Better When He's Brave
Page 50
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Brysen said every dirty word that had ever existed and glared at me over her sister’s head. “Tell me you are going to do something about this?”
I nodded. “Karsen, is the teacher still here?” I asked the question just as the bomb-squad guys hollered an all clear and stormed the front of the school, finally making their way inside the building. It hadn’t been a real threat. It was all a distraction. Unease and something stronger, scarier, raced up and down my spine.
She gave a cursory glance to where the crowd was thinning out and shook her head in the negative. “No. I don’t see him. This is because of that guy, isn’t it? The guy who burned down Nassir’s club and who burned up Race’s car and killed his dad.”
I didn’t see any reason to lie to her, so I was going to tell her yes, but, like she had conjured him out of thin air, Race was suddenly there looking beyond furious and ready to take on the entire police force and anyone else that might be in the way of him getting to his girls. He wrapped them both up in a hug so tight it had them squeaking, and glowered at me over their heads.
“Seriously? A kid is getting dragged into all of this? It ends now, Titus.”
I couldn’t agree more but I wasn’t sure what any of them expected me to do. I was already dangling the carrot in front of Roark; he just hadn’t bitten at it yet.
Karsen pulled herself out of Race’s suffocating embrace and looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Booker was the one that came in the school and found me. I heard him calling my name and pounding on all the doors until he found the right one. They arrested him. You have to help him, Race.”
There was more in her tone than concern for her savior. Oh, boy, I didn’t envy Race or Brysen having to deal with a crush like that on a guy like Booker. It was just asking for all kinds of ugly heartache.
Race gave me another hard look and I just shrugged. “This is my job, Race. Booker decided to ignore police orders and went in even though we didn’t know if the scene was clear. He could’ve been putting Karsen at greater risk. He got handsy with a cop when they tried to stop him, so they hooked him up.”
His green eyes flashed to black with fury and his mouth pulled into a hard, tight line. “What if there had been a bomb, Titus? What if she was just stuck there waiting to die because some madman has daddy issues?”
Deciding that things would just get nastier with Race because I didn’t have an answer to his questions, I asked Karsen to give me the teacher’s full name and promised her I would do what I could to get Booker out of lockup as soon as possible. The poor kid had been through enough for one day.
I called Dispatch to get an address on the math teacher and decided I better call and check on Reeve since she was on her own. My hackles lifted straight up when the phone just rang and rang. She was supposed to be at the loft, and she was too smart to venture out into the city on her own knowing Roark was winning this deadly game hands down. I tried to remind myself of that as the phone continued to ring unanswered. She wouldn’t willingly put herself in harm’s way knowing what the stakes were. I also tried to keep in mind that if she had left the condo, the feds were supposed to be keeping an eye on her per our deal, so she wouldn’t be out there in the war zone alone.
The teacher lived in that weird in-between neighborhood where Bax had bought a house. It was nice enough not to need bars on the windows, but still close enough to the city that you could feel the grime and the dirt under your feet. The teacher had a simple ranch-style house that was well maintained and looked about as lower middle class as one could get. There were no signs of anything that would indicate that he was somehow mixed up with Roark, but I knew looks could be deceiving. I shot Reeve one last text demanding that she tell me where she was before climbing out of the sedan and walking up to the front door.
I raised a hand to knock and almost fell into the house as the door swung open under the tapping of my knuckles. The interior was dark, and before I even took a step over the threshold, the metallic and iron scent of blood hit my nose.
I swore under my breath and walked into the house expecting the worst. I got it.
The middle-aged teacher and his wife were sitting on the couch, each with a perfectly round bullet hole in the center of their foreheads. They were still holding hands.
A teenaged boy that couldn’t be any older than Karsen was a few feet away, facedown on the carpet and missing the back of his skull. It looked like he had tried to make a run for it and not gotten very far. I pulled my phone out so I could call the murders in and saw that I’d missed a text from Reeve. I ignored it so I could call the station, explaining that I thought the multiple homicide was directly related to the bomb threat at the school. I wasn’t sure how to explain Roark, so I just told Dispatch that it was all part of an ongoing investigation. One more kid I hadn’t gotten to in time in a pool of blood. Roark really was eating away at the very foundation of what I did and why I did it.
I went outside so that I could go talk to the neighbors and see if anyone had seen anything. As I stepped outside I remembered to look at Reeve’s text. I tapped the screen to open it and frowned at her terse message.
I had to go home.
What in the hell did that mean? She was still at the loft? She had to go back to her place up north where WITSEC had stashed her? She had to go back to her place she had in the city when things went to hell? I wasn’t sure what she considered home and I didn’t like that at all. I shot her back:
WTF does that even mean? Call me NOW! Tied up at work. Triple homicide most likely Roark.
I thought that would get her attention, and I would hear back from her in a split second, but all I got was silence. I didn’t like it, but I had a job to do, so I started knocking on doors. The first neighbor hadn’t seen or heard anything. Of course not. The second took great pleasure in telling me all about what a delinquent the son was. Apparently the kid had a drug problem and had been caught trying to break into various neighbors’ houses. Two houses down, an old lady that had to be in her eighties swore she saw a big silver truck that didn’t belong in the neighborhood pull up in front of the house. She also thought Clinton was still president of the United States, so I jotted the info down without much hope of it leading to anything. Finally, when I spoke to the young couple that lived across the street, I got something that might actually be helpful.
They said they saw a bald guy with a goatee talking to the kid. He had been around a few times when the parents were gone, and the couple agreed he didn’t give off a good vibe. The kid’s drug problem was well known around the neighborhood, so they thought he might be a dealer. I told them thank you and made my way back across the street as the crime-scene crew arrived. I was getting really sick of those guys and the ones with the body bags.
