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Copyright © 2017 by David Archer.

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Published by: David Archer

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1

Ten Years Earlier

A call came in requiring a homicide detective, and everyone else was already busy. Karen was sent out alone for the first time. She found her way to the alley behind a 7-Eleven store, where three squad cars had everything blocked off. She had to park on the street outside the alley and then walked down to where a half-dozen uniforms were standing around.

“Karen Parks, homicide,” she said, flashing her ID. “What have you got, guys?”

“Over here, behind the dumpster,” said one of the officers. His name tag said Dennison. “Three kids were cutting through the alley this morning on the way to school, and they saw a dog trying to rip a plastic bag open over here. They figured the dog was after something to eat, so one of them decided to help him out. He tore the bag open and suddenly realized he was looking at a human hand. They all freaked out and called us.”

He pointed and Karen saw four blue plastic trash bags. One of them had been torn open and she saw the hand in plain view. The others had been carefully cut, and their contents almost made her throw up.

The first bag contained what looked like both arms from a small woman. Karen assumed the victim was female because of the nail polish, and the small size and general shape of the hands and arms seemed to confirm it. Another bag contained a pair of legs, both cut off halfway up the thigh. Based on the size, they appeared to be from the same victim.

It was the other two bags that were so nauseating. Each of them contained half of the torso, and there was no doubt about the gender. The torso had been cut in half just under the breastbone, and it looked like it had been done with some kind of saw. The cuts on the bones were smooth, rather than jagged as they would have been with a knife or some kind of chopping tool.

The intestines were loose in the bag, and it appeared that the organs from the upper chest had also been torn out. They were present, or so it appeared, but they were definitely not attached to the inner chest cavity.

“Holy geez,” Karen said. She was holding the back of her hand against her lips, trying to stifle the urge to be sick. “Anything to suggest identity?”

“Not that we’ve seen. Crime scene is on the way, and so is the Medical Examiner. Personally, I wouldn’t even have cut the bags open till you guys all got here, but the rookie over there thought he needed to inventory the contents.”

Karen looked over at a young officer who was leaning against a utility pole. He looked as green as she felt, and there were some obvious stains on his shirt. “Yeah? How’d that work out for him?”

“Puked all over himself,” Dennison said with a grin. “At least he managed to get away from the scene before he did it, though. That woulda been a mess if he’d puked into one of those bags.”

Karen nodded. “Okay, where’s the kids at? I’ll talk to them first, and when CSI gets here, you guys can all start canvassing the neighborhood. See if anybody saw who dropped the bags or noticed anything else suspicious, and find out if there’s any missing women in the neighborhood.”

“We got them sitting in the back of my car. They’re a little shook up, but they managed to keep their wits about them. They knew not to touch anything else until we got here.” He looked around at the rookie. “Too bad not everybody is that smart.”

Karen had managed to force down her gag reflex, so she walked over to the squad car and opened one of the back doors. “You kids want to climb out so we can talk?”

The three of them, two boys and one girl, got out of the car and then leaned against it once the door was shut. All three of them appeared to be a little nervous, but Karen figured that was normal when teenagers had to deal with police.

“How about you tell me what happened here this morning?” Karen asked. “Wait, let’s start with your names.”

The boys were Todd Gray and Eric Burton, both fifteen. The girl gave her name as Emily Summers.

Todd seemed to be their chosen spokesman. “We live back over there,” he said, pointing toward some apartment buildings, “and we always cut through here on the way to school. Sometimes when we come by the dumpster, there’s a couple of local strays that we sometimes see digging around for something to eat. They’re friendly dogs, so we usually take a look in the dumpster and drag out any food they might’ve pitched out. This morning, one of them was trying to rip open a big plastic bag on the ground, so I thought maybe it was full of some of their leftovers from the store, right? I thought I’d help the dog out and ripped it open, and that’s when I saw what was in it.”

“What did you actually see?” Karen asked.

“Looked like a hand,” Todd said. “At first I thought it was, like, off a manikin or something, but it looked too real. I told Eric to take a look and he just about crapped his pants, so Emily got her phone and called 911. We ran out the dogs and stood over here till that first cop got here, and then he opened all the other bags.” He glanced at the rookie and snickered. “Then he threw up all over himself.”

“I don’t blame him,” Karen said. “I almost did the same thing when I saw what was in the other bags. Be glad you didn’t open one of them first.” She looked at Eric and Emily. “Either of you got anything to add?”

Eric shook his head, but Emily took a step toward Karen. “There was fingernail polish,” she said. “That was a girl, wasn’t it?”

“Looks that way, yeah,” Karen said. “You know of any girls or women who’ve gone missing lately around here?”

Emily shook her head. “No,” she said, “I’m just thinking that I hope you catch whoever did it.”

Karen smiled at her. “We will,” she said. “You can count on it.”

She gave each of the kids her card and let them go on to school. She told them to let their teachers and principal know what had happened, and that they could call her to verify it if necessary. The three of them thanked her and hurried away.

The crime scene technicians had arrived, along with the medical examiner, and Karen went to watch as the scene was photographed and inventoried. The ground around the bags was soft, but the only visible footprints appeared to belong to the boys and the rookie patrolman. They were photographed anyway, so that they could be compared on a computer later. That would tell them if there might be a fourth set, which might conceivably belong to whoever had dumped the body parts.

Establishing a time of death, the medical examiner told her, would be very difficult. Normally, they would measure the internal core temperature of a body, but that wouldn’t help in this case. “At a rough guess,” the ME said, “based on the general condition, I’d say this woman has been dead at least twelve hours but not more than forty-eight. That’s about the best I can tell you at the moment.”

“Okay, thanks,” Karen said. She looked up to see Dennison approaching and walked over to meet him. “Get anything?”

“Nobody around here saw anything, or so they say,” he said. “I found one guy who said he walked through the alley about ten o’clock last night, and he didn’t think those bags were there then. Couldn’t be sure, though.”

Karen nodded. “Anybody know about anyone who might be missing?”

Dennison shook his head. “Not so far. Personally, I’m guessing we’ll find out this gal was whacked over some kind of drug deal or something like that. Chopping her up might’ve just been to make it easier to get rid of her.”

“Could be,” Karen said. “But the fact that the head is missing could mean somebody is trying to keep us from identifying her. We’ll run the fingerprints, but I suspect they are not going to give us any information.”

“Yeah,” Dennison agreed, “probably not. God, I hate things like this. Poor thing probably has family out there somewhere that has no idea what happened to her.”

“Yeah. There’s a lot of that, nowadays.”

Karen went back to the station and wrote up a report, but there was little she could do until she got the medical examiner’s conclusions. In the meantime, she went back to working on paperwork catch up and hoped the victim’s head would turn up sometime soon.

It was two days later when she got the next call on the case. The medical examiner had found traces of oxycodone and methamphetamine in the remains, and had confirmed that the body had been cut up with some sort of power saw. The cuts were too smooth for anything else, he explained, and there were definite marks indicating that the reciprocation of the blade had been very fast.

An hour later, though, came the call she had been hoping for. The victim’s head had been found at the landfill. It would have gone unnoticed, but one of the bulldozer operators had been waiting for the truck to dump its load and saw what looked like blonde hair. He had jumped down off his machine and walked over to look, then radioed the office to tell them what he found.

The medical examiner arrived at the same time Karen did, and the two of them walked through the stinking piles of refuse together. “Well, we might not get much information,” he said. “If the head got dumped into the compactor, it’s going to be pretty contaminated.”

“All I’m really hoping for is an identification,” Karen said. “If it’s not too badly mangled, we’ll get photos and have an artist draw up a sketch of what she might have looked like alive. You guys can work your magic on dental records and such while I’m trying that.”

When they saw the head, Karen felt nauseous. It had apparently gotten caught in the mechanism of the compactor truck and part of the flesh had been torn completely off the face. She took photos anyway, and then the ME carefully picked it up.

“Well, I guess this is our cause of death,” he said. He was pointing at the back of the head, where a part of the skull was literally caved in. The hair around it was matted with blood, and Karen could see what looked like brain tissue. “Whatever hit her head, or whatever her head hit, that was definitely a fatal blow.” He looked the head over for a few more seconds, then placed it in a bag and carried it out.

Bonnie, the police artist, made a face of her own when Karen showed her the pictures, but she said there was enough that she could create a sketch. She set to work, and twenty minutes later the sketch was being sent by email out to all the local news stations. It would be shown on the evening news in the hope that someone might recognize the girl and contact the police.

It paid off. The following morning, Karen had a dozen messages telling her that the sketch appeared to be a woman named Julie Wesley. She called each person back and learned that Julie was originally from England. She had come to the U.S. as a girl with her parents, who lived in Los Angeles, and she had been living with a man that the callers knew only as “Digger.” The two of them, Karen was told, had three daughters, and no one had any idea where they might be, either.

Danny the Digger was known as a drug dealer and hoodlum, and Karen was able to learn from the Vice division that his real name was Daniel Samara. The nickname reportedly came from the fact that he was often used as a young man to dig graves, the kind people don’t want anyone else to find. He was about thirty-eight years old and had already done a couple of short stints in prison. Julie had never done time, but she had spent many nights in jail for minor drug offenses or prostitution.

Authorities had been told on numerous occasions that their daughters were being abused, but they never seemed to catch up with them. Each time they got a report, Digger would somehow take his family and be gone before they arrived. They knew that the oldest daughter was around ten years old, but there was no record that she had ever been to school. They didn’t know the ages of the other two girls, and no one had even been able to provide their names.

With all of this information, Karen put out a request for any information that might lead to him. He was listed as a person of interest in Julie’s death, so if he had any interaction with the police, they would be notified to hold him for her.

Unfortunately, Danny the Digger hadn’t been seen around the last few days. He wasn’t around the place where he’d been known to be staying, and even the vice snitches were unable to come up with any information on his current whereabouts.

Unfortunately, nothing came of it. The only break Karen got on the case at all came when Julie’s parents were tracked down in California. They agreed that the sketch they saw appeared to be their daughter, and were able to provide information about some identifying marks that confirmed her identity.

Karen called to speak with them, and got them both on the phone.

“First,” she said, “let me express my deepest sympathies on the loss of your daughter. I know this is a hard thing to deal with, and I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Wesley. “Julie was a lovely girl as a child, and I only wish we could have done better with her as a teenager. She ran away, you know, when she was fifteen.”

“No, I didn’t know. Did you ever hear from her after that?”

“Not a word. She left with a young man, one she’d met on the streets. He’d gotten her involved in using drugs, and nothing we could say or do would get through to her. We awoke one morning to find her gone, and she left behind a letter telling us that she was in love with this Digger piece of trash and had decided she wanted to be with him forever. That was the last we ever heard of her until now.”

“She said the man she ran away with was called Digger? Our information says that’s the same man she’d been living with, and that they had three daughters. Do you know anything about your grandchildren?”

“Why, no, this is the first we’ve heard of them. Three girls, do you say? Would it be possible for you to let us know if you find them? We would certainly like to know them, and perhaps, given the circumstances, we might be able to gain custody of them.”

“I certainly will,” Karen said. “In the meantime, if you should happen to think of anything else that might help us track down Digger, please call me. I’ll give you my cell number, and I don’t care what time it is, if you think of something or hear something, please let me know.”

The parents promised to do so, and Karen said goodbye. She was quite frustrated with the case, and was itching to get her hands on Daniel “the Digger” Samara and his children.

And then she got her chance, or part of it. Samara was picked up for questioning when he was stopped over a burned-out taillight, and Karen spent hours trying to get any information out of him that she could. He kept insisting that he had no idea where Julie had gone, or what had happened to her. According to him, they had gotten into a huge fight more than two months earlier and she had walked out.

“And you never heard from her again?” Karen demanded.

“Not even a peep,” he said. There was something in his expression that convinced her he was lying. Still, she couldn’t break his story, and without some kind of evidence against him, there was nothing she could do. She decided to change tacks.

“What about your daughters?” Karen asked him. “Where are they? It seems DHS has some concerns about their safety.

Once again, he stared at her blankly, but something about his demeanor made her feel that he was laughing at her. “Julie took them,” he said calmly. “I have no idea where they might be. I haven’t seen them since the night she left with them.”

No matter how she tried, Karen was unable to break the man or get any kind of idea of what had truly transpired. There was no doubt in her mind that he had murdered Julie, and she was beginning to believe that he had probably killed the little girls, as well, but without evidence, she was forced to let him go. She spent days trying to come up with any kind of information, anything that would give her the opportunity to convince the DA to take action against Samara, but she was unsuccessful.

Her partner Carlos returned to work after recovering from surgery a few days later, and the two of them went over the case together. No matter how they tried, however, they couldn’t find any new leads. After a couple of weeks, other cases began to take priority and Julie Wesley became only a name and a case file.

A week after Carlos returned, he and Karen were called out on a new case that would prove just as frustrating. A little girl, approximately five years old, had been found in a dumpster on the south end of town. Despite every effort they could make, no one could identify the child, and Karen cried herself to sleep over little Janie Doe on many nights. A part of her wondered many times over the years whether little Janie had been one of the Samara girls, but no one had ever been able to identify her. Since the county wouldn’t pay for any DNA tests and Julie’s body had been released to her parents in California, anyway, there was just no way she could be sure.

This case, just like the case of Julie Wesley, eventually was reduced to a cold case file, but Karen never forgot either of them.

2

Present Day

“Detective Parks?”

Karen looked up from her desk to see an obviously expecting young woman in a long skirt standing in her doorway. “That’s me,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

The girl stepped inside and closed the door behind her, then took a seat in the chair in front of Karen’s desk. She opened her mouth to speak, but at first nothing came out. She tried again with a little more success.

“Detective Parks, I found your name in some old newspaper stories, and I need to talk to you. My name is Melinda Davis, and you worked on a case about ten years ago that—well, it’s part of the reason I’m here.”

Karen’s eyes narrowed and she focused her attention on the young woman. “Okay, I’m listening. Go ahead.”

Melinda licked her lips before speaking again. “My maiden name was Melinda Samara,” she said, and something began to tickle the back of Karen’s mind. “I think you investigated the death of my mother. Her name was Julie Wesley.”

Karen’s eyes shot wide open. “Of course,” she said, “I remember the case very well. Drove me crazy for years, still does sometimes. Samara, Samara—that means you’re Digger Samara’s daughter, right?”

Melinda scowled. “Unfortunately, that’s true,” she said, “and that’s the rest of the reason I’m here. You see, I got married almost a year ago, and I’m going to have a baby in about six weeks. I just found out that my father is back in the Denver area, and I am absolutely terrified of ever letting him get near me or my child.”

Karen stared at her, nodding slowly. “I’ve met the bastard,” she said. “I can completely understand.” She reached out a hand and turned on the video camera that was sitting on her desk, turning it slightly so that it was focused on Melinda.

“Well, I talked it over with my husband,” Melinda said, “and we agreed that I should come forward. You see, when I was about ten years old, I saw my father murder my mother, and then he made me watch as he cut up her body. I had to hold open the trash bags so that he could put—so he could put the parts in them, and I have nightmares about that to this very day.”

“I’m quite certain you do. Melinda, you actually saw him kill her?”

“Yes. He had come home in a rage because something went wrong on one of his deals, I don’t know what, and my mother started saying something about how we didn’t have any food, and he just blew up on her. He hit her a couple of times, and then she fell and hit her head on the corner of a cabinet or something. He yelled at her to get up, but she didn’t respond, so he got down and looked closely at her, and then he started cussing. That’s when he went and got some kind of power saw, and started cutting her up.”

“And you actually witnessed this?” Karen asked, her face aghast.

“Oh, yes,” Melinda said, and Karen could see the tears threatening to overflow. “Me and my sisters, Ashley and Samantha, all three of us. And when he got done, he yelled at me to hold the bags open for him. I—I didn’t have any choice. I did what I was told, and then he set the bags aside and made me help him clean up blood.”

“Oh, dear heavens,” Karen said. “Melinda, I know this has to be terribly hard for you, and I’m very sorry, but please tell me everything.”

Melinda crossed her legs and fidgeted with her skirt for a moment, then looked up at Karen again. “I remember it all as if it was yesterday,” she said slowly. “After we cleaned up all the blood, he carried the bags out and put them in the car, then he made me and my sisters go get in the back seat. Whenever we rode in the car, we had to lay down and keep a blanket over us, because he said there were people trying to steal us away from him. We got in and he put the blanket over us, and then he drove for a little while and stopped. I heard the trunk open and I knew he was getting rid of the bags, but then he got back in and drove for a long time. We weren’t allowed to talk or anything when we were in the car, but finally stopped and told us to get out. We were at some house outside of Golden, where a friend of his lived. He said we were going to be staying there for a while.”

She held up a finger to ask Karen to wait, and then she took a very deep breath. As she let it out, she visibly shuddered. “There were two men there, and he told them he needed to stay there but they wanted something. He didn’t have whatever it was they wanted, so he pointed at us. He said, ‘Hey, you can use them if you let me stay.’ One of them said okay, and then he took me…”

Karen’s eyes were about to pop out of her head. “He let them use you sexually?”

Melinda nodded, unable to speak. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and it took her a moment to get herself under control.

“Yeah,” she said. “All three of us.”

“How long were you there?” Karen asked.

