Drawing Fire

by Janice Cantore

  “Drop it!” she warned as her breathing slowed but her anger intensified. “I don’t want you dead. I have too many questions.” Abby heard sirens in the distance and tightened her sweaty grip on the gun. It felt like it was a hundred degrees outside.

  “About your daddy? Or maybe your mom? I killed her, shot her right in the head. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  Abby flinched, her finger tight on the trigger. A loud voice in her head screamed “Shoot!”

  Kent sneered and pulled himself up to a sitting position. He held the gun across his lap while supporting himself on one elbow.

  He looked behind her but Abby didn’t turn.

  “Why did you kill them?”

  “Shoot me. You want to. All you’ll get from me is that Sanders had it just about right.”

  His hand moved and Abby tensed, almost squeezing the trigger.

  But in a quick, fluid movement, Kent pointed the gun at his chin and fired. Abby lurched forward, but there was nothing she could do to stop him.

  “Noooo!” A bloodcurdling scream came from behind her. Abby turned as Kelsey Cox shoved past her.

  “No, no, no,” she wailed as she fell to her knees next to the man.

  Abby knelt beside her, but she could already tell there would be no pulse. She put a hand on Cox’s shoulder to move her away from the body, and the woman shook it off.

  “You killed him; you killed him,” she wailed. Sobbing, she cradled Kent’s head in her lap.

  Abby stood and stepped back. Shocked at how close she had come to pulling the trigger.

  Another set of footsteps ran up behind her. It was Luke.

  “What happened?” His face said he feared the worst.

  “He shot himself,” Abby said. It was then she saw the blood on Luke’s pants and hands.

  “Not mine,” he said before Abby even had the strength to ask. “Asa didn’t make it.”

  Abby felt punched in the stomach, and that was a punch too many as far as she was concerned.

  She leaned into Luke, ignoring the blood and letting him place a supporting arm around her as a fleet of emergency vehicles began filling the street in front of them.

  ONE WEEK LATER

  “For real? You’re going to retire?” Abby looked across the table at Woody and a lump formed in her throat.

  “Yep,” he said, his head still sporting a bandage. He’d been grazed by a stray bullet that day in the governor’s house and suffered a slight concussion and received ten stitches.

  “I’m tired. I’ve been in harness a long time. It’s about time I stepped aside for some youngster.”

  The waitress set down their lunches and gave Woody a gentle pat as she went back to work.

  Woody and Abby had just come from a private and hushed memorial for Asa, and she knew losing Asa in the way that he did weighed heavily. Asa had been thoroughly disgraced as a psychotic drunk who went postal. He’d stormed into the governor’s house with flares wrapped around himself, apparently hoping it looked enough like a bomb to give him a brief advantage. It had. Rollins, his wife, and one security man had fled to a panic room, where they stayed until the entire incident was over. The second security man—the one who shot Asa—was being hailed as a hero. Luke and Woody received some kudos as well. In spite of Woody’s head injury, with Luke’s help he’d gotten up and together they tried hard to save Asa’s life. But Asa had bled to death in the governor’s living room.

  “Will you leave the state?” She worked hard to keep her voice from breaking. I hurt over Asa as well, she thought.

  “Haven’t thought that far. I do have to make arrangements for Asa’s affairs. Luke and I are planning a trip up to Idaho to clean out his house and tie up some loose ends.”

  “Murphy?” She knew Luke and Woody had become chummy since that day, but this surprised her. All of them had been interviewed and reinterviewed by LA County officials about what happened. The LA DA had taken over the investigation at the request of the Long Beach police chief.

  Woody took a bite of his sandwich. For her part Abby had lost her appetite.

  With Kent’s death, some things became clearer for Abby, while others were a lot more muddled. The man confessed to being a killer and then killed himself, seeing to it that the Triple Seven case would never be wrapped up and closed with a neat bow. It was closed, however. The chief read everyone’s reports on the incident that day and decided that the case was, for all intents and purposes, solved.

  Kent was not buried with the stigma of being a convicted murderer; the governor eulogized him as a loyal but troubled employee.

  Kelsey Cox officially filed retirement papers, and the rumor was that she would take the job left open by Kent’s death. But Abby had not seen anything from the governor confirming that news.

  Abby felt numb and cheated. She’d always had the Triple Seven investigation and she’d always had Woody. Now she would lose him as well.

  With no clear resolution.

  “There’s still so much to clear up,” she said. “I was hoping you’d help me look for Alonzo Ruiz, the man who jumped Murphy—”

  “Abby, the case has been closed. Kent told you he did it.”

  “But the threads, Woody—I need to tie up the threads. Did Kent do it for Rollins, and if he did, do we really want Rollins to be a senator?”

  Woody sighed and pain creased his features. “Don’t.” He leaned forward. “Don’t be like Asa.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That case ate him up and spit him out a psycho. He wouldn’t listen to me and let it go, and look what happened.”

  “Woody, I—”

  “Let it go. If Rollins is guilty, it will come out eventually. He can run, but he can’t hide.”

  Something snapped in Abby as Woody quoted her motto. He was right—she knew it in her head, but in her heart? She told everyone that she trusted God, but did she?

