“I don’t know anything about no fires.”
“Okay. Well, maybe you’ll indulge me as I describe a couple of the incidents anyway. There are six of them in the last two years, and the reason I wanted to talk to you is because of excess office equipment found at the sites.”
“I don’t know nothing about office equipment.”
“That’s funny, because I’ve seen pictures of the three apartments you’re leasing right now. And there were rooms full of old laptops, desktops and phones.”
“No, they ain’t.”
“I’ve seen the photographs.”
“They empty now—”
Broward interjected. “We are off topic. This is about the fires down by the wharf, isn’t that right. In those abandoned warehouses.”
“I don’t know anything.”
Anne looked back and forth between the two of them. “I’d like to give you some dates and ask you where you were on them.”
“I don’t remember where I was.”
“I haven’t given you a date.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Where were you last—”
“I don’t remember.”
Anne was not surprised when, after giving each of the six dates, the response was the same. She even asked him what his addresses were. She was going to ask him where he’d left his brain, but the problem wasn’t his gray matter.
Although it had certainly taken a beating.
Anne smiled. “Well, I’m just going to assume I know where you stand with regard to working with Ripkin Development—”
“I don’t remember.”
“So you don’t deny you’re working with them. You just can’t recall when it started.” She got up. “That’s all I need to know—”
“My client has not responded in the affirmative to that question or any others pertaining to Ripkin Development. In fact, he has denied such an allegation.”
“When did that happen?” Anne asked. “Wait, I don’t think he’s said that. Let’s give him a chance, shall we?”
She cupped her ear and leaned in. “Come on, Ollie, say the words. And then maybe when they kill you and throw your body off a trawler on the ocean, they might not drag out the murder part.”
That got Broward out of his chair—and good thing it was bolted or he would have knocked it through the wall behind him. “You are out of line.”
“It’s a statement of opinion.”
“By a city investigator in their official capacity.”
“Now you’re remembering I’m an investigator, huh. I’ll make note of that. When I get my pad.” She shook her head at Ollie. “Don’t take the plea, Doug. You’re safer here behind bars than you are out on the street.”
chapter
44
As Anne stood at her stove at home, dinner was making itself. Which was why she’d picked up a box of fettuccini, a flat of chicken breasts, and some broccoli after she’d left the office for the day. She’d already had a jar of alfredo sauce in her rearranged cupboards—something that, if her mom hadn’t worked her magic, she might not have known she had.
It seemed strange not to have her mother under the same roof even though it hadn’t been a long stay . But Nancy Janice had gone back to the house after ADT came and put the contact on the new window.
Almost seven.
When her cell phone started to ring, she was aware she hoped it wasn’t Danny cancelling, but told herself that if it was, she’d have leftovers for two nights and that didn’t suck.
“Hello?” She frowned when there was nothing but a whirring sound in the background. “Hello?”
There were a click and then silence over the connection. Frowning, she went into her call log. Unknown Caller appeared at the top of the Recents page.
Pounding on the front door brought her head around, and Soot jumped up from his spot by the back door, his ears flattening.
“Anne?” More knocking. “Open up.”
“Danny?” She jogged over to the door and unlocked it. “What’s—oh, shit. What happened to my car?”
When she went to go out, he caught her by the shoulders and shoved her back into the house. “You’re not going out there—”
“My windshield’s broken. I want to know what the hell happened—”
He pushed his way inside and shut the door. “I think it was shot at.” He put his phone to his ear. “Neither one of us is going out there. Jack? Hey, I got a problem. Can you get someone over here to Anne’s on the QT? Right now.”
Back in the kitchen, the pasta water overflowed with a hiss and she ran back over. As soon as she got to the stove, her phone went off, but this time it was with a text.
That was turned out to be a file sent from [email protected]: Boiling over. Better watch.
She looked over her shoulder to the glass panels where her office was. Then she looked out the window over the sink. Night had fallen, and she didn’t have any of the security lights on, so she couldn’t see anything.
Or, rather, what illumination was thrown from her neighbors’ houses was so spotty, there were too many shadows for someone to hide in.
“What’s on your phone.”
As Danny spoke in a flat voice, she looked up and focused on him for the first time. He’d taken a shower and his hair was still wet, his NBFD navy blue hoodie adding heft to his shoulders.
“This.” She turned the screen to him. “Can we trace it?”
He leaned in and read the four words. “Probably not. There are all kinds of apps and websites both for iOS and Androids which allow people to be anonymous for shit like this. All you have to do is sign up with any random Gmail account and you’re good to go. And if they’re smart enough to do it from a burner phone as an extra level of protection? Burner phones are untraceable if you buy them with cash, and God knows they’re available at everywhere from Walmart to Target. The cops deal with these things all the time with harassers and it frustrates the fuck out of them.”
That Unknown Caller had to be the same person. “Is Jack coming now?”
“Yeah. Let’s close all the drapes in this house.”
Moving quickly, they worked together, pulling halves together, dropping venetian blinds, closing shutters. When they were done, they returned to the kitchen and she tried to make like things were fine.
“Dinner’s ruined.” She took the fettuccini noodles off the stove. “I think these have lost all their structural integrity.”
Danny didn’t buy the distraction. He just stood with his boots planted and his brows in a caveman half-mast that suggested his frontal lobe was arguing with his brainstem’s base urge to go after whoever it was.
“Maybe you were wrong.”
“I wasn’t.” He shook his head. “I heard the impact.”
“The shot?”
“No, they used a silencer. I heard it impact the front windshield.” He jabbed his finger at the phone. “What is going on.”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do. What are you working on now? Those fires down at the wharf, right?”
Looked as though Ollie wasn’t the only one who needed to heed a warning.
* * *
Oh, it was good to have friends who were members of SWAT.
Jack came with two friends who were trained killers just like him. And they didn’t announce their arrival. They showed up at the back door about thirty minutes after Danny had spoken to his roommate.
They called first, though.
As Anne let them in, she had to take a step way back and Soot immediate started growling in earnest, something she’d never seen or heard him do. Then again, the three men were dressed in black from head to toe and had ski masks pulled down over their faces.
“Sorry,” Jack said as he took his all the way off. “Don’t mean to scare your dog.”
Anne went over and sat with Soot as the other guys likewise revealed themselves. “Did you see anyone?”
“No.” Jack took something out of his pocket with gloved hands. “We found this in your car, though. It was in buried in the inside jamb of your trunk.”
The lead slug was small, but that didn’t mean a thing considering how fast it could go when it was shot out of a frickin’ gun.