The Cruelest Cut Read online

  Highest Praise for

  THE CRUELEST CUT

  “As authentic and scary as crime thrillers get, written as only a cop can write…A verygood and fast read.”

  —Nelson DeMille

  “A tornado of drama—you won’t stop spinning till you’ve been spit out the other end. Rick Reed’s writing crackles with authenticity.”

  —Shane Gericke

  “Put this one on your must-read list. The Cruelest Cut is a can’t-put-down adventure. Readers will definitely want to see more of Jack Murphy.”

  —John Lutz

  “A jaw-dropping thriller that dares you to turn the page.”

  —Gregg Olsen

  THE CRUELEST CUT

  RICK REED

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  To the memory of my mother,

  Ruth (Tootsie) Reed,

  who was always my biggest fan.

  This one’s for you, mom.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  The late-May rain came down hard as the Evansville PD detectives, uniformed officers, and SWAT team staked out the downtown alley behind Turley’s Jewelers. Thanks to a tip from a reliable informant, today they would take down the Solazzo gang, armed robbers who had done a Godzilla on the downtown small businesses recently.

  Bobby Solazzo had recruited the team carefully, finding only the most vicious and psychotic bastards and leaving the ones with an ounce of compassion in them to join Kiwanis or Civitan. Solazzo’s crew were the kind of guys that said, “Give me the money and I’ll kill you.”

  Solazzo and company had already eluded authorities in a high-speed chase and a shoot-out at a liquor store that left two employees dead in a pool of blood, and had been lying low for the past ten days, but now they were ready for their next heist.

  Detective Jack Murphy was in charge of the stakeout. He was crouched uncomfortably behind a Dumpster, wiping rain from his eyes, while the deputy chief of detectives was on the store’s rooftop, along with one of the SWAT snipers and a reporter from the local rag who was pressing for the perfect shot for their headline: SOLAZZO GANG GOES DOWN. Other sharpshooters were strategically located in vantage points overlooking the alley, already designated the “kill zone.” They didn’t have to wait long.

  An older black Suburban with darkened windows slid into the mouth of the narrow alley and eased along, coming to a stop directly behind Turley’s Jewelers. The next two minutes seemed to run in slow motion, beginning with the doors of the Suburban flying open and four large and well-armed men emerging.

  One man approached the back door of Turley’s and pointed a sawed-off shotgun at the door’s lock. The shotgun blast that shattered the lock on the door spooked one of the cops, who had his pistol pointed into the alleyway, and some reflex caused him to yank the trigger. Jack half-stood and looked around, thinking, Must be the deputy chief. Leave it to him to screw things up.

  The shot went wild, but the reaction of the four men below was that of a well-trained military squad, as two men rushed into the back entrance of Turley’s, and the remaining two returned fire at the rooftop snipers’ position and back down the alleyway. Although the original orders to all of the ground team were that no one fired except the SWAT snipers, the air was suddenly filled with deadly projectiles. A bullet zinged into a nearby quad of electrical transformers high up on a telephone pole just above the west half of the stakeout team, sending a shower of fiery debris down on them. The uniformed cops positioned above the kill zone continued their barrage of gunfire, effectively immobilizing their team members on the ground.

  Murphy had been waiting for the Suburban to come to a stop before giving the order to the SWAT commander to move in when he’d heard the single gunshot and then all hell breaking loose. Now he was in the middle of a goddamned war, and he was fucked no matter which way he ran. He could flee into the raging fire at the west end of the alley where there were some backup officers at least. Or he could chase the asshole he saw take off east down the alley when the shooting started. Staying put was not an option.

  He bolted from his hole and chased the lone runner. The good news was that he’d gotten a pretty good look at this character and was pretty sure it was the leader of the pack, Bobby Solazzo. The bad news was that it was Bobby Solazzo, and Bobby had a sawed-off shotgun and liked to use it.

  What kind of moron chases a guy who’s got a shotgun? Murphy thought. But he plowed ahead through cascading rain, the smooth soles of his dress loafers slipping on the wet brick-worked street surface, the smell of sewage from the overflowing storm sewers barely registering.

