by A. J. Downey
A.J. DOWNEY
BOOK ONE
Contents
Title Page
Book Summary
Dedication
Publishing Info
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Other books by A.J. Downey
About the Author
Chrissy Franco has every reason to take one hell of a victory lap around the courtroom. She’s just defended her client to the best of her ability and what’s more? Her client was actually innocent. Oh, she’d killed her husband, baseball legend Skip Maguire, alright; but he’d been about to hit a homerun with Miranda’s head.
His rabid fan base doesn’t agree with the verdict, and they’ve set their sights on Chrissy as the one to blame. One of them is about to set into motion a dangerous game when he publishes poor Chrissy’s address online…
Enter Tony McCormick, a detective with the right kind of attitude and Chrissy’s sort of ex-boyfriend. When he’s called to Chrissy’s apartment, he’s prepared for the worst. He’s a homicide detective after all. When he arrives, it seems that someone might have forgotten to check to see if Chrissy was still alive… now it’s everything he can do to find the man who did this and the other behind it all before it’s really too late.
Dedication
To D.C., J.S, and P.L.J.
I never would have thought of this without you. Thanks for the inspiration.
Published 2017 by Second Circle Press
Book design by Lia Rees at Free Your Words
Cover art and Indigo Knights logo by Dar Albert at Wicked Smart Designs
Photo by Golden Czermak
Model Julio Elving
Text copyright © 2017 AJ Downey
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved
Prologue
Chrissy
“Seriously! I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s not like anyone’s actually going to do anything with it. I mean, who does that anyway?”
I refilled my best friend’s glass and added a touch of wine to my own. Setting down the bottle and leaning heavily on the edge of my kitchen counter, I looked into the living room through the portal left between my cabinets and countertop. Sam was on my couch, looking at me over the back of it, lounged comfortably against the arm. She was blonde, bubbly, and perfect just like she’d been all through high school and college and I couldn’t help but smile with affection.
It was a casual night in after wrapping the biggest defense case of my life. I’d won, and couldn’t believe how relieved I was that the jury had seen what I had. Miranda Maguire had been systematically abused by her husband, baseball legend Skip Maguire. Even though she had killed him, it hadn’t been for his money like the prosecution had claimed, but to save her own life.
That wasn’t what we were talking about, however, and it wasn’t the celebration I had expected it to be. No, this one was a hard-won victory and was thoroughly tainted by the utter vitriol of Skip Maguire’s rabid macho fan base. The same fan base that had spawned the total creeper who had published my home address online with the ominous message to go ahead and come let me know about their displeasure with me… of course, I was being polite phrasing it like that.
“It’s creepy and really uncomfortable. They don’t know what happened, Sam…”
“He’s their big damn sports hero, Christina. It doesn’t really matter to them what really happened. The only thing that matters to them is that he’s dead, and you got his killer off. The blame has to land somewhere,” she shrugged, “and Miranda has his fortune and has all but disappeared and so that leaves you.”
I hung my head and shook it, picking up the wine glasses and coming around the kitchen island. I held out her glass to her, about to say ‘you’re so comforting’ when bam! My front door exploded inward, shards of wood flying, I dropped her glass, the stemware falling and crashing against the hardwood floor.
I spun, as a man loomed through the opening, he raised a gun, Sam was screaming, I think I was screaming, and the gun, it went off. Everything was happening in slow motion, the barrel of it belching fire and flame. Sam’s head snapped back, blood arching from her forehead, her blue eyes staring, mouth dropped open. I spun, turning on the ball of one foot, dropping my glass.
Run!
My mind screaming, panic and terror clawing at the inside of my skull.
Get away!
Three loud reports, the sound as if everything was under water, the first shot deafening in the small enclosure of my one bedroom apartment. The man, he punched me, twice in the back. Boom! Boom! I started falling, as if my strings had been cut, the floor rushing up to meet me.
The world, the world went black, and disappeared until I was suddenly floating. Floating in perfect darkness…
Chapter 1
Tony
“Homicide.”
“Yeah, Tony, got a couple of fresh ones at two-two-one-six, east 53rd; apartment two-oh-six. You’re up.”
I finished scribbling the address he’d given me on a legal pad in front of me saying, “I think this damn city has had enough with the baseball references, Captain.”
“Yeah, whatever, get your ass over there, this city has had enough with the homicides lately, too.”
“You ain’t lying; I’m on it.”
I tossed the receiver back onto its cradle with a clatter. I sat up from where I’d been hunched over my desk and rubbed the back of my neck, giving myself at least enough time to indulge in a stretch before getting up. I picked up the pad of paper, my eyes roving over the address as it tickled the back of my brain.
