Murder in the City: Blue Lights

by Tatum, Clare

  “The bus will be here in ten minutes. Breakfast.” Lainey turned off the television and waved Julie toward the kitchen.

  Alone since their parents were killed by a drunk driver, they’d developed an easy routine. Lainey was mom, pure and simple. She’d gone from big sister to mom in the space of one phone call telling her that their parents were dead.

  * * *

  Another night, another crime scene. Lainey flashed her badge and stepped under the yellow crime tape. That was three people killed this week in the same neighborhood.

  Detective Brice walked toward her. “Got ourselves a crime spree.” He nodded a greeting.

  “Who’s this one?”

  “A hooker who lives three blocks over.”

  “A female.” None of the victims were similar. “Two guys and a girl. Are you seeing any patterns?”

  Brice nodded. “Actually yeah. There’s a bullet casing left that I think’s gonna match a couple of bullets from the previous two.”

  “How do you know so soon?”

  “Because nobody uses them anymore. It’s an old style gun, revolver, single action type, with old style bullets. The shooter used two guns, on the last case with the two druggies. But, on this one used the same, single shot type revolver as one of the guns on the last crime.”

  Lainey felt her eyebrows arch. “The same gun?”

  “Won’t know for sure until it gets processed. But, seems that way.” He turned around to face the crime scene, putting himself side by side with Lainey.

  She was starting to enjoy this perk to the job, seeing him on a regular basis. It felt good, almost like a relationship.

  She could smell him, some hint of cologne, yet an all male scent underneath it. “There’s something else,” he said. He eyed her from the corner of his eye, his gaze sweeping down her body.

  Chapter Four

  A flash of heat and awareness swept through her. It had been hard to eat this week, with a heightened sense of expectation that she might see him at any time.

  A call could come, from him or dispatch, in the day or in the middle of the night. His voice might ease down the phone line telling her to meet him somewhere.

  She’d slide into jeans and disappear into the night to rendezvous with this attractive male.

  Who’d check her out from the corner of his eye when he thought she wasn’t looking.

  Every nerve ending tingled, alert to his presence.

  Brice half turned toward her, angling his body so that he was just inches from her left arm. The hair on her arms stood up, as if reaching for him.

  An aching desire rose from deep within her, a need for him, to touch him, wrap her arms and entire body around him. Feel his skin, his hands, his mouth on her.

  Damn, she had a bad case of it.

  “The revolver that shot one of the first two guys was the same gun we took off Sean Moseman when we picked him up for Simone’s murder.”

  “What?” She turned full toward him, grabbing one arm. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Nope.” He glanced down at her hand on his arm. A dark sizzle of sexuality sparked in his eyes. He glanced back up to meet her eyes and she felt the connection as a warm heat flowed through her.

  She released his arm and he continued talking as if nothing had just passed between them.

  “The gun was used once before in a robbery. Got a bullet from a convenience store wall. Sean swore up and down he paid a hundred dollars for the gun from some guy who’s since been picked up in Florida for armed robbery. Sean had a witness to the buy of the gun. We couldn’t place him at the scene of the robbery. And he had an alibi. So, the most we could charge him with was concealing a weapon without a permit.”

  “Emm,” Lainey murmured. “And the judge just smiled at us when he was released after Simone’s death, refused to hold him on firearms charges. I remember how the judge said he wasn’t gonna get named in a frivolous lawsuit against a guy who just got let off for murder.”

  Fiery anger erupted through her at the memory of how Sean Moseman had walked out of the jail, getting off on murder.

  “Do you think this is him doing this?”

  “We’ll have to see if we can get a signature of him getting the gun back from the property department, check the video cameras, see if they recorded him picking it up.” He smiled. “If so, we got our man cold.”

  A grin spread across her face, warming her with the expectation of putting Sean Moseman away for good. “Oh man, could he be so stupid?”

  The smile slipped from Brice’s face. “That’s one thing he’s not is stupid. Let’s just hope he was careless, thinking we wouldn’t put two and two together.”

  A gnawing desire chewed at her insides, with the need to finally put that bastard away.

  Brice’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll get him one way or the other.”

  “Why would he be killing these people?”

  Brice shrugged. “The two guys I would say maybe they’d hit on Simone, ticking off Moseman. The woman?” He waggled a hand. “Maybe she rejected his advances if he wasn’t gonna pay for it.”

  “Hmm?”

  He nodded toward the back of an empty lot. “Want to see the dead girl?”

  “Got to,” she agreed. “Then, let’s go look for Sean.”

  Brice’s head jerked up suddenly, looking behind her. “We don’t have to look for him.”

  Lainey followed his gaze. Sean stood outside the yellow line, smirking at her. She couldn’t wait to wipe that ugly expression off his face, to put him in prison with guys who were meaner and bigger than him.

  Brice spoke into a radio and two cops instantly started moving up behind Sean. Brice walked casually toward him as well.

  “Sean. Good to see ya. Showing up at these scenes regularly, aren’t you?”

