.”

  34

  “We can’t stay here long,” Vincent said as he tossed Hoyt on the floor of the abandoned house. “I don’t know what Messer is up to.”

  Brandt, after using a knife that she found in the cook’s pocket to free her restraints, pointed to Hoyt and said, “He does.”

  “Good point.” Vincent got down on one knee in front of Hoyt. “Let’s just hope I don’t have to smash the rest of his face to get the answers we need.”

  Hoyt was a mess—his hair was tousled, his nose looked like ground beef, and dark circles were pooling under his eyes as he looked at Vincent in a haze. “Let me go,” he said. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

  Vincent shook his head. “No more. No more orders, no more phone calls. You’re in my world now. I know what’s going on, I know you’re behind something, and what I want is the answers to all my lingering questions, and then you will be held accountable for all the shit you’ve put us through.”

  “I need a hospital.”

  “You’ll need it worse if you don’t play ball,” Brandt said.

  “She’s right,” Vincent said. “Look at your situation. Look at where you are now. There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and no one left to bullshit. You get that, right? You understand how dire this situation is?”

  Hoyt took a moment to look around, to breathe through his broken nose, and finally accept that he was completely and utterly screwed.

  He hung his head. “What do you want to know?

  “Everything,” Vincent said. “Tell me why this is happening. Who killed Ethan Travis? Who killed Desiree Messenger?”

  Hoyt smirked. “Of all things you could ask me. That’s the one thing I don’t know.”

  Vincent wanted to hit Hoyt with his gun, but he could see that Hoyt was telling the truth.

  “What do you mean?” Vincent asked.

  “All I know is that there’s three of them,” Hoyt said. “Three killers…but I’m not the one who recruited them.”

  Vincent and Brandt exchanged looks. “Make it make sense,” Brandt said to Hoyt.

  Hoyt drew a breath. “The kids that were killed,” he said, “were…customers of ours.”

  “Whose customers?”

  “Myself. Messer. Delores. The cook. They were our…clients. Our buyers.”

  Brandt shook her head. “You were dealing them drugs,” she said. “You were the ones who were giving them performance enhancers?”

  Hoyt looked away and nodded. “It was easy,” he said. “Delores overhears these six shitheads who called themselves the A-Listers talking it up in her diner about a year ago.”

  “About what?” Vincent asked.

  “About taking drugs,” Hoyt said. “They were talking up a storm about how much better they would play if they had ‘juice in their systems,’ but they really didn’t know where to get it.”

  “So Delores decides to become a drug dealer because of that? I’m supposed to believe that’s what happened?”

  Hoyt leaned forward. “She already was a drug dealer. You really think my sister’s diner is doing well enough that she can afford that mortgage of hers?”

  “Brother?” Brandt said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Hoyt closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “She’s my sister. Well, half-sister, anyway.”

  Vincent pointed a finger at him. “And you were the one who ran interference for with her little…operation.”

  “She started off small,” Hoyt said. “Pot. E. Recreational stuff that she was getting from g
rowers a couple of towns over. The kids in the town couldn’t deal drugs.” He nodded at Vincent. “You were responsible for that.”

  Brandt looked at her partner. “What is he talking about?”

  Vincent crossed his arms. “Two years ago,” he said, “right after I became chief, I started cracking down on the drug use at the high school. Busted a couple of dealers who were selling to kids, worked my way up the food chain, and then busted their suppliers. It was a big deal. Made a few friends in the DEA as a result. I implemented certain search protocols at the school and a couple of other precautionary measures to make sure that drugs were staying out of the schools.”

  “And it worked,” Hoyt said. “And that’s when Delores realized that all the attention that you were focusing would have never, ever be focused on someone like her—a middle-aged woman with a decent business and a chipper attitude. Everyone loves her.”

  “So Delores went Breaking Bad on me?” Vincent said.

  Hoyt shrugged. “Take a woman’s children away from her—you never know what she’ll be capable of.”

  Vincent turned to Brandt. “You said her kids passed away? A daughter and a son?”

  Brandt responded, “Yeah. Not that long ago.”

  “Three years,” Hoyt said, shaking his head. “But she never got over it. No parent could. Delores practically…transformed overnight. She wasn’t the same person. Not long after that was when she decided to… Well, you know the rest of the story.”

  “I do,” Vincent said. “And you assisted her in making all of that happen.”

  “She’s manipulative. You have no idea. Plus, of course I would—she’s my sister.”

  “But it’s still no excuse for dealing drugs to children.”

  Vincent walked away for a moment to get his head together.

  “So,” Vincent said, “I’m assuming you know Delores’ supplier? The one who’s providing her with the drugs?”

  Hoyt hesitated for moment. “I do. And I know how she was using the diner to launder the money she was making. I’ll tell you everything. I accept that the jig is up…but I’m not dishing out all the nitty-gritty details until I know that I’m safe. I’m your only salvation. You know that. I’ll play ball like you ask—but I have my own terms, too.”

  Vincent said to Brandt, “His confession is our way out of here.”

  “So we just walk him back to the station?” she asked. “Is it that easy?”

  Vincent thought about it. “Not exactly,” he said. “But maybe that’s where our FBI friend comes into play. Can I see your cell?”

  Brandt produced her phone from her pocket—and right then, it started to ring.

  “Who is it?” Vincent asked.

  “Don’t know. It’s a Hollow Green area code,” Brandt said.

  “Answer it.”

  She did.

  And her eyes went wide with horror.

  35

  Messer had called Delores on his cell a after he fled the scene, cradling his broken arm in a sling.

  “Are they dead?” Delores asked. “Is it finished?”

  “No,” Messer said. “They got the drop on us. Vincent and Brandt are in the wind. Hoyt was still at the scene after I left.”

