by H. P. Bayne
“I’ll go look for him.”
“Good. Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, you work today.”
“Not until two.”
“This might take longer than that. Anyway, it’s something I need to deal with myself.”
He looked down as Eva’s hand slid over his, and he turned his own hand to weave his fingers through hers.
“I know it’s hard,” she said. “And I know you’re angry. But you’ll get through this, Dez. You’ve got me and Kayleigh and your mom, and you’ve got Sully. No matter what happened back at your apartment, he’ll be there for you.”
“He’s not here.”
Emily peered up at him as she uttered the words, her head tilted back, far beyond comfort level so she could look Dez in the eye.
He’d arrived back at his apartment to find his spare set of keys on the floor, just the other side of the door, and all of Sully’s things gone. On the counter lay a two-word note in his brother’s handwriting saying only, “I’m sorry.” Worst of all, though, there was no Sully.
“Where is he?” he asked now. “Did he say anything?”
She shook her head. “He said he had to go. And he said he couldn’t tell me where. ‘The fewer people who know, the better.’ That’s what he said. He told me he couldn’t risk anyone else he cared about; he needed to handle things alone.”
“Damn it.”
“Why don’t you come in for a minute? We can talk.”
“I don’t have time. The jerk always does this when the chips are down. He goes off on his own to deal with things, and he gets himself into serious trouble.”
“I didn’t get the impression he was about to take immediate action. I think he was going somewhere to lie low a while. That was the feeling I got, anyway. He wasn’t angry, really. Just sad. Really, really sad.”
This wasn’t helping. “Thanks, Emily. I’m going to call a couple of people and see if they’ve heard from him. In the meantime, please call me if he contacts you, okay?”
“I will.”
Dez nodded and offered a forced smile before leaving the building and returning to his vehicle. He didn’t want to be inside the apartment right now.
He’d tried calling Sully before driving over here, but got nothing other than a single ring and voicemail. Another attempt now got him no further.
He tried their mom next.
“What happened?” she said as soon as he asked if Sully was there.
“Why do you think something happened?”
“I hear it in your voice. What’s wrong?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“Is one of you in trouble again?”
“No, nothing like that. We had a fight and I’m trying to reach him, is all.”
“What about?”
Crap. Amidst his own anger and depression, he’d forgotten one other person was likely to be even more shattered by this news. Mara Braddock didn’t even know Aiden’s death had been anything other than a tragic accidental drowning. She’d have to be told about him. And about Flynn.
But that was a conversation for another time, preferably when both her sons could be there with her. For now, he had some ducking to do.
“I’ll tell you later. Right now, I need to focus on finding Sully.”
“I haven’t heard from him. I’m sorry. He’s not in any danger, is he?”
Dez sought to erase his mother’s worry with words he didn’t fully believe himself. “There are risks, but he knows how to avoid them.”
“Are you sure?”
Nope. “Yeah, I’m sure. Call me if you hear from him, okay?”
“I will.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“You look after yourself, all right? You know how you get.”
Dez rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”
He hung up, then tried Marc Echoles, but got a similar response. At his urging, he next tried Raiya Everton. Again, nothing.
Dez was about to try Bulldog when his phone rang. He’d hoped to see his brother’s fake name, Oliver, show up on his call display.
What he got was Lachlan.
Dez pulled into traffic, hoping for at least a few minutes of scanning the streets for a scruffy guy with a large, black dog.
“This isn’t a good time,” Dez said by way of greeting.
“In my experience, good times are rare. Listen, I want to talk to you and your brother about my other ghost. Now that we’ve figured out what happened to Nora Silversmith and her son—”
“That’s going to be a problem. You need Sully for that, and I can’t find him. You haven’t heard from him by chance, have you?”
“No, I haven’t. What happened?”
“We had a fight.”
“Big deal. Brothers fight all the time. Hell, I haven’t talked to mine in twenty-two years.”
“Sully and I aren’t like that. We’re tight, always have been. This was bad. Really bad.”
“Come pick me up and you can fill me in.”
“You really care?”
“No. But I do care about finding your brother. He’s the only way I’m going to bring an end to this other case that’s been nagging me. I’ll expect you within the half-hour.”
Lachlan hung up, preventing further argument.
Just as well, since a call to Bulldog left Dez with no additional answers as to Sully’s whereabouts.
He’d driven less than five minutes when his phone rang. His hopes were dashed when he saw the number on his call display.
Then again, a member of the Major Crimes Unit might have information after all. Information Dez wouldn’t want to hear.
He pressed the Bluetooth button, allowing the call to come through his vehicle’s speaker system.
“Raynor?”
Sergeant Forbes Raynor didn’t often bother with small talk. “Where’s your brother?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Don’t bullshit me, Braddock. Where is he?”
“I’m not lying to you. I really don’t know.”
“You don’t know, as in he’s gone out and didn’t tell you where he was going? Or he’s gone?”
“The latter. I’m trying to find him. Still leads me back to my question though. Why are you looking for him?”
“It’s not something I’m at liberty to discuss.”
