Detroit had plenty of dark places.

  So what if he was creating one more?

  Part Four

  THE SYNDICATE

  14

  August suggested he update Isabella.

  She suggested the restaurant at her hotel, where she could reserve a private dining area.

  He cleaned up first. Shower, fresh clothes, the nicest shirt he owned which wasn't saying much. Black button-down, dark jeans, and leather jacket.

  From the armory he chose a small automatic, a 9mm, that he could fit into a concealed holster. It would be less obvious.

  He drove downtown, parked in the garage, took the elevator to the top floor. The restaurant was spacious, with floor-to-ceiling windows and soft lighting. The hostess looked at him with barely concealed alarm.

  "I'm meeting someone. Isabella Ortiz."

  "Of course. She is in the private dining room. This way."

  She led him through the main restaurant, past tables of well-dressed people eating expensive food.

  The private dining room was at the back, separated by frosted glass doors. The hostess opened them and August stepped inside.

  The room was small, intimate. One table, two chairs, windows overlooking the Detroit River and Windsor beyond. The city lights reflected off the water, creating a shimmering landscape of gold and silver.

  Isabella stood by the window. She'd changed from whatever she'd worn during the day into a black dress that fit perfectly. Her dark hair was down, falling past her shoulders. She turned when he entered.

  She gestured to the table. A bottle of wine sat breathing, two glasses waiting. "Please, sit."

  August sat. The chair was more comfortable than he'd expected. Isabella took the seat across from him, poured wine into both glasses.

  "I hope you like red," she said. "It's a Rioja. From Spain."

  "I'm not picky."

  "Then the rumor is true." She smiled slightly. "The boilermaker at Diamond's was a nice touch."

  "You heard about that?"

  "I hear about everything that concerns my team." Isabella sipped her wine. "The club manager called my assistant, wanted to confirm you were legitimate. Apparently you made quite an impression."

  "I paid him well."

  "Yes, you did. With my money." But there was no reproach in her voice. "Did you learn anything useful?"

  "Carlos left with a woman. Elena Brunner. Swiss national. She drove away in his Maserati after he was attacked."

  "The police told me about her this morning." Isabella set down her glass. "Awful."

  "Yeah."

  "So did they kill her because she was a witness?"

  "Probably."

  A waiter appeared, took their orders. August ordered a steak. Isabella ordered fish.

  When they were alone again, Isabella leaned forward slightly. "Tell me what you've learned."

  August laid it out. The crime scene in the alley, the brutal nature of Carlos's murder. The club, the security footage, Elena Brunner's face. The second murder, the Swiss connection. His conversation with Werner Kästli, who seemed genuinely uninvolved. Miguel Santos, arrogant and opportunistic but maybe just an ambitious kid, not a killer.

  Isabella listened without interrupting. Her expression remained neutral, but August could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her hands gripped the wine glass.

  "So you have no shortage of suspects," she said when he finished. "But no clear answer."

  "Not yet."

  Isabella looked out the window at the city. "Carlos made enemies. In racing, in his personal life. He was brilliant behind the wheel but careless everywhere else."

  "What was he to you?" August asked.

  Isabella turned back to him. "What do you mean?"

  “Just curious.”

  She was quiet for a moment. The waiter returned with their food, set the plates down, refilled their wine glasses. When he left, Isabella picked up her fork but didn't eat.

  "Carlos was complicated," she said finally. "Talented, charming, frustrating. He drove like an angel and lived like he was immortal." She paused. "We were involved, briefly. A year ago. It was a mistake that ended badly. But at least it ended quickly. I kept him on the team because he was worth it professionally."

  "How did that impact the rest of the team?"

  "No one cared, really." Isabella took a bite of her fish, chewed thoughtfully. "But he didn't deserve to die like that. Beaten in an alley like a dog."

  August ate his steak. It was good, cooked perfectly. Across the table, he could see Isabella was doing her best to hide her emotions.

  “Doing what you do can’t be easy,” he said. “What’s it like to run a racing team?”

  She sighed, relieved to be talking about something else, which was August’s goal. "Stressful. The need to win. Managing people. The logistics are considerable.”

  “I would imagine.”

  “It’s a complex operation. We have trucks, shipping containers, customs paperwork. Everything has to move like clockwork or the whole operation falls apart." She sipped her wine. "We hire specialized logistics companies to handle it. They coordinate everything, make sure our equipment arrives on time, properly stored, legally cleared."

  "Every team uses the same companies?"

  "Some do. Some have their own. The larger teams, the ones with more money, can afford dedicated logistics operations. Smaller teams share services, pool resources." Isabella set down her glass. “I really need to win the race this weekend,” she finally said. “I think my job depends on it."

  “Well, your driver is confident, I’ll give him that.”

  She laughed. They talked briefly about other things and finished eating. Isabella asked about his life, his background. He gave her the basics, didn't elaborate. She told him about Spain, about growing up wealthy but restless, about finding racing and making it her own.

  The wine bottle emptied. The waiter brought coffee. The city lights continued to shimmer outside the windows.

