I waited for a response but got none, so I closed my eyes and leaned my aching head against the headrest. Pain ripped through my scalp, reminding me that I’d had better ideas. I gently dabbed at the swelling with my fingers, trying to assess the damage.
“Everett!” Captain Simmons barked, and I jumped like I always did when she called my name.
“Captain, I—”
“You’re in big trouble. Where are you?”
“I won’t tell you until you listen. They have my friend, and they’re going to kill her over some videotape that I don’t have.”
“Who are they? You’re not making sense.”
I closed my eyes. She was right, I wasn’t making sense. This thing was a lot bigger than I was, and I was going to need more help than a small-time hood and a data clerk if I was going to have a chance.
“Captain, remember you said that I was going to need your help one day?” I felt my eyes blur. “I’m nothing but trouble. I’m not worth risking your ass for, but Riley is. And they’re going to hurt her, and I don’t know why. Please, I’m begging you to help me.”
“Tell me where you are.”
After I gave her the address to the theater, there was silence on the other end. Finally she took a deep breath. “Okay, I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I know there’s more to it than you killing a child molester. You stay put until you hear from me. Understand? Everett, you there?”
I turned off the radio. I had already wasted too much time.
*
Evening used to be my favorite time of the day, but at that moment I could feel the darkness closing in on me as I pulled into the theater parking lot. A black Expedition and a tan Cadillac were the only other cars in the lot. The Expedition sat in a darkened corner with its lights and engine off, while the Cadillac was parked in front of the theater door as if it had every right to be there. I leaned forward, trying to see who was behind the tinted glass of the SUV. About two minutes passed before one of the windows rolled down and a man, a boy really, with a black do-rag around his head and dark brown skin glared out at me. I immediately got out of the car and walked over to the Expedition. The door swung open and I slid in, to find Sherm alone in the back. Two Uzi subs sat on the floor, along with three semiautomatics.
“Damn, girl, who clocked you?”
The wound realized that it now had my full attention and began to throb. Sherm handed me a handkerchief and I wiped the blood from my neck, then held it to the back of my head.
“Sherm, you’ve got to get out of here,” I said finally. “I don’t want to drag you into this.”
“They got your girl inside, and you don’t want my help?”
“No, I do want your help. But I don’t want any more innocent people getting hurt. This is something big. I’m afraid they’re going to try to pin some shit on me.”
“So you just going in there alone?” Sherm looked dismayed.
“Yeah, I have to. I’m afraid they might kill Riley if I don’t show up soon.” I looked around the cab of the vehicle. “Do you have a pen and paper?”
Sherm reached up front and was immediately given a pen and a Taco Bell napkin. He handed it to me and I scribbled Smitty’s address.
“The Blazer is in front of this house. I want you to go and get it before it gets impounded. There are some papers under the passenger seat. Make copies and send the originals to Captain Gail Simmons. Her address is on here, too.” I handed him the napkin.
“You sure you can trust her?”
“No. I’m pretty sure she had a warrant taken out for my arrest, but I don’t have a choice. I need someone high enough up that, if I get out of this, people will listen to me. She’s my only option. But if she doesn’t follow through, I want you to send those articles and my notes to every reporter in this city.”
“You sure about this? I got some firepower here.”
“I know, Sherm, but you’re the only one I can trust. I need to know that these people will get caught, no matter what. Please.”
“All right, but here, take these.” He handed me two extra gun clips. I was now prepared for a mini-war, and although I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have time to fire this much ammo, it did give me some comfort.
I got out of the Expedition and shut the door without looking back. I heard the engine start and the tires crunching on pavement as Sherm pulled off. With both guns securely in their holsters, I jogged toward the door of the theater, my head pounding like someone had taken a jackhammer to it.
*
I used the lock picks and let myself into the building. As I crept down the hall, my heart pounded in tune with the pain in the back of my head.
“God damn it! Where is it?” A man’s frantic voice echoed throughout the theater. I stopped breathing. The air seemed to thicken with tension. “Tell us where it is, and we’ll leave you alone.”