I nodded. “Karsen, is the teacher still here?” I asked the question just as the bomb-squad guys hollered an all clear and stormed the front of the school, finally making their way inside the building. It hadn’t been a real threat. It was all a distraction. Unease and something stronger, scarier, raced up and down my spine.
She gave a cursory glance to where the crowd was thinning out and shook her head in the negative. “No. I don’t see him. This is because of that guy, isn’t it? The guy who burned down Nassir’s club and who burned up Race’s car and killed his dad.”
I didn’t see any reason to lie to her, so I was going to tell her yes, but, like she had conjured him out of thin air, Race was suddenly there looking beyond furious and ready to take on the entire police force and anyone else that might be in the way of him getting to his girls. He wrapped them both up in a hug so tight it had them squeaking, and glowered at me over their heads.
“Seriously? A kid is getting dragged into all of this? It ends now, Titus.”
I couldn’t agree more but I wasn’t sure what any of them expected me to do. I was already dangling the carrot in front of Roark; he just hadn’t bitten at it yet.
Karsen pulled herself out of Race’s suffocating embrace and looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Booker was the one that came in the school and found me. I heard him calling my name and pounding on all the doors until he found the right one. They arrested him. You have to help him, Race.”
There was more in her tone than concern for her savior. Oh, boy, I didn’t envy Race or Brysen having to deal with a crush like that on a guy like Booker. It was just asking for all kinds of ugly heartache.
Race gave me another hard look and I just shrugged. “This is my job, Race. Booker decided to ignore police orders and went in even though we didn’t know if the scene was clear. He could’ve been putting Karsen at greater risk. He got handsy with a cop when they tried to stop him, so they hooked him up.”
His green eyes flashed to black with fury and his mouth pulled into a hard, tight line. “What if there had been a bomb, Titus? What if she was just stuck there waiting to die because some madman has daddy issues?”
Deciding that things would just get nastier with Race because I didn’t have an answer to his questions, I asked Karsen to give me the teacher’s full name and promised her I would do what I could to get Booker out of lockup as soon as possible. The poor kid had been through enough for one day.
I called Dispatch to get an address on the math teacher and decided I better call and check on Reeve since she was on her own. My hackles lifted straight up when the phone just rang and rang. She was supposed to be at the loft, and she was too smart to venture out into the city on her own knowing Roark was winning this deadly game hands down. I tried to remind myself of that as the phone continued to ring unanswered. She wouldn’t willingly put herself in harm’s way knowing what the stakes were. I also tried to keep in mind that if she had left the condo, the feds were supposed to be keeping an eye on her per our deal, so she wouldn’t be out there in the war zone alone.
The teacher lived in that weird in-between neighborhood where Bax had bought a house. It was nice enough not to need bars on the windows, but still close enough to the city that you could feel the grime and the dirt under your feet. The teacher had a simple ranch-style house that was well maintained and looked about as lower middle class as one could get. There were no signs of anything that would indicate that he was somehow mixed up with Roark, but I knew looks could be deceiving. I shot Reeve one last text demanding that she tell me where she was before climbing out of the sedan and walking up to the front door.
I raised a hand to knock and almost fell into the house as the door swung open under the tapping of my knuckles. The interior was dark, and before I even took a step over the threshold, the metallic and iron scent of blood hit my nose.
I swore under my breath and walked into the house expecting the worst. I got it.
The middle-aged teacher and his wife were sitting on the couch, each with a perfectly round bullet hole in the center of their foreheads. They were still holding hands.
A teenaged boy that couldn’t be any older than Karsen was a few feet away, facedown on the carpet and missing the back of his skull. It looked like he had tried to make a run for it and not gotten very far. I pulled my phone out so I could call the murders in and saw that I’d missed a text from Reeve. I ignored it so I could call the station, explaining that I thought the multiple homicide was directly related to the bomb threat at the school. I wasn’t sure how to explain Roark, so I just told Dispatch that it was all part of an ongoing investigation. One more kid I hadn’t gotten to in time in a pool of blood. Roark really was eating away at the very foundation of what I did and why I did it.
I went outside so that I could go talk to the neighbors and see if anyone had seen anything. As I stepped outside I remembered to look at Reeve’s text. I tapped the screen to open it and frowned at her terse message.
I had to go home.
What in the hell did that mean? She was still at the loft? She had to go back to her place up north where WITSEC had stashed her? She had to go back to her place she had in the city when things went to hell? I wasn’t sure what she considered home and I didn’t like that at all. I shot her back:
WTF does that even mean? Call me NOW! Tied up at work. Triple homicide most likely Roark.
I thought that would get her attention, and I would hear back from her in a split second, but all I got was silence. I didn’t like it, but I had a job to do, so I started knocking on doors. The first neighbor hadn’t seen or heard anything. Of course not. The second took great pleasure in telling me all about what a delinquent the son was. Apparently the kid had a drug problem and had been caught trying to break into various neighbors’ houses. Two houses down, an old lady that had to be in her eighties swore she saw a big silver truck that didn’t belong in the neighborhood pull up in front of the house. She also thought Clinton was still president of the United States, so I jotted the info down without much hope of it leading to anything. Finally, when I spoke to the young couple that lived across the street, I got something that might actually be helpful.
They said they saw a bald guy with a goatee talking to the kid. He had been around a few times when the parents were gone, and the couple agreed he didn’t give off a good vibe. The kid’s drug problem was well known around the neighborhood, so they thought he might be a dealer. I told them thank you and made my way back across the street as the crime-scene crew arrived. I was getting really sick of those guys and the ones with the body bags.
