Justice Burning (Darren Street Book 2) Read online

  OTHER TITLES BY SCOTT PRATT

  JOE DILLARD SERIES

  An Innocent Client

  In Good Faith

  Injustice for All

  Reasonable Fear

  Conflict of Interest

  Blood Money

  A Crime of Passion

  Judgment Cometh

  DARREN STREET SERIES

  Justice Redeemed

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Arthur Scott Pratt

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542045605

  ISBN-10: 1542045606

  Cover design by Cyanotype Book Architects

  This book, along with every book I’ve written and every book I’ll write, is dedicated to my darling Kristy, to her unconquerable spirit and to her inspirational courage. I loved her before I was born, and I’ll love her after I’m long gone.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  PROLOGUE

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  PART II

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Life’s filled with trauma. You don’t need to go to war to find it; it’s going to find you.

  —Sebastian Junger

  PROLOGUE

  A cold breeze was blowing as I walked down the dark sidewalk toward the bar. I was wearing a dark-brown jacket with a black wool sweater beneath it, a black stocking cap, black jeans, black running shoes, and black socks. My hands were covered by a pair of black cold-weather running gloves. A Beretta pistol was shoved into my pants, secured by my belt, at the small of my back. I slipped into a creek bed and moved up close to the gravel parking lot outside the bar. To my surprise, there were only two vehicles in the lot. One was a brown Chevrolet that had been parked by the door earlier in the day. I assumed it belonged to the owner, a man named Sammy Raft. The other was Donnie Frazier’s girlfriend’s pickup truck.

  I considered my options. I could wait out there in the cold until they came out, which might not be until closing. The door said closing time was 2:00 a.m. on Fridays. That was six hours away. Or I could walk into the bar and improvise. It took me about five seconds to decide.

  “Fuck it,” I said out loud and headed toward the door. When I walked in, Sammy was standing behind the bar, polishing a glass. I knew what he looked like because I’d ordered a cheeseburger from him earlier in the day while checking the place out. The bar smelled of stale beer, cigarette smoke, and hamburger grease. Donnie Frazier and Tommy Beane were in a booth against the wall to my right. A Merle Haggard song called “Momma Tried” was blaring on the jukebox. I sat down at the first bar stool, and Sammy walked over.

  “A little slow for a Friday, isn’t it?” I said.

  He shot a glance toward the booth behind me. “It’s them two. They done run everybody off. Want the place to themselves. Probably be best for you if you don’t stay long.”

  “I’ll take a Budweiser, longneck,” I said. “Appreciate the heads-up.”

  Sammy turned and reached into a cooler. He popped the cap off the bottle and set it on the counter.

  I didn’t touch it. Instead, I leaned toward him as though I wanted to draw him into a conspiracy. “Can I ask you a personal question? I know it might seem a little strange, but is your mother still alive?”

  Sammy looked to be around sixty, pudgy and balding, with bright-blue eyes. He gazed at me curiously. “She passed about ten years ago. The cancer took her.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Were you close? Did you love her?”

  “My momma? Are you asking me if I loved my momma?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You’ll understand in a minute.”

  “I loved her to death. She was the finest woman I ever met, even better than my wife, Linda, and that’s saying a lot. Now tell me why you want to know if I loved my momma.”

  “Because I loved mine, too, and those two insects in that booth over there raped her.”

  I saw Sammy swallow slowly. His blue eyes locked on to mine, searching for an answer to a question he was afraid to ask. Finally, he asked the question. “Are you planning to do something about it?”

  “I am.”

  “Here? Now?”

  “Afraid so. You know those boys well?”

  “Well enough to know I don’t much care what happens to them, but I don’t see myself sitting back while you kill two men in my place of business.”

  I’d told him they’d raped her, but the two men in the booth had killed my mother. I’d done a lot of planning, taken some serious risks, and had driven a long way to get revenge. The man standing in front of me had done nothing to me, but I wasn’t going to let him stop me from doing what I’d come there to do. If I had to kill him, too, I was prepared to do so and chalk it up to unavoidable collateral damage.

  “I’m not asking you to sit back. I’m asking you to take a little trip to the bathroom,” I said. “There’ll be some noise. Wait until the noise dies down, and then come back and call the police, but take your time about it. Tell them you went into the bathroom and heard shooting start. You were afraid to come out. When you finally came out, they were dead.”

  “Why would they rape your momma?” he said.

