Watch Your Back

by Rose, Karen

  Hyatt’s sigh was heavy. ‘Rossi woke up, realized he’d been caught killing a cop and decided to cooperate. He told JD that he hadn’t seen or heard from Scott Culp in years.’

  ‘He’s lying,’ Stevie said. ‘Culp tipped him off about the safe house. Culp had access to the information. And Culp is dead. Rossi’s lying, otherwise, Culp would still be alive.’

  ‘He had access, but Culp’s not the one who tipped Rossi off. I don’t know why Culp is dead, but it had nothing to do with the safe house. Lieutenant Levine, can you secure this scene until Agent Brodie from VCET’s CSU arrives? We’re going to have to decide who has jurisdiction over the investigation into Sergeant Culp’s murder.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Stevie asked as Hyatt started for the door.

  ‘To notify the families of Hollinsworth and Locklear.’ Hyatt looked defeated.

  ‘Sir. What else did JD just tell you?’

  Hyatt paused, his hand on the doorknob. ‘Rossi said that the leak came from my assistant.’

  Stevie caught her breath, growing pale herself. ‘No. He’s lying. There is no way—’

  ‘Yes, there is, Detective,’ Hyatt snapped. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ He turned on his heel and left Culp’s house, headed to his car.

  Stevie started after him, leaning on her new black cane. ‘Sir. Lieutenant.’ Hyatt kept walking and she kept following. ‘Peter. Dammit, stop. Please.’

  Hyatt halted when he got to the car he’d left parked on the curb. Stevie caught up to him, grabbing his arm and pulling him to look at her.

  Clay had followed, and now hulked over her, providing the cover she’d neglected to provide for herself. ‘Stevie, you can’t stand out here in the open. Come on.’

  Stevie let Clay pull her away, but she kept her eyes on Hyatt’s face as Clay hurried her backward toward the Escalade. ‘You don’t believe Rossi. You can’t.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ Hyatt bit out. ‘But I do. I dropped breadcrumbs, giving different information to a few select individuals because I needed to know who I could trust. Rossi knew something I’d told only one other person.’

  Stevie stumbled. ‘You suspected your assistant? You suspected Phil?’ She had to raise her voice, because Clay had her almost in the Escalade.

  ‘I suspected everybody!’ Hyatt shouted bitterly. ‘Somebody, multiple somebodies have tried to kill you on multiple occasions. So I suspected everybody.’ With that he got in his car, executed a sharp U-turn in the street, and took off in the opposite direction, leaving Stevie open-mouthed and breathing hard. Stunned.

  Clay bodily lifted her, shoving her into the SUV. ‘Get in, goddammit.’ He slammed her door and ran around to the driver’s side, keenly aware that every place they found a body meant someone who had Stevie in his or her sights had been there first.

  Hell of a way to draw her out into the open. He jerked his door open. ‘You have to start—’

  Stevie lunged at him, grabbing the collar of his shirt, diving under the steering column and pulling him down with her – just as the passenger window pebbled. A split second later a blast of pain burned down his back. He was thrown forward, his forehead smacking the steering wheel.

  He was aware of her moving, scrambling back to her side of the car.

  ‘Get in!’ she shouted.

  ‘Get down!’ he snarled, but it was too late. Stevie cried out, pressing her hand to her side. Clay hurled himself behind the wheel, flooring it as he pulled his door shut. ‘Are you hit?’

  ‘I’m okay. It hit the vest.’ She showed him her hand. ‘No blood. Just a bruise.’

  ‘How did you know he was there?’

  ‘The State sniper slid off the roof. I figure the shooter was hiding behind the house next door and shot up. That gave him a clear shot at us.’

  If she hadn’t pulled him down, the bullet that had transformed the passenger window into a thousand pebbles of glass would have gone into his head. I’d be dead.

  Clay hunkered down, cursing when he saw the cul-de-sac a few houses up. ‘Dead end. We can stay here or turn around and drive past Culp’s house again to get out of here.’

  ‘We’re still in his range if we wait here. I guess we’re about find out how bullet-resistant Joseph’s ride really is.’

