by CJ Lyons
Still, old habits forged like chains dragged me to the door. I opened it. Not Jimmy. Eugene Littleton. Before I could react, he lashed out with a punch to my face that snapped my head back and sent me reeling.
Stunned, I barely registered the sound of the door slamming shut. And then he was on me.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was exactly Manny Cruz’s style to live in a mansion on Millionaire’s Row, Ryder thought as he approached the address across the street from Kingston Park. You had to look like a winner to play a winner, he could almost hear Manny saying. He passed through the gate in the wrought-iron fence surrounding the three-story, colonial-style brick building, dialing Manny’s number one more time. No answer.
Of course, the ADA couldn’t afford a mansion. Ryder doubted he could afford the ground-floor condo, one of six that the former home of a steel baron had been converted into. No, the only actual millionaire still living on Cambria City’s Millionaire’s Row was Daniel Kingston. If you could call lying in a permanent vegetative state living.
Ryder surveyed Manny’s building. The eight-foot-tall wrought-iron fence was more for looks than actual security. Not to mention the equally tall evergreens that stood just inside it. Clearly the landscaper had no knowledge of how to properly secure a perimeter. To make things worse, there was another row of evergreen shrubs directly in front of the house. A privacy hedge the landscaper would have called it, ready to provide concealment for any thief who happened by.
No lights on at this late hour except for Manny’s front room, which glowed stark white through the gaps in the bay window’s blinds. A man’s form was silhouetted against them. From this distance, Ryder couldn’t tell who it was.
He eased through the gate. Instead of following the sidewalk to the front door, he crossed the lawn to peer inside the window, concealing himself in the second row of evergreens. The blinds were open just enough for him to see Manny, face flushed, arms gesturing. Talking to whom? He sidled around to the opposite side of the wide bay window, weaving between hemlock boughs, until he found a better angle.
Devon Price. Damn it. Manny stepped forward, and for the first time, Ryder could see his right hand. Holding a semiautomatic. Price’s hands were empty, held in the universal posture of surrender.
Ryder called for backup as he headed for the front door. It was designed to be accessed by a tenant’s private code on a keypad. He leaned on all the buttons except Manny’s until someone finally clicked the door open. He pushed into the foyer and turned right to the door leading to Manny’s condo. It was ajar.
Usually, he would have waited for backup. But he knew both men inside. Honestly, it wasn’t Price he was worried about, despite the fact that Ryder was certain he was carrying—the man defined cool under pressure. It was hothead Manny who was most likely to escalate the situation.
Ryder drew his weapon. The door swung open silently. He didn’t go through it. Instead, he angled his body to see into the room and take aim. “Manny, it’s Ryder. I’ve got backup on the way. Put the gun down and let me handle Price.”
“What the hell?” Manny shouted, his voice pitched higher than usual. “First, this thug comes knocking, accusing me of throwing a trial, and now I have police barging in? Why can’t you people just leave me the fuck alone?”
“Happy to oblige,” Price said. “I’ll just be leaving now. Sorry for the intrusion.” He was playing it smart, not inflaming the situation.
“Want me to arrest him, Manny?” Ryder asked, also trying to placate the distraught ADA. “Put down the gun, and I’ll come in. You tell me how you want him charged.”
Manny bounced on his heels, his aim jerking from Price to Ryder and back. “I’ve got a right to protect myself in my own home. You know that, Ryder.”
“Sure I do, Manny. But I can’t come in and arrest Price until you put down the gun. Help me out here, one professional to another.”
Ryder edged into the doorway, just enough to make eye contact with Manny.
“Right there on the table beside you would be fine, Manny. Put the gun down, and you can back up into the other room where you’ll be safe. I’ll take it from there, and then you can tell me what charges you want to press.”
Manny nodded, his chin jerking one way then the other, jaw tight with adrenaline. Courtroom drama was one thing, but there Manny was in control. Here, with loaded weapons involved, it was a whole different story. Ryder kept a tight leash on Manny’s gaze, nodding in time with him, his head gradually slowing. Manny mirrored him.
