Dying for Her: A Companion Novel (Dying for a Living Book 3) (14 page)

Tuesday, April 1, 2003

W
e parked the Impala on the curb outside a small house at the end of a cul-de-sac. The house looked nice and in good condition: two stories, black shutters against the white, ridges of wood. The numbers 567 to the right of the red door were curly and fantastical. I would have thought the house was dark and abandoned if not for the smoke rising from the brick chimney.

The only problem with the smoke was the
for sale
sign in the front yard. The padlocked front door, protected by a key code, didn’t look like anyone had been to see it in a while, officially anyway. And it was no surprise that the house hadn’t sold.

It was in one of those lower-middle class neighborhoods of St. Louis where there were more
for sale
signs cropping up every day and fewer moving trucks rolling in. Considering the grass was a bit too long, clearly neglected the preceding summer, I’d have guessed the house was on the market for at least a year.

I turned to the passenger seat where Jackson sat watching me. “You think someone has Maisie in there?”

“Yes,” she said, reaffirming what she told me on the way over.

“Then why did you come at me with all that Rachel shit?” I asked. “Why didn’t we come straight here?”

“You’re not ready,” she said, measuring me with her eyes again.

I felt my face grow hot, which was always the first sign that I was about to bite into someone and shake them like a dog toy. Jackson didn’t give me the chance. She pushed open the Impala’s heavy door and stepped out onto the adjacent curb. She was already around the front of the car before I got out.

I was curious how she planned to get in with the front door padlocked. She went to a window on the ground floor and pressed up against the glass. The pane slid open silently. Brilliant, of course, because if someone was in there toasting marshmallows by the fire or whatever the hell, we didn’t want to make a sound. But also, I wondered how she knew to check this window. She came right to it. She could have checked any of the windows or all of them and found them locked. But she knew.

She had the window open and was already pulling herself up into the ledge before I could offer her a boost. She was in good shape. I had to admire that. She was hard as a rock through her arms and up through her back and chest. She could move her body with slow, deliberate movements, sliding through the window without the smallest sound of fabric brushing the ledge. I admit I had an impure thought when I considered placing one or both hands on her ass just before she pulled her legs through.

Back on her feet, she crept into the dark room toward the door without offering me a boost up.
Thanks a lot
, I thought, but let the animosity go when I realized her hands were full. She had her gun out, pointing forward as she crept from the room. She checked left and right outside the doorway. Then swinging left into the hall, she disappeared. I had both hands on the ledge when Jackson called out.

“Brinkley, the front.”

I let go of the window ledge and dropped back down. Then I ran toward the front of the house. As I cut the corner, the street and other houses coming into sharp view, I saw Jackson hanging out the front window, the one closest to the chimney. “He went that way.”

She jabbed a finger right and I ran across the front of the house and hooked a corner. Just before the corner cut itself, I saw the man. He wore faded jeans and a jean jacket, work boots, and his hair, almost shoulder length, was a light brown. I also saw Maisie, swaddled in a pink princess blanket. Her eyes were wide in concern, but otherwise she looked unharmed. Her blond curls were pulled up into a single ponytail on the top of her head.

When her kidnapper cut the corner again, the child dropped something and immediately the wailing began. “Frederick.
Frederick
.”

As I whipped around the corner there was no one. Thinking he’d simply sped up, I ran faster, only to collide with Jackson. She hit me hard in the shoulder.

“Where did he go?” I demanded.

“He didn’t come this way,” she said, out of breath herself.

“I saw him cut that corner,” I said.

“He wasn’t on that side. I swear.”

I looked around her and saw only the next house. I didn’t believe the man could have dived into one of those windows holding a child, not in the half a second between Jackson and myself. For the same reason I didn’t believe he could have slipped through the ground level windows into the basement. First of all, they looked too small for a grown man. If he’d shoved Maisie in alone he’d run the risk of seriously injuring her on the fall to the floor.