“I’m not really sure. A couple of weeks, probably. We were there up until Ashley disappeared.”

“Wait a minute, let me make sure I got this right. Ashley was one of your sisters?”

“Yeah, she was the youngest one. She was about four at the time, and Samantha was six. I remember it was kind of cold that day, and we were all wrapped up in our blankets on the floor. My dad came in from somewhere and told us all to get up but Ashley said she was too cold and wouldn’t come out from under her blanket. He yelled at her, then he yanked her up on her feet and backhanded her so hard she kinda flew across the room and hit the wall.” Melinda blinked, trying to control the tears. “She fell down and wasn’t moving, and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t even breathing. He yelled at her again and got down on the floor beside her, and then he just picked her up and threw her over his shoulder and walked out.” She dug into her purse for a handkerchief and wiped at her eyes. “Samantha and I never saw Ashley again.”

Karen held up a hand. “Wait,” she said. She turned to the computer on her desk and started tapping on the keys, and a moment later, the printer beside her came to life. A photo came out of it, poorly printed on plain paper but still visible, and Karen looked at it for a second before passing it to Melinda.

“Oh, my God,” Melinda said. “That’s her, that’s Ashley.” She looked at the Karen. “How…”

“She was found in a dumpster on the outskirts of the city. We tried for years to figure out who she was, but we were never able to identify her.” Karen sniffled. “I’ve had many sleepless nights over her. We called her little Janie Doe, but it’s nice to finally have a name to put with her.”

Melinda was still staring at the photo. “What—whatever happened to her?”

“She was eventually buried in a pauper’s plot. The city keeps some for situations like that. I can get the exact location, if you’d like to visit her grave someday.”

Melinda nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.” She took a deep breath and folded the picture, but continued to hold it as she looked back at Karen. “Anyway, after Ashley was gone, he took me and Samantha and we left. For about a year, we went from one of his buddies to another, and it was always the same as it had been there. We did what we were told, and that way we didn’t get hurt too badly. The only problem was that there wasn’t much food around, so me and Sam, we were hungry a lot. We didn’t get to take baths very often, and the only clothes we had were stuff we could steal off other people’s clotheslines. We got to go out in the mornings to hunt for food and stuff, and one morning this lady caught us digging in the dumpster behind her restaurant. Samantha was actually inside it, and she was passing out pieces of meat and half-eaten sandwiches to me.”

“Where was this?” Karen asked.

“Oh, this was in Grand Junction. The lady who caught us, she made us come inside the restaurant and fed us a good meal, but she kept asking us questions, like where we lived and stuff like that. It was such a relief to have some good, hot food that I didn’t even think about the fact we weren’t supposed to talk to strangers.” She smiled softly. “She had us in the kitchen, and she went out of the room for a few minutes and then came back. A few minutes later, one of the waitresses came in and had two police officers with her.”

“Good job,” Karen said.

“Yeah. They took us to the social services people, and we got lucky for once. We got placed in a foster home together, and the people who took us in were wonderful. The cops went after my dad, of course, but he was gone, like always. As far as I know, he never did find out where we were and that’s probably the only reason we survived. Our foster parents put us in counseling and therapy, and they say I came through it all fairly well, but Samantha—she had it rough. She was in and out of trouble for a few years, and she was finally institutionalized when she was fourteen.”

“Why was that?” Karen asked.

Melinda let out a deep sigh. “She got busted the first time for using marijuana when she was twelve, and then several more times over the next couple years. The last time, I guess she tried to run from the cops that caught her and she stole a car. The judge said he was going to give her one more chance, and put her in an institution for troubled kids instead of jail.” She grimaced. “If you ask me, she was lucky. She doesn’t think so, of course, and she hasn’t even spoken to me in the last three years. When I would try to go to visit her, they’d just tell me that she was refusing to see me.”

“I’m sorry,” Karen said. “Melinda, do you know where your father is?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly, no,” she said. “All I know is he’s back in Denver. My husband, he grew up on what they used to call the wrong side of the tracks, you know what I mean? He knows quite a few people from the dark side of Denver, and he put the word out back when we got married that if Digger ever turned up, he wanted to know about it. Well, somebody sent him this.”

She took out her phone and called up an image, then passed it to Karen. Samara’s hair was grayer, and there were wrinkles and creases on his face, but Karen had no doubt it was the same man who had laughed in her face ten years earlier.

“That’s definitely him,” she said. “Any idea where this picture was taken?”

“It was supposedly down by Castle Pines,” Melinda said, “but several people say he’s been seen all over town. From what I hear, he’s been coming back here off and on for the last few years, but he’s always managed to avoid getting any serious charges, so nobody really does anything about him. I’m hoping maybe you can help change that.”

“You bet your ass I can,” Karen said. “Tell me how I can get in touch with you. You do realize you’re going to have to testify against him, right? I can’t do anything without your testimony.”

“Yes, I know, and I’ll do whatever it takes. Ms. Parks, please understand that I would rather die than ever let that man near me or my baby. You don’t have to worry that I’ll change my mind, because I won’t. I want him put away, and I want him put away as far and as deep as possible.”

Karen smiled at her. “Honey,” she said, “that puts you and me on the same page.”

Melinda gave her a nervous smile. “I hope so,” she said. “The thing is—something I need you to understand is that my father terrifies me. I’m not here because I want revenge against him; I’m here because I’m terrified he’s going to find me. If he does—there’s no way I can fight him, no way I can get away from him. I meant what I said. I’d rather be dead than have to be under his control again.”

“I won’t let that happen, Melinda,” Karen said firmly. “I promise you, I won’t let that happen.”

She took down all of Melinda’s information and the girl left, after which Karen began typing up a report. The case had never been closed, but it was so old that she’d have to make a convincing argument to get it assigned to her. She spent the rest of the day typing it up and going over it, looking for anything she could add that would help her finally bring Daniel “the Digger” Samara to justice.

When she was finished, she printed out the report and took it directly to Captain Barnhart, who was in charge of the homicide division. He happened to be in his office, which was unusual at that time of day, and invited her in. She handed him the report and then spent the next hour explaining it in detail.

“Let me get this straight,” Barnhart said. “You got a witness who’s come forward after ten years on a cold murder case, and you’ve heard a rumor that the perpetrator is in the area. Based on that, you want me to make this your priority assignment?”

“Yes, sir,” Karen said. “Sir, I had this man back when it happened, but he was so slick we couldn’t pin it on him. Now, with the witness who was actually forced to help dispose of the body parts, we can finally close that case and put away a man who is guilty of at least two murders, and one of those was a five-year-old girl that was his own daughter. I think it’s absolutely essential that we devote whatever time and resources are necessary to bring him down.”

Barnhart was holding a file folder with her report in it and glancing through it, but he suddenly closed it and tossed it onto his desk. “Karen, I don’t entirely disagree,” he said. “The trouble is, this isn’t even our case anymore. It got transferred to Cold Case Division five years ago. I’d have to go all the way to the chief and beg to get it back, but we’ve got enough to do as it is. I think what you need to do is take all of this information down to Cold Case. Talk to Ryerson down there, I’m pretty sure he’d be glad to get it. This is their case, so we’ve got to let them have all this.”

Karen grumbled in disappointment. She had known this was likely going to happen, but it didn’t make her feel any better. She tried weakly to argue for a few minutes, but then picked up the file and went down to where the Cold Case squad kept their offices and asked for Ryerson.

“Ryerson ain’t here anymore,” she was told by a new detective named Borden. “He got offered some cushy job down in Santa Fe a few weeks ago and split. What’ve you got?”

Once again, Karen explained the whole story and handed over the file. Borden flipped through it, then turned around and put it under a huge stack of other folders. “Okay,” he said, “we’ll take a look as soon as we get around to it.”

Karen’s eyes bugged out. “Around to it? This man is a killer, and I just handed you everything you need to put him away.”

“And we appreciate it. The problem is we got orders from on high that we are supposed to clear the oldest cases first.” He pointed at the stack of folders on his desk. “See those? Some of those go back thirty years. Yours is only ten years old, do the math. It might be a year or two before we get to that case, and there ain’t nothing I can do about it. You want it changed, you go convince the chief to get his head out of his ass, all right?”

Karen stormed out of the office, but stopped in the doorway to look back at Borden. “This son of a bitch murdered his kids’ mother and one of his own daughters,” she yelled. “Maybe you won’t do anything about him, but I damn sure will. Digger Samara is a despicable parasite, a piece of crap who deserves exactly what his victims got!”

3

“Detective Parks,” Karen said as she answered the incoming call. It had been almost two weeks since Melinda had come to see her, and she had all of her sources working on trying to find Digger Samara. Every time the phone rang, a part of her hoped it would be a lead that would help her put him away for good.

“It’s Snake,” came a voice. Snake was the street name of the guy who ran the Denver Devils, a local street gang that had a tendency to stick to very minor crime. They sold a bit of pot and hustled some black-market liquor, and they could be as tough and violent as any of the other gangs when it came to protecting their turf, but they managed to stay out of trouble for the most part. Snake had been providing occasional bits of information to Karen for quite some time. Out of all of her sources, he was undoubtedly the most reliable.

“Tell me you got something,” she said. “Anything on Samara.”

“Yeah, well, that could be why I’m calling you. Digger showed up this morning needing a place to stay, rented one of my efficiencies. Him and some other guy, but he said they’ll only be here a few days. Thought you’d want to know.”

Karen’s eyes swelled wide. “Seriously? Is he there now?”

“Was twenty minutes ago,” Snake said. “I woulda called sooner, but this was my first chance to be alone.”

“No problem, I’ll take it. I’ll be down there in twenty minutes.”

Two years earlier, Snake had found himself with a moderate chunk of cash. Rather than blow it on things that wouldn’t last, he’d surprised Karen by being smart enough to invest in real estate. He had bought himself an apartment building down in LoDo, the lower downtown area that seemed to be a hotbed for gang activity and street crime. He had been tough enough to stake out a territory, and when he started the Devils to help keep the other gangs out, it had actually reduced the crime rate in the city by a good ten percent.

The rent that he made off the building gave him enough to live on, and he was handy enough to do the repairs himself. Quite a few of his tenants were members of the gang, but as long as they paid their rent on time, he was okay with that. Others were some elderly folk and a few that were handicapped, whose rent was paid by the government and always came in like clockwork. Since he didn’t owe any money on the building, it gave him a decent living.

It also put him in a position to keep eyes and ears open. Thanks to an early break Karen had given him, Snake was often ready to slip a little information her way.

She hung up the phone and headed out the door. Karen didn’t have a partner anymore, so she didn’t have to check in with anyone before leaving. If she could bring Samara in, she was quite certain she could bully somebody into letting the prosecution go forward.

It actually took her slightly less than thirty minutes to get to the building, and there was a crowd milling around in front of it when she got out of the car. It seemed like there was always a crowd out front at this place, and most of them were Devils. None of them were privy to the private arrangement she and Snake had, and they both wanted it that way. The last thing she needed was for Snake to end up dead because one of the rival gangs was afraid of what he might tell her.She pushed her way to the middle of the crowd. “Come on, come on,” she said, “get out of my way. You all know who I am, I’m here on police business.”

“Yeah?” The man who had spoken was tall and thin, with tattoos all over him. “You think we care?”

“I think you’ll care if I drag your ass downtown,” Karen said. “Look, I’m not looking for any trouble out of any of you. I’m here for one person, Digger Samara. Where is he at?”

“What we look like, bitch? You think we look like snitches?” This was from another man, just as tattooed but short and chunky.

“No, not at all,” Karen said. “You look like prime candidates for an obstructing justice charge. Want me to show you how that works?”

Somebody bumped her from behind, and Karen suddenly found herself up against Snake. She looked up at him, towering over her by almost a foot, and glared. “Oh, geez, are you going to start with me? Get the hell out of my way.”

Snake stepped back, spreading his hands to show that he was in no way trying to prevent her from proceeding further. The grin on his face was sarcastic, and he kept his eyes directly on her own.

The crowd suddenly pressed in, and Karen found herself bumping into him once more. This was a game she had played more than once, and was one of the reasons she wore shoes with short, narrow heels. She lifted her right foot just a few inches and then brought it down quickly.

“Shit,” she heard from behind her, and the press seemed to back off just a bit.

“Who’s next?” Karen called out. Nobody wanted to volunteer, it seemed, because they stepped back further. “Now, like I said, I’m looking for Digger. I need to talk to him, so where would I find him?”

“Look up on the fourth floor,” said a feminine voice. There were a few women in the group, but Karen didn’t know any of them. The men close to her were suddenly trying to shush the speaker, but it left a gap in the crowd in front of her. She pushed through it and climbed the steps up to the front door of the building, then headed for the stairwell.

The building didn’t have a working elevator, though there was a shaft that hadn’t been used in many years. There were six floors in the place, and a number of apartments on each floor. She climbed the four flights at a steady pace, not bothering to hurry. These were the only stairs, so if Samara were to try to make a run for it, he would run right into her.

She made it up to the fourth floor, where six apartments awaited her. She knocked on the first door she came to, 4A, and it was opened by an elderly woman.

Karen flashed her badge. “I’m looking for Daniel Samara,” she said. “Would you know which apartment is his?”

The old woman looked at her with a vacant smile. “Are you Yvonne? Yvonne is my granddaughter. She’s supposed to come visit me today.”

Karen managed to smile, even though she wanted to scowl. She knew that a few of the tenants here were elderly, and barely able to function on their own. This poor lady seemed to be one of those.

“No, ma’am,” she said. “Sorry I bothered you.”

She stepped away and tried the door directly across the hall. When she knocked up this time, it was opened by a blond-haired young man who looked like he spent most of his time working out at the gym.

She held up her badge. “I’m looking for Digger Samara,” she said. “Is he here?”

The young man’s eyes narrowed. “Digger? Naw, he ain’t here. He’s down on the second floor, 2C, but are you sure you want to mess with him? I mean, I know you a cop and all, but he’s one mean piece of work.”

Karen gave him her best shark-tooth grin. “I know who he is,” she said. “And I’m meaner.”

He started to say something else, but at that moment they both heard three shots ring out. Karen reached for her gun under her jacket, but then she cursed loudly as she ran toward the stairs. The young man watched for a moment, but then an elderly voice from inside drew his attention. He walked back into the apartment, closing the door behind him. The sound of gunshots wasn’t all that uncommon in LoDo.

Karen raced down two flights and emerged onto the second floor. Some sixth sense had already told her where to look for the source of the gunshots, and the door to apartment 2C was standing open. A man, or rather the body of a man, was laying on the floor some distance inside, and she ran in without stopping to wonder if the killer was still there.

Damn! she thought. It’s Samara! Indeed, the body on the floor was the right size and the hair was the right color, but it took a bit of reasoning to conclude that it was the man she’d come looking for. He had fallen forward, but his head was turned to his right. That made it possible to see that his face had been blown away.

There was a lot of blood in two spots on his back. One was a fairly small hole, but the other was much bigger, indicating that it had passed through his body. The mushrooming of the bullet makes a bigger hole on exit than on entry, so the smaller hole was apparently an entry wound. This man had been shot from both directions, but there had been a third shot. There was a small hole just about where his head met his neck, but the mushrooming and pressure of the shot had obliterated his eyes, nose and a good part of his upper palate.

“Oh, my God,” shouted a female voice, “oh my God, you killed him! Somebody, help, she killed him, she killed him!”

Karen turned and looked through the doorway. A young woman, obviously close to giving birth, was standing in the hallway just outside the door.

“No, I just found him like this,” she said, but the girl was still screaming. She was staring at Karen the whole time, and then others were suddenly rushing into the hallway, as well. Men and women came out of other apartments, and a great number of men came rushing in from the stairs.

Karen saw Snake in the crowd, his eyes wide and staring. She started to get to her feet, but then the sound of sirens tore the air. She stood over the body, and only then thought to look around the apartment.

There was no one else visible, so she held up her badge and faced the open doorway. “I’m a police detective,” she said. “Police officers are on the way. Everyone please clear the hallway and let them through, but don’t anyone leave. They’ll want to speak to all of you.”

About half a dozen of them stayed put, but the rest suddenly seemed to want to be somewhere else. There was a mad scramble for the stairs and the majority of the crowd disappeared down them. Snake was one of them, but Karen expected as much. Their friendship, and his occasional assistance, were only valuable as long as no one knew about them.

It took almost another minute for the first police officers to come up the stairwell. They saw Karen and entered the apartment, listening to her statement about how she had discovered the corpse. As they talked with her, two more officers arrived and began speaking to the people in the hallway.

Karen managed, with some difficulty, to listen to what was being said out there. The pregnant woman made it clear that she believed Karen had killed Samara, and several of the others began talking like they agreed with her. A couple of them pushed their way into the room, just to try to speak to the officers that were there, but then one of them—a very tall man that Karen knew as Stretch—called out to one of the uniformed patrolmen.

“Hey, copper,” he said. “Think you might want to see this.” He pointed into a partly open closet, and the officer walked over to see what he was pointing at. At first, he looked confused, but then Stretch told him to look on the shelf above where the hangers bore only a couple of shirts.

The officer had to stretch up onto tiptoes, but then he took a pair of rubber gloves out of pocket and struggled his hands into them. Karen felt a sinking feeling in her guts as he reached up onto the shelf, and she became actually nauseous when his hand came out with her Smith & Wesson automatic hanging by its trigger guard on his finger.

