Kill Shot (16 page)
“I told you, he’s my boyfriend,” she said.
The pony tail man nodded and licked the blood on his lip, glancing at Oz. “He’s out of it, Chickie. It’s just you and me now.” He motioned for her to step forward.
“What do you want with me?”
“The money for the back up. All copies. Everything and I give you the cash.”
Micki took a deep breath. “I didn’t know you’d be down here. I don’t have it with me right now.”
“When can you get it?”
“Tonight at midnight. I’ll sneak back down here when Oz is asleep.”
“I like that,” he said. “A secret rendezvous with a feisty chick. I can do that.” He looked at her with a grin gathering on his face. He reached out to grab her wrist, pulling her against him.
Micki braced herself with her palms flat against his chest while he gazed deep into her eyes.
He grazed the side of her neck with the taser leaving gooseflesh in its wake.
She stared steadily into his eyes as he leaned down to give her a rough kiss.
“Midnight,” he said and strode away disappearing among the parked cars.
Micki wiped the kiss off with the back of her hand and knelt beside Oz, calling his name. A siren sounded as two squad cars squealed into the parking garage.
Oz grunted and blinked his eyes several times before struggling to a sitting position. A uniformed officer approached with his hand on his weapon.
“We got a disturbance call,” the officer said.
Micki stood up. “Someone attacked us.”
The officer spoke into a two-way radio on his shoulder and the other officers came forward.
“What hit me?” Oz asked.
“It was the pony tail man,” she said. “He got you with a taser.”
“No,” he said. “I’ve been zapped by a taser before during training at the academy and it was nothing like that.”
#
CHAPTER TWELVE
Micki explained some of what happened to the officers and within the hour she and Oz were in Lieutenant Qualls office, looking at the security footage for the second time.
“Look, here it comes.” Qualls pointed to the monitor.
“Good one, Oz,” Vinnie said as they watched Oz sink to the garage floor again.
Oz grinned good naturedly. “Shush, here comes the best part. Mighty Mite beats up the bad guy.”
They watched Micki swing the camera case into the attacker’s face.
“Atta girl! Look at her go.” Qualls made punching motions.
Micki sat across from Qualls looking down at the floor. “It’s not funny, guys.”
“Yeah, it is, Mick,” Vinnie said. “Big Oz goes down and Micki steps up.”
“I thought you were dead, Oz,” she said. “You could have been.”
Oz’ eyes narrowed. “Now that’s not funny.” He jabbed his finger at the screen as the pony tail man kissed Micki.
The lab techs had taken a DNA swab of the blood and saliva on her face before Micki washed off all traces of the pony tail man. The camera case had more blood and tissue samples to nourish the lab techs feeding frenzy.
Qualls cleared his throat. “The attacker seems to have taken a shine to your girl, Oz. Seriously, I think you should move her to a safe house.”
Micki stood up and glared at each of the three men. “If you gentlemen are through humiliating me, I have something to say.”
“Sorry Micki,” Oz said. “We got caught up in it.”
“By all means, let the lady speak.” Lieutenant Qualls waved his hand and sat back in his chair.
She cleared her throat. “It may interest you to know that I made a date with that man.”
“What?” Oz rose from his chair, his brows knotted together. “I’m going to kill him.”
“I have a date to meet him in the parking garage at midnight with my park photo back up files.” She let her gaze travel from man to man. “He’s going to give me one hundred thousand dollars for them.”
“You made a date to meet with the guy who zapped me?”
“After I knew you weren’t dead.”
“Micki, so help me, I...”
Lieutenant Qualls was grinning. “No, this is great. The guy is coming to us. You did a good thing, Micki.”
Aida Bounds tapped on the glass of Lieutenant Qualls office door. She entered the compartment and tossed photos on his desk. “Phillip Luka, international assassin. Ex-Army Special Forces. We trained him.”
Micki suppressed a shudder as she stared at the photograph of a much younger Phillip Luka. His military haircut and boyish grin didn’t hint at the evil he was capable of performing.
“He doesn’t look so menacing in this picture,” Micki said.
“Don’t go getting soft on him.” Oz tucked Micki under his arm.
“There’s your sniper.”
“That’s what he was trained for,” Aida said.
“But why would he shoot at me in the first place?” Micki looked from person to person.
“Maybe you should have asked him,” Oz said, “seeing as how you’re such good friends.”
#
Micki examined the rented Leica and found it to be in mint condition, thanks to the heavy padding inside the aluminum case. She’d thrown a fit in Aida’s lab and wrested the camera from the tech before surrendering the case. Now the camera hung from a heavy strap around her neck with its lens cap in place and extra lenses and filters bulging out of her purse.
Walking her back to his car, Oz ruffled her hair affectionately. “You’re really somthin’, Micki.”
“I’m not feeling too good about this,” she said.
He pulled her into his arms and snuggled her for a moment before dropping a kiss on top of her head.
“I’ve known you since you were seven and I was nine and I’ve never even seen you squash a bug before.”
“What’s your point?”
“The way you went after Luka was awesome.”
“I thought he’d killed you. I thought you were lying there dead or injured.”
“And you went after him.” Oz grinned down at her.
“And you think that’s funny? I attacked another human being. I made him bleed.”
“Micki, Luka is not a good guy. He’s the one who shot at you and he punched you in the face.”