I rolled onto the stage and, in a crouch, started searching for an opening in the heavy curtains.
“Why can’t we just go?” The question was a sob, almost indistinguishable, but the familiarity robbed me of my anger, and once again fear began to grab hold. It wasn’t Riley. Riley didn’t cry like that. Calm the fuck down. You’ll never hold her again if you get yourself killed.
I took a deep breath and eased the curtain back. The light from a solitary bulb illuminated a man in a pristine white dress shirt. I recognized Chief James’s silvery hair before anything else registered. Sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he hovered over a form slumped in a chair.
“Shut up, damn it.” He turned toward a figure in the darkened corner to his left. “This is all your fault.”
Monica. I had to blink against the pain in my chest.
“She doesn’t know. Damn it, Daddy, don’t you think if she knew she’d have told you by now?”
That was all I needed to hear. I trained my gun on Chief James and walked out into the open just as he raised his hand to strike again. With shock, I realized that his white shirt was open down to his T-shirt and there were small splatters of blood on it.
“I don’t need a good reason, you know.” I said it so calmly, I thought I was going crazy.
His eyes narrowed under his bushy white brows. He slowly lowered his hand and waited in rigid silence, the corners of his mouth turned up. “I’m really glad to see you. Thank you for coming. I’m sure your friend here is glad to see you as well.”
My brain froze then; something told me not to look at her. My eyes clung to his like a drowning victim’s. My body warred with my heart. I couldn’t stop myself. I slowly broke contact and sought her out.
The front of her shirt was covered in blood. For a second that seemed eternal, I thought she was dead, and then I saw the rise and fall of her chest.
“Riley,” I choked out.
She flinched but didn’t look at me. Her lip was split in two places, blood trailed from her mouth, one eye was swollen shut, and there was a large knot on her forehead.
“Baby,” I called her again. “It’s me, Foster. I’m going to get you out of here. We’re going to go home.” She didn’t answer me.
While I reassured her, I kept watch on Chief James, daring him to try something. “Please, make me kill you,” I told him through clenched teeth. At a stifled sob from Monica, I nosed the gun a few degrees toward her and demanded, “What have you done?”
She just shook her head and continued to weep. “Oh God, Foster. Oh God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
Chief James eyed his daughter contemptuously. “How could you not know? You were his mother!”
“Get over there with her,” I ordered him. “One foot wrong, and I’ll blow your head off.”
Without a word, he backed up until he was standing nearly in front of Monica. He trained his eyes on me as I moved the gun to my left hand and felt for Riley’s pulse with my right. She flinched away from me and I knew I couldn’t look at her anymore. If I did, I would break down. Instead, I coaxed her head to rest against my hip. When I felt her sigh
, I had to will myself not to cry out.
In that moment, I wanted someone, anyone, to make me understand why someone as sweet and wonderful as Riley had to be hurt. Why Marcus was killed, and why my partner had committed suicide and I now had his widow and father in-law looking down the barrel of my gun.
The gun shook as anger flooded my body. I knew Chief James could feel my finger trembling on the trigger. “Why, God damn it?”
“For my family, of course.” He looked entirely too calm, almost as if he were giving a speech in front of a delegation of important people. “You see, I was already slated to become chief back then. Not that my career was the only consideration. I couldn’t have my grandson being raised in the wrong environment. That was the issue.”
Monica heaved a shuddering sob. I’d never heard her so bitter. “You love being right. That’s all that ever mattered.”
“Anyone care to explain how your family shit got my partner beaten to a pulp?”
“Monica intended to leave Joseph. She was getting involved with some religious nut. You can understand how upset I was.” Chief James paused as if he expected me to agree with him.
I continued to stare, wondering where the hell the captain was and how long I could keep myself from shooting this bastard. I needed to get Riley to the hospital, but I was keeping him talking till backup could arrive. If I wanted my life back, I couldn’t let my temper take control now.
