“Leary,” Jessie said. Her voice sounded strained. If anything, Leary’s arrival seemed to have upset her more.
“Hey, Jess.”
“Detective,” Garrett said. “How did you find us?”
“Good old fashioned police work. Put down the gun.”
“Where’s your backup?” To Reggie, Garrett didn’t sound like a cornered man. He sounded relaxed, even pleased to see Leary. “All your cop buddies? Don’t tell me you rushed over here all alone, trying to play the hero for your lawyer crush? That wasn’t very smart.”
“I don’t have to be very smart,” Leary said. “I only have to be smarter than you.”
The words seemed to rock Garrett back on his heels, but only for a moment. Then he jammed his gun harder into the side of Jessie’s face. “Well, you’re just in time. You see, a few seconds ago I was debating whether your girlfriend was more valuable to me as a hostage or as a dead body to teach this lying weasel convict a lesson. Now, I can have both. Put down your gun, and I’ll let Black be the hostage instead of the corpse.”
Reggie rose, shakily, from his knees to his full height. He took a step toward Garrett, whose back was still to him and whose attention was riveted on Leary. Leary caught Reggie’s eye and gave a slight shake of his head. Reggie hesitated again.
“What makes you so sure I came alone?” Leary said.
“Because I pay attention. I’m aware. I observe my surroundings.”
Reggie understood that Leary wanted him to hang back, but the irony in Garrett’s smug statement was just too perfect to resist. Reggie grabbed Garrett from behind and yanked him away from Jessie. “Did you observe that, motherfucker?”
Garrett fired his gun, and a brilliant flash lit up the family room, revealing everything in a split-second of hard light—the graffiti penned on the chipped paint, a pile of feces in the corner. The deafening bang was followed immediately by another gunshot—this one from Leary’s semi-automatic. Garrett slammed backward against Reggie, slumped in his arms, and slid to the floor. The room went black again, Garrett’s flashlight rolling across the floor. Reggie tried to blink away the afterimages printed on his eyeballs. He saw Leary rush to Jessie’s side. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” she said.
The front of Reggie’s shirt was warm and sticky. On the floor, Garrett had a hole in his chest. “Jesus Christ, man, what if that bullet had gone straight through his body? Did you think of that?”
“You saved my life,” Jessie said. It took Reggie a moment to register that she was talking to him. “You’re a hero.”
He let the word sink in. He liked the sound of it.
“We need to get you some help,” Leary said, finally turning his attention to Reggie. “Your leg doesn’t look too great.” Reggie didn’t feel too great, either. The adrenaline rush of the fight-or-flight situation had subsided, and in its aftermath, an unpleasant lightheadedness was creeping in. “You’ve probably lost a lot of blood.”
Reggie managed a grin. “You should have seen the other guy.” With the last of his remaining energy, he kicked the corpse at his feet. The smartest guy in the room? Not in my house, asshole.
Then his legs wobbled, Leary caught him mid-fall, and everything faded to black.
36
That night, Philadelphia’s hospitals swelled to capacity, treating people who’d sustained injuries during the crisis at the CJC—everything ranging from shock, to bones crushed in the rush to evacuate, to at least one heart attack. But one patient, at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, was guaranteed his own room. If the uniformed officer stationed outside the door raised an eyebrow at the bags in Jessie’s hands, he did a full-on double-take when he saw what Leary was carrying. But he didn’t stop them from entering. By now, the story of what had happened in and out of the Criminal Justice Center—and Reggie Tuck’s part in it—had spread throughout the police department and the city. The officer smiled and made a point of looking the other way as Jessie and Leary stepped past him into the room.
“I hope you didn’t spoil your appetite on hospital food,” Jessie said.
Reggie was reclining on the hospital bed, one hand on the TV remote and the other holding a cup of water. He’d swapped his bloody suit for a hospital gown, and his leg was elevated above him and bandaged from thigh to knee. He smiled widely when they entered. “You kidding? Hospital food’s about the only thing worse than prison chow.”
“I don’t know about that,” Leary said. “My middle school cafeteria could probably give them both a run for their money.”
