Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [readnow TXT] 📗

your door. When they discharge you, we are going to move you to a safe house until the trial. I want you to call Moses. He can be with you if you want. When we catch whoever did this, I need you both to testify at the trial. Have we got a deal?”

She nodded. “For my part, yes. I’ll talk to Moses and convince him to see you and talk to you.”

“Good girl.” I stood. “Call me as soon as you get an answer. Now get some rest.”

We stepped out of the room and I walked toward the elevator, stretching and cracking my vertebrae. Dehan was close behind me, rubbing her eyes. The doors hissed open and we stepped inside. As it began to move down, she shook her head at the floor and said, “What the hell, Stone? What’s going on?”

I stared at the ceiling of the elevator. “What’s going on? What’s going on is that we are going to Emilio’s Pizza Gourmet, down the road, for a couple of gourmet pizzas and a couple of beers while we try and untangle this mess.”

She stared at her boots like she was disappointed in them. I raised an eyebrow and added, “If you for some reason do not want to join me, and would rather have a beef sandwich at your desk, I’ll join you later.”

She shook her head. “No. Pizza and beer sounds good.”

“You bet your sweet ass it does.”

She looked a little startled. I felt a little startled myself, though I didn’t show it. The doors opened and we made our way out to the Jag.

As we pulled onto Morris Park Avenue, headed west, I sighed and gently thumped the wheel with my fist. “The more we find out, the more complicated it gets. It’s like two cases. It’s like two separate cases, but the separation is in the wrong place.”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

I drummed on the wheel with my fingers as we cruised slowly toward Emilio’s. “If we were wrong, and there was no connection between Sebastian’s killing and Rosario’s, then there should be a degree of coherence in the evidence relating to Sebastian’s killing, and then there should be coherence in the evidence relating to Rosario’s killing. Right?”

She nodded. “Mm-hm…”

“But the incoherence all relates to Sebastian and Angela. Who the hell is this guy who attacked her? Why the hell is he after Moses? Did he kill Sebastian because he thought he was Moses? Why’d he do it at three AM? Who waits for somebody who leads a quiet life and doesn’t drink, outside their house at three AM? It doesn’t make sense. The chances of their turning up are nonexistent, because at that time of the morning they are going to be inside, in bed!”

“I know.”

I pulled up outside Emilio’s and we went inside. We sat at a table by the window and I stared out at the Jag while Dehan gave our order. When she was done, I said, absently, still staring at my car, but seeing the Toyota with Sebastian’s riddled body stretched across the seat, and Luis struggling up the steps toward the door, “All of which means that either the shooter knew they were going to be out in the car, or the shooter planned to go inside, and the killing was opportunistic.”

Fourteen

She leaned back in her chair and watched me for a moment till I met her eye.

“Maybe,” she said, “Maybe it’s simpler than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe we are complicating things unnecessarily. Sometimes you can do that. Not you, necessarily, but one. One can do that. Unnecessarily.”

“Complicate things.” I smiled.

“Yeah.”

“OK, so how do we uncomplicate them?”

Emilio came over with our beers. When he’d left, Dehan took a pull, settled the glass carefully on the table, and licked the foam from her top lip.

“Sebastian and Luis finish work and go back to Lynda Graham’s house. They start partying, they get drunk, yadda yadda. At some point Jack turns up. Maybe he spoils the vibe, maybe he doesn’t, whatever, come one o’clock the boys leave. They still feel like partying so they decide to go to Angela’s place. Maybe they know she’s alone. Either way, they get a taxi and get there in the small hours. Nobody is stealing from the hospital, nobody is encroaching on anybody’s turf. Just two nice med students letting off steam with an old friend.”

I nodded. “OK, so far I like it.”

She nodded back at me. “I like Angela as a mother hen to her almost-brothers. I can believe that. It sounds right and it fits with what I know of her, her mom and, hey! her culture. That’s what a lot of nice Latina girls are like: mother hen.”

“I believe you, stay on task.”

“I am. So she fusses over them, gives them coffee, et cetera. Just like she told it. Cut. Meanwhile, down at the ranch, two weeks earlier, Moses, somehow, in some way we do not yet know, has upset Mr. X.” She leaned forward, spread her hands like she was doing a magic trick. “We don’t know yet who Mr. X is.”

“That’s why you called him Mr. X.”

“Right. But he is big, he is bad, and he is dangerous to know. Moses knows him and somehow he has fallen foul of him. He turns up two weeks ago to settle whatever score it is they have. Moses throws him down the stairs. He shoots through the door, hits Moses in the leg. Moses leaves town. Mr. X doesn’t know that. And what happens that night is pure, simple, bad luck. The boys turn up. She makes them coffee. They persuade her to let them use the car. Meanwhile, Mr. X turns up outside. He arrives maybe seconds before they come back from the store. He is planning to