The Silence Broken: Part Three: the District Detectives, #1, page 1
Table of Contents
The Silence Broken: Part Three (The District Detectives, #1)
The District Detectives: | The Silence Broken: Part Three
To: Crystal
The one with the previously on | The One with the next Part | The One with the sneak peak | The One with the Author Bio
The One with the Previously On
Chapter 1 | The One with the Missing Pages
Chapter 2 | The One with the Hitmen
Chapter 3 | The One with the Capture
Chapter 4 | The One with the Drop Off
Chapter 5 | The One with the Hit List
Chapter 6 | The One with the Shock
Chapter 7 | The One with the Dinner at Monte’s
Chapter 8 | The One with the Sworn Silence
Chapter 9 | The One with the Witnesses
Chapter 10 | The One with the Accusations
Chapter 11 | The One with the Mistaken Identity
Chapter 12 | The One with the Ripped Pages
Chapter 13 | The One with the Big Reveal
Chapter 14 | The One with the Answered Questions
Chapter 15 | The One with the End
The One with the Next Book
Want to know when the next book comes out?
The One with the Author Bio
One step forward and two steps back.
That’s what it feels like to the District Detectives, Olivia—Olli—Wainwright and Dallas Stowe. Between their constant shadow in the Buick trailing them wherever they go, dead ends wherever they turn, and strange phone calls always turning them onto terrible crime scenes, it seems they may never get through this case.
They finally catch a break when one of the strange phone calls tips them off that there’s a shipment coming into The District for the first time since The Great War. It’s the first time that things start to click into place.
Olli and Dallas know they’re getting close when the office is ripped apart.
By the time all the pieces start to make sense, the outcome shocks Olli to her very core.
The Silencer has been in Big Town all along. And in a place where they would have never thought to look.
Pick up the thrilling conclusion!
The Silence Broken: Part Three
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or places are entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2022 by J. Arens
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission
of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations
in a book review.
First edition November 2022
ISBN: 979-8-9856642-4-9 (paperback)
ISBN: 979-8-9856642-5-6 (ebook)
Published by: Big Town Publishing
districtdetectives.com
The District Detectives:
The Silence Broken: Part Three
To: Crystal
The girl who dragged me through the pages
of history and showed me a class of men that
will not soon be forgotten, in a way no
teacher ever could.
For introducing me to the
detective that is Dick Tracy, and because we’ve
always wanted a detective who wouldn’t be
stopped by a locked door.
The One with the Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 – The One with the Missing Pages
Chapter 2 – The One with the Hitmen
Chapter 3 – The One with the Capture
Chapter 4 – The One with the Drop Off
Chapter 5 – The One with the Hit List
Chapter 6 – The One with the Shock
Chapter 7 – The One with the Dinner at Monte’s
Chapter 8 – The One with the Sworn Silencer
Chapter 9 – The One with the Witness
Chapter 10 – The One with the Accusations
Chapter 11 – The One with the Mistaken Identity
Chapter 12 – The One with the Ripped Pages
Chapter 13 – The One with the Big Reveal
Chapter 14 – The One with the Answered Questions
Chapter 15 – The One with the End
The one with the previously on
The One with the next Part
The One with the sneak peak
The One with the Author Bio
The One with the Previously On
...Olli had heard the shots and hit the floor. She looked up in time to see Dallas come soaring in through the window, shoulder first. Instantly she knew that he was going to land on her unless she did something...
...“The tunnels were set up so long ago and in such secret that no one really knows. I don’t think that even my Grandpa Wainwright knew. There’s about a dozen or so of them, all in varying states of disrepair. The only reason I know so much about them is because I was lucky enough to be around the corner when some thug opened it up or closed it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been almost caught by one of these doors because they swing so quietly and I didn’t know where to look to make sure that no one saw me.” Olli shrugged. She ducked under a low-hanging light bulb and continued walking...
...Four seconds later he heard it. The closet door a couple of feet down the hall opened with a slight click and a creak. Soon after, the door closed again with a creak and a click...
...Suddenly, a gunshot scattered the passersby on the sidewalk outside the diner and shattered the glass window, sending glass shards everywhere...
...“I think you need to go to the window for a minute.” Dallas told her walking away from the window and sitting on the edge of her desk.
Olli swung her legs off the arm of the chair and slowly walked to the windows, not sure why he wanted her to. “What am I looking for?” She wondered, looking out toward The District.
“See the black sedan across the street?” Dallas asked...
...“And then the thugs started whispering about a huge heist that was about to happen, and Razor, Ace and Double T started to build up their security because they worried that they were going to be the targets. I’ve never seen them talk that nice together...
