Brian Freeman - Stripped

“I will fucking destroy you!”

A cell phone began ringing in Gino’s convertible. Blake knew it was Leo on another line, trying to reach his son. He casually picked up the SIG-Sauer from between his legs and pointed it out the window. “Listen up, Leo,” he said.

The bodyguard’s hand began diving into his jacket. Gino got the same stupid look on his face that MJ had when he opened his eyes. Blake pulled the trigger twice, firing two neat rounds into Gino’s skull. Flicking his arm back, he fired again, catching the bodyguard in the throat. Both men collapsed. Through the earpiece, Leo let fly with a guttural scream. The blonde joined in.

“Say hi to Boni for me,” Blake said, as he accelerated calmly through the green light. “Tell him he’s next.”

Sara Evans again. Restless.

When Stride fished his cell phone out of his pocket, he saw a 218 area code on the caller ID. He had spent his whole life in that area code, which included most of northern Minnesota. He answered the phone and heard a familiar voice say, “How’s it going, boss?”

“Mags!” Stride exclaimed. “God, it’s good to hear your voice. I miss you.”

“Same here.”

Maggie Bei had been his partner for more than a decade. She was a Chinese girl the size of a Kewpie doll, but with the best brain he had ever encountered on the force. Shortly before Stride left for Las Vegas, Maggie had announced that she was pregnant and was giving up her shield. It helped make it easier for Stride to leave.

“What’s the weather like up there?” Stride asked. Only a Minnesotan could appreciate that every conversation had to begin with a review of the weather.

“Sucks. Rain. Cold. How about there?”

“Heat wave,” Stride said. “We had a couple weeks in the seventies, and now it’s in the upper nineties again. I thought we were done with that after August.”

“You gone Vegas on me yet, boss?” Maggie asked. “Silk shirts? Shades? Bubbly drinks with little umbrellas?”

“Yeah. I’m coloring my hair, too. Got it slicked back.”

“Right, and I’m blond now. Got implants.”

Stride had to pull his Bronco over to the curb and park. He was laughing too hard. “I really do miss you, Mags.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Maggie paused, then added, “Listen, I’ve got some news. Not good, I’m afraid.”

Stride sobered up immediately. “What is it?”

“I lost the baby.”

He heard the crack in her voice. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. It was actually like three weeks ago, but I didn’t have the guts to call and tell you.”

“Shit, Mags, you should have told me right away.”

Maggie sighed. “Nothing you could have done.”

“Are you okay?” He shook his head in disgust. That was the kind of stupid question reporters asked victims on the evening news.

“So-so. Doc says it’s real common, we can try again, blah blah blah. That doesn’t make it any easier. Eric’s taking it hard. He says he’s not so sure he wants kids now. Like God’s trying to tell us something.”

“That’s crazy.”

“I know.” She hesitated. “I’m wondering about going back on the force. I didn’t really want to leave, you know. It was Eric’s idea.”

“Is that what you want?” Stride asked.

“I don’t know. It’s not the same without you.”

Stride didn’t know what to say to that, so he kept quiet. He didn’t know where Maggie was going. Once upon a time, there had been history between them. Maggie had been in love with him for several years, and she had made a play for him shortly after Cindy died. It didn’t work out. She didn’t hold a grudge, not even when Serena entered the picture, but Stride always wondered if the emotions were entirely dead. Even after Maggie married Eric, there were hints sometimes that she would have gone over the edge if Stride had ever given her a reason.

“But I suppose you’re happy in Sin City,” Maggie continued.

“Oh, yeah. I fit right in here. You’d expect that.”

She ignored the sarcasm. “What’s it like being a working stiff again and not the big boss?”

“I just do what you always did. Complain about the lieutenant.”

“Nice. Good one. How’s Serena?”

“Okay.” He knew his voice sounded like lead.

Maggie took a long time to reply. He could never fool her. “You guys having problems?”

“I don’t know what we’re having,” he admitted.

“Serena’s got ghosts, boss. You knew that going in.”

“This isn’t a ghost.” He took a deep breath and told her about Serena and Claire-and about his secret fear, which he had barely expressed to himself, that this would all end in him losing her.

“She says she still loves you?” Maggie asked.

“She says that.”

“What about you? How do you feel?”

Stride thought about the old joke. Ask a Minnesotan how he feels on the day his dog dies, his wife leaves him, and he loses his job. “Fine,” he said.

“Real funny.”

“I love her, Mags. You know that.”

“So what’s the problem? Hell, boss, this could be your ticket to a threesome.”

Stride laughed. “Sure.” He added, “Okay, the thought of it did cross my dirty mind. But come on. Me?”

“It’s a lot stranger world than you know,” she replied, in a voice that didn’t sound like Maggie at all.

“Don’t tell me that you would get into anything like that.”

“Let’s not go there, boss,” she retorted.

He felt as if he were walking in quicksand and decided to change the subject. “So what about you? Are you going back?”

“I haven’t decided. It’s too soon after the baby, you know?”

“I know.” He was so accustomed to thinking of Maggie as a rock that it was difficult to hear pain radiating from her. “I really am sorry, Mags.”

“Thanks. You know, there was another reason I called.”

“Oh?”

“K-2 asked me to do it. He was too chicken to call himself.”

Deputy Chief Kyle Kinnick was Stride’s old boss in Duluth. “What does he want?” Stride asked, feeling a tingling in his chest.

“The search for a new lieutenant in the Detective Bureau washed out,” Maggie said. “He wanted me to feel you out. See if you might be interested in coming back.”

Libraries,” Amanda said. “I think that’s our best bet.”

She stood by the open window in Sawhill’s office. There was barely a whisper of a breeze. A portable fan whined on his desk, directing its air at the lieutenant’s face. Part of the downtown area had lost power earlier in the afternoon, and though the station had a backup generator, it didn’t extend to air-conditioning. The office was stifling.

“This guy had to find out about Amira somewhere,” she went on. “We’re talking about Vegas forty years ago. Sure, he could surf the Web, but wouldn’t he go to the library, too? That’s where he’d find old newspapers, old magazines, anything like that. It may be one way he built his list of targets.”

“Check it out,” Sawhill said. He had a glow of sweat on his face, but his tie was tightly knotted at his neck. His one concession to the heat was removing his black suit coat. “We’ve got this guy’s description all over the papers and television, but we can’t find him. And he still manages to gun down Gino Rucci and his bodyguard right on the Strip. Explain that to me.”

“We know he can disguise himself,” Stride said. “If he doesn’t want to be recognized, he won’t be, but we’ve got uniforms and casino security people on the lookout for him. Witnesses last night pegged him in a brown sedan, but no one got a plate. We’ve added that to the profile.”

“Are we getting calls to the hotline?”