Hope City Duet
Hope City
Kris Michaels
Maryann Jordan
Contents
Brock
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
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Sean
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
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
Epilogue
Also by Kris Micheals
Also by Maryann Jordan
Brock
By Kris Michaels
Contents
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
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Brock (Hope City) Kris Michaels 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, then you are reading an illegal pirated copy. Make sure that you are only reading a copy that has been officially released by the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
1
“Detective King, there is a report of a warehouse fire with a dead body off of Livingston in the old warehouse district. Patrols are on scene, and a cordon has been established.” The dispatcher's voice was far too fucking perky for 1:00 a.m.
He blinked hard and tried to bring the light fixture and fan on the ceiling into focus. It wasn’t working too well. He closed his eyes again and mumbled, “Roger that. Send the address to my phone. Have you notified Detective Whitt?”
“I called him first, sir. He told me to remind you he’s with Vice tonight.”
Crap that’s right. He glanced at the clock. He’d just fallen asleep. Thirty-five minutes ago, to be exact. “Fuck.”
“Sir?”
“Sorry. Never mind. Text me the address. Tell the responding patrols I’m on my way.” He flipped the blanket back and headed to the bathroom. Two minutes later he made a quick detour into the kitchen. He had two coffee pots, one of the drip-brew big boys that made a pot the size of the Titanic, and a different machine that made coffee quickly, by the cup. He used three coffee pods, enough cream to sink the aforementioned Titanic, and a fuck-ton of sugar to fill his travel tankard before he headed downstairs to his truck. The three-minute delay waiting for his coffee was a necessity. The general public needed him awake when he drove, and the dead body wasn't going to get... deader. Damn, it was going to be a long night.
The tires of his old truck crunched against the scattered gravel on the patchwork asphalt as he came to a stop outside the charred remnants of what once was a warehouse. Now it was a fucking shell, a huge husk burned and purged empty of any contents. Thanks to the lack of sleep he'd tallied over the last three weeks, he felt a strange kinship to the hollow, gutted structure. The outsides were still present, the insides? Desolate, charred and unusable. Fuck, he was tired. When the morbid comparisons started rolling it was well past time to get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. If only the fucking criminals who worked overtime in Hope City would read that memo. He rolled his shoulders and groaned when the vertebrae in his neck and back popped.
He focused on the building. The outer structure of the warehouse still smoldered in places. While the rest of the responding firemen were busy emptying hoses and replacing them on the trucks, a hotshot crew scrambled, hunting down unextinguished embers. He glanced at the number on the side of the hook and ladder truck—his baby brother’s battalion. He had no idea if Blay was on shift or not. That was a moot point because right now, he had a dead body to meet and a death scene to process; there was no time for catching up with his brother.
It wasn’t difficult to find where he needed to be. Instead of the flashing red lights of the fire trucks, the slow-rolling blue strobes of the responding patrol units heralded the position of the body as if a lighthouse’s million-watt beam cutting through the grayness of a fog bank. He took his time walking up to the crime scene. It was his habit to take in the entirety of the area prior to approaching the body. He needed to get a feel for the location and any circumstance on the outside that could contribute to what he was about to see inside.
This warehouse was on the outer edges of the Inner Harbor, a few miles and a couple lifetimes from the classy shops, high-dollar restaurants, and upscale bars that had taken over what used to be run down fisheries, storage warehouses, an old cannery, and a plethora of failed businesses in Hope City, Maryland. Young, eager money flowed into the Inner Harbor now. This area of the city was being revitalized, if you believed the hype in the Hope City Journal.
He put his hands on his hips and looked away from the building, absorbing the oppressiveness of the outer edges of his city. Revitalization. Not from where he stood. In his district, he worked amongst the poorest of the poor, people who had no hope, people who didn't have a way out. Crime, hell, that was the constant for his people. For the ones who lived in his district, crime equaled income. As money flowed into Hope City, crime became a lucrative investment. Drugs, prostitution, illegal gun sales, smuggling, and larcenies had all taken notice of new money and had bumped up the crime rates for his district.
