J. Black - The Shop

“Yes, yes, room nine. I spent a ton of money to clean up the mess, finally got it ready for paying customers, and now this happens!”

Jolie went outside into the warm night and stared up the walkway in the direction of room nine. Room nine. The same room. She thought about the two missing weapons. The missing phone. Thought about the woman who called the motel about gunshots.

A theory forming. Just a theory. Nothing to get excited about.

A woman called the office to complain about gunshots, and Royce Brady went to check the rooms. He found Chief Akers dead on the bed of room nine.

Room nine, the same room where Luke Perdue had taken Kathy Westbrook hostage a little over a month ago.

Lots of elements here. Coincidences.

Jolie had been a cop for nine years. She saw it as a huge responsibility. People depended on her, every day. They looked to her for help.

The hostage, Kathy Westbrook, had depended on Chief Akers to get her out. She would have taken comfort in the knowledge that the cavalry had come for her. The chief of police had been right here, in this motel, negotiating for her release. She would have thought he wouldn’t let her come to harm.

But she was wrong.

5

The meat wagon was backed up as close to room nine as possible, doors open. A flatbed had already taken the chief’s Crown Vic to impound.

Jolie found a woman with an elaborate hairdo in the bathroom, removing the clear plastic liner from the wastepaper basket. Jolie noted the two beer bottles inside the liner as well as a crumpled-up Kleenex. The beer fit in with her theory, but it could fit in with any theory. As the woman walked it out of the bathroom, Jolie caught a sharp smell—a cross between rubbing alcohol and perfume. It reminded her of something, but she couldn’t remember what.

“Do you know if there was GSR on his hands?” Jolie asked.

The woman pushed up at her glasses on the bridge of her nose with a gloved finger. “Randy did that.”

Randy, the other tech, was assisting in the removal of the body. The victim was zipped up in the body bag on the gurney, ready to go.

Jolie said to Randy, “Was there any gunshot residue on his hands?”

“No. Why would there be?”

“You did bag his hands, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t think it was nec—”

“Please open the bag.”

“I don’t want to break the seal.”

“Open the bag.”

He shot her a resentful look and pulled the zipper open. The death stench billowed out.

She leaned forward and looked at the hands. No visible evidence of gunshot residue. In between the waves of death smell, Jolie got a whiff of the same odor she’d smelled in the bathroom—a sharp, alcohol-based scent.

Randy bagged the chief’s hands and zipped up the bag. “Anything else?”

She heard the resentment in his voice, and was surprised by it. “Make sure his hands are swabbed and tested for an alcohol-based product. All right?”

He nodded. She saw the tiredness in his eyes under the harsh yellow light. He’d probably worked the day shift and then come out here at night. Jolie knew this happened a lot, understaffed as the crime scene unit was. “I’m hoping you’ll do this yourself,” she said. “It’s very important, and it could make the difference in this case.”

“Okay, I’ll make sure it gets done.”

“Thanks.” As she stepped outside, Jolie’s gaze strayed to Stearing Automotive across the street.

Stearing Automotive had figured prominently in the standoff last month. Jolie pictured one FBI sniper and his spotter lying flat on their bellies on the roof, and the other FBI sniper and his spotter positioned on a railroad car. The railroad car had been stopped dead on the tracks that bisected Kelso Street.

Jolie thought about the philosophical rift between hostage negotiators and tactical teams. There was even a joke about it.

The hostage negotiator says after a two-week standoff, “We’re beginning to make real progress.”

Ten minutes after hostage negotiations begin, the SWAT team leader says, “Told you it wouldn’t work—time to go in.”

True.

Jolie thought about Chief Akers working the phone, trying to bring Kathy Westbrook and her kidnapper out safely. After hours of painstaking negotiations, two people still ended up dead.

She checked her watch. Seven a.m. She wanted to get to the Akers house early so that Akers’s widow, Maddy, would hear about her husband’s death before it made the news.

But Jolie’s guess? Maddy Akers already knew.

6 NICK

ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

One minute Nick was ahead of the other car, and the next, the jogger crossed in front of him.

They’d dragged from the light and were coming off the curve by the park when the jogger trotted out onto the road. Three in the morning—and there was a jogger crossing the street! Nick hit the brakes, and the car slewed sideways and jounced against the curb.

Everything stopped.

First thing he realized—the airbag didn’t deploy.

Second thing he realized—he was unhurt. Maybe banged up a little. But unhurt. The seatbelt had saved him. His car was in the right lane but turned backwards—he’d done a complete one-eighty.

Nick put a hand up to touch his face and smelled the alcohol on his own breath.

Had to get out of here.

Because the airbag hadn’t deployed, he could drive away. There would be no drunk driving charge, if he could just get this thing straightened out and go, soon. But what about the other driver?

What about the jogger? Bemused—it must be the shock—he looked around. The other car was gone. The jogger was gone.

He got out, shakily, dread building. Peered under the car—no jogger.

Almost cried with relief. He looked around. The street was empty.

Just the six-lane road, the park on the right, the sodium arc lights staining everything orange.

Son of a bitch—lucky as usual.

Get the hell out of here. He forced himself to move. Got back in and turned the car around, worried that at any minute a speeding car would come around the curve and ram right into him. But his luck held. He took the back streets home. Driving like a little old lady.

Back inside his condo, he sat on his couch and stared out the window at the darkness. Thinking: How lucky can you get?

First, he’d survived the massacre at the Aspen house. And now, he’d driven away from an accident which could have killed him, the other driver, or the jogger. He’d even avoided a drunk driving charge.

I’ve been spared.

That was the bottom line. He’d been spared. And for what? His new thriller was dead in the water. He had to have a follow-up. Nick had a three-book deal, and this was the third book.

But he couldn’t get past chapter four.

A deadline was looming. It was his last thought before he fell asleep.

His cell woke him. A text from one of his more ardent fans.

The message said, “When can we meet?”

Never, he thought.

To be fair, this guy wasn’t hurting for money—Frank was some big muckety-muck in the government. He was just a pest—a glommer-on. He had a manuscript in his closet and wanted something for nothing, just because they were related—cousins, several times removed, if the guy was to be believed.

First e-mails, then phone messages, now text messages.

Get a life.

Outside, it was sunny. Another beautiful California day. Nick stared at the sky. Feeling better.