Raven Rain

  RAVEN RAIN

  DAVID STEVER

  Cinder Path Press, LLC

  ALSO BY DAVID STEVER

  AUBURN RIDE

  TOXIC BLONDE

  RAVEN RAIN

  Copyright © 2020 David Anthony Stever

  Cinder Path Press, LLC

  5319 Tarkington Pl.

  Columbia, MD 21044

  www.davidstever.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Raven Rain is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design: Brandi Doane McCann/ebook-coverdesigns.com

  Cover Photograph: Inga Ivanova/Bigstock

  ISBN: 978-09983371-4-2 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-09983371-5-9 (ebook)

  Printed in the United States of America

  To my children,

  Brian, Kevin, and Cassidy

  With Love

  RAVEN RAIN

  Prologue

  The bullet slammed into the wall behind me, missing my head by a fraction of an inch. It came so close the air brushed my face as it shot past. I crouched behind the wooden front counter in the lobby of the Hotel Atlantic, an old boutique hotel, once the art deco showplace of Port City’s Old Town section, but now a foul, dilapidated crack house of crime and iniquity. It was one of those places where you could check in but never check out. The dirt-bag who took a shot at me, one Enrique Mendoza, was not too happy I invaded his place of business. But I was hell-bent on ridding the world of his venom and returned fire as he scampered up the once ornate staircase, taking out a decent chunk of his right knee. He screamed but kept moving and disappeared on the second floor.

  I clicked the mic on my radio. “Mendoza headed to the second floor. I am in pursuit.”

  “Delarosa, stay put. Wait for backup,” came through my earpiece.

  “Copy that.” No way.

  I took the stairs two at a time and stopped at the top. The elevator and stairway were to my left, a long hallway to my right. He was trapped.

  “Mendoza,” I shouted. “Nowhere to go. Don’t make this difficult.”

  The hallway offered no place to take cover. I went prone and snugged against the wall and waited. It didn’t take long. Even in the dim light, I could see a trail of blood leading to the third door on the left. Too much blood for him to stay in there much longer. He’d either come out and face my handsome mug or go through the window and fall thirty feet.

  The door opened. “I want a deal.”

  “No chance.”

  He shuffled into the hall holding a girl in front of him. A hostage. She was a kid, a teenager—couldn’t be more than sixteen. Skinny, with long, dark hair, and naked except for her underpants. He had an arm around her waist and held a gun to her head. “I want the DA, or I kill her right here.” She struggled but he gripped her tight and pressed the gun hard against her temple.

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Let me go. Please,” she begged through sobs.

  “Let her go, Mendoza.” Blood soaked his pant leg from his knee to his shoe. “Don’t be stupid. You’ll bleed out before the DA shows up. Drop the gun and I’ll guarantee an ambulance here in a minute.”

  “No way. Get the DA. I have information. Solid information. Names, sources. He’ll want to talk to me.”

  “You’ll never make it. That right knee must be really painful. I’m surprised you can stand.” I stared at her while I talked, and prayed she tuned in.

  “You have ten seconds to make the call.”

  I pressed my mic. “It’s Delarosa. We’re in a bit of a negotiation. He wants the DA. I’ll try to keep him alive until he gets here.”

  “Delarosa. What? What are you doing—”

  I cut off my radio—and my captain. “You heard me call. Let her go and we’ll find something to wrap around your leg. Hurts like hell, doesn’t it?” I kept my eyes riveted on hers. C’mon, baby. “You need to get off the leg. That right knee. You’re bleeding out.”

  She looked down and then back to me. I gave her a slight nod. I hoped we were on the same wavelength. And we were.

  In one swift motion, she brought her right leg up high, then slammed her foot back into his knee. He screamed and fell, landing hard on his back. She darted into the room, and I emptied my magazine into his body.

  I pressed my mic. “Don’t interrupt the DA’s golf game. Situation contained. Mendoza is down. Need the meat wagon. And Child Services, too.”

  I got to my feet and checked Mendoza for a pulse. Gee, too late. I stuck his gun in my pocket and went into the room.

  She wasn’t there. “Hey, where are you? You did great. You read my mind.” I clicked on the bathroom light and roaches scattered to the corners. No girl. Black grime lined the toilet bowl and the sink. I guess housekeeping skipped this room. A full-size bed with a sagging mattress, threadbare sheets, and an old army blanket bunched up in a ball was in the center of the room. A small TV sat on a dresser with a microwave oven, a box of cereal, and two boxes of microwave popcorn. A trash can in the corner overflowed with fast-food bags and soda cans. More stains than I could count dotted the worn carpet. Was she living here in this squalor? Or working? Or both?

  I opened the closet door. She was on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. I reached out. “C’mon. Let’s get you out of here. I know you were scared, but it’s over.” She didn’t move. The only other thing in the closet besides the girl was a ratty, gray, zip-up hoodie on a hanger. “Why don’t you get dressed?” She shook her head. “You can’t stay here.” She would not budge. “What’s your name?” Nothing.

  “Do you have clothes?” I asked.

