Everywhere She Turns (13 page)

CJ wanted to ask what had happened, but she was pretty sure Lusk wouldn’t want to discuss it with her. What could she say:
I’m sorry
or
Sucks for you
?

“I have a son,” Lusk explained as if she’d read CJ’s mind. “He needed me. Try surviving your residency with a baby on your hip.”

Wow. Even surviving nursing school with a kid had to be tough. Tack on the additional requirements for practitioner and that was saying something. “How old is your son?”

Lusk hesitated, then said, “Nine.”

“Pictures?” CJ knew the interest on her face looked fake, but it was the best she could do.

“I don’t think you seriously want to see a picture of my kid.” Lusk settled behind her desk once more. “Look at the chart. I have work to do.”

CJ skimmed Shelley’s medical chart. Nothing she hadn’t expected. Shelley had been in several times for STDs. Tests to ensure she did or didn’t have one or more on different occasions. A follow-up to the concussion and fracture she’d gotten from that worthless asshole Banks just over a month ago. Same old Shelley. Lab results from last week. CJ didn’t know what she’d expected to find, but she hadn’t found it.

She passed the chart back to Lusk. “Thank you.”

“Yeah.” Lusk tossed it onto the pile of others.

CJ hesitated a moment, felt like there was something more she should say. Take a step toward mending that bridge, maybe. After all, this woman had taken care of Shelley’s medical needs.

“Use the back door.” Lusk didn’t bother looking up again.

CJ didn’t bother taking that step she’d considered. Instead, she walked out.

How was it that she’d been gone for seven years and no one or nothing that mattered around here had changed?

Absolutely nothing.

Except her sister was dead.

CJ would know the reason her sister had been murdered.

She glanced back at the run-down clinic.

Maybe she already did.

That was exactly why she was going to visit the one person who knew Shelley almost as well as CJ did: Ricky Banks. This time the police weren’t coming between them.

CJ wanted him all alone.

Ricky and his scumbag cronies weren’t the only ones who could play games.

She was about to show him she hadn’t forgotten the lessons she’d learned as a kid.

CJ Patterson could lie, cheat, and steal . . . if it meant finding her sister’s killer.

Juanita Lusk didn’t move for a long time after Patterson left. She stared at the mound of files on the desk, her mind frozen yet somehow spinning wildly.

She had work. A ton of work.

She should get started.

“Oh, God.”

Shelley Patterson was dead.

A tremor of uncertainty quaked through Juanita, shattering the quivering mass of stalled thoughts.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck
.

She glanced around her office. Tried to think what to do.

This really had nothing to do with her. Nothing at all.

Shelley was dead because she didn’t know how to stay out of trouble. She was always . . .

Fuck
.

Who was she kidding?

Juanita needed a cigarette. Grabbing her bag, she plopped it on top of the mountain of work. Fished around inside until she found her Marlboro Lights. Lighter. Where was that damned lighter? Her hands shook.

“Shit!” She turned her bag upside down, let her stuff tumble
over the desk, onto the floor. The lighter fell into her lap. Hand still shaking, she snatched it up and lit the Marlboro.

She didn’t care that it was a smoke-free environment.

She had far bigger problems.

Juanita dragged in a lungful of smoke, savored it for as long as she could before allowing it to escape.

She’d promised her son she would quit.

Maybe when this was over.

Fear wrapped around and around her heart, tightened like a threatening serpent.

What had she done?

Christ. She’d made the mother of all mistakes.

How was she supposed to know the son of a bitch would go this far? Yeah, he dabbled in drugs. Had himself a regular little habit going on. But with all he had going for him, who would have imagined he would do
this
?

Shelley was dead.

Juanita clasped a hand over her mouth to hold back the desperation rising in her throat.

This couldn’t be happening.

Okay, okay. Don’t panic
. She shoved the half-smoked cigarette into the abandoned Coke can on her desk.

No one knew. It was her secret.

“You’re okay.” She pulled in a deep breath. “Just do your job, Juanita.” She braced her hands on the desk and let the air seep slowly into her lungs. “No need to panic.”

Nobody would ever know.

She shook her head.

No way.

This murder had nothing to do with her.

She hadn’t killed anybody.

She had nothing to worry about.

A stillness crept over her, narrowed her view until one vivid truth filled her consciousness.

No, she had nothing to worry about except . . .

CJ Patterson.

815 Wheeler Avenue, HPD, 2:55
PM

Braddock reclined in the uncomfortable metal chair and propped his feet on the table as two uniforms delivered Banks to the interview room.

Banks, looking exactly like a man with a hellacious hangover, stared in bewilderment as the door closed. He’d still been in bed when the cops arrived.

“What the fuck?” He turned around, stumbled back a step as his gaze landed on Braddock. He held up his hands. “I done told you everything I know.”

“I wish that were true,” Braddock said as he dropped his feet to the floor and stood. “But, you see, I know you’re lying.” He walked around the table and pulled out the other chair. “Have a seat.”

Banks glared at him for about ten seconds, then swaggered to the chair and plopped down in it. “What the fuck do you want?”

Braddock had waited until Banks was in the room to do this part. He picked up the small roll of blue paint er’s tape from the table, pulled the chair he’d vacated across the room, and stepped up onto it. After tearing off a strip of tape, he plastered it across the camera lens and stepped down from the chair.

“What the fuck?” Banks mumbled.

