Chicago Blood: Detective Shannon Rourke Book 1

by Stewart Matthews

  “I need to get this man out of here,” she said. “He’s been shot in the leg.”

  The SWAT officer waved a couple of his men up. Right away, they picked up Coughlin and slung his arms over their shoulders.

  “I knew you weren’t taking me out of here,” he said to Shannon as they helped him toward the door. “But you get an A for effort.”

  She smiled and gave him the finger.

  A shot whizzed overhead. They all ducked—no one was hit.

  The SWAT officer motioned for the rest of his team to follow him. Four men moved up.

  “I think the shooter is overhead,” Shannon said. “In the catwalks. But I haven’t seen a muzzle flash, and there’s a crazy echo in here.”

  “We’ll find him,” the SWAT officer said.

  “Any of your people carrying a carbine?” Shannon asked.

  One of them leaned up against the front end of a car. He rested his elbow on the hood, and in his hands he held an AR-15 assault rifle.

  He squeezed off a shot.

  She watched the bullet pierce through the darkness overhead like a white-hot needle.

  Someone cried out in pain.

  Afonso.

  “Is he dead?” she asked.

  No one answered. They all waited for another burst of gunfire.

  None came.

  “Let’s go find out,” the SWAT officer said.

  They took a set of rickety metal stairs up to the catwalks, each officer with his weapon drawn and ready to fire in case someone laid in wait.

  The only person they found was Afonso Arroz. He was on his back, the AK47 he used to attack them was halfway off the catwalk.

  Shannon and the SWAT officers approached him. She kicked his rifle off the catwalk and kept her Glock trained on him.

  “He’s alive,” she said.

  His chest rose and flattened. He’d caught the bullet in his pelvis—near his right hip. The bone had likely been obliterated, and he’d passed out from shock, pain, or both.

  The SWAT team picked him up and dragged him out.

  Once outside the large building, she saw an ambulance waiting. The top of Coughlin’s bald head stuck up over the edge of a partially upright stretcher in the ambulance’s back. The EMT looked at him, and Coughlin’s hand moved as if he were retelling what happened inside the scrap mill just now.

  He’d be okay.

  “Medic!” the SWAT Officer yelled.

  A second EMT came out of the ambulance’s cab. He stole a quick glance at Afonso, realized they’d need another ambulance, then picked his radio up and made a call.

  “I’ll let you take him from here,” Shannon said to the SWAT officer. “Thanks for having my back in there.”

  “No problem.” He whipped off a little two-finger salute.

  Shannon made her way toward Coughlin. She had to talk to him, if nothing else but to double-check that he was actually as unharmed as he looked.

  But something else grabbed her attention—a flicker of light moving over by the tree line about a hundred yards off. A white spark in the darkness.

  A cell phone screen.

  Shannon’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out.

  Isabella was calling her.

  CHAPTER 36

  “Tell me he’s alive.” On the other end of the call, Isabella sounded as if she were the emotional equivalent of broken glass. “Tell me you didn’t kill my brother.”

  Shannon looked toward the spot against the tree line where she’d seen the pinprick of light. It was gone, but Isabella couldn’t be far.

  “He shot at us first.”

  “So you murdered him?” she yelled into the phone. A rage pushed at her voice unlike anything Shannon had heard—and she’d heard some rather unhappy people during her stint with the Corps, though most of them didn’t speak English.

  “I know you can see us,” Shannon said. “Why don’t you come back here and we’ll talk about Afonso? If you want, we’ll talk about how you put Colm up to taking that money from his father. And we’ll talk about how you convinced Robbie to murder for you. We’ll talk about everything, even the baby.”

  She heard Isabella intake a sharp breath.

  “I know what it’s like to lose a baby,” Shannon said. “Let me help you, Isabella.”

  There was a long pause until Isabella said, “Goodbye.”

  Shannon put her phone back in her pocket and ran toward the tree line. She knew it was stupid not to tell at least one of the dozens of uniformed officers nearby. She knew it was a tactical mistake to go up against someone whom she knew had probably spotted her. She should’ve turned around, waved down the SWAT team, and gone home to cuddle up next to Frank.