  The dresser had two drawers. I opened the top one and found a T-shirt, a pair of jean shorts, and two pair of underwear. And a box of condoms. “Is this all your clothes?” The bottom drawer was full of junk. Papers, a man’s shoe, pens, pencils, two bottles of whiskey, a carton of cigarettes, and a lot of trash.

  “Tell me your name. Mine is Johnny. I’m with the police and I want to help you. Come on out. You’ll be safe now.” I took the few pieces of clothes from the drawer and placed them on the bed, then went back to the closet and offered a hand. “C’mon.” She shook her head. “You can’t stay here. Child Services is on their way.”

  That moved her. “No, no, please. They’ll put me in the system. I can’t do that.” She jumped up and grabbed my arm. “Please don’t. I don’t want to be in the system. I’m fine on my own.”

  “You are not fine. You’re turning tricks. Are you using?”

  “No, no. I swear, man. I don’t use.”

  I held her wrists and scanned her arms. No tracks, which I was glad to see. Her skin was tan; mixed-race, I thought. Had to be starved and malnourished. She was so thin every rib was visible, and her filthy underpants hung off her bony hips. She had long, stringy, tangled, black hair, and she had an odor as bad as the room. She could not have bathed in weeks. But she had these vivid, emerald eyes and I couldn’t stop staring. Eyes that belonged on the cover of a fashion magazine, not hidden in the obscenity of a crack-house hotel. I had her put on the T-shirt, shorts, and the hoodie. She wore everything she owned.

  The backup units arrived, along with my screaming captain. I explained what went down; he told me what would happen next, scolded me for not waiting for back-up (which I deserved), and said I’d be placed on administrative leave until the investigation was closed.

  The girl would not talk, which only made things wors
e. She could easily back up my story, but only sat and stared at me, hoping, I think, I would come to her rescue. The captain gave up trying to get through to her and said she would have to go with Child Services. As luck, or fortune, or fate, would have it, Child Services was delayed. Crime Scene had finished; it was me and the captain and two other officers waiting for the medical examiner.

  I don’t know why I did it. Many times, over the course of my career I had pulled kids from dangerous, abusive situations. But there was something about this girl. Don’t know what, but I had this overwhelming desire to help. I convinced the captain to allow me to wait with her until Child Services arrived. He agreed, saying it was penance for me, but mostly because he was late for his daughter’s high school basketball game.

  As soon as he left, we looked at each other—still on the same wavelength. We hurried down the back stairs of the hotel and out to an alley.

  “My car is around the corner. I’ll take you to my place and you can wash up. I’ll make you something to eat. From there, I don’t know what.”

  She nodded. Then, to my surprise, she grabbed my hand as we ran to my car.

  She was wide-eyed as we entered my half-empty apartment. I had moved in three months prior after my wife, Kelly, and I separated. I had a bed and dresser, a dinette table, a sofa, and a TV. But to her it must have seemed like a five-star resort. I gave her a towel, wash cloth, soap, shampoo, and turned the shower on for her. A half-hour later, she emerged with the towel wrapped around her, transformed into a different person. She was tall, lanky, with long, black hair, full lips, and those vivid emerald eyes. Her skin was a beautiful shade of light brown, but even more so, she was now a fresh-faced teenager who should be in high school, where the most suffering she should endure was the awkward angst of her teen years.

  She stood in front of me as if preparing to make an announcement, which she did.

  “Thank you for killing him,” she said, without any hint of emotion. Then she clicked on the TV and plopped down on the sofa.

  “Was he your pimp?”

  She only shrugged so I didn’t push it. I gave her a sweatshirt and a pair of running shorts. But the shorts were too big, so she wore the sweatshirt like a dress. I fixed her a turkey sandwich and some macaroni and cheese, the only food I had in the apartment. She devoured it, asked for seconds. Ten minutes later, she was vomiting into the toilet while I held back her hair. “I guess we should pace ourselves with the food.”

  She fell asleep on the sofa, so I threw a blanket over her and tucked a pillow under her head. While she slept, I went to a twenty-four-hour Walmart and bought everything I could think a teenage girl would need. Jeans, shorts, T-shirts, sweats, pajamas, underwear, shoes, a hairbrush, toiletries, a backpack, and even a portable radio with headphones. I had no idea what size she wore, so I bought everything in three different sizes and figured I’d take back what didn’t fit. I even bought a small stuffed animal, a pink bunny.

  The next morning, she was over the moon with the new clothes. She would go in the bedroom, put on an outfit, prance down the hallway to the front room as if it were a fashion runway, spin around, and wait for my applause. Then do it again with a different outfit. She did give me a smile and a hug, and that made it all worth it. The headphones became a permanent part of her head as she went from station to station on the radio.

  She still would not talk. I would ask her name, where she grew up, what she liked to do; did she run away, did she have any friends? Nothing. She would only stare at me, eat, watch television, and listen to her radio. She took over the front room and had her clothes in neat piles on the floor. The second night, she took another long shower and fell asleep on the sofa hugging the pink bunny.

