Chapter Club: The Shadowrunner Chapter 21
Happy Friday! I’m excited to bring you another excerpt from The Shadowrunner.
Want to start from the beginning? You can find Chapter 1 here!
Last Time
Luke is the chief police officer in a small Arizona town called Abeja
His daughter, Lucy, has magical abilities that she is keeping secret from her parents.
A Texan named Silvia Montes was murdered not far from Luke’s house. Lucy both met Silvia prior to her murder and saw the murderer on the night of the crime. She has come to call the murderer a dragon
The murderer has attacked several other victims, leaving them in comas
The latest victims are Officers Pollard and Bradley, two of the officers that work with Luke
Luke woke early on Saturday morning to the sound of his phone buzzing. He had set it up so that the only calls that rang at night were from Jenni or the department, so it must be important. Blinking away drowsiness, he picked up the phone and answered it.
“This is Alden,” he said with as much professionalism as he could manage at five in the morning.
“Officer Alden, we need you to come in. There are reporters here and their asking for a statement.” It was Sally. She sounded panicked, much more panicked than she normally ever was.
Rising from the bed, Luke started changing into his uniform. “Statement about what?”
“Officers Bradley and Pollard were found unconscious at the bar last night.”
“Shit,” Luke muttered as he pulled his arm through a sleeve. “So they passed out and now people want me to fire them for negligence, is that it?”
“No, sir. They keep saying they were attacked.”
Luke froze. Sally’s voice shook, as if she were on the brink of tears. “Who attacked them?”
“I don’t know, sir. I called the hospital and they said the two of them were in a coma.”
The last word sent Luke into overdrive. He finished changing in less than a minute and started towards the garage. “I’m on my way,” he said. “Bring them into the conference room. I’ll be there soon.”
He paused as the garage door opened. Jenni wasn’t back from the hospital. She was probably the one that had first realized the connection between the attacks. But that meant when he left, Lucy would be alone.
He turned back to the kitchen and quickly scribbled a note for her. Something came up at work. Mom will be home soon. Love you, Dad.
Luke quietly made his way up the stairs and into Lucy’s room. She was curled up in a ball facing the wall. Luke laid the note on the pillow next to her and gently kissed the side of her head before returning to the car.
When Luke pulled into the station, the parking lot was filled. Several large vans took up more than their fair share of space, their sides emblazoned with the logos of news organizations much larger than The Bulletin. Luke frowned as he pulled into one of spaces designated for police. He had never seen news vehicles cluttering the station’s lot like this before, not even when Owen Macallan disappeared.
The lobby was crammed with bodies. Reporters were pushing toward the conference room as camera men and gaffers held their equipment above the throng of flesh. The entire room was filled with chatter. As Luke pressed into the crowd, trying to make his way toward his office, one of the reporters recognized him.
“Chief Alden, what do you make of this brazen attack on the police of the city?”
At the sound of his name, the people around him turned in his direction. All of a sudden, rather than fighting with the current he found himself surrounded by a vortex of people and cameras. There were flashes of light as journalists took pictures for the next days’ papers. Luke’s lips were drawn tight across his teeth. There would be no comment yet.
He pushed through more and more news people barraging him with questions until he reached the front desk. He grabbed Sally’s wrist and pulled her along to this office. When he had finally shut the door behind them, he quickly lurched to the window and dropped the blinds.
“Officer Alden, I tried to—“
Luke held up a hand. “It’s okay, Sally. We just need to decide what to tell them.”
The dread that had been building the whole drive over threatened to overwhelm Luke as he walked around to the other side of his desk. Something was changing about the man with the scarred lips. He had only attacked one victim prior to Silvia and now he had attacked three in the past week.
“Who found them?” He asked.
“Electricians on their way home. Officers Bradley and Pollard were lying in the alley behind the bar.”
“And they’re in the hospital now. With the other victim.”
His mind raced. There would be more of those lights floating around. The electricians hadn’t seen them, but if these reporters looked hard enough, they would find them. He had to find them first. But that would come after he dispelled the reporters. After he conjured a story that would placate them enough to let him continue on his work.
An ongoing investigation required confidentiality. That was a safe answer and it had the added benefit of being true. He considering giving them the picture of their suspect. If it was going to cause the man to skip town, he wouldn’t have attacked all the other people. But then again, no one had reported seeing him. If they did, would they end up comatose too?
He scribbled notes to himself on a small legal pad. Ongoing investigation, suspect still at large…
He looked up to Sally, “what else would they ask?”
“The conditions of the officers?”
Officers medically stable, but unconscious Luke scribbled.
“Connections to Owen’s disappearance?”
“Nothing concrete.” True, but dishonest. He couldn’t very well call mystic visions concrete.
“Possible causes? Motives?”
“Nothing concrete there either.”
“Don’t say that,” Sally said. He could see tears forming behind her glasses. “Tell them it’s classified or something. Don’t tell them we don’t know what’s going on!” The tears ran down her face. Luke stood and directed Sally into the chair. She started sobbing as soon as she hit the cushion.
“We don’t know what’s going on anymore!” She cried. “We don’t know anything!”
Luke repeated her name several times, trying to get her to calm down. When she stopped shaking, he said, “I’m working on it, and I think I’m close. Once I figure this next thing out, everything will go back to normal.”
As he said it, he knew he was exaggerating. Even once they found the man and Owen, there would still be the lights and the other victims to worry about. But all of that would be more manageable, once these first questions were finally answered.
Luke grabbed the legal pad and walked to the door.
“Stay here as long as you need, Sally,” he said.
He turned back to the door and opened it, pausing in the doorway. Time to see what he could do with reporters.
I hope you enjoyed this sneak-peak of The Shadowrunner. What did you think? Let me know by leaving a like and some of your thoughts in the comments below!