by Matt Lincoln
I blinked and heard Alice yell. It wasn’t of fright but more like a war cry. She had found a formidable stick, almost a branch, and wielded it against a large, bald white man dressed in gray sweats. Baldy reached for his ankle, but I tackled him before he could draw from the holster I identified beneath the thin fabric.
The attacker braced for my tackle and, as I made contact, spun with the motion as if he’d expected it. I only got one arm around him, which he used to throw me back first into a nearby bench. The impact drove the breath from me but didn’t break anything. Baldy turned toward Alice, and I saw her ready for a strike with that long stick. She held it like a bo and darted to the side.
I hauled my sorry ass to my feet and drew my gun.
“Freeze, asshole,” I yelled as I cut between him and Alice. Baldy took a step in my direction, and I fixed my bead on him. “Not another step.”
He halted and threw his hands in the air. “Woah, okay.” His voice was surprisingly high for a man of his size. “I’m unarmed, see?”
Like hell he wasn’t, but I wasn’t about to let him get those hands near his ankle.
“Hands behind your head, down on your knees,” I ordered. To my left, Alice kept her death grip on the stick. I couldn’t blame her. “Nice and easy, and you won’t get hurt.”
“Sure, buddy.” He smirked at Alice, and I had to quell the urge to kick him in the balls. “Whatever you say.”
When a suspect talks like he’s placating a toddler, you don’t buy his act for a hot second. I circled around and blocked his ankle with my foot. As I grabbed his wrist, a man came running around the last bend in the path with a gun out. It trembled in his hands as he pointed in my and Baldy’s direction.
“P-put your gun on the ground,” he stammered at me. Nothing about him read law enforcement or military. “D-do it or I-I’ll shoot. I mean it!”
I gritted my teeth and made a show of holstering my weapon. No way in hell was I dropping it.
“He’s the good guy,” Alice cried out. “He saved me from that mugger.”
The civilian with the gun swung it in her direction. So much for training.
“Hey, man. I have a badge and am trying to arrest this violent offender.”
Civvie swung his gun back in my direction and then down at Baldy, whose eyes went wide.
“Dude, he’s robbing me,” Baldy protested. “He has a fake badge and everything. That girl is his accomplice.”
Civvie aimed at me but looked at Alice as if she was about to take him down. She threw the stick on the ground and held out her hands.
“I’m an architect,” she told Civvie in an even tone. “That man on the ground attacked this investigator first. Please, sir, put your gun away.”
Baldy took that moment of distraction and surged to his feet. He bolted forward, and I took a step in that direction when a shot exploded past. It hit Baldy in the head, and his body dropped, now a lifeless pile on the path.
Civvie’s smoking gun trembled in his shaking hands, and yet he held it up as if ready to pull the trigger again. His eyes were glassy and face bloodless, and he’d frozen in his stance.
“Oh my God, oh my God, what did I do?” he rambled. “Did I get the right guy?”
“Sir, you need to take your finger off the trigger,” I told him in a quiet, calming tone.
He swung toward me, but he moved his finger out and away from the trigger guard. His hands shook so hard I thought he’d drop the gun.
“W-will you take this?”
He kept it pointed forward as I stepped around and holstered my own weapon. Two-way radios crackled nearby, and I had to hope they were unarmed security guards rather than police officers. All I needed was another man down with this mess.
“I’m going to put my left hand on your arm and take the gun in my right hand,” I instructed Civvie. “After that, I want you to sit right where you are.”
He nodded, and I did as I said. His cold, sweaty hands relaxed their grip, and I took the gun. Civvie crumpled to the ground. He wasn’t quite crying, but the man was definitely in shock. I stuck his gun in my back waistband and then got on my phone.
“Alice, are you okay?” I asked as the line rang. She nodded, but her eyes were wide and her face a pale tan. “Go sit on the bench before you fall over,” I told her in a gentle tone as Diane answered my call.
“Before I fall over?” Diane echoed. “Ethan, what are you on about?”