I turned and looked at the great wide field behind us. Nothing. If he’d run out into the field, we would have definitely seen him. So where the hell was he?

“People don’t just disappear,” I said.

“Or fly,” she added.

We searched the area. Basement to attic, house and field. Nothing. The living room was full of little girlie things and too much pink, but there were no clues. No trail. There was no electricity in the house, which explained why the fire was needed. The big house would’ve been too drafty for the little girl otherwise. Finally, I retraced my steps and found what the girl had dropped. A black and white teddy bear that looked more like a dairy cow than a bear, with its large black eyes, clutching a red heart that said, “I love you.”

“I heard her call out the name Frederick,” Jackson said. “Maybe that is the guy’s name.”

I shook the bear at her. “Or this is Freddy, the teddy. She didn’t start screaming until she dropped it.”

She thumbed the safety on her gun. “She is alive and she was here.”

“Good job,” I said. It was automatic and maybe a bit condescending. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

She ran a palm over her head, flattening the inch of hair there. “How big is this?”

I stared out at land stretching before us. “Pretty big. But you’re not talking about the field, are you?”

She ignored me. “Why give us a missing child, then fake a child’s death, and take us off the case? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“None of it makes sense. Why has a kidnapper been sitting in a house with a little girl? He has to eat, shit, sleep. He has to leave the fucking house to steal bodies from morgues. What happens to Maisie then? Is he working alone? Or with someone? There are too many questions.”

Jackson shoved her gun into her holster and started walking back toward the car.

“He won’t come back here. He’s not stupid.”

“You’re probably right,” I said and followed her, still holding Freddy. “He didn’t get this far by being stupid.”

She waited for me to reach inside and unlock her door. Then she climbed through. “Just take me back to my car. We won’t find anything else today and I have to go back to the drawing board. I’ll have to find her all over again. With the Wright case—”

My windshield shattered. It took me a second to realize what happened. I still hadn’t processed why my windshield exploded when Jackson grabbed my arm and yelled. “Drive.”

A bright burst of blood was blooming on her left shoulder.

“Shit.” I started the Impala as more bullets came through the windshield, shattering the back window next. “Motherfuckers. Stop shooting my car.”

I threw the Impala in reverse and punched the gas without lifting my head. Jackson too had slumped down and covered herself with her good arm. The bullet must have ripped through the tendons, if her arm had gone dead on her, lying limp at her side as it was. I’d been there once and it was hell to recoup.

I berated myself for going soft, getting slow. If we’d been in a combat zone, I’d be dead right now. Stupid.

I was well down the street before I raised my head again. I saw a man who looked vaguely familiar standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac, gun raised. He shot several bullets, probably emptying the clip but none of them hit us.

I made it out of the neighborhood and onto the main road without picking up a tail.

“That was too easy,” I said to Jackson, giving her the clear to get up from her seat, but she didn’t.

“It’s clear,” I said again, but still no answer. I leaned over, taking my eyes off the road just long enough to get a good look at her. She was unconscious, slumped in the seat, the blood seeping steadily from the wound. “Shit.”

The last thing I saw was her eyes rolling up in her head as she started to seize.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I shoved the pedal to the floor. “Hang on, Jackson. Stay with me.”

Tuesday, April 1, 2003

I
got Jackson to the hospital and made sure they could get the bullet out, start the transfusion, and give me an update on her condition before I called Charlie. The nurse had just told me that the transfusion was a success and the bullet was removed OK—all good signs. I thanked her.

Then standing in the waiting room, watching the nurse walk away, I dialed Charlie’s office number. He answered on the second ring.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he asked.

“Jackson got shot,” I said. Before he could overwhelm me with questions I told him the story, most of it anyway. Jackson had a lead in that way of hers, we checked it out, saw the girl alive, but lost them. As we were leaving, some asshole shot at us and Jackson took a bullet. He listened to all of this without objection and when I finished, I was greeted with only silence on the other end of the phone.

