Jericho's Razor (22 page)

I tucked the hat in my back pocket, shut the car door, and entered my building. Leaving the lights off, I walked to my truck, keeping my head on a swivel. The murder of Sean Booker hung like smoke. It left an aura that no cleanup crew could ever eliminate. Every time I came down here I would see the headless body tied to the overturned chair. I would smell the rotten stew of blood and tissue hanging from the rafters like confetti.

I decided to search from the top down. I took the stairs slowly, using the acoustics of the building and keeping a sharp ear for any sounds of movement overhead. The old building made stealth impossible. Bad for me. But also bad for anyone else. At the door to my loft, I quickly tuned the key and pushed open the door. Doomsday looked up from the couch, looking bored and confused as to why I standing in the doorway without coming in. It told me that searching my loft was pointless. There was nobody there.

“Doomsday! Come!”

He sat up, shook his fur, and trotted over. I held the baseball hat under his nose, letting him get a good sniff. He found the scent and hurried down the stairs. We searched level by level. Doomsday seemed at ease. If Eli were close by, I knew from experience that Doomsday would be on guard.

My phone vibrated in my back pocket, startling me. I pulled it out and saw that I had a text message from Jagger.

‘
Just pulled into my driveway. Had a great time.
'

I had to decide what to tell her.

The phone buzzed again. I could tell by the repeated pulse that it was a call rather than a text. I checked the screen, expecting to see Jagger's number.

I was wrong.

“Hi, big brother.” He spoke softly, whispering like we used to when we would stay up after bedtime. I went to the window on the far side of the floor. It was covered in dust and grime, but still offered a decent view of the street. The Camaro was still there, sitting like a stain on the side of the road. Doomsday calmly paced the room. Maybe picking up a scent, maybe just curious about being in unfamiliar territory.

“You really do like the messed-up ones, don't you?”

“What do you know about it?”

“The police aren't the only ones keeping tabs on you. I was watching your boat from shore through a high-powered scope mounted to my rifle. I could have taken out you, Jagger,
and
those dumbass cops parked by your bike.”

“Enough of this shit, Eli. Come out and talk.”

“That may be a problem. I'm not exactly in the vicinity right now.”

Several things occurred to me, all too late. Eli was speaking in a low voice because he didn't want to be overheard. I assumed that was because he was close by. But it wasn't me he was hiding from. I hung up and dialed Jagger.

“Hey.” I could hear her smile, the jingle of keys as they hit something solid, probably a bowl kept on an end table by the door. A place where she put them every time. She probably put her purse there as well. And maybe her gun.

“Eli is in your apartment …” I was broken off by the sound of crashing. Loud rumblings traveled over the phone and I heard Jagger yell.

“Alyssa!” I heard the phone drop. A gun fired four times, rapid, one shot after the other.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
They were not the carefully aimed double taps that cops are trained in—it was panic firing. I knew the sound well. I would never forget it. I was about to hang up and call 911 when someone picked up the phone. Jagger's voice reached my ears. She sounded weak.

“Sands …”

“What happened? Are you okay?”

“Eli distracted me by tripping a lamp … he came at me from the hall closet.”

“I heard shooting. Are you hit?”

“No. That was me.”

I wasn't able to keep track of how many rounds were fired, but it sounded like anyone on the receiving end had to be dead. Images flashed in my head of Eli lying sprawled on the floor.

“Did you get him?” I asked.

“I don't know… he jumped over the balcony. I'm two stories up. He may be out there with two broken legs … but he got me with a knife, a really big damned knife.”

The images of my brother bleeding out jumped to images of Jagger.

“Alyssa, talk to me. How bad is it?”

“Bad … there's a lot of blood.” Her voice trailed off and I heard the sound of the phone slipping from her hand and thumping onto the floor.

Chapter Eighteen

I was told by a 911 operator that three of Jagger's neighbors had already reported the gunshots. She lived in a condo complex filled with retiree's and single professionals where gunshots were not common. The call hit the airwaves, and within seconds the entire county response team was en route. Jagger was rushed to an operating room, barely conscious. Eli had attacked from behind, aiming for her throat, but Alyssa reacted quickly and spun out the way before her head was taken off. The knife sliced her from the top of her left shoulder to the middle of her breasts. If the knife had gone any deeper, first responders arriving at her apartment would have found a corpse.

All four of Jagger's rounds were recovered in a tight grouping in her living room wall. Even with the injury, she managed to fire with impressive aim. But the only blood that was found belonged to her. Somehow, Eli had managed to avoid being hit. But, as Jagger said, he escaped via the balcony on the second floor. The bushes below were trampled. The ground sloped downward toward a community swimming pool. Tracks were seen from where he landed and then rolled. He would not be moving quickly.

I found a spot and waited. Torrez came up and stood over me.

“She's going to be okay,” he said. “She's refusing anything for the pain, but I think that will change. That wound is going to hurt like a bitch.”

“At least she's okay.”

