Watch Your Back

by Karen Rose

  ‘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 Will, 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.’

  His brows went up. ‘As in?’ he asked, but from his tone she knew that he’d figured it out.

  ‘You’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Croft and Connor.’

  He grinned. ‘Lara Croft and Sarah Connor? You were ready to fight, girl.’

  ‘Like I said, I understand where Phil Skinner is coming from. I left my house yesterday so damn angry. It was the anniversary to start with and my daughter’s having nightmares. Then I have this damned cane, and if that isn’t enough, I’ve got people trying to fucking kill me. So, yeah, I was in the mood for a little terminating. I was Sarah.’

  ‘I’d have taken you more as the Lara Croft type.’

  She snickered. ‘You wish.’ He sobered abruptly, his jaw clenching, and she sighed. Of course he wished. That was the trouble. ‘Hell. I’d kick my own ass if my leg worked right.’

  ‘Rain check,’ he muttered. ‘Look, you might think no one knew you were going there for lunch yesterday, but obviously someone did. They were on the roof, shooting at you.’

  She went still. ‘Hold on. I’d assumed they’d followed me from my house into town, but if they did, they couldn’t have followed Izzy and Cordelia out to Daphne’s farm. We left the house at the same time and went different directions. There must have been two different shooters.’

  ‘We have at least three suspects. Backpack, Cocksucker, and Drive-by.’

  ‘And the two guys today couldn’t be Drive-by, because you shot Drive-by. Neither of the guys today had shoulder wounds. So, okay. Three suspects.’

  ‘If they’re working together, both you and Izzy were probably followed. Or . . .’ He glanced over at her. ‘You go to that restaurant every year? The same one?’

  ‘Yes.’ She frowned. ‘You think someone knew that? That they’ve been watching me?’

  ‘At this point I’m inclined to believe there were two different shooters. Plus Rossi. But we can’t leave any avenue unexplored. This is your life we’re talking about. And Cordelia’s.’

  ‘I know. There’s the ER. Let’s get checked out so we can
get back to work.’

  Sunday, March 16, 3.20 P.M.

  Robinette turned onto a side road, stopped the Tahoe on the shoulder, and closed his eyes.

  I made it. No cops had followed him as he’d fled Culp’s neighborhood, but that was the only good news. Maynard and Mazzetti had gotten away. Dammit.

  Robinette ground his teeth. That black Escalade was goddamn bullet-proofed. He’d thought he’d had her. Finally. He thought Mazzetti’s luck had finally run out.

  But no. The woman led a damn charmed life. Or she was careful. The latter made more sense, but the former was seeming more plausible with every moment – and every near miss.

  He should have finished her off at the CVS, but the drugstore had been on a major road and he hadn’t been willing to risk the exposure.

  He’d really thought he’d had them when they stopped at Culp’s house. That they suspected Culp of being a BPD leak hadn’t been a shock. Robinette had expected as much, which was why he’d given Westmoreland the order to take care of Culp that morning. The IA weasel would have sung like a damn canary to protect his own ass.

  He’d waited so patiently for her to emerge from that house . . . But the sight of the police sniper on the roof had startled him. That was my mistake. Robinette had fired on the sniper without thinking about which way the guy would fall – and it was the guy’s fall that had warned Mazzetti.

  You lost it, man. Lost your cool. He’d been so damn angry that Maynard had gotten her away that he’d fired at the SUV when it passed by on its way out.

  And then he’d been too busy running to the Tahoe and driving like a bat out of hell to escape the sniper’s pals who’d emerged from Culp’s house like clowns out of a Volkswagen.

  Now . . . Mazzetti and Maynard were nowhere to be found. They might go to a hospital, but he couldn’t risk following. Too many people knew his face.

  Dammit. If Henderson had done the job right at the beginning, I wouldn’t be in this spot now. Although Robinette had to admit to feeling a little commiseration with his former marksman. Stevie Mazzetti was proving damn hard to kill.