  He gripped the polymer handle of his Glock .45 standard police issue semiautomatic and slowed his pace—listening, watching for any movement or lack of movement. The alley was so narrow that a shotgun blast down the middle would take out anyone standing there. Not Jack’s idea of a fun time. With the damn rain coming down in waves he could only see a few feet in any direction. For all Jack knew, Bobby was ten feet away, just waiting for him to come into view.

  Murphy’s Law says, “Never take a pistol to a
shotgun fight.” But, then, he wasn’t supposed to be taking on Bobby’s gang alone, was he? He was a detective. He was supposed to be directing the stakeout at a safe distance, watching the action as the uniformed officers and SWAT team took these assholes down. And that reminded him that Murphy’s Law also says, “Anything that can go wrong, will always fuck you sideways.”

  He took a deep breath, let it out, and then moved forward again. Bobby’s got to be close now, he thought, as he neared the end of the alley where it turned to the right. He stopped and, blading his body against the concrete-block wall, he glanced around the corner and spotted a shotgun lying on a pile of trash.

  He’s unarmed! Jack thought, as lightning flashed overhead. The resultant thunderclap was immediate and deafening in the tight alleyway, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. He had just moved out from cover when another flash caught his eye. This one close. Too close. Moving at him with the speed of lightning. But not lightning. A blade, he thought, then, too late, and tried to turn away, but he felt the point of the blade cut into his face and scrape downward, gouging a path through flesh and bone.

  He lifted his .45 toward the direction of the attack…

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dr. Anne Lewis stood in the doorway of her garage and looked toward the back door of her house. The television weatherman had it wrong again. “Partly cloudy with a ten percent chance of rain” had turned into a raging thunderstorm. If I wait it will stop soon. It can’t rain this hard for long, can it? she wondered.

  Then she heard the phone ringing inside the house.

  She muttered an expletive and ran. She was thoroughly soaked when she got inside and, of course, the phone had stopped ringing.

  “Probably just a telemarketer,” she said out loud, a little put out that her husband, Don, had not answered the phone. Since his retirement last year, all he had done was lie around the house, read the newspapers, watch sports, and make a mess.

  She sighed and straightened a picture frame near the back door on her way into the bathroom for a towel. At the sink she dried herself and looked in the mirror. Her hair had turned prematurely gray in college—many years ago—but still had a shine to it that made it remarkable. Not that Don noticed anymore.

  But she wasn’t really being fair to him. After all, they had been married forty-three years. Both of them had been driven by careers, so they had never found time for children. Also not his fault, but still she wondered sometimes what her life would have been like if they’d had kids.

  With Don’s retirement last year, and her planned retirement at the end of this year, maybe she was just going through growing pains. Thirty-plus years of working in the psychiatric field had made her too introspective. She leaned close to the mirror and looked into her sky blue eyes.

  What do psychiatrists do when they retire? she wondered. Teach? Travel? Slowly go insane?

  She pushed the thought away and glanced once more at herself, smoothed her damp hair, and then dabbed a tissue at the eyeliner that streaked her face.

  “Not bad for an old dame,” she said and smiled. But as she started to leave the bathroom she noticed an odor. “My God, something smells like a wet dog!” she said and sniffed the hand towel. That wasn’t it. “Please don’t let it be the septic.” The last time it had cost them a small fortune to repair the septic system, and then there was the smell and the mess with the whole backyard dug up.

  How could he put up with this smell all day? Where is he?

  She left the downstairs bathroom and walked through the house.

  Surely he isn’t still in bed!

  She started up the stairs but stopped at the top step; a cold chill ran the length of her spine.

  “Hi, Doc. Remember us?” A fist slammed into her sternum, crushing the breath from her and causing an explosion behind her eyes.

  She woke to the most extreme pain she had ever experienced. Wherever she was, it was pitch black and her eyes hurt.

  How long have I been unconscious? What happened?

  She couldn’t see, but she could tell she was propped into a sitting position against something hard. She tried to move but could only turn her head from side to side. She managed to wiggle her fingers and toes but could barely feel them. Something was crammed into her mouth, causing her jaws to ache.

  Then she remembered the man. Although she couldn’t place him, he had looked familiar. The professional, analytical part of her mind kicked in. Had she seen him in the newspaper or on television recently? No, that wasn’t it. Was he a patient?

  Whoever he was, it was clear that he was angry and quite capable of hurting her. And where was her husband? She wondered if Don, too, had been tied up somewhere.