I knew it, but couldn’t place it. Something about all those twos and sixes was just niggling at me in the worst way but I figured I’d see it soon enough. I needed to get over there before the bodies got cold. Before the medical examiner got any kind of time with them. It helped to see the scene before anything was touched or moved.
I got up and hauled ass, heading down to the garage and my assigned cruiser. It was a short drive from the 12th precinct to the apartment’s address and there was plenty of parking in among the black and whites with their party lights that were already there. Hell, the coroner’s van wasn’t even here yet. Just a couple of uniformed units. Lucky me. I double parked and then it clicked… this was Chrissy’s place. She was a lawyer, a defense attorney that I’d taken out a couple of times. We were like ships passing in the night schedule wise, and after the fourth interrupted date, we had pretty much come to the conclusion that it was nice, but it wasn’t going to happen.
That’d been over three years ago, pushing four; I’d always sort of wondered if our paths would cross again. I never imagined it might be on a homicide call in her building, that is, if she still even live
d here. Who was I kidding? I knew, deep in my gut from the minute I’d pulled up it was the feisty lawyer’s apartment I was headed to.
“Well you can definitely say there were signs of forced entry, huh detective?” a uniform, Johns by the nametag on his chest, said as I stepped carefully over the shattered debris that’d been Chrissy Franco’s doorframe and lock.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered taking in the raw scene.
There was a blonde, draped back over the arm of the couch, a movie-perfect shot through her fuckin’ forehead, right between the eyes. I walked carefully up to the second body and leaned down over my knees.
“Yeah, that’s Chrissy Franco, alright,” I said, heart heavy in the center of my chest. Regret weighed me down like a thousand pound boulder in the center of my chest. She was beautiful, even like this, body cooling on the floor. If ever there had been one that’d got away, it was Chrissy. I’d thought about her a lot in the intervening years since I’d last seen her. I’d even caught myself lingering in the corridors of the courthouse on the occasions I’d had to be there. Hoping to run into her, hoping to rekindle things; that she might happen to be single, maybe willing to give it a shot again… This was a-fucking-shame, and I was gutted that it had to be me to catch the call.
Damnit.
I pulled on a pair of gloves and went to trace some of her long dark hair away from the side of her face so I could get a better look at her when she gasped.
I nearly shot through the fuckin’ roof.
“Call a bus!” I screamed and knelt down amid the broken glass and spilled wine, the sweet smell of alcohol and coppery tang of blood singeing my nose even as hope filled me up like a helium goddamn balloon.
“H-he-help me,” she stammered out and I took her hand.
“Ambulance is on the way, just hang on, baby.”
“Tony?”
“Yeah, yeah, you remember me?”
“It hurts!” her tone was mournful, pain filled, and I deflated a little on the inside, but I wasn’t willing to show it. Confidence, surety, that’s what she needed right now.
Shit. Both of those things were the last things I was feeling right now. I wasn’t used to live victims, especially not ones I’d had the occasional date with. I couldn’t fucking help her except to wait for paramedics and I hated it. I glared at the uniform who was spewing panicked words into the mic at his shoulder.
“Didn’t you check to see if she was a-fuckin’-live!?” I demanded, needing to direct my helpless anger somewhere.
“I mean, who gives a shit, man? I didn’t know! Just look at her!” he shouted and I swore I was gonna have a quiet conversation with him and his CO later, whether or not she lived or died. That shit wasn’t right. You didn’t get to pick the vic. I strapped down my incendiary rage at the comment and stroked her hand, giving my attention to the wounded woman on the floor, the person that needed it most.
“Hang on, Chrissy, we’re gonna get you some help.” She squeezed my hand and I could swear my heart squeezed down with it, a tight ball of sympathy for her pain.
Nobody deserved this shit. To have someone break down your door; shoot you up, and for what? I thought about it. About the uproar over the Maguire case, it was the likeliest conclusion based on what I knew so far… Because you did your job?
“Just hang on for me, baby. Stay with me…”
Rattled didn’t even begin to cover how I felt about this one.
***
I stayed on the scene despite how much I wanted to follow the living victim in this case. I couldn’t do anything for her, it was all up to the EMT’s, doctors, nurses, and probably surgeons - if she made it that far. What I could do was work the scene and speak for the blonde on the couch who didn’t have a voice anymore.
I went through the motions, but everything here was just so damn personal like it’d never been on a scene before. My mind going over the little details.
She liked soothing, neutral colors, her walls a misty blue-grey, it was amazing that she’d found an apartment that’d let her paint the walls. That, or she threw caution to the wind and didn’t give a fuck about getting her deposit back. I smiled to myself; that sounded like the Chrissy Franco I’d known. Knew, I admonished myself. She’s not dead, not yet… Fuck. I shook my head, dropping my chin to my chest and pulling on the back of my head in an attempt to ease the tension there.