  A long pause from Delores. “This is no good,” she said. “We need to wrap this up.”

  “How? They killed Bobby, Dug, and now they have Hoyt. They might be sweating him as we speak!”

  “No one has gotten wise to what’s going on besides them. We need to meet up, come up with a plan, and then go after them. All of them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Another pause. “My brother is a liability now. We don’t know what he’s telling them, what he could be telling them. He’s toxic to us, and he needs to be dealt with accordingly.”

  Messer couldn’t believe what she was saying. “You’re saying kill him?”

  “Yes, Messer,” Delores said. “All of them. We just need something to bring him in, some way of drawing them back out into the open.”

  Messer scoured his brain, trying to think of something, anything that could assist him and Delores with their dilemma.

  And then something occurred to him.

  “Wait a second,” he said. “Vincent has a daughter, doesn’t he?”

  “A daughter?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know her name. But I know that she exists.”

  “Does she live with him? I know where Vincent’s house is.”

  “I’m not sure,” Messer said. “But it’s worth checking out.”

  Delores said, “Good call. I’m closing up and heading there now.”

  Claire was zoned out in front of the television, not really paying attention, as she was trying to figure out where her father was.

  I hope he’s okay, she thought. His partner Brandt said it would all be okay, but I know something is wrong.

  Claire wanted so desperately to rekindle her relationship with her father. But it seemed like no matter how much time had passed and how much effort she made, Hollow Green and Vincent’s life as a detective always seemed to get in the way.

  It’s not his fault.

  He just seems to attract trouble.

  There was a knock at the door, and she jumped up. Claire flew from her chair and rushed to the door to answer it with a smile on her face and some hope in her heart. Then she stopped in her tracks when she got to the door.

  Wait a second.

  My Dad doesn’t need to knock.

  If he lost his key, he would call me to open the door.

  Claire approached the door with more caution in her step, reaching for the fire poker resting in the stand behind her and gripping it with both hands like a bat.

  Two more knocks at the door. Claire shuddered as each one sounded.

  “Hello,” a woman voice called out. “Is anyone home?”

  Claire felt slightly more at ease when she heard the voice of a woman.

  “Is anyone there?”

  Claire cleared her throat. “Who is it?”

  “Oh! Hello. I’m sorry. I was looking for Mr. Vincent.”

  “He’s upstairs,” Claire finally said. “He’s taking a shower.” She looked over her shoulder. “Daddy!” she shouted. “Someone’s here to see you!”

  A long pause from the other side. “Oh, my dear… We both know that you’re home alone.”

  Claire’s heart began to race as her stomach dropped to her ankles.

  Seconds later, the door was kicked open.

  A burly man with a left arm in a sling moved inside, rushing toward Claire with his meaty palms extended and the stink of booze on his breath.

  Reacting instantly, Claire swung the poker and struck the man in the face, knocking him to the ground as he hollered and cursed and Claire turned toward the back room.

  The man stood up, grabbed her by the hair, took the poker from her hands, and threw a punch to her face.

  It connected.

  Claire collapsed to the floor.

  Messer touched the tender cut on his forehead as he and Delores stood over Claire’s unconscious body.

  “The bitch hit me,” Messer said.

  “Put her in the trunk,” Delores said. “I need to call the boys.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “At home in the basement. They’re not allowed to leave unless I tell them.”

  “And then what?” Messer said as he picked up Claire’s limp body from the floor. “What happens after that?”

  “And then we call Vincent,” Delores said. “We’ve got his little girl—the ball is in his court.”

  Messer loaded Claire into the trunk. Delores called her boys and said it was time.

  “What is it?” Vincent asked Brandt once he saw the look in her eyes.

  Brandt took a step forward and held out the phone. “I think you better take this.”

  Vincent took the phone from her hands and held it to his ear. “Hello?”

  “Daddy?” Claire said.

  Vincent held his b
reath, trying to stifle his urge to holler and curse the day that Delores entered his life. But he knew he couldn’t—he had to stay calm and collected.

  “Baby,” he said. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m okay,” Claire said. “Daddy, they—”

  Vincent could hear a struggle on the other side. “Claire? Claire, honey, are you all right?”

  “That’s enough of that,” Delores said. “Now, Vincent. You understand where we’re at now?”

  “What do you want?”

  “You know I’m surprised it was this easy to kidnap not one but two people that are close to you.”

  “You just made me angry,” Vincent said. “And now it’s passed the point of personal.”

  “Very ballsy of you, detective. But it doesn’t faze me in the slightest. I’ve lost both of my children. You have no idea the depths I’ve sunk to since that’s happened.”

  “I’m starting to get a basic understanding: drugs, murder, and corruption of America’s youth. Really class act you are with the grieving process, Delores.”

  “Don’t try me, Vincent. I have your daughter. You know that I won’t hesitate to kill her.”

  “Talk,” Vincent said. “Tell me how you want to do this.”

  “You, Brandt, and my brother will meet me at the Sunrise Motel. I know you know where it is. It’s abandoned. No one’s been there in months. We’ll meet there in thirty minutes exactly. I’ll trade your daughter for my brother. After that—we all walk away.”

  “We both know we’re not walking away from all this that easily.”

  “Perhaps,” Delores said. “But you still have a chance to save your daughter. Thirty minutes. Sunrise Motel. Don’t be late.”

  And with a click, the line went dead.

  Brandt let Vincent have a moment before speaking up. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” he said, closing his eyes. “They have my little girl. I’m not okay.”

  “What does Delores want?”

  “She wants an even trade.” He pointed to Hoyt. “Him for my daughter. Then she said we can all walk away.”

  Brandt shook her head. “No way that’s true.”