“I need Robbie, Ethel, and Bonnie and Clyde out to the botanical garden,” I said as a pair of security guards rounded the corner. They saw me holding Civvie’s gun and, understandably, backed off. One drew a TASER. “I have to go.”
“Drop the gun or I’ll tase you,” he ordered. I had to give the guy credit for having the balls to use electric barbs against a gun. Or maybe he was just stupid. “Now!”
“I’m a federal law officer,” I announced as I turned toward them. My badge was still on my belt, and thankfully, they didn’t question it. The lead guard put his TASER away. “Clearly, this is an active crime scene, and we need Metro Police out here.”
“They’re on the way.” The guard pointed to Civvie’s gun. “Is that yours or his?” He then pointed to Civvie, who now had his knees pulled up to his chin. “I think there’s an ambulance on the way.”
As predicted, an ambulance arrived after the police got there. The paramedics confirmed what I already knew. Baldy was quite dead. Despite Civvie’s terrible lack of composure, he’d hit the man in the middle of the face. The large exit wound on the back of his head leaked all sorts of things I didn’t want to see.
“Ethan?” Alice’s voice floated through the chaos, and I realized I’d left her alone on the bench while the paramedics tended to Civvie’s shock. “How long do I have to stay here?”
“Until I know you’re safe.” I knew she wouldn’t like my answer even as she pressed her lips together and frowned. “We’ll assign someone to watch out for you and to sit outside of your house.”
Her bitter laugh was a little too loud, and a few first responders glanced in her direction. She waved me over close, and I sat next to her.
“You don’t want to have cops outside my house for a few days,” she whispered. “Please.”
I got it. With people coming in for her grandfather’s wake, there were sure to be a few with outstanding warrants or who, for other reasons, wanted to avoid law enforcement. I thought about it for a moment and came up with an idea.
“Do you feel your parents’ bodyguards are competent enough to protect you at home?”
She shrugged. “I think so. I’ve never known them to hire anyone who wasn’t good at what they do.” At my raised eyebrow, she rolled her eyes. “My dad is a lazy mooch, but he’s not stupid. Hiring the people around him is one of the things he does himself.”
“Okay. When you’re not home, I want you protected by someone from MBLIS. I trust my team, and it’ll set a lot of minds at ease after what happened here.”
She stiffened. “Oh, my God. You think this was a hit?”
“I don’t think it was random,” I answered with a frown. “That fella was more than a two-bit robber. It was in the way he moved, his ankle holster, and the simple fact that people don’t get robbed at gunpoint here. Until we track down whoever hired him, we won’t know if he was after you or me.”
Her eyes widened. “So you could be a target, too?”
I nodded. “That’s what I’m saying. There’s also a chance that he only meant to scare us. We won’t know until we know.”
A familiar blond head wove through the growing throng of first responders, gapers, and local journalists. Holm walked up to Alice and me and shook his head.
“When I suggested you taking her out was a bad idea, this wasn’t what I had in mind,” he scolded me with a half-smile as I stood to meet him.
“You told him not to meet me here?” Alice asked with a start. “Why?”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “I’m not supposed to influence witness
es.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose for a moment. “Tampering with witnesses is a bit of a no-no, but I had no intention of tampering.”
Holm laughed and turned away. Alice put her hand over her mouth. I couldn’t tell if she was amused or horrified. Probably horrified.
“We didn’t discuss the case, Agent Holm,” she reported. “He asked how I’m doing, we saw a bird, and then that dead guy attacked us.” She pointed at my head. “He used a branch to hit Ethan in the head, and then they got into a fight. That other guy,” she pointed at the civilian, “he’s the one who shot our attacker.”
Holm held his hands up. “It’s okay. I believe you.” The look he gave me suggested he believed her account, but not necessarily my intentions. “Hey, the calvary is here.”
The other people I’d requested walked up next to Holm. We moved away from Alice, and I gave everyone a rehash of what happened with Baldy.