With his free hand, Ryder pantomimed placing the gun down. Manny followed suit. The semiautomatic clattered against the glass-topped table. Manny jumped back at the sound, ending up directly in front of the bay window.
Ryder shifted his attention to Price. “Join me out here. Slowly.”
Price complied, backing up at an angle that wouldn’t put him between Ryder and Manny, not crossing Ryder’s line of fire.
“You’re going away now, Price,” Manny shouted, his voice still jumping with adrenaline. “Big mistake, threatening me, you asshole!”
The last was punctuated by the sound of glass breaking, followed by two more loud pops. Not the crack of a rifle. More the bass boom of a large-caliber revolver. Ryder shifted his attention to the origin of the gunshots: the window. From the corner of his eye, he saw Price draw his own weapon.
Manny staggered, a confused frown crossing his face as he patted his chest. His hand came away bloody. He held it out to Ryder, seeming to search for an explanation, when one more shot sounded, and his right eyeball exploded in a fountain of pink mist.
In the slow motion rush that came with a firefight, Ryder was already pivoting, lunging to pull Manny down, out of the line of fire, as Price ran out the door behind them. Ryder rolled Manny’s body against the wall beneath the window—the closest cover—and cautiously edged his gaze over the windowsill, taking aim. No sign of the shooter.
The hemlocks rustled as if someone had pushed through them, but no one moved in the shadows of the front yard or beyond the fence. Price appeared, sprinting down the porch steps. Damn fool was a sitting duck. Ryder covered him as best he could without making himself a target.
From the distance came the sound of a car screeching away. Across the park. Shooter was smart and knew the area—you could use the park roads to gain access to half a dozen major streets.
Price reached the gate and turned to look up and then down the street, peered into the trees of the park on the other side of the street, then walked back, shrugging at Ryder as he holstered his pistol.
“Nothing,” Price said through the broken window. Ryder noticed that he stayed clear of the area where the shooter had stood. “They’re gone. Probably through the park.”
No shit, Sherlock. Which meant they could have gone anywhere. Sirens sounded down the block.
“Get back inside. You’ve got some explaining to do.”
Price glanced over his shoulder at the gate and freedom beyond.
“Don’t make me hunt you down, Price. You know I will.”
Price’s smile was as fake as Manny’s now-ruined knock-off designer suit. “No problem, detective. Happy to do my civic duty.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Pain spiked through my cheek from where Littleton punched me. We landed on the floor in front of the couch.
“You bitch! You wanted to see what the Brotherhood can do?” Spittle sprayed on my face. “Now’s your chance.”
I’d taken plenty of self-defense classes at the Advocacy Center, had learned some dirty street-fighting tricks from guys I knew, but they weren’t what saved me at that moment. Instead, it was my experience growing up with my older, larger, bully-wannabe male cousins. I had one chance. If Littleton landed a few more punches like his first, I’d be finished.
As he reared over me, fists raised, I shot my hand into his groin, squeezed, and twisted as hard as I could. I felt soft tissue yield through the fabric of his pants and closed my fingers, dig
ging in. He bellowed in pain, pushing off of me, reeling back, both hands shielding his crotch.
I scuttled away and got to my feet. He was between me and the door. No escape. I glanced at the open door to the bathroom; no, there was no window and no room to fight in there. Instead, I moved into the kitchen, placing the island between me and him.
“Get out!” I shouted.
Jimmy was gone for the night, so there was no one to hear me if I screamed for help. Phone. Where was my phone? On the table near the sofa, too far away.
Littleton staggered to his feet, shaking his head, his eyes wide with rage. “I’m going to kill you.”
Music filled me, ominous bass notes of a church organ. Echoes of color shimmered around him as he seemed to move in slow motion. A fugue coming on. Once it hit, I’d be frozen, helpless. Littleton and his partners could do anything they wanted to me.
