Drop Dead Perfect (An Ellen Harper Psycho-Thriller) (21 page)

She fought the horror and the obvious thought, at least to her, that
Steve had knowledge regarding Oscar’s death.

Stay calm, girl. You can kick his ass later, after he heals.

“Does that mean you know who killed him? Please. Tell me.”

“What part of ‘figure it out on your own’ don’t you get? There was a time—”

He coughed. The pain must have been brilliant. He recovered, and his eyes bore into her face. The man was angry. But so was she. Her own rage was swimming just under the surface. It was creeping back, that uncontrollable urge to hit something, someone. Anyone. Steve.

“There was a time? Not now? Come on. Help me
here. You said you wanted to. This is your chance. Tell me about Oscar,” she pressed, surprised by the calm in her voice.

He laughed out loud then winced in pain again.

“Nice try, Queen Harper. That door is shut.”

I think not, bastard.

The red that she saw when her rage got out of hand stroked her face.

Enough of this shit.

She leaned closer, putting the heel of her hand on the wound in his shoulder and pressed.

He screamed.

“I’m not pissing around with you anymore. I need to know what you did. Lives are hanging in the balance. You screwed up; now it’s time to pay. I want answers, got it?”

“Ellen. Stop! You’re hurting him,” said another tech.

She never looked up.

“No shit. Just hold your position. I know what I’m doing. Don’t I,
Stevie boy?”

He gritted his teeth, staring at her, but she saw what she wanted as he continued to yell.

“All right! Stop! Stop! All right.”

Easing off, she grabbed the front of his shirt. “You got five seconds.”

He exhaled. Then he smiled. “I won’t need that long.”

Before she could stop him, he pulled the gun from her holster with his other hand and
turned it toward her. She swung her fist and caught him full on the jaw, and the sound of her fist making solid contact echoed through the hallway. The gun dropped from Steve’s hand. Ellen didn’t stop there. She grabbed the front of his lab coat and shook him.

“Oh, you’re going to talk to me,” she whispered.

The fear on Steve’s face told her it would be sooner rather than later.

CHAPTER-38

After removing his jacket and wrapping it around Joannie’s shivering frame, Brice ripped the cell from his pocket and dialed 9-1-1. He told the dispatcher to send an ambulance and to notify all units in the area to return to his location. He hung up, hardly able to get the phone in his pocket, before he wrapped his arms around Joannie, pulling her close to him. She began to fight, making guttural noises that escalated his creep factor and broke his heart at the same time. Her flailing hands caught him square in the nose. His eyes watered to the point his vision blurred, but he began to speak softly to her, pulling her even tighter.

“I’m a cop, Joannie. I’ve got you now. You’ll be all right. I promise. I’m not leaving you. We’ll wait for the ambulance together, and nothing else is going to happen to you.”

She stared at his face, pointing at her blood-smeared mouth, tears filling eyes wild with a fear he couldn’t imagine. He could see her beauty under the dirt and the blood, but more than that, he sensed her resolve and strength through all of her suffering.

“I know, I know. Just hang tight. I’m here for you,” he whispered.

Slowly, she gave in, and thirty seconds later, she surrendered to his embrace completely, hugging him fiercely as her body shook with sobs born of relief.

Brice had never been a man of faith. He believed in God, but in his line of work he had seen far too much of what evil had to offer to think that God truly cared about His creation. Who could blame Him? Maybe humans had it coming. Anyone who could do what had been done to this woman had no concept of what God might be. Still, he found himself wishing that there was a special place in Hell for people who perpetrated atrocities such as this. One that transformed
the predators into their victims and turned their crimes against them for an eternity. Appropriate justice in his eyes. He suspected he wasn’t alone in that train of thought. One could hope.

He shook his head. Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t have the final say in such matters. Compassion wasn’t exactly oozing from his pores at the moment.

She moved closer, if that were possible, and her sobbing began to tail off as he continued to speak to her. Glancing down at Joannie, he stroked her arm, hoping against hope that she’d make a full recovery in every way. His stoic, antiseptic persona, at least for now, was a distant reality. Right now, he didn’t give a shit about any of that. He just wanted to give her what she needed and to do it right. That hadn’t always happened for the people in his life. Had it?

The flashback was too sudden and intense to ignore or push out of his thoughts, like he’d become so accustomed to doing over the last six years. Her face might as well have been inches from his. Her breath as sweet as ever, her eyes so green he thought he might be getting lost in them again. Her voice as soft as a spring breeze, telling him it wasn’t his fault. To forgive himself. To move on. He wanted to reach for her, to hold her, to protect her like he was protecting Joannie. His dead wife smiled, and then she was gone.

He stopped speaking to Joannie and stared at the fading sunlight reflecting off the worn, red-brick building in front of him. Of course that’s what she’d say. That’s what people who love you do. They try to ease your pain and ignore your mistakes. But none of that changed the facts. If only he’d been there . . .

The siren echoing in the distance brought him back and told him that help was on the way. He’d wallow in more self-pity later.

He glanced at Joannie again and saw she was gazing at him, a curious look draped over her face. Her hand slowly reached up and touched his cheek. He smiled.

“Don’t worry, I’m still here, just checked out for a moment. You okay?”

It took her a moment but she finally nodded, then buried her face in his chest. She heaved a sob, caught herself, and then wrapped both hands around him again.

Maybe Hell was
too good
for assholes who did things like this.

“How sweet. I didn’t know cops could be so warm and fuzzy.”

Brice turned to look over his shoulder and came nose to nose with the barrel of a Smith & Wesson revolver.

He followed the gun to the hand and then to the face of the man holding it. He was tall, good looking, and all business.

“Who are you and what the hell are you doing?” demanded Brice.

