Red Rain: Lightning Strikes: Red Rain Series #2 (4 page)

“
W
hat did he say
?” Susan asked.

Alan had been thinking about that for hours. What John Hilt said. Marie had told him some very important things—all of which Alan listened to and agreed with, logically. He wanted to give her the life she deserved, but as the night crept on and he couldn’t find sleep, John Hilt’s words slowly replaced his wife’s.

Now he sat in the office, his feet on his desk, staring at computer monitors.

“You know where he works?” Alan said, ignoring Susan’s question.

“Where?”

Alan smiled, not looking away from the screens. “Var Technologies.”

A second passed before Susan spoke. “No fucking way.”

“Yup,” Alan said, smirking and meeting her gaze.

“He works at the same place as Lawrence Kolzet? And he was seen with Paul Stinson the day he died?”

“Check both boxes,” Alan said.

“Jesus Christ,” Susan said, looking away. “What did he say when you showed up?”

“Does it even matter at this point?”

“Well, yeah, it does. I went through his background. It’s immaculate. He has a pedigree either one of us would love to have; two degrees, the first from Penn State and the second from Wharton. Before all that, he went to a really prestigious prep school in London. I hadn’t heard of it before this, but it’s a pretty big deal apparently. Want to know an interesting tidbit about it?”

“Sure,” Alan said, still smiling.

“Well, it has produced more billionaires than any other prep school in the world. I stopped reading after that. Didn’t really see the point.”

Alan waved his hand, dismissing the information. “What else? He’s done more than go to college and business school.”

“There’s not a lot else, Alan, and I’m serious. No record of any kind. Mother is deceased. Father is still alive. He has a sister, a wife, two boys. His record is immaculate.”

“What about in London?” Alan said. “Did you look into that at all?”

“No arrest records. Anywhere.”

“But did you dig into what happened at his school? He was there alone, I assume. Did you see if anyone died in the school while he was there?”

“No, Alan,” Susan said. “I didn’t because the man is rich, white, and educated. There’s nothing to find over there. I’m not saying he didn’t do this, all of it, but I’m saying it’s a waste of time to look into his past.”

“Do me a favor, please. Just look. Go through some newspapers that they have across the pond and see if anything strange shows up.”

“And what are are you going to do while I waste my time?”

“I think I might turn the heat up on Mrs. Hilt a bit, to be honest. I want this guy to understand that nothing around him is safe,” Alan said.

* * *

“
M
rs. Hilt
?”

Diane looked at the man standing on her doorstep and suddenly felt like ice water was dripping down her spine.

“Yes, can I help you?” she said, but that was only perfunctory. She didn’t want to help this person, nor did she want anything to do with him at all.

“My name is Alan Tremock; I’m a detective with the Dallas Police Department,” he said, moving his jacket slightly to the right to show the badge on his belt. It hadn’t been needed, though, because Diane knew the moment she opened the door what kind of person stood on her doorstep. Everything seemed to lead up to this moment, cause and effect that went further back than she cared to remember. John’s recent escapades had led to this, without doubt. Perhaps he plowed into someone, multiple levels above the legal alcohol limit. Maybe he got in a bar fight somewhere, and either died or killed someone.

A lot of maybes, but Diane knew for certain why this man was here: John.

“What can I do for you, detective?” she said, her voice as calm as the rest of her body, the chill having dissipated. Diane felt like she had been waiting all her life for this, and now that it was here, what else could she do?

“Well, I would like to talk to you about your husband.”

Just another nail in the coffin, sliding in easily as the hammer slammed down on it.

“Do I need a lawyer?” she said.

“I don’t think so. I’d just like to talk to you about a few things. He’s not under arrest or anything. Neither are you.”

Better news than she had expected.

“Come on in,” she said.

Diane hadn’t dealt with police officers before, not outside of routine traffic stops, and to her, they should be trusted. Whatever John had gotten himself into, she wanted to know about it—and John clearly wasn’t going to tell her.

She led the way across the foyer and into the living room where she gestured to the love seat.

“I suppose this is where I ask if you need water or coffee?” Diane said.

“Maybe just in the movies. Truly, this is a courtesy visit more than anything else, Mrs. Hilt.”

“Okay,” she said and sat down in a chair on the other side of the coffee table. “Why are you giving me this courtesy?”

“Well, ma’am, to be completely honest I’ve never begun a conversation like this before, so forgive me if I’m not as good at it as I could be.” The detective paused and looked down at his hands for a second before looking back to Diane. “How well do you know your husband, Mrs. Hilt?”

Diane laughed despite the seriousness of both the question and the voice asking it. “What do you mean? John? I’d say I know him pretty well after ten years of marriage.”

Tremock nodded. “Again, forgive me, Mrs. Hilt. I’m trying my best not to offend you, but there are some very serious matters I want to discuss.”

“Then why don’t we discuss them rather than whatever it is you’re trying to do.”

The detective nodded, looking at his hands again. “There have been two murders that are in very close proximity to your husband. One of them—your husband, as far as we know, was the last person to see the man alive. The second victim was someone that works in his office.”