  I stood and watched her as she slept and wondered whether she suffered from some type of traumatic stress disorder. It was inevitable she would need Child Services, mental health services—Mendoza destroyed her—and foster care, but before that, she needed a thorough examination by a doctor. I knew she could not stay with me forever, but I thought if I could make her comfortable and earn her trust, maybe she would open up and allow me to arrange for the help she needed. I also wanted to find out where she was from. Someone, somewhere, must miss her.

  On the third day, I brought home a pizza, which we ate together at the table. After dinner, I promised we would go out for ice cream, but I wanted to shower first. I no sooner got shampoo on my head when the shower door slid open. She stood there, naked. I looked into those large eyes. “This is not about that,” I said. She stepped in and reached up to kiss me, but I stopped her. Her eyes went to the floor, and she turned and walked out.

  I hurried and toweled off, rehearsed what I needed to express to her: A real man would not hurt or abuse her, and there were good people in the world who would help her. And someday she would meet someone who would love her and treat her with respect. I finished dressing, and when I got out to the living room—she was gone. Her clothes, backpack, radio, and her pink bunny were gone. I found a note on the kitchen table.

  Johnny. Thank you. I love you.

  I never saw her after that. I kept a constant lookout for her as I went about my days. Each week, I checked with social services, foster care agencies, homeless shelters, rescue missions, church programs, but I never found her. I quit after a few months, but I never stopped thinking about her and where she might be, what she was doing, who she was with—was she safe, or on the street, back at the only life she knew?

  I prayed she made her way to a shelter and into foster care and placed in a nice home in the suburbs with a loving family and was going to high school every day and making new friends.

  But my jaded years as a cop told me the truth.

  The girl with the emerald eyes…I prayed she was alive.

  1

  Over the course of my twenty-year career in the Port City Police Department, and another six on my own as a private investigator, I found myself in plenty of precarious situations. Dodging bullets, high-speed car chases, breaking through doors not knowing who or what to expect on the other side, working undercover with a constant risk of being exposed, and infiltrating organized crime families with nothing but my wits to protect me. All of that was scary enough, but perched on the top of a twenty-four-foot extension ladder leaned against the side of my beach cottage was my least favorite precarious spot of all. My left hand had a white-knuckle grip on the top rung while I hammered a piece of clapboard siding back in place with my right.

  “Hold the ladder.” I forced myself to peek down at my assistant Katie, who was charged with the ladder-holding duty. She had one hand on the ladder and was checking her phone with the other.

  “I am.”

  “You’re sending a text.”

  “I’m searching for a song.”

  “Use two hands.”

  “Why don’t you pay somebody to fix it?”

  “No, I’m handy, just not fond of being up this high.” The only advantage to the ladder was the gorgeous view of the Crescent Beach shoreline and the surrounding homes. My place was not the biggest, brightest, or the most modern, but it was perfect for me. I drove another nail into the siding and made my way down. “I’m not doing that again.”

  “What’s this?” She held my nail gun in her hand.

  “A nail gun and please put it down before you shoot yourself.”

  “Can I try it?”

  “Yes, you can help nail the trim around the windows. Right after beer time.”

  I went inside the house and pulled two bottles of a local ale from the fridge while she stretched out on a deck chair. I salvaged the beach house from my ex-wife, Kelly. It was all that remained of our marriage, and we hung on to the joint ownership much longer than we intended. She was engaged to an endodontist who was not too keen on her still owning property with me. So when I scored a fat payday some months ago, I offered to buy out her half and she agreed. Over the last six weeks I chipped away at improvements. Repairing the siding and some outside window tr
im work were the final touches on the fix-up. My plan was to live here as much as I could.

  I went out to the deck and to my tall, comely assistant. “You’re distracting.”

  “How so?”

  “The bathing suit.”

  “You’ve seen a girl in a bikini before.”

  “Not you, though.” She wore a scanty black bikini which worked wonders with her tan skin and long mane of blonde hair.

  “You are tanning more than working.” I handed her a beer.

  “I held the ladder. The deal was I help and suntan at the same time.”

  A nasty attitude had replaced her usual enthusiastic, cheery nature. “Are you still mad?”

  She lifted her sunglasses and shot me a look with her ice-blue, man-killing eyes that almost knocked the bottle from my hand.

  “Katie, c’mon.”

  “I wanted to go. No reason to not take me.”

  “We talked about this. I’m nervous about using you in the field. I’m not sure you are ready to go back out. It might be too soon.”

  “Shouldn’t I be the one to decide?”

  A recent job we worked ended with people being shot and Katie experiencing the trauma of violence up close. She disappeared for three weeks, and Mike and I thought she was long gone. Then one day she showed up at our bar ready to work—her spirit rejuvenated and her enthusiasm renewed.

  “How about we decide together? The next client.”

  “I’m not sitting, doing research. I realize that is part of the work, but I want to be in the field. I need more apprentice field hours. I’ve racked up plenty of computer hours. I’ll never get my license at this rate.”

  I pulled a chair next to her. “We’ll assess the next job and decide what you can do. Okay?”

  She peeked at me over her sunglasses and clicked her beer bottle on mine.