And if Cali hadn’t have stepped back, she’d have traded places with her lamp.
The door knob started turning. Back. Forth. Back. Forth. Another blast sounded. A scream lodged in her throat.
~
“Who’s feeding those damn stray cats in the back?” Brit’s sergeant’s voice boomed down the hall. “Whoever it is, stop! One of them took a shit on my car last night.”
Brit’s gaze cut to the cans of tuna on top of his file cabinet, but he didn’t care enough to hide the evidence. He sat at his desk, two different case files spread out in front of him. Only one mattered. The one they refused to assign him. Keith’s photograph stared up at him. He looked away, but saw it in his head. Keith’s body lying face up, his empty eyes open, the concrete around his head darkened with blood.
Brit closed his fist, his chest ached. Rina’s tip had gotten him nowhere. She’d said she heard the small-time drug dealer, Tony Payne, talking about a gang member who’d shot a cop.
Brit and Quarles had joined the two officers assigned to Keith’s case and spent most of the night and all day kicking the dust up in some of Hopeful’s more drug-infested streets, looking for Payne. And they got dust for their trouble. Payne couldn’t be found.
When they’d returned to the precinct, Sergeant Adams had jumped them for not working the jewelry store murder. Much to Brit’s surprise, his partner, who’d never met Keith, had been the one to jump back. “Keith Bolts was one of our own!” Quarles had said.
Brit had walked away before his fist decided to handle what he couldn’t.
Now, leaning back in his chair, he tried to calm down.
“Hey.” Quarles appeared at the door. “There’s shots fired at some nearby apartments. Got one car heading that way, but something’s happening across town. They’re short of men and need backup.”
Brit stood. “Let’s go.” Maybe some excitement would do him good. Get his mind off the fact that he was no closer to finding Keith’s killer today than three weeks ago.
Five minutes later, they arrived. A patrol car, lights flashing, sat in the apartment’s parking lot. Guns drawn, Brit and Quarles raced up the steps.
As they hit the landing, Brit saw Officer Logan standing outside apartment 215. Logan’s partner’s voice echoed from behind the door that was left ajar. The rush of adrenalin lost its edge. Brit slowed down long enough to take a bite of air. Someone was a chain-smoker.
He lowered his Glock. The smell of smoke faded, but the coppery scent of blood assaulted him and had his adrenalin bellying back up to the bar. He gripped his gun. His gaze zeroed in on the white front door, or rather on the red handprints smeared and smudged there. A lot of blood. This wasn’t going to be pretty.
Chapter Three
“What we got?” Brit asked Officer Logan, who held his position by the door.
“Domestic disturbance,” Logan answered. “One woman inside.”
“She hurt?”
“Didn’t look like it. Anderson’s talking to her. What do you want to bet she won’t press charges? These things always end the same.”
Brit wouldn’t take that bet. He knew those odds—and he hadn’t learned them on the job either. “Did you search the apartment?” Brit looked at the blood.
“Why?”
“Because she could be hiding the body in her closet.” Brit holstered his gun and wished like hell he hadn’t come. Nothing pushed his hot button like domestic situations. He glanced down at the lower half of the door and saw two circular streams of light peering through the wood. Kneeling, he studied the holes. “Shots came from out here.” Maybe there really was a body in the closet. Careful not to disturb any evidence, he nudged open the door.
The lingering aroma of smoke evaporated as he moved into the warmth of the feminine-scented apartment—hair spray, perfume, candles. He looked around. The source of all those soft scents sat on the sofa, wearing a Mickey Mouse nightshirt, her arms worry-locked in front of her. He gave her a once-over for injuries. Found none. Then he gave her another up and down for male-related reasons. She shifted. Mickey’s ears jiggled with a soft sway of breasts. The woman’s gaze, oh-so innocent, found his, and Brit felt his hot button being finger-jabbed to high.
Men who abused women topped Brit’s lowlife list, but their victims, who went back to them time and time again, both annoyed and puzzled the hell out of him.
Brit stepped closer to the conversation.
“Are you sure it was your boyfriend?” Officer Anderson shifted his nervous gaze to the notepad as if trying not to look at Mickey’s ears.
“I’m sure.” She looked sad and a little pathetic, like a lost puppy. They all had that look.