He closed the door behind them and Jessie pulled two chairs closer to the bed. She unpacked the contents of the plastic bags onto the meal tray. “I would have preferred to take you out to eat, but given your condition, take-out seemed like the better way to go,” she said.
Reggie eyed the trays of sushi as she placed them side by side on the tray, and his jaw seemed to slacken. If he’d started to drool, it wouldn’t have surprised her. “I think I love you,” Reggie said.
“Hold on,” Leary said. He hefted his own contribution to the celebratory dinner—a brown paper bag—and then, with a flourish, withdrew a bottle of sake. “Who do you love now?”
“There’s enough love in my heart for both of you,” Reggie said. He surveyed the food again as Leary grabbed three plastic cups and poured the sake.
They tapped the three cups together. Jessie brought hers to her mouth, and almost gagged on the industrial-cleaner-like odor rising from her cup. She took a sip and winced. Leary and Reggie both laughed.
“I’m more of a red wine kind of girl,” she said, feeling herself blush.
“Sake’s an acquired taste,” Leary said, “especially the cheap stuff you can buy on a cop’s salary.”
Reggie sipped and closed his eyes, a look of bliss softening his features. “I don’t know what you guys are drinking, but this tastes like Heaven to me.”
“Pruno’s not the same, huh?” Leary said, referring to the homemade prison alcohol that most inmates stomached if they wanted a drink.
“Well now, I did know one guy who made a mean jailhouse hooch,” Reggie said. He plucked a slice of one of the sushi rolls with his chopsticks and popped it into his mouth. “But alchemists like him are pretty uncommon.”
“Listen,” Jessie said, “when you’re back inside, I want you to keep your head down, okay? Just stay out of trouble and serve your time. Leary and I will put in a good word at your parole hearing.”
“I appreciate that.”
“But.” She pinched a piece of her own roll and brought it to her mouth. She hated that there had to be a but—especially after all she and Reggie had been through together—but at the end of the day, she was still an assistant district attorney.
“Oh, come on,” Leary said around a bite of salmon sushi. “Let the man enjoy his meal first.”
“You want to know where I hid Carlo Vitale’s money,” Reggie said. “And here I thought you brought me sushi because we were friends.”
“We are friends,” she said. And she meant it, too.
Leary leaned forward. “You’re an informant, right? Inform us.”
Reggie leaned back on the hospital bed and downed the rest of his cup of sake in one gulp. Then he told them.
They had to go there, just to see for themselves. And there it was, just like Reggie had said it would be. A name inscribed on a plaque set in the wall of the Charles L. Durham library, the public library at 3320 Haverford Avenue that served the Mantua neighborhood of Philadelphia.
Leary stood beside her. “He donated over three-hundred-thousand dollars to a local library? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“In his father’s name.” She pointed to the lettering etched in the marble. John Horwood. Reggie’s adoptive father.
A cool breeze touched her face. Even with the lights of the city brightening the night sky, she could still see a spattering of stars above. She looked at Leary. He looked back, but he wasn’t smiling anymore. H
e looked beaten, and sad. It didn’t make sense to her. After all they had been through today, he should feel relieved, like she did. Instead, he looked like a man carrying an immense burden. “What’s wrong, Mark?”
Her use of his first name seemed to jolt him out of his fugue, and for the briefest second, she saw something flash in his eyes. The look—a mixture of affection and urgent desire—took her instantly back to that night in his car. Their moment of intimacy was never far from her thoughts, but nor was the memory of what came after. She had tried to convince herself that it had been meaningless, a one-night stand, but Leary had wanted it to be something more. She had resisted that. Now, standing here in this broken down part of the city, next to the man who had spent every minute of the day trying to save her life, she wondered why.
Didn’t she owe it to him—and to herself—to give it a shot?
“I’ve been suspended without pay,” he said, shattering her thoughts. “They haven’t actually fired me yet, but they don’t need to. My career in the Philly PD is finished.”
“Is it—” Her throat went dry, and she had to swallow before she could speak again. “Because of what happened with us? Those photos on the blog?”
