Murder in the City: Blue Lights (17 page)

Moseman jumped around at the blast of the siren. The expression on his face said the last person he expected to see at that moment was Brice.

Yeah, any time was a good time to arrest scum like him. Canton could testify that he’d gotten the weapon from Moseman. It might not be air-tight but it might just do to hold the guy until they could get more. The murders had to stop.

He blasted out of the car, his gun drawn. “Put your hands behind your back,” he bellowed at Moseman.

“Dude, what you doing? This is the second time this month I been hauled in. For what? For what, man?”

“Hands behind your back.”

With a sullen look of disgust, Sean complied. Brice cuffed him quickly, putting him into the back seat and using another set of cuffs to secure him to the door handle. He fastened Moseman’s seat belt, then, he got in and jerked the car away from the curb, driving as fast as possible to the hospital.

“I ain’t done nothing man,” Sean whined from the back seat.

“Yeah, Canton told us about the murder weapon you turned over to him. We’ve got a witness placing the murder weapon squarely in your hands that was used to kill those two men in that crack house and that prostitute shortly after that.”

“Damn.” Sean’s eyes grew to twice their usual size.

“That’s right,” Brice gloated, glad to put some misery into the bastard. “You are going down. If not for Simone, then for whatever we can get you on. That’s one good thing about criminals—you keep on doing crimes until we can finally get you for one of them.” He smiled through the rear view mirror straight into Moseman’s shocked eyes.

“I been set up, man.”

“Yeah you have.” He enjoyed the frustration on the guy’s face.

“You know who gave me that gun, don’t you?”

“I don’t know who gave it to you but I know what you did with it. You went out and killed some more people.”

“No, dude, I didn’t. That’s why I took it to that reporter so he’d put it on TV. That detective buddy of yours passed it to me after those murders. Jones, he’s the one what give it to me.” He nodded his head up and down, almost convulsively. “Then I heard on TV that it had been taken from the evidence room, so I give it to that reporter.”

Yeah, good try, Sean. Tell it to the jury.”

This guy could always come up with some story about how he hadn’t done the crime.

He looked into the rear view mirror enjoying the fear on Moseman’s face.

“I didn’t do them things, I’m telling you. I didn’t do them.”

* * *

Brice sat beside his mother, holding her hand. She looked better.

“It was just a false alarm, Bricie. You go on back home to that little girl and her sister. I am going to be fine.”

The doctor had said she hadn’t had a heart attack but he wanted to keep their mother for a night to see if he could get her medicine straightened out. He thought maybe that had caused the problem.

Brice’s phone vibrated and he took it out and looked at the number. “Your youngest son,” he said to his mother.

His dad nodded at him from across the room, tilting his head toward the door, and Brice walked out to take the call in the hall.

“Hey dude, how’s mom?”

“She’s great. Are you about to the hospital? I’m gonna head back to the house to be with Julie and Lainey so that Pete can take off.”

“No, bro. Lainey never came to the house. I thought maybe the plan had changed and you didn’t let me know. But good to know mom’s alright. I can hang with Julie until you get here.” He laughed. “She’s a cute kid. Wants to hear all about SWAT stuff.” He chuckled again.

“She’s a pistol.” Brice laughed along with him. “I’m heading to the house. Lainey and Pete should have been there already. Maybe they stopped by her house or something.” He couldn’t imagine her doing that. She’d been laser intent on getting Brice and his brother to the hospital to see his mom.

He hung up, then immediately dialed Lainey’s number. It went straight to voicemail.

He waited a couple of minutes then dialed again. An unexplainable chill shot through him. There was no reason to worry.

But that was how it had started for the families of other kidnap victims. They’d said, “We started to worry when we couldn’t get them on their cell phone.”

But, there was nothing to worry about. Lainey was with a cop.

He turned and walked back into his mom’s room, trying to disregard the sense of foreboding that clung to him. “Brent can’t get over here because he’s still with Julie. Apparently, she won’t let him go until she’s heard every one of his SWAT stories.”

His mother and father laughed. “She is so cute,” his mom said. “I just want to squish her little cheeks.”

“Pete’s supposedly on the way over there to keep an eye on them so Brent can come down here.”

“Pete was over to the house earlier,” his mom said. “He was talking to your brother about if Julie had said anything else about the kidnapping to him.”

His dad just listened to his mother talk. He looked at Brice then as if he wanted to say something.

Then, his dad tilted his head. “Yeah, we all had some lemonade together.”

“I’m gonna try Lainey’s cell again.” But before he could do that, the cell phone vibrated with an incoming call. “It’s home,” he said for the benefit of his mom and dad.

“Hey,” he answered the call.

“Brice,” Julie’s little, high pitched voice came through the phone. She’d taken to calling him by his last name, like Lainey did so often.

“Hey Julie. Your sister should be there any minute. She’s with Pete, the detective you met earlier. He’s a nice guy, gonna watch you until I get over there.”

“That’s why I’m calling, Brice.” She hesitated.

“What is it, Julie?” he said in a soft, coaxing tone. The little girl had been through a lot.

“Pete,” she said in a strange tone. “He sort of reminds me of the guy who kidnapped me and Tiana.”

What? That was a crazy thing to say. “How so?” he kept his voice normal. Kids sometimes got weird ideas.

“It’s just his voice. And the way he looked at me as if wondering would I recognize him.” Her voice sounded squeaky on the last few words.

“Huh? Julie I’m coming straight over there. I’ll be there before he even gets there, okay?”

“Okay. It’s just…” Her voice died away.

“What, Julie?”

Her small, quivering voice sounded like the little girl that she was when she said, “Lainey’s with him now.”