Tymara’s body filled my vision. No. I brushed against the refrigerator, freeing two pictures of Tahiti. They floated to the floor, gold and crimson and aquamarine ribbons of light trailing behind them.
Littleton lumbered toward me, coming around the opposite end of the island, hands down at his waist, a knife in his right one. I grabbed the closest thing at hand—the glass blender container filled with soap and water—and launched it at his head.
Caught between the island and the kitchen counter, he had no room to duck. It hit his head and sprayed soapy water over his face before landing with a crash on the floor, shattering. He raised his empty hand to clear his eyes, but I didn’t give him a chance.
I grabbed the top plate from the stack in the dish rack and heaved it like a discus, aiming for his arm with the knife. The heavy ceramic plate caught his wrist. He twisted, coming up against the island and leaving the side of his head exposed.
I hurled plate after plate, edge-on, hard. The blows sent him staggering back, into the puddle of water and broken glass left by the blender. He slipped, feet going out from under him, hands flailing, head cracking first the countertop and then the floor.
The sounds echoed like tympani in my brain as colors whirled around us. He was out cold, but wouldn’t be for long. I grabbed on to the nearest solid object, the refrigerator, not sure if I could make it to the apartment door before the fugue overtook me. My weight bumped the refrigerator door open, its momentum carrying me back against the opposite counter. My hand grazed the drawer pull, and the drawer spilled open. The roll of duct tape on top of the other clutter sparked silver in my vision.
Suddenly, I had a plan—and it wasn’t of escape, running for help, watching the justice system fail once more while lawyers like Gena Kravitz set men like Littleton free.
I knew how to get justice for Tymara and Jacob. Devon had been right all along.
My hand closed around the duct tape. My vision cleared for a moment, as if even the prions polluting my brain agreed with my insane idea.
Avoiding the broken glass that now littered my kitchen floor, I lurched forward and fell to my knees beside Littleton. He’d dropped his knife. I grabbed it. It felt so natural in my hand, as if this was meant to be.
Using the knife to cut strips off the roll, I wrapped duct tape around his wrists then wrapped more around his ankles. He moaned as I finished and stood, leaning my weight against the island, looking down on my work.
“What the fuck?” His voice was filled with incredulity and rage.
Ignoring Littleton as he writhed and struggled on the floor, I looked over at my dining table with its assortment of pills. The PXA bottle glowed as if surrounded by an angel’s halo.
Shambling along the island, I headed for the table. It could have been miles away or inches—my vision was so warped I couldn’t tell. As I lunged across the open space at the end of the island, I stepped on one of the fallen pictures of Tahiti.
“What the hell are you doing?” His voice held a definite quaver.
I hit the table and reached for the PXA. Could I really do this? Drug him, force my way into his brain, take what I wanted, and leave again?
“Your so-called brothers. Who are they?” I was surprised by how steady my voice was.
Rape. It would be mental rape. An absolute betrayal of everything I’d ever believed in. Of Jacob’s belief in me. Of Ryder’s fight for law and order.
I opened the bottle, my hands no longer shaking, counted out enough PXA to knock Littleton out for a good long Death Head trip, about ten to twelve hours. It wouldn’t kill him.
As if that made what I was about to do okay.
“What did you tell yourself after you left Tymara alive?” I asked as I returned to crouch beside Littleton. Waves of purple and black poured off of him, a tribal drumbeat of color and sound filling my body as the fugue began to take over. “That what you did to her wasn’t so bad because you didn’t actually kill her?”
The knife blade danced across his lips. It was almost as if it wasn’t my hand controlling it. Almost.
I lowered the blade. His eyes met mine. No more pretending, his fury and hatred were clear.
“Biggest mistake I ever made. I could have swore that bitch was dead. Didn’t know she wasn’t until the cops came to arrest me.” He spat the words at me, then opened his mouth for a final epithet. “Fucking—”
I shoved the PXA down his throat, holding my hand over his mouth and nose until I was certain he’d swallowed it. The knife blade pointed at his eye was enough to keep him still.