“Detective,” the officer said, “is this your weapon?”

Karen walked over to him and looked closely, then nodded. “Yeah, that’s it,” she said. “As I already told you, I noticed it missing when I heard the shots. It was probably lifted while I was being hassled out front, after I got here.”

He looked at her, not unkindly, but she spotted the slight hint of doubt. “I’m going to have to take it into evidence,” he said. He held it up close to his face and sniffed, then looked at her again. “It smells like it’s just been fired.”

“I’m sure it has,” Karen said. “Whoever took it must have had some sort of grudge against Samara. While I was trying to find them, they came straight to his room and killed him.” She glanced out the doorway into the small group that was still looking at her as if she were the killer. “This is starting to feel like a set up.”

“That’s for somebody above my pay grade to figure out,” the officer said.

“Rivers is on the way,” said his partner. “He just called, ought to be here in about five minutes.”

The first officer nodded, then fumbled in another pocket to pull out a large Ziploc bag. He dropped the gun into it, sealed it shut and used a marker to label it. Gun recovered apartment 2C, Lodestone Apartment Building. He added the date and his own badge number.

Detective Carl Rivers arrived a few moments later, and walked into the apartment as if he owned the building.

“What have we got, boys?” Rivers asked.

“Pretty clear it’s murder,” said the officer who was holding the bagged gun. “Detective Parks was here looking for a suspect in another case, and said she heard gunshots. She says she reached for her weapon at that moment and realized it was missing, then came into the apartment and found this man, Daniel Samara, dead. She stayed here with the body until we arrived to take statements, and then one of the bystanders happened to notice something in that closet. I took a look, and found this weapon. It’s been fired very recently, and Detective Parks identified it as her weapon. She says it was apparently stolen from her a little earlier, when she was having some issues with some of the gang bangers out front.”

Rivers looked up at her. “Parks? Who were you looking for here?”

Karen pointed down at the body. “Him. Daniel Samara. I’ve got evidence linking him to a pair of murders from ten years ago, but cold case doesn’t have time to go hunting for him. I got a tip he was here, so I came to try to bring him in.”

Rivers nodded. “Yeah, I heard about that case. Word is, you got pretty pissed off when cold case said they couldn’t devote any time to it. What was it you said? This guy deserved the kind of treatment he gave his victims?”

“I was blowing off,” she said. “Geez, Rivers, I’ve been a detective longer than you’ve been on the force. I’m as human as everybody else, you know? This bastard murdered his own wife and cut her up, then killed his little daughter and threw her in a dumpster. You’re damn right I was pissed.”

Rivers looked down at the body, then at the bag holding her gun, before he turned his eyes back to Karen. “Sure does look like it,” he said. “You want to step out of the room for a minute, would you do that?”

“I didn’t kill him,” Karen said. “Like I told these officers, I was up on the fourth floor looking for Samara when I heard the gunshots. That’s when I realized my gun was missing, and then I came down here and found Samara laying dead in the floor.”

Rivers just looked at her. “Okay. Step out of here for a minute, please.”

She shook her head in disgust and left the room, stepping out into the hallway. The pregnant girl was no longer in sight, and the remaining Devils and other tenants were giving her a wide berth. She crossed her arms and paced around, trying to keep her ears open enough to hear what was being said inside the apartment.

“… Really think she could’ve done it?” That was one of the patrolmen.

“I heard she was pretty hot to hang this guy,” Rivers said. “I don’t guess she’d be the first cop to go south. We had a few just a few months ago that got arrested for murder, remember?”

“Yeah, Carl, but this is Karen Parks we’re talking about. You remember her husband, David? One of the best cops ever.”

Rivers turned slightly, and Karen could tell he was trying to look her way without her realizing it. A shiver went down her spine as she realized that he was about to arrest her for murder.

“Close that door for a minute, would you?” Rivers asked, and one of the other officers pushed it shut. Karen stared at the closed door for a moment, then turned and walked down the stairs.

No one spoke, no one tried to stop her. She came out on the ground floor and walked straight out the front of the building. There were two squad cars outside, and she saw Rivers’ car, but there were no other cops waiting there. She walked directly to her car and got into it, started it and drove away.

This is going to look pretty damned bad, she thought. Oh, well. I’ve only got one hope right now, and I just hope I can get there in time.

4

Sam and Indie were in the little office behind their garage, deeply embroiled in doing the absolutely ridiculous paperwork that was required by the state of all private investigators. Taxes, license renewals, required education statements, handgun certifications—it was something they had to go through every year, and they tackled it the same way they tackled everything: with absolute determination to get it done and over with as soon as possible.

“Carry the figure from line 7,” Indie said, “to line 14, then multiply line 14 by the figure in line 13. That will give you the maximum fees you could owe, and then you can subtract from that the figure on line 9. That’s your official professional services income, and then from that, you deduct line 10. What you got left after that goes on line 20…” She suddenly looked up at him and rolled her eyes. “Do they hire somebody from China to write these instructions or something? None of this makes any sense at all, Sam.”

“It’s not Chinese,” Sam said, “it’s worse. It’s tax code, which makes Chinese look like pig Latin. Just keep reading, I’m trying to keep up.”

Indie blew out a breath, blowing a loose strand of hair out of her face. She was just about to start reading aloud again when the office door opened suddenly and Detective Karen Parks hurried inside and shut it behind her.

Sam looked up and smiled. “Hey, Karen,” he said. “What…”

“Sam, I need your help,” Karen said. “I’m about to be arrested for murder.”

Sam and Indie both stared at her with their eyes as wide as they could go.

“Murder? How?” Sam demanded.

“It’s a long story, and I don’t know how much time I’ve got.” She sat down quickly in the chair facing Sam’s desk, right beside Indie. “Sam, do you remember the dismembered body case I got, right after they transferred us to homicide?”

Sam crinkled his brow. “Vaguely,” he said. “Unsolved, right?”

Karen nodded. “Yeah,” she said bitterly. “Julie Wesley was her name, and I know damn well her common-law husband, a guy they called Digger Samara, was the one who killed her and chopped her up, but I could never prove it.”

“Yeah, I remember, now,” Sam said. “You were all over that guy for a while, but never got anywhere.”

“Yeah. He and Julie also had three daughters who disappeared around the same time, but you might not have heard much about them. The only thing that ever came of that was a five-year-old Jane Doe we found a couple weeks later, but she was never identified. I always suspected she might have been one of their daughters, but I never knew for sure.”

“Okay, but what’s this got to do with you being arrested for murder?”

“Everything,” Karen said. “About a week ago, a woman came into my office and said she needed to talk to me. Her name was Melinda Davis, but she was the oldest daughter of Digger Samara and Julie Wesley. Sam, the story this poor girl told me just tore me up. She saw her father kill her mother, all three of the girls did, and then the son of a bitch actually made her hold the trashbags while he put the body parts in them. After he dumped the body, he took those poor little girls out to Golden and traded them, or the use of them, to some of his friends for a place to stay hidden.”

“Oh, my God,” Indie said. “Do you mean...”

“Yeah, exactly. They were there for a little while, but one day he got mad at the youngest girl—her name was Ashley—and he hit her. Melinda said it looked like she wasn’t breathing, and then he picked her up and carried her out and they never saw her again. Well, I remembered little Janie Doe and I printed out a picture of her, and Melinda confirmed, with tears in her eyes, that it was her baby sister Ashley. Digger Samara not only killed his common-law wife, he also killed his own daughter and just threw both of them into the trash. Ashley was found in a trash dumpster on the west side of Denver.”

Sam shook his head. “Karen, this is awful. Go ahead, tell the rest of it.”

“Melinda said the reason she came forward is because she got married a while back, and she’s pregnant with her first child. She’s due around the middle of January, but she’s scared. She and her husband live here in Denver, and he’s got some connections to the criminal element, even though he doesn’t seem to be part of it. His name is Tom Davis, he’s got a clean record and works at one of the TV stations as a video editor, so he seems pretty legit. Anyway, when they got married and he heard Melinda’s story, he put out the word that if Digger ever showed up he wanted to know about it. Well, a few weeks back, Digger turned up here in Denver, back around his old haunts. Somebody sent Tom a picture, and it’s definitely him. Melinda is scared to death of him finding out that she’s around, and even more scared of him ever finding out she’s pregnant. She can’t stand the thought of him being near her or her child, and I can’t blame her.”

“No one could,” Sam said, and Indie nodded her agreement.

“Well, I wrote it all up and got all the information, then took it to Barnhart, but he said I had to turn it over to Cold Case. Head guy down there these days is a jackass named Borden who says he can’t touch the case right now because it’s not old enough. I guess the chief said he wants oldest cases cleared first, so it may be a long time before they ever get around to this one.”

“So you started working on it alone, right?”

“Jerk. You know me too well, of course I did. I put out the word that I wanted Samara, and I finally got a lead on him this morning. He’s been living in one of the flops down in LoDo, so I headed down there to try to bring him in.” She looked down at the floor for a moment, before raising her eyes back up to meet Sam’s. “I found him, all right,” she said, “but I was too late. He was already dead.”

“Don’t stop there,” Sam said. “Tell me why you think you’re going to be arrested for it.”

“Oh, geez, Sam, everybody knew how angry I was about this case being put on the back burner, and I don’t know how many people heard me say he deserved to die.” She rubbed her hand over her face. “It gets worse than that, though. When I got to the apartment building, some of the local punks who live there recognized me, knew I was a cop. One of them was a guy they call Snake, great big guy with tattoos all over him. He runs one of the lesser gangs around town, mostly just minor stuff like pot, nothing major, though they can be a little rough at times. When I asked where Digger was, they started trying to harass me, pushing me around, so I flashed my badge and got official. That got someone to tell me he was on the fourth floor, and I headed up to look for him, but there’s six apartments on the fourth floor and none of them was his. A blond-haired man up there told me to look on the second floor, apartment 2C, but right at that moment I heard three shots go off somewhere below me. I reached for my gun, but—remember when they were hassling me when I first got there? My gun was gone. I went back down the stairs anyway and saw that the door for 2C was open, but Samara was laying in the middle of the floor with blood everywhere all around him. I went in anyway, and was standing there looking down at Digger’s body when a woman started screaming. It was some pregnant woman, probably lives on that floor, and she started screaming that I had killed him.”

“Oh, great,” Sam said. “And then?”

Karen threw her hands in the air and looked exasperated. “What do you think? I tried to calm the lady down, but somebody called 911. When the first officers arrived, everybody was pointing at me and saying I did it. I think the officers were believing me until somebody yelled that they found the gun, and I bet you can guess what happened next.”

“Somebody pointed to where your gun was hidden,” Sam said. “Do you think there’s any possibility it’s actually the murder weapon?”

She shrugged. “I would bet on it, to be honest. I heard the shots, and they sounded an awful lot like my Smith & Wesson. They found it in a closet in the same room where Samara was killed, conveniently, of course. When one of the officers picked it up with a pair of gloves and sniffed at it, he said it smelled like it’d just been fired. Another detective had arrived by then, Carl Rivers, and he got with the uniforms to talk about what to do. I took advantage of the distraction to slip out and come to you. I need help, Sam. I figure it won’t take them long to guess where I would go, so they’ll probably be here about any minute.”

Sam rubbed his temples for a moment, then looked at Karen. “Okay, this is not good. If your gun was used to kill him, that’s some pretty hard evidence to refute. It’ll have your fingerprints on it, naturally, and by the time your pregnant woman gets around to giving an official statement, she’ll probably be convinced she actually saw you pull the trigger. That gives them motive—your attitude about trying to close the case—as well as means and opportunity, with an eyewitness kicker.”

“You think I don’t know how bad it looks?” Karen asked. “Hell, it’s almost enough to make me believe I’m guilty. Don’t just sit there and tell me how bad it is, Sam, work that Sam Prichard magic and get me out of this mess.”

Sam looked at her for another moment, then picked up his phone and dialed a number. “Hang on a minute,” he said to Karen. “First thing you need is a lawyer, and I’m calling one.” He suddenly focused attention on the phone, and smiled into it. “Hi, this is Sam Prichard,” he said. “I need to speak to Carol Spencer, please, urgently.” He listened for a couple of seconds, then said, “Thank you.”

A moment later, Sam smiled into the phone again. “Carol, thanks for taking my call so quickly. I got a situation that needs your incredible legal skills. How quickly can you get free for an hour? Okay, fantastic. We’ll be at your office in fifteen minutes. Your client? Did I forget to mention that? No, I didn’t, but I’ll tell you when we get there.” He disconnected and dropped the phone into his pocket, then got to his feet and turned to Indie.

“I’m taking Karen to see Carol right now,” he said. “She’s probably right and detectives are going to show up here any time. Just tell them that Karen came by and asked to speak to me alone, and then we left to go to Carol Spencer’s office. If they ask, you have no idea what she wanted to talk to me about, got that?”

“Got it,” Indie said. “Want me to try to stall them at all?”

“No, not even a little bit. They would probably jump at the chance to arrest you for obstruction, so you don’t know anything.” He grabbed her and kissed her quickly, then hurried Karen through the door that led into his garage. A moment later, the garage door opened and his Corvette backed into the street, turned and took off.

“Sam,” Karen said, “I was keeping a file on this case, one of my own. It’s in the drawer of my coffee table, back at my house. You know where I keep the key, in that old birdhouse on my front porch, so you’ve got to get to it before anybody else does. If there’s an answer anywhere, it’ll probably be in there.”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Sam said. “For now, we just need to get Carol on this case.”

They made it to the lawyer’s office without a problem, and the receptionist ushered them right in. Carol Spencer, who had once represented Sam when he was framed for a murder he didn’t commit, looked up in surprise at the sight of Karen. “Sam?”

“Carol, I think you know Karen Parks,” Sam said. “She’s got a story to tell you, and might not have a lot of time to tell it.”

Carol picked up a digital recorder and turned it on, then set it on the desk in front of her. “Start talking.”

Karen went through the whole story again, telling the lawyer everything. Carol waited until she had finished before she started asking questions.

“Do you have any idea who might have gotten your gun?”

“I was being tossed around like a dodgeball at that moment. Could have been any one of half a dozen guys, I’ve no idea which one. There were a bunch of people around, and I didn’t know most of them.”

“Any idea who else might have wanted the victim dead?”

Karen snorted. “From what I can gather, that would be just about anybody who ever met him. He was a drug dealer, a thief, a murderer—people like him always have a list of enemies longer than their legs. Obviously it was someone who was in the building, but I’ve got nothing to indicate which one.”

Carol looked her in the eye. “What about you? Have you ever been reprimanded for excessive force?”

Karen scowled. “Yeah, a couple of times. When we caught a guy who killed three kids, once, there was some debate over whether I actually needed to shoot him or not. A couple of witnesses claimed he was trying to surrender, but all I saw was something shiny in his hand. Looked like a gun to me, so I shot the bastard. Inquest said it was inconclusive on whether deadly force was necessary, so all I got was a reprimand. The time before that, I just got chewed out for letting a prisoner trip while he was going down some stairs.” The look in her eye suggested that she wasn’t willing to debate the merits of either case.

“Karen, I’m going to ask you a question that you’re not going to like. Is it possible you actually confronted the victim and shot him because you thought he was going for a weapon? That would give us a basis for…”

“No!” Karen shouted. “I never saw the son of a bitch until he was already dead. Now, if you asked me if I would have been willing to shoot him in a circumstance like that, the answer is a definitive yes. But the fact of the matter is that I heard shots while I was on another floor, I ran down to see what was going on and I found someone laying there dead. That’s what happened and that’s what I told the officers on the scene.”

Carol peered at her for another moment, then turned to Sam. “At this moment, I doubt there’s any possible way to keep this woman from being convicted of at least manslaughter two. I would imagine prosecutors will go for second degree murder, based on motive—the statements she made about what someone observed—and opportunity, meaning she was in the building when he was killed. Add in the fact that it was her weapon that was used, and you’ve got the big three of a murder case: motive, opportunity and means. I think it’s likely the best we can hope for is a plea deal for manslaughter.”

“But somebody took her gun,” Sam said. “There should be fingerprints on it that aren’t hers.”

“It’s possible that the killer left fingerprints on the gun, Sam, but that wouldn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger. Besides, even street criminals are usually smart enough to try to avoid leaving fingerprints if they can. Whoever took her gun would probably either have wrapped something around it to avoid leaving prints or wiped it clean once they were done with it. Either way, there’s nothing that helps her.” She sighed and shook her head. “I appreciate your confidence in me, Sam, but the truth is that this is going to fall on your shoulders. I’ll stall off any actual prosecution as long as I can, but if you can’t find the real killer, Ms. Parks is looking at quite a few years in prison. I don’t think I need to tell you what happens to cops in prison.”

A commotion in the front lobby caused Sam and Karen to turn and look at the door, and that’s when four police officers came bursting through it. They had their guns in their hands, and two of them grabbed Karen and shoved her to the floor while another grabbed Sam. He was yanked to his feet and his arms pulled behind him as a gun was placed against his head.

“What the hell?” Sam asked. The officer who was holding him shoved him forward until he hit a wall.