...“They’re convinced that we’re bad news.” The one on the left announced, looking proud...
...The shotguns were raised almost simultaneously, and the detectives braced to attack. Neither of them had a plan in any sense of the word, but they weren’t going to go down without a fight.
Suddenly, angry lead hornets, spurting from the muzzle of Tommy guns, rained down from somewhere no one could see. The roar was deafening between the two buildings that seemingly leaned together to overshadow the alley. The air was thick with whining bullets, barking Tommy guns, and two reports from the upward aimed shotguns...
...Dallas slowly nodded. “That certainly complicates matters more.”
Two Men Lay Dead in our Streets, Identified with The Silencer...
...The office looked like it had been hit by a tornado of massive proportions. Papers were scattered everywhere on the floor, every drawer in Olli’s desk; Dallas’ desk, and the filing cabinet was jerked out to the point of just hanging on. Every single one of the drawers was completely empty and the contents were scattered about the room...
...“Mornin’,” wished a southern accent.
The thug stared at him in shock a moment too long. A right hook shot out of nowhere and everything went completely black.
Dallas shook his hand twice, the man had a hard jaw. He glanced down the empty hallway again and motioned to Olli...
The One with the Final Part
Chapter 1
The One with the Missing Pages
It was almost two hours later when Olli snapped her latest book shut and tapped Dallas’ shoulder. He was turning pages slowly, the end of a pencil between his teeth. He was going to use it for taking notes, but there weren’t many notes for the taking. “Did you find anything about him after he left Eminences?” she asked, trying to not giggle when he looked at her, the pencil still between his teeth. For some reason, the picture tickled her fancy. ‘It has to be because of the lack of sleep last night’, she reasoned to herself.
Dallas shook his head. “Not a thing once he left the big city. It’s like he disappeared right off the map,” he mumbled around the pencil.
Olli sighed in frustration. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “Hopefully Dee has come up with something, because the rest of the books deal more with just one or two men from one or two towns, nothing nearly as broad as these books do.” She made a half-hearted gesture in the direction of the table.
The table was strewn with books of every size, shape and color. Some of them looked older than the detectives, and others looked like they had been put on the shelves only the day before. There were two small openings that were reserved specifically for Olli’s and Dallas’ mugs.
Dallas picked up his mug, took a sip of the contents and pulled a face. The coffee was cold. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.” He put the mug back down, determining not to take another sip.
“What was?” Olli asked, looking up from tracing a dent in the cover of the book in front of her.
“This library is the only one of its kind that I know of, but s
Olli’s shoulders slumped for a minute. Then she pulled a book out from under a pile of three, one that neither of them had picked up yet, and flipped through a few pages. “Yes, but this sooner is so inconvenient.”
“Life isn’t ever fair, Miss Olivia,” Dallas pointed out, turning another page.
Olli slouched down low in her chair and propped up the book on the table at a readable angle. She looked over the binding at Dallas, and her eyes narrowed for a moment. “Dallas-” she couldn’t help the exasperation that crept into her voice.
Dallas looked at her and his eyebrows rose. “Yes, Miss Olivia.”
Olli turned a couple of pages without looking. “You don’t have to...” She looked down at the book and then jumped to sitting bolt upright. “Got him!”
Dallas looked up and his face brightened. “What’s it say?” he wondered, pencil poised, ready for anything worth noting.
Olli swallowed and turned the book around so Dallas could see the pages. “It’s hard to say.”
Dallas’ eyes widened and then narrowed. “You’ve got him all right,” He agreed.
About fifteen pages were ripped out of the book, some almost to the binding. Ragged edges of ripped pages wouldn’t normally be something worth getting excited over, but in this case it was.
Olli turned the book back around and gently closed the cover. “The unfortunate thing about this is he thinks we’re on to him,” she said it with a curl of her upper lip.
“And he definitely has someone on the inside.” Dallas finished the thought.
Olli groaned and rubbed her temples. “Don’t remind me. Let’s get the rest of these books put back and go see if Dee has anything.”
It only took a few minutes to get all the books back to where they belonged. Dallas would hand each one to Olli, and she would slip them back into their home.
Fifteen minutes later, they walked through the door of their office and blinked when the red light flashed. This time the alarm didn’t sound, and the detectives didn’t have quite the scare.
Dee appeared, and the light turned off. “I figured that you might be more appreciative if the alarm didn’t go off every time. You seemed a little too startled this morning.”
“But shouldn’t the unwelcome visitors be a little uncomfortable when they walk in?” Dallas wondered.
“Don’t worry, Dallas, when you leave the building the alarm will be set. I just didn’t need to scare you both a second time today.” Dee smiled in his direction and then turned to Olli. “Any luck, Boss?”