  ‘I guess we will. Hold on, honey. This might not be fun.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Baltimore, Maryland, Sunday, March 16, 3.00 P.M.

  Clay did a hard U-turn, throwing Stevie’s body against the wall of the SUV.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked him urgently.

  ‘I think so. Second time in two days some bastard has shot me in the damn back.’

  ‘You’re wearing a vest, too?’ she asked and he nodded.

  ‘I took it out of my bedroom closet when Brodie gave me the grand tour of the wreckage that used to be my stuff.’ He crunched his body down, so that he was barely able to see over the steering wheel. He floored it. ‘Here we go, past Culp’s house.’

  Stevie braced herself for more gunfire, yet still flinched when it came. Her side of the Escalade took the hits, two to the front window and one to the back fender.

  Clay kept his foot on the gas, easing his body up to better see through the windshield. Then hunkered down again when the back window took the final hit.

  ‘I’d say Carter’s ride fared okay,’ Stevie said. The glass had pebbled around the points of impact, but the windows had remained intact. ‘I’d give it four and half stars out of five.’

  He laughed. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s the adrenaline. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of getting shot at.’

  She straightened in her seat and buckled up. ‘Me, too.’ Lightly she touched Clay’s back, relieved when her fingers came back clean. ‘You’re not bleeding, either.’

  ‘Always good to know.’

  ‘Did you see if the sniper was moving?’

  ‘No, but one of the plainclothes guys was moving around the houses, toward him. They know he’s down. I’m sure they’ve already called for help.’

  ‘Hyatt needs to know,’ she said, dialing her boss’s cell phone.

  ‘I want to know about what’s going on with his assistant,’ Clay said.

  ‘Let me call him, and then I’ll tell you. I gotta say, that outburst of his at the end went a long way in convincing me that he’s clean.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Clay admitted.

  She held up a finger. ‘Wait, it’s ringing.’

  ‘What is it, Detective?’ Hyatt asked, sounding unhappy that she’d called.

  ‘Clay and I were just shot at.’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘Right after you took off. Clay had shoved me into the SUV when the sniper the State cops had on the roof went down. Clay got hit in the right shoulder blade and I got one in the ribs, but we’re both in Kevlar. We’re not bleeding, but we need to be checked. I don’t know the status on the State Police sniper.’

  Clay gave her a coldly forbidding look. ‘No. I don’t need to be checked out.’

  ‘Yes. You do. You could have a fractured scapula. And I tore two stitches from yesterday’s fun with guns.’ Actually she’d done that when they’d been in bed earlier, but she wasn’t going to mention that now. ‘Lieutenant, can you get us a secure entry to the ER?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll call Levine and get status on her marksman and I’ll get the ER ready for you. Stevie, I’m sorry I shouted. This thing with Phil has me rattled. I didn’t plan to trap him. I didn’t actually suspect him, specifically.’

  ‘Maybe it’s not true, sir. Maybe Rossi did lie.’

  ‘No. JD didn’t believe Rossi at first, but Rossi said he’d prove it. Told JD to get the cell phone they’d taken off him, that he had voicemails and texts from his source. When JD called the lab and asked them to
verify, he was told that they couldn’t find the phone. It wasn’t with the other items taken from Rossi’s person and his vehicle.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean Phil took it.’

  ‘Phil was in the lab this morning, Stevie. He told them that he was picking up a report I’d asked for. But I hadn’t asked for anything. JD’s on his way to Phil’s now. If he finds the phone, we’ll have proof.’

  ‘What if Phil’s thrown Rossi’s phone away?’

  ‘Then we’ll search his house for the phone he used to make the call. I’ll let you know after I notify the families of Hollinsworth and Locklear.’

  Suddenly exhausted, Stevie hung up and slumped into the seat. ‘I am not stupid, but I keep doing stupid things like standing in the street where people can shoot at me.’

  ‘You were stunned,’ Clay said. ‘Why? Who is Hyatt’s assistant?’

  She hesitated, then shrugged. He’d find out sooner or later. ‘Phil Skinner.’

  Clay’s gaze whipped around to focus on her face. ‘Skinner? The Skinner who was a homicide detective two years ago? The guy who was wounded by Nicki’s killer?’