  Sean smirked. “It’s my hood.” He tilted his head at the crowd who watched from various vantage points. “Just like them, I want to know what’s going on. Wondering why the cops can’t keep people safe.”

  At Brice’s nod, the two uniformed officers each took Sean by his arms, securing them behind him.

  “Hey man, what you doing? It ain’t no crime to want to know what’s going on,” Sean bellowed loudly for the benefit of the interested group of neighbors who watched avidly.

  “Hey man, you done tried to get him once.” One man staggered out of the crowd. “He ain’t done nothing. He was playing cards with me.”

  “And drinking with you, Jackson?” Brice looked directly at the man who was regularly seen trying to flag down cars at red lights to get money supposedly to catch a bus to New York where his mama had just died. But he never traveled further than the closest liquor store to buy the cheapest alcohol they had.

  “Do you even remember where you were an hour ago?” Brice taunted the drunk.

  “Hey,” Sean spoke up in defense of his running buddy. “You don’t need to be hassling him like that. I got other witnesses.”

  “I bet you do, Sean.” Brice began patting him down. “Where’s your piece, Sean. You got that gun we took off of you after Simone died?”

  Brice’s hand came away from the back of Sean’s waistband with a gun.

  A sound of alarm rolled off the crowd. “Ooh, he’s got a gun. They got him now.”

  “I got a permit for that.”

  “You got a permit? That’s hard to believe. Didn’t have one when we picked you up before.”

  “Well, I got one now.”

  Who would give that guy a concealed weapons permit? Lainey looked at him with pure hate.

  “Put him in the car,” Brice said to a uniformed officer. “Let’s go for a little ride, Sean. You have the right to remain silent,” Brice intoned. “Anything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to a lawyer. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. I got a lawyer. And he’s gonna get you for harassment ’cause I got a permit. Tole him he could get a lot of money off the city ’cause Det
ective Brice wants to throw me away for no good reason.”

  “Yeah, well call your lawyer from headquarters.” Brice nodded toward the police car and the two officers escorted him there, patted him down and put him in the back.

  Sean glared at Lainey, mouthing something through the window that she couldn’t understand. But she got the drift. He had something personal against her. She’d seen the look before from people she’d sent to jail.

  People often took it personal when you locked ’em away in a cell.

  As the squad car drove off, Brice touched her elbow, awakening her from the spell Moseman had cast on her. She tried to shake off the anger and driving need for revenge that wrenched every nerve ending in her body.

  She glanced up to meet Brice’s eyes, reading an understanding of her feelings. She took a deep breath.

  “So, let’s check out the body, then go interview Sean?” she said tersely.

  “No, we’ll check out the body, then go have some breakfast.” The detective tilted his head with a wry smile. “I’m thinking eggs and pancakes. Afterwards, we’ll go look up the property department’s release papers on Sean’s gun, view the video tapes around that department.” He paused dramatically. “Then we’ll go talk to Sean.”

  Lainey laughed at his casual tone, implying he didn’t care how long they kept Sean cooling his heels waiting in the interview room.

  “He ought to be coming down with a pretty bad hangover by then,” she added. “He looked like he’d been drinking quite a bit.”

  Brice tilted his head. “So what is the rule, seventy-two hours we can hold him without charging him?”

  Lainey belly laughed then. He knew as well as she did exactly how long they could hold him. “Do you have to let him use the bathroom while they’re holding him?” she said.

  “I’ll let him use the bathroom. Don’t want him going in my interview room. The janitors get ticked off when they do that.”

  No consideration for Sean Moseman, just the janitor who’d have to clean up after him.

  Fifteen minutes later, they’d seen the body and were walking back toward the crime tape.

  “You guys like Sean Moseman for this murder?” a man’s voice came from the other side of the yellow tape.

  Lainey turned toward the voice. The reporter, John Canton.

  “Hey,” she felt forced to reply. Brice just looked at the reporter, his face bland, giving nothing away.

  “You guys wouldn’t be taking him away for no reason,” Canton continued probing.

  Brice still stared at him. His eyes and the reporter’s eyes met in a hard exchange. “I’ll have to refer you to our PIO.”

  “The Public Information Officer is for the general public. You can tell me what’s really going on.”

  “Sorry, gotta follow policy,” Brice said.

  Yeah, that’d be the day when Brice toed the line. The man was barely inside the law. She turned away so that Canton couldn’t see the smile that was sneaking up on her face.

  “What about you, Lainey.”

  The sound of her first name on the reporter’s lips caused her skin to crawl. What was it about him that bothered her?

  She glanced sideways. “We just wanted to visit with him.”

  “Yeah, I guess you haven’t seen as much of him since he got off for butchering his girlfriend.”

  She stopped cold. It was a comment definitely designed to throw it in her face that she hadn’t been able to make the charges stick on Sean.

  “Well, maybe we’ll put him away yet,” she bit off.

  His head lifted. “So, you do like him for this.”

  She shook her head. “Didn’t say that.” She turned and walked toward her car.

  She felt Brice right behind her. At her car door, he took her elbow.

  Awareness coursed through her whole body, every nerve ending tingling. She glanced down to where he touched her.

