MURDER
WALK
Book 10 of the Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud Mystery Series
Melissa Bowersock
Copyright © 2018 by Melissa Bowersock
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in an online review or one printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.
First Printing
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover image by coversbydesign.net.
ISBN-13: 978-1986793544
ISBN-10: 1986793540
Books by Melissa Bowersock
The Appaloosa Connection
The Blue Crystal
Burning Through
Finding Travis
(No Time for Travis Series Book 1)
Being Travis
(No Time for Travis Series Book 2)
Fleischerhaus
Ghost Walk
(Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud
Mystery Book 1)
Skin Walk
(Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud
Mystery Book 2)
Star Walk
(Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud
Mystery Book 3)
Dream Walk
(Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud
Mystery Book 4)
Dragon Walk
(Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud
Mystery Book 5)
Demon Walk
(Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud
Mystery Book 6)
Soul Walk
(Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud
Mystery Book 7)
Blood Walk
(Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud
Mystery Book 8)
Castle Walk
(Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud
Mystery Book 9)
Murder Walk
(Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud
Mystery Book 10)
Goddess Rising
Lightning Strikes
Love’s Savage Armpit by Amber Flame
(Originally published as
The Pits of Passion)
The Man in the Black Hat
Marcia Gates: Angel of Bataan
Queen’s Gold
The Rare Breed
Remember Me
Sonnets for Heidi
Stone’s Ghost
Superstition Gold
MURDER
WALK
Melissa Bowersock
About the Author
Books by Melissa Bowersock
ONE
It was quiet that Sunday morning. Lacey got up early and made coffee, then sat sipping it over the LA Times by herself. Sam’s kids, Daniel and Kenzie, took after their dad and slept in whenever they could. They’d all stayed up late, watching the latest super-hero movie, so she let them sleep.
Not much of interest in the paper. Her eyes jumped from headline to headline, but nothing piqued her interest enough to impel her to read the entire article. Politics, wars, fires, mudslides. It was sad, but the daily dose of disaster had a numbing effect. It all seemed kind of surreal after the isolation of their week in Ireland.
But then a name jumped out at her: Thomas Star King Middle School. Daniel’s school. A shooting. She bent to read the short article.
At 2:42p.m. Saturday, police received a report of a gunshot victim found on the grounds of Thomas Star King Middle School by a maintenance worker. The young man has not been identified, but was pronounced dead at the scene. There are no suspects at the present time. The investigation is ongoing.
Saddened by the death of such a young man—Daniel was fourteen, but most of the students at the school were younger—she wondered what could have precipitated such a shooting. Drug deal gone bad? Gang warfare? It was insane that young teens were vulnerable to such adult peril.
“Lacey?”
She turned at the soft, sleepy voice. Ten-year-old Kenzie stood in the kitchen doorway, yawning and stretching.
“Hi, sweetie,” Lacey said. She put the paper down and motioned to Kenzie to join her. The girl willingly went into Lacey’s arms and returned her hug.
“What are you doing?” Kenzie asked.
“Just reading the paper. I didn’t want to make any noise and wake you guys up.”
“Oh. Can I watch cartoons?”
“Sure,” Lacey said. “Just turn the volume way down, okay? Let the guys sleep.”
“Okay.” Still yawning, Kenzie left Lacey to her paper.
It was fun having the kids around on weekends. It gave both her and Sam a good excuse to kick back and relax, do some fun things. She’d never put much thought into being a mother; she was too career-oriented to consider full-time parenthood, but this part-time arrangement worked well. Luckily the kids seemed to think so, too.
Although lately Daniel had been a bit more distant. More inclined to tap at his cell phone than enter into conversation with the rest of the family. Lacey feared they were entering that phase when he would much rather spend time with friends than parents, and was developing more and more contempt for adults. It was an awkward time. But Daniel was on the journey from child to young adult, and all such transitions were difficult.
She went back to the newspaper and read the article over again.
Too young, she thought. Way too young.
Twenty minutes later, Sam came in. Dressed only in sweat pants, he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“What’s Kenzie doing sleeping on the floor?”
Lacey chuckled. “She said she wanted to watch cartoons. I’ll bet that lasted about two minutes.”
“Probably.” Sam sat down at the table and glanced at the front page of the paper.
Lacey stared over the rim of her cup at her husband. Sometimes it was still hard to believe how far they had come. The Navajo was so stoic, so quiet, yet somewhere along the line, she had unlocked the silent exterior to the loving, caring man underneath. The gorgeous man who sat across from her, warm brown skin glowing, blue-black hair pulled back in a ponytail. Dark eyes staring back at her.
“What?” he grumbled.
She laughed into her coffee cup. “Nothing. What sounds good for breakfast?”
He yawned. “I’ll make pancakes. We’ll give Daniel a few more minutes. Anything interesting in the paper?”
“Actually, yes,” she said. “Here.” She folded the section back to reveal the article about the shooting and handed it to Sam.
