Spree

by Michael Morley

  Angie got salad from the fridge and made herbal tea. Her phone was off and it was staying that way. If she turned it back on there’d be a message from him, she’d call back and then he’d come round and the notes wouldn’t be written. Or they’d argue again.

  The phone stayed off and she settled with a mix of greens and chamomile and for the next hour wrote up a preliminary profile. It was good but not quite right. She decided to review it first thing in the morning, when her head was clear of emotional junk and she could see it in a fresh light.

  Just before midnight, she poured herself a glass of water, found a soppy historical romance book on the rack beneath the coffee table and headed to the bedroom. She hoped she’d be asleep within a chapter or two.

  She took off her makeup and tried not to think of the killer. Brushed her teeth and tried not to think of her argument with Jake or how much she wanted to call him. She slipped into black pajamas and tried not to think what she’d look like when she gained all that extra baby weight.

  The bed felt cool and soft. The pillow was plump and comforting and the book so wonderfully and ridiculously romantic that she was dozing within three kisses and an unbuttoning of a corset.

  She felt good now.

  In the morning, she’d call her idiot fiancé and everything would be all right.

  37

  SKU Offices, LA

  It was past midnight when Jake finally walked Connor Pryce through reception. To his horror, a hardened media crew was still camped out on Wilshire Boulevard.

  The peaceful dark of night was suddenly broken by the blinding white of TV lights.

  Jake shielded his eyes and went back inside. Pryce no doubt loved the attention but he hated it. They’d trailed him in Danielle’s car all the way from the LAPD HQ, but that was hours ago and he’d presumed they’d gone.

  He spent another fifty minutes at his desk, writing follow-up notes for the morning and sending briefing notes to Crawford Dixon. He didn’t want his boss to be behind the curve. Pryce had already tipped Rawlings that there was a possible name to put in the frame, so there were bound to be frantic conversations down the FBI and LAPD corridors of power first thing in the morning.

  Aaron Bolt featured large in everything Jake wrote.

  It was good to finish the day with a suspect. Especially one so strongly linked to a previous killing. One where ballistic evidence tied “his” gun to the mall murders. An added bonus was the photo of Bolt in clothes virtually identical to the ones the UNSUB had been pictured in on the CCTV footage. Jake stared at Bolt’s picture one last time. He and the UNSUB could easily be the same person. Photographs always looked slightly different from the real thing.

  Jake shut down his computer and headed to the garage where his old Lancer was kept. He fired it up. Enjoyed hearing the throaty engine echo through the empty parking bays. He got the old girl moving and swung past the front of the building where, to his relief, he saw that the press had gone. It was good to know that even they went home sometimes.

  Jake turned the radio on but made sure it played music, not news. He’d had enough news to last a lifetime. Alanis Morissette sang about God and love and what you might ask the Holy Father if you had just one question. She was one of Angie’s favorites and it made him think of her, made him want to ring his wife-to-be and share the big news of the breakthrough with her. More than anything, it made him pledge to himself that from now on, there’d be no secrets between them. Not even if the president himself told him not to say anything.

  He drove with the window down to catch some air. The Marines had made him hate desk life. He longed for real light, not nicotine-yellow artificial crap. He craved real air full of pine and grass, not the warmed-sock stink that was piped from office to office. And openness. He yearned for plenty of space above him as well as out front, to the side and behind him.

  There were only a few cars on the road and the drive went quickly. He parked outside his condo at Mar Vista, a stone’s throw from Santa Monica airport and barely four miles from work. Maybe he’d persuade Angie to make a marital home down at Westchester, or if they found a little more money, farther west at Marina del Rey, with a view of the water and an old boat to take out on the weekends.

  He slid up the window, killed the ignition and stepped out onto the empty sidewalk. It felt good to be the only one up and about. The road was so quiet he could hear his footsteps. The sky clear and black and endless. Stars sparkled as if they’d been chipped from a diamond and sprinkled on black velvet.

  He caught rose scent as he walked the borders to the front of his apartment block. A couple of lights burned in neighbors’ homes. Some distant traffic hummed. A car door clacked behind him.

  He turned.

  The fucking press.

  He couldn’t believe it. A camera light blinded him.

  “Hey, buddy, enough’s enough.” Jake stepped forward. “Please turn that thing off before I do it for you.”

  The light bobbed. Grew brighter, if anything.

  Okay. He’d asked nicely. Now Jake was going to stuff that light where its beam wouldn’t shine.

  A sharp, hot pain erupted in his right thigh.

  Then his stomach.

  And his chest.

  Jake dropped to his knees.

  He knew what had happened. Knew it before he heard the sound. Before he smelled the acrid smoke from the automatic weapon. Before the light dipped and a voice said, “Dead or alive, Mr. Grunt? I choose dead.”

  Another burst of gunfire tore holes in the silence of the night.

  This time, there was no Kevlar to protect him. All Jake Mottram saw was blackness.

  Part 4

  Broken

  1

  Douglas Park, Santa Monica

  Angie woke with a fright.

  She’d been in the deepest of sleeps. Floating in a black tank of restful, restorative peace.

  Then came the noise.

  A thump.