Bonnie and Clyde took their forensic field kits over to the body and began their work as our medical examiner, Ethel Dumas, waited with a gurney and voice recorder at the ready. Most MEs had assistants, but every assistant MBLIS had brought in to help the middle-aged, Amazonian woman ended up quitting within weeks… and sometimes sooner. She gestured to Civvie with her thumb.
“Is he the one who took out the galoot?” She whistled in appreciation as I nodded. “He probably traumatized himself for life, but he’s not a bad shot.”
“Yes, bad,” I told Ethel in a sharp tone. She arched a brow. “We don’t know who he was or who he might’ve worked for.” I cast a dirty look in Civvie’s direction. “Worse, he could’ve hurt someone. He pointed his gun in Alice’s direction at one point, and then he almost shot me instead of that ‘galoot.’”
I half expected Ethel to make a snarky comment. Instead, her face softened. “You do like her. Robbie was right.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “Take it from me, Ethan, there is no right or wrong time, just right or wrong actions. Decide your path and walk it. Everything else will fall into place.”
She marched off as a nearby phone started playing Darth Vader’s theme music. A good ten seconds passed before I had enough.
“Answer that, already, Clyde!” I hollered.
“Not mine,” he hollered back.
“Sorry… sorry…” It was Alice, and she was brushing through the foliage next to the pathway. “There you are!” She pulled her phone out from under the plants and brushed it off. The music ended before she had a chance to answer the call. “Dammit.”
“Are you okay?” My voice startled her, and she stepped back, off the path. I caught her arm, pulled her back onto the paver-brick walkway, and released her. “That was a serious ringtone there.”
“My mom.” She let out a menacing sigh. I never imagined such a thing existed, but when Alice sighed menacingly, I felt it like an emotional riptide. “My mother expects me to be at her beck and call while she’s here. In fact…”
The theme music began again. It had to be my imagination, but I could’ve sworn the horns played faster and deeper this time.
“Better get that,” I suggested in the least helpful way possible.
Alice smirked and then walked off to speak with her parent. I took the opportunity to go see how Bonnie and Clyde fared with the scene. Someone had found the spent shell casing and marked it. Precious little else marked the scene beyond the leaking cranial tissues. Our lab rats monitored and measured everything from the comfort of their own purple gloves.
“If you’re about to ask whether we’ve found anything, don’t, because we didn’t.” Bonnie kneeled next to Baldy’s stiff hand and lifted it. “Look at his fingertips.”
“Don’t tell me,” I groaned.
“Then look for yourself.”
I crouched next to her and took a good look at her find. “Um, okay.” The tips were burned off, as I feared from Bonnie’s invitation to look, but there was more. I pointed at his left forefinger. “Was that finger reattached?”
Bonnie nodded and stood. “It’s the same on the other side. Both index fingers have been reattached.”
Holm joined us at that moment and checked out what Bonnie had shown me. He wrinkled his nose when Bonnie got to the part about those two fingers.
“Do you think it was an accident or a punishment?” Holm asked us both. “If punishment, that seems pretty severe for a bruiser to deal with, especially for a gunman.”
“He would’ve had limited mobility in those fingers,” Bonnie said in agreement. “Considering the little Sig he kept in this ankle holster, the injury didn’t stop him from carrying, at least. The gun might have been for last-resort situations.”
My phone went off, and I saw that it was Diane again. I walked away from the chattering group and answered the call. “Hey, boss.”
“Ethan, we just got word that the Dragon Tide collapsed into the water,” she told me. “Everyone’s accounted for, thank God, but it’s a hell of a mess. Muñoz and Birn were down the street interviewing construction crew when it happened. They’re okay but stuck in the middle of the response.”
Shivers ran like ice water down my spine. “I thought they were getting it stabilized.”
“That was the plan, and that’s all I know at this point. Hang on.” I heard her tap on a keyboard in the background, and then she was back. “Bring Alice back to the office until we know she’s not in danger. Between that attack and the building going down, I’m not taking any chances.”
