Laura said, “Let’s walk around to the alley—see if she’s in back.”
They followed the street to Hoff Avenue, the narrow strip of asphalt that ran behind the 4th Avenue stores and served as an alley. Mission cactus about eight feet tall corralled the dirt lot behind Ruby’s shop.
A car was parked diagonally to the store, driver’s door open, lights on, engine running.
For a second, Laura thought it was Ruby’s car, that she was in the process of packing up her car and closing up shop, but then she spotted a charcoal-gray Armada parked up against a small adobe outbuilding that matched the store. She’d seen the Armada before and knew it belonged to Ruby.
The running car was an old beater from the eighties—Plymouth Horizon with a temporary license sticker in the window. The car’s windows were dirty but she could see someone sitting in the driver's seat. Someone wearing a hooded sweatshirt.
It took her a split second to grasp the significance. She pulled her weapon and started toward the car just as two shots rapped out, one almost on top of the other.
The door burst open, slamming against the side of the building, and a man ran outside. Laura glimpsed a woman lying on the floor just before the door banged shut.
Ruby?
The man headed for the car.
No—not a man.
Laura didn’t know how she knew—maybe it was the way the figure moved, maybe it was the shape—but everything said woman.
All in black, balaclava covering the face.
The car engine revved. Laura saw the figure running to the car, saw the driver turning his head to face her, the hood pulled tight by the drawstring at his chin. His face pale in the gloom.
The car clunked into reverse and slalomed backward, the running figure trying to open the passenger side door, scrambling to catch up. Still in reverse, the car swerved in a wide arc—Laura was in its path. She dove behind the Dumpster at the edge of the lot.
Where was Matt?
She looked around and saw him crouched behind a tall row of mission cactus that lined the dirt parking lot. He sat on his heels, phone to his ear and gun resting on his knee.
Laura yelled, “Police! Stop! Do it now—”
The reverse lights came back on and the car sped backwards, fishtailing as it came. Laura darted to the opposite side as the car rammed into the side of the Dumpster. Dust rose up, choking her. Through the scrim she saw the brake lights go off as the car ground gears and then shot back the way it had come. Meanwhile the woman was still running after the passenger door, which swung back and forth, almost knocking her away. The car shuddered to a stop, the engine revving. The woman scrambled for the passenger side and launched herself in, trying but failing to pull the door closed behind her. Laura, standing foursquare and straight-armed, squeezed off a shot between the thuds of her heartbeat—blowing out the back window. The car took off again, this time swerving for the lot exit and taking out half a large cactus. Laura aimed, fired, and yelled. “Stop! Police!”
She could hear sirens.
The car managed to straighten out and peeled away, wheels churning up more dust. Laura fired off another shot but it went wide.
“Laura! You okay?” Matt.
“Check on Ruby!” Laura shouted.
She ran down the alley, following the Plymouth as it bumped over potholes and swerved to avoid another Dumpster. She was almost out of range, but did manage to set for a second and get off a shot at the tires.
Expecting a miss.
But the left rear tire blew, and the Plymouth jounced onto the cross street just as another car shot by.
A blare of horns and shriek of tires, manic high-pitched screaming, and then Laura saw the car run into another car parked at the curb and suddenly it was airborne, tipping end over end, smacking down on its roof in the street with a shrieking clash of metal.
Laura’s arms were still out in front of her, a death grip on her SIG. Her heart going a thousand miles a minute. The sight of the car going end over end like a domino blotted out everything else.
She heard the loud whoop of sirens ending, and more sirens in the distance. Trotted to the cross street. Her legs were shaking just a little, but her hand was curled hard around her SIG.
The police were already out of their cars, guns drawn and moving around the Plymouth. One of them looked in her direction and she pointed to her badge.
It took a moment for her throat to gain purchase, otherwise she’d just squeak instead of talk. “Laura Cardinal—detective—DPS—there’s a woman down—All Souls Shoppe! We need an ambulance. Now!”
A cop car peeled away and turned into the alley as two more black and whites pulled up. She could hear them working the radio. She looked at the officer nearest the Plymouth, his gun now holstered.
