Heart Break: An Isabel Swift Novel (The Isabel Swift Detective Series Book 1)

by MF Moskwik

  ***

  “Rookie!” a loud voice booms.

  Izzy turns, searching for the source of the voice in the busy, crowded lobby of the hotel. Cops, former cops as guests, medics, and hotel staff surround her, but in a small break in the crowd, she sees her former training officer approach.

  “Well, look at what the cat dragged in!”

  “Rodriguez! How you feeling?” she asks.

  “Never better, Rook,” Rodriguez says as he envelops her in a bear hug. “Detective Inspector. I hear you had a rough night last night,” he says as he greets Jameson.

  “I had an unexpected visit to the woods,” Jameson concedes.

  “Well, you don’t look worse for wear. And, you ID’d our perp,” Rodriguez offers with a smile.

  “We did,” Jameson agrees with a look at Izzy.

  “You ready?” she asks the veteran cop.

  “Sure I’m ready. I got my speech. I’ve got my penguin suit,” he says as he runs his gloves over his dress police uniform. “What could go wrong?”

  “Rodriguez—” Izzy warns.

  “Look, Rook. At some point, the bird’s gotta leave the nest. Now, I know you spent a year looking after me, making sure I knew how to hold a gun, cuff a suspect, drive a squad. I’m ready to be out there. I can do this,” Rodriguez says.

  Izzy colors. “Graduation day.”

  Jameson looks at the two officers in bewilderment. “I’m sorry?”

  “Before she graduates training, I think, okay, my new rook, she’s going to be on the beat six months, a year, learn the streets, ease into things.” Rodriguez grins. “Day she graduates from training, she gives me this big speech about how she can handle herself now she’s a real cop. Her first assignment?” he ask Jameson rhetorically. “She volunteers as bait for vice. Goes two weeks undercover, helps put away some drug guys who were expanding their turf.”

  “Rodriguez!” she protests.

  The older cop rests a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be fine, Rook. I know. Because you got my back, right?”

  Izzy nods and finds herself fighting a lump that has formed in her throat. “Always.”

  “Atta kid,” Rodriguez says as he gives her shoulder a squeeze. “Now, get outta here. I got a crisis to deal with.”

  “Indeed, the arrest of a serial murderer,” agrees Jameson.

  “No, Detective,” disagrees the veteran cop. “This speech. If I can go twenty minutes without boring everyone to death, including myself, I’ll be doing good.” And with a wink, Rodriguez disappears back into the crowd.

  ***

  “It’s fifteen minutes till the luncheon time. No one’s seen him.” Izzy walks into the ballroom. Scanning the area, she sees the tables, medics, undercover police. The stage. The waiters. “I hope we checked everyone. Any one of these people could be him.”

  “Or none. Perhaps he has been thwarted by the security?” asks Jameson.

  “Maybe.” She looks around at the people and tables.

  Something is not right.

  Food. Centerpieces. Run-of-the-mill ballroom.

  Except.

  A waiter with a tray of champagne flutes walks by, and she stops him. “Excuse me. Is the hotel making a video of the luncheon?”

  “Excuse me?” asks the waiter with a polite confusion.

  Izzy points to corners of the room. “Cameras?”

  “Oh, I apologize, ma’am. I’m afraid I don’t have an answer. If you’d like, I can find my supervisor and relay your question. Would you like me to do that?” Though polite, the waiter fidgets impatiently, the precariously balanced champagne flutes clinking with each of his small movements.

  Izzy shakes her head. “That’s okay. I can find him myself. Do you know where he would be?”

  ***

  “Officer Swift! I thought we were instructed to not leave the ballroom,” calls out Jameson.

  “We were,” agrees Izzy as she jogs out of the ballroom.

  “Ah. But we are leaving the ballroom,” points out Jameson. His long legs allow him to catch up to Izzy just as she reaches the crowd of police and medics that swarm the hallway that leads to the hotel administrative offices.

  “Absolutely,” agrees Izzy. The crackle of the radio in her ear tells her that the luncheon ceremony is about to start. “We don’t have much time, Jameson. The luncheon is about to start, and Lipton hasn’t shown. That doesn’t make sense. The cameras in the room? Also don’t make sense. Something’s wrong,” she explains as she pushes her way through the crowd.