“Shut up,” the cop said. “You’re under arrest for obstruction of…”

“Let go of him!” shouted Carol, who had gotten to her feet. “Mr. Prichard is my investigator, and Ms. Parks is my client. By escorting her to me so that I could arrange for her surrender, he was covered under attorney-client privilege, so I will thank you to get your hands off of him right now.”

“He was helping her hide…”

“Was he now? Well, let’s see. How far did you have to look to find out where he had taken her? As I understand it, Mrs. Prichard told you exactly where to find them, didn’t she?”

“Let him go,” said another voice, as Detective Rivers entered the room. “If he’s working for the lawyer, then he was perfectly justified in bringing her here.” He turned to Carol. “I’m assuming you were planning to have your client surrender, am I right?”

“Of course I was,” Carol said. “If you hadn’t kicked in my door, she would have walked in voluntarily within the hour. As it stands now, I’m considering brutality charges against the officer who jumped on Mr. Prichard, and possibly the others, as well. Ms. Parks was unarmed and offered no resistance, there was absolutely no reason to drag her to the floor that way.”

“I’d fight you on that one,” Rivers said. “She fled the scene of a murder, so use of force was justifiable. Wanna try me on that? I’m betting I’d win.”

The other officer had released Sam, so Carol shook her head. “We’ll let it go for now,” she said. “Just make absolutely certain that no harm comes to my client in your jail, or I promise I will ruin your life. Karen, I’ll be there shortly. You don’t so much as admit to your own name until I’m there, got that?”

“I got it,” Karen said as two officers lifted her to her feet.

Rivers ignored Carol and looked at Karen, who was now handcuffed and on her feet again. “Karen Parks, you are under arrest for the murder of Daniel Samara. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent, anything you say can and absolutely will be used against you in court. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning, and if you cannot afford an attorney, then one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights I have just explained to you?”

“Better than you do,” Karen said. She turned her head and looked at Sam. “All up to you, Sam. Find out who did this, and please do it soon.”

Rivers looked at her, then turned to Sam. “You probably want to do yourself a favor,” he said, “and walk away from this case. We’ve got her dead to rights, Prichard. We were warned a few days ago that she might try something like this, so you might as well not waste your time. And if you decide to, then do yourself an even bigger favor. Stay the hell out of my way.” He turned and followed Karen out the door.

5

“Sam, do you honestly think she’s innocent?” Carol asked.

“That woman has saved my life a couple of times, and I’ve worked with her on a lot of cases over the years. Can she get pretty volatile? Hell, yes, we all can. Would she murder someone like Samara? No way. Carol, she finally had the evidence she needed to put him away. For a cop like Karen Parks, sending him to prison would be a lot more satisfying than letting him die and get out of his own misery.”

“Then get busy. I’m going down to sit with her during questioning, make sure they don’t push her into saying something we’ll all regret. Call me as soon as you know something.”

Sam left the office and got into his car, then headed immediately for Karen’s home. He had no doubt Rivers would be getting a search warrant for the place as soon as he could, so he wanted to get the file out of her place before that happened. It was only a ten minute drive, and he pulled up in front of her house.

The key was right where he expected to find it, hidden under an old bird’s nest in a wooden birdhouse Karen had bolted to the wall beside her front door. He used it to unlock the front door and went directly to the coffee table in front of her sofa, then opened its only drawer and retrieved a file folder that was rolled up inside. He locked the door again on the way out, replaced the key under the nest and hurried back to the Corvette, then drove down the street until he got to the next intersection.

He made a right, then took a left a couple of blocks later. There was a park not far away, and he wanted to sit somewhere out of sight while he checked out the file. He found a spot in the midst of a grove of trees, then opened the file and began looking through it.

It contained a complete copy of the original files on both Julie Wesley and little Janie Doe, plus everything Karen had gathered from Melinda and other sources in the past week. Altogether, it painted a picture of a man who was evil at his very core. No matter who had killed him, and despite the fact that it was still murder, the world was definitely a better place with Samara gone.

Unfortunately, it didn’t give him any ideas on who might have killed the man. As Karen had said, just about anyone who knew him probably wanted to kill him at some point.

Sam screwed up his face and thought about that. Was it possible that Melinda, Samara’s daughter, might have manipulated Karen to find him, then followed her in order to kill her father? Stranger things had happened, but it just didn’t really seem to fit.

Still, from Sam’s point of view, there wasn’t much else to do but go and speak to Melinda. If nothing else, she might be able to give him some ideas on how to track down her father’s enemies. He checked the address which was in the file, started up the Corvette and headed for Highland.

Highland is a fairly affluent area of Denver, where new homes can be purchased reasonably, and new subdivisions go up almost monthly. He found the address and parked on the street, then got out and used his cane to help him hobble up to the front door. He rang the doorbell and waited, but there was no response.

A late model Buick sat in the driveway, so he rang the doorbell again. When he still got no response, Sam knocked on the door and called out, “Melinda? Melinda, I’m a private investigator. I need to speak with you about your father.”

A curtain on a side window twitched, and Sam leaned over to look through it. At first he didn’t see anyone, but then he realized he was looking at a young woman holding a sawed-off shotgun, and it was pointed directly at him. His eyes went wide and he stepped back, as the woman yelled out, “I don’t want to hurt you, just go away.”

Sam raised his hands to show that he was unarmed, and then leaned slightly forward so that he could see her face again. “Are you Melinda? Melinda, my name is Sam Prichard, and I work with Karen Parks. I need to talk to you, and it’s pretty important.”

Melinda stared at him for a moment, but then she lowered the shotgun. Very carefully, she unlocked the deadbolt and let the door swing open as far as the safety chain would allow, then looked out at him. “What’s this about?”

“I’m Sam Prichard,” he said, “I’m a private investigator, but Karen Parks is an old friend of mine. Right now, she’s on her way to jail because she’s being charged with murdering your father. I need to talk to you to see if maybe you can help me…”

“He’s dead?” Melinda asked, her eyes wide. “My father is dead?”

Sam nodded. “Yes, he is. The problem is that Karen has been accused of killing him, and she swears she didn’t do it. I was hoping maybe you can help me get a lead on who actually did.”

The door closed, but then Sam heard the safety chain come off and it opened again. Melinda swung the door wide and stepped aside so Sam could enter, but he noticed she still held the shotgun. It was pointed at the floor, however, so he decided to take the chance and walked into the house.

Melinda followed his gaze and then she actually blushed. “Oh, I’m sorry about this,” she said. “Please understand, I have been absolutely terrified that my father was going to find me. When you first rang the doorbell, I didn’t know who you were, and then you said you were a private investigator and I thought maybe he hired you, so that’s why I had the gun.” She set it down against the wall and gave him a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I tend to run off at the mouth when I get excited or scared. He’s really dead? Like, really, completely dead?”

“He is,” Sam said, “or they wouldn’t have arrested Karen on a murder charge.”

“Come on in,” Melinda said. “Please understand, my father is the kind of monster that you see in movies, the kind that, every time you think he’s gone, he comes back. It may take me a while to actually believe he’s dead.”

“I can understand,” Sam said. “Karen told me what you and your sister went through. I think the reason she was so determined to get him was because she felt that she let you girls down. No matter how she tried, she was never able to prove he was guilty and no one could find you and your sisters. I can promise you that if she had found you, she would have gotten you out of that situation.”

“There was nothing she could have done, not back then. My father was—it seemed like he was always one step ahead of everybody else, he always took us and disappeared just before we would have been found. That was one of his ways of torturing us, I guess, letting us know that social workers had tried to take us away, but that he had beaten them.” She shrugged. “We just thought we must’ve done something really bad, and he was our punishment.”

Sam took a seat on the couch, and Melinda sat down in a chair that was facing him. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that,” he said. “Melinda, have you had any contact with your father since he’s been back?”

The girl shuddered. “God, no,” she said. “I know it sounds crazy, but if he walked in here right now, I’d probably just start crying and do whatever he said. I couldn’t beat him, I couldn’t escape him, I couldn’t even disobey. It was like—like you hear about rabbits, when they come face-to-face with a snake, right? How they just freeze up and can’t move? That’s me, whenever he’s around. I can’t do anything on my own, I can only do what he tells me to do.”

“What about your sister, Samantha? Has he tried to contact her?”

Melinda shrugged again and made a face that looked sad. “I haven’t heard from Samantha in at least three years. She used to write to me from the institution, but then she stopped, and she wouldn’t allow me to come and visit her. She wouldn’t even let our foster parents in, she didn’t want to see anyone.”

“Sounds like you handled things better than she did.”

Melinda wiped at one eye with a fingertip. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “I guess I just found it easier to open up about it all. When they took us to counseling, I was willing to talk and try to let it out, but Samantha wouldn’t. She kept telling the counselors they weren’t any help, or that they couldn’t understand what we’d been through, but she wasn’t willing to even try to get over it. It was like she needed the anger and the hate to help her be who she was, I guess.”

“We all tend to respond to things differently,” Sam said. “Can you tell me what institution she’s in?”

“The last I knew, she was in the state hospital in Boulder. They may have transferred her somewhere else, by now, I don’t know.”

“I can find out. If he’s been in touch with her, she may know something that will help.” He handed her his business card and asked her to call if she thought of anything else, then let himself out and limped back to his car.

He had just started the car and put it in gear when his phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket to see that it was Carol Spencer calling. “Prichard,” he said.

“Sam, it’s Carol. This thing is going to get ugly. I just left the jail, and I can tell you that jerk Rivers is determined to hang Karen for this killing. I don’t know what his grudge against her is about, but it’s something serious.”

“Rivers is a mediocre detective, at best,” Sam said. “I think the only reason he solves any cases at all is that some of the uniforms feed him information. He takes credit for it, of course, so he comes off looking good on paper.”

“That might be it,” Carol said. “On the other hand, there are a lot of other cops who think Karen is about to get shafted. One of them caught me on my way out the door and gave me a number, told me to give it to you in case you need any help proving she didn’t do it. Got a pen?”

“Not at the moment,” Sam said. “Hang on, I’m driving, I need to find a place to pull over.”

“No, don’t worry about it, I’ll text it to you. The officer’s name is Wilson, and he said he’s only one of many who believe Rivers is trying to railroad Karen. He might be able to help somehow.”

“Good. How’s Karen holding up?”

“She’s pretty angry,” Carol said. “We had a couple of minutes alone, and she said it’s awfully strange that Rivers even got the case. He’s supposed to be handling gang-related homicides, so this case should have gone to a more senior detective in the division.”

“Yeah, she’s right. I’ll check with Captain Barnhart and see if I can find out how he got it, maybe even get him moved off it.”

“That wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all. He’s a jackass, and that’s being nice. I’m headed back to the office. Call me if you learn anything, and I’ll do likewise.”

“You got it,” Sam said. He disconnected and a moment later, his phone chimed to tell him of an incoming text message. He glanced and saw that it was Officer Wilson’s number, then dialed the number for the station Rivers worked out of.

“District Two,” came the answer. “How may I direct your call?”

“Captain Barnhart, please,” Sam said. “It’s Sam Prichard calling.”

Sam was put on hold for a few seconds, and then Barnhart came on the line. “Sam? Holy cow, are you still running around?”

“Of course,” Sam said with a grin. “Old cops never die, they just get a PI license and keep sticking their noses into everything.”

“Yeah, I heard you were into that racket. What can I do for you?”

“You heard about Karen Parks being arrested for murder this morning, right?”

“Yeah, of course. I read the initial report on it, Sam, and it looks pretty bad.”

“Yeah, well, the problem is that I don’t believe it. Karen has hired me to find evidence that will clear her, but Rivers is acting like it’s an open and shut case.”

“Sam, she was found over the body, and a witness says she did it. Her gun was found hidden in the room and it’s almost certainly the murder weapon. I know you and Karen go back a ways, but Sam, we both know this job can turn bad in a split second. For whatever reason, it looks like she killed him and then tried to cover it up. If she’d called it in when it happened, there might have been a way to justify it, but hiding the gun…”

“Or, she lost her gun in the scuffle that happened before she found Samara, just like she says, and somebody else used it to kill the bastard. According to her story, she was on an upper floor when she heard the gunshots, hurried down and found the body. The gun was found by a bystander after the fact. Now, if she’s telling the truth, which I believe she is, then Rivers is just trying to score another feather in his cap. How did he end up on this case, anyway? He supposed to be on gang violence, isn’t he?”

“Well, yeah,” Barnhart said, “that’s what he does normally, but I’ve got three detectives out sick. I had to grab whoever was available for this case and he happened to be up on the roster.”

“Well, it sure seems like he’s got some kind of grudge against Karen. He’s not even willing to consider any scenario other than her guilt, and that just doesn’t make any sense to me. Karen is a decorated officer, she’d been a detective for years with a good record. What’s with the sudden witchhunt?”

Barnhart sighed. “Sam, the problem is all the officer shootings in the last year. We’ve got to be able to show that we take violence by police officers seriously. Now, if she didn’t do it, I’m sure that’s going to come out, so she’s got nothing to worry about. I’ll tell you the same thing I tell everybody else, Sam. You’ve got to trust the system.”

“Captain,” Sam said, “the system is only as good as the people working it. Rivers is a parasite, not a true detective. That’s why he’s still in gang division. How long has he been there now, twelve years? Any real detective would already have moved out to major crimes.”

“Sam,” Barnhart said, a tone of irritation appearing in his voice, “Rivers is doing his job. All he’s got to do is find out who killed this man, and he will. Naturally, he’s going to focus on the prime suspect, but if evidence supports your theory that she didn’t do it, he’ll find it.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Sam said, “you can’t find what you refuse to look for. I’ve taken the case, and I’m going to stay on it. I’ll let you know what I find.”

Sam disconnected and dropped the phone into his pocket. Rivers was, in his opinion, one of the worst examples of a proper police detective. Unfortunately, he was adept enough at using the work of subordinate officers that he kept getting satisfactory performance reports. Sam personally thought that there were an awful lot of detectives in the world like Rivers.

With no other immediate ideas, Sam decided to go home and fill Indie in on what was happening. The drive back to his house took nearly thirty minutes, and Indie met him at the door when he parked the car in the driveway.

“How’s Karen?” she asked as he came inside.

“Carol says she’s angry, but keeping it together.” He handed her the file he’d retrieved from Karen’s house. “I’ve been out to talk to Melinda, and she was shocked to learn that her father was dead. I had actually toyed with the idea that she might have followed Karen and done it herself, but I don’t think she has it in her.”

“Well,” Indie said, “after you and Karen left, I started Herman working on finding anything he could about Daniel Samara, and it turns out the guy is wanted in several states. California, Nevada and Utah have warrants for him on charges of robbery, extortion and child endangerment, and he’s wanted for questioning in a murder case in New Mexico. What struck me as odd is that the only state he’s lived in that doesn’t have a warrant out for him is Colorado, even though Herman found numerous references to him connected to various investigations over the past twenty years. In every case where he was considered a suspect, it suddenly just got shoved aside. It’s almost like this guy was untouchable, for some reason.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “You see that a lot with informants,” he said. “If somebody is feeding information to the police, it’s not uncommon for charges to get swept under the rug.” He shook his head. “Kind of hard to imagine somebody like Samara being a snitch, though.”

“Is it really?” Indie asked. “Let’s face it, Sam, he’s always had some kind of advance warning when someone was coming after him, at least around here. Remember what Karen said? Every time the state tried to investigate about his kids, he would disappear just before they got there. Somebody had to be tipping them off.”

“Good point. Melinda said the same thing, that he used to torment the girls by telling them that social workers were trying to take them away, but that he was always able to beat them.”Indie opened the file and started reading. “Did she happen to tell you how they managed to escape him?”

“No, but Karen said the girls got caught digging in a dumpster behind a restaurant, and the owner called the state. They ended up in a foster home, and Melinda did okay but Samantha kept getting into trouble and ended up institutionalized. About three years ago, she stopped having any contact with her sister or foster parents. I need you to have Herman see if he can find out where she is, now. If Samara has been in touch with her, she may know something.”Indie kept reading, but she pulled the computer close to her. After a moment, she turned to it and started typing. “Any idea what institution she was in?”

“Melinda said she was in the state hospital at Boulder, last she knew.”Indie kept typing for a few more seconds, then watched the screen as links began to appear. “Okay,” she said after looking at a few of them. “She’s no longer at Boulder. Looks like she was transferred about eighteen months ago to another facility in Colorado Springs, but she was released only six months later. Hang on just a second, I found her Social Security number in the records. I’m running it to see if there’s any other trace of her since then.”

Herman, the semi-intelligent program that Indie had written to search out even the most difficult information, started displaying other links on the screen. Indie clicked one and then turned the monitor so Sam could see it.

“Looks like she was arrested several times in the first couple months she was out, mostly for possession of pot and a couple of prostitution charges. Poor kid.”

Sam was looking at the information displayed. “Nothing in the last ten months,” he said. “Hey, look at that. Her last two arrests were right here in Denver. Think you can find any kind of address for her?”Indie shrugged. “I’m not seeing any,” she said. “On those arrests, she listed her address as one of the missions downtown.” She looked up at Sam. “I suppose it’s possible she actually cleaned herself up and got off the streets, but you and I both know that isn’t likely. For her to disappear like this, Sam…”

“Yeah,” Sam said, “I know. It’s more likely she ended up dead of an overdose or something worse.” He shook his head again. “Check to see if there are any Jane Does that might fit her description.”