“The girl is alive? You saw her?”

“Either Maisie Michaelson has a twin, or it was her. Also, the guy had sandy blond hair, like the blond from the picture she drew. You know, the one I got from the fridge.”

“Why the fuck do I care about that?”

“I thought you’d want to know.”

“Sandy blond hair? Do you know how many bleached assholes prance around St. Louis?” he quipped. “What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

“Jackson is going to be OK,” I said, trying to cool my own temper. “When she wakes up, maybe she’ll even have a picture of Maisie’s kidnapper.”

“As if we could get that lucky,” he said.

I considered my next words. “So you believe me?”

“Of course I believe you. Why the hell wouldn’t I?”

“You were quick to pull us from the Michaelson case and accept the girl was dead.”

“Oh so this is a big conspiracy now?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I considered my friend’s tone. Considered our history. “You wouldn’t cover something like this up, would you Charlie?” It was half-question, half-statement. “If you were involved in a cover up, I’d be willing to believe it was for a good reason. Just tell me this is important and I’ll believe you.”

His voice softened.

“Jesus, Jim, you think I lied about the girl?” he asked. “I was told she was dead, that there was evidence she was dead. If I went around questioning everyone, I’d never get anything done.”

It was true, I was a dissenter when compared to Charlie. It was why I’d always worked better alone. Scout and snipe missions were perfect for a guy like me. I didn’t have to believe anyone but myself.

“If you say you don’t know what’s going on, I believe you. But do you think this is ‘big’?” I asked.

“Quit going all
Beautiful Mind
on me and get your ass back to work. I want a formal report, in writing and on my desk, before someone crawls up my ass looking for it.”

“Yes, sir,” I said and tried not to sound like a disgruntled bastard when I said it.

“And the bullet. Get it to ballistics.”

“That’s the best idea you’ve had all day,” I said and hung up. The nurse was walking toward me again and I took a few steps forward to meet her.

“She’s awake,” she said. “If you’d like to check on her.”

“Thank you.” I made the formal request for the bullet.

“I’ll notify the doctor,” she said. Then she was silent as she led me up the elevator to the patient rooms on the fourth floor. When the door opened, she held it but didn’t get off with me. “Room 413.”

I thanked her and stepped off the elevator. It was easy enough to find Jackson’s room, after looking through a few dark doorways. I was reminded that I never liked hospitals. I thought it was the smell that made me uncomfortable. Or the solemn way in which everyone walked around. I didn’t like all that doom and gloom. But mostly, it’s the smell.

Jackson’s bed was folded up, holding her in the sitting position. Her left shoulder was bandaged tightly with fresh gauze and the color had returned to her cheeks.

“You could’ve died,” I said. “We got lucky.”

“April Fool’s,” she said.

“Do
not
tell me you hired someone to shoot you as an April fool’s joke.”

“No,” she said. “I was trying to be funny.”

“Ah.” I spared her a smile. “We will have to work on that.”

“Yes.” Her dark eyes were so serious that I couldn’t help but laugh. She was growing on me.

“I’ll try to top your joke next year,” I said. “I’ll need that long to prepare. A gunshot wound is a hell of an act to follow, you know.”

“Did you call Lieutenant Swanson?” she asked.

“Yes. I don’t think he knows what is going on.”

“
Think
?”

“I
hope
,” I said.

She nodded as if she understood. “I need my pictures and things from my place. They aren’t going to let me out of here any time soon, and I need them now.”

“I’ll pick them up for you,” I said.

She hesitated.

“Do you have another errand boy on call?” I quipped.

“No,” she said. “I’ll give you my keys. Just go pick them up and bring them back, please.”

“Sure,” I said and fished the keys out of her jacket pocket per her instructions. I made a mental note to bring her some other things as well, whatever I thought she might like to have at a time like this.

I was almost out the door when she called me back.

“Brinkley,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Keep both eyes open.”