  You could let it go. Walk away.

  No, he couldn’t. Her digging into her ex-partner’s old cases had revealed what he’d known ever since Lippman’s ‘tell all’ list had surfaced a year ago – that the list was far from inclusive. All of the old cases would be reviewed now, Julie’s included. It was only a matter of time.

  Another cop wouldn’t spare Julie’s case a second glance because Levi had been named Julie’s killer, but Mazzetti had been determined to see him fry eight years ago. He couldn’t afford to allow her to sink her teeth into him again. Couldn’t risk her poking around his factory like she’d done before. Every time he’d turned around she’d been there, watching him. He couldn’t let her do that to him again.

  Especially now that they were gearing up production of Fletcher’s new formula.

  No, he couldn’t quit. He’d just have to get a little craftier. A little less compassionate and a lot more ruthless. It was time to focus on the daughter. If he had the daughter, Stevie Mazzetti would crawl to him on her knees.

  He needed to find where Maynard had hidden the child. It would be a place the PI himself felt safe. The photos he’d taken from Maynard’s bedroom were as good a place to start as any. Hell, it was the only place he had to start. There’d been nothing else of personal interest in Maynard’s house – unless Westmoreland had gotten to it first.

  He considered the notion, then rejected it. Westmoreland was solid. Robinette would trust him – until Wes gave him a reason not to.

  Sunday, March 16, 4.30 P.M.

  ‘You’re damn hard on vehicles, Maynard,’ Joseph said as he approached Clay, who stood outside Stevie’s curtained-off cubicle in the ER. ‘First your truck, then my Escalade.’

  The Fed’s expression was so drawn, Clay had to wonder what had happened now.

  ‘I know. I’m just glad the glass held. It pebbled, but it held together.’

  ‘I’m glad it held, too. I upgraded the glass before Christmas. The last time I was shot at, the glass shattered.’

  ‘Then I guess we’re extra lucky.’ Clay looked past Joseph to the ER bay surrounded by hospital personnel. ‘How’s the sniper?’

  ‘Broke a leg and ruptured his spleen. They’re sending him up to surgery in the next minute or two. He stayed conscious long enough to tell his lieutenant that he hadn’t seen the shooter’s face. The guy had his ski mask on again. Are either you or Stevie hurt?’

  ‘I’ve got a few new bruises.’ He pointed behind his back to the curtain. ‘She’s getting restitched. Why are you looking so grim? What else happened?’ Panic gripped him. ‘Cordelia?’

  ‘No, she’s fine.’ The entry doors slid open and two EMTs pushed a stretcher into the ER. The stretcher was so completely surrounded by doctors and nurses that only the patient’s legs were visible. ‘That’s Phil Skinner, Hyatt’s assistant.’

  New dread washed through Clay. ‘I thought JD and two of your guys went to pick him up.’

  ‘They did.’ Joseph watched the ER staff working on Skinner with clinical detachment. But a muscle in his jaw twitched. ‘Skinner shot himself. JD tried to stop him, even managed to take the gun from his hand, but Skinner had a backup.’

  Oh my God. ‘Is he alive?’

  ‘They brought him in here instead of calling for Quartermaine, so he has a pulse.’

  Clay’s lungs weren’t working properly. ‘Shit.’

  ‘I know.’ Joseph grabbed Clay’s arm when he would have paced away. ‘I was told you’d probably blame yourself. That won’t do anyone any good, so don’t.’

  ‘Easy for you to say. You didn’t put the guy on disability.’

  ‘Neither did you,’ Joseph said firmly.

  The curtain behind them whipped back. Stevie was sliding off the bed, a fresh bandage on her arm. She leaned on a crash cart to stay upright. ‘Where did he shoot himself? With what?’

  ‘In his mouth with a .380.’

  Stevie winced. ‘Did you retrieve Rossi’s phone that Skinner took from the evidence lab?’

  ‘We did. There was a message on it from Skinner, just like Rossi said there would be.’