  A bang.

  Heavy hands hitting her door.

  “Angie.”

  The voice was muffled.

  She looked at the red lights on the bedside clock.

  03:05.

  “Christ alive, I’m coming.” She was going to kill Jake for this. She’d asked him to give her tonight on her own to finish her work. No doubt he’d finished late himself, got drunk and decided to push his luck.

  She clicked on a light and squinted in the painful glare as she padded barefoot across the boards.

  Before slipping the chain, she widened a bleary eye and tried to focus through the peephole.

  Ruis?

  Not Jake?

  The SKU man was standing to one side of the hall, staring at his shoes.

  Angie knew the look.

  Her heart hammered as she fumbled with the chain. Lumps filled her throat by the time she cracked it open.

  Ruis’s face spoke volumes.

  Her legs turned to jelly.

  “Jake’s been shot.” He took her by the shoulders before she fell. Slowly backed her into the room. An SKU short wave radio crackled on his hip. Her world was full of static.

  “It’s bad, Angie. Multiple wounds and they don’t think he’s gonna make it.”

  “Oh my God.” Her eyes stung with tears.

  Ruis held her. “You need to get dressed and hurry—if you want to see him.”

  She bit her lip. Chewed so hard she drew blood. It was something she hadn’t done since childhood. Something she hadn’t needed to do since she laid out the man who’d beaten her mother and abused her.

  The blood in her mouth gave her strength. Physical pain always masked mental pain.

  She rushed to the bedroom and stripped. “He’ll be all right,” she shouted to Ruis. “Then I’m going to kick his ass for scaring me like this.” She pulled on gray track pants, a matching hoodie and a pair of sneakers she’d meant to put in the washing machine.

  In less than sixty seconds Angie had her keys and had banged the door shut behin
d her.

  2

  “Hey!”

  The shout stopped Shooter in his tracks.

  “Where have you been?”

  The question came from Januk, the big Polack supervisor. It seemed to those who worked for him that the only sentences he ever formed were questions.

  Shooter was out in the parking lot. Walking away from the door of a work van that he’d just slapped shut. There was no point denying he’d used the vehicle. The keys were dangling from one hand, a sports bag from the other.

  He was going to have to lie about the reason for breaking a basic company rule.

  “I had an errand to run.”

  “On company time? You think I pay you to run errands?”

  “I’ll work my break.”

  “Why you do errands in a company vehicle, using company gas?”

  Shooter dipped into his overalls and pulled out a scrunched-up twenty. “Look, I’ll pay for it. It was an emergency.”

  Januk slapped the money out of his hand. “This emergency—did it have big tits and a wet pussy?”

  “No.”

  “What you take me for?” He walked up to Shooter’s face. “You think because you play the hero one day, you can play the cunt the next?”

  Shooter wiped spittle from his cheek. “No, I don’t. It was an emergency. My mother’s alarm had gone off and she was frightened.” He got out his cellphone. “You want me to call her so she can tell you what happened?”

  Januk stared at him. He could see the lie in his eyes. “This once I forget what happened. Just this time.” He kicked the sports bag. Noticed his foot hit something heavy. “What’s in that?”

  Shooter froze.

  “Show me.”

  That was something that couldn’t happen. It contained the gun he’d shot the Fed with and the camera and recorder he’d filmed it on.

  “It’s personal.”

  “Then don’t bring to work.” He reached out to snatch the bag.

  Shooter swung it away.

  “Show me.”

  Shooter stepped back and threw him the van keys. “I quit.” He turned and walked.

  “You quit, you don’t get paid.”

  He kept walking but slid the zipper back on the bag. Januk was crazy. If the big douche bag came rushing him, he’d have to shoot the fuck. Part of him wanted it to happen. To see the look on his big moon face as he opened up on him.

  “Wait!”

  The voice was where he’d left it.

  Shooter turned.

  Januk scratched stubble on his cheek. “I owe you one. Take your bag of secrets and get back to work. I can’t afford to be a man down.”

  Shooter nodded his compliance and Januk threw the keys back. The pitch was short and they fell in the dark. Steel glinted in a pool of security light on the blacktop. The young man bent and picked them up but not for one second did his eyes stray from his supervisor.

  Januk watched him with disdain and then disappeared inside.

  Shooter counted twenty before he followed. Without hesitation he went straight to his metal locker and stuffed the bag in there. It was a sports bag but nothing like the one he’d used in the mall. He was a long way from being that stupid. He banged the dented and scratched door several times to make sure it was shut and then he walked away. There was half a shift left to work. That was a long time to stay away from Januk and all the dangers he represented.

  3

  UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica

  Angie sat on the floor near the surgery doors. Her back was to the wall and her hands pressed to the thin plasterboard that separated her from the man she loved. The only man she’d ever loved.

  This was the closest they’d let her get to him.

  Through her fingers she could feel the vibrations of the room. The hum of electricity, the friction of medical staff walking the polished floor. As distant as it was, she was still in touch.

  Ruis stood bolt upright next to her. Sentry straight. As alert as any soldier. Ready for the enemy when it came. As he knew it would.

  Six bullets.

  Two bursts of three.