The words didn’t register in Diane’s head. She knew someone was speaking, saw the mouth moving, heard the phrases passing around her ears, but none of the words meant anything to her—as if Tremock spoke Mandarin.

“Excuse me?” she said. “Can you just say all that again?” Diane didn’t care if the man thought she was kidding. She wasn’t. She needed him to say it again so she could grasp at least some of it.

“Your husband has been very close to two murders recently. Has he said anything about them to you? Has he mentioned speaking to me or my partner at all?”

John? Murder? The two words rang in her head like large bells … clanging around as if some maniacal leprechauns swung up and down on their ropes.

“I need you to leave,” she said, staring straight into the detective’s eyes, but not seeing him at all. “Thank you for stopping by.”

“Mrs. Hilt, I’d like to speak to you more about this, if you don’t mind. It’s extremely important.”

“I’d like you to leave.” Diane stood and walked to the front door, not waiting to see if the man followed, not even thinking that he might remain, only knowing that she had to open the door so that he could leave.

The detective stopped just before he stepped through the door. “Please, Mrs. Hilt, take my card and call me when you’re ready to talk.”

“Goodbye, Detective,” Diane said, not taking the card he extended.

She shut the door once he stepped outside, then turned and leaned against it. She stood for a second, staring into her foyer, seeing the pictures and plants that watched this place for years.

Tears rushed to her eyes and Diane collapsed to the floor, not sliding down the door, but simply falling, landing on the foyer floor. She didn’t bring her hands to her face, but sat and sobbed.

Murder.

John.

Murder.

John.

The words shouldn’t connect, but the bells clanged away in some sick discordant union inside her head. She didn’t understand it, didn’t understand what the hell the cop was talking about—how could any of it be possible? Yet, she cried, the emotions from the past weeks unloading because of two words that she couldn’t join together.

* * *

A
lan knew
what he just did.

The woman, Diane Hilt, was devastated right now, probably questioning everything in her life. Perhaps even existentially. One didn’t simply stand up and dust themselves off after the news Alan delivered.

He didn’t like that he had done it, necessarily.

But the action itself had been
necessary
.

Alan drove his car, heading back to the office, but his mind wasn’t on the road at all.

Perhaps reflexively, to place a cooling balm on the fresh wound in his conscience—or perhaps only circumstances took his mind elsewhere—but either way, he thought of Teresa.

He saw her blood. Whenever he thought back to that night, the first thing he saw was Teresa’s blood everywhere. Alan knew well that different people would have different memories of the same event, so perhaps the blood wasn’t that prominent—but, no matter, his mind would never shake it.

He held her in his arms, her life leaking away.

“Hold on,” he said. “Hold the fuck on, Teresa.” His voice was low despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins and the tears flooding his eyes as heavily as her blood did his arms.

Alan lifted her up from the ground, not feeling her weight in the slightest. He tried to cradle her head against his arm, not wanting it to slump backwards .

He ran, seeing nothing—not the road, the street lamps doing their best to light up the night, or even her car. He followed some intuition of where the car was, and that carried him.

“Hold on. Hold on,” he said over and over.

Teresa didn’t say anything as he ran, just wheezed out breath in a way that Alan had never heard before.

He reached the car and realized he couldn’t get Teresa’s fucking keys out of her pocket and carry her at the same time.

“One second, just hold on,” he said as he gently laid her on the asphalt, fished her keys from her pocket and opened the back door. Again, he picked her up, and leaning into the car, put his partner across the backseat.

As soon as he placed Teresa in the vehicle, he moved like a locomotive driven by a madman high on coke. He burst into the front seat, starting the car almost before his ass touched down. The microphone in the cruiser at his mouth as the tires squealed on the wet street.

“Officer down! Officer down! Heading to Piedmont Hospital!”

He dropped the mic and didn’t hear a word that came back over it, only focusing on moving the car faster and faster.

“Teresa! Do you hear me? Teresa, hang on we’re almost there!” he shouted from the front seat, unable to see her face. He couldn’t hear her breathing either. The wheeze had stopped.

Christ Fucking Jesus don’t let her die
, he thought.

He scraped three cars as he pulled into the emergency lane at the hospital, not noticing a single one.

The paramedics were there, waiting, white coats and stretcher ready.

He jumped out of the car, swinging open the backdoor as the paramedics rushed over. He leaned in and put his arms around her, pulling her out, hoping that the lifelessness he held was simply unconsciousness. He took her from the car and paramedics grabbed her from him.

They moved fast and Alan followed right with them, completely covered in blood. He listened to them talk, spewing out all the information he had, where she was shot, how long ago, the words running from his mouth without any control on his part.

Teresa’s eyes were closed, her dark brown skin looking more and more like ash with each passing moment.

“Sir, you’ll have to wait here,” someone said, stopping him with a strong hand to the middle of his chest.

Alan tried to keep going, but the man held on, and he could only watch as they pushed the stretcher further into the hospital.

He sat in the waiting room, dried blood sticking to his skin and staining his clothes. An hour later the word came through that Teresa hadn’t made it.

Alan cried alone in the waiting room and when her husband showed up, they cried together.

And now, as he pulled into the police station, Alan cried again.