“Already on that,” Indie said. “None show up anywhere around here in the last year, so there’s hope.”

“Well,” Sam said, “that’s something at least. Now, where do I go from here?”

6

Sam’s phone rang just then, and he snatched it out to see Carol Spencer’s number. “Prichard,” he said as he answered.

“They’re not wasting any time,” Carol said. “They’ve already got an arraignment set for two o’clock this afternoon. Sam, they’re charging her with murder one.”

“First degree? Why? In a case like this, they would usually go for second, try to claim she used excessive force in trying to arrest him.”

“Yes, but Rivers says he’s got witnesses who will state that they heard her threatening to kill him. That’s all they need to make a murder one case, any evidence that speaks to premeditation.”

Sam let out a deep sigh. “Okay,” he said. “If you get the chance to talk to her, tell her I’ll be there.”

He disconnected and put the phone in his pocket, then turned to his wife. “Arraignment is at two o’clock this afternoon. They’re not even bothering to wait until they have a case really put together.”Indie shook her head. “They’re probably counting on Carol stalling and giving them enough time to build whatever case they want.”

“Of course. Rivers claims he has witnesses who will say they heard her saying she was going to kill Samara. If they manage to convince a jury that it was premeditated murder, she could get life.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It wouldn’t be a very long life, though. Even in a women’s prison, they don’t like ex-cops.”

The two of them sat and looked at each other for a long moment, and then Indie closed the file and set it beside her computer. “It’s almost 12:30,” she said. “You want some lunch?”

Sam nodded, and Indie busied herself with making sandwiches. Sam sat at the table and watched her, grinning at the way she waddled around the kitchen. Her due date was only two weeks away, and she had told him often over the last month that she was certainly ready for the baby to get out of her.

Mackenzie was at school, so it was just the two of them. Indie set a plate with two roast beef sandwiches at each of their places, then got them each a soft drink from the refrigerator. As she eased herself down into the chair, her own phone rang. The ring tone told her that it was her mother calling, and her eyes flicked to Sam.

“Hello, Mom,” she said as she answered the phone.

“Hey, honey. Um, I hope this isn’t a bad time to call, but is Sam around?”Indie rolled her eyes at Sam. “Yeah, he’s right here,” she said. “Why?”

“Well,” her mother said, “it’s—okay, it’s Beauregard. He wants me to give Sam a message again.”Indie’s mother, Kim, had for years believed she was haunted by the ghost of a Civil War soldier named Beauregard who had the annoying habit of making obscure predictions about the future which often turned out to be correct. On several occasions, his cryptic comments had helped Sam figure out how to solve a case, and had even saved his life more than once.

Recently, however, it turned out that Beauregard was actually an ancestor of Kim’s, one that she had heard stories of many times when she was a very small girl. The general consensus of belief since then was that it was Kim who was capable of seeing the future, but that she hid that fact from herself by creating Beauregard as a separate personality. Sam had expected Beauregard to disappear once the truth came out, but the confounded old soldier seemed determined to stick around and keep interjecting himself into Sam’s cases.

Indie grinned and passed the phone to Sam.

“Hello, Kim,” he said. “What does Beauregard want now?”

“He said to tell you that your new case is probably more dangerous than any you’ve ever had. I’m supposed to say this exactly: ‘You already know that people are not always who they seem to be, but sometimes who they seem to be is not who they are. You will find the killer when you know who everyone is.’ Does that make any sense, Sam?”

Sam’s eyes were wide and his mouth was hanging open. “Not even a little bit,” he said, “but when did that ever stop Beauregard? I don’t suppose he wants to clarify any of that for me, does he?”

“Sorry, Sam,” Kim said. “That’s all he gave me, and he says he can’t see anything else at the moment.”

Sam shook his head. “Well, I’ll hang onto it and see if it helps. Tell the old booger I said thank you.”

He handed the phone back to Indie, and she put it to her ear but her mother had already hung up. She laid the phone down on the table and looked at Sam quizzically. “Okay, give. What did he say?”

“Something about people not always being who they seem to be,” Sam said. “Like I didn’t know that already.” He picked up a sandwich and took a bite, and Indie took the cue to just let him eat in silence.

When they finished eating, Sam kissed Indie goodbye and headed down toward the courthouse. The arraignment was set for two, but he had known them to start early and didn’t want to take a chance on missing anything. He arrived with twenty minutes to spare and found the courtroom only a moment later, then managed to find a seat in the front row of the nearly half full gallery, just behind the defense table.

The judge on the bench was dispensing with a few other cases, mostly minor offenses that would be settled by plea-bargain long before they ever got to court. Sam watched quietly as a couple of drug dealers and a shoplifter entered their initial pleas of not guilty and waited for the judge to set bail.

Once those cases were dealt with, the judge returned to his chambers and several people left the gallery while a few others came in. Sam saw Carol Spencer enter the courtroom and waved, and she waved back as she went directly to her chair at the defense table. She sat down and turned toward Sam, who leaned against the rail so that they could talk quietly.

“You got anything new for me?” Carol asked.

“Nothing yet,” Sam replied. “I talked to Barnhart, and he says Rivers only got the assignment because other detectives are out sick. According to him, the reason they’re pushing so hard right now is because they don’t want to give the public any impression that the department is trying to cover this up. He actually tried to tell me that if she’s innocent, she doesn’t need to worry.”

“Yeah, the badges always say that. I put that one right up there with ‘the check is in the mail.’ In my own experience, being innocent has absolutely nothing to do with what happens in court.” She winked at him. “Unless you got me for an attorney, that is.”

“Well, they sure seem to be trying to rush this,” Sam said. “That surprises me a bit, because they can’t possibly have any real foundation for a case.”

Carol grimaced. “You’d be surprised. They managed to recover the bullets that killed the victim, and preliminary ballistics says they came from Karen’s gun. The gun has her fingerprints on it in spots, but other parts seem to be wiped clean. The biggest problem is that they now claim they’ve got a witness who actually saw the shooting. Unfortunately, this is just an arraignment. We don’t get to see or confront any witnesses at this point.”

“Yeah, I know. So, you don’t expect any surprises today, then?”

“We’ll see. I wouldn’t have expected to even be in arraignment this quickly, so that’s one surprise already.”

Karen Parks was led in a moment later, dressed in the orange jumpsuit that was common to felony prisoners in many jails, with her wrists and ankles shackled to a chain around her waist. She spotted Rivers as he entered from the side of the courtroom with the DA, and Sam thought of the old expression about, “If looks could kill…”

Karen spotted Sam and tried to give him a grin, but it was obvious that she was angry. The bailiff led her to the defense table and removed her shackles as she took a seat beside Carol. She started to turn around to speak to Sam, but Carol put a hand on her arm. “Don’t,” she said. “You’re not allowed to talk to anyone at the moment.”

Karen glared at her. “You think I care?” She turned to Sam. “Any new developments?”

Sam shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not yet. I spoke with Melinda, and I’m fairly sure she didn’t have anything to do with it. I tried to track down her sister, Samantha, but she was released from an institution several months back and the only trace of her since then is a couple of minor arrests. No one seems to have seen anything of her in the last six months, but I’m still looking.”

She scowled. “Check out those punks that were at the apartment building. The only one I know of is Snake, but there were about a dozen involved in pushing me around. One of them had to be the person who took my gun. I just feel stupid for not realizing…”

“All rise,” the bailiff announced. “The Second Judicial District Criminal Court of Denver County is now in session, Honorable William Charleston presiding.”

The judge entered the courtroom and took his seat behind the bench. “Be seated,” he said. “We are meeting for advisement hearing in the matter of State versus Karen Parks, concerning a charge of first-degree murder. Is the defendant present in the courtroom?”

Carol rose to her feet. “She is, Your Honor.”

“Let the record show that the defendant is present, and is represented by her counsel, attorney Carol Spencer. Ms. Parks, please stand.” He paused while Karen got to her feet and faced the bench. “You are in fact Karen Parks?”

“I am,” Karen said.

The judge picked up some papers and handed them to the bailiff, who immediately walked over to hand them to Karen.

“Ms. Parks, the bailiff has just provided you with a copy of the complaint entered by the district attorney in District Court today. This complaint contains certain charges and particulars which the district attorney states are relevant to certain crimes, and that he has reason to believe that you are the perpetrator of these crimes. Do you need a moment to look them over?”

“No, thank you.”

“Very well. Ms. Parks, the state has filed a complaint with this court charging you with the crime of first-degree murder, stating that on this date you did approach one Daniel Samara with the intent of taking his life, and that you did in fact use a police issue weapon to fire three shots in a successful attempt to kill Mr. Samara. The state further alleges that you thereby abused your authority as a law enforcement officer employed by the city of Denver, and employed your position as part of your plan to murder the victim. Do you understand the charges against you?”

“I do,” Karen said. She cast a glance at Rivers, but then looked back at the judge.

“Ms. Spencer, is your client prepared to enter a plea at this time?”

“She is, Your Honor,” Carol said. “My client pleads not guilty to all charges and particulars.”

The judge nodded. “Because of the sensational nature of this case and the fact that police abuse of authority has become something of a serious issue throughout this entire country, I’m going to require a dispositional hearing to determine whether there is genuine probable cause to believe that Ms. Parks committed the offenses outlined in the complaint, and I’m going to set this hearing for three days hence and nine o’clock in the morning. I thereby instruct both the state and the defense to be prepared to produce any evidence or witnesses which will speak to the issue of probable cause. We will now move to the matter of bail. Ms. Spencer, I’m assuming you want to seek bail for your client?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Carol said. “Your Honor, my client has been a Denver police officer and police detective for more than twelve years, and has always been known as a pillar of our community. She is a mother of teenagers who need her, and is quite certain that she will be exonerated of all charges, and so does not pose any type of flight risk. I ask that she be released on her own recognizance at this time.”

“I’m not sure I can go along with that,” the judge said, “but let’s hear from the district attorney. Mr. Burton?”

Will Burton was the deputy DA, and Sam had dealt with him in the past. He had been the prosecutor when Sam was charged with murder almost a year and a half earlier, and while he had gone after Sam like a pitbull, he had also proven to be fair and open-minded when evidence clearing Sam came to light.

“Your Honor, the state concedes that Ms. Parks has been an exemplary police officer until this point, but the very nature of the charges against her make flight a genuine possibility. With a charge of first-degree murder, I’m afraid I have to ask the court to deny bail.”

The judge actually grinned. “I’m not going that far, either,” he said. “However, I have to agree that the charges are quite serious and that the defendant would not be the first person to decide that taking off and starting over somewhere else was preferable to risking conviction in prison. For that reason, I’m going to set bail in the amount of one million dollars, which can be posted in cash or securities. Are there any other matters which need to be brought before the court in this hearing?”

Both the DA and Carol agreed that there were no further matters, so the judge dismissed. The bailiff required everyone to stand while the judge left the courtroom, and then a deputy approached Karen with the shackles again.

She turned around and looked at Sam. “I don’t have a million dollars,” she said. “Hell, my house is only worth about…”

“I’ll see what I can do about bail,” Sam said. “Don’t worry about it, let me handle it.”

Both Carol and Karen looked at him with their eyes wide. “The PI business must pay a lot better than I ever believed,” Karen said. “Sam, sitting in jail a few days isn’t going to hurt me, and they’ve got me off in a little room of my own, so it’s not like I’m in any danger. Don’t worry about bailing me out, just get out there and find out who really killed that son of a bitch.”

“It’s worth a try,” Sam said. “I know a few bondsmen, let me see what I can do.”

“Sam, I’m serious, don’t worry about it,” Karen said. “You could go by and make sure the kids are all right. They’re teenagers, so they don’t need a babysitter, but you could let them know what’s going on if you would. They should be home around three thirty.”

Sam sighed. “Okay,” he said. “No problem, I can do that. Is there anything you need?”

She grinned at him. “Yeah,” she said. “I need you to get out there and find the killer. Sam, nobody else is even going to try.”

The deputy took Karen by the arm and had her sit on the table while he shackled her again, and then they left the courtroom. Carol had stood by until they were gone, but then she turned to Sam.

“She’s right, you know,” she said. “This case has too many possible political implications. The governor has ordered a crackdown on police brutality, which the prosecutors translate to mean they should try to hang any cop who’s even accused of excessive force. If you can’t find evidence that genuinely points to someone else, she’s looking at life.”

“I know,” Sam said. He turned without a word and walked out of the courtroom, then left the building and got into his Corvette.

Among the things that could be considered as evidence in the case of a death caused by gunshots is the angle of the wounds. Karen Parks stood only five foot four, but the file had said Digger Samara was almost 6 foot three. To Sam, this meant that it was likely any shots she fired at him would either strike him low in the abdomen or be aimed upward. He started the car and headed toward the Medical Examiner’s Office, which was less than a mile away.

The drive took him three minutes, mostly because of traffic lights that seemed to be conspiring against him. When he arrived and parked in front of the building, he took his cane and hobbled inside, where a receptionist looked up at him with a smile.

“Hi,” she said. “Can I help you?”

Sam showed her his ID. “I’m Sam Prichard, private eye. I’d like to speak with the medical examiner about a body that was brought in this morning. The victim was Daniel Samara, gunshot wounds.”

The receptionist nodded. “That would be Jasper Hartley,” she said. “He’s actually examining the body now, so it might be a little while before he’s free.”

Sam smiled at her. “I used to be a homicide detective,” he said. “Do you think he’d mind if I join him?”

She shrugged, with a look that indicated Sam was braver than she was. “Down that hall, through the double doors and then the second door on the left.”

Sam nodded and turned in the direction she’d indicated. A moment later, he tapped on the door to the examination room and saw Hartley wave him in through the small window.

Sam held out his ID. “Doctor Hartley? I’m Sam Prichard, a private investigator. I’m working on a case involving the victim you’re looking at. Mind if I stand in?”

Hartley looked at him with a squint. “Prichard? Didn’t you used to be with homicide?”

Sam grinned. “Yes, I was,” he said, “but that was a few years back. Did we meet back then?”

“Yep. I was brand-new back then, but you stood in on a couple of my autopsies. I thought you looked familiar when I saw you through the window. Sure, come on in. Just hope you haven’t had lunch yet.”

“I’ll be fine,” Sam said as he followed the doctor in to the examination table. The body lay on it face up, and Sam’s first reaction was surprise to see that Samara’s face was almost completely obliterated. “Wow,” he said. “That’s a lot of damage.”

“Not so much,” Hartley said. “The victim was shot three times. The first shot hit him in the outer right chest area, shattered a rib and passed on through. At that point, I’m assuming he turned around, maybe tried to run, because the second bullet entered his back just below his left shoulder blade and exited just below the left nipple. The third shot probably caught him as he was falling from that wound and entered just above the base of his skull, and blew off most of his face on its way out.”

Sam looked at the wounds on the torso. The one Hartley had described as the first shot was fairly small, just an entry hole, but the other one was a gaping hole about two inches across. He couldn’t see the entry wound on the back of the head, but knew that it would probably be just a small hole.

“What do you think about the angle of attack?” Sam asked. “Can you determine the height of the shooter?”

Hartley looked at him. “Why? Don’t they already know who it is?”

“They’ve arrested a Denver police detective for this,” Sam said, “and she happens to be a former partner of mine. There’s absolutely no way in the world I believe she murdered this man, so I’m looking for any evidence that might back up her claim of innocence.”

Hartley nodded and looked back at the body. “The first shot entered the body fairly level, approximately four feet four inches above the floor. The second shot entered a few inches higher at four feet and eight inches, and was angled slightly upward. The third shot entered at five feet and seven inches and exited at approximately five feet and nine inches, so that angle was upward also. Based on those angles and the powder burns on the body, I would estimate the shooter to be between five feet three inches and five feet nine inches tall.” He looked at Sam. “Does that help any?”

Sam scowled. “Not really. The detective who was charged stands five foot four. I was genuinely hoping the shooter was considerably taller.”

Hartley shrugged. “All I can do is give you the facts,” he said. “Cause of death in this case was the gunshot to the head; the other two wounds were serious, but not necessarily terminal. If medical care had gotten to him before the headshot, he probably would’ve survived.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, I can understand that. Doc, is there anything else about the victim that might seem unusual or odd?”

“Unusual? Not that I’m actually aware of. It’ll be a day or so before I get back the toxicology report, we’re looking for drugs in the system, of course. Fingerprints were taken earlier, but it turns out they don’t seem to be on file, anywhere, so I’m supposed to try to find some other way of confirming the identity. He didn’t have any kind of ID on him, but the police have a name they want me to confirm. This guy had a decent set of teeth before most of them were blown out of his mouth, but we haven’t been able to locate any kind of dental records on him. They’re still searching for medical records, something that might indicate an identifiable old injury.”

Sam looked down at the body on the table and Beauregard’s odd message came to mind: You already know that people are not always who they seem to be, but sometimes who they seem to be is not who they are. You will find the killer when you know who everyone is.

“Doctor Hartley,” Sam said, “I may be getting back to you with more questions.”

7

Sam left the building and got into his car, heading directly to Karen’s house. He actually arrived a few minutes before the kids got home, so he sat on the front porch swing and waited, and suddenly realized that he should have grabbed a warmer jacket. The last few days had been surprisingly warm for Denver in December, but it was quite obvious that a cold front was moving in.

