Dead Center (The Rookie Club Book 1) (28 page)

The dark form dropped down, barreled into his stomach. Tony crashed into the house, fell to the ground. Before he could react, the man bolted. Tony pulled himself up and sprinted after him.

The man escaped down the driveway. His legs long and lean, he moved fast. Tony dropped the broomstick, pushed himself faster, fighting to catch up. His head thundered as he reached the street. A hundred yards down the road brake lights flared red in the dark. An engine roared. Tony sprinted toward it. No rear plate. Reverse lights blinded him. The engine revved, tires squealed.

Tony dove into the bushes as the van charged backwards. The car hit the curb, skidded into the dirt. The driver shifted. Tires screeched again as the car roared away.

Tony paused, watched the car disappear. He gripped his head, cursed. He leaned over the bush, heart pounding, and vomited. Then, turning, he moved slowly back to the house.

The front door was locked. He rounded the side. He had to call Jamie. As he ducked around the garbage cans, he caught sight of a small black tennis shoe.

He halted, saw the leg. A knee. Then the other foot. Holy shit, a child.

Tony dropped to his knees, leaned into the bush. He found the boy's face streaked with mud. He pressed on the small neck, felt the pulse strong under his fingers. Cried out in relief.

The boy turned his head, pressed a hand to his ear, grimaced.

Tony lifted the boy from the bushes. Bits of leaf and dirt littered an overgrown Afro. "Come on, buddy," Tony said, gently pulling the boy into his arms.

The boy didn't move. Tony looked down at him, felt his own heart roar in his chest. He saw the gentle rise and fall of the boy's breath.

The boy in his arms, Tony rushed inside. He laid the child on the living room rug and checked again for a pulse. Matted blood covered the boy's shirt. Tony sprinted to the kitchen, grabbed scissors and the phone. Fingers trembling, he dialed 911, told them to send an ambulance. He couldn't remember Jamie's address.

He dropped the phone onto the floor. Lifting the scissors in shaky hands, he cut the boy's shirt away from his chest. The blood was dry. There was no wound. He couldn't find the wound.

He touched the boy's face again.

"Come on, buddy. Talk to me."

The eyes fluttered open. Once. Twice. Then shut again.

The boy's arm twitched. His chest convulsed, and he rocked to one side, vomited on the carpet.

Tony shuddered, grabbed for the phone, and started to punch in Jamie's cell phone number as he glanced up to the ceiling.

He didn't think he could take another death.
Please don't let anyone else die.

Chapter 28

Jamie couldn't face Mackenzie after the lineup. Marchek had gotten away again. Jamie should have been supportive, reassuring but instead, she'd muttered a few words and scuttled away like a roach under lights. So she was a coward. Damn it. She had wanted Mackenzie to pick Marchek out of that line so badly, it hurt. Mackenzie had been so close. He'd spoken to her; he'd threatened her. How could he avoid being recognized? But she knew how he'd done it, the slimy son of a bitch. He'd played all the right head games. In the line up, he repeated his lines as though asking questions rather than making statements. He changed his tone. And the smartest thing he'd done was avoid being seen. Mackenzie had never seen him. He'd never let her see him. Dark hair was all she'd gotten.

Mackenzie was Jamie's one shot at putting Marchek back behind bars immediately. That way, he would be off the streets, at least for a while. Jamie had known the chances were fifty-fifty at best, but she also knew he was the attacker. It killed her to let that bastard go.

Worse, Jules had drawn the line on more surveillance. The current hold ended an hour ago. Nothing she could do. It was too cost prohibitive to watch him. She wondered what a future victim would pay to avoid being attacked, but she knew she couldn't think about it in those terms.

Jamie hadn't wanted Mackenzie to see how disappointed she was. She didn't want to show her despair, knew she couldn't hide it, so she'd told Mackenzie to get some rest, take care of herself. Then, she'd left.

It wasn't Mackenzie's fault. The rookie had done her best. That was all Jamie had asked. For that and a little bit of luck, but there was no luck in her draw. It had been a long time since luck was a friend of Jamie's.

In the end, she couldn't face Mackenzie. Instead, she'd asked a patrol officer to take the rookie home and Jamie headed out of the building. There was work to be done, but she couldn't go back to the office now. She was too steamed to focus, too damn furious. Without any evidence, she could find no avenue to pursue Marchek. Nothing infuriated her more than knowing who to arrest without having a way to arrest him.

She pulled out one cigarette after another with the rare sensation that she'd earned them and smoked with a fervor as she walked the long block around the Hall of Justice. The weather was warm, or maybe it was the anger that made her hot enough to leave her jacket unzipped. As she moved, air caught in the wind shell and sent pockets of cool air down her arms.

She half-expected to see Marchek emerge on the street in front of her, taunting her with his freedom, but he'd probably crawled back into a hole until the next victim caught his attention.

After more than an hour of walking, Jamie rounded the Hall and stared up at the words inscribed in gold in the marble facade:
To the faithful and impartial enforcement of the laws with equal and exact justice to all.

Faithful, she believed in. Her father had been a faithful civil servant and she was confident she had followed in his steps. Impartial? Maybe not, but damn if she didn't try like hell. The rest of it, though—equal and exact justice—these were a farce. Was Marchek getting his equal justice? What about a cockroach like Scott Scanlan or the deputy chief, who slept around on a wife of forty years? And what about Tim, who had spent three nights in prison for a crime he didn't commit? Or Tony?