“Dead?” she asked. Although she knew. Joel Strickland’s head and part of his torso had gone through the windshield.
She walked over and peered in.
Alex Williams was jammed up under the dash like an accordion. She looked dead, too.
Laura said, “Should have worn your seatbelt.”
By the time she made it back to All Souls Shoppe, the ambulance was just pulling out. Siren going—a good sign. Matt was there, covered in blood. He’d staunched Ruby’s wound with a towel. Laura watched the ambulance bump away down the alley. “You think she’s going to make it?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
He took a step toward her. The blood coating his chest and arm was black in the moonlight—shiny and slick.
But Laura didn’t care. She went to him and pressed herself to his chest and held him tight. They stayed that way for a good long while.
21: When Good Things Happen to Bad People
Both Williams and Strickland were dead. Ruby, however, survived. The short trip to University Medical Center and UMC’s trauma surgeons made the difference. It would be some time before Laura and Anthony could interview her—she had a long road ahead.
It had been a long night that rolled into the early morning. Laura was questioned at the scene by TPD SIU and turned her duty weapon over to them as required. Soon after, DPS SIU arrived, debriefed her, and issued her a replacement weapon. Laura was placed on paid leave. There would be an administrative investigation. She would see a psychologist in two days. This was all standard procedure, but that didn’t make her feel any better.
Laura was positive Ruby had no part in Sean’s murder. It was far more likely that Ruby had been used by both Strickland and Williams. The two of them had conspired to kill her before she could remove Strickland from her will.
Turned out that Alex Williams had a safe deposit box, which she’d kept under the name Madison Neville. The number and location had been among her personal effects. There was one lone possession inside the safe deposit box; a Ruger LCR-22 revolver, one shot fired. Apparently, Alex couldn’t part with the one keepsake that could have implicated her.
That was a moot point now.
Laura had no sympathy for Williams. She wished she could dredge up some, but she couldn’t. She thought about the cold-blooded way Alex shot Sean Perrin. How she’d tried to kill Ruby Ballantine.
Laura didn’t feel vengeful, though. She just felt . . . tired.
So many homicides, most of them sordid, ugly, and small. The reasons people took a life were so often mundane. Violence came first to solve their problems.
Williams was a schemer. She had planned everything and executed well. But there was nothing inside her but a void. At the moment when Laura got to her, when she saw Williams crammed up against the dash, Laura had thought of it as a cheap nightlight going out.
Money and violence.
Sometimes it sickened Laura so much she wanted to march in to the office and hand over her badge and her weapon and find something else to do.
But she didn’t.
She’d made a promise to Sean Perrin that she would find his killer, and she did. That was the reward. That was what kept her going.
Sometimes it wa
s a gift to the people left behind. A gift to the one who died. And other times, it was just plain vengeance.
Epilogue
Fall stayed around for a long time, and turned into Indian Summer.
One night, Laura couldn’t sleep. She’d been having nightmares, mostly of the shootout and the chase down Hoff Avenue. She opened the sliding glass door and walked out onto the terrace. From where she was, she could look out at the lights of the city sprawled out far below in the Tucson valley. She was surprised how many lights were on at two in the morning.
A cool wind rattled the palm tree above.
She saw a shape on the path down by the horse corrals.
Frank Entwistle.
Or maybe it was nothing at all.
He was just a shape, insubstantial, maybe just the side of the water tank up against a mesquite tree.
But she heard his voice, as if he were right beside her.
“Looks like we’ve come to the end of the line, Kiddo.”
She could see him now, looking as unhealthy in death as he did in life, his face red, his jowls sagging above his open-necked shirt.
“End of the line?” Laura didn’t believe him. He had been with her all this time. Years. He had always been her sounding board, always been with her.
“When you was a kid,” he said. “I bet you got a bike for your birthday.”
“Didn’t everybody?”
“And if your parents was smart, the bike had training wheels.”
“Uh-huh. What are you getting at?”
But she knew.
“Kiddo, you don’t need me. You never needed me.” He looked down at the cigarette between his fingers, the cherry glowing red in the dark.
“I know that,” Laura said.
“But you keep holdin’ on.”