He was only there for a couple of minutes when he heard an engine approaching, and looked to see David’s 1967 Chevy pickup cruise down the street and turn into the driveway. David Senior, his father, had been a detective on the Denver police force with Sam and Karen, and had died a few years ago while trying to arrest a murder suspect. Sam had been the one to bring the killer to justice, and it had resulted in his becoming like a “favorite uncle” to these kids.

David hopped out of the driver’s door while his sister, Katie, got out of the passenger side. They had almost made it to the stairs by the time they realized Sam was sitting there, and it was Katie who froze and looked at him with dread in her eyes.

“Sam?” Katie asked. “Where’s Mom?”

“She’s going to be okay,” Sam began, and then cursed himself. Those were the very words often used to notify family members that a police officer had been wounded in the line of duty. “I mean, she’s okay, she’s not hurt, but there is a bit of a problem. I’m afraid your mother has been arrested for murder, and I’m…”

“She’s been what?” David demanded. “Sam, you’ve got to be kidding.”

“I wish I was, buddy,” Sam said. “She went after a suspect in an old murder case this morning, and somehow her gun was used by someone else to kill the man. Right now, the evidence is all pointing at her, but that’s why she came to me. I’m on the case, and I’m going to find out who really killed the man.”

Katie looked at her brother for a moment, then turned back to Sam. “Okay, now tell us straight. How bad is this?”

“Kids, I’m not going to lie to you, it looks bad. Right now, all of the evidence they have points to your mom, and they’ve even got a witness who’s willing to swear they saw her do it. She tells me she didn’t, and that’s good enough for me. I’m working the case and looking for leads, and I’ll find them. She just asked me to come by and let you know what’s going on, so you don’t panic. She says you’re old enough to take care of yourselves for a few days, and if this drags out too long you can always come stay with me and my family.”

“We’ll be okay here,” David said. “I’m eighteen, now, so I can take care of Katie for a while. I just want to know if there’s anything I can do to help you?”

Sam shook his head. “Right now, I’d have to say no. We know that we’re dealing with a killer, so I don’t want to take any chance of you kids ending up in the line of fire. What you need to do is keep going to school, just act like everything is fine. If anybody contacts you or gives you any problem, you call me immediately. You both have my number, right?”

“Yeah,” Katie said. “Mom made us put it in our phones, just in case anything were to happen to her. Sam, do you really think you can find out who did it?”

“Yes, I do. I’ve got a pretty good track record when it comes to solving my cases, and I give you my word that I won’t let up until I know the truth. There’s a killer out there somewhere, and I’m going to find him. That’s all there is to it.”

Sam made sure the kids had enough money to carry them for a few days, then promised to keep in touch and let them know about any progress he made. He hugged them both and then got back into his car.

His next move, he figured, would be to visit the scene of the crime. He remembered the address from the file and posted into his GPS, then headed for LoDo.

LoDo is the name given to the lower downtown neighborhood where parts of the criminal element tended to settle. Denver was not known for a lot of gang activity, but most of what there was could be found in LoDo. Sam figured that would be the reason for Samara returning to the area when he came back to Denver, and he wanted to find out just what the man had been doing before he died.

The building was not terribly old, but it wasn’t in very good shape. There were minor amounts of graffiti on the walls, mostly spray-painted images of cartoonish devils, the common sign indicating the presence of the Denver Devils street gang. The Devils were a local gang, and apparently not affiliated with any of the international and national gangs who also had a presence in the city. They were apparently tolerated by the bigger gangs because their activities were considered minor; they were involved in marijuana and black-market liquor distribution, but avoided any dealings with harder drugs, firearms and such.

This is not to say that they were not a criminal element, however. The Devils had proven quite resourceful at protecting their turf, even against the bigger gangs. Their leader, known simply as “Snake,” made a point of recruiting young returning soldiers, and utilizing their combat skills effectively. The Denver PD Gang Unit had several cases pending against them, but found it difficult to make an arrest, or to get a conviction when one was made. Devils members always seemed to have airtight alibis.

Sam parked the Corvette in front of the building, where a number of Devils seemed to be gathered. A couple of them started walking toward the car, and Sam grinned at them.

“You guys like my Corvette?”

“Yeah, man,” one young man said. “That’s a sweet ride. You might not want to park it here, though, it might not be there when you come back.”

Sam shrugged, but kept grinning. “Yeah, it might not be,” he said. “But I know what each and every one of you guys looks like, so guess who I’ll be shooting if it’s gone.” He held out his jacket so they could see the big Glock in the holster clipped to his belt.

The youngster eyed him coolly, but made a point of stepping back a couple of feet. Sam pulled out his ID and held it up so that most of them could see it.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” he said. “I’m a private investigator, and I’m trying to find out what happened here this morning. See, the cops say that one of their own detectives murdered a guy, but I don’t buy it. What I might buy is some real information about what actually happened. Anybody interested in taking my money?”

“Hey, we might take it,” said a man in his twenties. The guy was covered with tattoos that went all the way up his face and over the top of his shaven head. “That don’t mean we’re going to give you anything in return, though.”

Sam waggled a hand as if to say things could go either way. “That’s been tried,” he said. “If you want to see how it worked out for the guy who tried it, I can give you the address of the cemetery. Now, all I want to know is what really happened. Unless one of you guys is the killer, I’m not interested in causing you any problems or trying to take you to jail. To be honest, everything I’ve heard about the Devils says you’re probably the good guys in some cases. Why would I want to interfere with that?”

“That’s cool, man,” said another, “but we ain’t no snitches.”

Sam nodded. “Okay, no problem. I’m just going to go inside and visit with a few of the people who live here. Oh, and I expect my car to be sitting where it is when I come back down.”

He leaned on his cane and started walking toward the door, but suddenly a half dozen of the Devils stepped into his way. Sam shook his head.

“Are we going to have to do this the hard way?” he asked. “All I want to do is talk to a few folks. Is that really such a big problem for you guys?”

“Hey,” said the tattooed man. “It’s like you said, Dick, we the good guys. Some of our people live up there, we don’t want you to hassle them. Dig?”

“Sure, I get it,” Sam said. “But how do you know somebody up there might not want the money I’m offering? I mean, looks to me like there’s probably quite a few people who live here who could use an extra couple hundred dollars.”

A few of the men seemed suddenly interested at the mention of the word “hundred,” and Sam reached into a pocket and pulled out a couple of hundred dollar bills. He held them up for everyone to see. “All I want is to talk to whoever was close to the apartment where Digger was killed. That’s all I need. Anybody want to collect this reward for showing me where to find them?”

A big man who had been sitting on the steps of the building stood up. “That’s all you want? Just to talk to somebody up there?”

“That’s all,” Sam replied.

The guy looked at him for a minute, then motioned for Sam to follow him. The rest of the Devils got out of the way and let him through. “I’m Snake,” the big guy said. “There was two people close by when it happened. One of them says he saw that lady detective shoot the guy, but I don’t know if he’s telling the truth. The other one saw her bending over the guy after he was already shot. Come on, I’ll introduce you to both of them.”

Sam held out the two bills and Snake took them from his hand and shoved them into a pocket. He led the way into the building and up a flight of stairs to the second floor, then down the hall toward a door marked with crime scene tape. He turned to the last door on the right before the one that was sealed and knocked on it.

A young woman who was obviously well along in a family way opened the door and looked out. “Nikki,” Snake said, “this guy wants to know what you saw. He’s a private detective, he’s trying to prove that lady cop didn’t kill Digger.”

The girl held the door open and Sam followed Snake inside, then took a seat at her kitchen table when Snake pointed at it. Nikki closed the door and then took another chair.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told the police,” she said. “I heard shooting, but I was afraid to come out at first. I waited a couple minutes, maybe, to see if there was more shooting, then I opened the door and looked out into the hall. I didn’t see nobody, so I went out and looked in the apartment next door, because that’s where it sounded like the shooting was. I saw the guy who was living there laying on the floor and a lot of blood, and then I saw that lady cop. She was down on one knee and just looking at him. I thought she must have killed him, and I guess I started screaming.”

Sam nodded. “Thank you, Nikki,” he said. “Can I ask you a couple of questions about it?”

Nikki shrugged. “Sure, yeah, I guess.”

“When you saw Detective Parks bending over the body, did you see a gun in her hand?”

The girl shook her head. “No, she didn’t have no gun.”

“Was there anybody else in the room with her?”

Nikki narrowed her eyes and thought. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t remember seeing anybody else in there.”

Sam stared at the girl for a moment, and the thought crossed his mind that she looked a little bit familiar, but he couldn’t place where he might’ve seen her before. “Nikki, did you know Mr. Samara? The man who was shot?”

Nikki looked at him for a second, then slowly shook her head. “No, was that his name? I didn’t know him, he just moved in a few days ago.”

“Was he alone when he moved in? Did he have anybody living with him?”

She shrugged. “There was another guy staying there with him,” she said. “I don’t know who he was, but he was in and out. I only saw him a few times, and I don’t think I ever spoke to him.”

Sam turned to Snake. “I don’t suppose you would know who he was?”

Snake stared into his eyes for a couple of seconds, then shrugged his own shoulders. “Guy’s name was Zeno, that’s all I knew. Big guy, late forties, brown hair. I never seen him around here before.”

“When was the last time he was seen? Was he here this morning, when this happened?”

Snake shrugged again. “I don’t know, not for sure. There were a lot of people around this morning when that cop showed up. I guess he could have been in the crowd.”

“But you haven’t seen him since then?”

“He hasn’t been around today,” Snake said. “Least ways, I haven’t seen him.”

“And you probably wouldn’t have any idea where he might’ve gone?”

Snake shook his head. “People come here, they leave. Most of us who live here try to avoid new people sticking around. We got our own people we trust, but new people tend to bring problems.”

Sam gave Nikki one of his business cards. “Nikki, if you think of anything else you think I might need to know, please give me a call.” He glanced around the room and saw that there didn’t seem to be much in the way of baby needs, and looked at her again. “My wife is expecting a baby, too. How soon are you due?”

“Couple weeks,” she said. “Why?”

“You’re living in a two room apartment, but I don’t see any of the things you’re going to need when the baby comes. If I give you some money, can you use it for that purpose?”

Her eyes went wide, but she shook her head. “I don’t need no charity,” she said.

“It’s not charity,” Sam said. “You can ask Snake, I said I would pay for the information you gave me.” He reached into his pocket and peeled off four more of his hundred dollar bills and laid them on the table. He looked at Snake. “Didn’t I say that?”

Snake stared into his eyes for another second, then looked at Nikki and smiled. “He sure did,” he said. “That’s why I brought him up here to you. I figured you could use the money.”

Nikki looked hungrily at the money on the table, then looked up at Snake again. “This is for real?”

“Hell, yeah,” Snake said. “He said he’d pay, I brought him up to you. Those stinking cops didn’t offer to pay you, did they? You stood up and did the right thing, told them what you saw, I figured you deserve a reward.”

Sam smiled and got to his feet. “Like I said, Nikki, just give me a call if you think of anything else. I’m trying to prove my friend, Detective Parks, didn’t murder this man. Anything you can tell me is worth something to me.”

He looked at Snake, who had remained standing, and the big man opened the apartment door. Sam stepped out and Snake followed, shutting the door behind him.

“That was pretty cool, Dick,” he said. “Come on, I’ll show you the other guy.” He turned and walked past the sealed door to another one two doors past it, then knocked.

A wiry, older man opened it and smiled when he saw Snake. “Hey, dude,” he said, and Sam could hear the long-term effects of alcoholism in his voice. “What’s shakin’?”

Snake pointed at Sam. “This is a private dick, Booker,” he said. “He wants to hear what you told the cops.”

Booker looked at Sam for a moment, then licked his lips and shrugged. “You mean, about seeing that cop kill the guy down the hall? Yeah, I seen it. I was walking down the hall when she knocked on the door, and as soon as he answered the door she pulled out a gun and went bang, bang, bang. Shot him three times, boom, boom, boom, then she turned around and pointed that gun at me and I ran back in here and slammed the door. I didn’t want to get killed, know what I mean?”

“Sure, I understand,” Sam said. “So, that’s what you saw, right? You saw her knock on the door and start shooting?”

Booker nodded vigorously. “Yep, that’s exactly what I saw. Bang, bang, bang, just like that.”

Sam nodded. “Well, Booker, I sure appreciate your help. You have a good day, all right?”

Booker thanked Sam and shut his door without another word. Sam glanced at Snake, who was grinning.

“He’s full of shit, isn’t he?” Snake asked.

“I think so,” Sam said. “What he’s saying doesn’t seem to fit with what I’ve heard about the shooting.” He turned and walked back toward the door with the crime scene tape stretched across it, then looked the door over. After a couple of seconds, he pointed to the wood work beside the doorknob. “Looks to me like the door might have been kicked in,” he said, and then he grinned. “I realize you’ve probably never had any kind of experience with that sort of thing, but doesn’t it look that way to you?”

Snake looked closely, then nodded. “Yeah, I’d say it does.” He reached between the strips of tape and grasped the doorknob, gave it a turn and pushed the door open. “You want to look inside?”

Sam grinned. “Can’t,” he said. “The police sealed the door with crime scene tape to keep everyone out.”

Snake grabbed the tape and ripped it down. He wadded it up quickly into a ball, then tossed it down the hallway toward the stairs. “What tape?”

The two of them stepped inside and Sam saw the bloodstains where Samara’s body had fallen. They were at least six feet into the second room, which put them more than fifteen feet from the door. Booker had definitely been full of it.

“If Karen had shot him at the door, at least some of the blood would be in the first room. Whoever shot this man was standing inside the apartment with him at the time.”

Snake nodded. “Looks that way to me, too,” he said, “but I ain’t no private eye.” He pointed at an open closet near the back of the room. “That’s where they found the gun. It was up on the shelf, shoved to the back.”

Sam walked over and looked into the closet. The shelf Snake referred to was only about five feet high, so just about anyone could have seen the gun laying on it. “Do you know if the closet was open when they found it?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Snake said. “I heard maybe somebody opened it and that’s when they saw the gun.” He looked at Sam for a couple of seconds. “Any of this going to help that lady cop?”

Sam shook his head. “Not much,” he said. “They claim they have a witness who saw the shooting, but if it’s Booker, he’s never going to hold up on the witness stand. Would you know of anybody else who might’ve seen or heard anything that might help?”

Snake chewed on his bottom lip for a couple of seconds, then shook his head. “No, not at the moment. Give me one of your cards, though, and I’ll think about it.” He shrugged. “Never know, I might even ask around, see what I can find out.” He gave Sam a look that seemed to contain a measure of respect. “I appreciate what you did for Nikki,” he said. “She’s had it rough, but she’s a good girl. She had been using drugs a lot, but when she found out she was knocked up, she just quit. That’s not easy to do, but she wants to do right by that baby. You helped her out a lot today.”

Sam handed him a card as they left the apartment, and Snake pulled the door shut behind them. The two of them walked down the stairs together and out the front door. The Corvette was right where Sam had left it, and seemed to be untouched.

Sam turned to Snake. “I appreciate your help,” he said. “Let me know if you come across anything else, okay?”

Snake nodded, but didn’t say anything. Sam turned away and got back into the car, started it up and drove away.

8

A glance at the clock told Sam that it was almost 5, so he took out his phone and dialed Carol Spencer. “It’s Sam,” he said when she answered. “I think I found their so-called eyewitness. Seems to be an old drunk called Booker. I spoke with him, and he claims he saw Karen knock on Samara’s door, then open fire as soon as it was opened. That’s completely inconsistent with the crime scene. The blood on the floor is too far inside the apartment.”

“I’m not even going to ask how you got a look at the crime scene,” Carol said. “You finding anything else?”

“Just a couple of odd things. I went out to the Medical Examiner’s Office and visited with Doctor Hartley, who was doing the autopsy on Samara. I was hoping the angle of the gunshots would have indicated someone taller than Karen, or maybe left-handed or something, but they aren’t conclusive in any direction. The only unusual thing was when he said they ran the prints on the body, but didn’t come back with anything. Samara has been arrested numerous times, his prints should be on file. However, I just learned that there was another man with Samara when he moved into the apartment a few days ago. The guy was only known as Zeno, and nobody knows where he is today, but the general description I got of him could also fit Samara. I’m starting to wonder if the victim was really him.”

“Good grief, Sam,” Carol said. “If it’s not, that would almost certainly throw motive out the window.”

“I thought of that,” Sam said, “but if the guy looked enough like Samara already, the DA would probably just say she only shot the wrong guy. I’m going to have Indie do some checking on this, see if we can figure out who this Zeno character might be. Of course, if he was hanging around Samara, you’d expect his fingerprints to be on file somewhere, as well, though, so there still should be some kind of an identification coming back.”

“Good point. Keep me posted, will you, Sam? If it turns out the victim isn’t who they think it is, there’s a good possibility I can use that.”

“I’ll let you know if I find out anything more. If you talk to Karen, tell her I’m on this.”

He ended the call and dropped the phone back into his pocket, then pointed the car toward home.

Sam pulled the Corvette into the garage and entered the house through his office. The hallway led to the kitchen, and he found Indie busy making dinner.

