by Webb, Debra
“There was that little bed and breakfast in Carmel.” A vague smile tugged at his mouth. “She loved that place and the atmosphere of the village.” He glanced at Laney. “Did you know Clint Eastwood used to be the mayor there?”
“No kidding?” Laney had been to Carmel. It was a quaint little village right on the ocean. Definitely a decent romantic getaway locale.
“Seriously. He has a restaurant there. Great steaks.”
Laney’s fingers tightened on her weapon and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. “Sounds like you know what you have to do, partner.”
“I think I do.”
Laney turned all the way around, scanned the garage for a moment. Something was wrong. She could feel it.
“I think maybe,” she began, “we should—“
Two rows away someone pushed up between the cars. The first thing Laney noticed was the hoodie.
“Police! Let’s see your hands!” She couldn’t see his face or his hands. She leveled a bead on him. He simply stood there, the head cover making it difficult to assess his intent.
Chip took a step forward, his weapon still at his side. “Detectives Brown and Holt, LAPD. We need to ask you a few questions, sir.”
The man in the hoodie swung his right hand up.
Gun!
The bullet exploded from his weapon. Chip jerked backward. Hit the concrete.
Laney returned fire but the shooter darted away. The bullet plowed into the concrete pillar beyond where he’d been standing.
She reached for her cell, glanced at her partner.
“Go! Go!” he shouted, a hand clapped over his shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers. “I’m good!”
She hesitated for one second, then rushed after the shooter, darting between the rows of parked vehicles as she put out the call: officer down. Every cop in the garage no doubt heard the gunfire.
With the shooter in her sights once more, she shouted, “Stop right there! Drop your weapon and get down on the ground!”
He kept running.
Laney pushed harder, gaining on him.
She hoped like hell her partner was okay. She needed this bastard to stop and to put down his weapon.
Where the hell was backup?
She couldn’t risk looking over her shoulder.
They hit the alley on the backside of the garage. She was quickly overtaking him. Losing him was not an option.
He stumbled. She almost got a grip on his hoodie.
“Stop or—“
He glanced back. Turned his weapon toward her…
He fired.
As if in slow motion, a flash of light accompanied the burst of the bullet from the barrel of his weapon.
Laney zigzagged away from the shot and returned fire.
He went down.
His weapon skidded across the pavement.
Gasping for breath, she stumbled to a stop next to him.
He lay face down.
No blood. Where had she hit him?
Sputtering breaths told her he was still alive.
She rolled him onto his back. Saw the growing circle of blood on his chest. The image of him turning back to fire at her and her weapon discharging flashed in her mind.
The bullet hit him in the chest. Instinctively, she pressed a hand over the wound and attempted to staunch the flow.
Gasping, choking sounds drew her attention to his face.
Her own heart skipped a beat.
A kid.
He was just a kid.
His mouth worked with the need to breathe…to speak.
Sweet Jesus.
He was dying…
Chapter 4
Saturday, August 4
Twelve-year-old Marcus Murphy died before the paramedics arrived.
Laney had done CPR as best she could. She had tried all within her power to stop the bleeding.
He was dead. There was no bringing him back.
The son of Ellen and Lewis Murphy. Little brother to Braden Murphy.
Marcus had taken the nine-millimeter from his brother’s bedroom. Braden, a senior in high school, had skirted the fringes of trouble for the past two years. He had most recently begun to associate with suspected gang members. His parents had been struggling with getting him under control but he appeared determined to burrow deeper into trouble. Buying an illegal weapon was his first criminal offense.
No one would ever know why Marcus had taken the gun from his brother’s room or why he’d carried it with him when he walked the six blocks from his home. And certainly no one would ever know or understand why he had decided to fire at Laney and her partner. His parents had no idea. His brother had no idea. None of his friends who were interviewed had a clue. Not a single one of his social media accounts showed any reason Marcus had made the decisions he made on the last day of his life.
Most likely the fatal events would remain a mystery.
To his family the reasons were irrelevant. Their child was dead.
Laney had killed him.
She sat in the darkness of her house. Her captain had sent her home last night as soon as Chip was out of surgery. She would be on paid leave until the Internal Affairs investigation concluded. The captain had assured her she had nothing to worry about; it was a clean kill. A justified shooting.
There was nothing else she could have done.
Murphy had shot her partner. He had shot at her.
Returning fire was her only option.
Except she was a highly trained officer of the law and an expert marksman. He had been a child.
A child who made a disastrous and deadly mistake.
Laney blinked, reminded herself to take a breath. She’d been sitting in this chair all night and all day. The sun had come up and then gone down again, leaving her in darkness once more. She couldn’t bring herself to turn on the lights. Didn’t want to see herself. Didn’t want anyone else to see her. She just wanted to fade into the blackness of the night and pretend yesterday had never happened. Pearl, her cat, rubbed against her leg, begging for attention Laney didn’t have the wherewithal to give.
Outside, news vans had parked, waiting for an opportunity to throw questions and accusations at her.
