Demon Card Enforcer 2: Chapter 34 (Patreon)

Chapter Thirty-Four: Unexpected Aid

            Wolfe leapt from the car and flew the front door of his home. He immediately noted that the front door to the house was askew, hanging lopsidedly. It had been smashed in by something. Claw marks in the front lawn, barely visible in the moonlight, suggested a powerful card monster as the most likely culprit.

            Rhett followed Wolfe closely as he ran up. “No decks? Is that wise?”

            Wolfe gave it brief thought. Usually, he liked to surprise his enemies, but if they were here, they likely heard him drive up. “Pull ‘em.”

            Rhett touched his chest, and then touched a steel-colored card. His Enforcer Golem sprang into existence.

            At the same time, he pulled his deck. His two companions appeared—inlcuding Malviere. Suddenly feeling like an idiot for not bringing her forth earlier and asking what had happened, Wolfe touched her card.

            “Who was here?” Wolfe asked as the ten-year-old looking girl appeared.

            “Two men in dressed in all black, wearing all black masks,” she said. “They asked for a box containing information on the cops,” Malviere reported. “Are James and Jason alright? They were very scared.”

            “I don’t know yet,” Wolfe said, then pushed into the house, not sure what he would find and terrified he would find someone he cared about dead or hurt.

Just like when I was a child. If I even find either of my idiot cavapoos, James or Jason hurt, I’m gonna go John Wick on someone.

            When Wolfe pushed in, he found his front room torn to pieces. Cushions had been thrown everywhere, as if a box of files would have been hiding in a couch. A couple lamps were smashed. For some inane reason, even the glass door to the backyard had been slashed open.

            It took a moment for Wolfe to understand what he was seeing, but a lump, lying between the cushions, resolved into the form of Ms. Timo.

            Rhett pushed in and knelt beside her. “Ma’am, are you alright?”

            Ms. Timo coughed, a wracking sound. Blood was coming from a huge split over her eye, which was already swelling up. Someone struck her with a gun butt, but didn’t finish her off.

            She struggled to rise, and Rhett helped her into a sitting position.

            “Where’s Lucy?” Wolfe asked, kneeling down next to her.

            She struggled to sit upright, almost falling over, and held her hands to her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. Shannon and Lucy were outside, last I saw. In the backyard, sleeping under the stars. They told me you said it was okay.”

Wolfe vaguely remembered that, but mostly, he remembered telling them to check with Shel. It might have only been this morning, but that had been a long day ago.

Ms. Timo kept talking, her voice a broken monotone. “But when the men with guns came, after they killed Sorenia and Malviere, they got really upset. They said that your bedroom was empty, and the box was missing. When I told them I didn’t know where it was, they hit me with their gun. That’s the last I remember.”

Two tiny feet planted themselves on Wolfe’s side, and he turned. James, the slightly larger of his two apricot cavapoos, was standing on his back legs, his front pressed against Wolfe. His tail was wagging, as if Wolfe being back meant everything would be okay. Next to James was his brother Jason.

Wolfe was glad his two dogs were okay, but he still didn’t know where Shel’s sister was.

“Do you think they’re still outside?” Rhett asked.

“Let’s check.”

Wolfe stepped through the shattered remains of his door, the glass crunching underneath his feet. When his cavapoos tried to follow, Wolfe turned to Malviere. “Keep them back, please. They’ll cut their feet on the glass.”

They whined but didn’t struggle as Malviere picked them up into her arms.

Wolfe and Rhett walked off the porch into the yard proper. A small tent was on the ground under the sole tree in the backyard, nearest the fence. Rhett began searching around the fence and tree, but Wolfe walked over to the tent and glanced inside.

Two sets of blankets, two sets of pillows, a couple books—very old fashioned—and a small pile of snacks, but no one else. As Wolfe’s eyes roamed the inside, he saw a piece of paper.

What? Wolfe picked it up.

It was his partially written statement in the People v. Timo case.

Ah, shit. Wolfe could already see the situation. Shannon, desperate to find out what had happened with her parents, must have stolen the box of files, and was almost certainly looking through it in the tent.

But Wolfe didn’t see the box anywhere.

“William, take a look at this,” Rhett called.

            “Just call me Wolfe,” Wolfe said, then, just in case, “It’s a nickname.”

            He backed out of the tent and stood, walking over to where Rhett was examining the fence. Even in the dark, Wolfe could make out what he was talking about. Footprints on the fence.

            The girls must have fled when they heard the commotion. Did they actually take the files?

            Wolfe wouldn’t have put it past Lucy. The girl was far too bright for her own good, but it was at least possible that she might have been bright enough for Wolfe’s good in this case.

            Or maybe they had left before everything went wrong, taking the files to look at where no one would find them. Wolfe wasn’t sure.

             “Where would she have gone?”

“Well, they live next door,” Wolfe replied, his mind running. “Right here, in fact, over this fence.”

