Vengeance Road

Jolene’s heart thumped as her memory gave way to an onslaught of crushing fear.

What was happening?

Bernice? What happened to Bernice?

What’s going to happen to me?

The blood rushing in her ears roared with the droning.

What was that noise?

Why was this happening?

Why her?

The air smelled of old wood, cardboard and something foul. Oh God. Oh God. She trembled, her stomach roiled. She kept her eyes shut tight, fought to stem her mounting hysteria and clear her mind.

Think.

You’re alive.

You’ve got to get out of this.

She was lying on something padded. A disgusting-smelling mattress. Her tongue burned with an awful aftertaste and her jaw ached. Something between her upper and lower teeth was splitting her mouth open. It felt like a leather belt strapped so tight to her head her eyes hurt.

She raised her hand to try to relieve the pressure, but her hands were welded together by something cutting into her wrists. Some sort of binding.

Breathe.

The stench of the air was choking.

Jolene clawed at the buckle at the back of her head in vain. Her nose was clear. If she stayed calm she could breathe.

Did she dare open her eyes?

She had to.

Okay. All right. Easy. Breathe.

She opened them wide to absolute blackness.

She raised her hands to her face and saw nothing. It was as if she’d been disembodied.

As if she were dead.

She was terrified of the dark.

Terrified of being buried alive.

Overcome with vertigo, she was consumed by a sickening sense of whirling and falling. A muffled whimper escaped from deep in her throat and echoed in the silence.

Breathe, she told herself. Stay calm.

You’re alive.

If you’re alive, you can fight to survive. Be strong. Don’t cry. Fight. The earth shifted.

Jolene was jolted across the mattress. Humming, hissing and, now, mechanical grinding grew louder. What was happening? The world started moving.

Jolene’s dark prison was now mobile and gathering speed.

10

The next morning, victory called out to Gannon from his front-page story.

On every street corner with a Buffalo Sentinel newspaper box, his exclusive took up six columns on page one, above the fold, under the headline:

Hero Cop Suspected in College Student’s Murder

This was a clean kill against the competition, the Buffalo News. Those guys had squat. Looking at the bank of news boxes while waiting for a downtown traffic light to change, he savored the rush of pride.

Don’t get cocky. Glory was fleeting in this business, where you’re only as good as your next story.

But a cop? Man, he’d hit this one out of the ballpark.

His story was the line item in the Sentinel’s morning edition. It went to homes, stores and news boxes across Buffalo, across Erie, Niagara and eight other counties; everywhere the Sentinel battled the News for shrinking readership. It also anchored the Sentinel’s Web site, where most people went for their news these days.

He had scored. No doubt about it. Buffalo radio and TV morning news led with the story, wire services picked it up.

It was the win he needed.

The light changed and Gannon continued through traffic, turning into the Sentinel‘s parking lot, concentrating on the reason he’d come in early today: to work on a follow-up. Beating the competition always meant they’d come back at you big-time.

He was not going to lose this one.

He grabbed a paper from the security desk in the lobby before stepping into the elevator. Ascending alone, he studied the front-page photo of Styebeck’s handsome hero face next to one of Bernice.

What a heartbreaker.

During his years on the crime desk, he’d encountered tragedies every day: the deaths of children, school shootings, gang murders, fires, wrecks, calamities, manifestations of evil in every form. He went at things wearing emotional armor.

But something about Bernice Hogan’s tragedy got to him.

Looking at her face, he vowed to see that, in death, she received the respect that had eluded her in life.

The elevator stopped and he went to the newsroom kitchen for coffee.

The best follow-up to this morning’s exclusive would be a feature on Styebeck. He’d go into Styebeck’s life, his upbringing and how he came to be a hero cop and suspected killer. Maybe he’d call some criminal profilers, talk about cases of murderers leading double lives.