One Clean Shot

by Danielle Girard

  The memory of Tom Rittenberg’s face on the day of his arrest was still clear in Hal’s mind.

  “You are making a grave miscalculation,” Rittenberg warned as Hal was cuffing him. “I’ll have your badge for this.”

  Nope.

  Turned out the miscalculation was on Rittenberg’s end. Gordon Price had been on the bad side of a deal one too many times. He’d been careful in his dealings with Tom Rittenberg and Harvey Rendell. “Can’t trust white guys,” he told Hal.

  Hal thought of Jim. “Some of them,” he agreed.

  Gordon Price had covered his ass big time. Price had video of Rittenberg giving him instructions on taking out Dwayne Carson and Kenny Fiston—as well as whoever else was in the way. He also videoed conversations between Rittenberg and Rendell. All by using his Apple watch. Even Hal didn’t know those things could do that.

  Rittenberg had organized the whole enterprise—worked to get Wesson and Dennig on board to allow the guns to be stolen and sold on the streets then the money laundered through a hedge fund.

  Harvey Rendell managed and dispersed the earnings. The logistics of the hedge fund were remarkably simple. Hedge funds, Hal now knew, could buy anything.

  In the end, Rendell might have gotten off with the lightest punishment. The DA would prosecute the insurance fraud and illegal distribution of stolen weapons, something akin to unregistered gun sales. Since Rendell never took possession or distributed the weapons, his punishment would have been an SEC issue. Not that it meant anything to Rendell now. He’d already gotten his punishment.

  Gordon Price wouldn’t get off easy either. They’d matched his tread to the prints at Hunters Point. Price had known he’d scratched himself on the night he shot Fiston and Robbins. He was going back up there to clean up the evidence. It was Price who was trained in the Israeli shooting stance.

  Even if Price got a reduced sentence for helping bring in Tom Rittenberg, he’d killed two people, wounded another and taken multiple shots at a police officer. He was going away for a long time, too.

  It was still unclear whether Jim Wyatt would do any time. He had provided introductions to the right people in exchange for money—mostly in the form of illegal campaign funds. A little more than 6.4 million dollars in all. His attorneys were arguing that he made those introductions under duress—that Tom Rittenberg had Fredricks killed then used that to threaten Jim and his family.

  Whatever Jim Wyatt got for punishment, it wasn’t enough as far as Hal was concerned.

  His career was over. His wife was gone, too. It turned out most of the Wyatts’ money came from Liz’s parents and it was still held by her ninety-year-old father, so Jim Wyatt would be living much more modestly. There was something very satisfying about that outcome.

  It also meant that Liz could help Hailey financially. Not that she would ever ask. Or she would say. But Hal was glad knowing that she didn’t have to cover all their expenses on her own.

  Hailey had skipped the hearing. She couldn’t bring herself to sit on the side of the prosecution and she wouldn’t consider sitting on the side of the defense.

  Roger had found one of Dee’s prints inside Fredricks’s coffin, proving that Dee had, in fact, exhumed his body some time ago in order to borrow his fingerprint. The crime scene team was doing a thorough search to confirm that Blake had helped. It was hard to imagine Dee could have done it on her own.

  As the judge called for order, Hailey entered through one of double doors in the back and slid in beside Hal. He watched Tom Rittenberg eye her as she did. Hal willed Rittenberg to glance in his direction. He would have liked a chance to stare that man down, but Tom didn’t look anywhere close to Hal.

  Ryaan Berry took the stand to tie the case against Rittenberg back to the guns they had confiscated. Rittenberg had avoided death at Blake’s hand, he wouldn’t avoid time behind bars. O’Shea and Kong were working with Oakland PD to link Rittenberg to the death of Blake’s family. Hailey had requested the case be assigned to someone else. With Jim’s involvement, the department likely would have made that call anyway. They certainly didn’t want to lose the case because of an unnecessary conflict of interest.

  Hal was looking forward to working a regular old murder investigation. He suspected Hailey was, too. O’Shea and Kong would do a good job. They already had some promising leads. It might take years to put it all together.

  Understanding what Hailey had gone through with John’s death gave Hal a new appreciation for the complications of family and grief. It made him hope Blake finally found some peace.

  As the DA stood to make his closing remarks, Hailey and Hal left quietly. “Nice work,” she said.

  “You, too.” He paused, watching her sway from foot to foot, knowing her mind was already on the next meeting with a different DA, the one they’d selected over the past week. “You ready?”

  She nodded though she looked doubtful.

  “You sure you don’t want company?”

  She hesitated and glanced down the hall behind her then turned back. “I think I have to do it alone.”

  He nodded, rubbed the scalp above his ear. “I understand.”

  “But I’d love to have someone waiting—say outside the DA’s office at four o’clock.”

  He smiled. “I’m your guy.”

  She exhaled. Her shoulders relaxed, letting him know what it meant. In these last few weeks, he had been baptized into a new space.

  Family, he’d call it, if someone were looking for a label.

  They’d become family.

  Not in the way departments spoke of it as a recruiting tool, but in the subtle shift that happened between people who had survived hardships and held tight instead of pushing away.

