by Mallory Kane
Reilly reviewed the names again, stopping at Glo. Hadn’t Tommy Lee called the girl Glo? So who was he? D.B.? Frankie? Jazzy?
He viewed each number. When he came to the listing for D.B., he did a double take. He checked the number Ryker had just given him. Sure enough, it was Dagewood’s cell phone. D.B was Detective Dagewood.
The terrible realization that had been growing inside him for days now blossomed into certainty. Autumn’s boyfriend was a cop—a detective. Dagewood had given Christy’s sister the marked drugs.
Did that mean Dagewood had killed Christy’s sister?
Quickly, keeping one eye out for any movement from inside the house, Reilly rummaged through the rest of the contents of Christy’s purse. He’d bet a year’s pay that somewhere in here was evidence implicating Dagewood. The evidence Christy had been hiding from him.
He searched through her wallet. In the bill compartment, he found two pieces of folded paper.
As he pulled out the first one, he heard engines, big engines. From up the street he saw the big, black SUVs of the SWAT team approaching. Behind them were four police cars. Two of the cars maneuvered into the crossways of the street at either end of the block, forming a blockade. The SUVs pulled up behind them.
With the sound of all the vehicles, more onlookers opened their doors and ventured out onto the street. When they saw the police cars and uniformed officers, they scurried back inside their houses.
Reilly kept one eye on the activity as he unfolded the piece of lined paper and read the note. “Hey. Meet me at the shack. I’m 10-10 at 12. Got some stuff for you. B.”
10-10 was police code for off duty. Reilly’s heart sank to his toes. So this was what Christy had been hiding from him. She’d been holding evidence all this time that Autumn’s boyfriend was a cop. He thought about her mother dying from a policeman’s bullet, and her refusal to trust him. A strange mixture of anger and understanding swelled in his chest.
Damn it, Christy. Why didn’t she believe that he was one of the good guys? He’d failed her and he didn’t even know how.
He turned his full attention back to the note. Had Dagewood written it? He frowned. The letter B didn’t mean anything to him. Particularly frustrating, since “D.B.” was also how Autumn had listed Dagewood’s number in her phone.
He stuck the note in his pocket and pulled out the other piece of paper. It was wrapped around a disk. Reilly unwrapped it. A brass button, the same design as the sheriff’s department dress uniforms. Not that the button was that unique, but given the other evidence…
Granted, it was circumstantial. Still, the body of evidence left little room for doubt. Dagewood was definitely a prime suspect in Autumn Moser’s death.
Out of the corner of his eye, Reilly saw movement in the direction of the blockade. He looked up. Commander Acer was coming his way, dressed in body armor and carrying a sniper rifle.
Reilly met him halfway.
“Situation?” Ace asked.
Reilly pointed. “Detective Dagewood, the younger male, a female named Glo and Christy Moser are inside. I’m in possession of evidence gathered by Christy Moser that implicates Dagewood in the death of Christy’s sister.”
Ace’s dark eyes searched Reilly’s face. Then he nodded. “Back entrance?”
Reilly shook his head. “Unknown.”
Ace spoke into the microphone attached to the left shoulder of his uniform as he pointed at the house. “Two cars, cover the back door.”
“I’m going back up there. I’m going to try to talk my way in,” Reilly said.
Ace shook his head. “I’ll handle it,” he said. “You’re too close to the situation.”
Reilly’s stomach sank. He shook his head. “Sir, I need to do this. I promised Christy I’d keep her safe.”
Ace studied Reilly’s face for a few seconds. Reilly expected him to order him back to the blockade. “I’ll take the back then.”
“Dagewood fired at me twice, and has fired through the front door several times. I don’t know if the other guy has a gun.” Reilly took a breath. “And I don’t know the condition of the women.”
Ace nodded, his face grim. “10-4,” he said.
Reilly glanced at the other SWAT team members. They were dressed in their uniforms with body armor and helmets. One of them held up a vest and gestured at Reilly.
Reilly nodded, so the officer heaved the vest toward him. He caught it and quickly put it on. The same officer held up a helmet. Reilly started to hold up his hands to catch it, then decided against it.