Braddock pulled his chair back to the table and took a seat. He shoved the roll of tape back into the table’s only drawer, then reached beneath the desk to turn off the microphone. “Now. I understand you had a few beers with my partner last night.”

Cooper had called Braddock at three-thirty this morning to say she’d delivered Banks to his house since he was shit-faced. She’d learned a couple of interesting tidbits, nothing case-breaking, but enough to give Braddock some leverage.

“Your fucking partner,” Banks said, his speech still slightly slurred, “set me up. That’s called entrapment.”

Braddock turned his palms up. “Prove it.”

Banks puffed out a breath. “Fuck you.”

“The problem is . . .” Braddock sat back, studied the scumbag. “You’re the one who’s fucked.”

The other man’s gaze narrowed. “How do you figure that?”

“Considering two uniforms picked you up at your house this morning and hauled you in—not to mention my partner took you home in the wee hours of the morning—I would say Nash has concluded that you’re cooperating with the police.”

Banks laughed. “I ain’t doing shit with the police.”

“You know that,” Braddock allowed, “and I know that, but Nash doesn’t.”

Fear made its first appearance in the scumbag’s eyes.

“Detective Cooper reported that you kept talking about Nash having a plan to have his revenge with me. Why don’t you start with telling me about that?”

“I was drunk. I don’t even remember what I said. But I don’t know nothing about what Nash does. I told you that.”

Nothing Braddock hadn’t expected. Shelley had warned him that Banks wouldn’t talk without some major motivation. Braddock stood, sending his chair scraping across the tiled floor. “You see, Ricky”—he leaned forward, braced his hands on the table, and put his face in the other man’s—“that’s just not acceptable to me.”

“Ain’t shit you can do about it,” the bastard had the balls to say.

Braddock smiled. “That’s where you’re wrong.” His smile vanished. “I will watch every move you make. Have you hauled
in every single day until you wish you were anybody but Ricky Banks. I’ll put the word out on the street that you’re a snitch. You won’t have a customer left in this county or the next who’ll do business with you. And you’ll be so sick of seeing my face that you’ll want to take that unlicensed Glock of yours and put yourself out of your misery before someone else does it for you.”

“You want me to help you,” Banks scoffed, “the way Shelley helped you? Yeah, right. I don’t wanna get dead like her.”

Self-disgust cramped Braddock’s insides. “I guess it all depends upon who scares you the most, Banks. Nash or me.”

The stare-off lasted long enough for sweat to break out on the other man’s forehead.

“I can help you.” Banks swallowed hard. “You just have to give me time to set things in motion. Ty is careful.” He blinked for the first time. His hands shook as he shoved the hair back from his face. “You won’t be able to connect him to any of his past activities. It’ll have to be something new.”

Now they were getting somewhere. “Seventy-two hours.” Braddock let that sink in a moment. “That’s all the time I can give you. Can you make that happen?”

Banks nodded eagerly. “I’ll make it happen.”

“You get what I need on Nash and I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”

“Can I leave now?”

Braddock dragged his chair back to the wall and removed the tape from the camera lens. “Absolutely. I’ll have someone take you to your car.”

Braddock left the room. Jenkins waited in the corridor. “Take that piece of shit to his car. It’s parked at that cantina on Drake.”

“Did he give you anything useful?” the junior detective asked, anticipation gleaming in his eyes. He wanted deeper into this case so bad it hurt. He followed Braddock around like a groupie. Told everyone he wanted to be just like him.

Braddock grinned. “He’ll get us what we need.”

Jenkins nodded as if he hadn’t expected anything less. “Of course. I don’t know why I asked. He didn’t have a chance against you.”

“Get some sleep. You’ll need it,” he told Jenkins before heading to his office. He needed to touch base with Greg Day at the lab. If that turned out to be Shelley’s blood . . . It wouldn’t be enough to nail Nash legally, but it would confirm a connection between the note he had received after his niece’s murder and the message to CJ. His cell vibrated. He checked the screen. Cooper. She’d relieved Jenkins an hour ago. The chief had allotted only three detectives on this case. They would have to do the best they could with minimal manpower.

“Braddock.”

“She’s waiting outside Banks’s house,” Cooper reported.

A frown furrowed across his forehead. “Jenkins is taking Banks to his car now. Keep an eye on her until I get there.”

After last night’s break-in, he would have thought CJ would be more careful. He should have known better. She’d spent her whole life taking care of her sister. To CJ’s way of thinking, finding her killer would be necessary to finish the job.

If it didn’t get her killed first.

4:05
PM

Braddock watched the house on Clopton where Banks resided with his aunt. CJ sat on the steps waiting for his arrival. According to Jenkins, Banks had made a stop at the liquor store on the corner of Drake and the Parkway.

CJ couldn’t get past the idea that Banks was the one who’d killed her sister. Banks would insist when she asked that it hadn’t been him. It had been the King.

The King. Braddock’s jaw tightened with the hatred that exploded inside him each time he thought of that bastard. He was a king, all right. King of a run-down village filled with desperate people eking out the same desperate lives their parents and their grandparents before them had eked out.

It was way past time the cycle was stopped.

The only way to end it was to neutralize its core. The hub that held all the spokes together, spinning in that vicious circle.

Change wasn’t about to come to this neighborhood as long as scumbags like Nash ran things.

Cooper didn’t see this case the way he did. Whoever had killed Shelley, Nash was responsible. He would have given the order. Just as he had two years ago when he’d murdered Braddock’s niece.