Heart Break: An Isabel Swift Novel (The Isabel Swift Detective Series Book 1)

by MF Moskwik

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Izzy flinches, expecting the boom of the gun, the impact of a bullet, and the warm rush of blood from a wound in her body.

  When nothing happens, she catches her breath and opens her eyes.

  “NO! DAMN IT, NO!” Robert yells as he repeatedly pulls the trigger of his empty gun.

  “Robert!” Izzy says as she starts to run toward him.

  “They’ll still pay! I’ll make them all pay!” he says. He hold up the device, and with a decisive click, a large button glows red.

  Feedback, loud and twanging, pings in her ear from her radio, and in frustration, she rips the wire from her ear.

  “Turn it off, Robert! You heard me! Turn it off! Now!” Izzy yells as she pulls her gun on Robert.

  “Go ahead and shoot me, Officer.” Robert shakes his head. “It’s too late. You can’t stop the signal. It’s already sent. Everybody’s going to die.”

  Insulin pump. Drug pump. Pacemaker. Hector!

  “We’ll see about that,” Izzy says as she holsters her gun and runs away. The antenna! I’ve got to get the antenna!

  Izzy races toward the northeast corner of the rooftop.

  The large, metallic structure is bolted to the corner of the roof, and the antenna itself is housed within a small metal cage that extends five feet above the lip of the building’s roof.

  Quickly, she scales the small metal structure and reaches in to yank the antenna out of its casing when a pair of hands grabs her feet.

  “Don’t! You can’t!” Robert yells as he tries to pull her off the structure.

  “Let go, Robert!” yells Izzy as she kicks him with her work boots. Robert grabs her calf and tries to pull her from the antenna tower. As she falls, the metal scrapes her skin, but with a hard stomp, she sends him screaming in pain to the roof’s floor.

  Again, she scrambles to the top of the device, the metal scratching the skin of her arms, legs, and stomach.

  This time, a pair of hands yanks her side arm from its holster. “It’s over, Officer. Get down. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will.”

  “Robert—”

  “New York State Police! Put down the weapon. Immediately!” cries a familiar baritone voice.

  Distracted, Robert turns the gun toward the stair shelter, and Izzy quickly pulls herself up to the top of the casing. With a swift yank, she pulls the antenna from its metal house and breaks it, throwing the antenna halves to the ground twenty-five stories below.

  “NO!” Robert cries as he watches the antenna fall in pieces. He trains the gun again on Izzy.

  “It’s over, Lennox. Down on the ground with your hands behind your head,” barks the angry tenor voice of Captain Williams.

  Together, Williams, Jameson, and a group of a half-dozen plainclothes detectives exit the stair shelter and point their guns at Lipton. “Both the antennas are destroyed,” Williams reveals.

  “And the vets? Hector?” asks Izzy.

  “All safe,” Jameson confirms.

  “It’s just you, me, and the gun, Robert. End this,” cries Izzy.

  “There’s only one way this can end. Only one way this could ever end.” With the gun still pointed at Izzy, Robert pulls himself up onto the small metal structure that housed the antenna.

  “Lennox!” cries Williams.

  The small metal structure creaks under the weight of both Isabel and Robert, and the small metal frame bends.

  “Are you crazy?” Izzy yells as she struggles to stop him.

  “Move, and I’ll shoot you. I promise,” Robert says as he climbs the structure. With a swift toss, he throws Izzy’s gun into the air and with his free hand, he grabs Izzy and pulls her in front of himself as a shield. “I’m not going to jail. Never.”

  “It’s twenty-five stories, Lennox. There’s no way out,” Williams points out.

  “There is a way out. Of everything.” He yanks Izzy hard, pulling her away from the metal structure so that the only thing keeping her from falling is his hold on the tower and his tenuous grasp on Izzy’s waist.

  “Isabel!” yells Jameson.

  “Lennox!” yells Williams.

  “Tell my mother I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I was the failure that she always thought I was. And that everything, all of it, was my fault,” he yells. He turns to Izzy and whispers, “You were right. It’s all my fault. And I have to let it go.”

