“Hey—anyone know where Strick went?” she said loudly, to no one in particular.
Jenner dropped the phone stuck to her ear to the crook of her shoulder. “He and Evans took their witness down to Tenderloin to do a lineup. Said he’d be back before lunch,” she said, before lifting the receiver back into place.
Their witness? Strickland was out running down leads and doing real police work while she was peeing in a cup and getting jabbed with needles. She tried not to let it bother her that he took Evans instead of waiting for her.
She dropped into her chair and let her eyes drift across her desk. The red envelope was still sitting there, where her partner had left it—telling her he thought she was overreacting about the whole thing. Maybe so, but she’d rather tilt at windmills than sit on her ass and wait for something to happen.
She stood, plucking the envelope off her partner’s desk before heading for the elevator. It’d been two hours since shift change—Anderson had to be here by now.
Punching the down button, Sabrina shifted her weight to her good leg and waited for the car to arrive. It took a minute; it always did when it had a full load. Finally, the elevator let out a ding and the doors slid open and people poured out. She waited for the last few stragglers to make their way out of the elevator before she jumped in. Just as she was getting ready to make her move, she heard her name.
“Vaughn.”
Her head snapped up and she locked eyes with Mathews. He looked … happy.
Never a good sign where she was concerned.
“Yes, sir.”
“My office.” He walked past her, toward the bullpen, taking a few steps before shooting her a look over his shoulder. “Now.”
She swallowed the irritation his tone brought on and started to follow, easing the envelope into her pocket. Satisfaction warmed her belly when Mathews stopped short in front of his office door. He pulled the report and UA paperwork from his box—a soft, disgusted snort the only indication that she’d beat him. He crumpled the papers in his fist and shoved his door open before flipping the light switch on.
“I’d offer a seat, but this won’t take very long,” Mathews said, tossing the papers in his hand onto his desk. She looked around. No black trash bags stuffed with letters. Nothing to indicate what he’d called her into his office for. The longer he stalled, the tighter she felt the noose around her neck become. He waited a few moments before he continued. “I just got back from a meeting with other department captains. Seems SWAT is a bit shorthanded, what with you killing Sanford and all—”
“I didn’t kill Sanford,” she said, doing her level best to ignore the shaft of guilt that went straight through her. She hadn’t killed Steve Sanford, but she was the reason he was dead. She spent more time than she cared to remember trying to convince herself there was a difference.
“They’ve had a hard time tryin’ to get officers to apply for the program, and those who have, wash out in the first couple of weeks. You remember how demanding the qualifications are,” Mathews said, eyes locked on her face.
Her hand dropped to her thigh. She remembered qualifying for SWAT years ago—how challenging it’d been. She’d been up for it then—even more, she’d been hungry to prove herself. Now, in the shape she was in, she’d be lucky to make it a day before she folded.
Mathews smiled as if he’d read her mind. “Anyway, Sergeant Richards is looking for officers to volunteer until he can find some fresh meat for the grinder. I know how much you miss your old unit, so I volunteered on your behalf. Of course, you’ll have to requalify to prove eight months behind a desk and a bullet to the leg didn’t turn you soft.”
It was perfect, really. If she refused to go back to SWAT, not only could he suspend her for insubordination, he’d manage to alienate her from Sergeant Daniel Richards—one of the only supervisory officers who gave a damn what happened to her. If she said yes, there was a very good chance she’d fold under the pressure to qualify, and he’d be able to prove she wasn’t fit for duty. If, by some miracle, she managed to make the cut, she’d be on indefinite leave from Homicide.
Mathews had her from every angle. “That’s not going to be a problem for you, is it?” he said. The smile on his face deepened,
a sign that he knew she’d managed to put the pieces together.
“Not at all, sir.” She stood. “I’ll spend the day clearing my case files.”
“That won’t be necessary—Strickland and Evans can handle whatever you’ve got going. Take the rest of the day. Richards will be expecting you on the field tomorrow, oh seven hundred.” He made a show of throwing her report and UA paperwork into the trash can beside his desk. “Do me a favor and shut that door on your way out, will ya?”
That was it. She was dismissed. Turning, she headed for the door. She could feel his eyes on her back, watching every excruciating step she took. Whatever happened next, one thing was clear: Sabrina was finished in Homicide.
EIGHTEEN
The elevator doors slid open on the ground floor. Sabrina stepped into the lobby and took a look at her watch. It was just after ten; Anderson had to be there. She headed straight for the information desk, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw his dark-blond head poking up from behind the counter.
She rapped her knuckles on the counter. “Hey, Anderson. Got a minute?” she said as soon as he looked up.
He smiled at her and stood. “Sure, what can I do for you?”
She pulled the envelope from her back pocket and slid it across the counter. “Have you seen this before?”
Anderson stared down at that envelope for a few seconds before shaking his head. “No. What is it?”
“You sure you don’t recognize it?” Disappointment weighed heavy in her gut. “I found it in the bag you brought up to Homicide yesterday.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Most of the envelopes that come through here for you are standard white, legal-size.” He tapped the red square against the counter. “I doubt this can be bought in the prison commissary.” Anderson seemed to realize what he’d said because he looked as if he’d regretted his words. “Not that only cons write to … I didn’t mean—”
She waved him off. “It’s fine. Could someone have dropped it off without you noticing?”
