Blood Men: A Thriller

“None.”


Probably Jack Hunter took Church’s car, which means father and son have separated. There’s an old mattress lying on the floor. Jammed between it and the wall, barely in sight, is a small teddy bear. The bear isn’t that old but seems to have had a hard life. He bets Sam Hunter cuddled that bear every night of her life, and wonders what she called it. His own daughter has a bear that she sleeps with. For a second he imagines it was her out here and not Sam, and the image is so strong it makes him want to cry. Jesus—he’s so tired.

“You think he found her?” Landry asks on the phone.

“I think so. I think Oliver Church paid the price for taking her.”

“He deserved what he got,” Landry says. “Deserved it years ago.”

“I know. But now I have to lock Edward Hunter up for it. Wasn’t his job to find Church, wasn’t his job to get his daughter back.”

“Wasn’t it?” Landry asks.

Even if it was Jack Hunter who pounded in Church’s skull, it still comes back on Edward for freeing the old man. Edward has to go to jail now, and that leaves Sam where? Maybe, if he’s lucky, he could get a suspended sentence—if he can prove he didn’t kill any of the others. Maybe.

Schroder bends down and picks up the teddy bear. Jack Hunter is on the loose and there’s already a task force looking for him—but that’s not his job, his job is to find the men who robbed the bank, and that job is almost over.

“There’s nothing more we can do tonight,” Landry is saying. “The girl was there, and she’s not there anymore. Edward Hunter got her, has to be him. He’ll have taken her somewhere safe, and he’ll keep her safe until all this is over. We’ll get the rest of the bank crew today, you know we will. Tomorrow at the latest.”

He hangs up and walks past the two officers. “Call me if anything changes,” he tells them. And with that he gets into his car and heads home, hoping for at least a couple of hours’ sleep and some time with his family before he has to start up again, right where he’s left off.





chapter fifty-eight


I wake up in the early afternoon with Sam cuddled up next to me. I let her carry on sleeping while I make some coffee and go about waking up some more. I switch on the TV and can’t find any news anywhere, as if this city is sick of the news now. There are holiday movies on, a fantasy on one channel, action on another, drama everywhere else, and I wonder what Hollywood would think if one day a Christchurch story showed up on its doorstep—whether it’d think the tale was too dark or too real to turn into a Christmas blockbuster. I prop Sam up in front of one of the movies and she watches it quietly, not laughing or smiling or even saying a word. She misses her mum and she misses Mr. Fluff ’n’ Stuff and she doesn’t understand why we’re spending Christmas Day in a motel room instead of our home, or with her grandparents.

I take Sam to the cemetery so she can spend some time with her mother. With all that’s happened, I figure it’ll be the last time the three of us are together for a while. I carry Sam out of the car and sit her down by her mother’s grave and we hold hands and I tell her over and over that everything is going to be okay. There are plenty of other people out at the cemetery, all of them like me, spending time with the dead; Christmas Day is a day for celebration no matter what world you’re in. When I head back to the car with Sam, people keep watching us, and though I’m used to it, this morning it bothers me more than ever. I shield Sam from their stares and drive her back to the motel. She’s asleep again before we get there, and I lay her back on the bed and check on her every five or ten minutes, sometimes holding her hand, not sure what I should do next. I leave the TV on and flick channels but nothing of any interest comes up. Outside, Christmas afternoon is looking like a hot one; only a couple of clouds in the sky, the sun beating down on the city. Mine’s the only car in the parking lot out front. I figure everybody else has family or a better place to be than this motel.