Hidden Virtue Read online

  Hidden Virtue

  Hidden Justice Book Four

  Nolon King

  Daivd W. Wright

  Copyright © 2021 by Sterling & Stone

  All rights reserved.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

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  Chapter One

  The small mound next to the fence was covered in creeping weeds. Drooping wildflowers. The sun pulling all the color out of everything like a curling, desaturated photo.

  Frank rarely came back here. He didn’t think it was fair to Sarah for him to stand at Carmen’s grave. Especially since he had stopped visiting the others.

  Just the occasional token effort to keep it clean. Scrape the bird droppings off the crooked concrete cross. Clean a path along the fence. Rake up the dead oak leaves scattered all around.

  Besides, he could see her from his room in the barn. A hot loft over a broad open area full of vehicles under tarps and yard tools. A tiny deck hanging from the side was just big enough for his camp chair and cooler.

  He often visited some of the places from his history. Driving by Heirloom Cove to see how they had replaced his house with a modern ranch that didn’t fit in with the neighborhood aesthetic. Wood and stone instead of tile and stucco.

  Out at the Willet County Business Park where he would skirt the front gate to drive through the parking lot. A big loop ending at the fence behind where Stan’s gym used to be.

  The nature reserve had eaten every sign that had ever even been past the chain link. A wild encroachment of vegetation that would soon overtake the top of the fence and start spilling down into the parking lot.

  He even took a weekend every now and then to cruise over to Playa Dolor. Sit on the beach and drink the tide in.

  Frank Grimm had no fear of being recognized. He looked nothing like the two men he used to be. The retired family man looking for his daughter was long gone. Consigned to a past of pain and broken promises.

  The delusional beach Frank was gone too. Gained muscle and strength washed away in alcohol. Neat white beard trimmed into a scraggly goatee. Bald head grown back into an unkempt mop.

  But a boot to the face had changed him far more than any disguise. Broken nose healed into a grotesque crook of bone and flesh. Split eyebrow healed into a scar that made his upper eyelid droop at an angle that obscured his vision on his right side.

  His clothes — typically a pair of khaki cargo shorts, an open tropical shirt, and jute flip-flops — hung from his leaned body to flap like an empty sail.

  Days spent in the barn. Working on the Dodge van. On the computer doing research. Drinking too much.

  Mo and Gen had stopped trying to engage with him. Left Frank to his own devices. He was getting to the bottom of the bag of cash Carmen had made him take from her alligator smuggling van — or endangered turtles. He had never really looked that deeply into it.

  He wasn’t worried about the money. He only needed enough to finish.

  How many months had it been since he last saw Stan? He hadn’t counted. Stopped waiting a long time ago. Mo said his cousin was okay. Why would he lie?

  Frank looked back over his shoulder at where Mo stood next to the orange RV. Soaping it up for its weekly washing. Gen jumped out from the shadow at the rear bumper to spray Mo with the hose, and Frank could hear her giggle all the way from his watching place.

  His gaze drifted to the wheelchair at the edge of the gravel. GG sat in the sun. A diminished version of the human wrecking ball he used to be. The doctors said his end was fast approaching, but Frank wanted to focus on other things.

  There was pain all over. Too much for him to heed it all. Frank had to pick and choose, so he focused back on Carmen’s grave.

  He wondered if anybody missed her. If she was even worth being missed. He tried to miss her, but instead, he kept missing the man he had been when with her. Missed the way she made him feel.

  He shook his head in bitter resentment. Aimed squarely at himself. Then tipped his beer up to drain the rest of the bottle. Warm and foamy, but there was plenty more back in the barn.

  He dropped the empty into the tallest clump of weeds. A flutter of bugs flew up at the disturbance. Like when Mo cut the grass. Stirred up the insects that brought the birds.

  One black cloud leading to another.

  He shook his head with a sigh. Dropped down to fish the bottle out. Stayed on his knees to pull at the weeds and vines covering the mound.

  The sun tracked by. Exposing his back to the unseasonal heat. The skin on his neck. The scalp not covered by his thinning hair. Hands and forearms. All darkening into old leather.

  He took his shirt off to avoid worsening his farmer’s tan. Hung it on a barb in the fence. Went back to his impromptu landscaping.

  He used his hands as the tools. Cleared the weeds. Pulled the grass. Scooped and shaped the loose dirt. In a widening circle to join the manicured lawn outside the border of her grave.

  Until it matched the rest of the yard.

  Then he straightened the cross. Pressed it deeper into the ground.

