Dap Deals With Death
Copyright© 2026 Drew Bourrut
Chapter 8: Following the Trail Upstate
The city receded into a blur of gray concrete and broken dreams as the Ford V8 gobbled up the miles of the Taconic State Parkway. Dap sat behind the wheel, his knuckles white against the dark wood of the steering rim. Beside him, Maya stared out at the passing pines, her silence heavy enough to anchor a ship. In the backseat, Dana Winslow kept her purse clutched in her lap like a shield, her eyes scanning the rearview mirror every few seconds. They were leaving the jurisdiction of Commissioner Sterling, but that hardly meant they were safe. If anything, the isolation of the Catskills offered a different, more primal kind of danger.
“If the ledger is right, the cabin should be another five miles up this logging road,” Dap said, his voice cutting through the hum of the engine. He reached into his coat pocket, feeling the cold steel of his revolver. It was a comforting weight, a tangible answer to the abstract threats of the city.
“My mother doesn’t belong in the woods,” Maya whispered. Her voice was thin, brittle as autumn leaves. “She’s a city girl. She likes the neon, the noise, the feeling of a crowd. She wouldn’t just walk off into the wilderness.”
“She didn’t walk,” Dap replied, his gaze fixed on the winding dirt path ahead. “She was carried. That’s the difference between a vacation and a crime scene.”
They turned off the main road onto a narrow, rutted trail choked with overgrown brush. The Ford groaned, its suspension protesting the uneven ground, but it kept moving. Sunlight struggled to penetrate the dense canopy of spruce and oak, casting long, skeletal shadows across the hood. The air here smelled of damp pine needles and impending rain, a sharp contrast to the metallic tang of the Bronx warehouse.
Dap pulled the car to a halt behind a dense thicket of mountain laurel. He didn’t want the engine noise to serve as a dinner bell for anyone lurking nearby. He killed the lights and the ignition, letting the silence of the forest settle over them like a shroud.
“Stay here,” Dap ordered, turning to Dana. “If you hear anything that sounds like a gunshot, you put this car in gear and you don’t stop until you see a police precinct. Not a precinct in the city, mind you. Find a state trooper.”
Dana nodded, her jaw set in a line of grim determination. “I’m not a target, Dap. Don’t treat me like one. Just get back in one piece.”
Dap climbed out, the forest floor crunching under his soles. Maya followed him, moving with a cautious, feline grace. They moved through the trees, staying low and keeping to the shadows. The cabin appeared suddenly, a rough-hewn structure of cedar logs that seemed to be melting into the landscape. It was dilapidated, with a sagging porch and windows boarded up with splintered planks.
Dap signaled for Maya to wait near a cluster of boulders while he circled the perimeter. There were no tracks in the mud, but the air felt stagnant, as if the place had been holding its breath since someone left in a hurry. He reached the back door, a heavy slab of oak that looked like it had been kicked in and then clumsily pushed shut.
He didn’t bother with finesse. He leaned his shoulder into the wood, and the latch gave way with a protesting groan. The interior was dark, smelling of stale tobacco and chemical cleaners. Dap clicked on his flashlight, the beam cutting through the gloom to reveal a scene of organized chaos.
A table sat in the center of the room, covered in maps of the Hudson River and ledger pages identical to the ones he had found in the Queens diner. A single chair lay overturned, its legs snapped. In the corner, a pile of discarded clothing, a floral print dress, a pair of sensible heels, lay crumpled in the dust.
Maya stepped into the doorway, her breath hitching as she saw the dress. She moved past Dap, her hands trembling as she reached out to touch the fabric. “This was her favorite,” she murmured. “She wore this on my birthday.”
Dap ignored the emotional gravity for a second, focusing on the floor. He knelt, his flashlight beam illuminating a series of deep gouges in the wooden planks. They weren’t from a struggle; they looked like the marks left by heavy, metal-cased equipment being dragged across the floor. He traced the path to a trapdoor in the corner, which stood slightly ajar.
He pulled the trapdoor open. A set of narrow, rickety stairs led down into a root cellar. The air down there was colder, biting with the scent of damp earth and something else, a faint, lingering perfume that Maya’s mother had favored.
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