“Sure, I guess. You know how busy it gets around here sometimes,” Anderson said.
“Are you the only one back here?” Maybe someone else working the counter would know something useful.
“Yup, just me.”
The disappointment spread into her bones, turning them to stone. “You ever duck out?”
Anderson shrugged, sliding the card across the counter in her direction. “Only long enough to take a piss or get a cup of coffee.”
More than enough time for someone to drop the card, unseen. Which meant she had no real way of finding out who slipped the card into the bag.
He smiled. “Are you sure it was even meant for you? It’s addressed to someone else.”
She looked down at the envelope. The name Calliope written in carefully drawn letters. Thought of the word—mox—and symbol that lay hidden within its folds. “Yeah, I’m sure.” She looked up at him and forced a smile. “Thanks, Anderson. If you can think of anything else, let me know.”
She turned and started for the elevator but stopped when another question occurred to her. “Hey, you ever see that reporter from The Sentinel lurking around down here?”
“You mean Jaxon Croft? Sure, he’s here most days, sitting in one of those chairs, like he’s waiting for something to happen. Why?” Anderson said, nodding his head toward the few dozen chairs grouped together in the middle of the lobby.
She looked. A few people scattered here and there, but none of them were Croft. “No reason. Do me a favor—you got my cell number?”
“I do,” he said, holding up the fat contact binder that they kept behind the
counter.
“Great. If he shows up, call me right away,” she said, waiting for him to nod before she turned and headed for the station lot. It was a long shot. She had no idea if Croft was even involved, but he was as good a place to start as any. She was going to find him, and if he knew anything, he was going to give her some answers.
NINETEEN
The Sentinel billed itself as the one San Francisco newspaper that still fought for truth in a city filled with political back-scratching and First Amendment oppression. It’d started out in a cramped rental space above a liquor store in the Haight-Ashbury district, but having your star reporter’s pet project go national pulled in a lot of revenue. They were still in the Haight, but The Sentinel was fighting for free speech in relative style these days.
Sabrina pulled up in front of The Sentinel’s brand-new ground-floor offices and fed the meter a few quarters before doing a quick scan of the cars parked nearby. None of them belonged to Croft. She briefly considered heading back to the station, but what was there for her to do? Pack up her paperclips? Instead, she crossed the sidewalk and pushed the door open, stepping into the belly of the beast.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist said, only half turned away from the computer screen she was glued to.
“Yeah, I’d like to speak to Jaxon Croft,” Sabrina said, taking a perverse sort of pleasure when the woman finally looked and saw who was standing in front of her.
“Jax—Mr. Croft isn’t here,” the woman said, her brown eyes sharpening with alarm. Picking up her phone, she pressed a button and cupped her hand around the receiver, murmuring something into it before setting it back down.
Sabrina stared down at the squirming receptionist while footsteps snapped down the hall. Someone cleared his throat, and she looked up. “Mornin’, Ms. Vaughn, I’m Jared Little—”
Seriously? Sabrina looked at the man in front of her. He easily weighed three hundred pounds. “Don’t care. I want to talk to Jaxon Croft.”
His jowls shook with indignation as he hitched up his pants. “Look here, Inspector—we’re well within our constitutional rights to print—”
“Still don’t care. I just want to talk to Croft. That’s it,” she said, already bored with the conversation. Croft wasn’t here. She didn’t know much about him, and she liked him even less, but she was certain that the man who had the balls to confront her in her own kitchen wouldn’t send this walking coronary to fight his battles.
Little straightened his neck, forcing his double chin to clone itself. His watery pig eyes darted toward the front desk. “You didn’t tell her?”
The receptionist shrugged, dividing a confused look between the two of them. “No. You said if anyone came looking for Mr. Croft, to call you … so I called you.”
“Tell me what?” Sabrina said.
Little looked at her, a pudgy hand rubbing the back of his fleshy neck. “Croft quit about a week ago. He came back from that trip to Texas, waltzed in here, packed his shit, and left.”
Sabrina stared at the man in front of her for a moment. “You mean the trip he took to my hometown to dig up more dirt on me?”
Little’s face went as red as his hands. “Look, I didn’t even know he was going. Anyway, he came back and said he was through. Told me to take his last paycheck and shove it up my ass. Haven’t heard from him since.”
“You got a new reporter following me?”
“For now it’s just Heather and me. Can’t afford to hire another reporter.” He cleared his throat again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
She didn’t wait to hear more. “If you hear from Croft, tell him I’m looking for him,” she said on her way out the door.
She didn’t get it. If Croft quit, why was he still chasing the story of her abduction? Was he working for another paper, or was there another reason he was following her?
Lost in thought, Sabrina got her car door unlocked and opened before she saw it.
A red square envelope, sitting on the front seat.
TWENTY
Sabrina took a step back, driven by instinct to preserve evidence. She heard the blare of horns a fraction of a second before she felt the weight of someone’s hand drop on her shoulder and yank her out of the path of oncoming traffic.
