Brandon walked through the streets of Queen City with his jaw clenched and his fists clenched. The sun beat down on his head but he didn't give a shit. He was wearing a wrinkled suit, a loose tie, his black jacket, and under it a .45 Magnum, while the sound of the cars coming and going on the road almost burst his eardrums.
When he looked at the building he was heading towards, the smoke from the cars was already getting into his nostrils, and in the distance he could hear the faint howl of a siren coming from a patrol car perhaps chasing some criminal who, as almost always, would end up escaping.
—Damn them — Anger consumed him alive, but more than that, it was the impotence of not being able to save his precious companion that was killing him little by little — How could they take her from me?
After the incident, the police sergeant had assigned him to minor cases since he left the academy. Car thefts, street fights, the occasional disappearance that he ended up solving in less than three days.
Brandon knew that all of that was bullshit. The real criminals were still free while he wasted his time chasing that trash that could easily be taken down by the other sector of the authority.
Margarita was dead, there was no doubt about it, and the rage inside him was a volcano about to explode.
He wasn't going to let anyone else tell him what to do or how to do it. He was going to find the bastards who had murdered his fiancée, even if he had to destroy the entire city to do it.
He walked into the bar and ordered a double whiskey. The bartender glanced at him but didn't say anything. Brandon drank it in one gulp and ordered another. He knew he shouldn't get drunk so early, but he didn't care too much either. Nothing mattered to him except one thing. Margarita. His Margarita.
His head spun between images of his beloved girlfriend smiling, while he cooked her scrambled eggs and served her a cup of coffee at the table.
But then there was the other image, of Margarita falling to the ground with a bullet in her body.
He had called the ambulance. But it had been no use taking her to the hospital and having the doctors remove the bullet from her body, if some bastard had suffocated her with a pillow.
Brandon closed his eyes tightly and hit the bar with his fist. A couple of drunks in the corner of the bar turned their gazes at him.
"What the fuck are you looking at?" he growled loudly, causing the drunks to turn around when they saw the expression on his face.
Brandon pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, slid his hand across the surface of the table and took the lighter to light it. Then he took a long drag, letting the smoke fill his lungs before exhaling very slowly. As if it would help him focus.
He needed to concentrate, going over each scene.
The van. The machine guns sticking out of the windows. The shots ringing in his ears as if they were happening right now. Brandon gritted his teeth until they hurt. There was something familiar about it all, something he couldn't identify but that ate at him inside. It wasn't the first time he had seen an execution like that. Not in Queen City. But this time it had been different. This time it had been personal.
When he finished the second whiskey he paid the bill and left the bar.
Outside the cool afternoon air hit his face and helped him clear his mind a little. He walked for a few minutes until his feet took him to the place where it had all started: the restaurant where Margarita was shot. It was closed now, with boarded-up windows and a sign that said —For Rent.
Brandon stood in front of the entrance, looking around as if he expected answers to magically appear.
"It was here, you understand?" he murmured, turning his gaze to a stray animal rummaging through the trash can. Brandon ran a hand through his hair, hoping the cat would give him an answer, but no answer came.
What did come was the sequence of images of the incident: him pushing Margarita to the ground, the bullets shattering the glass, and the deafening sound of the guns. And then that look, Margarita's look as she lay wounded on the ground. Brandon wanted to cry but held back. Crying wasn't going to fix anything.
He pulled out his phone and reviewed the notes he had taken after the incident. Nothing useful. No witnesses had seen anything, no security cameras had captured the van, no forensic report had revealed any significant clues. It was as if the attackers had appeared out of nowhere and disappeared into thin air. But Brandon knew that wasn't possible. Someone had to have seen them, someone had to know something. He just needed to find the right person.
He decided to go to the hospital where Margarita had been murdered. Maybe there he could find some clue that the official investigators had overlooked. He entered the building with a firm step, ignoring the curious glances of the staff. He went up to the fourth floor and stopped in front of the room where his girl had been hospitalized. The door was open and the room empty, but the detective could feel the presence of his love in every corner. He approached the bed and touched the sheets, they were still impregnated with the smell of her perfume.
"I swear I'm going to find them," he said in a low voice, as if Margarita could hear him. "I'm not going to rest until they pay for what they did to you."
While inspecting the room.
"Could it be that the murderer came in through the window?" Brandon murmured, coming closer to examine more closely. "How strange, a scratch looks." He frowned as he took a sample of the wood to send to the laboratory.
The scratch was too big to be from a human, and Brandon wasn't one to let a detail go unnoticed.
"Something doesn't fit here and I'm going to find out," he said before moving toward the door of the room, stopping and turning the knob.
The door clicked and he left the room to walk down the hall toward the exit.
Brandon left the hospital and walked toward the police station. He knew he couldn't trust anyone, but he needed access to the files of similar cases. Maybe there were other attacks with similar patterns. Maybe there was a connection that no one had seen before. He walked into his office and began to go through the files, one by one, looking for anything that could help him move forward.
Hours later, as the sun began to set, Brandon found something interesting. A case from several years ago.
"Sergeant's wife murdered as she left a restaurant," he read in the newspaper clipping attached to the file. "Authorities decided to close the case due to lack of leads."
Brandon snorted. He knew who it was about. His mother. Maybe both cases were connected.
He proceeded to save the file and leave his office.
But just as he was about to cross the door, his phone vibrated. It was a number from his personal address book. He answered immediately.
"Inspector Caliente?" asked a voice he instantly recognized on the other end of the line.
"Michel? What's the reason for your call?"
"Listen carefully, Caliente! I've found a lead that could be useful to you in the investigation," the boy said. "Can you stop by the lab?"
Brandon let out all the air he was holding as if that would make him feel a little less stressed.
"See you in half an hour," he answered, turning to grab his jacket.
Brandon hung up the phone and after leaving his office he walked down the hall to where the stairs began their descent.
When he reached the last step, he left the building and proceeded to walk to the parking lot.
When he arrived, he got into one of the cars that were at the police station. He started the engine. He stepped hard on the accelerator and headed towards the laboratory.