His attention centered on the shadowy images of old, vacant warehouses that lay further from the smoldering ruins where he now stood. His job had taken him there in the past. A large homeless population had settled just beyond those warehouses. They lived scattered among the desolation and decay of better times.
A strong wind blew, lifting his father's old, green field jacket away from his body. Fall was slipping into winter. Brock closed his eyes. The annual coat and blanket drive organized by the Hope C
ity Humanitarian Alliance should be wrapping up. He prayed the organization got enough donations this year. Far too many died last year due to exposure to the cold. There weren’t enough shelters to hold all the people who had nowhere to go. Life on his side of the city was brutal.
He turned away from his thoughts and faced the charred walls of the warehouse. The yellow crime scene tape flickered and snapped in the brisk, cold wind. Careful to avoid any of the debris surrounding the building, he picked his way through the rubble that littered his path.
Carrying the duffle that held his crime scene kit, he rounded the corner, entered the warehouse, and stopped short. A small smile spread across his face. “Well, if you’re here, why the fuck am I? Someone said this was a homicide.”
Sean McBride’s head snapped up. “About time you showed up, King.” His best friend of damn near thirty years stood and carefully backed away from whatever he studied on the wall. The latex gloves Sean wore snapped off and Brock was enveloped in a hug a heartbeat later. “How have you been, man?”
“Not bad. How’re your mom and dad?” He slapped Sean’s back a couple times before they broke apart. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, feeling more than a little guilty about not going home lately. He hadn’t been by to see his parents or Colm and Sharon McBride in far too long. Life had a way of becoming complicated, busy, and downright unpleasant. It was the unpleasant he tried to keep from his family and friends, though they were well acquainted with life in law enforcement.
“They’re good. Hey, did you hear Rory and Erin are getting out of the military?” Sean mimicked Brock’s position as they stared at the dead body.
Neighbors their entire life, the King and McBride clans were practically family. Erin and Rory were Sean’s younger brother and sister. Twins. It seemed to be a rite of passage in both families that almost all the children had served in the armed forces. “No. I hadn't heard. Are they coming home, or are they spreading their wings and conquering the world outside of Hope City?”
“Not sure yet. Mom just told me Erin had put in her paperwork. We knew about Rory getting out last month. We need to have dinner and drinks and catch up—” Sean motioned to the dead body not more than fifteen feet from them “—but I think both of us may be busy for the foreseeable future.”
The dead body they stared at was the reason he’d been called from his warm, seldom used bed. The victim wasn’t the toasted remnants of a homeless person trying to stay warm. The man in front of them wore designer clothes. Barely a scratch marred the soles of his shoes, although there were a few tiny scuffs on the toes. His hair was styled with product. The slacks he wore were obviously expensive. The fall of blood from the man’s severed neck coated the front of the man's chest, a stark difference from the pristine white of the shirt's sleeves and cuffs. That material shimmered in the headlights of the patrol cars and the temporary lighting Sean had set up by the scorched wall.
Brock took out the pair of latex gloves he carried in his jacket pocket. He set his duffle down and filled his jacket pockets with what he would need before he snapped the latex barrier over his hands. He bent down to get at eye level with his victim. A gaping wound, deep with straight edges. Powerful person... unless they were hopped up on drugs, or hell, in a fit of rage, but he’d state with confidence this wasn't a tentative hack job. The angle of the cut was hauntingly familiar. He'd seen several of these types of wounds during his deployments overseas when his team had found villagers executed. He leaned down farther to get a better look at the wound. Due to the angle and the depth, and based on the blood spatter, his initial guess was the killer was taller than his victim, but he’d wait for the ME's report before he'd consider his early theory a probable fact.
The muscles in his jaw tightened as he ground his back teeth together. A fucking waste. What had this guy been involved in that he ended up here, like this? What’s your story? Who did this to you? He made a quick scan of the evidence markers Sean and the patrols had set in place before he stood, repositioned, and withdrew his digital camera from his kit bag. He inserted a new memory card and took a slew of pictures of the scene.
Brock shifted and called to the patrolman behind him. “What’s the ETA on the medical examiner and crime scene technicians, and was the photographer called?”