  Five minutes later, they stand in front of a glass partition that separates the hallway from a set of offices. Izzy yanks on the gilded door handle and stomps toward the reception desk.

  “Can I help you?” asks the dubious receptionist.

  Izzy flashes her badge. “Westchester County Sheriff’s Department. Can I talk to whoever’s in charge of the police reunion event?”

  “Of course. I’ll get her. Just a moment.”

  As the receptionist phones the event manager, Izzy’s radio crackles again. “It’s time. MC is asking for go. Any sign of Lipton?” asks Williams over the radio. A chorus of no’s is his answer. “All right. It’s go time. We got two hours, then everyone can go home, including our vets. Stay alert, everyone.”

  “Officer?” asks the receptionist.

  “Yes?”

  “Ms. Rodgers will see you now,” the receptionist informs her as she stands. “Please follow me.”

  The receptionist leads the two down a short hallway to an office and ushers them inside. “Ms. Rodgers? The police from the sheriff’s department,” she announces.

  “Thank you, Corinne,” Ms. Rodgers says, dismissing the receptionist. The woman with dark curly hair and tortoise-shell rimmed glasses stands and offers her hand. “Officers. What can I do for you? I hope everything with the luncheon is acceptable?”

  “The cameras, Ms. Rodgers.”

  “Please, call me Sydney,” the event manager says.

  “I noticed there are cameras in the room. Is the hotel recording the reunion?” asks Izzy.

  “No, I don’t believe so. If I remember correctly, a few days ago, a member of the sheriff’s department came by to set up the cameras as part of the surveillance needed to secure the event,” Sydney says. She turns to the filing cabinet beside her desk and pulls out a file. “Police Academy luncheon. Steak, chicken. Three course, drinks, alcohol, open bar, seated.” She scans the file. “Ah, yes. Two days ago, on Tuesday, we were notified by Lt. Hector Rodriguez of the need for increased security for the event. The same afternoon, a man from the county sheriff’s department came by to set up audiovisual equipment for the luncheon.

  “AV equipment?” asks Izzy. “It wasn’t just cameras?”

  “No—it was four cameras, which you saw, and two antennas—one on the roof, and the other in the ballroom.”

  “Antennas!” exclaims Jameson with a look at Izzy.

  Izzy nods her agreement. “Do you happen to have the name of person who installed the equipment?”

  “Was it a Richard Lipton? Or perhaps Robert Lennox?” asks Jameson.

  “No.” Sydney shakes her head. “The file says it was a, um, Larry Davis.”

  Izzy gasps.

  “It couldn’t be!” exclaims Jameson.

  “But it was. The file states very clearly, ‘Larry Davis, county employee, installed cameras and antenna Tuesday,’” explains Sydney.

  “I’m very sorry, Ms. Rodgers, but your file’s wrong,” Izzy explains. “Larry Davis was put into a medically induced coma after a coerced opioid overdose on Monday.”

  “My God!” exclaims Sydney. “Then who is this?” she asks as she hands them a piece of paper.

  Izzy and Jameson take the paper from her. On the sheet is the copy of a Westchester County badge with the name and ID number of Larry Davis.

  And a picture of Robert Lennox.

  ***

  “SHIT!” explodes Izzy. She runs out of the office and out of the gilded glass door
s into the hallway. “He must have taken Larry’s ID when he took his keys, and then swapped the picture.”

  “We must contact Captain Williams,” says Jameson as he catches up to her.

  “Captain? Captain! It’s Swift,” Izzy barks into her radio as she runs out of the administrative offices of the hotel.

  “Swift! Where the hell are you? Why don’t I see you and Jameson in this ballroom?” hisses Williams.

  “Sir! The ballroom. The cameras. You’ve got to turn them off,” she explains as she runs back to the ballroom.

  “What?” asks Williams.

  “I don’t have time to explain. The cameras. They belong to Lipton. Get everyone on the line and ask them to lock the place down. Now!” yells Izzy.

  Just before they reach the ballroom, Izzy stops in front of the elevator.

  “Izzy! Where are you going?”

