“I’ll let you have the honors.” Jones handed me his cuffs and pulled himself to his feet. I took his place and planted my knee into Cross’s spine. He flipped his head to the right and moaned from the pain of my weight. The moan turned to a scream when I twisted his right arm behind his back.
Cross spoke, his voice quiet. “Don’t let me die yet. I want there to be a trial.”
I clicked the right cuff down and twisted his left arm back to link him up. I let out a deep breath when the second cuff clicked. Jones called over his radio that the scene was secure and the paramedics could come.
I stood and looked down at Cross, cuffed at my feet.
He turned his head. Blood bubbled from his mouth. “I don’t think I’m going to make it, Carl.”
I pulled him to his feet. His knees buckled. I sat him down against the side of the house. “Where are those paramedics?”
“They’re coming,” Jones said.
We waited. Jones came over to get a look at the side of my head. It was a good couple minutes before the EMTs appeared from the side of the house. They gathered around Cross. He was unconscious.
One of the EMTs looked up at me. “Do you know how many times he’s been shot?” Before I had a chance to respond, his expression changed as he noticed the gash running along the side of my head. “Geez, what the hell is that from? We need to get you to the hospital.” He stood from Cross and approached. He grabbed my chin and turned my head so he could examine the wound more closely. “Geez,” he said again.
“All right, all right.” I pushed his hands away. “I’ll get myself there and get patched up. Is he going to live?” I jerked my chin at Cross. Two EMTs were at his side. A pool of blood was forming under him.
“I can’t say. He looks pretty bad.”
“The homeowner? I asked.
“The guy should make it. We have a crew inside attending to him now.” The EMT went to assist the others in loading Cross onto a gurney.
“I’ll keep an eye on him while they take him in,” Jones said.
“Thanks, Jones. We’ll meet you at the hospital.” I looked at Hank. “Ready?”
“Yeah, I’ll drive you,” he said.
“I can drive, Hank.”
“You’re not driving anywhere, and speaking of which, what are you going to drive? I seem to remember seeing a totaled Mustang somewhere.”
“Shit.” I’d forgotten about my car.
“Just wait here. I’ll pick you up out front.”
“Fine.”
Hank went to get the car. I walked over spent shell casings as I made my way through the lanai toward the door.
Chapter 52
Seventeen shiny staples and numerous stitches later, my head was back together. Eight days of medical leave had been mostly filled staying in at the house, sleeping, and trying to avoid the media when I did leave. I couldn’t turn on the television without seeing a report on the case. The media was camping out in front of my condo in hopes of catching a glimpse of me or getting a sound bite. The station had given them a full press release early in the week with all the details of the case. I didn’t feel much like adding to it.
Cross, cuffed to the stretcher, had died on the way to the hospital. The blood loss from the multiple bullet wounds was too much. Cross’s death didn’t bother me. If he’d lived, he would have been put to death by the state after a lengthy trial. From what the captain said, he wouldn’t have lived long enough to get through any court proceedings. The captain got his medical records earlier in the week. He’d only had another few months to live, at the most.
The feds had started to dig into his past. They created a preliminary workup on him. It waited for me at work.
I walked through the front doors of the station. It buzzed with officers and detectives working. The elevator took me up to three. I got off and walked toward the captain’s office. Patrolmen and detectives stopped me, to offer their congratulations for catching Cross. I nodded but kept quiet. I got to the bullpen, which went dead silent as I walked through. I headed into the captain’s office.
“Kane, how you feeling?”
“Fine. Did you go over the feds’ report yet?”
Captain Bostok pointed to the chair. “Take a seat.”
I slid a chair out and plopped down.
“Just gave it a once-over.” He slid a file across his desk. “This one is for you.”
I picked up the file and thumbed it open. It was a half inch thick.
“They say this is going to be an ongoing case. They are looking into unsolved homicides that they may be able to attribute to him.”
I nodded.
The captain tapped on the side of his head. “How’s the noggin?”
“They say I’ll live.” I turned so he could get a good view.
“You’re going to have to grow some hair to cover that.”
I shook my head. “Doc says it shouldn’t leave that big of a scar.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I bet.”
“So when can I come back?”
“As soon as you’re medically cleared.”
“Okay. I have an appointment to get these staples out tomorrow. I’ll see if he’ll sign off on me.”
The captain crossed his arms over his belly. “Take your time. There’s no rush.”
“I just want to get back to normal. This sitting-around-at-home business is driving me nuts. I’ll be back on Wednesday.”
“As long as the doctor gives you the green light.”
I slapped the file on Cross against my hand. “I’m going to take this with me to read. My ride is waiting outside.”