“Hey, babe,” she said with a smile. She was using a hand mixer on what appeared to be mashed potatoes, so he leaned close to give her a kiss.

“Hey, yourself,” he said. He opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of root beer, then sat down at the table. “How was your day?”

“Ha, don’t get me started,” Indie said. “I decided to take it easy for a little while and sat down to watch some TV, and I made myself a cup of tea. You know me, I was holding it on this huge belly of mine, when your baby decided it was time to play football. Kicked the cup right out of my hand, and I ended up wearing most of it. I had to get a shower before I could go and pick up Kenzie from school.” She turned around and looked at him, and scowled when she saw him trying to hold back a chuckle. “It’s not funny, Sam. The tea was hot, for one thing, and sticky.”

“Well, the sticky part comes from all the sugar you add,” Sam said, grinning.

“Shut up, I need it,” she replied. “This kid is sapping all my energy. And, oh, Kenzie gets to play Mrs. Santa Claus in the Christmas program. She’s all excited about it, so be ready when she realizes you’re home.”

Sam started to speak, but what came out of his mouth was a loud, “Ow!” His right leg jerked, and Kenzie’s cat, Samson, went tumbling across the kitchen floor. “Samson! You keep that up, and I’m having you declawed.” He looked up at Indie. “Silly cat just dug all his claws into my leg.”

“Probably thought it was a tree,” Indie said, her own chuckle paying him back for the grin.

Kenzie heard him yell, so she came running in from the living room. “Daddy! Daddy, I get to be Mrs. Santa!”

Sam held out his hands and Kenzie leapt up into his lap. “You do? Wow, that’s awesome. I can’t wait to watch.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna be fun. I get to wear a wig, so I’ll look old like you.”

Indie burst out laughing while she dropped the beaters into the sink. “Kenzie,” he said, “Daddy isn’t that old.”

The little girl looked at her, her eyes full of innocence. “He’s a lot older than me.”

Sam agreed that she was right, and Indie prepared to serve dinner. She had stuffed some of the thickest porkchops Sam had ever seen, then baked them in the oven while she heated up green beans and made the mashed potatoes. With the potatoes now nice and fluffy, it took only a few minutes to set their plates on the table.

Once they were seated, Kenzie said grace and they dug in. Sam complimented his wife on her cooking for about the thousandth time, and they talked about the upcoming Christmas program, but Sam held back on discussing the case until they were finished and Kenzie was back to watching TV.

With the dishes in the dishwasher and the leftovers tucked safely into the refrigerator, Indie rejoined Sam at the table. “Okay, so tell me what’s going on with Karen,” she said.

“Well, a couple things I want you to put Herman on. First, I went to see the medical examiner today, just wanted to ask a few questions about the wounds on the body. The ME turned out to be a doctor I’ve met before, and he invited me in while he was finishing the autopsy. It turns out the fatal shot was to the back of the victim’s head, so the exit wound pretty well eliminated his face. They ran the fingerprints, but strangely enough they didn’t come back with an identification. Seems odd to me that a man like Samara wouldn’t have his fingerprints on file, somewhere. Is there any way Herman can check that out?”

Indie smiled at him. “That’s easy,” she said. “I had Herman find everything he could on Daniel ‘Digger’ Samara this afternoon, and I’ve got just about anything we could want. Date of birth, Social Security number, all of it. If he was ever fingerprinted, it will be tied to that information.” She picked up her laptop and set it in front of her, then started tapping away at the keyboard. “Herman has a backdoor into the FBI’s Next Generation Identification database, which has replaced their old fingerprint-only database. It’ll only take a couple of minutes to find out if Samara’s prints were ever submitted to them.” She hit the enter key and watched the screen as lines of code flowed across it, but it was less than a minute later when a half-dozen links suddenly appeared. “Aha,” she said as she clicked the top link. She read through the text that appeared for a moment, then grinned.

“Samara is definitely there,” she said. “Want me to print out his fingerprint card?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, do. This makes me wonder why the police haven’t already checked this way. I can take this back to the ME tomorrow morning and we’ll know pretty quick whether the victim is Samara or not.”

“It’s printing out now,” she said, and then she got up and went to the printer in the dining room. She returned a moment later and handed a sheet of paper to Sam.

The page held a copy of a fingerprint card identified as Samara’s, as well as a photo of the man. Sam folded it up and put it in his pocket.

“Okay, now I wonder if Herman can find anything about known associates of Samara. There’s a guy named Zeno who was with him when he came back to Denver a few days ago, but he seems to have disappeared. The problem is that the description I heard of him today could also match Samara. Think you can find anything?”

Indie was already typing away. “Zeno is an unusual name,” she said. “Sounds like it might be Greek or something. Taking a look now—okay, there are only seven people named Zeno in the entire Denver area, and if I expand that to the state I get twenty-six. Do we know anything else about him?”

“Only that he was pretty big, around Samara’s age, and had brown hair.”

“Okay, that eliminates most of these guys. I’ve got six left, one in Denver and the rest scattered around Colorado. Here’s the one who lives in Denver.” She turned the computer so Sam could see the monitor screen, and he was suddenly looking at a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Daniel Samara.

“I’d bet that’s our guy,” Sam said. “Any chance you can get an address on him?”

“I can get you his brand of underwear, if you want.” She tapped on the keys for a few more seconds, and then her eyes suddenly went wide. “Sam,” she said. “His name is Zeno Markakis, and he’s listed as living about down in LoDo. According to what I’m seeing, he makes his living as a delivery driver. He’s on Facebook, but his page is pretty vague. Doesn’t look like he uses it very much. No police record at all, which does sound strange if he’s hanging out with people like Samara.” She clicked another link, and then another. “I’m seeing something strange,” she said. “This guy looks to be pushing fifty, but if I went by the information on the Internet, I’d say he’s about three years old. There’s absolutely nothing about him that’s older than that.”

Sam chewed the inside of his cheek for a couple of seconds. “It’s probably a fake identity,” he said. “He probably changed his name about three years ago, which would account for not finding anything prior to that time. Any way to check that out?”

“I’ve copied his photo,” Indie said. “Herman is running it through the FBI facial recognition system. That’ll take a couple of hours, probably, but since the FBI now keeps photos of all Americans, even if they’ve never been arrested for anything, he should turn up.”

She pushed the computer away and looked at Sam. “So, what happens if it turns out the body isn’t Samara?”

“I figure the DA would try to claim Karen shot him anyway, mistaken identity. There is no guarantee that it would have any impact on a jury. I still need to find out who really killed the victim, whoever he is, or Karen could be looking at life in prison.”

Indie took her head. “What about her kids?”

“She asked me to go by and let them know what’s happening,” Sam said, “and I did. David is eighteen, so they can stay in the house for now, but if this goes bad they may need our help. They’re both still in high school at the moment, and I don’t know that they can support themselves.”

“We’d be there for them,” Indie said. “I feel sorry for them, I can’t imagine what they must be going through.”

“Well, I’m sure they don’t believe their mother committed murder. David wanted to help me out, but I told him to stay out of it. Last thing I need is for those kids to end up in trouble, or in the line of fire if it turns out the killer is still around.”

“Yeah. Did you learn anything else today?”

Sam told her about visiting the crime scene, and about meeting Snake, Nikki, and Booker. “Nikki is the only credible witness the state has, but she admits readily that she did not see Karen actually kill anyone. She only saw her kneeling over the body, which is exactly the way Karen said it. Booker, on the other hand, is saying that he actually saw Karen knock on Samara’s door, then open fire on whoever answered it. Snake tore down the crime scene tape and opened the door to the apartment so I could go inside, and the bloodstains alone are enough to discredit Booker.”

Indie gave a shiver. “Snake, Booker? Those sound like names out of some bad detective novel. Real criminal type names.”

Sam grinned at her. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said, “but Snake was a surprise. I know he’s the leader of the Devils, so he’s undoubtedly a criminal himself, but he actually seemed concerned about seeing justice done. After Booker told me his story, Snake seemed relieved when I agreed that he’s full of crap. I got the impression that, for some reason, he doesn’t want Karen to be convicted of this crime. Makes me wonder if he knows who the killer is, and is keeping his mouth shut.”

Indie looked at him. “Do you really think so?”

Sam grimaced. “I’m not really sure if I do or not,” he said. “I guess, if I had to put a name to the feeling he gave me, I’d say he thinks Samara—or whoever it was—deserved to die, but he doesn’t seem to want Karen to be in trouble over it. It’s like he might have some idea who did it, but he’s being protective of them.”

The computer suddenly chimed, and Indie jumped. She reached over and pulled it back toward herself, and then her eyes went wide. “Wow, that was fast,” she said. “We got a match on facial recognition for Zeno, but, Sam—things might’ve just gotten a whole lot worse.” She turned the computer so Sam could see the screen.

There on the display was another photo of the same man, but it was the words on the screen that caught Sam’s attention. Zeno Markakis was actually Alexander Kingsley, and had spent the last fourteen years as an undercover agent of the FBI.

“Holy crap,” Sam said. “If that’s him on the slab down at the morgue, this just became a freaking nightmare.”

“No kidding,” Indie said. She pulled the computer back around and started typing again, then got up and went to the printer. She came back a moment later with another sheet of paper showing a fingerprint card. “Alexander Kingsley’s fingerprints. They were not in the usual database, which is why nothing came back when they were run through the system. I got them from his FBI personnel file, instead.” She looked at him sadly. “Sam? What are you going to do if it’s him?”

“I’m going to be calling on an old friend,” Sam said. “For the moment, though, can you get me the number for Doctor Jasper Hartley? He’s the medical examiner I met with today, so his number may be unlisted.”

“Like that would stop Herman,” Indie said with a grin. “Um, you want his home or his cell number?”

Sam opted for the cell number and Indie read it off to him. He dialed it quickly and it was answered only a few seconds later.

“Doctor Hartley.”

“Doc, this is Sam Prichard. Remember me from earlier today?”

“Oh, yes,” Hartley said. “What can I do for you, Sam?”

“Well, first, can you tell me if you ever were able to identify the body we were talking about today?”

“Not as of an hour ago, when I left. Why?”

“I’ve gotten my hands on a copy of Samara’s fingerprints, but I have possible reason to believe that he isn’t the victim. If I’m right, the victim is probably an undercover FBI agent named Alexander Kingsley. I’ve just learned that he was posing as a man named Zeno Markakis and has been hanging around with Samara the last few days.”

Hartley was quiet for a couple of seconds, then came back on the line. “If you’re correct, this is going to cause quite an uproar. Give me an email address. I’m at home, but I can get into my computer at the office remotely and send you the prints we took off the body. Just do me one big favor, and if it turns out you’re correct, let me know first. Okay?”

Sam gave him his email address and promised to let him know as soon as possible what he learned. Indie opened their email program and the message with the attached fingerprint card arrived only a couple of minutes later. She opened the attachment and printed it out, then fetched it and brought it to the kitchen table.

Sam laid all three fingerprint cards down side-by-side, and he and Indie looked at them over together. After only a dozen seconds, Sam shook his head. “This is not good,” he said, and then he looked up at his wife. “Daniel Samara is still alive, and is probably the man who murdered Agent Kingsley.”

Sam called Hartley back. “Doc, I’m afraid I was right. The body you’ve got at the morgue is Special Agent Alexander Kingsley of the FBI. We’ve got to notify the department as well as the FBI, but this falls under your office’s jurisdiction. How do you want to handle it?”

Hartley sighed. “As much as I hate to do it,” he said, “I think we need to do this immediately. Can you come down to my office right away? And bring those fingerprints with you?”

“Yes,” Sam said. “I’ll be there in about forty minutes.”

“Good. I’ll contact the police department and meet you there.”

Sam disconnected and told Indie that he needed to run downtown, then kissed both her and Kenzie and headed out to the Corvette. He opened the garage door, started the car up and backed out, and then closed the garage again before driving away.

He arrived at the Medical Examiner’s Office in time to see Hartley and Detective Rivers, along with three other men and two women, entering the building. He parked the car across the street and hurried to catch up, and then Hartley led all of them down to a small conference room.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I appreciate all of you coming. As I said on the phone, this is a matter of great importance.” He spotted Sam and motioned for him to come to the head of the table beside him. “Some of you know Sam Prichard. He’s a private investigator, formerly a detective with DPD, and he’s working on the murder case that has one of our detectives sitting in jail. He and I were talking earlier today, and it struck him as odd that we hadn’t been able to get a fingerprint match on the victim, so he apparently pulled some strings with somebody and got hold of a couple of fingerprint cards. Sam, you want to tell them what you found?”

Sam took the three sheets of paper out of his pocket and unfolded them, then held two of them up side-by-side. “This is a copy of the fingerprint card of one Daniel Samara, which is who we believed was the victim in this morning’s murder. This second one is the fingerprint card as the prints were taken off of the victim here at the ME’s office. It’s quite obvious, when you get the chance to really look at them, that they are not a match. The victim is not Daniel Samara.”

He shook out the third sheet of paper and held it up. “This is a fingerprint card that I had to go through special channels to get. The fingerprints on this sheet match those taken from the body here, so well that even a layman would be able to spot it. There is virtually no doubt that the victim is the man to whom these prints actually belong, and that happens to be Special Agent Alexander Kingsley of the FBI, who has been in a deep cover assignment for almost the last three years. He has been posing as a minor criminal named Zeno Markakis, who has coincidentally been a compatriot and associate of Daniel Samara. He was last seen in the company of Mr. Samara within the last couple of days, and because he bears a striking resemblance to Samara, his body was mistaken for that of Mr. Samara when it was discovered.”

Rivers was staring at him, and all of the others were talking excitedly. One of the women stepped forward and approached Sam.

“Mr. Prichard? I’m Senior Special Agent Natalie Andrews, from the Denver office of the FBI. May I see those papers?”

Sam handed them over. Natalie looked at them for only a moment, then shook her head and handed them back. “I have to say you’re correct,” she said. “The fingerprints on the body definitely match those of our agent. Can I ask how you were able to identify him, since he was in an undercover operation?”

“If you check my history,” Sam said, “you’ll find that I’ve worked with the Department of Homeland Security in the past. I can still call in the occasional favor, when I need to. Since I was able to determine that Agent Kingsley is in fact deceased, I felt it was necessary to bring that fact to the attention of the medical examiner right away.”

She nodded. “Yes, I agree,” she said. “However, I’d like to keep this out of the press as long as I can. I did not know Agent Kingsley personally. In fact, I didn’t even know he was anywhere in the area. Unfortunately, it now falls to me to deal with the aftermath. I’ll have to find out just what kind of investigation he was involved in before any of this can become public.”

“Well, I don’t plan on talking to the press anytime soon,” Sam said. “However, there is a Denver Police detective sitting in jail for murdering this man, and I’m sure the issue of his identity is going to come up. I can’t keep the information from her attorney.”

“I understand that,” Natalie said. “All I’m asking is that you make it clear to that attorney that this needs to be kept quiet until the FBI can make an official announcement. We have to notify next of kin, find out if other agents were involved in the investigation, that sort of thing.”

“I’ll tell her,” Sam said.

Natalie thanked him and walked over to talk to Hartley, and Rivers took the opportunity to approach Sam. “You think this changes anything?” Rivers asked.

“To me, it does,” Sam replied. “Karen wouldn’t have any reason to murder an FBI agent, now would she?”

Rivers shrugged. “You said yourself the two men looked alike. From what our witness said, she didn’t bother to check and make sure of who she was shooting.”

Sam chuckled. “Oh, yes, you’ve been talking to Booker, haven’t you? I spoke to him. Has it dawned on you that nothing he says makes any sense? From what I understand, the blood patterns in the apartment show clearly that both the shooter and the victim were inside when the shooting occurred. You try to put Booker on the witness stand, he’ll be torn to shreds and you’ll look like an idiot. The man’s an alcoholic, he probably only heard about it and decided to go after his own fifteen minutes of fame. I sincerely doubt he could pick Karen out of a lineup.”

“My witnesses are my business,” Rivers said hotly. “If I catch you tampering with them…”

“Watch it, Rivers,” Sam said suddenly. “I know my job, and there’s nothing that I’ve done that could be considered tampering. Booker was offered the chance tell me exactly what he told you, and he jumped at it. I didn’t even have to ask him about it.” He shook his head. “If it wasn’t for me, you still wouldn’t know who you had for a victim. Unlike you, I actually do my own detective work.”

Sam turned away and walked over to where Hartley was being bombarded with questions. He waved a hand to get everyone’s attention. “Doc, you need me any further tonight?”

Hartley shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I just wanted to thank you for bringing all this to our attention.”

“Okay, then,” Sam said. “I’m going home. You got my number if you need me.”

9

Sam called Carol Spencer on her cell and told her what he learned, then went home and spent the rest of the evening on the couch with Indie laying down on it beside him. She had her head in his lap and pulled his hand onto her bulging belly, and they both laughed every time the baby decided to kick it off.

“Your son thinks he’s a football player,” Indie said.

Sam grinned down at her. “What makes you think it’s a boy? Kenzie has a pretty good kick on her, too, you know.”

“Trust me, it’s a boy. Only a boy could be tearing up my insides this way.” She fought her way to a sitting position. “I will be so glad when he decides to be born. I had completely forgotten how miserable the last month of pregnancy can be.”