  “To the roof. Ms. Rodgers said that Lipton placed an antenna there. I am going to break it before Lipton gets a chance to use it. Keep your line open, so I can hear what’s going on.”

  “Isabel! Wait! You must not go alone!” Jameson exclaims.

  She shakes her head and gets into the just-arrived elevator. “There is no time. Go to the ballroom. Get them to turn off the cameras, and find the other antenna. And then, if he’s not here, someone’s gotta find Lipton.”

  Jameson nods. “I will handle the situation in the ballroom,” he says. “When you dismantle the antenna, find me, and we will find Lipton together!”

  “There’s no time!” As the doors begin to close, she slams her fist on the floor buttons. “Go, Jameson! They need you! Go now!”

  With a lingering glance, Jameson finally turns and resumes his dash to the ballroom. As he turns the corner, her last glimpse of Jameson is of his face in a mirror, a picture of worry.

  Don’t get in trouble! she thinks as the elevator doors shut.

  ***

  The elevator ride to the top of the hotel is silent, save for the crackling of the radio in her ear. Through the earpiece, she hears muffled laughter and clapping, and the clink of glass and silverware on plates.

  “Captain Williams!” she hears Jameson bark in his hushed baritone.

  The elevator opens, and she runs to the service door at the end of the hallway. With a hand, she pushes though the emergency exit, climbs up the metal staircase, and finds her way to the roof.

  The sun makes her blink, and the wind carries her hair, obscuring her face and vision.

  Where is it?

  She scans the rooftop, left to right, and finds only concrete, turbines, and evidence of animal activity.

  It’s got to be here. She takes a few steps forward, and then a few more, until she is sprinting around the roof, following a large clockwise circle nearly around the roof’s whole circumference.

  Near the stair lobby from where she emerged, a small rod is placed on the northeast corner of the roof’s edge.

  There!

  “Jameson! I found the antenna!” Izzy exclaims into her wire.

  Her radio crackles into her ear. “Where is it?” she hears Jameson voice ask.

  “Northeast corner of the roof. I’ll dismantle it now. How’s the ballroom?”

  “We are shutting the cameras off now.”

  “Copy that,” Izzy responds. “Any sign of Lipton?”

  “Not here,” he replies.

  Her radio breaks into static.

  “Jameson? Jameson?” she calls into her wire. She approaches the small antenna at a full run when she hears the BOOM! of a gunshot.

  She freezes and falls to the ground. After a few seconds of silence, she raises her head and scans her surroundings again—the small roof is bare, and the building is surrounded in all directions by other structures.

  Shit. Is this a trap?

  After a silent count to ten, she lifts herself off the ground and resumes a low run toward the antenna.

  This time, the shot pings off the concrete roof ten feet to her right.

  Whoever it is, they’re a terrible shot.

  She dives behind the wall of the stair lobby.

  BOOM! Ping!

  Another bullet is fired and ricochets off the opposite wall of the stair lobby.

  “Jameson? Jameson? Williams? Shots fired. I repeat, shots fired on the roof. Northeast corner. Shallow angle, maybe even level. Coming from the east. If I can get to it, I’ll still dismantle the antenna, but if I can’t, I need you guys to find and take down the antenna in the ballroom. Do you copy?”

  BOOM! PING!

  “Anybody? Did you hear me?”

  Her only reply is indistinct voices and cracklings of the radio in her ear.

  “Damn it.”

  BOOM! PING! Another shot.

  “Westchester County Sheriff’s Department. Drop your weapon and come out with your hands up!” she yells as she removes her gun from her holster. She checks the clip and pulls the safety.

  BOOM! PING! “Can’t do that, Officer,” a shaky voice cries.

  She peers around the corner of the building, looking for the owner of the voice.

  BOOM! PING!

  So much for that. She ducks, creeps to the other side of the stair shelter, and peeks her head around the corner.

  Quickly, she scans the building rooftop east of the hotel. There is nothing remarkable—a stair shelter, wind turbines, a roof-mounted water boiler unit. Beyond the roof, however, is the façade of another building, through the windows of which she can see people in their offices.

  Damn it. No clear shot. “This doesn’t have to go down like this, Richard. Or should I call you Robert?”

