Get caught up:
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The apartment was almost perfect, thought Despain to himself. The one bedroom (with an additional study) had an ocean front view and had been the only unoccupied apartment in the building before he signed the lease. The building manager hadn’t looked at his identification too carefully and therefore hadn’t realized that it was a driver’s license from someone else; a suspect Despain had arrested some months before back in Missouri. The rent was payable in cash – which made Despain wonder how much the building manager was skimming from the property owner – but that wasn’t his issue. He’d paid three months in advance along with the security deposit of first and last month’s rent. So he was paid for a total of five months and he didn’t think it would take him that long to find whoever had killed his daughter.
He didn’t need a lot of furnishings. The twin bed was sufficient. He had a small sofa and a coffee table in the living room. He’d eat his meals there watching the news on his 27” TV. He didn’t want to have to deal with the cable company but the outlets were already in the walls and cutting into the right feed in the basement utility room had been easy enough. Unless the cable company monitored the exact data transfer and usage per customer in the building, no one would ever be the wiser.
He’d purchased a small microwave oven and an electric coffee maker at the local thrift store. Total cost: $15. Between those two appliances and the one frying pan he had with him, all of his meals could be prepared. He didn’t eat much. Since the death of his daughter and the local agency’s apparent lack of closure, he had been driven by the desire… the need to come find the scumbag who’d taken his only child from him. Vengeance upon said scumbag would be his.
Despain felt like a force of nature as he stood, looking out the apartment’s sliding glass doors, watching the waves roll in along the Atlantic coast. It was fall now and too chilly to keep the doors open. In the summer he most assuredly would have enjoyed the breeze and the smell of the sea. A long time ago… before he’d been a cop… before he’d joined the SWAT team… he’d been in the Navy. He always enjoyed the smell of the ocean and this city, Oceanside, centered as it was in Virginia on the Atlantic coast, almost felt like coming home.
The word “home” in his thoughts made his blood boil again. Home was where family should be. He didn’t have any left. THAT was why he was here. It wasn’t home. It was headquarters.
Dressing casually so as not to stand out, and leaving his handgun in the apartment, Despain went out for a stroll. He needed to get to know the area. He needed to know where the dead ends were, where the fences were, where the crowds traveled and where the dead spots were. He didn’t want to clash with the local police; he still considered them all brothers and sisters in arms. He knew that they would be duty bound to arrest him if they caught him; at least, if he fulfilled his planned purpose here.
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Read the rest of this episode, part of Season Three, in the anthology ebook available exclusively on Amazon for kindle: http://amzn.to/2jcbPVB
