by K. A. Tucker
“He’d get over it soon enough.” As soon as he saw how much Gracie loved having a dog.
Dina levels me with a look. “We are not bringing home a stray.”
“They need love, too.” I lean down to kiss her again. “Gonna grab a shower. See you in bed soon?”
I get a coy smile in return, and it’s enough to make me rush.
But Dina’s words linger in my mind, long after her naked body lies still beside me. Enough that I find myself wandering through the house in the middle of the night, checking the locks and drawers, seeing if anything looks out of place.
I find nothing.
And yet my unease lingers.
* * *
May 3, 2003
“A head of romaine, right?” I call out over my shoulder, heading for my car.
“Please.”
“Daddy, wait! I wanna come to the store with you!” Gracie comes tearing down the steps, stopping to adjust the Velcro on her bright pink sneakers before rushing the rest of the way.
Dina and I share a knowing look. Gracie hasn’t left my side all morning. “I’ll be back in fifteen.” I give one of Gracie’s curly pigtails a light yank and then open the car door.
I freeze when I spot a black duffel bag sitting on the backseat. I don’t have to open it to guess what it is.
“You know what, Gracie May? I just remembered. I have to stop at the station today and—”
“No!” She begins to pout. “I wanna come with you!”
“You can’t today. Next time, I promise.”
“But, Daddy! I want to—”
“No, Gracie,” I say with a rare firm voice, before she resorts to a full-blown tantrum in the middle of the sidewalk. I soften it with a promise to get ice cream later.
With a huff and tears in her eyes, she trudges back up the stairs and buries her face in Dina’s legs.
“I’m sorry,” I mouth, nearly flinching at the look of displeasure on Dina’s face. “It’ll be more like an hour.”
CHAPTER 49
Grace
Noah slides in from behind to hover over my shoulder as I toss a handful of peppers into a bowl. His skin is slick with sweat, but I don’t mind. Actually, I find it appealing.
“Is Jenson still here?” I left them outside, playing one-on-one in the driveway.
“Gone home.” I can’t help the slight tremble as he leans in to kiss the side of my neck, his hands hot against my hips. “Is there enough for me, too?”
“There’s plenty. This fool I know bought way too much of everything.”
I feel his lips curve into a smile. “Lucky for me. I’m starving.”
“Didn’t you eat half a cow an hour ago?” I glance at the oven clock to confirm when Jenson showed up with a bag of burgers. Noah ate his and most of mine.
“What’s your point?”
“I don’t understand where you put it all.”
“I burn it. Playing ball, running . . . doing other things.”
I glance up in time to catch Noah’s eyes dipping into my tank top. He grins at me and heat floods through my body instantly. It’s been three days since I woke up tangled in his bedsheets, and we’ve spent most of that time holed up in that room, distracting ourselves while we wait for the FBI and APD to nail Mantis and Stapley.
Noah has made the frustrating wait bearable.
I sniff teasingly. “You need a shower.”
“I do need a shower.” Strong hands pull me backward.
“Uh-uh. No way. I’m not drying my hair again today.”
“Then don’t.”
“Are you . . . did you forget what happens?”
His deep chuckles tell me he hasn’t forgotten the untamed clown’s wig that I woke up with this morning, after I shared a shower with him last night.
“You’re such a jerk.”
“Come on . . . You can wear one of those things to keep it dry.”
“A shower cap?” I cringe at the mental image of a gorgeous, naked Noah and me, in my pink plastic cap. Having sex. I turn to give him a playful shove away, but he’s no longer paying attention to me, distracted by the TV.
Canning’s on the news again.
I dive for the remote to turn up the volume.
“We have what we’d call ‘persons of interest,’ ” Canning says. “Though, I’m fairly confident two of them will be cleared of all wrongdoing.”
I frown. “Who’s he talking about? Mantis and Stapley?”
“I don’t know. But look at him, pretending to be innocent.” Noah’s teeth grind, his jaw so tense. “He shouldn’t be up there. Towle’s the acting chief. Why the hell is he up there!”
“There’s nothing we can do about it. You heard Kristian.” I called him the second we turned out of Canning’s driveway yesterday. Aside from an “I told you so” and a sharp warning to not say a word about it to anyone including the DA, he confirmed what we already know—that “sleeping dogs” gets us nowhere.
“Confidential sources have confirmed that these persons of interest are APD officers. Can you comment?” a voice in the crowd says.
“I cannot. Next question.”
“Is there any connection between Chief Jackie Marshall’s suicide and the uncovering of this new evidence behind Abraham Wilkes’s death?”
Noah’s back stiffens.
“I can confirm that Chief Marshall’s death led to law enforcement discovering new evidence.”
“Did Chief Marshall have knowledge about Abraham Wilkes’s death that she did not make public?”
“She did.”
“Son of a bitch,” Noah mutters.
“Was Chief Marshall involved in Abraham Wilkes’s death?”
“Involved?” Canning seems to mull that over. “I’d say there certainly have been questions raised, yes, sir.”
“That son of a bitch!” Noah roars, looking ready to tear the flat-screen from the wall. “He’s trying to throw her under the damn bus!”