  “It does have to happen this way. This is my time. This is my work. All my life leads up to this moment. You can’t take this from me,” the man cries as another bullet sails across the rooftop.

  “Put the gun down, Robert. Turn yourself in. Show that you can do the right thing. For yourself. For your mom and your granddad.” Another couple of shots ping the concrete against her shoulder. He’s getting better. “For your father.”

  “What I’m doing is for my father,” he cries. “I’m making sure that the people who abandoned him when he needed help . . . I want them to know what it feels like to need help, and to die alone. I want them to pay. I want them all to pay!”

  “It’s not their fault, Robert. It was never their fault. It was an accident. Your father had a heart condition. Nobody could have known.”

  “I grew up without a father because of them!” he yells. “No one was there to help me or protect me. No one was there when I needed help,” he yells back. “And now look at me. Look at me!”

  Izzy peeks her head around the corner, her eyes searching for Robert.

  He comes out from behind the other building’s stair shelter and gestures to himself with the gun. In his other hand is a small, rectangular device.

  Jameson’s device!

  “I lost my scholarship. I had to quit school. I got thrown out of my house, and I had to live with that crazy, angry old man. Nobody would take me in, nobody would help me, except Mr. Barry,” Robert cries.

  “We know, Robert. We found his cabin—your cabin,” Izzy replies. “We saw the pictures, Robert. Of you and Mr. Barry.”

  “He was the only one who cared about me. He’s the only one who taught me things, taught me how to program. And he believed in me, helped me apply for college, nominated me for a scholarship,” Robert cries out as he gestures with the gun. “And when I got caught doing drugs, he took me in and gave me a job at the school. Told me I could start over. Told me that, no matter my past, I could become who I wanted to be.”

  “Richard Lipton?” asks Izzy.

  “A great computer scientist,” agrees Robert as he nods his head.

  “He believed in you,” agrees Izzy. Just a little more forward, and just a little to the right. The stair shelter will stop the bullet if it goes through, and I’ve got a clear shot. “Like I believe in you, Robert.”

  The bald man with amber eyes pul
ls himself together and looks across the rooftops at her warily. “What?”

  “I read your file. Top of your class in computers in high school. A 3.5 GPA your first year in college. On track to repeat that your sophomore year, when . . .” Don’t blame him, she thinks.

  “I got kicked out,” he finishes.

  Izzy nods. “That’s right. When your school kicked you out. You were bright and successful and could have had a bright future. You still could have a bright future, Robert. Just put the gun down, just talk to me, and we can figure things out. Just you and me. What do you say?” Izzy asks.

  Robert takes a step forward. “You believe in me?” he asks.

  “I do,” she says as she lowers her gun. “I believe you were a smart kid. A good kid. And you lost someone important to you, so you got a little lost.” Izzy nods her head and exhales a small relieved sigh. “I’m sorry for what you went through. I’m sorry you had to lose your father. But you have the power to change your story, Robert. How many years have you held on to your sorrow? Your grief?” Izzy points her gun down and comes out from behind the stair shelter slowly. “It’s time to let it go, Robert. Let it go. Let us go. Let the people downstairs go. It’s time to move on, Robert.” She holsters her gun and walks toward him, with a hand stretched out. “You have the power to let it all go.”

  For a moment, Robert struggles with himself. His face is bright red and tear-streaked, and his hands shake as they grasp the gun and the secret device.

  With a loud gasp, Robert falls to the ground on his knees and cries out. He collapses in a limp heap, sobbing loudly, unrestrained grief, terror, and hate coloring his voice.

  “Robert? It’s okay. I’ll come to you. Can you put the gun down?” Izzy asks.

  “No!” he sobs.

  “What?” asks Izzy. She places her hand on the butt of her gun to remove it from its holster, but the lift of Robert’s gun stops her. “Robert?”

  “I can’t let it go. I’m sorry, Officer. There’s no other way! There’s no other way. I’m sorry, Officer. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Robert? Robert?” Izzy yells. “ROBERT! NO!”

  And with a final, anguished yell, Robert Lennox aims his gun at Izzy Swift and pulls the trigger.