He nodded wearily. “And my seeming inability not to prioritize you over official procedure, my orders, and all of that bullshit.” He waved his hand, as if swatting the thought away. “Fuck them. Maybe I’m just not meant to be a cop.”
She couldn’t believe she was hearing those words from his mouth. Mark Leary was the best homicide detective she’d ever met. He was born to be a cop. “What are you going to do now?”
“Now?” he said. That look returned to his eyes, and she felt her knees weaken. “Now I’m going to ask you out, and I’m going to hope you say yes.”
She leaned into him, and kissed him for an answer.
THE END
Thank you for reading Informant!
If you enjoyed the book, please post a review on Amazon and let everyone know. Your opinion will directly influence the success of the book. It doesn’t need to be an in-depth report—just a few sentences helps a lot. If you could take a few minutes to help spread the word, I would greatly appreciate it.
—Larry A. Winters
Deadly Evidence
A Jessie Black Legal Thriller
For my parents,
thanks for everything!
1
Russell Lanford could hear the heavy thuds and clanks of the guns bumping together inside the nylon duffel bag, and he wondered if he should have wrapped the guns in paper towels or something. There was no real guide to this, unfortunately. He knew. He’d looked for one on-line. The problem was, most people who did what he was about to do didn’t have time to speak their last words, much less pen a how-to manual. They made their final statements with hot lead. He slowed his gait and held his arm straighter in an attempt to minimize the swing of the bag. The last thing he needed was for one of the guns to discharge in the bag before he even arrived at the school. All of them were loaded—that had seemed prudent to him when he’d packed the bag in his bedroom, but now it made him nervous. As his online friend True_Man liked to say, he’d only have one chance at this.
He smiled grimly as he imagined the headline. Teenager shoots himself in the leg en route to mass killing.
He passed through the gate from the street to the grounds of the illustrious Stevens Academy. There were no metal detectors, no security officers. Stevens Academy wasn’t that kind of school, after all. It was a private school for good kids. Well-off kids, which Russell understood to mean kids who’s parents weren’t rich, but had just enough money to get ripped off by sending their children to a fascist hellhole masquerading as an institution of learning.
Usually a guy named Cody Napier stood at the gate, but he was more of a crossing guard than anything else, and Russell knew that Mr. Napier liked to take a smoke break at 4pm every afternoon, and he had to do that in the loading dock on the other side of the school. It was 4:06 now, and Mr. Napier was nowhere to be seen. Passing the gate, he heard the sounds, carried by the breeze, of his fellow students. The school day—for which Russell had called in sick—was over. Now was the time that the campus buzzed with after-school activities—sports, newspaper, debate club, and a bunch of lame shit that kids did in an effort to beef up their college applications. Because, you know, having straight A’s ain’t shit unless you also play on the varsity fencing team.
Russell strayed from the cobblestone path leading to the school building. He inhaled the scent of recently cut grass as he crossed a vivid green lawn toward the athletic fields behind the school. It never ceased to impress him as an amazing contrast, emerging from the gritty, noisy city of Philadelphia and into this rarified, cloistered greenery. As a freshman, he’d felt lucky, privileged to be here. Fast-forward three years of living the life of a second-class citizen—a loser, a freak—and all he wanted to do was tear it all apart. The duffel bag seemed to clank in agreement.
It was autumn, slightly chilly. The crisp breeze carried their voices to him as he neared the field where the cheerleaders practiced their routines. The bleachers were vacant, and he caught himself worrying that if he sat there, he’d stand out. Usually, he did everything possible to avoid notice. To blend in, disappear. But now? Why fucking bother? He marched straight to the bleachers, heaved the unwieldy duffel bag onto a bench, and sat beside it. His arm throbbed from the effort of carrying the duffel. He massaged the ropy muscles of his arm and let his labored breathing return to normal.
He was in position.
