Police Protector. Elizabeth Heiter
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making sure no one can access anything they shouldn’t while it’s in our possession. Everything gets logged. Even what I’m going to pull up for you will have a digital log that I accessed it, at what time and for how long.” She’d helped set up some of those extra precautions last year as one of her first assignments on the job.
She glanced around her tiny space, jammed full of equipment—mostly computers. Her office was in the back with no windows, which often made her feel penned in, but today she appreciated it. And she was happy to have something to do besides sit around her house while Cole and Luke drove her crazy. They’d installed new locks on all her doors, exercised in her living room and called the station repeatedly for updates and to assign leads. And that had all been before 10:00 a.m. So when they’d wanted to go through suspects, she’d suggested they come here.
“Let’s get started,” Cole said, dragging her empty whiteboard to the center of the room.
He was wearing the same jeans and button-down from yesterday, just a little more rumpled. The short beard he always had was a tiny bit longer, too, and she fixated on it, remembering it scraping against her chin. She could almost feel his arms going around her again, the breadth of his chest pressed against her, big enough to make her feel surrounded by him. She shook off the memories, hoping her thoughts weren’t broadcast across her face. But Cole was focused, his detective face on.
He jotted the words Possible Suspects, Unlikely and Ruled Out, then carefully underlined each one. “Any case you testified in or were involved in, now or last year. Pull them up, and let’s get to work.”
He sounded determined, almost enthusiastic, and she supposed that was the kind of attitude you needed to be a detective, to slog through hours and hours of clues until you found the right answer.
She understood it because she could do the same with a digital device, dig and dig until it revealed all of its secrets. But hers was a totally different kind of quest, one fueled by years of shyness and feeling overlooked in her big, noisy family. Being the middle child in a family of seven meant you either had to demand attention or be content without it.
She loved her family. She missed her family, living so far away, when the rest of them had stayed in Michigan. But she’d needed to break out, make something of herself as Shaye, not just one of the Mallory siblings.
She settled into her well-worn chair. Time to see if the skill that had moved her past her sheltered, invisible life was threatening to destroy it, too.
“Let’s start with the most obvious first,” Luke suggested, snagging the only other chair in the room while Cole stood in the center of the small space, marker raised and ready.
“The Jannis Crew.” Just saying the name made her feel a little ill. Shaye nodded and opened a file. Because she’d been in the line of fire, her boss had sent the digital devices they’d recovered after the shooting—computers, phones and tablets—to the state lab, so there’d be no conflict of interest. But she’d been on the stand, because she’d found the original trail to the leadership. And she was the only living witness able to identify the shooter.
The three officers who might have seen him had died on the scene. Cole and Luke had run out the station doors as the car was driving past. Forensics later discovered that their bullets had killed the two men in the backseat, but not the shooter. So Shaye had gotten on the stand, ignored her thundering heart and pointed directly at him, sending him to prison for the rest of his life.
“Well, we know it’s not Ed Bukowski,” Cole said, writing his name under “Ruled Out.” “He was killed in prison last week.”
Shaye jerked, spinning her chair to face him as an instant picture of the driver, one tattoo-covered hand draped over the wheel and the other aiming a gold-plated pistol out the window, formed in her head. “He was?”
“Crazy Ed found someone who wasn’t impressed with his crazy,” Luke said, using his gang name. “But put relatives on the Suspect list. The timing could fit. Maybe someone wants revenge for Ed’s death. They can’t go after the drug lord who shanked him, so they’re going after the woman who fingered him, put him behind bars in the first place.”
A violent shudder passed through her, and Shaye knew they’d both seen it. She spun to face her computer, sensing Luke and Cole sharing a look behind her back.
“Maybe we should do this part at the station,” Cole said. “You provide us with the list, and we’ll go through it.”
“No. I want to help.”
“There’s no reason for you to relive—”
“I said I want to help.” Shaye turned back, staring hard at Cole. “You don’t need to protect me from this.”
“That’s my job, Shaye.”
His job. Of course it was. It wasn’t personal to him. But it was personal to her. “It’s my job, too. So let’s do this.” She didn’t give him more time to argue, just looked at her screen again and read off the next case.
Three hours later, the whiteboard was full. Most of the names were listed under “Unlikely” or “Ruled Out,” but they had a handful of possible suspects that Cole and Luke were going to check out.
She stared at the list of names under “Possible Suspects,” and the knot that had taken up residence in her rib cage eased for the first time since she’d walked out to Roy’s parking lot. The only name that worried her was Crazy Ed, the man who’d been at the center of her nightmares over the past year. He may have been dead, but someone like that was bound to have attracted like-minded friends. Were there any left?
More important, were there any left who were willing to risk their own freedom for revenge? Because they couldn’t have missed the massive cleanup Cole and his team had done after the station shooting. They’d have to expect any attempt to go after someone connected to that case would result in the same intense scrutiny.
Shaye let out a breath. “I don’t think this had anything to do with me.”
Cole and Luke looked from the board to her and back again, and then Luke was nodding. “I agree. We’re just being thorough.”
When Cole was silent too long, Shaye asked, “Cole? What do you think?”
“Chances were always slim that this was a targeted attack,” he replied, but there was an edge to his voice that told her he was holding something back.
“But...” she prompted.
“But nothing. Luke’s right.”
She frowned, but before she could argue, the door to her lab burst open, smacking the wall and almost hitting Luke on the way.
He scowled at the petite woman with the pixie cut and wrinkled pantsuit who stood on the other side, and she fidgeted. “Sorry. Shaye, I’m glad you’re here.”
“What’s up?” Shaye asked, hoping no one had noticed the way she’d jumped in her seat at the unexpected noise.
The woman in the doorway, Jenna Dresden, was one of the lab’s best firearms experts, and one of Shaye’s closest friends here. Or at least she had been, until Shaye had left last year. Since she’d returned, things had been a little strained. Maybe because Shaye hadn’t stayed in touch over the past year.
“I looked at the bullets we recovered at the scene yesterday.”
Cole and Luke gave Jenna their full attention. “What did you find?” Cole asked.
“Well, I can tell you the bullet was a nine millimeter. And I can tell you that it doesn’t match up to anything shot from another gun we have on file.”
Cole didn’t have to say a word for Shaye to know exactly what that meant. Someone connected to Crazy Ed being involved just sank down to unlikely. Working other cases had taught her that gang members sold one another weapons, so they often ended up with guns that had been used in previous crimes.
“The gun’s