  Sudden pain. A blindingly bright light shone in her eyes. She tried to close them but couldn’t.

  “Wakey, wakey,” a voice said.

  She tried again to shut her eyes.

  “Your eyelids are taped open. We don’t want you to miss anything, Dr. Lewis.”

  He knows my name!

  She tried to talk, to ask him what he wanted, why he was doing this to her, but was unable to speak because of the gag.

  “Yeah—taped your mouth shut, too.”

  Oh my God, where is Don? What has happened to my husband, you bastard?

  As if he had read her mind, the intruder trained the flashlight beam next to her and, with a gloved hand, turned her head in that direction.

  Anne Lewis looked into the bloody and empty eye sockets of her husband’s face. His body was bound and propped on the bed beside her. Where his mouth should have been was a bloody, cavernous hole. His lips had been crudely cut off, most of his teeth smashed out or broken, tongue cut out. She tried to look away but couldn’t. Hot bile rose from her stomach and, finding no other avenue, it erupted from her nose.

  “Now look what you’ve done, Anne,” the voice chastised softly, as if correcting an errant child. “And you’re supposed to be a professional woman.”

  The blow to her face came unexpectedly, and she almost choked on the gag. Her vision blurred, and she felt herself blacking out.

  “Don’t you pass out on us, bitch!”

  The intruder yanked her head up by her hair, slamming the back of her skull into the headboard hard enough to make stars swim behind her eyes. Another blow to her chest took her breath, and she felt an explosion inside her skull as the world danced around her.

  She heard something ripping and then felt her head being secured to the upright rails of the headboard with something sticky. Tape.

  His voice took on a childlike tone. “Punch and Judy fought for a pie. Punch gave Judy a knock in the eye. Says Punch to Judy, will you have any more? Says Judy to Punch, my eyes are too sore.” He laughed heartily.

  Fear racked her body as she, too late, recognized her assailant. She was quite certain she was going to die.

  “Well, Anne, Bobby’s waiting, and I promised that I’d make this quick.” He grabbed her by the throat, and said, “But I lied. I’m gonna make it as painful as I can. Practice makes perfect, you know.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jack wiped the shaving cream from his face and looked in the mirror.

  “Why, Detective Jack Murphy, you are one good-looking hunk of manliness,” Susan Summers said from behind him.

  Murphy looked in the mirror again and then gave her a questioning look. “Are you seeing the same thing I am?”

  His face was cleanly shaven, but that only made the thick, white scar—running from below his right ear, across his chest, and ending above the left nipple—stand out from his skin like a thick, white snake. It was hard to believe that he had been put in the hospital twice in as many months

  He smiled at Susan. “You’re right. I’m a stud muffin,” he said in a sarcastic tone.

  She laughed and snuggled against him, nuzzling his neck. “Don’t be so vain, Jack. The scars make you look dangerous. Women can’t resist a dangerous man.”

  She backed away, and he watched in the mirror
as she slipped into one of his long-sleeved shirts. He admired her body and wondered for the umpteenth time how he had ever attracted a beautiful woman almost ten years his junior.

  Susan was a runner and had already completed three miles along the river roads before he had gotten out of bed. Her body was tan, her muscles firm, and the curves were all in the right places. Her strawberry-blond hair, which she usually wore down, was pulled back to show the smooth curve of her neck; her eyes were a bluish-green that reminded him of the sea.

  She gave him a peck on the cheek and headed toward the kitchen, and as she did he checked out the part of her that never failed to make his heart race.

  She said over her shoulder, “If you don’t stop checking out my butt and get dressed, you’ll be late for your first day back, Romeo.”

  “Whoops,” he said, and looked one more time in the mirror at the scar on his neck. The doctor said the itching was a good thing; it meant his cut was healing. It had finally stopped keeping him awake with its insistent, burning itch, but it looked like hell. The doctor had also said the scar would eventually blend in. He wondered what it would blend in with, and then thought that if his face were a pizza, it would probably blend in. Meanwhile, he looked like shit.

  With Susan in the kitchen, the sounds of pots and pans rattling and banging could never be mistaken for cooking, but her skills with a microwave were superb and she had a thorough knowledge of pizza delivery routes.