  And with these final words, Robert releases his hold on the antenna.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I’m falling.

  The first second of Izzy’s twenty-five story fall down the side of the building is silent. She knows that there is yelling and the scrape of her flesh against metal and brick, but in that first second of free fall, all she can hear is the vast, silent yawn of empty space reaching between her feet and the ground.

  I’m falling, she thinks with wonder.

  The confused crash of flesh on rock wakes her from her stupor, and she finds herself stranded on a crumbling stone ledge. Anxious cries come from above.

  “SWIFT!”

  “ISABEL!”

  “I’m here!” she yells. She sits upright and shakes her head to clear her vision.

  “HELP!” comes a voice to her right.

  Izzy gets to her feet and walks carefully to the edge of the disintegrating stone.

  “I’m here! Please!” the voice cries again.

  She gets onto her knees, lowers herself onto her stomach, and carefully pokes her head over the side of the rock overhang. “Robert?”

  Beneath her, she sees that the fragmented ledge on which she landed is supported by the entablature of a row of columns. Further down, a pair of hands grasps at a fractured outcropping.

  “Hurry! I can’t hold on much longer!” Robert cries.

  Heads peek over the lip of the building’s edge. “Somebody, get a rope! Quick!”

  “Call the fire department!”

  “Get down to the floor beneath us and open a window!”

  “Swift!”

  “Williams!”

  “We’ve got you! Hang on!” the captain yells as he moves away from the lip of the building.

  Sirens in the distance begin to wail. They’re too far out. He won’t make it. “We need help. Now!” she yells.

  “Isabel! ISABEL!” yells Jameson.

  “Jameson!” she yells. “He won’t make it. I’m going down.”

  “WHAT THE DEVIL?” yells Jameson. Above her, the face of the British Detective Inspector appears. “We have a rope. We will send it down.”

  Isabel lies flat on the ledge and stretches her hand out to Robert. “Robert. I’m going to try to help you. When that rope comes down, I’m going to hand it to you, and I want you to grab it. Okay? Then we’ll pull you up and over, easy. Understand?”

  Jameson’s face reappears, along with the end of a rope. “Isabel? Can you grasp it?”

  The rope comes down, but falls just short of Isabel’s grasp.

  “Down! Farther down!” cries Jameson as he lowers the rope.

  Izzy takes the rope and pulls it toward Robert. As it nears his fingers, the line’s slack disappears, pulling the rope taut.

  A few more feet. Please! she thinks. “More, Jameson!”

  A few more shouts above, and the line’s slack reappears.

  Thank God! “Robert? Can you see the rope?”

  “Yeah,” comes the weak reply.

  “You gotta let go of the ledge, Robert, and grab onto the rope.”

  “It’s too far!” A sob comes from the man dangling from the ledge. “It’s too far! I’m going to die!”

  “You’re not going to die, Robert. Not today.” She turns and yells at the officers above her. “You got any more?”

  “That’s all, Detective. There’s no more!”

  Below them, a window shatters open, and the glass falls in glittering shards to the ground. A pair of arms reaches out and grabs Robert’s legs.

  “NO! NO!” Robert yells as the officer tries to pull h
im inside the window. “Let go of me!” Shrieking, he kicks his legs, and the officer disappears inside the window with a loud curse.

  The stone ledge crumbles further, scattering rock and pebble below. Izzy‘s elbows give way as the stone underneath them disintegrates, and gravity threatens to pull her to the ground. She is just able to right her body when a hand grabs her wrist.

  “No! Robert! Let go of me!”

  “Isabel!” Jameson yells. He disappears behind the lip of the building’s roof.

  The police officer reemerges from the window and grabs Robert’s legs again.

  “Let go! Let me go!” yells Robert as he kicks at the police officer pulling him through the window. With each twist of his flailing body, his hand yanks her wrist, and she struggles to keep her center of mass on the ledge.

