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  Just Run

  ALSO BY CHRIS CULVER

  The Abbey

  Copyright © 2011 by Chris Culver

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

  FIRST EDITION: September, 2011.

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

  Just Run

  By Chris Culver

  Friday, September 13. 8:09 p.m

  Bluffdale, OH.

  Anatoly pulled back the slide on his firearm, chambering a round, as his partner pulled their government–issued vehicle to a stop. Neither said a word. They each knew their job, so no words were needed. High–pressure sodium lamps buzzed overhead, illuminating the parking lot in an unnatural yellow. The air smelled earthy and wet. It was a good night for the job. Dark. Overcast. No moon or stars.

  Anatoly scanned the area and slid his weapon back into its holster as he opened his door. A crisp wind rustled the nearby trees and sent dry leaves skittering across the lot.

  The target was in a classic Federalist–style building on a college campus full of similar, grandiose architecture. It was an imposing structure. Four identical marble columns supported a brick archway on its front facade, while a stone patio encircled the entire thing. A thick hemlock hedge cordoned the rear parking lot and the building’s mechanical systems from the rest of campus, giving them a measure of privacy that made their task much easier.

  One final job before retirement.

  Victor popped the trunk from inside the car, while Anatoly stepped out and walked to the vehicle’s rear. He pulled open the trunk lid and smoothed out the black vinyl tarp that lined the interior. Some parts of Anatoly’s preparation for a job were common sense, but others he had learned through experience. The tarp was one of the latter.

  When he was a young man, he had thrown the bodies of two heroin dealers in the trunk of a ‘67 Chevy Caprice without a liner in the middle of summer. Neither corpse sat in the car very long, but the heat quickened their decomposition rate, creating a lingering odor that had taken weeks to remove. Every job after that he used a tarp. No muss, no fuss.

  Victor walked up beside him. He wore a pair of jeans, a light–blue Oxford shirt and brown loafers. He was supposed to look like a lawyer, a task he pulled off remarkably well. Anatoly reached into the trunk and pulled out a sandwich–size Ziploc bag that held a rag soaked with enough chloroform to knock out a horse. He threw it to Victor and watched as the younger man fit it inside the inner pocket of his jacket. It was the kid’s first job, but it was easy. He’d do fine.

  “Did you bring flowers?” asked Anatoly, checking his pockets for a pack of cigarettes. He found one and lit up.

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to bring flowers,” said Victor, his voice almost cracking with strain.

  Anatoly looked at his watch and shrugged. Victor shouldn’t have been nervous. They had staked out the campus together for the past week and seen firsthand its lack of security. The school’s Public Safety Office theoretically had the same powers as a regular law enforcement agency, but its officers didn’t carry weapons, and they spent most of their day writing parking tickets. The town’s police station wasn’t much better. Unless they had spent time in the military, Anatoly doubted any of its officers had even shot a gun except at a firing range.

  “Next job, bring flowers or a bottle of wine. If you give your target something to hold, he can’t react as fast. It’s easier to take him that way. Are you ready?”

  Victor nodded.

  “Good. Gregori wants this guy alive, but if you’re not out in eight minutes, I’ll come in shooting. If that happens, get down. Understand?”

  Victor swallowed and nodded again. Anatoly thumped his back.

  “Stick to the plan, and you’ll do fine,” he said. “Now give me the keys.”

  Victor pulled a key chain out of his jeans pocket and tossed it to Anatoly before jogging through the building’s back entrance. Anatoly pulled his three–quarter length wool jacket around him tighter and walked to the driver’s side of the car. He sat down and grimaced as a sharp pain shot through his knees and into his thighs. He was too old to be working, too young to be dead and too broke to do anything else. Life’s a bitch, sometimes.

  He closed the door and adjusted the side–view mirrors so he could see behind the car. He backed up and turned the vehicle around so the hood pointed toward the exit and the trunk pointed toward Bushard Hall’s back door. He didn’t anticipate problems, but it never hurt to be prepared for when they arose.

  He glanced at his watch again. Two minutes had passed. Victor should have been in Dr. Byram’s office. If he were smart, he’d hug Byram as soon as he could and chloroform him before the math professor could react. That’s what Anatoly would have done, at least. Victor was bright, but he wasn’t that experienced yet. He’d probably wait to feel Byram out and see how he reacted to things. If he did that, though, he’d waste time they didn’t have. Feeling a target out might be reassuring while on the job, but those extra few moments could be the difference between a clean getaway and a stay in state prison. Victor still had a lot to learn.

  Anatoly sighed and tried counting the number of windows on the back of the building but only got to twenty–four before quitting. His legs felt itchy and nervous. He had spent most of his career solo, so it was probably just his lack of experience when working with a partner.

  He took a couple of breaths to calm himself and glanced at his watch again. Five minutes down, three to go. If he stuck to the time line they had discussed, Victor would be dragging Dr. Byram out of the office at that moment. Anatoly opened his car door and swung his legs out. The dark vinyl creaked as he shifted his weight and stood.