Micki touched her cheek, just now having regained its normal color. “I know you’re right, but I’ve never felt so angry, so filled with rage.” She pressed her face into his chest, inhaling the clean man smell. “I scared me.”
Oz held her, cradling her head in his hand. “You don’t scare me. I feel that way all the time. Ever since I met you, when anyone was mean to you, I wanted to pound on them.”
“But I did pound on someone. I smashed a metal case into his face.”
He grinned again. “And why did you do that?”
“Because I thought he’d hurt you.”
“Exactly. Now do you understand how I feel about you and why I want to put you in a box and keep you safe?”
“Oh.” She slid her arm around his waist and they continued walking to the car. “I see,” she pronounced solemnly as he opened the door for her.
#
Oz left Micki at Gus’ Camera Sales and Repair Shop. She was going to work on printing the proofs of Zondra’s wedding pictures.
He’d admonished her to stay put and promised to pick her up after he made a follow-up call at the boat rental place in the park.
He parked and strode across the grass toward the lake, taking the most direct route as opposed to the more picturesque. He walked along the dock, noting the names and numbers of the boats tethered there, before seeking the man behind the counter who told him that the boat he sought wasn’t a rental, but belonged to the park custodial service.
Locating the head of Park Maintenance took the better part of an hour. Oz hoped that Micki would live up to her promise to wait for him and not strike out on her own.
Following directions from the boat rental man, Oz knocked at the door of a green metal shed marked ‘Maintenance’. He heard music playing softly and the sound of a chair scraping against the floor.
“Yeah, what do you want?” The speaker was a short older man with a week’s growth of graying whiskers on his face.
Oz flashed the badge and saw the man’s expression change from irritation to alarm.
“You’re the head of maintenance?” he asked.
“Director of Maintenance and Custodial Services,” the man said, puffing his chest out a bit. “I’m Lloyd. What can I do for you, Officer?”
“I was told that you have some boats at your disposal.” Oz fixed him with a cold stare. “Who has access to the boats?”
“The boats are for maintenance personnel only,” Lloyd said. “The custodians use them to clean trash off the lake or to cut back the growth of water plants when they get too thick.
“I’d like to see those boats.”
A muscle tightened in the old man’s jaw. “What do you want to see them for?”
Oz drew his brows together. “Lloyd, do I need to contact your supervisor?”
“No, no Officer. Let me get the keys.” He turned back to his ratty office and rummaged in the drawer of his cheap metal desk. Motioning for Oz to follow, he headed out the door with the keys dangling from his pocket, and climbed into an equally ratty golf cart.
Oz raised a brow, looking at the cart and the man in turn.
“Get in, Officer. It’s a ways to the boat house.”
Oz climbed in and Lloyd started the cart. They bumped along the rutted back road to a small pier with a covering over it, not unlike a covered bridge with a door.
Oz waited while Lloyd fumbled with the keys and finally opened the lock. A single bulb hanging from a cord was the only light source for the structure. Oz walked along the pier, examining the four boats in turn. Three were row boats and one was powered by a small motor. It was the motor boat that matched the numbers in Micki’s photograph, and in which a dried pool of something resembling blood embellished the floorboards.
Oz dismissed Lloyd, promising to lock up when he left and called Aida Bounds. She arrived with a pair of uniformed officers and full brace of lab geeks who started their evidence gathering in earnest.
“Good work, Oz,” she said. “At this rate you’ll be investigating the big cases.”
“Yeah,” he said, more concerned that Micki might get tired of waiting and take it into her head to do some exploring on her own. He called her cell, but it went straight to voice. He left her a stern message admonishing her to stay put.
His cell rang and a wave of relief washed over him as he answered it.
“That you Oz?” Lieutenant Qualls asked. “Aida just told me you found the boat that may have been used in the body dump. Good work.”
“Thank you, sir.” He listened to Qualls extol his virtues and encourage him to follow up on any leads that evolved from the discovery.
“See you later,” Qualls said and rang off.
Oz tucked the phone in his pocket and squared his shoulders. His task was to stay sharp and pick up on all the details of the case while his brain fretted about Micki.
#
Micki printed three sets of proofs of Zondra’s wedding. One additional set was for the mini album she hoped to sell to Zondra’s mother and the other in case someone punched her in the face to steal it.
She glanced at the big round clock in Gus’ backroom. It was getting late. She began to print the photos from the previous wedding for which she’d received payment.
Gus looked in on her and said he’d be closing in an hour.
“I’ll be done by then.” A tingling started at the base of her neck when she’d said the words. She wondered again where Oz might be.
Since she’d seen him sprawled on the floor of the parking garage she no longer took his well-being for granted. So this was why he wanted her to stay in the box.
At the end of the hour Gus looked in on her again. “I’m locking the front door, Micki. In or out?”
“I’m done here, Gus,” she said. “Give me a minute to clean up.” She swept away paper scraps and arranged the finished photographs into two piles, Zondra’s and the prior wedding.
Gus gave her a large bag for her work and she paid for the use of his lab and materials.
Micki stood outside looking around as Gus locked the door and, with a wave, departed. A prickle of fear kissed her neck. She wondered if Phillip Luka had her in his sights.
People jostled past her. Her nostrils filled with the smell of the city, smoke and exhaust fumes and somewhere fresh bread.
Clinging close to the building, she sat on the ledge formed by Gus’ plate glass window and stared longingly in the direction from which Oz would arrive.
Ten long minutes later he pulled up to the curb.
