The Big Run-Off (Holden Burke #1)

Nineteen

I waited for what must have been half an hour, but felt to me like at least a century. I'd turned on only the lights of the entryway, and sat slumped on one of the plush benches along the side of the staircase, waiting for the next century to come and go.

I listened to the droning sound of the rain and wished that I had the strength to stand by the door and feel its chill blow in from outside. Then a flash of lights bloomed across the front windows like a sudden stroke of daylight, and the sound of a car parked itself outside the front doors.

I listened to the door shut and a scramble of feet up the steps. A knock at the door. The door wrench open on its own.

Dave saw me and immediately tensed his face. I raised my hand at him in a faint greeting, but I was tired, and I was weak. He stepped out of the rain, shaking off the drops that had touched his jacket on the dash between the car and the door, and stood above me.

'Okay, Holden,' he said. 'I'm not amused. You know I have to put the cuffs on Mitchell Ramsey. Is he here?'

'He's here,' I said. 'And it might even be easier for you than you expect.'

'Easier...—What've you done?'

'Nothing. He did it himself. Mitchell Ramsey is sitting upstairs with a glass in his hand and a bullet in his head.'

Dave was silent. He looked up the staircase, then down at me again. My head was resting tiredly on my fist, which was resting tiredly on my elbow, which was resting tiredly on the bench.

'I suppose you can prove it was deliberate,' Dave said quietly.

I shrugged as best I could. My voice was was tired, too. 'It's his gun, his bullet, and his motive. Mitchell Ramsey was about to lose everything. Who am I to stop someone whose mind is made up to get rid of it?'

'What are you even doing here, Holden?'

'Wrapping up my case. You were looking for Anthony Ramsey, well I know where he is—and, lucky you, there's not even a scratch on him. You'll get a commendation. Everyone loves it when poor lost rich kids are found.'

'Okay, Holden. It's not funny anymore. I have the evidence against Ramsey, it's all locked up safe and sound. Thank you for that, I guess. What do you have about the kid?'

I heaved myself to stand. 'I'll tell you as straight as I can, Dave. You know I wouldn't lie to you, because I love you too much.'

'I love you too, in spite of all the goddamn pain you cause me. Now hurry up.'

I took a breath and looked straight into his watery blue irises, and said, with as much professional confidence as I could manage, 'Anthony Ramsey was kidnapped by his own father.'

Dave looked at me soberly for a moment. I don't know if he believed me, but I went on anyway: 'Tony spent half his life suspecting his father's rotten dealings—the socialist game was a reaction to that, but he needed proof. Thursday night, spurred on by the news of a shooting at a competitor's office, he broke into his dad's special safe to see what he could find; dad caught him, and knew the jig was up. The whole kidnapping was a hoax. He stashed his kid securely as far from here as he could, in a little outback hole called Stone Creek—back where he first made his fortune—and did nothing but wait until the heat was off and he could safely dispose of him. Then he could blame it on the imaginary kidnappers and call it a day. And having lured Pearson into the open and plugging him, all his secrets magically found themselves safely locked away again, and he was able to go back to being rich, bored, and comfortably without morals. That's it, Dave. All of it. A real modern-day Abraham and Isaac story.'

'I guess that makes you God for saving him, huh,' Dave said.

I shrugged. 'You said it, not me. I'd never be that vain.'

Dave was shaking his head to nothing in particular, his eyes down and his lip clenched. 'Okay—just how did you figure out where the kid was anyway, and Ramsey's connection to the whole thing?' he said.

'Old fashioned detective work, I'd call it. Luck, someone else probably would. I didn't like the coincidence of the kid going missing the same time as Pearson mysteriously dying. I put two and two together, and it added up to Stone Creek, QLD. Ramsey committed his first murder there years ago; if he got away with it there, who's to say he didn't think he would again?'

'I don't buy it, Holden. It's too clean. This isn't one of those old movies you like. You're not Bogart or Paul Newman swooping in here and saving the day.'

In spite of my weariness, I couldn't help but smile at that. He was right, it wasn't a movie—but the idea of a coincidence like that happening anyway made some sliver of me suspect that it might be. And it made me feel good.

I put my arm around him. My voice was nearly drained by that point, but I said, 'Who's to say if the story is true or not? I say it is, you might think different. But here's the thing: you're the official right now, Dave. What you take away from all this and tell your superintendents is probably what the truth will be from here on in. And in this version of the truth, whether right or wrong, at least it absolves the idea of Anthony Ramsey going to jail for grand larceny. And I don't think he should be in jail when, if not for him, his father would still be alive and would still be free. Of course, that's all just hyperbolical thought. But this story just happens to be one that lines up with this version of events—in my opinion, the best version of events. Everybody wins with this one, Dave.'

Dave was silent. I could see the gears in his temple clicking in lengthy thought. There were two ways I guessed he would react—and one of them involved me getting in trouble, Anthony going to prison, and our friendship disappearing forever. I didn't want that.

Dave turned slowly to face me and said, quietly, 'Tell me right now, Holden. Tell me that this story is one hundred percent, God's honest, grave-of-your-mother truth. Tell me.'

It hurt the muscles of my lips, but I smiled.