  But she didn’t have any other choice. If anyone else was around, she couldn’t be honest with Isabella. She’d lose her nerve if anyone else was there to hear her talk about her miscarriage.

  She’d go home to Frank tonight and cry. She’d cry for a week straight, all in private. She’d have to wrestle with her demons all over again, and she’d feel that much worse knowing that she’d left someone else to do the same.

  It was a mistake, yes—but a mistake that had to be made. Shannon wouldn’t be able to live with herself otherwise.

  The grass whipped at her knees as she ran. Little stones tried to twist her ankles, and fireflies buzzed past her ears.

  “Isabella!” Shannon yelled, though she couldn’t see her. “Isabella, come talk to me!”

  There was another flash in the darkness. It wasn’t the sharp glow of a cell phone screen. It was a burst of heat, light, and hatred.

  A bullet whizzed past Shannon’s head.

  She flopped to the deck as fast as she could.

  What kind of moron wouldn’t have thought thought Isabella was armed? Shannon could’ve slapped herself for being so hasty.

  “Isabella!” She’d only lifted her face far enough off the ground to yell. “I know what you’ve been through today. Please, I’m begging you—let me help you. There’s a way out of this, but you have to stop running.”

  Shannon laid in the dirt for a few seconds, hoping Isabella would give herself up. She heard her heart pound in her ears. The crickets played to the summer moon. Her fellow officers scrambled in the distance behind her. They must’ve heard the shot, but she doubted anyone saw it.

  No response from Isabella.

  From some deep corner of her brain, AJ’s voice admonished her for bringing birdshot to Iraq. She didn’t have a clue what she’d gotten herself into.

  Over the tops of the trees, she heard a helicopter engine push closer. Time was running out. As soon as the chopper flew overhead, it’d spot Isabella, and the arrest would be made before Shannon could talk to her.

  Shannon pushed herself up to her feet.

  This job made everybody a little crazy. Clearly, Isabella wasn’t in the mood for a heart-to-heart, but Shannon was.

  She slowed up and walked toward the tree line, which was about ten paces off. The grass thinned out. The toes of her shoes bumped into gnarled roots, and a raccoon scurried away from her.

  She didn’t have the slightest clue where to go. Isabella could have doubled back and lost her when she dove to the ground. For all she knew, she’d have the muzzle of a pistol pressed into her back at any moment.

  A chainlink fence rattled ahead. It was close.

  “Isabella?” Shannon pressed herself up against a tree. She wouldn’t catch a bullet this time. “I know it sounds like a lie—like I just want you to give yourself up—but I can help you. Not just with your part in Colm’s murder, but with what happened after.”

  The fence rattled again. She heard Isabella grunt in frustration.

  “I saw you in the hospital today,” Shannon said. “I know you’re scared about the baby being premature—you’re worried about what happens next, but there are people who can help you.”

  “I can’t take care of that baby,” Isabella said. “I can’t.”

  Shannon decided to risk
it. Unsure if she’d get her head blown off or not, she peered around the tree. It took her a second to pick out Isabella’s shadow against all the trees and bushes, but she spotted her.

  She was trying to squeeze through a hole in the fence, a bag in one hand and a pistol in the other. The bag was caught on one of the open chain links.

  “Is the money in that bag?” Shannon asked.

  For a second, Isabella’s eyes met Shannon’s. And the next second, the muzzle of her pistol looked big enough to swallow Shannon whole.

  The gun belched fire. It happened three or four times in quick succession.

  Splinters flew out of the tree Shannon covered herself with. The first splash of them hit Shannon’s shoulder. They whipped her with a lash of pain—absent one second, and here—full-force—the next. It knocked her off her feet and she screamed through clamped teeth.

  She’d been sprayed by mace during her academy training. She’d been shot by a .38 once in the vest when helping deal with a parole violator. She’d had a blast from an IED knock her unconscious in Iraq while flipping her truck and subsequently snapping her leg.