“The medical examiner will be here in less than five. There was a discussion as to whose jurisdiction the scene fell into.” The officer glanced at Sean before he crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels. “I was told the arson investigator was the lead in this case.”
He rolled his head and looked at Sean. He didn't outright laugh at his friend, although it was a close thing. “So, do you consider this death a result of the arson?”
“Fuck you, man. This fire falls into the parameters of several of my open cases. Yes, I told your patrols I was lead investigator, which I am, as far as the arson is concerned. This guy? Not so much. Let me gather the evidence I need. I promise not to fuck up your investigation as long as you don't mess with mine. You can call in your crime scene technicians anytime.”
An arsonist? That would add some seriously fucked up elements to the investigation. “You think this homicide is tied into your serial arsonist?”
Sean’s brow furrowed and he shook his head. “I don’t know. First impressions say not, but I never go on first impressions.”
That was where he and his best friend differed. He’d learned to trust his gut as it was generally right, but Sean was one hell of an investigator. He’d bet his last dollar his friend would catch whoever was nuking buildings in Hope City.
Sean motioned toward the far side of the room. “What I need is over there. Looks like an accelerant of some kind was used, however, it’s crucial to determine if it was cast on this side of the wall or the other. Besides that, the scene is yours. Just make an annotation I was here. I’ve already marked in my notes where the body was located. I'm assuming the Fire Department did a check to make sure he was dead.”
As responding detectives, they were not medical professionals and the body was off limits until the ME arrived. Any personal effects left on the body would have to be requested as evidence. The wading pool of blood the man lay in, in conjunction with the nearly decapitating wound across his neck, made the MO pretty fucking obvious. “Dude, he’s definitely dead.”
“No shit, asshole. I’m not a homicide detective, but I figured that out. Proper procedure dictates when you find a body on scene, you check for signs of life.” Sean bristled at Brock’s teasing. His friend was easy to rile up, and he’d gleefully indulged since they were kids.
“Always a stickler for procedure. A rule-follower from way back.” He ducked the slug to the shoulder headed his way. Damn, he missed spending time with Sean. Their careers tended to suck up any free time, but they did need to get together. He’d make time. Somehow.
“Following the rules saved our asses more than once.” Sean cuffed him on the shoulder, this time connecting. “Now let me work, and for the love of God please take care of... him.” His best friend waved toward the dead body and threw him a smirk before he sauntered over to the charred remains of the interior wall.
His attention once again centered on the victim in front of him. “Did you get any ID?” He looked over at the officer standing by the hole in the wall they'd used as an entrance.
The guy shook his head. “Your friend wouldn’t let me touch shit.”
“Yeah, well my friend is a damn good investigator —” The blaring of the officer's radio interrupted his comment. The medical examiner had arrived on scene. He nodded at the officer. “Have the guy on the perimeter go around to the front of the building and help them drive the van back here. They’re going to need the wagon, and we don’t want to parade a DB through the lookie-loos or any press the fire might have attracted." The officer acknowledged him with a head tilt and stepped out.
He raised his small digital camera again and changed angles. He always took his own crime scene photos. He could acc
ess these photos when he couldn't sleep at night. Dragging cases files home from the office was frowned upon, plus bringing work home was just a royal pain in the ass. The crime scene techs were effective and efficient, but they didn’t look at the scene the way he did. Needing to get closer to the victim, he reached in his pocket and retrieved new protective booties. He covered the soles of his boots with the protective liner so he wouldn’t contaminate the crime scene as he approached the dead body.
Brock angled his camera and snapped pictures as he walked and then squatted down in front of the man. The victim's watch, wedding ring, and cufflinks remained untouched. He made sure to get all those items in a shot. Oh, happy day, a wallet had fallen onto the cement next to him. That he could collect as evidence. He used the ass end of his ballpoint pen to lift the wallet. Bingo. He took several photos, added a marker, and then took three additional photos. Diligent not to touch or move the body in any way, he carefully picked the wallet up from its location in the congealed blood. The vic's blood had seeped around the wallet, but the leather had shielded what was inside.
A Hope City Duet Page 1