  ”Robert, you have to let go. You’ll pull me off,” she yells. The weight of her small frame is no match for the mass of his taller, muscled form, and she feels herself being pulled off the ledge. “Robert? Robert!” The ledge beneath her crumbles more. “Williams! Jameson! Jameson! JAMESON!” Izzy shrieks. She turns and looks for the rope-it is no longer there.

  “Jameson!”

  Izzy begins to slip off of the ledge. With her free hand, she claws frantically at any surface she can reach to gain a hold-nothing.

  The officer below them pulls on Robert’s legs again. Robert kicks him, and with all the force in his body, he yanks Izzy off of the ledge.

  “NO!” she gasps as she falls.

  A pair of hands grab her free hand.

  “I’ve got you!” yells Jameson.

  Izzy looks up, and sees Jameson lowered over the lip of the building, tied to the roof and to safety by the short rope.

  “Don’t let me go!” she yells.

  “I’ve got you!” yells Jameson.

  Williams radios the police on the floor below. “We’ve got her. Bring Lennox inside.”

  An officer, tied to a rope and held secure by a line of officers, sits on the windowsill, moves his body to the outside of the building, and grabs the hips and torso of the screaming man.

  “On the count of three, we’re going to pull you in, Mr. Lennox. You have to let go, or we all go down. Do you understand?”

  “NO! NO!”

  “Robert! ROBERT! Listen to me. They’ve got you. You’re not going to fall,” encourages Izzy. She feels his sobs begin to subside, and she gives a nod to the officer below them. “Okay, Robert. On the count of three, okay? You count us off. Nobody will do anything without you being ready.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Lennox. Count us off,” says the officer below them. “Ready? Three . . .“

  Robert’s crying subsides, and he draws shaky breaths. “Three . . . Two . . . One!”

  Izzy feels his grip loosen.

  The line of police officers yanks on the rope, drawing the tied officer and Robert through the window.

  As he falls into the arms of the police officer, the device falls from his pocket.

  “Jameson! The device!” yells Izzy as she tries to reach for the device.

  “Isabel, don’t let me go!”

  “But the device!” she protests.

  “Don’t let me go!” he yells.

  The device splinters as it tumbles down the building’s side, falling twenty-five stories until it fractures on the ground beneath them.

  In horror, Izzy looks up at Jameson, and finds his worried blue eyes focused solely on her.

  “Hold on to me, Isabel. I’ve got you,” he says to her resolutely. “I’ve got her, gentlemen. Please bring us up!” yells Jameson.

  Slowly, Jameson and Izzy are dragged up the side of the building, the stone scraping their flesh as they are pulled, inch by inch, to safety.

  Jameson is pulled onto the roof, his hands still clutching hers, and immediately, pairs of hands reach out to grab and support their connection.

  “We’ve got her, Jameson, you can let go now,” they call as they pull her up and over the lip of the roof.

  “Thank you, everyone,” Izzy says once she is safely on the roof.

  Exhausted, Izzy releases her hold on Jameson’s hands, but he only pulls her closer to him and envelopes her in his arms.

  “Thank you, Jameson.” Tired, she holds herself stiffly, unaccustomed to finding herself held by Jameson’s unfamiliar pair of arms. “I’m sorry about the device,” she whispers into his ear as the people around them yell and walk about.

  “The device is not important. I’ve saved you, Isabel,” he says into her hair, “and that’s enough.”

  Quivering with fatigue, Izzy feels the last of her reserve shatter, and she allows her tears to fall as she collapses into his embrace.

  She is safe.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Knock knock.

  The door opens, and the wide blue eyes of Jameson greet her with surprise.

  “Hello. I wasn’t expecting—”

  “I know. It’s been a while. I’m sorry for dropping by without calling. I just . . . can we talk?” she asks as she gestures to the inside of his hotel room.

  He opens the door wider and steps aside, motioning for her to enter.

  Izzy whistles. “This where you’re staying?” She walks into the room, examining the luxurious sheets, the open case files, and the open suitcases, half-filled with folded clothes. “Nice digs, Jameson. Remind me I need to work for the state, sometime.”

  “I have no complaints, save the omnipresent use of preassembled tea sachets.” He motions for her to sit on the desk as he sits on the bed opposite her. “Though if ready-made tea is my only complaint, I suppose I shall consider myself lucky indeed.”