  There are tricks to putting a body in the trunk. A body doesn’t fight you, but it doesn’t help either. If the car has the sort of seats that fold down for extra–long items, Anatoly liked to stick the legs in first and have his partner pull them through. With the torso in the trunk, he’d fold the legs at the knee and then put the seat back up. If that didn’t work, he could always break a few bones; few corpses minded that. Thankfully, Victor’s Crown Victoria had a trunk so large they could almost lay a body inside without even bending it. Putting Dr. Byram inside wouldn’t be a problem, but having an extra pair of hands would make the work go quicker.

  He glanced at his watch again. Seven minutes down. He should have been able to see Victor’s movement in the hallway, but he couldn’t. It was taking too long. He threw his cigarette on the floorboards behind the driver’s seat. His DNA wasn’t on file with any government that he knew about, but Anatoly hadn’t spent an entire career doing the sort of work he did by being reckless.

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out his firearm. Unlike similar weapons, his Glock didn’t have an active safety system. Five and a half pounds on the trigger and somebody dies. He had told Victor he would wait eight minutes, but seven should have been enough. His breath was shallow and rapid. The air was cold enough that it came out in puffs of frost. Sixty more seconds and he’d go.

  He counted to thirty. The parking lot was still empty, but he could see movement through the back entrance for the first time. His shoulders sagged with relief as he slipped his weapon back into his shoulder holster. He leaned against the car, w
aiting, but the motion inside stopped before reaching the exit. For a second his chest tightened as his cell phone began to vibrate.

  He pulled the phone from his pocket and hit the power button.

  “Someone is knocking on the door.”

  Victor’s voice was soft and breathless. The cheap plastic phone creaked as Anatoly squeezed.

  “Do you have Dr. Byram?”

  Victor paused before speaking.

  “He’s dead.”

  Anatoly clenched his jaw. He shouldn’t have let the kid go alone. He wasn’t ready. “Ditch Byram and try not to kill anyone else unless you have to. The more bodies we leave behind, the more speculation follows us home. Clear?”

  He could hear Victor’s breath on the phone for a moment.

  “Yes.”

  Friday, September 13. 8:16 p.m

  Bluffdale, OH.

  The tap of Renee’s heels echoed against the bare walls. It was well after class on a Friday night, and the janitorial staff had left an hour earlier, leaving her alone in the building. She shivered and rubbed her upper arms for warmth.

  Bushard Hall was cold both physically and spiritually. To celebrate its centennial the year before, Bluffdale College had gutted it to the studs. It was an atrocity of the first order as far as Renee was concerned. Not only did the College rob Bushard of its historic charm, a sin in and of itself, they had destroyed her office in doing so. Until the renovations were complete, she kept her books and journals in a study carrel in the library among the undergraduates. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever forgive the school for that.

  She hurried through the corridor. Her colleagues called her a sucker, but she had a soft spot for crying students. She couldn’t turn them away without offering them a measure of encouragement and a sympathetic ear. It was a curse that had kept her long after her regular hours on more than one evening in the past week. She just hoped Mitch Byram, a colleague in the math department, was still in his office. He had borrowed her laptop, and she had work to do at home.

  The closer she got to Mitch’s office, the darker the building became. As part of the renovation, the contractor had installed a computer to control the building’s mechanical systems. Among other things, it was supposed to turn off every other light at night to save electricity. Since it had been installed by morons, it instead lit the front half of the building as bright as day and left the rear half dark. The college’s Chief Financial Officer seemed to find that acceptable. In turn, Renee found it acceptable to refrain from telling Campus Security when she overheard a group of her students say they planned to slip raw meat into the administration building’s air intakes as a class prank.

  Renee reached into her purse for her cell phone. The backlit screen was so bright it was almost like carrying a flashlight. She flipped it on and held it in front of her. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she could see a car through the frosted glass doors that led to the parking lot. Supposedly, Mitch had a hot date that night. Apparently it was so hot they hadn’t made it out of his office. That would have been awkward for the cleaning staff to walk in on.

  She walked the rest of the way a little quicker, making as much noise as she could in case she was about to interrupt her colleague’s extracurricular activities. When she arrived, she couldn’t hear anything through the door, but that didn’t mean much. She knew from shouting matches with the head of the mathematics department that the doors were thick and solid enough to muffle sound quite well. She rapped on the dark wood, but no one answered. Maybe Mitch had forgotten to turn off the light when he left.

  “Anybody in here?”

  No one responded, so she knocked a second time to be sure.

  “It’s Renee Carter. I don’t judge. Just pull up your pants because I need my laptop.”

  Mitch still didn’t respond, which hopefully meant he had left already. The brushed–nickel doorknob turned easily, so she cracked the door ajar. Before it could open fully, though, it hit something solid and heavy. She pushed harder, and the door budged another inch.

  “Everything okay in here?”

  I hope you haven’t had a heart attack, Mitch.