Torrez took a step forward, standing right on top of me. “You suspected that your brother was lying in wait to ambush my partner, and you did nothing.” He was a tightly wound time bomb of anger and kinetic energy.

I stood up to face him. “I thought he was going to ambush
me
. As soon as I realized what was happening, I called Alyssa to warn her.”

“Too late!”

“He was already in her fucking house, Torrez! There was nothing more I could have done without a crystal ball!”

“Really? You should have called us the moment you spotted that damn Camaro! Better yet, you should have told us about it in the first place! We would have been looking for it and we would have had him!”

The cops on the other end of the waiting room looked over. I was in deep shit, and I knew it. Mainly because everything Torrez said was right. My decision to withhold information had almost cost Alyssa her life.

“You're toxic, Sands. Everything and everyone around you goes to shit. And now you're dragging Alyssa down with you.”

“I'm not dragging her anywhere, buddy.”

“Stay away from her. Stay away from our investigation. Period. If you learn anything, call the desk and leave a message. Other than that, I don't want to see or hear from you. If I do, I will lock you up with your brother. Understand?”

“Eat shit, Torrez. Understand?”

Cops have people mouth off to them all the time. They learn to deal with it. But Torrez was in no mood, and I pushed him harder than he was willing to bend. His right cross knocked me into a table stacked with outdated magazines. It broke under my weight. I hurried back to my feet. Torrez stood his ground like a boxer anticipating a retaliatory charge. I looked down to see I was holding a broken table leg. It would make an excellent club. Before I could use it, a man ran between us. He tore the club from my hand and tossed it aside.

“Enough! Both of you, knock it off, right now!”

I didn't know who this guy was, but his words made Torrez turn away and join the rest of the cops. The referee turned to me when he was satisfied Torrez was subdued.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I'm fine.”

“My name is Lieutenant Kenneth Briggs. I'm Detectives Torrez's boss.”

“My condolences.”

“Would you like to press charges against Detective Torrez?” he asked. He was gritting his teeth, obviously hating that he had to ask. But Torrez had just decked me in front of over a dozen other cops and a half dozen medical staff. There was no way his boss would be able to ignore it.

I rubbed my jaw. “No. I don't want to press charges.”

I saw Torrez's eyebrows lift a fraction. It was not the response he had been expecting. His boss was just as surprised.

“No? You're sure?”

“I said no. You want me to rent a billboard?”

“That won't be necessary. But I do think it would be best if you go home. Tempers are running a little too high right now.”

I wanted to tell him to shove it. But I needed to find Eli.

“Fine. But I want to be able to call down here and check on Alyssa without being stonewalled. That means no orders to the nurse's desk to block my calls or give me the runaround.”

“Fair enough. Your calls will be put through. If Detective Jagger wishes to speak to you, that is.”

The clouds hanging over the city finally broke, and I stepped out of the hospital into a cold, steady rain. Water erupted from the seat of my bike like a saturated sponge, soaking my jeans. The conditions were perfect for my already pissed-off mood. I sped off, slicing through puddles, fighting to hold the bike stable.

I knew that Torrez would order the Camaro be towed to the station to be searched, but I was betting he was too distracted by the attack on Alyssa to get to it. I was right. The Camaro was still on the curb outside my building. I pulled up alongside for another look.

The car was a rolling trash can. Eli always had been a slob. I was hoping that the debris might give me some clues to where my brother had been hiding.

I looked around inside the car while rain beat on the overhead. There were wrappers from McDonald's and Hardee's. I found a gas station receipt for a six-pack of Miller. My phone rang while I was searching under the seats. I grabbed it, hoping it would be Jagger.

“Is she dead?”

“No, Eli.”

“Damn!”

“If you want to be chickenshit and ambush people, do it to me!”

“Holy shit. You're actually falling for this bitch, aren't you?”

“Why are you doing this? Explain it to me,” I said, trying to stall him, listening for anything in the background that could help me.

“I already tried to tell you and you didn't understand. You're still just seeing what you want to see.”

I ground my teeth. My brother was saying the same thing to me as the hallucination of Peter, speaking in riddles and making absolutely no sense. Family.

“What would I not understand, Eli? Why you decided to leave a headless drug dealer in my garage?”

“That's exactly what I mean! You already think you know everything, so why bother?”

“Eli, you're not making any sense. Where the fuck are you?”

“I'm not saying. But if you knew, you would lose your head.”

The line went dead. I again felt the urge to throw my phone but resisted, forcing myself to stop and think. Eli was close. Somewhere he could hide to avoid the manhunt. A secluded place on the outskirts of town would work. A place in the country with no neighbors for miles. But he would never have made it to such a place unseen, which meant he was still somewhere in town.

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the seat. When dealing with writer's block, the best solution is to stop trying to force the solution, to just let it come. I took long, slow, deep breaths and emptied my head of the noises that were fighting for attention. The answer was there. I just needed to stop
looking
and start
seeing
.

If you knew, you would lose your head.

I blocked out the buzzing traffic passing by on Main Street and the tapping raindrops on top of the car. Eyes closed. Mind open.