  He didn’t remove his hand.

  Chapter Five

  Slowly, she raised her eyes to find Brice intently studying her. When their gazes met, another sharp rap of energy rattled through her.

  Ever so slightly, she pulled away from him. The intensity of the feeling his touch evoked shocked her.

  “Don’t listen to that jerk,” he said, close enough to her that his breath brushed across her face.

  “The reporter’s just looking for any nugget of information, any sound bite he can use to make his daily story.”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t feel that way, though.” She searched for the exact way of expressing her instinctual response to Canton’s words.

  “He seems emotionally invested somehow,” she finally concluded.

  Brice glanced back at Canton. “He’s emotionally invested in furthering his own career.”

  It seemed more than that.

  “Maybe.”

  “So, breakfast?” Brice’s expression slid into an easy grin.

  Breakfast sounded good, sitting across from Detective Mark Brice over coffee and eggs. The image brought other visions to mind, she and Brice having breakfast after just rolling out of bed.

  She shook her head. “I have to get home and get my kid sister off to school.”

  He tilted his head. “Still living at home?”

  She half laughed. “Don’t ever intend to leave.” A sad flash of memory swept through her, of returning to her childhood home after her parent’s death.

  The decision had been so right yet so sad. She’d kept her little sister in the only home she’d ever known, trying to provide some sense of stability despite the loss of their parents.

  Yep, Lainey would stay in that house until her sister graduated college and decided she didn’t want to come back to Atlanta to live. Even then, Lainey might stay there. It felt like home to her too, with a sense of permanency and connection to their dead parents.

  She glanced back at Brice whose eyes seemed to take in every emotion that flashed through her. His gaze trailed down from her face, raking across her body, then finally back up to meet her gaze again.

  “Then, we’ll meet down at headquarters after you get done with your domestic chores. You can listen in while I grill Moseman.”

  A familiar feeling of wanting his hands on her swept through her. Business! She had to get her mind back on business.

  “I’ll be down there,” she said. Brice opened the car door before she could reach for the handle.

  She hesitated slightly before sliding behind the wheel.

  He leaned down, his eyes connecting with hers for an instant before he shut the door behind her.

  She inhaled deeply. Courtliness or courting? Either way, the impact was the same. The man was made for women.

  He seemed to know exactly the little touches that women wanted.

  He knew how to play people, she corrected herself. It wasn’t personal with him.

  When he wanted to be on your good side, he would be whether you intended it or not. He had a way about him.

  * * *

  Lainey walked into the police department holding the largest coffee she could find. Another sleep deprived night, another large coffee.

  A detective pointed at a door, and she entered. Inside, she found a monitor which showed what was going on in a nearby room. Sean Moseman slumped at a table, his head down. Brice stood over him. Almost as if he’d sensed her arrival, Brice looked up toward the camera, then turned and walked out of the room.

  A second later, his presence invaded the room where Lainey watched. “Getting anything out of him?” she asked.

  Brice shook his head. “He hasn’t asked for his lawyer yet, though. Can’t figure it out.”

  “Emm.” Lainey observed Sean on the monitor for a moment then turned back to Brice. “You hear about that banker’s kid being found. The parents just had a press conference thanking everyone.”

  “Yeah, that’s great. A good ending for once.” He smiled into her eyes for a moment before his face turned serious. “That was a strange one though.
The way those parents sat on TV crying like they thought they would never see their kid, again. Like they never would have figured their kid for a runaway.”

  “I know, right? There’s usually a sixth sense feeling when a kid’s a runaway. Those people looked desperate.”

  Julie went to the same, private school as the banker’s kid, although a few years apart. Lainey could never have afforded the private school fees, except the mayor had taken a special interest in Lainey and Julie after their parents had been killed in a high profile drunk driving accident.

  The mayor had a daughter exactly Julie’s age, which seemed to have touched the mayor’s heart.

  She’d arranged for a scholarship for Julie to the prestigious private school, and taken a special interest in Lainey as well.

  The mayor’s daughter and Julie had become good friends, hanging out after school and weekends. Lainey didn’t mention that around cops or other city employees. People could get the wrong idea about that sort of thing.

  “From all accounts, the banker’s daughter was a good kid. Just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Teenagers, huh?” Brice shrugged.

  “Teenagers,” she agreed. “Surprised any of them live to adulthood.”

  Brice chuckled. “Like we were never one of them.”

  Childhood seemed so long ago. Childhood, when she’d had few worries.

  “Anyway,” Brice said, almost as though he’d felt he needed to bring her back from her thoughts, as though he’d sensed her melancholy turn of mind.

  “Lack of sleep,” she explained although he hadn’t raised a question.

  “Emm.” Fatigue lined his face, but it looked good on him. Softened his edges, made him look sweeter somehow.

  That sweetness made her want to lean in, press her body against him, and just fade into him, melding with his masculine essence.

  Damn. Fatigue also made it harder to resist him.

  A swinging door to the right flashed open and a detective walked in. Thank heavens for that distraction, before she did something ridiculous that would make the rest of her years of working with Detective Brice uncomfortable.