“Then I won’t be at liberty to share his whereabouts when I find him.”
“You’re a real stubborn asshole, you know that?”
“Takes one to know one.”
“All right,” Forbes said after a pause. “Here’s the thing. You heard on the news about a shooting the night before last?”
“There’s a shooting every couple of days. What’s special about this one?”
“We haven’t released the victim’s name publicly yet. Trying to keep things under our hats as long as we can, particularly given the shit storm that’s going to blow in the moment it goes public. The dead guy is Prescott Montague.”
The information had Dez pulling to the side of the road. “What happened?”
“We seized surveillance video from his house. He had a camera mounted over the front door and at the front gate. The front door camera recorded a man in a hoodie running out at the approximate time one of the neighbours reported hearing a gunshot. I’ve analyzed and reanalyzed the footage, and I keep drawing the same conclusion. I think the guy in the video is Sullivan.”
“Bloody hell. You can’t seriously think he’d be responsible for a shooting. He’s no killer.”
“Well, the fact is, he isn’t the one who pulled the trigger. The shot was from a high-powered sniper rifle, and it came from outside the house. As near as we can tell, the shooter must have been set up on top of Montague’s boathouse out back.”
“So there you are. Even if it was Sully inside the house, he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It doesn’t let him off the hook, especially now he’s done a runner. Until we’re able to eliminate him, we�
�re treating him as a potential suspect. It could be he and the shooter were working together.”
“Hang on,” Dez said. “You didn’t expose Sully to any of the other cops, did you?”
“No, but I can’t keep it quiet forever. Your brother is either a suspect or a key witness. I need to talk to him so I can decide how I’m going to handle everything.”
“This is all supposing he actually is the guy in the video. You said he’s wearing a hood. I know Sully does that, but so do lots of other people.”
“His size, build, his movements, it all points to Sullivan. You’re welcome watch the footage, if that will convince you.”
“I can’t just—”
“I’ll make a copy and meet you somewhere out of the way. I think you’ll want to see this.”
Dez found Forbes where he said he’d be, sitting on a bench on the edge of a small park five minutes’ walk from the police station.
The cop had been bold enough to bring a laptop with him, taking a chance no one would mug him for his electronics. Dez grudgingly sat next to him, and Forbes unfolded the laptop without bothering with a greeting.
A couple of clicks later, Dez was looking at a video from the inside of Montague’s house. The image was dark, but the camera switched to night vision after nightfall, enabling him to see a slim male figure rushing toward the front door and turning the lock with gloved hands before dashing outside.
Little about the video could tell anyone who the man was. He never turned toward the camera, and he wasn’t wearing anything particularly distinguishing. But Dez—who’d known Sully most of his life—saw what Forbes had.
The man in the video was almost definitely his brother.
“Enough to convince you?” Forbes asked.
Dez realized his mouth was open, and he shut it before thinking through his answer. “It could be anyone in that video.”
“But it isn’t, is it? I don’t know Sullivan as well as you do, obviously, but I’ve gotten to know him well enough. That’s him. I’m sure of it.”
“Look, if it is him, he wasn’t there to do anything bad.”
“You sure about that? Montague had, after all, nearly killed him. Plus he’s implicated in the attempt on your life at the caves. And Sullivan told me about wanting to go back to try to talk to him about….” Forbes trailed off, as if he’d remembered something.
Dez knew what it was. “About Lowell. I know. Sully filled me in. I know he told you about his suspicions. And I know the judge threw Lowell’s name out there when he was arrested, hoping his info might buy him a deal.”
“Right. So there’s another reason he might have gone down there with bad intentions. He knew Montague was mixed up in something seedy with Lowell, and he knew the judge said he had information that could take Lowell down. I think Sullivan went down there to confront him, to try to get some answers. Maybe he went with some backup, someone who would take the shot if things went sideways or if Montague refused to talk.”
“That’s weak,” Dez said. “First off, what good would killing him do? Sully wanted to know what info he had. If he’s dead, he can’t share it, and nothing can be proved. Second, Sully doesn’t know anyone who’d be capable and willing to pull off a hit like that. It’s not even close to being his style. Sully’s no killer. You know it as well as I do. If he did go down there to talk to Montague, it was on his own. This assassin or whatever, he had to have been working independently, or for someone else. If that is Sully on the video, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not like he hasn’t been in that situation before.”
“All right. Let’s say I believe you. That still puts him front and centre in this thing as a crucial witness. We’re going to have to talk to him, and I need you to make that happen.”
“You know I can’t do that. Not now. The risks to him are too great.”
Forbes shut the laptop and focused fully on Dez. “There’s something I hadn’t planned on telling you, but I don’t think I can avoid it. There was more than one shot. From what we’ve been able to piece together, Montague was taken down by one of the first bullets. The others, we believe, were directed at the person in the video. What we don’t know is whether the shooter was trying to take out a witness, or whether he was looking to tie up a loose end by eliminating his accomplice. Either way, the guy on the video was a target as well. These risks you’re talking about—they exist, whether or not he’s in hiding. It might be he’s safer coming forward and allowing us to get him some proper protection until we can get the shooter safely behind bars.”
