Nickel City Crossfire by Gary Ross (popular romance novels .txt) 📗

blowouts, slamming into and over the curb had bent the rear axle. I had a sinking feeling my insurance company would cut its losses.

“Shit,” I said, getting to my feet and brushing snow off my knees. “Totaled.”

“That’s no way for a lucky guy to sound,” Piñero said. He had come under the tape and was standing by the open driver’s side door. “Let me show you something.”

I joined him.

“Check this out.” He pointed to a large bullet hole in the edge of the front door. Then he opened the door and pointed to the next leg on the bullet’s journey, a semicircle in the front edge of the post between the front and rear doors. Finally, he popped my seat forward and put a fingertip into a hole in the edge of the seatback.

“I felt it go in,” I said. “I didn’t have time to stop and think about it.”

He leaned in and felt the other edge of the seatback. “No exit, so it’s still in there and will send this SOB away for a long time.” He withdrew and straightened up. “Which means a .44 Magnum slug passed within inches of your spine. A little bit this way or that—and you’re pissed about the car? Shit, bro, you’re alive and walking on two legs, so fuck the car.”

“Fuck the car,” I said, without enthusiasm.

Just then the ambulance with Tito’s body started moving up Locust, no lights, no siren. It was followed a moment later by the second ambulance, also running silent.

“Okay,” Piñero said. “Get your stuff so we can go downtown. Then maybe we can talk about how all this fits together.”

I kept a reusable grocery bag in the glove compartment. I filled it with insurance and registration papers, loose coins, maps, and a zipper pouch that held spare eyeglasses. Then I went to the rear compartment and dug out my auto tool kit, a plug-in compressor, an auto battery charger, and the leather case that held my lock pick gun. Apart from the soft-sided tool satchel, everything went into the grocery bag, with the lock pick gun near the very bottom.

I walked over to Chalmers, Piñero, and Phoenix. Chalmers was speaking on his cell phone. He ended the call and put the phone in his pocket a few seconds after I set down my bag and the tool satchel.

“Everything you’ve told us is consistent with what we’ve been able to determine so far,” Chalmers said. “The shootout matches what dispatch heard from drivers behind you who got off and called nine-one-one. One guy said it was like the OK Corral.”

“It was nothing like the OK Corral,” I said. “Except that asshole had a revolver.”

“Which didn’t hit your ungrateful ass,” Piñero said. “All you got was a cut that might leave a scar.”

I thought about my cut for a moment and looked across the street at the squad car in which the shooter sat. Then I remembered yesterday’s photos. “Something I’d like to know.”

“Who sent him?” Chalmers said. “Gotta wait for that till we get him in the box.”

I took a breath. “Can I sit in on the interview?”

“No,” Piñero said. “You’re a civilian.”

After a moment, I walked across to the squad car and jerked open the back door. “Okay, asshole, who the fuck sent you after me?” Hearing footsteps rushing toward me, I reached inside and pushed Butch Madden down on the seat with my left hand, as if I were going to hit him again with my right. His hands, cuffed behind him, came into view. “Who was it, Butch? Dante Cuthbert?”

Just as the young uni seated in front climbed out to intervene, Piñero reached me, grabbed my right arm, and pulled me out of the car. “G, don’t do something stupid to get him kicked on a technicality! Especially when you’re not even on the force.”

I offered no resistance as he pulled me away. He let me go when we were back across the street. I took Phoenix’s hand, which felt strangely limp.

“He’s wearing a ring on his left hand,” I said to both detectives. “I think I’ve seen it before and I think it’s what cut me.”

“You’ve seen his ring but not him,” Chalmers said.

“A ring like it,” I said. “Check it against those gashes on Veronica Surowiec’s body.”

40

To my relief, the statement took less than half an hour to dictate and sign. Then Piñero drove us the few blocks to Phoenix’s condo. He promised to call me after Madden’s interrogation.

“Well, I need to go sit in a chair and open a bottle of wine,” Phoenix said, shaking her head as we stood in the foyer of her building. She sounded exhausted, maybe exasperated. Maybe afraid. “If I know you, you’ll want my car to look for Keisha.”

“And to drop this stuff off at home,” I said, gesturing toward the grocery bag and tool satchel at my feet. “I’ll try to bring it back tonight.”

She took the Toyota fob off her key ring and handed it to me. “Keep it tonight. I think I’ll crash early if you don’t mind. I need some time alone.”

“All right.” Something caught in my chest but I tried not to let it show.

“In fact, it’s okay if you keep it a couple of days. I’m close enough to the office and the courts it won’t break me to use Uber. Just try not to get it shot to pieces.” She did not smile.

“Thank you.” I hesitated. “I am sorry about all this.”

“No need to be sorry.” She gave me a quick kiss as the elevator doors chimed open. “You didn’t start it. But do whatever you have to do to finish it.” Then she stepped inside, and the doors closed behind her.

For a long time, I just stood there, wondering if events of the past couple of hours would comprise the straw that snapped the spine of our relationship. All relationships carried risk, but most such risks did not involve gunplay. Since we’d been together, I had been