  Her shoulders sagged. ‘Skinner really did leak the safe house location to Rossi,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to believe it.’ Then she frowned. ‘So why is Culp dead? Who did he piss off?’

  ‘Good question. We searched Culp’s house for evidence and the lab is sorting through it now. Same with Skinner’s. Both guys lived like pigs, so getting through the piles of take-out boxes will be time-consuming. But Skinner’s medicine cabinets were tidy. And full.’

  ‘No Tylenol or Tums taking up space,’ Stevie said quietly.

  ‘Nothing so tame. Skinner appeared high when they got there, so Agent Novak searched Skinner’s apartment while JD did CPR after Skinner shot himself. Skinner had pills in his medicine cabinet, in his dresser drawers, pockets of his suits. Oxy, Percocet, Ritalin, Adderall.’

  Clay scrubbed his palms down his face. Painkillers and uppers. Because Skinner had been shot. Because I didn’t say something two years ago.

  ‘The pills were in baggies,’ Joseph was saying, ‘not bottles from a pharmacy. He wasn’t going to doctors for prescriptions anymore. Skinner was buying off the street.’

  ‘Did Rossi find out?’ Stevie asked. ‘Or was he Skinner’s pusher?’

  ‘I don’t know – yet. Hopefully Rossi will be inclined to enlighten us or the search of Skinner’s place will turn up something to explain.’

  ‘Has Skinner’s wife been informed?’ she asked.

  ‘Hyatt’s on his way there now. He’s had a busy afternoon with notifications.’

  She sighed. ‘Maybe Skinner’s wife will be able to shed some light on this.’

  ‘What did he say before he pulled the trigger?’ Clay asked.

  Joseph shrugged. ‘Like I said, he appeared to be high. He ranted about how everyone had ruined his life – Lucy for gett
ing him shot, Hyatt for giving him a “charity job”, JD for turning on him, and even you, Stevie, for whipping everyone into a frenzy after Silas was found out.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Clay asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

  Joseph met Clay’s eyes. ‘He didn’t mention you.’

  ‘That’s hard to believe, since I’m the one who got him shot in the first place.’

  ‘Believe what you want, but JD specifically said Skinner didn’t mention you.’

  Clay nodded, still not sure he believed them. ‘All right, then. What about the Tahoe? Did we get any hits from the license plate we got from my security cameras?’

  ‘Stolen earlier this afternoon from a car parked at the train station.’ Joseph lifted his brows. ‘But someone two streets away from Culp’s house described a sand-colored Tahoe speeding away after the gunfire.’

  ‘Mr Backpack,’ Stevie said with satisfaction. ‘We know he killed the two cops this afternoon. Rossi got Officer Cleary. That leaves the restaurant sniper and whoever killed Culp still unaccounted for.’

  ‘And the shooters who’ve tried to get you and missed,’ Joseph said. ‘Don’t forget them.’

  ‘The drive-by in my front yard and the white Camry who shot at me after I left the IA meeting on Friday.’ She pressed her fingers to her temples. ‘God, this gives me a headache.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Clay said grimly. ‘We need to consider that the restaurant sniper and Drive-by could be the same person – one who happened to know you’d be at that location with Emma.’

  Stevie grimaced. ‘I don’t like thinking that someone’s been following me since last year.’

  ‘Or longer,’ Clay said quietly.

  ‘You’re not helping,’ she muttered.

  Joseph cleared his throat. ‘As much as I love the monikers you’ve given our shooters, I’ve always been partial to actual names. Tom, Fred, even Penelope. You know. Names.’

  Stevie frowned at him. ‘You’re the Fed. You’ve got the resources. He’s a PI and I’m just a cop on disability who doesn’t even have her badge.’

  ‘You don’t need a badge,’ Joseph fired back, giving her no pity. ‘You’re a cop whether you’re carrying the hardware or not.’ He turned to Clay. ‘Brodie said you have a stingray.’