“Hold on a sec. You’re telling me you think this assassin was firing at Sully? You didn’t find any evidence he was hit, did you?”
“We didn’t find any other blood in the house or on the grounds, other than a couple of transfer stains we believe will come back as Montague’s DNA. So, no, there’s no obvious evidence of him being hit.”
“Thank God.”
“Look, I showed you this because I thought you’d need some convincing. I guess I’ve got no choice but to leave it up to you to decide how to handle it. But Braddock? You need to handle it. I can’t sit on this forever. You need to get him to come forward. He’s not on the hook for the Betty Schuster shooting, if that helps convince you any.”
It didn’t. The facts remained the same. If Sully was outed, particularly in the midst of a case bound to draw national media attention, he’d not only be a walking target for this shooter, whoever he or she was. Lowell would be next in line with the Dules not far behind. Add Gerhardt to the mix, looking for a way to get Sully recommitted, and you had a whole lot of bad with no real end in sight—at least, no end that wouldn’t leave Sully destroyed.
No way in hell Dez was playing a role in that.
Forbes wasn’t likely to take that as an answer. Not for long anyway. So Dez gave him what little he could.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t think too long.” Forbes stood from the bench, casting one more meaningful look at Dez before walking off in the direction of the police station.
3
When Dez pulled up to Lachlan’s home in the North Bank area, he was waiting on the front stoop. Dez unlocked the door and, staying true to form, by skipping the greetings, Lachlan dropped into the passenger seat and got right down to business.
“Did you already contact everyone he might have had reason to speak with?”
“Yeah,” Dez said. “Given the whole pretending-to-be-dead thing, it’s a pretty short list.”
“And nothing from any of them?”
“Nope. Nothing. Doesn’t surprise me, I guess. If he’s gone to ground, he’ll make sure he’s doing it alone. Last person who saw him was Emily, my neighbour across the hall. She confirmed it, said he was basically taking himself off the radar for awhile.”
Lachlan snorted, his expression mirroring the incredulity in the noise. “And this is just because the two of you had a fight?”
“Of course not. It’s a lot more than that. More than I even realized.”
“You going to fill me in, or are you hoping to turn this into a fun new guessing game?”
Dez broke it down for Lachlan, filling him in on what Sully had told him two days ago, leaving nothing out. He then added what he’d just learned from Forbes. By the time he’d finished, Lachlan’s eyes were huge.
“Christ, Braddock, this is big.”
“Yeah, I’d kind of realized that, thanks.”
“No, I mean big. Like really big.”
Dez allowed his annoyance to show in his expression and tone. “Yeah, I know, okay? So what do I do about it?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’ll give it some thought, that’s for sure. Wow. Okay, well, since you’ve tried everyone else to no avail, I’ve got to ask: any chance your brother’s gone to confront Lowell?”
It was a possibility Dez hadn’t considered. His blood pressure spiked as he considered it was exactly what Sully had done when Lowell and Hackman had nearly killed him two years
ago.
“Jesus. I hope not.”
“I’m thinking taking you to pay your uncle a visit isn’t a good idea, given your propensity to fly off the handle.”
“I don’t fly off the handle.”
“Uh, yeah, you do.”
“And could you not refer to him as my uncle? Far as I’m concerned, he’s nothing to me now, so just call him by his name, all right?”
Lachlan looked like he was about to retort, but clamped his lips together instead. He gave it a moment, then replied. “Right. I get it. Lowell. Sorry, Braddock. I forget sometimes, when I get my teeth into the bit, these are real people and not just a great case. We’re talking about your family here, so I’m sorry. Your dad was a great man, and I know you didn’t exactly invite me to this party willingly, but I would be honoured if I could play a role in bringing his killer to justice. All right?”
It was the nicest thing Lachlan had ever said to him. It made Dez feel uncomfortable as hell, and he pulled back onto the road before answering. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. So back to the uncle from hell. Is it worth a check to see if Sullivan went there?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think why he’d confront him now. The last time we were anywhere near Lowell, Sully bailed out of the car and hid until Lowell left. He’s done everything he can to avoid him.”
“Everyone has a breaking point. But let’s leave that possibility alone for a moment. You said you think Raynor’s right, that Sullivan went to talk to Montague the night of the murder. I know you’re not going to want to hear this, but is there a chance he was hit? Any idea how carefully the area was checked afterward? If he took a bullet, he could be lying under the bushes in someone’s yard.”
“Jesus Christ, Lachlan.”
“Well? The question needs asked.”
“Not to me. I can’t think that way.”
Lachlan pulled out his phone and started scrolling through something on his screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling the Humane Society,” Lachlan said. “Checking to see if anyone reported a big, black dog on the loose.”
With this new possibility to dread—not every bullet wound bled badly enough to leave a clear trail, especially if the victim was wearing several layers of clothes—Dez white-knuckled the steering wheel as Lachlan made the call. He received an answer in the negative.