“Who I am is not your concern, and as far as what I’m doing, well . . . anything I want, officer, anything I want. Just don’t do something stupid or heroic within your screwed up perception of justice and you might make it through this.”

Brice felt Joannie jerk, then tear away from him, struggling to her feet. She took two wobbly strides, went to her knees, got up, and went down again. The man toting the gun moved quickly to her and grabbed her by the hair. He leveled the gun back to Brice’s head. He could tell by the look on the man’s face, he wasn’t afraid or nervous. As unnerving as that was, Brice held his ground.

“Who said all cops are idiots? Good choice, detective,” he said, grinning.

He lifted Joannie to her feet. “
Tsk, tsk.
Joannie, it was rude of you to leave before we were done. Don’t you agree?”

She swung at him and landed a pointless blow to his arm. He laughed.

“You do have some of the spirit my misguided brother so much admired in you.”

The laugh turned to a snarl as he jerked her toward him. “Haven’t you heard that no one gets out alive, no matter how much we want to? None of you are worthy. It doesn’t work that way.”

The maniac put the gun to her head.

Good God. He was totally insane and worse, he was going to kill her.

Redemption. The opportunity to make something right tore at Brice’s mind. That ideal can wear many faces, and he worried for an instant that he wouldn’t have the strength to really recognize or act on it. Only for a second.

Brice made a choice that really was no choice at all.

Leaping up, he lunged for the killer’s waist. Joannie’s captor released her and turned on him, gun swinging around at the same time. Brice made contact like a linebacker hitting a running back. He heard a grunt as they collided. He reached for the gun, felt the cold steel touch his hand. The euphoria was beyond description, but it lasted only a moment, as the man spun to his right and ripped the gun from Brice’s grasp, landing on his shoulder. Brice dove at him again, reaching for the kidnapper’s arm and swinging his left fist toward his jaw at the same time. It glanced off the killer’s face, not connecting fully. Suddenly, he felt a stinging pain under his left eye as the butt of the gun connected. He saw a galaxy of stars. Still, he rushed the man again, noticing that Joannie was doing her best to get away.

Before Brice could reach him, the man was already propped up on one knee, aiming the revolver at him. The first shot slammed into his shoulder, spinning him around with a sickening thud. At first he felt nothing, then the pain rushed him. It was illuminating. Still, he couldn’t quit, give up like before. Not this time.

Taking another step, he moved toward the shooter just as the second bullet struck his head.

Brice Rogers dropped to the cool ground, feeling everything then total numbness as his thoughts were swallowed by the darkness.

CHAPTER-39

Ellen stood at the end of the hall as the EMTs rolled the gurney toward the elevator, whisking Jansen to the
hospital where he’d be under guard until his trial, providing he made it. The man, despite all she’d done, refused to say another word. Two officers had pulled her off from him and said they’d take it from there. She found herself knowing they were right, but wanting to finish what she’d started, what
Steve
had started, and get the answers she so desperately needed.

Not your ballgame. Do your job.

She followed her internal voice but did not like it. She walked back to the end of the hallway, focusing on her staff, hard at work. The buzz was unmistakable as six techs hurried to snap on plastic gloves, gather evidence, and take pictures. Aside from the fact that one of their own had gone off the deep end, Ellen could sense the excitement of having a crime scene inside the forensic center of the Chicago Police Department. It was a bit like Christmas morning.

As she got closer to the end of the hall, she noticed
Sanchez had returned. She stood to the side, near the broken glass where Steve had first taken a shot at her.

Ellen focused on her, and to the woman’s credit,
Sanchez never blinked. She couldn’t tell if it was a matter of defiance, or confidence, or that she simply still carried a grudge toward Ellen, but the woman didn’t seem to harbor any fear regarding her actions. It still didn’t make it right. Ellen thought she could have eventually gotten to Steve. His obvious attraction to her would’ve been an obstacle too difficult for him to overcome, in her mind. She still knew how to play to that, albeit, a little rusty. But the fact that he wouldn’t now speak at all showed she might have been wrong.

It was all a moot point. She probably wasn’t going to get to speak to him again. They were going to have other issues to deal with as well. The fact that
Steve had used his weapon, she’d used hers, and Sanchez had shot him as well meant a full gun-discharge investigation.

Most often, discharge of weapons were handled by Internal Affairs, the IPRA. It was just a matter of time before two of IA reps showed up. Ellen wanted to know what
Sanchez would say before that process began.

She exhaled and strode over to
Sanchez. “Let’s get to this.”

“Have at it, Gringa.”

More defiance. More attitude. Ellen’s anger was significantly diminished, but it was there nonetheless, and she wrestled to keep it in check.
Maybe I should just deck her again.

“What the hell’s wrong with you? I had control of the situation.”

“Believe it or not, I might’ve saved that pretty face of yours from being rearranged to look like a Picasso. Besides, I couldn’t take a chance you were right, you know?”

“I just told you—”

Sanchez pointed at her. “You’ve been in the lab too long. That boy was going to kill you. Got that? I did what any cop in my position would have done, ya know? I reacted to the situation to save a dumb shit, who just happens to belong to the CPD. I pulled the trigger.”

“I’ve seen you shoot. Like I said, you could have hit me.”

Sanchez rolled her eyes. “I didn’t think there was time to maybe hit his arm or his dick, or whatever. I took a chance that I’d hit him in the right spot and hurt him enough to give up the weapon before he sent you to the morgue,” she said, sticking her chin out a little farther.

Crossing her arms, not responding, Ellen digested what
Sanchez had said. There was a certain logic to her words, and the detective
had
acted the way the CPD manual said to respond in situations like this one. No cop’s life was worth taking a chance on. She resigned to the fact that she probably would have done the same thing, maybe quicker, if it had been Big Harv—or Brice.