“Got an ID?” I looked up and over at my partner and sighed.
“What took you so fucking long?” I asked.
“Cipriani case is going to court next week, it’s all hands on deck at the DA’s for witness prep.”
“They act like you’ve never testified before,” I said and sighed.
My partner, James McDonnell, was another Mick like me, only seventeen years my senior. Still a while from retirement, being only in his fifties, the world hung on him, weighing down his shoulders like the tired old raincoat that he had on over his equally tired suit.
He waved me off and looked over at where the medical examiner was doing her thing. He shook his head and asked, “Who’s our vic?”
“Wrong question, what you should be asking is who’re our vic’s, plural.” I stepped aside so he could see the blood, wine, and broken glass from where Chrissy had lain.
He grunted and said, “Alright, Youngblood, get me up to speed already.”
“The blonde is Samantha Lynn Hayworth but the apartment belongs to our other vic, Christina Marie Franco.”
“Aw Christ, the one that got Skip Maguire’s ol’ lady off the hook?”
“Yeah, that would be the one,” I said heavily.
“So what do we know?”
“Not a lot yet. When I got here, there were obvious signs of forced entry.” I pointed with my pen at the shattered doorframe, my tone ironic even though he probably wouldn’t get the joke – the uniform did, barking a laugh.
Jaime eyed him and said to me, “No shit, Sherlock?”
“And Ms. Franco was laying here on the floor unconscious.” I finished, not missing a beat.
“Wait, you got all the way here and no one checked to see if she was alive or not?”
“And I quote from our boy over there, ‘who gives a shit?’”
Jaime reeled back, same as I’d done and said, “Really now?” he asked, the uniform finally cluing in and blanching. “That’s some bullshit, son. What’s your name?”
“Uh… Officer Johns, sir.”
“Well, Officer Johns, from the,” he squinted at the officer’s collar pins, “11th… you go on and wait out front. Youngblood here and I will be having a quiet talk with you and your CO later.”
The kid, who barely looked like he was out of being a rookie, turned red and nodded, ducking out the fucked up front door under Jaime’s stern gaze until he was out of sight.
I chuckled and it was a dark one. No one gave good pissed off cop face better than my partner. It was never our favorite thing having a chat with another cop’s CO about things. ICPD already had a bad rap with the public when it came to corruption and a whole host of other bullshit. The new community slogan that the Mayor’s office was trying to impress upon everybody was “be the change that you want to see.”
Not only in an effort to weed out the corruption, but also to get aspiring new recruits into the uniform. There were a whole lot more cops than not on the verge of retirement with all the baby boomers hitting their sixties. In any case, it was better that we have a quiet chat with him and his CO than it was to write him up and jam him up with IAD. No one liked to be a rat, but there was a difference between a quiet but stern talk; keeping it in-house, versus official complaints with the Rat Squad.
“You’ve got that look, Youngblood.” Jaime said and I shook myself out of my funk.
“Yeah, what look?” I demanded.
“The one that says something about this case has got yah, and that you’re gonna solve it come hell or high water.”
“Ah, yeah,” I nodded once.
“Mind letting me in on w
hat’s chapping your ass?”
“Later, right now we have a building to canvas.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic, arrived just in time, did I?”
“Ah, yeah.”
“Perfect.” He sounded like it was anything but and I smirked. CSU had things here and I figured I’d pretty much absorbed everything I was going to out of seeing it firsthand.
“Let us know when you have anything, Linda,” Jaime called and the medical examiner raised her hand and waved us off.
We canvased the entire building, but aside from the little old lady that lived above Chrissy who’d called it in, nobody was talking or wanted to ‘fess up to seeing anything. It was a dead end from the start and looking pretty grim. The only shot we really had at figuring this one out was if Chrissy managed to pull through, but she’d been in a pretty bad way.
“What now?” Jaime asked and I shook my head.
“She’s gonna be in surgery for a long damn time. Might as well get started on the paperwork.”
“Always with the paperwork,” he grumbled.
“I like to have my bases covered.”
“And that fancy law degree, too.”
“Admit it, you like it,” I said and he barked a laugh.
“When it’s not being a pain in my ass.”
“Dude, get in the car.”
“Brought my own, remember? You sure you ain’t too close to this?”
I gave him a hard look and said deflected saying in a tone that brooked no argument, “See you back at the shop.”
We went back to the precinct where I called over to Trinity General Hospital first and got some nurse who, it might as well have been their first fuckin’ day.
“Yeah, this is Detective Anthony McCormick out of the 12th precinct calling about one of your patients, Christina Marie Franco. She was brought in with a couple of gunshot wounds earlier tonight.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t give out that information,” she said dubiously.