  Collected the armloads of waste. Scattered it all on the compost pile behind the barn. Wiped the worst of the dirt from his hands and knees. Grabbed a frosty Corona and went back to retrieve his shirt.

  Like guilt chipping away at resolve, he knew the weeds would be back. And eventually, he’d break down and clear it up again. He wasn’t even sure if she deserved this much care. He only knew her as she was with him.

  Lying to him the way he had lied to her.

  But the same way nature covered up crimes, she also uncovered flaws. Exposed painful truths. She would come back to reclaim the grave as she always did, and he wondered what else she would uncover in the process.

  Some new insight into how poorly he had lived his life.

  He smiled at his own dramatic mel
ancholy. Hung the shirt over his shoulder before going back to his room in the barn.

  A couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before he opened his evening’s bottle of bourbon. Scribble a few final notes in his journal. Got to bed a bit earlier than usual.

  Tomorrow started the beginning of the end. He wanted to be ready.

  Chapter Two

  Frank could tell Mo was shocked when he agreed to the group therapy session. The way he paused before smiling. The way his eyes narrowed.

  Once a week, Mo had a group of veterans come to the property, and they’d set up in a circle with a shrink. Frank had never bothered to remember his name.

  Every time, Mo asked, and every time, Frank declined. He’d listened plenty of times. They always made camp in the barn. On the concrete half where the cars were. Water and iced tea, and clouds of cigarette smoke drifting up to his little balcony.

  Men and women who could use some help for sure. Like Stan. Like Frank — a little. Many who were victims of circumstance. Put in a war they didn’t believe in or weren’t prepared for. PTSD. Unable to drive down the street without swerving away from every garbage bag fluttering on the curb.

  They came, and the doctor started the session with some gentle words of welcome, and then he’d open up the floor to someone who wanted to share their story. Frank noticed it was often the same three or four — patients? participants? — talking, while most of the others just listened.

  The two hours would end, then the doctor would conclude with a drawn-out statement that smacked of the corporate optimism of a poster caption, then they’d mill around, talking shop. Reminiscing in reverent tones about the very thing that was now ruining their lives.

  Frank knew he was also a victim. Owens had admitted as much when he had put him in the back of the van for questioning. Targeting Frank’s daughter for no other reason than her being a beautiful little girl. And if bad things happened to good people, then what Frank went through was nothing compared to what Jenny had been forced to endure.

  And that’s where Frank diverged from the group. They were struggling to overcome the weight keeping them below the waves; he was trying to breathe underwater.

  He had come to the conclusion that he deserved the suffering. That his current position was his fault. A cynical, defeatist attitude, but one that served his goals.

  To die while killing Detective Owens and anybody that got in his way.

  That thought always made him smile, but the dour faces around him reminded him of how inappropriate that might be.

  A young man with scars on his neck and face — skin grafts to repair damage from mortar fire fragments — leaned forward in his metal folding chair. Wiped the tears poised on his lower eyelids. “I see it happening, you know?”

  Frank looked up at the rough beams of the ceiling. Tried to remember the young man’s name.

  “There’s this part of me that lashes out, you know? Then there’s this other part of me that sees me doing it.”

  Miguel. That was his name. Frank nodded to himself. Took a noisy sip of his iced tea.

  Heavily laced with tequila.

  “So now I’m getting even more pissed,” Miguel continued. “Because I’m trying to stop from yelling more, you know? Like I’m there in my head screaming at myself to just fucking quit it, but I can’t, and that pisses me off more, and there’s nobody else there but Marie, so I lash out at whatever, you know? At her.”

  Miguel leaned back for a deep breath. Sagged as he sighed it back out. “I ain’t hit her yet, but I feel like it’s coming. Just like last time. And what happens if the nightmares start up again? Will I go loco on her if she tries to wake me up cuz I’m shouting in my sleep?”

  An uncomfortable shuffling from all around.

  The doctor — barrel-chested, bearded, and tattooed — held his hands up, like he was waiting for a double high five. “We’ve said it before.” His voice was soft and smooth. The shocking opposite of his appearance. “Nothing is inevitable. Possible, yes. Perhaps even probable, but that doesn’t mean it’s a forgone conclusion.”

  Miguel wiped his nose on the back of his fist. “I know, but I can see it happening, and I can’t stop.”

  The shrink kept his hands in front of him. “But the last time, you said you weren’t even aware of what you were doing. That Marie would try to tell you that you were being irrational, and that would make you lash out. You’re saying that you are now able to recognize the behavior when it happens instead of after the fact. You don’t think that’s progress? You don’t think you are veering away from the unavoidable?”