His face was impassive as he read, those dark eyes skimming the lines of text. But as he tossed the paper aside, she saw his jaw tighten.
“I wonder if it’s someone Daniel knew,” she mused. “I hope not.”
“Yeah, me, too. Although just having any kid at the school get shot will be shock enough.”
“I know. At this age, they shouldn’t have to come to grips with such tragic vulnerability. Heck, Daniel already did that two years ago.”
Sam scrubbed his face with a weary hand. “Gosh, I’d forgotten about that.”
Lacey hadn’t. Not the panic she felt when she’d heard of a shooting at Daniel’s school, nor the abject fear when his name was mentioned as a victim. Luckily he’d only been shot in the hand trying to forestall the shooter.
“Well,” Lacey said, “we’ll just have to see what the news has later today.” She took her coffee cup to the sink and rinsed it. “I think I’ll cook some bacon. The smell should get him out of bed.”
It did. He came dragging into the kitchen bleary-eyed and yawning, his black hair d
own over his eyes. Lacey had laid a plateful of bacon at the table and Sam was flipping pancakes. Daniel took his place across from his sister, his cell phone in one hand, a rasher of bacon in the other.
“No phones at the table,” Sam reminded him.
Groaning at the unfairness of it all, he leaned to the side to set his phone on the counter.
“How many pancakes do you want?” Lacey asked. She put plates around at all four seats and got out the syrup.
“Uh, just four,” Daniel said.
“Kenzie?”
“Three, please,” the girl said.
“Did you see anything in the ads for a studio?” Sam asked Lacey as he served up pancakes hot from the griddle.
“Not much,” she said. “I think there was one new one, a small place in Los Feliz. You’ll have to take a look.”
Their quest to find a pottery studio for Sam’s new venture had not been promising. The places they’d looked at so far had either been rundown rat holes or ridiculously expensive. People’s conceptions of “artist’s studio” were wildly divergent.
“Would you make something for me?” Kenzie asked.
“Sure,” Sam said. “What do you want? A pot, a bowl, a vase?”
“Mmm, a bowl, I think. So I can keep stuff in it.”
Sam nodded. “You got it.”
Daniel seemed patently disinterested. He tore through his pancakes in a hurry, glancing at his phone that chimed notifications regularly. He snagged two more pieces of bacon and washed them down with orange juice. Just as he lifted from his chair to take his dishes to the sink, Sam stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Whoa up,” he said. “There was something in the paper you need to see.”
Scowling, Daniel plopped back in his chair. “What?” he asked impatiently.
Sam dug through the loose stack of newspaper sections, finally found the one that was folded inside out. “Here,” he said. He tapped the article.
Daniel took the paper and read. His expression changed from bored disinterest to shock, his body straightening up as he read.
Finally he raised his eyes to Sam. “Do you know who it is?” he asked.
Sam shook his head. “All we know is what’s there.”
Daniel tossed down the paper and grabbed his phone just as it dinged again. He unlocked it and scrolled through several messages.
“Holy cow,” he said, his eyes glued to the screen. “It’s Jason Perez.”
Sam frowned. “Your buddy Jason?”
Daniel nodded distractedly, still scanning messages. “He was found at one side of the quad. Shot twice.”
Lacey leaned over and put her arm around Daniel’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Daniel.”
The boy looked up then, his eyes full of disbelief. He stared at Lacey, and she thought she could see confusion there. Why was she sorry? Then, a comprehension dawned, Daniel’s mouth thinned and his eyes turned hard.
Lacey rubbed his back. “I’m really sorry.”
“I-I gotta go,” he said. He gathered up his dishes, took them to the sink and left the kitchen, already speed-dialing someone.
Sam and Lacey let him go.
“But Jason was nice,” Kenzie said, her brows knitted with puzzlement. “Why would anyone shoot him?”
“I don’t know, honey.” Lacey put a hand gently on the girl’s dark head. “We just don’t know.”
The other three finished their breakfast in thoughtful silence, Lacey and Sam knowing the details would leak out over the course of the day, and Kenzie following their lead. They could hear Daniel’s muted voice from his bedroom.
Lacey did the dishes and tried to distract Kenzie.
“Do you have any homework you need to finish before tomorrow?”
Kenzie shook her head. “We’ve only got two more weeks of school. We’ve got tests, but no homework.”
“Oh, yeah. Tests. Anything you need to study for?”
Kenzie shrugged, an attitude of carelessness she’d picked up from Daniel. “No. I got it.”
“Okay, good.” Lacey knew Kenzie was smart and a good student. She generally brought home As and Bs on her report cards, so if she said she had it covered, Lacey believed her.
When the dishes were done, they joined Sam in the living room. He was on his own phone, checking the news.
“Anything new?” Lacey asked.
He shook his head.
“Has Daniel come out?”
“No.”
Lacey sat on the couch and patted the cushion beside her for Kenzie. The girl sat, and Lacey put an arm around her.