  "I should go," August said finally. "Early morning tomorrow."

  "Race day."

  "Yeah."

  Isabella stood when he did. They walked to the door together. She was tall in her heels but still had to look up to meet his eyes.

  "Good luck," she said.

  “You, too.”

  August left the restaurant and took the elevator down. In the lobby, he stopped for a moment, thought about what had just happened.

  He was being stupid. She was a client. Rich, powerful, living in a different world. Whatever he thought he felt was just proximity and attraction, nothing that would last past the investigation.

  But still. The way she'd smiled at him. The warmth in her eyes.

  August pushed through the hotel doors into the night air. He walked to his truck, climbed in, and started the engine.

  He drove home through the Detroit night, thinking how nice it would be to have a woman like Isabella waiting for him.

  August remembered looking at himself in the mirror before he’d left for dinner.

  Yeah, no way a woman like Isabella would go for him.

  He was a beast, and she was a beauty, but this wasn’t make believe.

  15

  August pulled into the parking lot outside his building.

  He parked the Raptor in his usual spot, killed the engine. The lot was mostly empty at this hour. A few cars belonging to other tenants, a panel van he didn't recognize parked near the base of the exterior stairs.

  August sat there for a moment, checking his mirrors out of habit. The building was an old warehouse converted to lofts, industrial and isolated. Most units were empty or occupied by people who kept irregular hours. Artists, musicians, night shift workers. Not the kind of place where neighbors paid attention to each other's business.

  He got out, locked the truck with the key fob. The click of the locks echoed in the quiet lot. His keys were already in his hand, the building key separated from the others, when he registered the movement.

  Two shapes detached from the shadows behind the panel van.

  Both men wore dark clothing and they spread out as they approached.

  August's training kicked in before conscious thought. His right hand moved toward his waist, toward the .45 holstered under his jacket. But the men were already pulling their weapons.

  Pistols. Small caliber, probably 9mm. Both guns rising toward him.

  August didn't wait to see if they'd actually fire. He exploded forward, covering the ground between them faster than his size suggested possible. Three massive strides, his boots hammering against the pavement.

  The man on the left was closer. His gun was coming up, finger moving toward the trigger. August closed the distance before he could complete the motion.

  August's left hand shot out, grabbed the man's wrist, twisted it violently to the outside. Bone ground against bone. The gun fired but the barrel was pointed at the sky now, the bullet disappearing harmlessly into the night.

  In the same motion, August's right arm wrapped around the man's throat from behind. His forearm pressed against the carotid artery, his bicep against the other side of the neck. A blood choke, cutting off circulation to the brain. The man would be unconscious in seconds if August held it.

  But August didn't have seconds.

  The second man was already firing.

  The first shot hit the man August was holding in the left shoulder. The impact jerked the body in August's grasp. Warm blood sprayed across August's forearm.

  The second shot hit higher, punching through the man's upper chest. August felt the body spasm, felt the weight go heavier as muscles stopped responding.

  The third shot caught the man in the throat. Blood erupted from the wound, hot and arterial, soaking August's sleeve and spattering across his face.

  August pulled his .45 from its holster with his right hand, his left arm still locked around the dying man's neck. He used the body as a shield, rising up slightly to sight over the man's shoulder.

  The second shooter was maybe twelve feet away, his pistol tracking for another shot. His face was visible in the ambient light from the street. Young, late twenties, Hispanic features, a tattoo creeping up from his collar.

  August fired twice.

  The .45 boomed in the confined space of the parking lot, much louder than the smaller pistols. The first round hit the shooter center mass, right side of the chest. The second hit just left of center, closer to the heart.

  The man staggered backward. His gun hand dropped slightly but didn't fall. He was still on his feet, still a threat. Adrenaline or determination or both keeping him upright.

  August fired again. This shot took him in the upper chest, just below the throat. The man went down hard, his gun finally clattering to the pavement.

  August held the first man for another few seconds, feeling the body's struggles weaken and then stop. The blood flow from the neck wound slowed, the heart no longer pumping with enough force to spray. When the body went completely limp, August let it drop to the pavement.

  The parking lot fell silent except for August's breathing and the distant sound of traffic from the main road. No lights had come on in the building. No windows had opened. No one had come to investigate the gunshots.

  This was Detroit. People knew when to mind their own business.

  August stood there for a moment, his .45 still in his hand, surveying the scene. Two bodies on the ground. Blood pooling on the cracked asphalt. Brass casings from his .45 glinting in the streetlight.

  He checked his surroundings. No cameras that he could see. No witnesses visible in any windows or doorways. The panel van sat in shadow, its dark paint making it nearly invisible.

  August moved to the second shooter first. He crouched down, saw the damage the three rounds from the .45 had done.

  He checked the first man. Also dead, the combination of blood loss and August's chokehold having finished what the second shooter's friendly fire had started.

  August went through their pockets systematically. No wallets, no identification, no cards or documents of any kind. Just cash, several hundred dollars in mixed bills. Burner phones, cheap flip models you could buy at any convenience store. Keys on a plain ring with no identifying marks.