“I did everything in my power to get her back,” the chief said, with an accusatory glare at his daughter. “But would she listen to me?”
Monica’s sobbing seemed to have tapered off to a watery sniffle. I tried to see her, but she was obscured by her father’s larger frame. He kept talking.
“You sure you don’t want to tell this part, Monica? How you find out the love of your life was no better than the fucking pedophiles he catered to?”
I felt Riley’s body tense. I soothed her with my free hand and murmured, “Soon, baby.”
“They used my daughter to try to keep me away from their operation,” the chief continued. “And it worked until Joseph decided he wanted his wife and child back. By the way, he never had any idea she was having an affair with Stein. My innocent daughter kept that from him. Didn’t you, sweetheart?”
The shadows hid too much. I wanted a resolution, not a therapy session. “Get down on the floor, both of you.”
Chief James didn’t budge. “Don’t you see, Everett? Everything I did was for Monica and Joseph. I was trying to protect them.”
“You didn’t give a shit about Smitty,” I said, with so much venom it threatened to choke me. “All you cared about was your career. You didn’t want it to get out about your daughter’s affair, so you tried to cover it up. Smitty didn’t need your help.”
“Oh, he needed my help all right. He begged for it, in fact.”
“Look, save your breath. I don’t want to hear any more. The police will be here any minute, and you can tell them your story.”
“Fine. But who do you think they’ll believe? You destroyed your credibility when you killed Harrison Canniff. Let me explain how this is going to be written up.” He had the audacity to bestow a benevolent smile on me. “You’re a murderer, Everett. And instead of taking responsibility for your own actions, you blamed me, the chief of police. You kidnapped Monica and me, and when your friend tried to persuade you to let us go, you killed her.”
“Nobody is going to believe that.”
“No? Monica and I are heroes. She’s the wife of a slain officer. Oh, by the way, you admitted to us before you died that you killed Joseph before you sent him off that cliff.”
I lowered my arm slightly. “You killed Smitty?”
“Of course not. Oh, I see.” He laughed. “You hadn’t put that part together. I wish I had killed him, but I didn’t. He took himself out. That made me look bad. And after all I’d done for him…”
“You’re a liar,” I said.
“And you’re not listening. Smitty caused all this. He was supposed to wait until Monica was out of the compound with the baby, but he didn’t. He went in and shots were fired.” For the first time, Chief James’s voice broke. “My grandson…my grandson was killed. So were two other kids and a few women.”
“Smitty was cleared of charges arising from the raid,” I said tightly.
“Of course he was. I pulled his ass out of the fire, just like I did with Canniff. How did he explain that to you? Did he tell you there’s a group that helps cops when they’re in trouble?”
Chief James’s voice hung in the air like a solid entity. I felt as though a predator was watching me, waiting for me to make that fatal mistake. Apparently my expression gave me away. He chuckled.
“There is no conspiracy here, Everett, only a bunch of greedy people who are waiting for me to grease their palms or give them appointments and promotions. Joseph was either too dumb or too blind to care.”
“Smitty—”
“Smitty should have gotten rid of you like I told him to, but he didn’t. Instead, he started acting like this was all my fault, as if I caused Eric’s death.”
“What are you saying? I saw Eric a few months ago.”
Chief James smiled. “Oh, wonderful. So you didn’t watch the tape?”
“Watch the tape? I saw one DVD, it was enough.”
“Yes, rather sordid business, that.”
Monica’s soft sobs had quieted and my focus was purely on Chief James. “What’s on this tape?”
“Nathan Stein didn’t trust anyone. He had cameras set up so that he could watch the members of his church constantly. The barn was being utilized as childcare in the daytime and sleeping quarters at night, so the cameras were on twenty-four hours a day.”
“The raid was taped?”
“Yes, and a few copies got out there.”
“What?”
“Harrison Canniff saw it and recognized Joseph. He said that if Joseph didn’t let him go, he would tell what he knew for a free ride. Joseph had to kill him.”