  Renee dug her heels into the ground and strained. Mitch was a good man and a good friend. He was also the only person in her male–dominated department who treated her like a human being rather than a pair of boobs with legs. He deserved whatever help she could give. The cords in her neck stood out as she strained. The door swung open a few more inches; it wasn’t much, but she hoped it was enough. She jammed herself against the metal sill and felt the doorknob bite into her stomach as she pulled herself through the crack.

  As soon as she stepped inside, she caught a whiff of something that smelled distinctively like rusted metal. Papers and books littered the ground like the aftermath of a ticker tape parade. A heavy, overturned chair was propped against the door, and Mitch’s prized Star Wars figurines were strewn about the floor. The rational part of Renee’s brain told her to leave, but her legs weren’t listening at that moment. She stepped deeper into the room, catching sight of something behind the desk that shouldn’t have been there. Her stomach fell.

  It was brownish–red.

  Blood.

  Renee’s breath caught in her throat. Her legs felt weak.

  Oh my God. Get out of here, Renee.

  “Mitch?” she asked. She couldn’t force her body to obey her reason. Her chest felt constricted as she crept around the desk.

  “Oh, Christ.”

  Mitch was lying face down on the carpet with a red halo spreading out from his head, his skull split open wide enough that she could see gray brain matter through the crack. There was a slim metal rod beside him, a replica Light Saber from the Star Wars movies. The retail on it was about two hundred and fifty dollars, but she had purchased it on eBay for eighty–five. It had been a gift for teaching her classes while she was at her father’s funeral a year earlier.

  Renee’s stomach churned, her breath shallow and fast. No matter how many times she inhaled, she couldn’t get enough air. She put her hands to her temples and backed up, knocking into Mitch’s desk chair. Before she could get her bearings, the ventilation system’s fan kicked on, and the air shifted. A clean woody scent overpowered the faint metallic odor she had smelled upon stepping in the room.

  She furrowed her brow.

  Mitch doesn’t wear aftershave.

  Before she knew what was happening, a thick forearm wrapped around her neck from behind and squeezed. Renee flailed her arms, knocking an empty coffee mug to the ground and kicking the chair. It slammed into the metal side of the desk, beating it like a drum. She tried to scream, but the forearm on her neck pressed so hard against her windpipe that she couldn’t draw in breath. Even if she had screamed, though, she knew it wouldn’t have helped. It was a Friday night, and the building was empty.

  Renee pushed into her attacker with her hips, trying to gain leverage, but her assailant matched her movements. He pressed his hip against her lower back and pulled with his arm, sinking the choke deeper. She scratched at his arm and tried to put her thumb in his eye, but he caught her wrist with his free hand and pinned her hips against the desk. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fight.

  White spots began to form in her vision.

  I have to breathe. I can’t breathe.

  Strength left her arms, and time seemed to slow to a standstill. Seconds stretched into minutes. She twisted and stamped her feet as hard as she could, hoping to catch her assailant off guard. He was too fast, though, because he matched her movement for movement. She arched her back, hoping to gain some breathing room, but her movements slowed with every second and her strength ebbed to nothing as her attacker squeezed.

  I have to breathe.

  She grew weaker until she could no longer fight the arms that held her. Her hands fell to her sides, limply. As soon as she stopped fighting, the grip around her throat relaxed, and she inhaled deeply. It was an instinctual move, which she was powerless to resist. Before
she knew what was happening, Renee felt a rough cloth on her face. She inhaled without thinking. The first breath was sweet, almost antiseptic, while the second was pungent. Her throat burned, and she felt dizzy. Her legs gave out.

  Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Can’t . . .

  The world was spinning as her vision went from white to black.

  Saturday, September 14. 1:27 a.m

  Bluffdale, OH.

  Detective Trent Schaefer sped through Bluffdale College’s main entrance, halfheartedly wishing that he had unhooked his phone before going to bed. At least it had been an easy drive from Cincinnati, just a straight shot down the interstate and then twenty minutes on US–52. He had brought a map, but he hadn’t needed it. Trent had colleagues who could see a face once and remember everything about it; he had a similar gift with maps. He could study one for ten or fifteen minutes and nearly draw it from memory. Even though he had never been there, he had known exactly where Bluffdale was; if needed, he could have even navigated most of its streets.

  Despite the early hour, students milled about the college’s residential section in various stages of intoxication and dress. Many of the girls wore Mardi Gras beads, while the men staggered around in jeans and t–shirts. There must have been a raucous party somewhere. He drove past the dorms and a row of fraternity houses, noticing a number of students sitting between dormers on the roof of one. They were three stories off the ground. If they fell, it would have solidified his already strong belief in natural selection.

  Trent drove for another two blocks before coming to a sawhorse barricade erected in the middle of the street. There were few students that far from the residence halls, something for which Trent was thankful. Drunken frat boys and townie cops rarely mixed well. He squawked his siren, alerting the middle–aged, uniformed officer manning the gate to let him through. The guy flicked the ashes from the end of his cigarette onto the hood of Trent’s car and moved the sawhorse aside, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge him.