  The clothes told their own story. The fabric was good quality but foreign made, the cuts slightly different from American styles. The shoes were leather, well-worn, not the kind of cheap sneakers street thugs wore.

  August rolled the first man onto his side, examined his arms. A tattoo ran up the inside of his right forearm.

  The second man had similar ink. A skull with roses on his neck, partially hidden by his collar.

  August found the key fob in the first man's jacket pocket. He clicked it. The panel van's lights didn't flash. He tried again. Nothing.

  He walked to the van, tried the keys manually. They didn't fit.

  August looked around the parking lot. Then he saw it, partially obscured by shadow near the fence. A black Cadillac, newer model, clean and anonymous. The kind of car that wouldn't draw attention, wouldn't be remembered.

  He tried the key fob again. The Cadillac's lights flashed once.

  August went to the car first, clicked the trunk release on the fob. The trunk lid rose smoothly on hydraulic struts.

  Inside, neatly organized like a professional's toolkit, was everything needed to make a body disappear. Blue plastic tarp, folded precisely. Two shovels, their blades clean but showing wear. A roll of duct tape. A box of heavy-duty garbage bags. Zip ties in various sizes. A jug of industrial bleach. A bottle of drain cleaner. Work gloves. A hacksaw still in its packaging.

  A murder kit. Complete and ready to use.

  They'd come prepared to kill him, dispose of his body, make it look like he'd simply disappeared.

  August closed the trunk, went back to the bodies. He grabbed the first man under the arms, dragged him across the lot to the Cadillac. The man was heavy, solid muscle under the clothes. August wrestled him into the back seat, shoving him across to make room.

  The body left a blood trail on the pavement. August would have to deal with that.

  He went back for the second man. This one was lighter, easier to move. August got him into the back seat next to his partner, arranged them so the doors would close.

  The interior of the Cadillac was leather, clean, probably detailed recently. Now it was soaked with blood, the smell coppery and overwhelming. August didn't care. This car was going somewhere it would never be found.

  He collected the brass casings from his .45, slipping them into his pocket. The spent rounds from the smaller pistols he left. Let the police find those if the bodies ever surfaced. They'd tell a story about criminals killing each other, nothing that would lead back to August.

  He picked up both pistols the men had dropped, wiped them down quickly with his shirt, tossed them in the car with the bodies.

  August went back to his truck, found an old towel in the back. He used it to wipe down the blood trail as best he could, scrubbing at the worst spots. It wouldn't pass forensic inspection, but from a distance it would just look like oil stains or old water damage.

  He threw the towel in the Cadillac, got behind the wheel, started the engine. It purred to life, smooth and quiet. A good car, well-maintained, stolen or bought with cash. Untraceable either way.

  August pulled out of the parking lot, turned away from the main road. He took side streets, avoiding traffic cameras and well-lit intersections. Detroit had plenty of routes through the city that didn't show up on GPS, paths that locals knew but outsiders never found.

  He drove for twenty-five minutes, working his way toward the river. The neighborhoods changed as he went, becoming more industrial, more abandoned. Factories that had closed decades ago, warehouses with broken windows, lots full of rusted equipment that would never run again.

  This was the Detroit the tourists never saw. The skeleton beneath the revitalization, the bones of a manufacturing empire that had died and only partially come back to life.

  August found the spot he was looking for. An old loading dock that jutted out into the Detroit River, concrete crumbling, metal reinforcement bars exposed and rusting. No buildings nearby, no functioning streetlights, just darkness and the sound of water against pilings.

  He'd been here before, years ago, on a different case. The dock was deep enough that things didn't wash up immediately, secluded enough that no one came here anymore.

  August pulled the Cadillac up to the edge, as close as he dared without risking going over himself. He put the car in neutral, set the parking brake, got out.

  The river spread out before him, black and vast. Across the water, Windsor's lights twinkled like a different world. The current here was strong, moving cargo ships and debris downriver toward Lake Erie.

  August opened the back door, searched the bodies one more time. He wanted to be sure he hadn't missed anything.

  The first man had a rosary in his jacket pocket, cheap plastic beads worn smooth from handling. Religious, or superstitious, or both. Probably said prayers before kills, asked forgiveness after.

  The second man had a photograph tucked in his wallet fold, even though there was no wallet. A woman and two children, smiling at the camera. Family back home, wherever home was.

  August put the photo back.

  He closed the door, went back to the driver's side. Reached in, released the parking brake. The car didn't move immediately. August put his shoulder against the door frame, pushed.

  The Cadillac rolled forward slowly, tires crunching on broken concrete. The front wheels reached the edge, hung there for a moment. Then gravity took over.

  The car tipped forward, nose-diving toward the water. The rear wheels lifted off the dock. For a moment the whole vehicle was suspended at an angle, headlights pointing down at the black river.

  Then it fell.

  The splash was enormous, water erupting up around the car as it hit. The Cadillac's taillights glowed red beneath the surface for a few seconds, creating an eerie underwater glow. Then they went dark as water flooded the electrical system.

 

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