  But none of it felt like this.

  When she brought her hand up to her left shoulder out of reflex, the pain worsened. Shannon’s entire body cramped up in agony. Ends of splinters stuck out of the shoulder of her CPD t-shirt in the pale moonlight. It was like she’d sprouted quills.

  Shannon got up to her feet. She leaned against the tree on her good shoulder. For a moment, she considered pulling some of the larger splinters out, but thought better of it. Someone else could deal with that later—but not her, not now.

  Her left arm hung off her body, totally useless.

  The helicopter buzzed overhead. They wouldn’t be able to spot Shannon or Isabella under the trees.

  With her right hand, she grabbed her Glock from its holster. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with it—there was no scenario in which Shannon would be able to bring herself to shoot Isabella—but holding her weapon made her feel safer.

  She peeked around the tree again. The hole in the fence was empty.

  Being a bit shorter than Isabella, Shannon didn’t have as much trouble negotiating her body through the gap. She got all the way up to her bad shoulder without a hitch. Then she knocked a few splinters against the fence and bit back a howl.

  She carefully brought the rest of herself through the fence. She wiped sweat off her brow with the back of her forearm. When she did, something on the ground caught her eye.

  Shannon bent down and picked it up. It was a crinkled twenty-dollar bill.

  An entire trail of them laid before her.

  She followed it.

  Some of the bills in the roots of trees, some stuck in the lowlying brush, and others rolled in the slight breeze.

  That’s what Isabella struggled with. She couldn’t get herself and the bag of Ewan’s money through the fence at the same time. She’d ripped the bag open and left behind a trail that would lead Shannon straight to her.

  “Isabella, I’m here,” Shannon said. Hopefully she was in earshot. “I know you made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes—I’ve made mistakes.”

  The trail of money thickened. Shannon kicked a pile of it hiding behind a thicket of weeds. She stopped and looked at her feet. She must’ve been standing in over ten thousand dollars in small bills.

  “Running away isn’t going to solve anything,” Shannon said. “You have to work through your problems. You have to become a better person because of them. You have a baby back at the hospital depending on you to be a good mother.”

  The CPD helicopter roared as it swooped past. Its spotlights briefly shined through the trees. Shannon saw she was at the edge of a creek. Like dead leaves, dollar bills drifted with the current.

  About ten paces away, Isabella sat with her head in her hands and cried at the edge of the water.

  The bag was at her side, deflated. She’d lost all her money.

  Shannon kept her Glock lowered.

  “I can’t raise that baby.” Isabella must have noticed her standing there. “I can’t do it—I’m not strong enough.”

  “I know you can,” Shannon said. “You’re stronger than you think.”

  Isabella laughed bitterly.

  “I wasn’t strong enough to handle Colm. I had to bully my brother and Robbie into doing it for me.” She rubbed her arm across her eyes. “How can I take care of a baby that small?”

  Shannon couldn’t answer her. She didn’t know the first thing about caring for a child.

  “Do you remember talking to me in the hospital?” Shannon asked.

  “I don’t want to remember anything about the hospital.” Isabella picked her head up and planted her hands in the mud behind her with her legs sprawled out before her. One of her arms gave way, and she crashed into the muck.

  Shannon wanted to reach for her.

  Isabella laughed. She lifted her face out of the filth and cackled.

  “The nurses said my coordination would be bad. But I had to get away.”

  “I know you believe that, but running isn’t going to solve anything,” Shannon said. “I know.”

  “Yeah? You know so much. I’m sure you know what it’s like to see a two-pound baby come out of you. You know how it feels when the nurses roll your baby away in a plastic box because it can’t breathe on its own. You know the dread that comes with knowing you’re responsible for that baby on your own because his father threw his own life away.”

  “I’m not claiming I know what that’s like,” Shannon said.

  “And you don’t know how to help me either,” Isabella said. “Did you know I called Robbie? I begged him to stay away from Ewan, but he said as long as Ewan was alive, the Irish would keep sending people after Afonso.”