With a helmet on, Christy might not recognize him. Once he got inside, he needed her to know it was him. He needed her to know she could trust him.
He shook his head, declining the helmet, then held his hand up to the side of his head, thumb and pinkie finger spread, the other three bent, mimicking a telephone handset. The helmets were wired, so if he went in without one, he’d need a way to communicate with the rest of the team.
The officer quickly retrieved a wireless headset and tossed it. Reilly put it on. Now he’d be able to hear the SWAT team members and they could hear him.
He headed back down the street and positioned himself behind the rental car again. Then he called Dagewood.
After a long time, Dagewood answered, again without speaking.
“What are you doing, Dagewood? What do you want?”
“I want you to address me by my title!”
Reilly let out his breath in a whoosh. Finally, the detective was talking. “Yes, sir, Detective. I’m happy to do that. Can you tell me what you want, Detective Dagewood?”
Silence. Then Dagewood said, “I want you to leave. I’ve got business to attend to in here, and I can’t get it done with you bothering me. Don’t think I’m fooled by your psychobabble negotiator talk.”
“I don’t think that, sir.”
“Tell your SWAT buddies out there to leave too. I’ve got this situation under control. I’m in charge here. I’ll call for backup if I need it.”
Reilly knew from the tone of Dagewood’s voice that he was highly stressed. On the verge of panic. His tone was pitched high, his voice brittle and tight. Dagewood was a bomb about to explode.
Ace’s voice came through the headset. “Keep him talking, Reilly. We’re going to try to get a shot from the back.”
Reilly’s pulse hammered. His SWAT teammates were the best, but he didn’t want sniper bullets anywhere near Christy.
“Okay,” he said carefully, hoping his words made sense to Ace as well as to Dagewood. “I’m glad you’ve got everything under control. Is everybody inside doing okay? Any injuries?”
Reilly changed his tone from the obsequious tone of earlier. Now he spoke to Dagewood as if he were a fellow officer who happened to be on the inside, rather than the enemy. He hoped it would put the detective at ease.
“Everyone’s fine, so far,” Dagewood bit out. “But they won’t be if you don’t get the SWAT team off my back. I’ve just got a little business to attend to.”
“Can I help you with that?” Reilly asked, as casually as he could.
“I don’t need help from a traffic cop. I’m a detective.”
“Yes, sir,” Reilly said. “Just thought I could lend a hand.” He paused for a second. “Can you tell me what you need Christy for?” No answer.
“Do you know who Christy is, Detective?”
“Yeah.” The answer was quiet. “She’s Moser’s daughter.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Reilly saw the SWAT team approaching in formation, crouched behind the big metal shields, as per protocol. Hal Carter, a buddy of his, signaled to him that Ace was in place in the back. Reilly nodded.
“That’s right. The serial killer.” Reilly took a breath and asked casually, “You knew her sister, didn’t you?”
“Cut that tone, boy,” Dagewood yelled, “or Christy is going to be missing some necessary parts.”
“Yes, sir,” Reilly answered earnestly. God, don’t let him hurt her. “Listen,
Detective, why don’t you let me inside? Christy can come out, and I’ll come in. Even trade.”
“What the hell do I want you for?”
The SWAT team was getting closer. Reilly held up his hand. The team leader shook his head. Reilly stared at him and held up his hand again. Reluctantly, the leader nodded and gestured to the team to halt.
“I’d like to come in, Detective. I’d like to understand what’s going on. Maybe I can help.”
“Do not enter the house,” Ace’s voice boomed in his ear. “That’s an order.”
Reilly winced. If he could talk his way in, he would, orders or not. He had to save Christy.
“Reilly!” It was Christy’s voice, faint, terrified, coming through the phone. He almost crumpled in relief. She was okay, at least okay enough to talk.
Then he heard a smack. “Shut up!” The tattooed guy had hit her.
Reilly growled under his breath.
Dagewood muttered something Reilly couldn’t catch.
“Detective Dagewood, I don’t know what you want in order to let Christy go, but I’m willing to work with you. Come on. Open the door. I’m not armed. All I want to do is try and end this as peacefully as possible.”