A shot of pure panic pulsed through him. He kept his face straight for his parents and his voice level for Julie’s sake. “I’m sure everything is going to be okay, Julie. I’ll be over there in a few minutes.”

He hung up and immediately dialed Lainey’s number again.

“Damn, voice mail.”

“Language, Bricie. Language,” his mother said, in what was almost second nature to her. She always fought the battle to push back the bad language that came so easy to cops.

He forced a smile for his mom’s sake.

“What’s up?” his dad asked.

“It’s just strange. Lainey hasn’t gotten to the house, yet and I can’t reach her on her phone, now Julie says that Pete makes her think of the kidnapper.”

His father’s face blanched white. “I didn’t want to say anything. But I thought it kinda wierd earlier when he came by. I thought I heard him in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.”

He looked hard at his dad. “Is there anything in there that could cause mom to go into an attack?”

His father nodded. “A couple of things that could bring on symptoms like she was having a heart attack, if the dosage was wrong.” His eyes narrowed. “If an extra pill or two were crushed up and put into lemonade, say.”

Damn. “You don’t think?”

His mother just looked at him. She pursed her lips. She never liked to say a bad word about anyone. Even a guy who’d possibly tainted her lemonade, causing her to go into some sort of attack?

He looked to his dad who frowned and said, “I haven’t wanted to say anything. But that guy Jones gives me the willies. Always has.”

His father’s instincts about people were legendary. That’s why he’d made such a phenomenal detective.

Brice’s stomach turned. Had he refused to see what was in front of him the whole time? He’d known Pete’s anger was off the chart, even for a cop who’d been frustrated in putting away a criminal.

His mother leaned forward, extending her hand. Brice took it and she gave it a squeeze. “You go find our Lainey.”

Chapter Twenty

A late afternoon, summer rainstorm drenched the streets, sending water careening down the sides of the road, barreling toward the drains, making the curbs look like small creeks.

Brice walked slowly along the road, jerking Sean along with him, rain pouring down both their bodies, sticking their clothes to their skin. Instinctively, he’d known where Pete would have taken Lainey—to the spot where they’d found Simone’s body.

If Pete had taken Lainey, that was what it was all about—Simone.

None of it made sense, but worst case scenario, Pete had gone crazy and brought Lainey here.

“Dude, what you think you’re doing?”

“Shut up. If you don’t keep quiet, I’ll put a bullet in you myself.”

“You wouldn’t do that. It’s against the law.”

Brice glared at the guy, brought his gun up close to his face, and Sean’s expression sagged.

“Sean, if there’s one thing we’ve both learned it’s that people will do crazy things when the people they love are involved.” He spit out a mouthful of rainwater. The rain was pouring down so hard, it was almost hard to talk.

Sean knew he was talking about Simone. That was clear because Moseman’s skin stretched across his face until it looked like it might split open.

Then Brice heard a car approaching and he ducked back behind some bushes on the side of the road, yanking Sean along with him.

“Keep quiet and I mean it.” He jammed the gun into Sean’s ribs.

The car pulled along the far cub and parked. A man got out and looked around. It was that reporter, John Canton. He pulled his raincoat’s hood over his head, then he walked down the path leading into the woods where they’d found Simone’s body.

Was he the one behind all of this? If so, where was Lainey?

Brice’s pulse began pounding in his ears, mingling with the popping of the rain on the leaves. A chilly wind blew across his rain soaked skin and a shiver shuddered through him.

Lainey had to be all right. She had to be.

The person who’d been behind the kidnappings had never hurt innocent victims before. Was this different?

“Keep quiet like your life depends on it,” he said forcefully into Sean’s ear. “Because, it does.”

Sean nodded, knowing they were in uncharted territory. This wasn’t an arrest, but something else entirely.

“What’s that reporter doing out here?” Sean voiced Brice’s thoughts.

“Shut up.” Quietly, Brice edged down the path, pulling Sean along, until he could hear voices, muffled by rain, coming through the tangled undergrowth.

Canton spoke in an arrogant tone. “What is this all about?” But underneath the bravado, fear laced his words.

“He’s determined to kill Sean Moseman.” Lainey’s voice sounded strong.

Thank God, she was still in fight mode.

Sean jumped at the mention of his name. His eyes got bigger, and he started trying to pull away. But, Brice jammed his gun up under his chin, while still being careful not to put his finger on the trigger.

If the guy were dead, he had nothing to bargain with for Lainey’s life.

Brice tilted his head at Sean, narrowing his eyes into a wicked glare. Die now or later was the message. Moseman nodded and let Brice pull him along as he edged closer to the voices, trying to see what was going on in the clearing up ahead.

Sean acted like a well-trained puppy, compliant because he’d realized that his life depended on Brice.

Someone wanted him dead. Detective Mark Brice might be the only person who would prevent that from happening.

The sound of someone else’s voice filtered through the trees. Was that Pete speaking to the reporter?

Brice inched nearer, making sure to stay hidden. Then, Sean stepped on a limb.

The loud, cracking noise sounded like a shot in the woods, louder even than the rain pounding on the dense undergrowth.

“Come on out,” Pete’s voice rang through the trees, muffled by raindrops. “I’ve got a gun on this woman and I’ll shoot if you don’t show yourself.”

Brice edged around a tree to peer below.

Detective Pete Jones stood in the clearing, holding Lainey in front of him, her face pale, her expression saying she knew just how dangerous a man held her life in his hands.

Pete pressed a gun to her head.

Brice stepped out from behind the tree. He pushed Sean along like a shield in front of him because if Jones killed Brice, Lainey’s chance of making it out of this alive went down dramatically.