  “It’s a long story, something you don’t need to hear. Those boys are going to die in the next couple of minutes. You can either go into the bathroom or you
can die with them.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “You don’t have to believe me, but fate has put you and me and them in this bar together at this moment, and something is about to happen.”

  “What if I pull this sawed-off shotgun out from under the bar and blow your head off with it?”

  “You better be quick,” I said.

  He stared at me again for a long minute. His expression changed to one of resignation, and I watched him make his decision. He began slowly walking around the bar. He walked behind me, past Frazier and Beane, to the end of the bar, turned left, and disappeared behind a black door that said RESTROOMS.

  By this time, Merle Haggard’s song was done playing, and Johnny Cash was singing “Folsom Prison Blues.” I got up off the bar stool, took a deep breath, and was surprised I wasn’t more nervous. I pulled the Beretta and hid it behind my back. I flipped the safety off and walked up to the booth. Beane was to my left with a cigarette hanging from his lips. He looked just like the photo I’d been given: Elvis Presley hair and sideburns, dark eyes, thick neck. Frazier had a dark-blond ponytail and greenish-blue eyes. Both of them had tattoos on their necks and on their hands. Their arms were covered with shirtsleeves, but I was sure they were also covered in prison tats.

  I looked them over for a couple of seconds before Frazier said, “What the fuck you lookin’ at, boy?”

  Without saying a word, I put three rounds into Beane’s chest. The noise inside the small bar was deafening. Beane melted into the booth, blood already oozing from his shirt. Frazier froze and looked up at me, his eyes wild with fear. I didn’t feel a bit of sympathy for him or for the man I’d just shot three times. My heart rate was steady. My hands weren’t shaking. More than anything else, and for the first time in a long time, I felt in control.

  “My name is Darren Street,” I said to Frazier. “Ring a bell?”

  I pointed the Beretta at his forehead as his eyebrows raised and an “Oh shit” look came over his face. “This is from my mother.”

  Those were the last words Donnie Frazier heard. I pulled the trigger, and a hole opened up between his eyes. I shot him seven more times and then put four more rounds into Beane to make sure he was dead. The Beretta locked open on the slide, indicating the gun was empty. I stuck the pistol in my waist and walked out the door. I walked quickly to my car but didn’t run. I got in, fired up the Monte Carlo, and headed out of town toward Tennessee, the same way I’d come in.

  An hour and a half later, I pulled into a mostly deserted rest stop off the interstate, near Charleston, West Virginia. I walked into the restroom, took a look in the mirror, and realized I had small dots of blood spatter on my gloves, glasses, and forehead. I was sure it was on my jacket and fake beard, too, but it wasn’t noticeable. I found myself reluctant to wash it off.

  Having Frazier’s and Beane’s blood all over me gave me a visceral feeling of power. It felt like war paint, and I wanted to wear it for all the world to see.

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1

  Six weeks earlier

  My name is Darren Street, and as I settled into the seat the doctor had pointed out, I felt a sense of dread come over me. I suddenly wanted to get up and run out the door, like a child who is afraid of being given a shot. The doctor hadn’t done anything to frighten me, at least not intentionally. In fact, she’d been quite pleasant.

  Laura Benton was a board-certified psychiatrist who ran a boutique practice from her home in the posh Bluegrass neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee. She charged $200 an hour, cash only, and was supposedly quite good at what she did. The appointment had been arranged through my girlfriend, Grace Alexander. Grace knew Dr. Benton because both of them volunteered at the Second Harvest Food Bank. I’d been falsely convicted of a murder and imprisoned for two years—one year in a federal maximum security penitentiary—and I’d had some problems adjusting to being free. So Grace had thought some psychiatric assistance might be in order. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I knew I was struggling. Grace had offered to pay for the first session, so I’d finally given in and agreed to go.

  Dr. Benton appeared to be around forty, a few years older than I was. She wasn’t an ugly woman by any means, but she wasn’t particularly attractive, either. She had brown hair and eyes and a studious, prudish look about her. Her sky-blue blouse was buttoned to her throat, and her loose-fitting black skirt fell below her knees. Her calves were pale and without definition.

  We were in an airy, open room with a high ceiling, plenty of windows that looked out over the manicured lawn outside, and several pieces of overstuffed furniture. She settled into her seat across from me with a yellow lined notepad in her right hand and a pen in her left.