He turned and faced the house, glancing at it over the barrier separating the properties.

Rhett huffed out breath and leapt onto the fence, pulling himself over and jumping down to the backward next to them without another word.

“Son of a…” Wolfe growled out and leapt over as well, stumbling slightly on the dismount. He still hurt quite a bit, and his body wasn’t responding as well as it ought to.

Rhett ran through the yard and opened the back door. “Shannon? Lucy?” he called into the house.

No answer.

            “Lucy?!” Wolfe called out as loud as he could.

            Still no answer.

            “Let’s go,” Rhett said, entering the house through a glass door and curtains in the backyard entrance.

            “Should you be breaking in?” Wolfe asked as he followed.

            “Exigent circumstances doctrine,” Rhett muttered. “Kids might be in danger inside.”

            The living room was empty, but the box of files that everyone was looking for was on the coffee table in front of some old, sheet-covered couches in the center. The Timo file was out and open in the center.

            On the page describing Shannon’s mother’s death at her father’s hands.

            “Fuck,” Wolfe muttered.

            Rhett picked up some of the police corruption files, glancing through them.

            A knock came at the front door before he could process anything further—a small hall connected the living from to the front, and Wolfe could see the thick door from where he stood. He reached out and touched a card--an Angry Hellhound—and tossed it out before walking over to the front door as quietly as he could.

            He glanced out the peep hole. Shel was standing on the front, her arms wrapped around herself, nervously pacing back and forth on Ms. Timo’s porch.

            Wolfe opened the door, and Shel flung herself into his arms, hugging hard. After a long three seconds, she pulled back and glanced at Wolfe’s blood-soaked form. “Are you okay?”

            “Well enough. And you can heal me, so I’ll be a lot better soon.”

            “Where’s Lucy?”

            Wolfe shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m almost positive the thugs didn’t get them, but I don’t know where they’re at now.”

            “Are you two going to look for them?” Rhett asked, glancing up form the pages he was reading. Steel-colored particles also flowed back into Rhett, which Wolfe took to be Rhett dismissing his summons.

            “Of course,” Shel declared, and Wolfe nodded to her words.

            “Alright, well, even after a cursory glance I can see these files are fairly complete. I’m going to take them back to the station, get my own chief on the line. He’s a good guy—I know him personally. He’ll help me to make sure that every police officer that betrayed his oaths goes to jail for a very, very long time.”

            Rhett picked the box of files up in both arms with a grunt.

            Wolfe nodded to Rhett’s statement, not entirely convinced after Rhett’s insane display of ignorance of the corruption in Noimoire that the lieutenant was the best judge of police corruption. But Wolfe had to admit, none of Emmett’s files had shown any Joliet officer as being involved. Maybe they really were clean.

            He wasn’t about to gainsay Rhett at this point regardless. Wolfe no longer had the slightest doubt that Rhett was on the side of the angels.

            Rhett walked out of Ms. Timo’s house, and Wolfe and Shel followed.

Rhett walked down the Timo’s drifveway and then took the brief jaunt back to Wolfe and Shel’s place. He reached the car that had belonged to ‘The Surgeon’ and hitched the box briefly into one arm, opened the car, and then put the box into the back seat. He straightened with a slight sigh before glancing at Wolfe.

“I’m not sure who you really are, Wolfe, but if you were who I think you are, you might be inclined to seek personal vengeance. I would recommend against it. Let the wheels of justice work—they may be a touch slow, but they’ll be certain in this case, I promise. Too many people are involved now that we know what’s up, and someone will squeal. With the evidence in these files, we could probably get a conviction even without that—but someone always squeals.”

“I’m just gonna find Lucy and Shannon, and then sleep for three straight days,” Wolfe said.

They watched as Rhett got into ‘The Surgeon’s’ car and drove off, presumably heading to the Joliet police station.

            Wolfe turned and walked back into the house. Ms. Timo was sitting on the couch now, steadier than she had been. The two dogs ran around, tails wagging now that Wolfe, Shel, and Malviere were all back.

            “Lucy and Shannon are gone, but the box of files was at your house. We’re pretty sure they stopped there, and Lucy read the Timo case files—and then they left. Do you have any idea where they might have gone?”

            “Oh no,” Ms. Timo said. “I didn’t want her to find out that way. I was going to tell her myself, but—”

            “Ms. Timo, please,” Wolfe said, exasperated. “The point is, she’s missing. Do you know where she might have gone?”

            Ms. Timo thought for a few moments. “Well… her father used to take her to the local park—it’s a municipal card park, and it is always in bloom, and always spring-like. Maybe she went there?”

            “Oh, Persephone park?” Shel asked.

            Wolfe had never heard of it, somehow.

            Ms. Timo nodded.

            “Alright, we’ll check it out. Hopefully they’re there.”

            “Please make sure Shannon is safe,” Ms. Timo replied, resting her head back. “My son was already so unlucky… it would be a terrible shame for her to be lost as well.”