  Hailey glanced at her watch. “I need to do one thing before the meeting. See you at four?”

  “Four o’clock.” He watched her go. She walked with strides that seemed too big for her short stature. Her hair bounced like little springs off her back as she went. She glanced back once, raised a hand and smiled. What courage it took to face that part of her history.

  The courtroom doors opened and the masses filed out. As they drifted by—officers, reporters, the attorneys—Hal joined the stream.

  The unmistakable high of closing a case surrounded him as the crowd ushered him back into the high marble foyer. He stepped onto the street and breathed the cool San Francisco air, the fog still low in the sky.

  He read the familiar credo on the marble plaque.

  “To the faithful and impartial enforcement of the laws with equal and exact justice to all.”

  Carson had walked right by that credo, just moments before he was killed. Hal wished they could have provided exact justice for Carson. There were always the ones that slipped through.

  They weren’t perfect.

  He turned and looked back at the building. Flaws and all, this was the place that felt most like home.

  Chapter 35

  Hailey came out of the stairwell. Cameron and Jamie stood in the elevator lobby.

  They didn’t notice Hailey at first. Bent in, talking, Cameron held a hand across her middle.

  Beneath it was a small rounded bump.

  “Hi.”

  The two women smiled.

  Hailey looked again at Cameron’s middle, raised her eyebrow.

  “I just came to meet with HR,” Cameron confessed. “I had to let them know before someone figured it out.”

  HR would have put her on desk duty. It was the smart thing. Protect the baby. How many things changed with motherhood. “Congratulations,” Hailey said. Her boyfriend had been killed. It was his child. It had to be.

  Cameron’s eyes grew teary and Hailey’s with them.

  The baby’s father was gone.

  Her baby would never know his father.

  How lucky Camilla and Ali were to have those y
ears with their dad.

  Hailey hugged Cameron. She didn’t know how to put it into words. That Cameron was strong enough, that she understood the intensity of the grief, the way it felt like drowning inside yourself. “I know. It gets easier.” It did. That, at least, was true. Not better—just more distant, less intense.

  “Rookie club dinner tonight at six,” Jamie said as the two women stepped apart.

  “You should come,” Cameron said. “Please.” She patted her rounded front. “Who knows how many more I’ll make.”

  Drinks with Hal at four.

  She would make dinner. In that moment, it was hard to remember how she had survived so long without them. They needed each other. She needed them.

  How her life had changed in a year. John’s death led her to put all her faith in Jim. How badly she wanted to believe he was trustworthy—so much that she had ignored the signs. The signs Hal saw so clearly.

  She had trusted the wrong grandparent. Liz was the one she should never have doubted, the one who loved Camilla and Ali as much as she did. Almost as much.

  The girls were with Liz now. Liz had found the perfect four-bedroom house in Noe Valley. Away from the ritzy neighborhood Jim had always wanted to be in, Liz seemed more relaxed, happier. She wore her hair down more. She dressed up less. Liz would tell her to go to dinner. She would insist on it. “Tommy’s?”

  Jamie laughed. “Where else would we go?”

  “I’ll be there,” Hailey said. She meant it.

  “I’m so glad,” Cameron said. “I’ll be reaching out for some advice, too.”

  Hailey thought of all the things she had worried about as a new mother. How little of it mattered. Love them and keep them safe. “You better,” Hailey said. “I’m here any time.”

  Standing in the green marbled foyer, Hailey hesitated only a moment behind the fogged glass of the department doors that read “Internal Affairs.” She stepped into the bustling department and walked past the secretary. People stared. There would be talk.

  There already was.

  She maneuvered around the green steel desks to his office. He was crouched on the floor, stacking books into a brown cardboard box. Other boxes were stacked in the center of the room. The walls were bare except for nails and the faint yellow lines where pictures had once hung.

  “Last day?”

  Bruce’s lips curved into a smile, but there was something forlorn in his eyes, something that passed in a blink. The day would come when she could no longer see those eyes.

  “Last day.”

  He rubbed at his head, at the patch where his hair was cut shorter, where it was still growing back in.

  From habit, Hailey stepped forward to touch it. Stopped when his eyes widened in surprise.

  She stepped away. “You feel good?”

  He stood slowly. “Better all the time.”

  After an awkward beat, she motioned to the boxes. “You’re going to be great.”

  He grinned and it made her laugh. “A desk jockey for the FBI. Never thought I’d see the day.”

  They fell silent again.

  The room still felt occupied. She saw the place where the Christmas banquet picture used to hang—the two of them standing carefully five or six people apart.

  “Now I know who to call if I ever get myself in big trouble.”

  When his gaze returned to her, the expression was stoic, the strain of it impossible to miss. “Yes. Please call me first.”

  The familiar pull was still between them, but Hailey resisted it now. She didn’t trust herself to hug him.

  Instead, she said goodbye.

  It wasn’t as hard as she’d thought it would be. The more she had trusted Jim, the bigger the wedge between her and Hal. What she needed wasn’t another man.

  What she needed was her partner.

  She needed Hal.

  She had him back now. She wouldn’t let anything come between them again.

  Crossing the department, she walked slowly, confident.