  Frank figured that everything was unavoidable, but he felt that sentiment wouldn’t go over well with this audience. He covered his smile with a drink. Glanced up to see Mo watching him and barely suppressed his defensive shrug.

  Frank had felt plenty guilty for a few weeks. He saw Mo and Gen out here in the middle of nowhere as some kind of exile, but in reality, they were living an accelerated goal. One that their insistence on helping him had forced them to pursue.

  It was easy for him to transfer his guilt to their blame.

  Except for the weekly visitors — men and women that Frank refused to make more than strangers — GG was the only other person there. And that sweet, gentle man was dying.

  One of the few things that made Frank feel … anything more than just sorry for himself.

  Mo worked on the orange RV a little each week, and it was near completion. Restored and renewed, it was down to some exterior repairs, and then? Frank suspected they were just waiting for GG to finally pass. The last thing holding them to this property.

  He had heard them talking about how they could do this anywhere. This was presumably the group therapy. Going to where the problems were instead of making the problems come to them.

  On the road, but off the grid. Maybe start a family someday.

  All things that Frank could get behind, but there was something about GG — a projection of his own guilt — that made him resentful of their dreams. He knew it was irrational. Like Miguel, he recognized it as it happened, and still sneered at their decision with derision and scorn.

  They didn’t say it, but to them, GG’s death meant freedom.

  After the session wrapped up, Frank stood for a quiet escape. Maybe up to his loft for a fresh drink. Before he could make it out of the circle, the psychologist intercepted him with an extended hand and an open smile. “Glad to see Mo finally got you down here. I’ve seen you watching. I’m Rogers.”

  Frank took the offered hand. Squeezed and pumped. “I’m Grimm.”

  The smile became a grin, and Rogers nodded. “I can tell.”

  Frank reclaimed his hand. One of the other patients came by surrounded by a cloud of greasy vapor. The artificial banana bread aroma made his eyes water. He would have preferred more cigarette smoke. “It’s just my name,” he said, wondering why he had used the real one.

  Rogers kept the power of his grin fixed on Frank. “I understand. It was just a joke.”

  Frank nodded. “So how long you been running this show?”

  Rogers brushed the question away with a flap of his hand. “My story isn’t that interesting. I’d like to hear yours, though.”

  Frank smiled. “I’m sure you’ve heard it already. Or one like it. I’ll not bore you with my problems.”

  Rogers’ grin faded into polite interest. “So, you do have problems?”

  “Don’t we all?”

  Rogers nodded. “It has been my experience, yes.”

  “So, you have problems too, then.”

  Rogers closed his eyes as if conceding a point. Frank took the moment as a distraction to turn away, only to run into a solid wall of dark flesh.

  “My man,” Mo said, but the excitement that used to accompany his usual greeting was gone. “You may not see it, but this is a step. Maybe not a big one, but it’s in the right direction.”

  Frank smiled. “It’s that kind of encouragement that continues to solidify ou
r friendship.” He tipped up the last of his iced tea, but couldn’t keep eye contact. Frank’s heart wasn’t in the jest, and by the look on Mo’s face, neither was his.

  “Come on. What’s it gonna take?”

  Frank took a step back to keep from feeling Mo looming over him. “What’s what gonna take?”

  His gaze flickered over Frank’s shoulder. Like he was getting permission from the shrink to continue. Then he brought it back and focused on Frank’s forehead instead of his eyes. Drew a deep breath, like he was about to say something with effort.

  Frank didn’t let him start. “You talking about happiness, Mo? Or … engagement? Or my own self-destructive behavior?”

  Mo’s shoulders sagged like a giant wilting flower.

  Rogers’ voice made Frank whirl around. “Let’s start with the last one.”

  Frank rolled his eyes. “Let’s not.”

  “Why not? We’re here to help.”

  Frank shook his head with a sigh. “I’m not here to be helped. I don’t want to be helped. But some people think they want to help.”

  “Don’t we?”

  The man’s even demeanor was infuriating. Frank snorted laughter. “We? I know you just as much as you know me.”

  “I’ve wanted to change that for some time.”

  “But that’s just it,” Frank shouted. “I don’t want to know you.”

  The sudden quiet all around them was like pressure against the sides of his head. Frank nodded with finality. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told him.” He cocked his thumb over his shoulder at Mo. “I want to kill the man that raped and murdered my daughter. The man that hurt her so bad, it took days to catalogue every cut and bruise. The man that drove me from my wife. Made her kill herself. The man that ruined my life.”