  She looked away, then turned back to reply. “Letting go feels like giving up.” She barely kept her composure.

  He hiked one shoulder. “Sometimes giving up and stepping back gives you a clearer perspective.”

  “Okay.” She picked up her Diet Coke and gave a mock toast before drinking.

  Woody smiled. “How’s Ethan?” he asked, changing the subject and cutting through Abby’s rising wave of self-pity.

  “He’s doing a lot of speaking, sharing about his successful mission trip. His PowerPoint presentation is really inspiring.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you’re too excited about that.” He took a drink of his iced tea.

  Abby waited a moment before responding. “It’s not that. It’s just that after all that’s happened, he’s asked me to take a leave of absence and travel with him on his next mission trip. He thinks I need to put some distance between me and the shootout before I go back to work.” She picked up a fry and put it in her mouth.

  “Maybe that would be a good thing.”

  Abby swallowed. “You sound like Dede.”

  Woody reached across the table and gripped her forearm. “Abby, you’ve been invested in finding your parents’ killers for your whole life. Why can’t you just believe you did find him and that now he’s dead?”

  “Do you?”

  He sighed, and it broke her heart how tired and old he looked. “There’s just nowhere left to go.”

  “My dad?”

  “I knew your dad. There is no way he would have stayed away from you unless he were dead. You have to believe that.”

  Abby picked up her Diet Coke again to help swallow the sob that threatened, and wondered why she couldn’t believe it.

  LUKE PLACED a bouquet of flowers at the base of the Triple Seven memorial plaque. It was a beautiful June day, perfect for kite flying with Maddie, but she wasn’t with him, and his thoughts were on everything that had happened over the past couple weeks.

  He’d decided to take Orson up on his offer. He’d talked it over with his family, and they told him they’d be behind him, whatever
he decided. While he loved being a private investigator, he knew intimately and painfully how important it was to know the whys and the hows associated with crimes, especially crimes that devastated a life. Maybe by helping other people get closure, I’ll eventually feel the same for myself.

  That day in the governor’s house replayed in his mind. What happened would never be crystal clear, but he’d pieced it together as best he could after reading the reports filed by the officers who responded and talking to everyone he could. When Cox elbowed Asa, the security man fired, hitting Asa in the right hip. Asa fell right and pulled the trigger on his gun, which he’d rigged to be fully automatic. That led to a spray of bullets around the room that shattered all the glass. One bullet actually struck Woody, leaving a crease across his head that bled a lot and eventually took stitches. Luke discovered several small cuts across his own back from glass when he finally got home that night. It was a miracle no one else was killed.

  He’d wanted to charge after Abby but couldn’t until he made certain Woody was all right. After that, there was Asa. The security man’s bullet had traversed Asa’s upper thigh and cut the femoral artery. He and Woody tried, but there was nothing they could do.

  When he did bolt out of the house after Abby and came upon the scene with Kent, it took his breath away. He feared Abby had shot the man. She talked little about exactly what had happened. Luke had never seen her look so lost, so dazed, and he understood. There would be no neat end to the Triple Seven, only a partially built puzzle with key pieces missing. They’d only spoken briefly since that day, and since she was still on vacation, even Bill had not seen her. He wanted to call her but knew that Ethan was home and it wasn’t his place.

  He turned at the sound of a car parking, and his eyes widened in surprise. And then a flash of attraction and anticipation flared that he worked to douse.

  It was Abby.

  She climbed out of the car, turning to the right as Bandit trotted across the driver’s seat and jumped out. She walked with the little dog on a leash to where he stood.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” Luke said.

  “First time for everything,” she said. “Besides, I know the date.” She turned away from him to read the plaque.

  He understood. Today was the twenty-seventh anniversary.

  She read the inscription out loud and faltered as if something was wrong. “‘No farewell words were spoken; there was no time to say good-bye. You were gone before we knew it, and only God knows why. We take comfort in this: “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” Hebrews 4:13.’”

  She turned toward Luke, face flushed. “Who picked the saying?”

  “My mom. Why? What’s wrong?” He watched as she fought for composure.

  “It’s just, uh . . . Well, that verse, it’s my verse . . . my verse for homicide. I guess it surprises me to find it here.” She leaned down and picked up Bandit, holding him close.

  “It’s a great verse, definitely wisdom for people like us.”

  “People like us?” She faced him, eyes liquid.

  “People who may never know what really happened in an incident that has defined us.”

  “Are you defined by the Triple Seven?”

  “I am. All my life I’ve been chasing my uncle, trying to live up to the memory of my first hero. I haven’t always believed that, or understood it, but now I think I do.”

  She rested her cheek on the dog’s head, and Luke saw a tear fall.

  Luke felt an overwhelming urge to wipe it away, but he kept his distance.

  Abby sniffed, raised her head, and swiped at the tear. “Does that mean you can put it behind you, move on, and trust without doubt that the guilty will get what they deserve?”

  “Abby, I move on one day at a time, and I trust moment by moment, believing that one day it won’t be a struggle.” He sighed and held her gaze. “I can’t let it consume me. I believe the verse with all my heart. And I move forward knowing it applies to the guilty in the Triple Seven, all of them, and that God’s justice is more perfect than mine or the LBPD’s.”

