Battles nodded. After three years of Krav Maga training, after reaching level four, she should not have hesitated. She knew better. “Understood,” she said.
She could blame her hesitation on a rough day at work—a client court-martialed for juvenile crap, but that would be an excuse. She didn’t make or accept excuses. The law, she’d heard it said, was a jealous mistress. Screw that crap. The law was a demanding bitch, but Leah had known that before she decided to pursue a career as a trial lawyer. As much physical time as her job took—and it took a lot—there were days when the law sapped her mental energy even more. Some nights she considered switching professions, doing something that allowed her to lock her work in a desk drawer at the end of the day and just go home. As much as she romanticized that lifestyle, however, she knew she’d become quickly bored. She loved the legal tactics and the legal strategy, seeing similarities between the law and chess, at which she excelled. You move and I counter. I counter and you don’t? I win. This was especially true in trial, which she loved most about her job. Who wouldn’t? Why even become a lawyer if not to try cases? Sure, it could be a major pain in the ass when you were trying to focus on something else—like your training, or a freaking relationship, but at least the law was consistent, which was more than she could say about the men she’d recently dated.
The daily mental stress the law inflicted was one of the reasons she enjoyed the physical exertion of Krav Maga, and why she worked hard to fit her classes into her schedule. She had little patience for a prosecutor if he pulled some crap that required her to miss working out. There’d be hell to pay, eventually. And she’d be the cashier.
She’d stumbled upon Krav Maga while attending the Naval Justice School in Newport, Rhode Island, following three years of law school. She’d wanted to both serve her country and try cases—real cases, criminal cases, not some bullshit money-judgment crap. The Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s program afforded her the opportunity to do both, right away—serve her country as a Navy lawyer and try cases. Yeah, some of the cases were penny-ante bullshit, but she was still standing before a jury making her arguments and cross-examining witnesses. You weren’t going to get that at the big law firms, which promised a boatload of money but very little in the way of experience.
That was also what had drawn her to Krav Maga. It was not your typical workout. Krav Maga was serious, practical training on how to stay alive—throwing punches to the throat, kicks to the groin, takedowns. Developed by the Israel Defense Forces, it preached avoiding confrontation. It also preached that when confrontation could not be avoided, end the fight. In other words, make peace. When peace wasn’t an option, kick ass.
This was something to get her mind off the law.
“Again,” her instructor said.
She retook her position and her partner raised the replica gun. About to strike, she heard her phone ring above the grunts and groans of the other students. It wasn’t her personal phone; she’d never bring her personal phone into class. This was the phone she carried when serving as the command duty officer. Her instructors acknowledged her unique situation, which placed her on call twenty-four hours a day when serving as the CDO. She apologized and excused herself, hurrying to retrieve the phone from inside her gym bag stuffed in the cubicles at the back of the room.
“This is Lieutenant Battles.”
She listened to the caller and found herself conflicted. Sure, she wanted to finish her training, but she also could never turn down a good fight, and the one being explained over the phone sounded like it had the potential to be a brawl.
Tracy parked on a grass-and-gravel area abutting a chain-link fence not far from the intersection where D’Andre Miller had been run down. She couldn’t help but think that the young boy had been so close to home, so close to being safe, so close to still being alive.
She stepped from the car and opened the gate to a concrete walk intersecting a neat but barren yard of crabgrass. Two steps led to a front porch and a maroon front door behind a screen. She pulled on the screen but found it locked. Not seeing a doorbell, she knocked and waited. A woman answered, but it was not Shaniqua Miller. The woman did not open the screen.
“Good evening,” Tracy said. “I’m looking for Shaniqua Miller. Is she home?”
“What’s this about?” The woman appeared youthful, dressed in a T-shirt and blue jeans. Tracy sensed from the resemblance that she was either Shaniqua Miller’s sister or her mother. The woman looked at Tracy from behind round wire-rimmed glasses. Straightened hair framed her face and chin.
“My name is Tracy Crosswhite. I’m one of the detectives working D’Andre Miller’s case. Are you his aunt?”
“His grandmother.” The woman’s back stiffened but her voice remained soft. “Is it important? Shaniqua’s getting the boys ready for bed.”
“It is,” Tracy said. “I won’t take up much of her time.”
The grandmother frowned, unconvinced, then turned and walked away, not inviting Tracy inside, not opening the screen door. Tracy heard the woman call to her daughter. “Shaniqua?” The rest of her words were muted.
Sandy Clarridge, SPD’s chief of police, had told the powers that be that he wanted an SPD presence involved in this case, and he didn’t want that presence to simply be the Victim Assistance Unit. He wanted a detective to keep the family apprised of everything that transpired, in person, when possible. His desire had trickled down to Tracy’s captain, Johnny Nolasco, and, ultimately, to Tracy, which explained Tracy’s presence at the home.
“Who?” she heard a voice ask.
“One of the detectives.”
“What does he want?”
“She wants to talk to you.”
A pause. “Did she say why?”
“No. Just wants to talk to you. Said it was important.”
“Hang on.”
The older woman returned to the door. “She’ll just be a minute.”
They stood, uncertain what to say to each another, saying nothing.
Shaniqua Miller came to the door from the back of the house dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt. She unlatched the screen door and opened it. A gold chain with a cross hung around her neck. She looked tired and worn-out, her eyes puffy. Her hair, also straightened, was clipped in the back, highlighting pronounced cheekbones and expressive eyes. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“Ms. Miller, we met the other night.”
Miller did not immediately respond, as if trying to remember but not wanting to.
“I’m Tracy Crosswhite, one of the detectives working your son’s case.”
“Yes,” she said, speaking softly. “I recall. You were in the street the night my son was run down.”
“Yes, I was. I wanted you to know that we made an arrest tonight of the man who drove the car that hit your son.”