The Vigilantes (Badge of Honor) - By W.E.B. Griffin Page 0,15

bags he’d grabbed in Gartner’s office and covered their heads with them. He took the Glock from his jacket and put its muzzle at the base of JC’s skull, angled toward the top of his head, and squeezed the trigger.

The .45-caliber round fired with a loud bang, JC made a primal groan, his legs kicked out straight, and the garbage bag on his head billowed briefly, the top of it moving violently as bullet fragments flew out, accompanied by bits of brain and blood, and lodged in the trunk floorboard.

The pistol automatically ejected the empty brass casing, which flew up, hitting the trunk lid, then landed beside JC’s body, near where a dark stream of blood flowed from the bag, staining the white shirt and pooling on the football jersey.

Now you won’t be going after those high school girls—or any others.

Then he moved the pistol muzzle to the same place at the base of Gartner’s skull and squeezed off another round.

This time the ejected spent casing landed on the concrete of the alleyway. The brass made a tinkling sound in the darkness as it tumbled to a stop against a curb.

Rot in hell, you scum! Will Curtis thought, then slammed down the lid.

[TWO]

Loft Number 2180 Hops Haus Tower 1100 N. Lee Street, Philadelphia Saturday, October 31, 11:10 P.M.

As Matt Payne looked out of Amanda Law’s penthouse window, thinking about how much damn truth Amanda had written in his would-be obituary, he took a sip from the beer bottle and swallowed hard.

So then why do I feel the pull to be out there running down those animals?

Because of what else Amanda said, long before writing the obit? That it takes cops like me and her dad to keep the city as safe as possible from the bad guys loose on the streets.

Which she’d told me, more than a little ironically, right before those shits snatched her off the street.

At the memory of finding her bound in the gutted kitchen of that abandoned row house, Payne suddenly felt his throat constrict.

That place wasn’t a house. It was a slum, and a fucking prison slum at that.

But there it is: I’ll take the door of any place like that a hundred times over. That may or may not make me a good cop, but bagging bad guys is the right thing to do.

Proof of that being that Amanda is alive.

And further proof being that bastard Jiménez is on the fast track to serving a life sentence in Graterford.

Following his arrest at the row house, Jesús Jiménez had confessed to killing twenty-seven-year-old J. Warren “Skipper” Olde over what Juan Paulo Delgado claimed was a bad drug debt. In exchange for avoiding the death penalty, Jiménez also ratted out everyone in their small band of thugs in a signed confession.

Payne drained the beer bottle, which helped ease the constriction. Then he grinned as he thought:

Too bad the bastard’s about to become somebody’s bitch.

Jiménez will hope he gets thrown alone in an RHU.

The door to the bathroom swung open and Amanda Law, still starkers, stood momentarily backlit in the doorway.

My God, she’s stunning! Matt thought.

“You take my breath away,” he said. “In more ways than one, it would appear.”

She flashed a sly smile. “That, Romeo, is my evil plan.”

She clicked off the bathroom light and said sweetly to the dog, “Good girl, Luna. Lie down.”

Then she smoothly and swiftly moved across the dimly lit bedroom, completely comfortable in her birthday suit. It reminded Matt of the second time he’d met her, just last month in Liberties Bar, when she seemed to float effortlessly across the well-worn wooden floor. Clothed, of course, but even then he’d been mentally undressing her.

As she crawled back into bed, Matt smelled the delicate floral scent of her perfume. It became stronger as she moved in closer to put a hand on his chest and kiss him on the forehead. He smoothly turned his head so that his lips were on hers. She moaned softy and appreciatively, and then—hearing a brief familiar vibrating sound—made an unhappy groan.

Payne’s eyes turned in the direction of the sound, to the bedside table where he’d left his cell phone. It was set to SILENT/VIBRATE. Its color screen was now casting a pulsing bluish-green glow.

Amanda playfully bit his lower lip and held it as she mumbled, “Don’t you dare get . . .”

Matt, still in her grips, carefully reached for the phone, then held it more or less behind Amanda’s head so he could clearly see its