Instinct took over again. Her left hand shot upward, closing around a wrist, anchoring it to her shoulder. Her right hand balled into a fist and swung hard and fast into his stomach, collapsing his diaphragm. Air whooshed out of his lungs and he doubled over, throwing out a hand to block the assault, but it was too late. Switching her grip from his wrist to his hair, Sabrina drove her knee into his face. The constant hum in her thigh ignited into a symphony of pain, crashing down on her, singing over every bone and muscle. She drove her knee into his face again before she let him go, just to prove a point.
Croft lay in the street between two parked cars, a stunned look on his bloodied face. “It’s just me,” he shouted when she took a step toward him.
“I know who it is.” She glared down at him, fists clenched at her sides, ignoring the small throng of rubberneckers her kicking of Croft’s ass had drawn. She could feel them watching her, and she stifled the urge to hide the badge clipped to her waistband. Instead she looked up at The Sentinel’s offices just beyond the crowded sidewalk. The walking coronary and the receptionist were staring at her through the window. The corner of her mouth quirked into a half-smile. In return, Little reached over and locked the office door.
“How long have you been following me?” she said, glaring down at Croft while he pulled himself up to sit on the curb. He didn’t answer, just hung his head between his splayed knees, letting blood drip from his nose and mouth, splashes of bright red against the gray of the gutter. Sabrina unbuttoned her shirt, revealing the tank she wore beneath it. Pulling the shirt off, she tossed it at Croft. He caught it.
“Thanks,” he muttered before using it to mop the blood from his face. “Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
“An old Japanese maintenance man for the apartment complex I lived in as a kid taught me how to defend myself.” She gave another quick look around, spotting a couple of beat cops, drawn by the small crowd they’d gathered. The situation had officially just gone from bad to worse.
Croft glared at her around the wad of Oxford pressed to his face. “Did you just beat the shit out of me and blame it on the plot of The Karate Kid?”
“Yup.”
The uniforms wove their way through the crowd, headed straight for her. She lifted her hip, putting her brass on display. “It’s alright, guys. I’ve got it,” she said, hoping her badge was enough to slow the tidal wave of shit that kicking Croft’s ass in public threatened to bury her under. One of the two officers looked down at Croft for a moment while the other surveyed the gathering crowd, giving her time to do the same. Almost every single bystander had a camera phone aimed at her and Croft. And to top it off, she could see Little, still standing at the window scribbling notes like crazy.
One of the uniforms smirked. “Got your ass handed to you, huh, buddy?” he said before shifting his look toward her. “Want us to haul him in for you, Inspector? Our car’s parked around the corner.”
The prospect of having Croft arrested for assaulting a police officer was tempting but a hard sell, considering he was dribbling blood like Lotta’s fountain. She shook her head. “No. That’s not going to be necessary—”
The crowd started to grumble. More than a few of them had seen the entire thing, which meant there were witnesses to a seemingly unprovoked SFPD beatdown. Their attention grabbed, both uniforms turned toward the people gathered behind them.
She looked down at Croft. He was watching her from behind the shirt he kept pressed to his mouth, his head cocked to the side, eyes alight with the opportunity she’d just delivered him. He was good—good enough to blackmail her without saying a word.
&
nbsp; “It was totally my fault, officers,” Croft said, giving his face a final wipe before pulling her shirt from his face. “I made the mistake of grabbing her.” He said it loudly, quieting the masses.
Both uniforms shot her a look before one of them started laughing. “You grabbed her? Her? Buddy, I’d sooner grab a grizzly hopped up on PCP.”
“I almost got clipped by a car—he was just trying to keep me from getting hit.” She took a step forward and held out her hand, offering Croft help up. “It was an involuntary response, and I apologize,” she said, her tone as sincere as she could make it.
He hesitated for a moment before taking the hand up, the faintest smirk playing across his swollen features, giving Sabrina her first good look at his face. His nose sat crooked on his face, swelling bigger by the second. A cut under his eye and a fat lip to match, all covered in a thin smear of quick-drying blood. Someone in the crowd gave a low whistle, and Croft returned it with a wincing smile. “It’s alright, Inspector—apology accepted and lesson learned. I never should have grabbed you without announcing my intentions,” he said, looking directly at the cameras aimed at his face before he turned to address her. “Could I trouble you for a ride? My car’s parked a few blocks away.”
She’d rather eat a shit sandwich, but she nodded and smiled. “Of course,” she said. What could she do? Refuse? Leave Croft here to play victim for the masses. Brushing past him, she stepped onto the curb and unlocked the passenger-side door. “Your chariot awaits.”
TWENTY-ONE
Croft smiled and came forward. She skirted around the hood of the car, throwing the uniforms and crowd a curt wave. “Thanks for the help, guys.”
“You sure—”
“I’m sure. You two have better things to do than schlep my mess around,” she said, softening her refusal with a quick smile. Waiting for a break in traffic, she opened her door to see Croft leaning over the driver’s seat, his blood-stained hand hovering over the envelope that waited there.
Sacrificial Muse (A Sabrina Vaughn Novel) Page 8