  “You’re a southpaw,” I said, just to break the proverbial ice.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Wrong-hander. Lefty.”

  “Are you nervous, Darren?” she said.

  “Sorry. Yeah, I guess I’m a little nervous.”

  “Why do you think you’re nervous?”

  “Because you’re a stranger and you’re going to ask me questions about things I probably don’t want to talk about.”

  “I’m here to help you. Do you believe that?”

  “I suppose I do,” I said.

  “Good, then how about we start by you telling me what you believe is your most serious difficulty right now. Grace has told me quite a bit about you, so I feel as though I know you pretty well, but I’d like to hear what you think might be bothering you.”

  “I can’t sleep,” I said.

  “Do you mean you can’t go to sleep, or you wake up easily?”

  “Both. I can’t go to sleep because I don’t really want to go to sleep. I don’t want to go to sleep because I know what will be waiting for me over there. When I manage to get to sleep, what I dreaded is always there, and I wake up quickly.”

  “So you have nightmares.”

  “Constantly.”

  “And these nightmares, do they seem real, or are they dreamlike?”

  “They seem real. It’s like all my senses are intact. I can see and hear and smell and feel the things that are happening.”

  “What kinds of things do you dream about?”

  “I dream about being chased by the police. I dream about being beaten by prison guards. I dream about being handcuffed and shackled on a bus for months at a time. I dream about being strip-searched. I dream about being stabbed.”

  “So all those things happened to you when you were in prison?”

  I nodded. “I wasn’t chased by the police. They just walked into a restaurant and arrested me and then helped frame me for a murder I didn’t commit. But all the other things happened to me.”

  “And I understand you’re a lawyer, correct?”

  “Yes. Criminal defense. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

  “So you continue to visit jails and go to courtrooms and do all the various things associated with practicing criminal defense law. You see men and women in restraints every day, deal with police officers and prosecutors and judges, and you deal with guards at the jails you visit.”

  “I do.”

  “Do you fight a lot of battles for your clients?”

  “Every day. That’s pretty much all a criminal defense lawyer does. We fight and argue and scrap, trying to make sure the government plays by its own rules.”

  “Those things probably aren’t good for you, Darren.”

  “They’re all part of it. I have to make a living. I did four years in college, three more years in law school, and then another seven building my practice before everything came crashing down on me. I went to prison for two years, was finally exonerated, and fought to get my license back. I’ve been going hard for a year now and am starting to reap some benefits, at least financially, from my efforts. I can’t just walk away.”

  “Would you rather die?” she said.

  “Come again? I don’t think I understand.”

  “If
you keep going the way you are, if you keep exposing yourself to these stressors, these triggers, it will eventually cause you some serious health issues. It’s already affecting you mentally and emotionally, and to be honest, you’re in a dangerous area mentally.”

  She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. The anxiety I felt all the time, the grinding of my teeth, the violent dreams, and the occasional thought of taking my own life in order to be free of the terrifying nightmares were all things I knew were dangerous.

  “I know I’m in a dangerous area mentally,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “You could be in danger of losing all faith in the principles that have guided you to this point in your life. Do you know what a nihilist is, Darren?”

  Did she think I’d become a nihilist? I didn’t. I still had my mother, my son, and Grace. I loved them and felt close to them. I needed them. Nihilists didn’t need anyone. They didn’t care about anyone or anything.

  “If I’m not mistaken, a nihilist is someone who thinks life has no real meaning.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m not a nihilist. I have feelings. I have people I love. I look forward to the future.”

  “But you could be heading down that road if you continue to expose yourself to these stressors and triggers on a daily basis. Because what you’re describing to me is classic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and PTSD, left untreated, can lead to even more serious difficulties.”

  “Is that even a real thing?” I said. “I mean, I’ve heard of PTSD, but I’ve always thought it was just sort of a cop-out for people who have been through something traumatic and wanted to wallow in it.”

  “You tell me if it’s real,” she said. “You’re the one who can’t sleep. Does the lack of sleep cause you to be lethargic during the day? Do you have trouble concentrating? Have you developed a fatalistic attitude toward life in general? Do you have violent thoughts?”

  I didn’t want to answer, because the answers to all the questions would be affirmative. “It isn’t that bad. I just need some more time. Time heals all, right?”

  “You need to stay away from the triggers, at least for a couple of years. Can you go back to school, find another way to make a living?”