Hollow's Eve Read online

  BANG!—the window was shattered, glass showering Delores.

  Vincent got on his belly, reached into the car, grabbed Delores by the hand, and then pulled her to safety as the car fell over the edge of the bowl and straight into the mouth of the pines, the car crunching and twisting.

  Delores, bruised and disheveled, looked at Vincent with weary and defeated expression. “Is this the part where you say I’m under arrest?”

  Vincent shook his head. “I’m too tired for all that.”

  He pressed the gun in her back and told her start moving, the two of them ascending the hill before Vincent bound her hands with tape, threw her in the van, and started the journey back to the motel.

  Vincent, bruised, bloody, and dirty, couldn’t help but smile the entire drive down, experiencing an emotion he hadn’t felt in quite some time.

  Satisfaction.

  Vincent felt his enthusiasm drain when he arrived at the motel and saw a body lying in the middle of the road, dressed in a hoodie, jeans, sneakers—and sporting the ghoul mask that Vincent had come to know so well.

  He sank low in his seat and threw the van into park about ten yards from the body. “I’m gonna step out,” Vincent said to Delores, still bound up in the back. “You run—I shoot you.”

  He slowly opened the door, Beretta in his hand. “Hello!” he called out. “Brandt! Claire! Where are you?”

  He stayed behind the door for cover until he heard Brandt’s voice to the right. “Vincent! Get down!”

  Two shots rang out on Vincent’s left, shattering the window on the door above his head, forcing him to run for cover toward the rear of the van.

  A head poked out of a room—one of the ghouls.

  Another shot rang out. The ghoul’s face went back into the room with a sharp jerk as Vincent turned and saw the third ghoul running up to him from behind with a knife in his hand.

  Don’t kill him! Vincent told himself.

  He raised his gun and pulled the trigger, clipping the ghoul in the leg, and then watched him drop and roll with a groan.

  “Vincent!” Brandt called out. “Status!”

  “One suspect down!”

  “Two over here!” she said. “Clear!”

  Vincent and Brandt came out of cover, Brandt coming out of a room and running up to Vincent as he kicked the knife away from his suspect. “Where’s Claire?” he asked.

  “Safe.”

  “Check the room.” Vincent pointed to the area from where the second ghoul had shot at him.

  Brandt checked the room. “He’s still alive!”

  All three of the ghouls were still alive, three kids, in their teens, some with life-threatening wounds and stunned expressions as their masks were pulled off their faces.

  “Wanna tell me what happened?” Vincent asked Brandt.

  Miranda stood next to Vincent with her arms crossed and a fleet of agents and cops and paramedics working together in a rush behind them.

  “I saw these kids walking into the motel,” Brandt said. “They were wearing those masks, and they…they just started shooting. I dropped one right away. The other two fired at me, I stashed Claire in the room”—she nodded at Vincent—“and then you showed up. Nick of time.”

  “I was almost named Nick,” Vincent said.

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “I think I like Nick better.”

  Vincent managed a smile. “Duly noted.”

  “You guys good?” Miranda asked. “You look a little worse for wear.”

  Vincent’s body was banged up, and he felt the pain from a multitude of bruises and cuts, but it could’ve been much worse. “We’re just happy you’re here, but there’s still a lot of explaining that needs to be done.”

  “And there will be. But trust me, between what I’ve got and all the stuff that’s happened here, I’m sure we’re going to sort everything out.”

  “You’re a lifesaver,” Vincent said.

  “Call it gut instinct,” she said. “I’m gonna go deal with your chief. One of my people just arrested him back at his house getting ready to flee to Mexico. I tell you…this place is something else.”

  Miranda stepped away as Vincent turned to Brandt. “Good job, detective,” he said as he stuck out his hand.

  Brandt took Vincent’s hand and shook it. “You as well, detective.”

  They shared the moment, smiling smugly as Claire approached Vincent with a blanket draped around her shoulders. Vincent wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and Claire nestled her head into his chest as she blinked heavily.

  “This day was a total disaster,” she said.

  “Well.” Vincent hugged her as tight as he could. “It’s over now. I promise.”