  “I answered his phone when you called,” Shannon said, remembering the Pizza Hut number. “I’m sorry about what happened to him, but running from your child isn’t going to solve anything.”

  “Running is all I have left,” she said. “I made Afonso sneak me out of the hospital. I didn’t want that baby with me. But I guess that plan is done—neither of us thought I’d lose all the money in the woods.” She laughed and wiped a handful of mud off her shirt.

  “Where’s your gun?” Shannon said. “Did you lose that in the woods, too?”

  “No.”

  Shannon’s Glock came up straight away. The sights lined up with Isabella’s forehead.

  “I’ll save you the trouble.” Isabella brought her revolver up.

  “Drop it!” Shannon screamed. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Her finger struggled to grasp the trigger. She couldn’t shoot Isabella. “Put it down!”

  “You’ll be fine.”

  Isabella pressed the gun to her temple. Its barrel reflected the spotlights from the helicopter as it made another pass overhead, and Isabella’s over-sized, watery eyes threw back the red and blue lights dancing so far away.

  Her finger wrapped around the trigger.

  The gun’s action came at Shannon in slow motion. The hammer reared back. The cylinder turned to drop a fresh round behind the gun’s barrel. The gun clicked, as the hammer reached the apex of its backward motion.

  It started forward.

  CHAPTER 37

  Shannon kept her eyes open, unable to do anything. She watched Isabella’s face as the revolver’s hammer gobbled up millimeter after millimeter of space between it and the round’s primer.

  Isabella wore a relaxed—almost bored—expression as she waited for the hammer to slam down on the primer and fire the bullet. Strands of her black hair caught the light, summer breeze and wrapped around her neck, around her wrist, and around the barrel of the gun.

  The hammer clicked. It struck the bullet’s primer to no effect. By some miracle, the chambered round didn’t fire.

  Isabella’s hand went limp. The gun fell into the mud.

  Shannon ran to the revolver. She scooped the gun off the ground. She h
olstered her Glock while she held the revolver at her left hip—as high as her injured shoulder would let her hand go. She pulled the cylinder out. Nothing but empty casings dropped into the mud at her feet.

  Shannon’s knees turned to putty. She sank to the ground.

  “Why would you do that?” she screamed.

  Isabella had no answer. She cried. She looked like she’d just walked away from a plane crash.

  Shannon wrapped her one good arm around her. Isabella shuddered, even recoiled for a moment, but then she gave in. She sank into Shannon, and the tears poured out from both of them.

  “I came here to help you,” Shannon said.

  “No one can help me.” Isabella’s entire body strained. It took her full effort to get the words out. She wheezed and sighed. “I’m broken.”

  “You’re not broken.

  “I abandoned my baby—what kind of mother does that?”

  Shannon let her go. She looked Isabella in the eyes. She remembered being that confused and heart-broken once. It felt like the entire world tumbled out of control around her, and nothing could make it stop.

  “I miscarried once,” Shannon said.

  Isabella shook her head.

  “It’s true. It happened in Iraq,” Shannon said. “There was a guy—a corporal in the Second Marines who I’d run into a couple times at Camp Lejeune. We had a fling—a couple dates, a night at the Marine Corps ball, but we were both shipped out before anything more happened.

  “Then I saw him over there. We crossed paths near Ramadi. I’d been assigned there for a couple weeks to run supplies, and his battalion passed through.

  “It was one night. That’s all. Nothing more than that.” The tears stung Shannon’s eyes. “A while later, there was an IED.”

  The words stuck in her throat. It had been years since she’d told this story. Isabella was the first person who’d heard it outside of Shannon’s support group.

  “I didn’t know I was pregnant until after I woke up in a hospital in Germany, and the nurse looked at me. She was horrified. She asked me why I didn’t tell anyone I was pregnant.

  “I lost my only baby, and it was my fault,” Shannon said. “I couldn’t let you do the same thing—I couldn’t let you run away.”