I bite my tongue before I say something insensitive. Before I point out that nothing Canning said was a lie. Technically, all of it was true. Because Noah’s also right—Canning is trying to focus the attention on Jackie. He wants her pinned with my father’s murder. Kristian warned as much.
“Do you want me to phone Kris—”
“What the hell is he going to do?” Noah snaps, then pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
I reach for him, smoothing a hand over his back, his shirt damp beneath my palm, the tension coursing through him palpable.
“This can’t happen. They need to arrest and charge Mantis and Stapley, and be done with it, so we can all move on.”
“We’re a long way from that happening.” And it’s not looking promising. The APD got a warrant on Stapley’s truck and pulled blood samples that matched what was found in the pantry. They have him on breaking and entering, though he’s claiming he’s being set up. And there are no fingerprints anywhere—on the safe or the gun—to prove otherwise.
The only thing that ties him to the house without a doubt is three drops of blood.
“We need to find that video,” Noah says with grim determination.
Easier said than done. “He didn’t give it to either of our moms, and he didn’t give it to you or me, so who else could have it? Who did he trust?”
“No one.” Noah leans against the wall, his gaze settling on the lights overhead, his thoughts visibly drifting into the past.
“Are you sure he didn’t give it to your mom that day? Maybe she destroyed it.”
“Why destroy that, but keep the gun holster and the money?”
“Yeah, you’re right.” I sigh. “Well, he didn’t give it to me. Not unless he hid it in one of my toys, but that’d be stupid. I was six. Six-year-olds break and lose their toys all the time.”
“Right . . .” Several long beats pass. And then a whisper of “holy shit!” slips from him. Noah peers down at me, his eyes wide with realization. “I think I kno
w where it is.”
CHAPTER 50
Officer Abraham Wilkes
May 3, 2003
The duffel bag lands at Jackie’s feet with a thump.
She dusts the soil from her hands. “What is this?”
“The ninety-eight thousand bucks that Mantis stole. He broke into my car last night and left it in the backseat. I sat in a remote parking lot for the past hour, counting it, curious what that asshole was giving up in his attempt to buy me off. Did he come up with the idea? Or did you put him up to this?”
She looks down at it with new understanding, and sighs. “I’d never even bother suggesting it to him, Abe. I know you too well. But why on earth would you bring it here?”
“Because I’m not stupid enough to get caught with it. Here’s your chance to do the right thing.” I turn to leave.
“Wait!” She steps over the bag and moves closer to me. “Maybe it’s not a bad idea that you take it. Just think how much good you could do with it.”
“Have you lost your damn mind, woman?”
“All I’m saying is, this way Mantis isn’t richer for it, and that drug dealer goes to jail. Everyone wins. You could give it to charity. You always say you wished the department did that with the drug money seized.”
“Mantis is corrupt and he needs to be stopped.”
“Abe . . . let this go. Please.” She hesitates. “Canning will never let anything come of this.”
“How do you know that?” The careful look on her face answers me. “You’ve already gone to him about it.”
“Your career will be finished. Don’t throw it all away.”
Screw that. “Well, Canning won’t be able to stop this, because I have a video.”
Jackie’s face pales. “What? How?”
“Doesn’t matter how. All that matters is that I have Mantis stealing a bag of money from a bust and I’m going to make sure it’s put to good use.”
I leave Jackie in the garden, gaping at my back.
A sullen Noah trudges down the stairs, pieces of his trophy in each hand. “I knocked it off the shelf,” he mutters, and then pushes past me.
I quell my rage at Jackie for Noah’s sake. “Hold up. What are you doing?”
“Throwing it out. It’s trash now.”
“This is your first one!” I take the pieces from his hand. “No way are you throwing this out. We can fix this. Go on, get me the Krazy Glue. I think it’s in your mom’s junk drawer.”
He trots off to fetch the tube, while I study the pieces.
And note the hollow square base, about three inches in diameter.
CHAPTER 51
Noah
My hands are sweating as I wedge the end of a flat-head screwdriver into the base of the trophy. I tap the handle with a hammer, working away where the dried gobs of glue still exist. Gracie hovers over my shoulder, not saying a word.
After four tries, the base splits off.
I hold up the square case, showing a round disc inside, my heart pounding in my chest.
I can’t believe it’s been here all this time.
“A miniature DVD, maybe?” It’s about three inches in diameter. Grabbing my phone, I type in the code printed on the front to see what Google returns. “It’s for a camcorder.”
“My dad recorded the bust with a camcorder?”
“I guess so.” I hesitate. “We should call Klein.”
We both look at the disc in my hand and then at each other.
* * *
“It’s not working. I’m going to kill that—”
“Relax. It’s reading the disc.” The guy from the computer store promised this special adapter would work, and he seemed to know what he was talking about.
Gracie huffs from her spot in the desk chair, frantically drumming her fingers next to the mouse, as I hover over her.
The drive screen finally pops up. With a few quick clicks, the Lucky Nine motel appears.
“Oh my God. This is actually it!” she exclaims.