“We’ll have to be a little careful with Daniel for a while,” she said. “I’m afraid this is going to be hard on him.”
Kenzie raised troubled eyes to her.
“Jason was his best friend, wasn’t he?” Kenzie nodded. “Just imagine if you knew you’d never see Emily again. That’d be pretty tough, don’t you think?”
Kenzie’s eyes widened, signaling her comprehension.
“Just cut him a little slack for awhile,” Lacey finished.
The door to Daniel’s room jerked open, and Daniel came out, waving his cell phone.
“Dad, can I go home? Tori’s really upset.”
Sam didn’t hesitate. “Sure.” He looked down at Kenzie. “Let’s go back to Mom’s and see what’s going on there.”
They were quiet in the car, although Lacey could hear the thin tones of Daniel’s phone as he received and sent texts. Daniel had only used the title of girlfriend for Tori Fraser in the last few weeks, so Lacey knew their embryonic relationship was fragile. She imagined his entire group of close friends—maybe four or five of them—were frantically passing information back and forth across the airwaves. Trying desperately to make sense of this tragedy. It was hard enough sometimes for an adult to come to grips with sudden death, but for a teenager, it had to feel overwhelming.
At Christine’s, Sam’s ex, the kids barged through the front door of the apartment, while Sam and Lacey followed more slowly.
“Mom!” Daniel called. “Did you hear? Mom?”
Christine came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. “Yes, we heard. It’s awful. Hi, Sam. Hi, Lacey.”
Daniel dashed down the hall to toss his overnight duffle onto his bed, then jogged back out. “I’m going to Tori’s, Mom. Be back later.”
And he was gone.
Lacey waved to the vibrating front door. “Bye.”
Christine sighed. “You guys want some coffee? We’ve still got some.”
“Sure,” Sam said. Lacey nodded. Christine disappeared into the kitchen and Sam and Lacey took seats in the living room. Just then Ed LaRosa, Christine’s husband, emerged from the back of the house.
“Tough news, huh?” he asked, crossing to Sam and Lacey. He took a chair opposite them and sank down.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I think Daniel’s running on pure adrenaline right now.”
“Kids should never have to deal with stuff like this,” Christine said, bringing in two cups of coffee. “It was bad enough before, but no one died.”
“Thanks,” Lacey said, taking a cup. She nodded as she sipped. “Yeah. Teenagers facing their own mortality just feels wrong. Too much, too soon.”
Christine took a seat and Kenzie sat on the padded arm of the chair and leaned into her mom. Christine put an arm around her.
“Do they have a suspect yet?” Sam asked. “We didn’t have the radio on in the car.”
“I don’t think so,” Christine said. She shook her head. “There’s a half a dozen shootings every day, it seems like. I don’t know how quickly the LAPD can gather evidence when they’re spread so thin.” Her eyes strayed to Lacey.
“They’ll work as quickly as they can,” Lacey said, “as quickly as possible without rushing and maybe missing something.” She checked her watch. Almost noon. “I’ve thought of calling some of my friends there, but it’s better to just let them work it. They’ll feed their findings to the press as they can.”<
br />
Christine nodded, understanding not alleviating the sadness.
“Have you reached out to Jason’s parents?” Sam asked quietly.
“No,” Christine sighed. “I’d like to, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t be the right time.”
“Do you know them well?” Lacey asked.
Christine shook her head. “I’ve spoken to them a dozen times, traded carpool duty. You know, one parent would take the kids to a movie and another would pick them up, that sort of thing. Nothing in depth.”
“Do they have a counselor at the school?” Lacey asked.
“No, just a nurse. But I’m guessing they’ll bring one in for this. They did after the shooting two years ago.”
“Good.” It was Lacey’s turn to sigh. “This is just going to take time. There are no shortcuts to dealing with grief.”
And nothing more to say. The adults all stared at each other or scanned the room. Kenzie fidgeted nervously, but didn’t leave her mom’s side.
“Well,” Sam said, “I guess there’s nothing else we can do right now.” He looked to Lacey. “Why don’t we go?”
“Sure,” Lacey said. “Let these folks get on with their day.”
Sam rose to his feet and pulled out his car keys, but turned to Kenzie.
“Honey, what do you want to do? Want to come with us or stay here?”
Kenzie looked unsure, her eyes darting between her father and her mother. “I… Can I stay here?”
“Of course,” Sam said. “Keep an eye on your brother for me, okay?” He gave her a hug and a kiss, and stepped aside so Lacey could say goodbye.
“Bye, honey,” she said, giving Kenzie a squeeze. “We love you.”
“I love you, too,” Kenzie said, but her voice trembled.
Lacey tapped the tip of her nose. “It’ll be okay,” she said. “Not today maybe, but in time.”
~~~
TWO
Monday morning after breakfast, Lacey fired up her laptop and checked through her emails. That week in Ireland had put her behind in her routine PI work, the ever-present background checks. She’d need to hunker down today and get as many done as she could.
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