Blood and Ashes Read Free Page A

were enough regrets for me to contend with without hurting a grieving father.
    Don’s next words halted my hand on the door handle.
    ‘I got an email, Hunter. It said: “Who must you lose next?”.’
    Without turning, I pressed on the handle and tugged the door open and went up the stairs. ‘He’s dead, Don. How could he send you an email?’
    ‘Whether it was him or not, I was still sent the goddamn thing.’ Don walked to the base of the stairs but he didn’t follow me up. ‘It was a direct threat to my family.’
    I slipped into the dark hallway, hearing the rage building in the old man like the rumble that precedes an earthquake.
    I made it all the way to the front door, but for a second time in less than a minute my hand was halted by words.
    ‘You’re just going to walk away from this, Joe? Do you hate my father so much?’
    Millie was standing in the hallway, her arms wrapped round her body as though she was freezing. Strands of her hair were plastered across her face and clinging to the tears on her cheeks.
    Hate is such a strong word. I didn’t hate Don, just what he’d once led me to do.
    ‘He’s hurting and confused, Millie. You both are.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’re all confused. But so are you. When will you open your eyes and see what’s really happening here? He is back.’
    I gnawed my bottom lip. It wasn’t possible. The bastard’s body was ravaged by flame, immolation of his corpse as complete as what had happened to Brook. Carswell Hicks had fallen over the precipice into his promised eternity in hell.
    But then there were the emails. Someone must have sent them.
    I opened the door.
    ‘Tell your father I’m sorry for his loss.’

Chapter 3
    There was an ache in my right hand which was compounded by the cold, and more than the slight tugging in my leg, this concerned me the most. When adrenalin rushed through my system the wounds to my leg were no hindrance but I required the full range of movement and dexterity of my fingers. My hand had been shattered during the same battle where I’d picked up the other injuries, and I’d had to undergo micro-surgery to put it right. As I walked, my fists in my pockets once more, I periodically flexed the hand to promote movement.
    I had the feeling that I was going to need it in fully functioning order.
    For someone in my line of work, speed of hand is the difference between life and death.
    I hear you’re supposed to be some kind of knight errant these days.
    Don Griffiths’ words had been meant as sarcasm. Right now they elicited the required response: a wry smile. Knight errant? That was just one fancy term that had been levelled at me. I suppose it was better than vigilante , which was more often the case. At least the term carried the honourable connotations that I hold dear. Without my sense of decency, I accept that I could very well be labelled alongside those other balaclava-clad hooligans who take the law into their own hands. But then – it’s all a matter of perspective. To some I’d still be seen as a man of questionable morals. Perhaps I was the type of knight who wore tarnished armour.
    As I walked a cat kept pace with me.
    It was a gnarly old tomcat, and judging by the scars that criss-crossed its body it had fought a number of battles during its lifetime. We had a lot in common. It watched with luminous yellow eyes from the opposite sidewalk, perhaps recognising its human familiar.
    Occasionally cats have questionable morals too. Some people judge them as cruel killers, but not all their kills are for fun. Sometimes they have to kill to survive, or to protect their young.
    This took me right back to Millie, and to Brook’s children. My friend, Rink, who runs a successful PI outfit down in Tampa, had brought me up to speed on Brook’s death and the family she’d left behind: her husband, Adrian Reynolds, and nine and six year olds, Beth and Ryan. Don was an ex-cop, and, judging by the photograph I’d seen of his