  “Good. Because I think we should both take a week off and go to Disneyland.”

  Vincent kissed her on the head. “I was thinking the exact same thing.”

  39

  Some Time Later…

  Vincent actually lived up to Claire’s half-serious proposal of some time off and going to Disneyland. Vincent figured that they, especially Claire, needed a dose of Walt Disney-inspired cheer to counterbalance the grim episode they had been put through.

  After two weeks had passed, life had settled down, and Claire went back home with plans to see her father again in two weeks. All the noise with Delores, Hoyt, Messer, and the three ghouls was sorted out, the paperwork was filed, the charges were leveled, and everything started to make sense.

  A news anchor reported it outside the courthouse the morning of Delores’ sentencing:

  “Delores Klein was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences today for her role in the deaths of Ethan Travis and Desiree Messenger after they attempted to break their silence about the drug operation Delores was running in Hollow Green. After a hair-raising investigation, it was discovered that Delores’ own grandchildren, whom she had kidnapped two years prior, were her dealers, who were then used to carry out the murders on her behalf due to extensive brainwashing done on behalf—”

  Vincent turned the television off. He didn’t need to hear the rest.

  He was there.

  Two days after the sentencing, two days after Delores was sent to a prison not far from the one that Hoyt and former Chief Riley was sent to, Edgar Vincent, clean, dressed, and donning his badge and gun, strolled through the hallways of the Hollow Green Mental Health Facility—which once hosted a riot and a series of murders, but that was a different story entirely—with Detective Brandt in tow.

  They had just finished talking to Delores’ three grandchildren. It had been a few months since the trial and their various stays in the hospital to deal with the injuries sustained in the shootout, and now all three boys were healthy, walking, and remanded to the care of the state to live out their days. Vincent occasionally took time to check in on their progress.

  “How often are you going to check in on them?” Brandt asked.

  “As long as I can,” Vincent said. “Those kids were brainwashed. They didn’t know what they were doing. Delores did a number on them. She’s responsible for turning them into killers. It’ll be a long road for them to get to the point of rehabilitation, but it’ll happen.”

  “They’ll never leave here. Not after what they did.”

  “No, they won’t. And they shouldn’t. But there’s a chance they could come to terms with that and live out their days here in relative peace.”

  The guard at the door buzzed them out of the building, and they headed toward the parking lot. “Delores made a lot of mistakes,” Brandt said. “Didn’t she?”

  Vincent nodded. “Too many. That’s why those kids turned on her. She kept raising the prices. They couldn’t afford them anymore. She got greedy, they were prepared to snitch, and she killed them—simple as that. Her method of covering it up was what did her in. That’s for sure.”

  Brandt shook her head as they arrived at their cruiser. “And now those kids have to suffer for it.”

  Vincent shru
gged. “Never gets easier, detective, but you can grow smarter from it.”

  “I like that. I just hope that we can start to prevent stuff like this from happening. Two kids are still dead because of it.”

  “And a lot of bad guys got killed to balance that out,” Vincent said. “It may not bring those kids back, but the people responsible were served justice. That’s the job, Brandt. That’s how it works. We can’t always prevent bad stuff from happening—but we can get the bastards who do cause it.”

  The radio in the car came to life. “Six-William-seven. Six-William-seven. Acknowledge, over.”

  Brandt answered, “Six-William-seven, copy.”

  “We’ve got a body for you at Macready’s Bar off Hobart Avenue.”

  “Copy that, Macready’s Bar. We are en route.”

  “Get there quick, detectives,” the dispatcher said. “It’s… This one is weird.”

  Brandt shot Vincent a look.

  “Like I said, Detective Brandt,” Vincent said as he got into the car, “it never gets any easier.”

  Brandt got in the driver’s side, hit the siren, and peeled out of the lot in the direction of Macready’s Bar. A dark cloud loomed in the distance over Hollow Green.

  But Detective Edgar Vincent and the fine people that assisted him at the Hollow Green Police Department would somehow keep the madness at bay.

  Click to Continue with Hollow Ground

  From the Author

  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading Hollow’s Eve, the second installment in the Edgar Vincent series. Stay tuned for more installments and adventures.

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