  She turned away and didn’t say anything for a few minutes, just stared out at the park, resting her head on the dog. He was about to say something else when she put the dog down and faced him. Her eyes were clear and she looked steady, he thought.

  “It was finally coming to that conclusion myself that brought me here today.”

  “God’s justice?”

  “Yeah. I can’t ignore that truth and have any peace. I can’t chase shadows anymore. Woody is afraid I’ll become as consumed by it as Asa was that day and do something crazy.”

  “I could never see you doing anything that crazy.” He smiled, and his heart leaped in his chest when she returned it in kind.

  “I hope you’re right. Maybe I can’t put everything behind me at once, but I do believe in God’s justice. Maybe I’ll never have all the answers—maybe I will—but I can’t be stuck in neutral for the rest of my life.”

  “I’m glad. You have a wedding to plan.” Saying the words was like plunging knives through his heart.

  “Ethan and I have postponed that. It’s complicated.” She looked away from him and at her watch. “I have to meet him for a counseling appointment.”

  She stepped close, and Luke held his breath. When she put a hand on his arm, it took all his strength not to reach out to her.

  “Thanks. For everything. I hope at some point, when all the smoke has cleared, we can sit down and talk about what happened. I think you’re the only person who truly understands how I feel about things.”

  She rose to her tiptoes and lightly kissed his cheek, then turned and left him standing there. Luke watched her car for a long time, until it was long out of sight.

  Keep reading for the next novel in the Cold Case Justice series . . .

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  PROLOGUE

  “If George Sanders weren’t already dead, I’d kill him.”

  Kelsey Cox said nothing, knowing better than to interrupt when her boss was this angry. As if validating her silence, the tirade continued.

  “He made this mess, opening his mouth when he should have stayed quiet. Feeding Detective Hart gossip that could ruin everything. He didn’t even know what he was talking about, for pete’s sake!” The last two words were punctuated by pounding the conference table.

  Sanders had been a small-time criminal with a big-time mouth. He’d tried to implicate Governor Lowell Rollins in a twenty-seven-year-old triple murder. Any other cop would have seen the allegations as laughable. But since Abby Hart’s parents were among the victims, she’d taken every word seriously.

  Sensing an opening to calm the situation, Kelsey spoke up. “But he is dead. There’s no way to verify anything he said. Don’t you think she’ll stop?” Kelsey sat across the conference table from her employer.

  “Looking into her parents’ deaths? I doubt it. Not if she’s anything like her father.”

  “But the Triple Seven case is closed. What could she possibly accomplish? There’s no proof connecting the governor to anything. Gavin—”

  “Gavin, like Sanders, should have kept his mouth shut. If he was going to blow his brains out, he should have done it before he said anything.”

  Cox flinched. The image of Gavin Kent’s suicide outside Governor Rollins’s Long Beach residence was all too fresh in her mind’s eye. And the fact that anyone could be so callous about his death abraded her heart; she still loved him.

  “Oh, don’t get your back up.” Her boss smacked the table. “If you can’t move on, I can’t use you.”

  Embarrassed and angry that she let her guard down and was so transparent, Cox gritted her teeth. “I have moved on.”

  Standing, she turned her back to the boss and looked out the window. The beautiful blue, early fall sky did nothing to assuage her anxiety. “What do you want me to do about Hart?
”

  “Keep tabs on her for now. The governor will officially declare he’s in the senate race soon. She’ll have one more chance to accept his job offer.”

  Kelsey couldn’t hide the shock, jerking back around. “You want her working here with Lowell?”

  “Of course. Keep your enemies close. But if she doesn’t take the offer . . .” A cavalier shrug. “I’ll come up with another, more permanent solution.”

  Cox put a hand behind her on the windowsill to keep from sliding sideways. In another time and place the thinly veiled threat her boss made to stop Hart would not have shaken her so. In spite of her long law enforcement career, stepping up and doing the unpleasant—even the illegal—for a greater good was a no-brainer. But the mention of it now rocketed her back to the day she’d watched the governor’s right-hand man, her lover, put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. She’d lost her balance that day, feeling as though the bullet had struck her as well, knocking her off a cliff, where she now hung by one hand, like a stuntman in the movies.

  Unlike the movies, there was no rescuer rushing to the precipice to grab her hand and pull her up.

  And every so often something would happen that made Kelsey feel like her fingers were being pulled back. Any minute now she could lose her grip completely. She hated Hart as much as her boss did—even more—but the woman was not a threat. There was nothing she could prove. Another murder was a risk, a finger being peeled back.

  “Hart can poke around until frogs grow beards. All she’ll get is frustrated.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Kelsey wished she could take them back. Her boss did not take kindly to being questioned.

  “Nothing, I mean nothing—not Hart, not that irritating PI Murphy, and not you dragging your feet—is going to get in the way of Lowell being a senator. Is that clear?”

  Cox nodded, having to look away from the vicious, murderous glint in her boss’s eyes.

  “Can you do the job or do I need to find someone else?”