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

shot and now Phoenix herself had been shot at. How long would it be before she decided the physical and emotional hazards of being with me outweighed the physical and emotional delights of our being a couple? But none of that could be sorted out just yet. She was right. I had to finish things.

Taking a deep breath and picking up my belongings, I took the elevator down to the parking garage under the building. I opened the back of Phoenix’s RAV4 and put everything inside, except the lock pick gun.

I didn’t need the lock pick to get into the Simpkins home. I still had the key Keisha’s parents had given me. I went through the house quickly. Keisha was neither downstairs nor up, but the stoppered malbec bottle on her counter and the glass tumbler in her sink, rinsed but still holding a splash of water tinged with crimson, suggested she had been there not long ago. Stoppered wine was also a sign she hoped to return.

Synching my phone with the car’s Bluetooth, I called Jen on the way to my next stop.

“We haven’t heard from her yet,” she said when I gave her a synopsis of what had taken place. “But we know all about the shooting on the expressway. Burned up my scanner for a while. Now it’s on the department’s telephone gossip tree. I understand the driver died in a crash and they got the guy who pulled the trigger on you.”

“Yes,” I said. “The driver was Tito, the janitor from your wife’s old church.”

“Jesus!” She hesitated. “Are you and your lady friend okay?”

“We weren’t hit so—”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jen said. “I could tell by the way she looked at you in Tim Horton’s, she’s so into you. I could see you’re gone on her too. Bianca could too. But bullets hitting the car you’re in can change things. Civilians—”

“Her father was a cop,” I said. “She knows.”

“Knowing and handling are two different things.” She paused. “You’ve gone over and above for my wife’s best friend—and her family—when technically you’re not even on the job. That means a lot to us. If you and—Phoenix, is it? If you need somebody to talk to, a sounding board like a couple where one partner has to worry whether the other one will come home, we’re here for you, Rimes.”

For a few seconds, I said nothing. “Thanks, Jen. You’ve got good instincts and good intuition. There’s a detective shield in your future.”

“Kind of you to think so,” she said. “I’ll let you know if we hear from Keisha. Now I have to go tell Bianca about this guy Tito.”

We broke the connection just before I reached my destination on Masten Avenue.

41

The house was a small single-family dwelling, with white clapboard, brown trim, and leaded glass in the front door. The old F-150 sat in the driveway. With no parking spaces left on that stretch of Masten, I turned the next corner and found a spot on Edna Place. Climbing out, I ducked into a yard and hopped two fences. With Tito dead and having no family, I figured it was as good a time as any to look through his place for something useful.

Watch cap pulled down and driving gloves still on, I gazed about to make sure I was not being observed. Then I went to the side door. A small window likely over a kitchen sink was to the right, the front of the house to the left. Through the sheer curtain covering the leaded glass in that door, I saw a short flight of stairs just inside the entrance.

The pick gun made quick work of the lock. I slipped inside, closed the door behind me and pocketed the pick. I heard the chime alert of an alarm panel but not the beep of an entry code countdown. Either Tito had not set his alarm or someone was here. For several seconds I just listened, waiting for any sound of movement. Hearing nothing, I went up the steps and into the living room. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the sheer curtains over the windows in the sun porch and the glass in the front door. The alarm panel was beside the door, its green light indicating it was in READY mode.

The place was clean but belonged to another time. The wall beside the stairs showed Tito had inherited not only his parents’ home but also their ancient plastic-covered furniture and faux-antique lamp tables. The opposite wall was his concession to modernity. A seventy-inch flat screen was mounted above a glass-doored media cabinet that held an assortment of electronic devices, including a closed laptop. Rocker-style gaming chairs flanked the cabinet, with X-Box and PlayStation controllers on the floor between them. No shelves or books, no desk or file cabinets. I had come in with only vague ideas of what I was looking for. Now I had no idea where to start. I turned toward the dining room, thinking it might hold something with drawers that needed searching. I went into it, stepping off the worn carpet onto a wide-planked hardwood floor. On my third step, a board squeaked under my weight.

“Is that you, baby?”

I froze.

The voice, a woman’s, had come from above. Upstairs. Next, there was a yawn, followed by shuffling footsteps.

“I got so tired waiting for you I fell asleep. If we’re gonna fuck at all today, you better get up here and get busy. I’m horny as hell but we gotta go soon.”

I said nothing. Having recognized the voice, I drew my gun. Had I overlooked her car outside? Or had she parked on a different side street?

“Tito?”

She started down the stairs, her bare feet and legs coming into view just below the upper landing, the hem of a blue man’s bathrobe flapping about the knees. She came down two more steps, the landing blocking everything above her torso. Then she stopped.

“Tito? If that’s you, say something.”

I said nothing.

She began to crouch, to