Olli shook her head. “We found him. Well, the book he was in anyway. Unfortunately, someone had beat us to it and ripped out the pages.”
Dee’s brow furrowed. “That does put a crimp in things. I can’t find anything on him in the database. I tried three different searches on Silence, but didn’t get anything worth mentioning. It briefly mentioned that he was a hitman in Eminences when he was younger.”
Olli shrugged. “It was worth a try. We’ll just have to fly blind until we get a few more facts. We could really use a few more of those.” Olli plopped into her chair and put her feet up on her desk with a grumpy thump from each one.
Dallas leaned against his desk. “We have plenty of facts, just not enough answers to link them together.”
Olli pulled her feet off her desk and pivoted her chair so she was facing Dallas. “We should probably catch Al up. His opinion on what is happening would be a good thing to have. He should be back by now.”
Dallas nodded. “It would be nice to have someone to point out something we might have missed.”
Olli turned back to her right a little ways. “Dee, call Al, will you?”
Dee nodded. “Sure thing, Boss.”
A moment later Al’s face appeared on the computer screen. The detectives began to explain to him what they had found out in The District, in the library, and just about anything else that they could think of. After about a half hour of trying to push forward more, Al had another meeting to go to, so the detectives settled themselves down in their seats to ponder some more on their own.
MEANWHILE, AT THE HARBOR...
The barge was nearly sinking into the inky, oily water next to a falling-down pier. To the passerby, the barge looked like it had been deserted years before, and left in the water. But in the broken-out window, covered by the shadows, a rifle was pointed toward the street. Behind the stock was a squint-eyed thug who was keeping a vigilant eye. Across the street and down a few buildings was a factory with another thug eyeing the street. A third, and final, thug watched where the other two were and The Harbor from a deserted office building. Sailor Boy was Two-Timer’s prized hitman, Razor’s elite was in the factory, and Ace’s thug waited in one of the many office windows. The Big Three had never come to a working understanding of who The Harbor belonged to. So rather than leave it unattended for one of them to get sneaky and lay claim to it, each of them had a hitman on the scene to make sure that if they couldn’t have it the others couldn’t either. The thugs waiting to defend their boss’s right to The Harbor each knew exactly where the others were, but didn’t go out of their way to bump either one. He would only be replaced instantly. They all knew they were just there to prevent a take-over. Although the wait for nothing to happen could be tedious and boring most of the time, the three of them were wary and alert. Something was off. Each one of them could sense it.
Sailor Boy was sitting in a wooden chair, which he had propped against the wall, the front two legs standing on air. He had an excellent view of Harbor Street and where his companions of sorts were. He froze completely when a sound came from somewhere inside the barge. He didn’t trust the silence completely. Sailor let his chair drop and stood up quietly. Someone was on the barge. He could feel it. There was nothing like the feeling of being watched. After a couple of minutes of quiet and jumping at shadows, Sailor stopped in the middle of the room and narrowed his eyes. He sighed. “Death couldn’t be quieter.” He muttered. That was the last breath he took. Blood spurted from his throat. The thug rocked from the impact of the slug. His rifle cracked and bounced on the wood floor when Sailor took a nosedive and smashed into the floor. He gurgled and thrashed for a moment and then lay still.
The silence broken by the shot slowly enveloped The Harbor again in the quiet, almost sullen way that it had been before. A tall man in black stepped out of the shadows. He slipped the gun into a shoulder holster and stopped when he was standing over the dead Sailor. He rolled the thug over callously. He nodded in cool satisfaction while he surveyed his handiwork. One down, two to go.
The other two thugs jerked to their feet. The Harbor hadn’t heard a single shot in almost six months. Something was happening, but nothing could be seen. A single question loomed in the back of their minds. Should they compromise their cover and take on an unseen gunman or stay at their posts?
Factory left his post and carefully inched out onto the street. He didn’t make it three feet from the door. The single shot could have been a cannon because of the silence. A moment later, the shadow of a man putting a handgun into a shoulder holster walked past Factory, who had just stopped twitching, a single red hole in his throat. The shadow turned and purposefully set off toward the office building. There was only one more now. He wouldn’t be hard to rub out. He would be playing scared, not thinking right. The shadow made it up the street, through the door of the office building, up the stairs, down a short hallway and turned into a room near the end.
The remaining thug spun around and saw the man with a handgun. He was dressed in black from head to toe. His fedora was pulled low over his eyes, its shadow hiding most of his face. Office wasn’t sure what to do. Shadow had the drop on him; there was no way that he would beat him to the draw. “Who-” he stumbled, trying to find the words to form the question.