“No problem.”
I stood and headed for the captain’s door.
“Kane.”
I paused. “Yeah?”
“Good job, Lieutenant.”
I nodded and walked out.
I saw Hank sitting at his desk on the phone.
He hung up when he saw me heading over. “Are you back or just visiting?”
“I came to grab the file that the feds put together on Cross. You look at it?”
“Yeah. There’s some stuff in there, that’s for sure. How’s the skull?”
“Staples come out tomorrow. Give me the highlights of what’s in the file.”
“A lot of stuff about his early years—troubled youth, abusive parents. When Cross was seventeen, his mother committed suicide.”
“How?”
“Ketamine overdose.”
“Are they thinking it may have not been a suicide?”
“Well, seeing as how she was found dead, lying in bed, wearing green lingerie, there has to be some kind of connection there. Whether he actually did it or not, they don’t know.”
I nodded.
“Ready for the part that’s going to throw you for a loop?”
“I’m listening.”
“So, after Cross got out of the military, he tried and failed multiple times to get into law enforcement.”
I jerked my head back. “What?”
Hank nodded. “Failed the psych exam. Eight times on record in different cities and states. The feds think there may have even been more that weren’t recorded.”
“So, he wanted to be a cop? Damn good thing it never happened.”
“Yeah, well.” Hank held up a finger. “Maybe it would have given him something else to focus his energy on other than floating around from city to city doing odd jobs and…” Hank dug through the file. He pulled out four pieces of paper and slid them over. “This.”
They were photos of dead women in lingerie. The backgrounds were different in each photo, yet all the women lay in dirt. Each woman was in a different state of decomposition. Orange date stamps sat at the bottom right corners of two of the pictures. The photos were fifteen and twelve years old. I slid the papers back.
“Where did these come from?” I asked.
“Bank records showed payments to a local storage locker. The originals of those photos were buried among a bunch of junk and o
ld furniture.”
“Do we know who they are?”
Hank shook his head. “Feds are going to look into the date-stamped ones and cross-reference his location at the time with missing persons in that area. The two that aren’t date stamped, we may never know.” Hank pushed himself back from his desk. “Cross is dead—at least there won’t be more.”
I nodded.
“Want to grab lunch?” Hank asked.
I shook my head. “Can’t. Karen didn’t pack you one this morning?”
“Nah, I told her I wasn’t going to eat that garbage anymore—at home or at work.”
I wasn’t buying Hank’s sudden burst of courage toward his wife. “You’re full of it.”
“Yeah, I know, but I thought about saying that to her. So why can’t you go get something to eat?”
“Got a ride waiting outside—going to head back home, look over this file. Plus, I just ate at Dotana’s before I came in.”
Hank nodded. “How are Samantha and Callie?”
“Well, I stopped by the hospital a couple of times to check on Samantha. She saw me the second time I went to visit, to tell me she didn’t want to see me. It seemed like she blamed me for what had happened to her, which I understand, in a way.”
“It’s not your fault that she was attacked.”
“Either way, she was released to Marty’s care the other day. The doctors seem hopeful that she will make a full recovery.”
He nodded. “Good, good. What about Callie? What’s up with her?”
“She’s waiting for me outside. I think they are going to total my car, so I’m without wheels until that gets straightened out. She has been chauffeuring me around the last week.”
“Does she remember anything?”
I shook my head. “No recollection. She remembers leaving work then waking up at the hospital.”
“It’s probably for the best that she doesn’t remember.”
“I agree.”
Hank grinned. “So, you guys have been spending some time together, huh?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. She’s been stopping by and bringing me food every night. We watched a couple movies, talked, and just kind of hung out.”
“Does she have a toothbrush there yet?”
I smiled. “Not yet. All right, I’ll see you in a couple days. Thanks for saving my life, Quickdraw.”
He made a gun with his hand and fired. “No sweat, Kane. Enjoy your next few days off.”
I headed down two floors and out the front of the station. Callie was waiting at the curb. The windows in her BMW were rolled down, the music turned up. I opened the door and hopped in.
“Where to?” she asked.
“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
Callie turned the volume on the radio down. “I took off the next week. When do you have to be back at work?”
“I was thinking a couple days.” I shrugged. “Or maybe a little longer. The captain told me to take my time.”
“Well, I’m up for anything. You call it.” She clicked the car into drive and rubbed my knee.
I sat and thought about it for a few seconds. I tossed the file on Cross into the backseat. “Just drive. We’ll see where we end up.”
The End
Requite, the second book in the Cases of Lieutenant Kane Series is available now at:
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Malevolent (Lieutenant Kane series Book 1) Page 23