Smitty had to kill him. I shook my head in denial.
“Oh yes, your precious Smitty wasn’t as innocent as you like to believe. He wasn’t a hero. He was a man trying to protect his family, just like me.”
“He was nothing like you,” I muttered before nausea forced me to close my mouth.
“Oh no? He was willing to let you believe that you had killed someone, someone he’d actually killed.”
Shocked, I said, “But why? If it was all an accident, the tape would have shown that.”
“Oh no, you have it all wrong.” The triumphant smile on his face made my stomach heave again. “The bullets that killed them weren’t from Joseph’s gun. No, a high-powered rifle killed those people. Joseph only had a .38.”
I was starting to feel dizzy from the blow to the back of my head and from the weight of what he was telling me. I realized too late that Chief James had backed up so that I could no longer see Monica.
“You can put that down now,” he said, as if he was telling me to put down a bag of groceries. For the second time that day, I was staring down the barrel of a gun.
“No,” I said grimly. “You put it down.”
How much of his story was a lie? How much of it was just intended to get me off guard? Well, it worked. And because of my own stupidity, Riley and I were about to die.
“I’m sorry, Foster,” Monica blurted. “I had to give it to him. You don’t understand; they’ll take my boy away from me if this comes out.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Joseph told me about Canniff soon after it happened,” the chief replied. “I gave him the hush money, and those he couldn’t shut up—”
“Wilson and McClowski. You had them kill Marcus. Why?”
“Monica caught him sniffing around the graveyard one day, so we bugged his computer. He was getting too close, so I had him eliminated. And now I’ll have to do the same with your accomplice in the file room. What’s her name? Mr
s. Kennedy, isn’t it?”
I felt my face go slack. “Please don’t. She doesn’t know anything.”
“I suppose I owe her a debt of gratitude. I would have never known you were back in town, if not for her.”
“She used Marcus’s computer. You never removed the bug.”
“You’re starting to catch on. Now put the gun down.”
“Why should I? You’re going to kill me anyway.” I stalled, sending out a prayer for Captain Simmons.
“Because if you don’t, I’m pretty sure I can hit your friend there before you kill me. I also know where her family lives. The brother in the wheelchair. The self-sacrificing foster mother who saved her from her drunken mother. Quite the sordid tale. I’ll make sure they don’t make it through another week.”
The gun felt heavy. My palm was damp around the grip. I wasn’t even sure if I had the strength left to pull the trigger. I wouldn’t put it down, though; the chief couldn’t let us live if he expected to get away.
“Why did you have to hurt her? Why not just find me?”
“Because I needed the tape, and I figured you’d cough it up to save your friend. Those two idiots were supposed to rough you up and get the information. What happened, did you kill both of them?”
I didn’t answer. “All of this was over a tape that showed people getting killed in a bust? Why didn’t Smitty just admit that he fucked up? That his wife and kid were there, and he lost it? The most that would have happened is that he would have lost his job, especially if he didn’t pull the trigger.”
“It wasn’t about the fuckup. It was what he did afterward.”
Again the hairs on my arms stood up and the ones on the back of my neck followed suit, a subtle change in atmosphere that usually meant someone was behind me. A small flicker of hope passed through me. I wanted to look at Riley, but I couldn’t. The chief must have sensed the change too, because his eyes searched behind me. A snarl transformed his features as he pointed the gun at Riley.
“Everybody drop the guns! Drop the guns!”
In slow motion, I heard a loud roar and saw a look of anger and then sorrow pass over Chief James’s face as he went rigid. I felt like I knew what was going to happen even before he did. His gun went up, and he aimed it at Riley and me. I pulled my second 9 and backed into Riley hard, sending her and the chair crashing to the floor as I began to fire. It could have been my imagination, it could have been real, but I saw my bullets hit him. I watched them as they went toward his chest, and for some reason, I thought he saw them, too, because he smiled before he fired his gun.
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