The sun has just set, and the last traces of pink and purple are on the verge of being eaten up by a night sky. Half of the green neon sign that Dina mentioned flickers in the top right of the screen, enough to identify the place for what it was if we hadn’t already been there.
The camera angle is low and the filming is steady, I note, as a car suddenly peels into the lot and parks. Not ten seconds later, an SUV races in and our suspects pile out. Neither of us utters a single word for the next few minutes, our eyes glued to the swirl of shouting orders and aimed guns on the screen as Canning’s drug hounds—Mantis at the helm—arrest the wiry man.
We both inhale sharply as a black duffel bag goes smoothly sailing into the passenger-side window of the police vehicle.
Gracie grins up at me. A bitter but victorious grin. Probably the same grin Dina saw on Abe’s face that night she walked into the office and caught him watching this video.
“Let’s replay it. See what else we can find.” I reset it to the beginning and we watch again. “Holy shit. Look there.” I tap on the white Cavalier parked across from where the bust is happening. Only the front half of it shows on the screen, but it’s enough. I recognize that car. And the lone figure in the driver’s seat.
My chest tightens. “That’s your dad.”
Gracie’s face pales slightly as she quietly studies her father. He’s sitting still, watching Mantis and the others. Her eyes don’t move from him the entire time, and when the video ends, she resets it to play again.
“Who’s he talking to? Who’s that man?” She jabs the computer screen. A wiry black man is standing next to Abe’s open window at the beginning, but he steps out of the frame quickly. She rewinds it three more times, trying to glean more. But the man never gives us his face.
“My dad’s in the video,” she says suddenly. “That means he wasn’t recording Mantis. Someone else was. Someone standing over here.” She taps the bottom of the screen, her brow pinched with thought.
“Not standing. Sitting,” I add. “This angle is too low for someone to be standing.” And too steady for someone to be holding the camera, I’m thinking.
“Wouldn’t Mantis have noticed someone taping them?”
“He didn’t notice Abe there,” I counter, but she’s right. I find it hard to believe the cops wouldn’t notice someone out in the open, pointing a camcorder at them.
“Unless the person recording this wasn’t out in the open.” She pauses the video and points to the edge of the screen on the left. “This is 116.” Realization fills her face. “I think I know where this video was taken from. Come on, we’ve got to go there.” She nearly knocks me over in her mad dash out of the chair.
“Hold up a sec.” I grab my phone and, resetting the video yet again, begin making a copy.
CHAPTER 52
Grace
“This place comes alive at night, doesn’t it . . .” Noah murmurs, his blue eyes rolling over the row of cars parked on either side of the lot. A few people linger outside—leaning against windowsills while puffing on cigarettes; pacing along the shadowy sidewalks, their phones pressed to their ear. From somewhere within, a television blares the news and raucous laughter carries, serving as an ill mask to the other, more carnal sounds that thin walls can’t keep in.
“I’m ready when you are.” I hit send on the text to Kristian, telling him to meet us here and why. I’m assuming that he’ll come and fast, once he watches the video Noah just forwarded to him.
“Hold on.” Noah reaches over, his sinewy arm sliding between my legs to find the gun box from beneath my seat. I watch quietly while he fits it into his ankle holster, adjusting his jeans to fit over the top. “With what’s been going on lately—”
“The hookers are scary, I get it.” I climb out of my seat with a smile, not feeling as brave as I let on, because I know that Noah’s not thinking about the blonde girl up ahead, in her skimpy black dress and her crimson lips. And I know he’s not too worried about the two guys down by the corn
er of buildings Two and Three, who are doing a terrible job of hiding the exchange of some weekend recreational drugs for money.
It’s the dirty cops who have gotten away with corruption and murder for fourteen years that have him strapping a gun to his body anytime we leave the house.
The ones who probably would have gotten away with it for the rest of their lives, had it not been for us.
I meet up with Noah at the front of his Cherokee. “How fast will Kristian get here, do you think?”
“Pretty damn fast.” He loops an arm around my waist and holds me close as we walk along the sidewalk of Building One, both our gazes on the exact spot where the drug bust went down.
And where my father watched.
He was barely a shadow in the camera, and yet my heart filled with longing all the same. So many years stolen from me, all because my father was a good man, driven to do the right thing.
I push that ache aside. “It had to be taken from over here.” I hold up my phone, the video open and paused, and keep going—past Room 116, which is dark inside and, I’m assuming, in no shape for rental after the FBI tore it apart—until I’ve found the exact angle, at the window of Room 201. “It was taken from here.”
Noah steps in beside me to survey the angle. “Lower . . .” He takes my phone and crouches down, until my phone very nearly sits on the windowsill. “Here. The camera had to be sitting on the sill. Maybe on the inside. That’s why it was so steady. That’s why Mantis didn’t notice it.”
“So, someone renting this room that night just happened to have a camcorder, and just happened to tape the bust?”
“Having a video camera in a place like this isn’t the surprising part.” Noah gives me a knowing look. “But you’re right, something doesn’t add up. How’d your dad get it?”
I stand. “Maybe whoever was renting here knew that my father was a—” I let out a yelp of surprise when I look up to find that same man from the other day standing in the window, his face inches away from the glass.