But he was not in a hurry. Not yet. As soon as he unzipped the gray Nike bag, then he would be in a hurry. Then every second would count as the police roared toward him, converging on this field at this school. He could imagine their confused radio communications now—“Steven Who’s What? Where?”—as they used their GPS units to locate this shit-speck high school that otherwise didn’t even exist in the consciousness of most Philadelphians. But the place would be world famous soon enough. Stevens Academy, grades 9-12, 994 students (minus the recently departed). Good old Stevens Academy, joining Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Umpqua Community College in the hall of fame.
He watched the girls. Long hair. Tight, perfect bodies. Their red and white cheerleader uniforms left little to the imagination. But more than their shapely thighs and perky breasts, Russell found his gaze drawn to their faces. There was something about their expressions—happy, smug, confident—that caused his chest to clench painfully. He hated them. They were so entitled, so proud of themselves, so sure that they deserved every happiness in life just because of the genetic accident of being born pretty. They didn’t view their beauty as good fortune or luck. They viewed it as the natural order. Of course they were beautiful. Of course they were superior. Of course they would enjoy the privileges of popularity in high school (parties, boyfriends, the favoritism of teachers), followed by leisure and luxury later on (BMW SUVs, thousand-dollar watches, gleaming kitchens they didn’t use), when they married men of means (like their fathers, like his). These cheerleaders would never know loneliness, or pain, or a hard day’s work. They were above all that.
The world was a fucked up place, and it was all because of girls—of women—like these pretty little bitches.
His body vibrated with the energy of pent-up rage. He moved one shaking arm toward the zipper of the Nike duffel bag, and pulled. The metal teeth parted with a low zipping sound, revealing the shadowy space inside. Sunlight glinted off a black metal surface within. The Taurus 9mm? The Bushmaster .223 semi-auto? Where to begin, where to begin….
“Hey!”
His hand jumped away from the bag. Ms. Kerensa, the cheerleading coach, had one hand up to her forehead to shade her eyes, and the other hand clamped angrily to her hip, as she stared up at him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she said.
The girls all turned to look at him. He saw expressions of annoyance, mostly, as if the intrusion of a lesser being (a
loser, a geek, a beta male) into their exclusive and sacred space were an effrontery against nature.
“I’m talking to you,” Ms. Kerensa said.
The woman’s expression was severe, her features hatchet-like. Unlike her charges, Ms. Kerensa had not been blessed with a pretty face or a great body. Or maybe she had been. He supposed age robbed many women of their youthful beauty. Maybe he’d be doing some of these bitches a favor, sparing them from the eventual pain of realizing that what they’d assumed to be their God-given birthright was in fact fleeting and temporary, squandered in youth.
Stay cool, True_Man had said, no matter what.
Russell said, “I’m just sitting here.”
“I see that. And you’re making my team uncomfortable. You’re making me uncomfortable. This isn’t a show. Please leave.”
Russell’s hand dropped into the duffel bag. His heartbeat kicked up a notch as his fingers slid over the hard, cold steel shapes inside. His index finger eased inside the loop of a trigger guard and his hand curled around the textured stock of the grip—a motion that felt surprisingly natural, surprisingly right.
He didn’t even know which weapon he’d grasped until his hand came out of the bag with the Beretta Neos rimfire pistol. Dad’s favorite. The .22 caliber handgun’s sleek, futuristic barrel caught briefly on the zipper. With a tug, Russell yanked it free. Like all of the guns in the bag, he’d loaded it with a full mag and chambered one round. This baby was ready to rock.
He barely noticed the look of horror that twisted Ms. Kerensa’s face. He was already aiming down the sights at Maddy Nesbitt. Blonde hair, blue eyes, star of untold masturbatory fantasies. He aimed for center mass, admiring the swell of her chest even as his grip tightened on the gun and his finger pulled the trigger. His aim was slightly off—he’d never been the best marksman, despite many trips to the target range with his father—but no harm done. Blood burst from her throat and she flew backward as if flicked across the field by a giant. She landed in the dirt. Her cheerleader skirt flipped up to reveal her perfect thighs. The blast of the gunshot faded, and there was a moment when all was silent except for a little gurgle as Maddy choked to death on her own blood. Then her sounds were overwhelmed by the screaming of the others.
Jessie Black Legal Thrillers Box Set 1 Page 52