  The first set low and debilitating, catching the legs and gut.

  The second more tightly grouped. Focused. All on the left side of the torso.

  Gut. Rib cage. Heart.

  There was no way anyone survived injuries like that.

  Angie had insisted on knowing.

  The math was stacked against Jake. Any one of those wounds could prove fatal. A combination was undeniably lethal. It was a miracle he was still alive. All that height and mass had probably saved him. Given him a fighting chance.

  Angie shut her eyes. She didn’t believe in any particular God, but now she was willing to. She’d believe in one or a thousand if Jake could survive this.

  Time moved with funereal slowness and Angie wondered how long he’d lain there outside his apartment before someone had found the courage to go to him. Ruis said neighbors had heard the shots and called it in but had insisted they had not seen anything. No one ever saw anything these days.

  Already she blamed herself.

  If they hadn’t rowed over that stupid press conference, Jake would probably have stayed at her place. In which case, none of this would have happened.

  The wall beneath Angie’s fingers vibrated. Someone banged a cart against the other side of the plasterboard. She put her ear to the wall and heard muffled shouts. Clear, loud voices. Earnest, cold, resigned. Machines bleeped. Metal fell against metal. Steel instruments in steel bowls. And the worst sound of all—silence.

  The hospital had wanted to put her and Ruis in a private room; they’d said it would be the best place for them to wait until there was news.

  But there had been no restraining Angie.

  She’d wanted to be right inside the theater. Gowned up. Holding Jake’s hand. Helping him pull through.

  Sitting by the doors had been the only compromise she’d accept. The gurney-battered doors and the noisy, drafty corridor was where she and Ruis had been brought almost an hour ago.

  The first rays of a new California day rubbed hesitantly against a small window. The morning was still pencil-shade gray and the sun too weak to outshine the insipid blue of the overhead tubes in the hospital.

  Angie stared up at the ugly, thin light boxes. They ran like stitches down the endless ceiling. The corridor where she sat, where she clung to hope, was one of the hospital’s main arteries leading to the operating theater, the heart—the building’s ultimate source of life and death. Suddenly the lights went out.

  As she watched, the lights flickered, buzzed, then went out with a heavy clunk.

  Angie jumped.

  “Daylight timer,” explained Ruis. “Everyone’s trying to save a little energy these days.”

  She spread her fingers to the plasterboard and searched again for the pulse of the theater.

  A steady hum tingled in her palms.

  That was good.

  Then there was a thump. A loud bang.

  The doors swung open.

  A woman stepped out. She was in green surgery scrubs. Blond hair poked through a small, tight hat. A white mask hung loose around her red neck. Blue eyes looked icily across the corridor.

  Angie’s knees cracked as she stood.

  Ruis took a sentry step closer.

  “I’m very sorry…”

  “No!” Angie felt the ground crack beneath her.

  “… I’m afraid your friend has died.”

  The word dropped like a stone. Its impact fractured whatever was being said.

  “He suffered too much blood loss… too much damage to the internal organs… too much trauma… we did everything we could…”

  Ruis took hold of Angie. Kept her upright as her legs trembled. The nurse was still speaking but her sentences seemed fragmented and unbelievable.

  “… the injuries were not survivable… really nothing more we could have done… very sorry for your loss…”

  Angie bro
ke away from Ruis.

  The theater door was still ajar.

  She pulled it wide and rushed through.

  This was all nonsense. If she could get to him, it would be okay. She’d make it okay.

  Startled faces turned her way. Doctors and nurses were at the outer edges of the room, not in places where they were supposed to be. They were pulling off gloves. They thought their work was over.

  Someone tried to stop her. Angie two-handed him in the chest and he staggered back and fell.

  Voices were shouting around her.

  Ruis was shouting back at them.

  Angie got to Jake.

  She reached his head. His beautiful dark hair. His wonderful mouth. She knew what to do. Kiss of life. CPR. That would fix it. That would open his eyes. Make him look at her. He’d cough a little. Gasp. Then his big chest would heave. His heart would beat. His smile would come.

  He wasn’t there.

  As soon as she touched him, she knew he’d gone.

  His lips were lifeless.

  Even his smell had gone.

  They’d already rubbed his essence away.

  She put her hands to his blood-smeared chest but didn’t press. There was no point. He wasn’t there. He’d run out on her. He was gone.

  A scream escaped Angie’s mouth.

  It felt as if it didn’t belong to her.

  It was so loud and shrill it couldn’t be hers.

  She knelt in Jake’s blood and took his giant hand and put it to her lips. She rested her head against the cold steel of the gurney and closed her eyes.

  Now neither of them was there. They were both far away. United. Together again.

  Angie could hear the sea crashing, feel the sun on her face, the breeze in her hair.

  There were people all around them. Friends, familiar faces. Jake had his hand in hers and was saying how beautiful she was in her dress, and she was thinking how handsome, how gorgeously handsome he looked, as he stood by her side in his wedding suit.

  4

  One of the old-timers had gone home sick. It meant Shooter ended up busier than he’d expected to be. In many ways he was grateful. It kept him out of Januk’s way and made the shift pass more quickly.