“End it? You don’t know—” Dagewood’s voice cut out.
“Detective?”
“Let him in,” he heard Dagewood say in an aside, then, “You make one false move, Delancey, and your girlfriend here goes down with a bullet in the brain. Got it?”
Reilly glanced at Hal, who was leading the SWAT team. He held up his gun, then laid it on top of the car.
“Reilly, don’t be an idiot,” Hal said softly through the headset, but Reilly ignored him.
He rounded the front of the car and walked up to the door. Just as he stepped up onto the stoop he heard a click. He reached out and twisted the knob, hoping he wasn’t about to open the door to his death.
He pushed the door open. The interior was dark. Hell, compared with the sunny world outside, it was black as pitch. The door slammed behind him.
At the same time he heard Christy’s panicked voice. “Reilly—no!”
He instinctively ducked, but he was too late. Searing heat exploded inside him, slamming him back against the door. He crumpled. The fire spread, until it engulfed his whole body.
“Jazzy, check him. See if he reacts.” That was Dagewood.
A hard shoe rammed him in the side—twice. He arched in pain and groaned. He couldn’t see, couldn’t think. Another blow. He gasped, then growled.
“You’re alive,” Dagewood said. “Too bad.”
Reilly tried to move. Hot pain shot through his left shoulder. He was alive. No dead person could hurt this much.
Then Christy screamed. “No!”
Reilly squinted. He could barely make out Dagewood’s silhouette, holding a handgun pointed right at him.
“Detective,” Reilly rasped, holding up a hand. “You’ve got me. You can shoot me, let Tommy Lee here stomp me—” he took a ragged breath “—whatever. Just—let Christy and—and Glo go.”
The tattooed guy kicked his left shoulder. A white-hot grenade exploded behind Reilly’s eyelids. He shrieked.
“Please stop!” Christy begged.
“Jazzy, back off,” Dagewood ordered.
Jazzy. The name penetrated the haze still obscuring Reilly’s brain. Dagewood had said the name earlier. And it was one of the names in Autumn’s phone.
“So, Delancey who didn’t make detective, what the hell are you trying to do? Get me out of the way so you can take my job?”
Doing his best to ignore the pain in the left side of his chest and the warm blood that was flowing out to soak his shoulder and his shirt, Reilly pushed himself into a sitting position. He replayed Dagewood’s words in his head. “Take your job?” he rasped. “I don’t know—what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah?” Dagewood still had his gun pointed at Reilly’s chest. “Maybe this will help you figure it out.” He pulled the trigger.
Reilly yelped in pain as the bullet slammed square into the center of his chest.
From far away, he heard screaming.
Reilly struggled for air. The body armor had stopped the bullet from penetrating his skin, he realized. But the impact had stung like a hornet and thrown his lungs into spasm. He gasped.
“Reilly!” Christy cried.
Through the haze of pain that engulfed him, he made out Ace’s voice in his ears.
Move in. Move in. Shots fired. Hold ready at fifty feet.
Dagewood cocked his head. “See! You’ve got SWAT here and you’re still trying to tell me you didn’t plan this to get rid of me and take my detective slot?”
Reilly shook his head, still struggling to breathe. He had no idea what Dagewood was talking about.
“You’d better tell your SWAT buddies to back off or I’ll shoot you where there’s no body armor.”
“Commander—stand down,” he rasped. “Stand—down.”
“10-4,” Ace said. “You tell the bastard I said 10-4.”
Reilly nodded. “The commander said 10-4,” he said to Dagewood.
Reilly squeezed his eyes shut, fighting to clear his head. Why was Dagewood raving about his detective position? Ever since Ryker had made detective, Dagewood, egged on by his buddy Phillips, had delighted in digging at Reilly about not being chosen. But what did that have to do with Christy’s quest to find her sister’s murderer?
“Reilly didn’t know what I was doing,” Christy cried. “I’m the one who figured out that it was you who was supplying drugs to Autumn. Reilly had no idea.”
Dagewood turned on Christy. “You shut the hell up!” he barked. “You played right into his hands. He’s always wanted my job. Damn Delanceys. They always get what they want.”