  “Tea, yeah? Hmm,” she agrees. She points to the open case files on the table. “Still going over these?”

  “Indeed.” He reaches over, his arm brushing her fingertips, and pulls from the files a picture of the secret device, shattered into pieces on the ground outside of the hotel.

  “It’s been a month,” observes Izzy.

  “I’m aware of how long it’s been, Officer,” comes his reply.

  They stare at one another, at odds, until at last both of them relax.

  “Yup, sorry,” Izzy starts.

  “I apologize,” Jameson replies.

  Izzy holds up a hand. “I just came by because I wanted to give you these.” Izzy hands Jameson a folder.

  “These are?”

  “Details of Lipton, or Lennox’s, confession.”

  Jameson opens the folder.

  “It was just like you predicted, Jameson. He used his union connections with the janitors in the area to obtain access to labs. Stole chemicals, equipment, and the devices. Larry Davis, who came out of his coma the day after we arrested Lennox, remembered meeting with Lennox at his house, but he wouldn’t give him the keys to the station.”

  “Thus necessitating his overdose?” Jameson asks.

  “Something like that.” She watches Jameson page through the files. “Larry’s made a full recovery.”

  “And the Lennox men?”

  Izzy sighs. “Saul Lennox is out on bail. His hearing is sometime next month, but given his age, they’re going to ask for probation or a home sentence.”

  “And Robert Lennox?”

  “There’s no physical evidence tying him to the murders of the police before you started tracking him.”

  “So he won’t be charged?” Jameson asks incredulously.

  “We can’t charge him . . . for those murders. But we got him for the attempted murder of Larry. His fingerprints and DNA were all over the beer bottles at the house. And we’ve got him for the incident at the hotel.” Izzy reaches out and places her hand on Jameson’s elbow.

  Jameson looks up from the files.

  “We got him, Jameson, because of everyone’s hard work, and also because your data showed us the bigger picture. And even though we can’t charge him for it, we can give the families of the officers he killed the truth about their loved ones’ deaths.” She giv
es his elbow a squeeze before releasing his arm and breaking their connection.

  Jameson closes the file. “Isabel—”

  Izzy smiles, but cuts Jameson off forcefully. “So what now, Jameson? Back to the city?”

  “No, as a matter of fact.” He moves away from her and moves toward the room’s large window. “The state . . . has let me know that with the loss of the device, my services will no longer be needed.”

  Izzy gives Jameson a look of surprise. “They canned you?”

  “If ‘canned’ shares meaning with the expression ‘sacked,’ then, yes, the State of New York has ‘canned’ me.”

  “Jameson, I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be, Ms. Swift. I came to the States to learn to live after the loss of my wife, Elizabeth, but instead of doing that, I resumed what I was doing, what I’ve always done.”

  “Which is?” asks Izzy gently.

  “Something I will do no longer.” He turns and looks at her. With a small smile, he moves to the bed and reaches into his suitcase, pulling out a small, dark rectangle of leather.

  He throws it at her.

  “What’s this?” Izzy asks as she opens the object.

  “Your new badge,” says Jameson. “As the newest detective of the Westchester County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “What?” asks Izzy as she looks at the small plastic card with her name, picture, and new rank. Detective Isabel Swift. “Why? When? How?”

  “For recent experience in the field displaying valor, resolve, and resourcefulness, I was told,” explains Jameson. “When I informed Captain Williams that I would be meeting you prior to my start with the department this Monday, he suggested I be the one to tell you.” He throws her another black leather rectangle.

  “You’ve talked to the Captain?” Izzy opens the second badge. Westchester County Sheriff’s Department. Consulting Detective, Mark Jameson. “You’re joining the Westchester County Sheriff’s Department?” Izzy ask.

  “With my position at the state terminated, and my work visa still valid for a year, I thought I would find another means of employment. And seeing as our initial partnership was so . . . successful . . . I asked Williams if I would be allowed to stay on. He agreed. On one condition.”