  ‘None other.’

  ‘Holy shit,’ he muttered, shaking his head. ‘Goddamn. Why would he betray you?’

  Stevie sighed. ‘He’s not the same man he was two years ago, Clay. Pain and loss can change people. But I wouldn’t have expected this of him.’

  ‘Pain and loss.’ He shook his head again. ‘This is my—’ He cut himself off before he said fault. ‘I caused his pain and loss. Me. I can’t fucking believe this.’

  ‘You didn’t shoot him two years ago, Clay. And you’re not responsible for him turning.’

  ‘I didn’t pull the trigger. But it’s still on me. If I’d told you who killed Nicki when you came asking . . .’ He was trembling, his grip on the wheel white-knuckled. ‘You could have caught that sonofabitch before he shot Skinner.’

  Two years before, Phil Skinner had been guarding JD’s wife, Lucy, who’d been the victim of a psycho, bent on revenge. After killing Clay’s former partner, Nicki, the man had grabbed Lucy. When Skinner had pursued, the killer had fired, critically wounding him. JD had killed the shooter, but too late to help Skinner. He’d been on disability for months before returning to a desk job, never regaining his full strength.

  Stevie now knew how that felt.

  ‘I don’t know that we would have caught Nicki’s killer before he shot Skinner, and neither do you,’ she said levelly. ‘You didn’t know how many people that asshole had killed.’

  ‘I knew he’d killed one. That should have been enough. I should have come forward.’

  ‘Shoulda, coulda,’ she said sadly. ‘I still play that game. You can never win it.’

  He gave her a sharp sideways look. ‘You had nothing to do with Skinner getting shot.’

  ‘No. But I had everything to do with my son getting shot.’

  He blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘It was my night to pick up Paulie, but I was working late, trying to get all my reports finished before I went on maternity leave. I asked Paul to pick him up from day care. That’s why they were both in that convenience store that evening.’

  ‘Stevie . . .’ He sounded devastated. ‘That in no way compares to what I did.’

  ‘Yeah, well, my brain chooses to disagree. At any rate, “shoulda, coulda” is a game you can’t win. You gave me the information you possessed when you realized the scope of the guy’s crimes. That has to be enough.’

  ‘It’s not. I knew the night before who’d killed Nicki. I should have come forward.’

  ‘Okay, fine. Yes, you should have. But even if you had, we probably wouldn’t have gotten him right away. And truthfully, Skinner was off his game that day. He’d been up all night with a sick baby. Lucy was lured away when she was told that someone she loved was injured, but Skinner should have been able to catch her. That she ran faster than he did was telling.’

  ‘Lucy wouldn’t have run into danger to begin with if she’d known what I knew.’

  ‘True. Okay, ace, maybe you can win “shoulda, coulda”. But even if you were responsible for Skinner being shot, you are not responsible for him leaking information to Rossi.’

  ‘Why did he?’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to ask him that question when JD brings him in.’

  ‘JD’s going to be conflicted, too. Skinner gets shot saving JD’s wife . . . This is a mess.’

  ‘I think that’s why Hyatt asked Carter to send his two agents.’

  ‘Novak and Coppola.’

  Stevie nodded. ‘He knew this would rip JD apart. JD was upset enough when Skinner’s wife left him and took the baby with her.’

  Clay clenched his jaw. ‘His wife left him, too? When? Why?’

  ‘About eight months ago. Like I said, Phil isn’t the man he was. He came back to light duty, but he just seemed angry. Surly.’ She looked at her cane. ‘I can understand where he was coming from. Getting hurt on the job and not being able to come back to full duty . . . It’s killing me, Clay. I think it ate him up from the inside out.’

  He was quiet for a long moment. ‘That’s the other reason you’ve been digging into Silas’s old cases. It makes you feel like a cop again.’

  ‘I’m not that hard to figure out, I suppose.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ he muttered. ‘So what now? Where do we go?’

  ‘The ER,’ she said, then watched the corners of his mouth kick up in resigned amusement. He hadn’t meant right now, she realized. He must have meant the case. Because he didn’t mean us. I got what I wanted. There is no more us.