“Copy that.” I looked around and saw Alice speaking with Holm. They noticed and started in my direction. “We’ll be there in twenty.”
I ended the call and gestured Alice and Holm over to a quiet space at the edge of the path.
“The hotel collapsed,” I informed them. Alice gasped and clasped her hands over her mouth. “We’re taking you to our office until we know you’re as safe as possible.”
“What about the wake at my house?” Her thick, short hair bobbed as she looked between Holm and me. “I have to get back, eventually.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I told her. “Right now, your safety is more important. Stick with us until we have a plan.”
She crossed her arms and narrowed those dark eyes. “How long will it take for you to come up with a plan?”
“You’ll be home by dinner, probably sooner,” I ventured.
“By lunch,” she countered. “I have obligations. Besides, this attack and the hotel’s collapse almost have to be a coincidence. Those explosions probably weakened the foundation worse than they expected.”
She looked at me as if hoping I’d back her up on that. The problem was, I didn’t believe in coincidence.
CHAPTER 16
I spent the drive to the office wondering how the hell we were supposed to protect a syndicate princess who didn’t want to be one. Alice rode in my passenger seat as Holm followed in that blue Lancer of his.
Alice glared out the window as I pulled my red Dodge Charger into my space in the MBLIS parking garage. For a few moments, I thought she was angry at me, but then she looked over and smiled.
“Thanks for all you’re doing to help,” she said in a soft tone. “I hope you don’t think I’m ungrateful.” She balled her fists. “When I find out who did this…”
“Yeah, you probably shouldn’t finish that sentence,” I suggested. “Even hyperbole could get you into trouble, given everything that’s happened.”
She leaned her head back against the seat. “I can’t run away far enough, can I? They always find ways to pull me back into the life. It’s something I’ve never wanted.”
I wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t know how to do that without crossing lines I had to avoid. No matter my intentions, Diane’s superiors wouldn’t take kindly to her top agent cozying up to a witness, even in a time of distress. A defense attorney would devour such a conflict of interest once we put a defendant on trial.
“It’s wrong for them to do that to you.” I searched for the right words, but they refused to reveal themselves as I
got out of the car.
“It is what it is,” she said as she joined me. For a second, I thought she was going to grab my hand, but she let her hand drop to her side. “I don’t know how you plan to ensure my safety, considering the guest list at the wake.” She snorted. “Maybe I ought to stay away from the house. The FBI could swoop in at any moment.”
“Does that sound like such a bad idea?” I studied her face as her brows knitted and relaxed. Her shoulders drooped as we arrived at the elevator. “You know, that does. It sounds like a terrible idea. Worst ever.”
I was rewarded with a slight crinkle at the corners of her eyes.
“I’d rather not lose my house to seizure,” Alice admitted. The elevator arrived, and she entered with arms crossed. “Besides, I don’t know that there are active warrants out for anyone who’s visiting. They keep their representatives greased and independent contractors happy wherever they go.”
“I thought you try not to know anything.”
She shrugged. “It’s not like it’s a secret. Graft happens everywhere. If you look hard enough, you’ll find it.” Alice had a good point, but she froze and looked up with her eyes wide. “For the record, I don’t get involved.”
“I believe you.” I did, although I doubted my peers would. Her family’s involvement with the criminal underground would mark her for bad with anyone who didn’t know her. “That won’t stop others from investigating your role in all of this, especially since you’re an architect. Your understanding of how a building goes up translates to how it goes down. You need to be careful.”
Alice nodded, and the elevator stopped on my floor. We headed straight to Diane’s office. My boss waved us in as soon as she saw us round the corner.
“Shut the door,” she told me. At her gesture, I closed the blinds on her window to the cubicle farm where the rest of us worked and sometimes horsed around. “Alice, it’s good to see you again. The circumstances could be better, though.”
A wry laugh escaped Alice’s otherwise serious expression. She sank into one of the comfy wingback chairs Diane kept for guests.