The captain had told her not to comment. Not that she’d intended to make any comments. What could she say? Yes, I killed him. Yes, he was a child. Yes, I am so, so sorry.
Sorry was of no significance to the parents. Regardless of the circumstances, she had killed their child.
As a cop, she understood this could happen. The shrink the department would have her visiting over the next few months would explain how Murphy was a casualty of the gun culture, of the job. A child who made a mistake that cost him his life.
In theory, the reasoning sounded logical. It had when she’d read and heard about fellow officers who’d been forced to shoot in a situation like the one she had faced yesterday. Certainly the textbook examples used at the academy had sounded logical at the time.
But it didn’t feel logical. It felt wrong…it felt incomprehensible.
To make matters even less logical, the ballistics of the weapon Murphy had used did not match those of the weapon used by the shooter who’d killed Travis Kent, the young man who’d died on the sidewalk outside that coffee shop.
The only good thing that had come of the day was that her partner was okay. His surgery had gone well. He would need serious physical rehabilitation, but he would make a full recovery in time. His wife was immensely grateful to Laney. Chip was immensely grateful to her. Their appreciation was unnecessary. Murphy had run after firing the shot. He had posed no further danger to Chip.
If only he hadn’t turned back…hadn’t aimed that weapon at Laney…
Had he feared for his life? Had he felt the need to protect himself from her?
Her gut clenched. Jesus Christ, she would never know.
An ache sliced through her. Laney had told herself about twenty times that she’d done the right thing, that she’d reacted
the only way she could have.
Didn’t matter.
The kid was dead.
She had killed him.
Her weapon and her badge were in a drawer in the captain’s desk. As far as Laney was concerned, that was where they would stay. She had already made up her mind she was not going back to Homicide. She wasn’t going back to the LAPD. She couldn’t.
She wasn’t sure she could be a cop anymore. Not after this.
Going on with her life felt like an insurmountable challenge.
Food. She needed food. Her body was tired, her mind was exhausted and it was unlikely that she was thinking straight.
She should force herself to eat. Sleep. And revisit the decisions she’d made again tomorrow.
Not that it mattered. She wasn’t changing her mind.
Rather than get up and go to the kitchen, she sat there. Stared into the darkness. Thought of all the things Marcus Murphy would never do, never experience. He wouldn’t graduate high school, wouldn’t have the opportunity to go to college. Would never marry and have children. Would never become whatever his parents had dreamed he might.
The Murphy family would never fully recover from the loss. No surgery or rehab would help them as it had her partner.
The phone rang, shattering the silence. Laney didn’t have to look to know it would be her mother or another member of her family. They were worried about her. She’d repeated the phrase, ‘I’m okay,’ too many times already. She didn’t have the energy to say it again.
It was a lie.
She wasn’t okay.
She might never be okay again.
Chapter 5
Wednesday, September 4
Laney placed the framed photo of her graduating from the police academy into the box.
It was done.
Everything that mattered to her was packed in the dozen boxes scattered around her otherwise empty living room. This was it. She’d sold all of her furniture and donated any personal items she no longer needed. She had narrowed her life down to the essentials.
The moving company would arrive this afternoon and she would leave, locking the door to the first and only home she’d ever owned for the last time.
Laney walked to the front window and stared out over the neighborhood. She’d been so excited to own her first home. The family who had purchased it from her would be happy here. It was a great neighborhood in a good school district. The couple was expecting their first child. The second bedroom Laney had used for an office would be converted into a nursery.
Her captain had at first refused to accept her resignation. Eventually both he and her partner had come around and acknowledged her decision. The media circus had moved on to a new story. Travis Kent’s killer had been found. His wife had persuaded a boyfriend to kill him so she could have the insurance money for a new car. Chip was back at work but on desk duty for a few more weeks. The most important part of the past month was the letter Laney had received from Marcus Murphy’s mother. Mrs. Murphy had stated bluntly that she would never be able to forgive Laney for taking her son’s life, but she did understand Laney had reacted as she had been trained and that God would give her grace on that count. It wasn’t absolution—which Laney did not expect—but it was a sort of understanding that she could live with.
Two weeks after resigning, the captain had called with a lead on a new position a world away from Los Angeles. Laney had never heard of Shutter Lake. In northern California, not too far from Sacramento and nestled amid the Sierra-Nevada Mountains, Shutter Lake had been established some fifty or sixty years ago by a handful of wealthy geniuses. According to her captain, the founders—one of which was an old family friend of his—were some of the most brilliant minds in the world. They had set out to create their own version of paradise where crime didn’t exist and ‘organic’ was more than a mere buzz word. The founders had also gone to great lengths to make Shutter Lake almost one hundred percent self-sufficient. No dependency on the rest of the world for survival.
Laney had made a trip to Shutter Lake for the interview. There was no denying the beauty and tranquility of the town. She’d felt calmer just breathing the air there. She’d met with Mayor Thomas Jessup and Chief of Police Griff McCabe. They’d offered her a very generous salary, an exorbitant signing bonus as well as the title of deputy chief. How could she say no? She couldn’t. Instead, she’d picked a house and signed on the dotted line. Her parents had approved. Even her partner was happy for her.