“Some would say you keep holding on.”
“It’s all in the way you look at it.” He squinted at her. He smelled of Tanqueray gin, cigarette smoke and fast food hamburgers. “I may just be a figment of your imagination, but the fact is, you’re not taking credit. I don’t know why that is. Maybe you need a psychiatrist to help you out.”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“Uh-huh. At least your love life got straightened out.” He threw the cigarette on the dirt and toed it out. “I just wanted to say. You don’t need me. You need to take credit for the work you do, Kiddo.
“I do.”
“No you don’t. You’re a strong gal, and you don’t need anyone between you and what you can do. You don’t need no cheerleader and you don’t need no help from me.”
He started to fade. Laura realized at that moment that she didn’t want things to change. Maybe she didn’t need him to help her, maybe she didn’t need training wheels, but she needed him. Not as her mentor, but as her friend.
“Frank, wait.”
He stood there, mid-shimmer—kind of like the old snowy picture on her grandfather’s TV set. She said, “What’s wrong with just your company?”
He materialized a little more. Some of that red color from his high blood pressure returned to his ghostly cheeks?
“Company?” he asked.
“Yes, company. Why does it have to be either/or? Why do you have to do anything? Is that part of the contract?”
“Contract? I don’t have no effing contract. I just like to help out, is all.”
Laura spoke quickly, the words coming in a flood. “You say you’re a figment of my imagination. Maybe you are. But it’s my imagination. Which means you’re there for me, and I don’t want . . . I don’t want you to go.”
“But what about your fiancé?”
“Apples and oranges. Unless you’re a peeper.”
He glared at her. “I ain’t no peeper! I got my standards. You ought know that. You oughta know me better!”
“Then what’s the problem?” Realizing she was stiff as a board, her fingernails digging into her balled fists. She didn’t want Frank to go. “I’d . . . miss you.”
He thrust out his palms, as if he were trying to ward off a punch.
“Okay, okay. It was just an idea. I don’t want to hang around where I’m not wanted—” He caught her look and added hastily, “And I guess you like me around. So’s okay. I’ll pop around once in a while.”
“Damn skippy you will.”
Laura realized she was speaking to air. He’d already skipped out. He liked to do that.
The cool desert wind rattled an ocotillo branch, rippled over the hairs on her arm. She shivered. All that was left was the trace of cigarette smoke.
She heard the sliding glass door and looked toward the dark house. The Love of Her Life—right in the here and now—stepped out onto the terrace. “Hey. You okay?” Matt asked.
Laura never saw herself as one who held on to the past, but it came home to her that that was exactly what she’d been doing. Right now, in this moment, she was looking at Matt, who was her future.
Frank knew. He’d tried, in his clumsy way, to tell her that.
You don’t need me anymore.
He was right. She didn’t need him. But she wanted him around.
And he’d promised her he’d show up from time to time.
“Lor?”
The breeze blew up between them, shuttling dirt and leaves across the terrace. Matt looked at her quizzically, waiting for an answer. “You okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” Laura said.
“I’m better than ever.”
_______________
About the Author
Hailed by bestselling author T. Jefferson Parker as “a strong new voice in American crime fiction,” J. Carson Black has written fifteen novels. Her thrille
r, THE SHOP, reached #1 on the Kindle Bestseller list, and her crime thriller series featuring homicide detective Laura Cardinal became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. Although Black earned a Master of Music degree in operatic voice, she was inspired to write a horror novel after reading The Shining. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.
Facebook: J Carson Black Author Page
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to the great folks who helped make this book a reality: Rebecca Barry, my social media maven; author and cover designer, Kealan Patrick Burke; John Cheek, of Cops ‘N Writers; Carrick Cook of Arizona Department of Public Safety for information on DPS policy and procedure; Michelle Dear, who brought up my game in so many ways; Martin Keane, for his final pass copyedit; my husband and publisher Glenn McCreedy; Susan Cummins Miller, for her help on the hydrology and geology of Madera Canyon; my good friend William Simon; Christopher Smith, whose encouragement led to the writing of this book; and Kevin Smith, editor extraordinaire.
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