  She didn’t pause until she pushed through the red door and into the stairwell.

  Relief and sorrow ran in waves through her chest.

  She stepped through the second set of doors and into the fresh air. Standing on the small cement patio, she squinted in the bright light and breathed cool air. Pushed her hair back and wiped her moist hands on the slacks of her suit.

  She stood until she felt the pull to go back inside. It was time to move forward. Upstairs in the DA’s office, Martina Coelho awaited their appointment.

  Getting this out in the open was important for all of them. One day Ali might remember. Hailey would have to be prepared for that. Even as she prayed that day never came.

  Hal had helped her chose Martina Coelho. She had small children, a husband.

  With thoughts of Ali and Camilla, Hailey gripped the door handle and imagined—for the hundredth time—what she was about to tell Coelho and how she would say it.

  How she would confess that her daughter had killed her husband.

  Hailey stepped into the dim building, paused to allow her eyes time to adjust to the darkness.

  Her gaze was drawn to the bench where Hal would be waiting when she was done telling the story of that night.

  She patted her pocket for the photographs Liz had given her this morning. There were two—one of Ali and Camilla taken by Liz only a month ago and a family one of the four of them at Christmas two years ago, just six weeks before John’s death.

  She entered the DA’s office. Martina stood from her desk.

  They would be fine. All they could do was move forward.

  A little luck would help, too.

  She had earned some luck.

  They all had.

  The End

  Preview: Dark Passage

  Rookie Club Book 3

  Chapter 1

  Heavy boots drummed on the floor, partially drowned out by the rasp of zippers and the sticky rip of Velcro. Inside the Ops van, the officers pulled on jumpsuits and tightened bulletproof vests. For Special Ops Officer Cameron Cruz, the red light had a calming effect. The raid was minutes away. In these moments, the energy of the officers built a charge in the air that was almost visible.

  Despite it, expressions were guarded, cool. Tension was at a peak. The moment they started moving in, the jokes would begin. The pranks and stunts would come after, the rowdy celebration that followed a successful raid.

  Cameron was the only woman, always a little on the outside, and yet she loved it. The adrenaline, the strategy, every minute a test. Then, reliving each moment when it was done. No one talked about that beforehand. Superstition wasn’t something any Special Ops member would admit to, but they all subscribed.

  Tonight they had a barricaded suspect. The red light protected their eyes, so they were ready for the darkness outside. Weapons loaded, she smelled the acrid grapefruit odor of sweat and the metallic scents of gun oil and ammunition. Already she felt sweat along the line of her equipment belt, the weight cutting into her hips. Even two undershirts didn’t prevent the familiar biting on her skin. The belt carried forty pounds of equipment, built for a man’s hips, not hers. Even the extra extra small didn’t hold the belt in place. Lately, though, it was getting easier. It had taken her until yesterday to figure out why.

  “Four minutes,” the sergeant called.

  Silence buzzed inside the bus like the anticipation of tremors after an earthquake. Cameron glanced across at Diego who looked back. Tonight she would tell him. She surreptitiously crossed herself with a tiny motion of her index finger. It was a ritual for her. Everyone had one. She thought of Mama, Rosa, Diego, then of the unknown little person growing inside her.

  The sergeant called the team’s attention to a backlit board with what looked like the diagram of a complex football strategy. Cameron had intimate kno
wledge of the layout, as she had been on the reconnaissance team. On every job, the team was split into four duties: equipment; intelligence who profiled the suspect; tactical, which coordinated the actual event; and reconnaissance. New officers began in equipment.

  Reconnaissance was the fourth shop and the most dangerous. Not everyone was allowed to be on the recon team. Certainly they never risked the medics like Ambley. If something went wrong, medics were the last people the team could afford to lose.

  “Lau, you’re lead.”

  Ryan Lau nodded; his gaze swept across the team as he pulled his helmet over his black buzz cut. Lau was often lead. He was compact, maybe only five foot eight inches, but all wiry muscle, which made him easier to cover. The lead man was most at risk. He carried a fifty-pound ram to take out the door. If there was a shooter behind it, he depended on the team to cover him.

  “Kessler does second, then Cruz.” In many ways, Brian Kessler was Lau’s opposite: taller and thick, built like a football player but also agile and quick. Sergeant Lavick went through the remaining list, eight in all. “Questions?”

  Lavick ran his forearm across his face. He looked old. “Let’s go, then. Gear on. We’re moving in.”

  Cameron pulled the black helmet over her cropped blond hair. She patted her suit, fingered the reassuring bulge of her ammo. She signaled ready as the last of the weapons were checked, rechecked and holstered. Hostile, agile, mobile was the recon credo. The door cracked open. The cool San Francisco night rolled into the van as the team moved out.

  The perp was wanted for armed robbery. He was known to have a weapons fetish and wasn’t likely to go down without a fight. That’s all she needed to know. Her job was to get him out. After that, he was someone else’s problem.

  The team stopped at the door, making their formation.

  “Nuts to butts,” Lau called back.

  She tucked up against Kessler, felt Paules behind her. She was grateful it wasn’t Diego. This was no place for distractions. Diego was behind Paules along with Daley, Ballestrini and Ambley.