Speaking of which, she heard a car door slam and glanced at the clock. Straight up noon. Chip had insisted on bringing hotdogs from their favorite food stand and sharing one last lunch with her.
She opened the door before he knocked and he grinned. “Lots of mustard and relish, just the way you like it.” He held up the bag.
“Come on in.” She glanced around. “I’m afraid there’s no place to sit.”
He pulled a bottle of beer out of his back pocket and handed it to her. “No problem. The floor works for me.” He snagged another beer from his other back pocket and made himself comfortable on the hardwood floor.
Laney did the same. He passed the bag and she fished out one of the hotdogs. As she unwrapped it, she asked, “How’d the ultrasound go?”
“Still too early to tell if the baby’s a boy or a girl.” He unwrapped his dog. “But everything looks good. Due date is February one.”
“I’ll be sure to come to the christening—as long as I’m invited,” she teased.
“You better come.” He chewed off a bite of hotdog. “It’s bad enough I have to break-in a new partner. I expect one hell of a christening gift.”
“You got it.” She tore into her hotdog. Mustard and relish tingled on her tongue.
“I’m gonna miss you, Holt.”
She smiled. “I’ll miss you, too, partner.”
He held up his beer for a toast. “To the future and a shiny new start.”
“You said it.” Laney clinked her bottle to his.
Just what she needed. A shiny new start in the perfect small town where bad things never happened.
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Follow Laney’s Story in Shutter Lake:
the dead girl, Book 1
Enjoy this Sneak Peek of the first BREAKDOWN book,
the dead girl, by Debra Webb
©2018
Thursday, October 4
Two years.
Apparently that was to be the extent of Laney Holt's reprieve in paradise.
Laney stared at the dead girl on the floor. How the hell did a beautiful young woman who had the perfect life in the perfect town get herself murdered?
Pushing to her feet, Laney turned to the uniform standing by. “Find McCabe.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Officer Seth Trask, the first on the scene, hustled out of the room. Their chief of police hadn’t answered his phone when Laney called him. Knowing his bad habits better than she cared to, it was a relatively simple matter to guess that he had likely over indulged last night. She hadn’t broached the subject with him, but in the course of working together for the past two years she couldn’t help noticing Shutter Lake’s chief of police had a deep and serious relationship with alcohol.
Laney listened for the front door to close behind Trask. When she heard the telltale sound of wood against wood her gaze settled on the victim once more. “Shit.”
The coffee she’d gulped down on the drive from Main Street to Olive Tree Lane churned in her belly. Typically she grabbed a bagel with her coffee, but this morning her cell had buzzed with the call about a body before she’d made up her mind whether she wanted a blueberry or a poppy seed bagel. Cream cheese or honey? Instead of a leisurely morning discussing any homeless folks who had taken up residence at the century old mine outside of town, she was analyzing the kind of scene she’d thought she left behind in LA.
Body rigid with tension, sh
e walked across the main living area of the rustic and yet somehow chic A-frame and leaned against the front door, pulling her attention away from the victim and to the room as a whole. Since the front door was slightly ajar when the victim was found, chances are the perp entered the home right here. A wisp of hair slipped loose from her ponytail. Laney smoothed it back, her gloved hand shaking, giving away the dread and uncertainty building inside her.
How the hell did this happen?
Shutter Lake, the perfect little village—according to countless lifestyle magazines—nestled amid the Sierra Mountains of northern California, now had its first murder. Anticipation roiling with uncertainty had her wrapping her arms around her waist to hold her body still. Worse, this was no poor wandering homeless person or visitor or newcomer to the area splayed on the floor. This was a lifetime resident, beloved by everyone—a daughter, business owner, and model perfect citizen.
Sylvia Cole, twenty-six years old and stunningly beautiful, was dead. Murdered. No question about that. Laney had seen more than her share of homicide victims in her former life. The life she’d left behind in search of peace, quiet and a slower pace.
Another burst of frustration laced with dread heaved from her lungs. As deputy chief of police, she was the closest thing to a detective assigned to Shutter Lake’s tiny department. There was the chief, Griff McCabe, who’d grown up in Shutter Lake. He’d joined the force following a two-year criminal justice program with an emphasis on the collection of evidence. His father, the former chief of police, often laughed and boasted that when other kids were learning to play t-ball, his one and only son was honing his skills in surveillance and keeping the peace. The old man had one thing right, about the only pastime available to cops around this town was keeping an eye on residents and their homes and businesses.
The occasional burglary occurred—always a perpetrator from outside of town. Someone passing through or a homeless person from a new camp in the woods beyond the city limits. Now and again a fender bender occurred, but that was generally handled between the drivers. Once in a great while a citizen had too much to drink and decided to stagger home rather than to call a taxi and ended up trying to enter the wrong house or ended up sleeping it off on a park bench. Even those instances were few and far between.