  She cleared her throat. ‘And after the ER? We have to figure out who killed Culp. Because whoever killed him somehow guessed that I’d be by to talk to him because he was there waiting. How did he know that? How did he know I would be there? We know Rossi didn’t tell.’

  ‘Now that’s a damn good question. Nobody should have known you’d be there.’ His jaw hardened. ‘Only Hyatt knew. You two were whispering in the corner. Nobody else heard.’

  She sighed. ‘I know. Dammit. I hate wondering about him, but I have to.’ She pinched the bridge of her nose. The headache from her weeping had started to fade, but now was back. ‘Going back to your theory about the break-in of your house . . . If someone was waiting for me to come back, they could have followed us. So it also could have been either of the two guys who were in your house.’

  Again his lips quirked. ‘Thing One and Thing Two?’

  ‘I’m a mom. Dr Seuss was a staple. Cordelia loved The Cat in the Hat, but her favorite was Green Eggs and Ham.’

  ‘And Paulie?’ he asked gently. ‘What was his favorite?’

  Her heart skipped a beat as she sucked in a sudden painful breath, remembering. ‘Paulie was more a Wocket in my Pocket boy.’

  ‘My mom read that to me, too. Let me think . . . My favorites were the “noothgrush on my toothbrush” and the “vug under the rug”.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She forced her voice to be light. ‘The “vug” got the rug yanked out from under him when the book was reprinted in the nineties. Some of the scarier monsters were banished.’

  ‘Hm,’ he grunted. ‘Damn censors. Well, Thing One and Thing Two are better than Mr Backpack and Mr Cocksucker, which is what I’ve been calling them.’

  She snorted, covering her mouth with her hand. ‘I like yours better.’ She turned to study his profile. ‘Thank you for asking about Paulie. Not many people do.’

  He seemed thrown by that. ‘Your parents must. Your family.’

  ‘No, not really. My folks loved Paul and Paulie, but when they were gone, I was supposed to go on. Chin up. Don’t dwell in the past. That’s why I love my lunches with Emma so much. For years she just let me talk about them and she’d talk about W
ill, the husband she lost. It was my opportunity to have them with me again, for an hour or two.’

  Clay frowned a little. ‘Did your parents know you met with Emma every year?’

  ‘No. I don’t think they knew we’ve stayed close. They wouldn’t condemn me for it, but they wouldn’t understand what I get from talking to her about Paul. And Paulie. My folks don’t believe in “talking about your troubles”. You pick up and you move on.’

  ‘Did Izzy know about your lunch with Emma?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Who else knew? Who else knew you’d be at the restaurant yesterday?’

  ‘JD already asked both Emma and me that question, right after the shooting.’

  ‘That was before the drive-by, a dead cop at the safe house, two dead cops on my living room carpet, a fourth dead IA cop, a possible dead police sniper, and now this.’ He pointed to the spider-webbed glass. ‘So humor me and tell me what you told JD, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘It’s not that I mind, it’s just that there wasn’t really anyone to mention. Izzy knew, but she’s our parents’ daughter, too. Izzy hates conflict. She wouldn’t have wanted to try justifying to our parents why I needed to see Emma to begin with, so I doubt that she told anyone. Cordelia knew. Emma’s husband, Christopher, knew. Her parents, too, I assume, because she left them her hotel information in case of an emergency. That’s about it. I mean, I never even told JD.’

  ‘The restaurant knew.’

  Stevie had to fight the urge to squirm. ‘Not really.’

  ‘You made reservations, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but . . . we never made reservations under our own names.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Emma likes her privacy. She sometimes gets approached by someone who’s read one of her books. She’s always gracious, because if they’re a reader of hers, they’ve been grieving. But our lunch was special. Off-limits, you know?’

  ‘So under what name did you make the reservations?’

  ‘It changed every year, depending on who made the reservation and what was in their mind at the time. One year it was Thelma and Louise. One year, Lucy and Ethel. Last year it was Buffy and Willow because Em’s a fan-girl of the Vampire Slayer. This year . . .’ She looked out the window, embarrassed. ‘We were Lara and Sarah.’