Reilly’s brain was becoming less hazy, and he was beginning to piece together the evidence. The telephone number labeled D.B., the note, the bag of drugs and the brass button.
Even the gun. Reilly’s chest ached and he still felt like he couldn’t get a full breath, but he had to get Dagewood’s attention off Christy and back onto him. “The gun,” he said hoarsely.
Dagewood’s head snapped around.
Something was tickling his left arm. He looked down. The sticky redness was spreading down his arm. He forced his brain to concentrate on what he was trying to tell Dagewood.
“The gun that killed Autumn Moser. It was your throw-away, wasn’t it? You got it from Kramer.”
Dagewood’s broad face turned bright red. “Shut up,” he muttered. “Just shut up.”
“Why didn’t you get rid of it after you shot Autumn?”
He heard Christy gasp.
Dagewood lifted the barrel of his gun until it was pointed at Reilly’s head. “You’d better shut the hell up.”
“It was Kramer’s fault, wasn’t it? You told him to get rid of it, but he didn’t. So did Kramer shoot at Christy? Or was that you?”
“Hah,” Jazzy said from the other side of the room, where he was pacing back and forth and sweating, obviously in need of a fix. “That’s how much you know,” he slurred. “I shot—”
“You idiot!” Dagewood shouted and aimed at Jazzy.
“You killed my sister!” Christy shouted. “She screamed ‘Bum’! That was you! Of course!”
Reilly couldn’t make sense of what she’d said. Who was Bum?
“That’s what Autumn was screaming just before the gunshots. ‘No, Bum.’ It was you—!” Christy’s voice broke.
Dagewood took a step backward. Reilly tensed. That withdrawal meant one of two things. He was stepping away to aim at Christy, or he was feeling cornered—or both. Either way, it wasn’t a good sign.
“Bum! Dagewood!” Her voice went higher with excitement. “Like Dagwood Bumstead!”
In his ear, Reilly heard Ace’s voice again. “Team, is there a resolution?”
And the answer, from one of the snipers. “I’ve got a resolution.”
Reilly knew the term resol
ution meant he had a clear shot.
Dagewood turned the gun on Christy again. “She wanted out. We had a good thing and she wanted out. She was going to ruin everything.”
“Dagewood,” Reilly said quickly. “Why don’t—”
“You shut up!” he shouted at Reilly, then turned back to Christy. “She had to talk to you when you called. I told her not to answer the phone. I warned her. You heard everything, didn’t you? Why’d you have to come back here and stir things up?”
Christy shook her head.
“Don’t lie to me!”
“Dagewood,” Reilly broke in. His head was spinning from trying to concentrate on their words while the burning in his shoulder fanned itself into an inferno. “Why don’t you give me the gun? You know how this is going to go down if you don’t. Come on. We can walk out of here.”
“No! Shut up!” Dagewood took another step backward. “I’m a detective. That’s what I am. I can’t give that up.” He gave a kind of half sob. Then his gun hand wavered.
Reilly’s heart sped up. That waver—was he considering dropping the gun? Carefully, slowly, Reilly gathered every bit of strength he had and began to push himself to his feet. His shoe slipped in blood that had dripped from his arm onto the floor, but he managed to get his feet under him.
Dagewood’s dark eyes snapped Reilly’s way.
“Everything will work out now,” Reilly said, using pre-arranged phrases designed to calm the hostage taker while communicating with the SWAT team.
He heard Ace’s voice in his ear. “Hold on the resolution. Repeat—hold.”
Dagewood nodded. Sweat poured down his red face and dripped from his chin. He crooked his elbow, pointing the gun’s barrel at the ceiling. Another good sign.
“Okay,” Reilly said. “Let’s talk about how we’re going to get out of here.”
Dagewood’s eyes were wide and unblinking. Reilly could see white all the way around the irises.
“What do you say, Detective? Can we let the women go now?”
Dagewood nodded again. The bright flush was leaving his face.
Reilly’s legs were trembling and he could feel more blood flowing down to his elbow and dripping off, but he finally managed to stand. Oddly, his shoulder had stopped burning. Or his whole body was burning at the same temperature. He wasn’t sure which.