For God's sake, did anyone really get justice or was it just a notion devised by man in an effort to soften a dark reality? She glanced up at the words again, the commandments that she had subscribed to as a rookie. The words, carefully etched into the white stone, used to make her swell with pride.

She turned from the language, disgusted. Now the words served to mock her every effort. She sucked in the last drag of her cigarette and tossed the butt down at the base of the steps. Out of habit, she stooped to retrieve it and stopped herself. She watched the ember burn and stomped it out, leaving the blackened ash on the sidewalk. The gesture was as close to equal justice as she'd felt in ages.

Unable to bring herself to go back into the building, Jamie walked down the small street that led to the parking lot and scanned the darkness. As she reached the back of the building, she looked into the empty foyer. The metal detectors were silent, the hallways empty. Justice, or what they served of it, had definitely shut down for the night.

In the distance, she could hear the purr of trucks and cars on 280, the constant flow of traffic north and south—out and home, out and home. She leaned against the cool brick facade of the Hall and focused on the humming. She'd grown up with that sound. As a kid, traffic had been the closest thing she could remember to hearing a lullaby.

She didn't think she'd gone a night without the background noise of traffic until she was twenty. Now, listening to the comforting stream of engines, she wondered if she should move back to the city. She'd bought the house she was in as a knee-jerk reaction to the breakup with Tim, but maybe she should be here. She had some money from her father; she could probably afford something small. It's not like she or Barney used the backyard.

Just then her cell phone rang. She recognized an extension from inside the Hall and considered not answering. She'd had enough bad news for one day. But duty triumphed. "Vail."

"It's Hailey."

"Hey."

"Where are you?"

"Outside."

"I heard it didn't go well with Marchek," Hailey said.

"We let him go."

"I'm here with Chip Washington. We've got a list of the men. You want to take a look?"

Jamie frowned. "Devlin?"

"Yeah."

"Sure."

"We're in the conference room in Homicide. Come on up."

Jamie popped some gum and rubbed lavender antibacterial lotion into her hands as she made her way up to Homicide. The department was quiet when she entered.

In the interview room, Hailey sat with two cups of hot coffee in front of her. Across the table, Washington held a bottle of water.

"I poured you one," Hailey said, pushing a cup toward her. "I left it black. I don't know how you take it."

"I take it like my day. Black's perfect."

Hailey gave her a half smile, but Jamie could tell something was wrong.

Washington said hello, his face solemn.

She glanced down at the paper Hailey held pressed under her palms. "The list?"

Hailey nodded, slid it to Jamie.

Jamie turned to Washington. "I didn't think Devlin was your case."

"No, it's Anderson's, but he's got court tomorrow, so I came in his place."

"You've seen the list, then?"

He nodded. "I just went over it with Hailey."

"Any thoughts?"

He paused before answering. "I'm not sure what's worse—that she slept with all those guys, or that someone was keeping a list." His hands trembled as he spoke. He was right. It was an incredible breach of privacy, even if it was never published.

Jamie sat in the chair beside Washington and scanned the list. The names were numbered one to thirty. She recognized maybe a third of them—Tim, Scott Scanlan, David Marshall, Hailey's captain. "Christ. How far back does this go?"

"Not as long as you'd think from looking at it," Washington said.

"A couple of years, I think," Hailey added.

"Who put it together?"

"Daniels."

Jamie glanced at the list again. "Well, at least he's not on there."

Hailey didn't speak at first. When she did, her tone was sharp and acidic. "Neither is Deputy Chief Scanlan. Doesn't mean he didn't screw her."

"You think there are a lot of omissions?" Jamie asked.

"I'm sure IA was thorough," Washington said. "Surely Deputy Chief Scanlan was purposefully left off the list."

"But they didn't leave Scott off."

Washington nodded. "But Scott isn't known for his discretion. And his job's not on the line either."

"Not to mention that unlike Scanlan senior, Scott's not married."

No one spoke as Jamie skimmed over the names. No Ben Jules. That was a relief, but like Hailey said, what did it mean? "How did Daniels put this together?"

Hailey frowned. "I guess one IA's unofficial projects is to follow this sort of activity, to watch that it doesn't cause conflict of interest, probably also to make sure the press doesn't get wind of it. Especially for the higher-ranked married guys."

Jamie turned to Washington. "Did you know they did this?"

He shook his head. "I had no fucking clue."

"David Marshall?"

Hailey nodded. "Married. So are Ken Oliver, Paul Wyeth, Eric Rickens, O'Connell, White, Pilitzky..." She waved her hand. "More than half."

Jamie looked at the names again. "Christ. In two years, she had a new guy every month."

"And that's the ones they knew about."

Washington stood up. "I'm heading home unless you guys need me?"

"No," Hailey said. "Thanks for coming in."

Washington left and Jamie shook her head. "You have to assume there are more men like Deputy Chief Scanlan—ones they wouldn't write down. This is like the needle in the haystack—Devlin's haystack."

Hailey found another paper and slid it across the table. "I did get this."

She looked down at a report from the lab. "What is it?"

"Roger's cast of Worley's head. It looks like Tim was struck with something about an inch thick, made of a heavy polymer material. Rectangular in shape. He took one side in the skull. The corner just scratched the skin."