“Relax,” I told him. “You and I are going on a little trip.”
I lowered the knife. He thumped his feet against the floor and tried to squirm away from me. I held his arm in a tight grip.
“You’re going to tell me the truth. You’re going to tell me everything.”
“I ain’t telling you nothing, bitch.” His words were already slurring. The PXA was pharmaceutical-grade, the gel caps designed for rapid onset.
Damn. I’d forgotten. When I’d overcome Leo’s defenses to force my way into his mind, I’d also been dosed with PXA. I glanced across the kitchen to the dining room table where the rest of the pills were. The floor between here and there roiled as if the century-old pine floorboards had returned to life, bucking and churning against their imprisonment, their iron nails dancing.
Littleton slumped, eyes rolled back into his head as the PXA took control. I closed my hand tight on his, willing the fugue to release its power. But now that I’d set it free, it seemed reluctant to pounce.
“Come on, damn it!” I shouted to the heavens. “What the hell good is dying if I can’t do some good before I go?” I hurled my question out into the night beyond the windows on the other side of the apartment. Each syllable crashed against the glass, shattering into infinity with a cascade of brilliant gold sparks.
My energy depleted, last remnants of adrenaline vaporized, I collapsed against Littleton. The knife clattered to the floor. As the fugue overtook me, roaring through me with the strength of a tsunami crashing down, my last words were “I’m sorry.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
As Devon and Ryder were separated, taken down to the police station, and questioned by a revolving team of detectives, Devon remembered why he avoided police. Nothing to do with his occasional skirting of the law or a fear of being arrested. Everything to do with how damn boring and predictable they were.
Hanging out with Angela and Ryder, he’d almost forgotten that. But now, with one of their own law enforcement family assassinated, they were determined to thrash through every detail as if Devon could miraculously grow X-ray vision and tell them who their shooter was.
Too bad it hadn’t been Angela who’d witnessed Manny’s murder. When she was in one of her fugue spells, she could dissect an event microsecond by microsecond, ferreting out every nanobyte of information her senses had absorbed, no matter how deep it was buried. If she’d been there, standing where he had, maybe she could have seen past Manny, through the slits in the blinds, and identified the shooter.
All Devon had seen was the muzzle
flash. No help there. Which he told the cops repeatedly as they tag-teamed him for the next few hours.
He wasn’t charged with anything. There was nothing to charge him with. He hadn’t hurt Manny, and Devon’s gun was legal and properly registered. It was Manny who’d held him at gunpoint. All Devon had done was knock on Manny’s door and strongly insist that the prosecutor give him the truth.
As he repeated the same answers to the same questions, Devon wondered about that. Manny had been highly excitable to start with, but to react so violently to Devon’s suggestion that he might know the identities of Eugene’s partners suggested that maybe Eugene Littleton was not lying. Devon would never trust Eugene to tell the full truth, and Manny definitely had been involved in something less than kosher. But mass murder, rape, torture?
What didn’t fit, and bothered Devon the most, was the implication that Manny had purposely thrown the case against Eugene. Devon just couldn’t see that happening. Prosecutors like Manny lived and died by their conviction rate, and Manny had been especially competitive. If Manny was involved, he would have found a way to silence Eugene without letting him walk free from a trial Manny was working.
Angela was right: Killing Eugene would have been so much easier. Less mess, less risk.
“And you arrived at what time?” the current detective asked for the fourth time, sounding as bored as Devon was.
Devon’s phone rang. He glanced at it, ignoring the detective’s irritation. Flynn. “Where’ve you been? Why didn’t you call me back?” he answered, not caring that the detective shamelessly listened.
“I did. We just got here,” she replied, no sign of annoyance at his clipped tone. Typical Flynn. She cared even less about social niceties than Devon did.