“Only a couple more weeks,” Sam said. “It’ll all be over soon enough.”

She turned and glared at him. “Soon enough for you doesn’t mean soon enough for me. You’re not the one who has to jump and run for the bathroom every time this kid kicks your bladder. You’re not the one whose back is hurting every night from carrying this baby hippo around.”

“I’m sorry, babe,” Sam said, “you’re right. Want a backrub?”

A short time later, when they finally went to bed, she got one.

Sam was at the kitchen table the following morning, drinking a cup of coffee, when his phone rang. He picked it up to look at the caller ID and his eyebrows shot upward. “It’s Harry,” he mouthed to Indie, across the table.

“Harry,” he said, “how have you been?”

“I’m doing well, Sam,” the old man said, “and Kathy sends her love.” Harry was a retired secret agent who had recruited Sam into helping with America’s counterterrorism operations on a couple of occasions. Months earlier, Sam had helped him find and reunite with his wife, whom he had thought was dead for more than thirty years. “I’m calling because you have fallen into that proverbial bucket again, and I’ve been handed the task of bringing you up-to-date.”

“It’s funny,” Sam said. “Last night, I was on the verge of calling you, and I bet it’s on the same subject. Are we talking about the dead FBI agent at the local morgue?”

“Indeed we are, Sam, boy,” Harry said. “I’ve just gotten off the phone with one of those young brats I trained twenty years ago who is now working for the FBI and in a management capacity. He briefed me on the situation and asked me to give you a call and do the same. Are you sitting down comfy?”

“Kitchen table, coffee in hand, beautiful wife sitting across from me, daughter safely off to school. About as comfy as I can get.”

“Very good. Now, let us visit the life and times of one Alex Kingsley, until yesterday one of the FBI’s brightest and best. The information I’m about to share with you is considered top-secret, but in light of some of the things Uncle Sam has asked of you in the past, you have already been granted a security clearance considerably higher than that.” He cleared his throat.

“Special Agent Kingsley has been involved in several deep cover operations during his career. He has infiltrated several organizations that presented a threat either to national security or to the American way over the years, but his most recent mission was undoubtedly the most dangerous, as well. I don’t say that simply because he ended up dead, but because he was involved in an attempt to identify certain individuals who have been known to facilitate the movement of terrorists and their matériel into the United States. He entered deep cover almost 3 years ago, taking on the persona of a Greek street thug under the name you discovered, Zeno Markakis. The reason he chose that identity was because there is a mounting pile of evidence indicating that these facilitators are connected to the Greek Mafia and some of the Greek-American criminal organizations here in the U.S. Greek underlings tend to be promoted above any other ethnic groups that get involved in their operations.”

“That makes sense,” Sam said. “He’d be trying to put himself in the path of promotion so that he can learn more about the upper echelon.”

“Exactly. A few months ago, about the time you and I were taking our little jaunt to Florida, Kingsley reported to his superiors that he had found a potential inroad, a way to get a bit more entrenched with the people. What he had to do was get close to a man named Daniel Samara, who had been working the last few years with the Los Angeles Greek mob. Samara had set up sort of an underground railroad, picking up foreign terrorists in Arizona and New Mexico and bringing them to L.A., San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Denver. Kingsley managed to meet up with him somewhere along the line and the two of them hit it off. For the last eight months, they were just about inseparable.”

“Harry, was there any mention of the fact that they looked a lot alike? Same build, same hair, roughly the same age. The people I ran into that had seen Kingsley made a point of mentioning that there were a lot of similarities between the two of them.”

“Actually, yes,” Harry said. “Kingsley and Samara were occasionally referred to as ‘the twins,’ and the more they worked together, the more interchangeable they seemed to be. Just a week ago, Kingsley was sent by Samara to meet with John Prokos, who seems to be the guy in charge of this whole thing. He’s based in Los Angeles, and all the arrangements for bringing terrorists and their toys into the country go through him. Kingsley had never met him before, but Prokos had heard so many good things about him that he requested the meeting. Kingsley picked up fifty thousand dollars in cash while he was there, and a list of times and places where he and Samara would be picking up people and items to bring in.”

“I think I’m starting to get it,” Sam said. “Did Samara have a little jealousy problem?”

“I suspected you might catch that. Yes, the trip caused a lot of friction between the two of them. Up until now, it was Samara who always got the cash and the orders. Letting Kingsley, or Markakis as he knew him, suddenly take the lead didn’t sit well with Samara. Kingsley reported two days ago that it was causing a rift that might interfere with his mission. Unfortunately, his report proved rather prophetic, but the big issue is that Kingsley was never more than a mule. He would often go to pick up the people and things they were bringing in, but he was never allowed to see where they were taken. Samara always handled that alone.”

“What about Samara, now? Does the FBI have any idea where he might be?”

“I’m afraid not. In fact, I was informed this morning that the FBI is going to sit back for right now and see how you handle the situation. Uncle Sam has learned to trust you, Sam, and I was told that orders came down all the way from the Director’s office that the Bureau is to stay out of your way. If you need anything from them, you can call me and I’ll relay it, but of course, you and I know that lovely wife of yours can get you just about anything they’ve got, anyway. Any idea what you’ll do next?”

Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think my next move will be to let Melinda Davis know her father is still alive. After that, I’m going downtown to see if the DA is going to use any common sense. I don’t think he will, simply because Kingsley turning out to be undercover FBI is only going to make this case look even worse. I expect he’ll go right ahead and pursue charges against Karen Parks on the assumption that she shot the wrong man while planning to murder Samara.”

“Sounds like a typical government weasel,” Harry said. “Just let me know if there’s anything I can do for you, Sam, boy.”

“I will, Harry, and thanks.” The line was already dead by the time Sam finished speaking, so he only grinned and dropped the phone into his pocket. He looked up at Indie. “Did you catch all that?”

She nodded. “Most of it, anyway. So, once again you get dragged into the world of terrorists. Sam, do you believe in fate?”

Sam grinned at her. “I believe in us,” he said. “Fate can wait until I’m not so busy.” He leaned forward and started to reach for her, but she pushed his hands away.

“Behave yourself,” she said. “You’ve got work to do and the baby would only throw a fit, anyway. I think you’re right, you should let Melinda know right away, then go find out what’s happening with Karen. Call me let me know, okay?”

Sam let out a sigh and got to his feet. He leaned down and kissed her, promised to call as soon as he knew anything, and headed out to the garage.

Sam pulled up in front of Melinda Davis’ house a half-hour later, and walked up to knock on her door. It opened a moment later, and she smiled at him.

“Mr. Prichard,” she said. “Please come in.”

Sam stepped inside and accepted the chair she offered, but the look on his face must have told her that he didn’t come bearing good news.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Well,” Sam said, “I do have some news, and it’s not good. I found out last night that the man who was killed is not your father.”

Melinda’s face instantly showed panic. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Are you telling me he’s still alive?”

“I’m afraid so. In fact, right now I consider him a prime suspect. The man who was killed, it turns out, was actually an undercover FBI agent who was investigating your father’s involvement in some very serious illegal activity. If he found out about that, it’s quite possible he took advantage of Detective Parks’ arrival yesterday to kill him. The only question is how he got hold of her gun.”

“Oh, dear God. I’ve, I’ve got to call my husband.” She picked up her cell phone from the coffee table and dialed a number quickly. “Tom? Tom, I need you to come home. I just found out my father isn’t dead.”

She listened for a couple of seconds, then said she’d be waiting. She disconnected and put the phone down again, then sat on the couch and looked at Sam. “If he’s still alive,” she said, “he’s going to be looking for me. Oh, God, what am I going to do?”

“Melinda, he probably doesn’t even know you’re in the city,” Sam said. “Why do you think he’ll come looking for you?”

“Because that’s what he does,” she said vehemently. “Whenever he’s in trouble, he goes looking for someone he can use, and if he’s got even the slightest idea that I might be around here, he’ll be looking for me. When Tom gets home, we’re leaving town. We got to go somewhere else, that’s all there is to it. I could not bear it if he found me, I could not stand the thought of him being around me or my baby! He’s a monster, you don’t understand, he destroys everything he touches.”

“If you think that would be best, then I’d say go ahead and go. Just do me a favor and keep my number. If you hear anything, please call me.” He stood to his feet. “I’ve got to go downtown, I’m still working on this case. Believe me when I tell you I’m doing everything I can to find him, because he’s undoubtedly the key to proving Detective Parks is not a murderer. When I find him, I’ll let you know.”

Melinda sat there staring at the coffee table, but she nodded her understanding. Sam got up and let himself out, then got into his car and headed for the DA’s office.

The drive didn’t take long and he parked in the courthouse parking lot. When he entered the DA’s office, the receptionist looked up and smiled.

“Hi,” she said. “Sam Prichard, right?”

Sam grinned at her. “Are you going to tell me my reputation has preceded me?”

“Oh, I’d know you anywhere,” she said. “I follow your wife’s blog, and she has a lot of pictures up there.”

Sam grimaced. “One of these days, I’ve just got to read that thing. Seems like everywhere I go, I run into someone who knows more about it than I do.”

“Oh, don’t be a sour puss,” the girl said. “She’s like Doctor Watson to your Sherlock Holmes. Anyway, what can I do for you?”

“Is Will Burton in?” Sam asked.

“He is, and if you go through that door, you’ll find him in the third office on the right. I’ll let him know you’re coming.” She picked up the phone, and Sam went through the door she’d indicated.

A moment later, the door he was about to knock on opened suddenly and Burton extended a hand. “Sam, come on in,” he said. “I just found out this morning about the victim being an FBI agent. I’m dying to know how you figured that out, can you tell me?”

Sam thought about how Burton would react if he knew Indie was a master hacker. “Sorry, Will, but it involves some of my government sources that I’m not allowed to reveal. I just wanted to check with you and see where we stand on Karen Parks.”

Burton sucked on his teeth. “Well, I can’t say that anything has actually changed. The evidence still points to her being the shooter, and the report that I got this morning says that this Kingsley looked a lot like Mr. Samara, so we’re going with the assumption that it was a case of mistaken identity. That doesn’t change the fact that she seems to have gone there with the intention of committing murder, however, so the fact that the victim was a federal agent only makes this worse for her.”

Sam shook his head in disgust. “Will, you know Karen Parks better than that,” he said. “She’s a decorated officer, and she’s done an incredible job as a detective for the city. Yes, she thought Samara was a piece of crap, but she went there to try to bring him in, not to kill him. She’s already explained that her gun was stolen from her, and the only witness you’ve got is an alcoholic and a liar. How can you possibly believe she is guilty?”

Burton leaned back in his chair and looked at Sam with sadness in his eyes. “I don’t,” he said. “Unfortunately, I don’t get the luxury of deciding whether or not to prosecute. That’s my boss’s decision, and he is determined to show this city that we take even the hint of police brutality seriously. He handed me the job of prosecuting her, and I have to do it to the best of my ability regardless of what I personally may believe.” He leaned forward again suddenly. “That’s why I’m looking at you, Sam Prichard. I need you to find evidence that will get me off this hook, because I’m pretty damned good at what I do. The last thing in the world I want to do is send a good cop to prison, but unless some good, solid evidence that clears her comes my way, I’m going to have no choice but to do everything I possibly can to accomplish just that. Can you put yourself in my shoes for one damned minute?”

Sam glared at him, but a part of him was starting to understand Burton’s position. As a prosecutor, he had a job to do whether he liked it or not, and Sam had known many who didn’t like it at all. Still, it was an important part of the American justice system, and any lawyer in that position had no choice but to do the job to the best of their ability. After a few seconds, he softened.

“Yeah, I can,” he said. “But tell me this. Is there anything you can think of that I can do to get through to the DA? Anything that might get him to realize Karen wouldn’t do this?”

Burton shook his head. “I wouldn’t have any idea what it might be. To be honest, I don’t think he believes she’s guilty either, but he’s not going to back down because of the political pressure.”

Sam stared at him, glumly. “Okay,” he said. “What sort of evidence can you imagine would be sufficient to at least cast enough doubt on her guilt that he’d be willing to sit down and talk to me?”

Burton leaned back again and closed his eyes and thought. “If you can come up with a witness who can say she was elsewhere at the time the shots were fired, that might do it. I know that she claims she talked to somebody on the fourth floor just before that, but we couldn’t find anyone who remembered her. There’s only a couple of old people up there, and neither one seems able to remember what they had for breakfast, let alone who they might’ve talked to.” He opened his eyes and sat forward. “The only other thing I could think of would be a witness who could state believably that they saw someone else do it. Those are the only two possibilities I can come up with, Sam. Other than that, you’d have to find out who the real killer was and bring them in.”

“Which would be the best situation all around, anyway,” Sam said. “Will, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me at least. When is the next hearing?”

“Day after tomorrow,” Burton said. “Nine a.m.”

“All right. Then I’ve got to get busy.” He stood and left the office, tossing a friendly wave at the receptionist on his way out the door.

Sam drove out to the jail and arranged to speak with Karen. Since she was his client, the jailers were happy to comply. One of them led Sam to the interview room where the two of them could speak alone, while another went to fetch Karen and bring her.

“Mr. Prichard,” the jailer, whose name was Darrell, said as they walked along the hallway. “You don’t believe Detective Parks did this, do you?”

“Not at all,” Sam said. “I’ve known her for years, and she’s not a murderer.”

Darrell nodded. “That’s pretty much how we all feel,” he said. “We’re trying to treat her decently while she’s here, but a lot of us are just pissed off that she’s in here at all.”

Sam grinned. “Trust me, I know the feeling. How’s she holding up?”

“Oh, she seems okay. Laughs and cuts up with us, but this has got to be hard on her. She’s got kids, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know. I went to talk to them last night, let them know what was happening. I promised them I’ll do my best to get her out of here, and I’ll make you the same promise. You can spread the word to the rest of the jailers, let them know I’m doing everything I can.”

They arrived at the interview room and Darrell opened the door. Sam stepped inside and took a chair, and a moment later Karen was brought in. Sam noticed that the jailer hadn’t even bothered to handcuff her, even though it was part of the standard jail rules.

“Good to see you, Sam,” Karen said once the door was shut. “Any good news?”

“Not enough,” Sam said as they sat down at the table in the room. “Were you told about the victim yet?”

Karen nodded. “Yeah, the jailers got a message from Carol last night and told me to call her. She filled me in, but I’m hoping you can tell me more about this. The victim was FBI?”

“Yep. He was undercover, working with Samara to try to get close to the people above him. Turns out Samara works with the Greek Mafia, and he’s been helping terrorist organizations smuggle people and things into the country. Kingsley, the FBI agent, was posing as a Greek American and working with him. I just found out from my old friend Harry Winslow this morning that Samara might have been jealous of Kingsley, because he seemed to be moving up in the organization. The bosses out in Los Angeles specifically asked for Kingsley to do something Samara normally handled. Right now, that puts Samara at the top of my suspect list.”

Karen looked at him for a moment, then scowled. “You’re thinking that he somehow stole my gun and used it to kill Kingsley, so that I’d be framed for it? I hate to say it, Sam, but that’s a little far-fetched even for me. He didn’t know I was coming there yesterday morning, and if I’d seen him in the crowd around me, I’m pretty sure I would’ve known him.”

“Yeah, probably,” Sam said. “Still, somebody got hold of your gun and used it to kill Kingsley. As far as I can tell, the only one with a motive that stands up would be Samara. It could be nothing but the jealousy I mentioned, or it’s possible he might’ve found out that Kingsley was undercover. Either one of those could be enough motive for a guy like Samara to kill him, don’t you think?”

Karen sighed and nodded slowly. “I’ll grant you that, but there’s still the matter of how he got hold of my gun. Sam, the worst part about this is that I didn’t even know it was gone until I reached for it, and that was after I heard the shots. How in the world could I not have realized my holster was empty? That thing weighs damn near two pounds, I should’ve felt it missing.”

“Wait a minute,” Sam said. “You said you were surrounded by Devils when you first got there, right? You do realize that some of them are expert pickpockets, don’t you? People like that could lift the gun without you ever realizing you’d been touched, so you wouldn’t notice a weight difference.”

She looked at him for a moment, pursing her lips as she ran her tongue over her teeth while she thought. “I guess that’s possible. And then, whoever it was just handed the gun off to Samara? Still kind of a big stretch, Sam.”

“Not really. Think it through, Karen. You’re standing there demanding to know where Samara is staying, and somebody lifts your gun. You get sent on a wild goose chase up to the fourth floor, what do you think the person who took your gun is going to do?”

Karen stared into his eyes for a couple of seconds, then nodded again. “He’s gonna go straight to Samara. He tells him there’s a detective looking for him, and for whatever reason, he hands over my gun. Samara takes it, probably says something about using it on me.” She blinked. “If Kingsley was there at the time, he may have tried to interfere, and that would piss Samara off. That gives you a whole new motive, Sam. Samara wants to eliminate me, the detective who’s after him, so if Kingsley tried to stop it…”

“Samara shoots him,” Sam said. “Kingsley falls back and gets shot again, then turns and tries to run but that’s when Samara fires the fatal shot to the back of his head. He was probably holding the gun with gloves on, or maybe just with something wrapped around it, so he tosses it into the closet and takes off.” Sam shook his head. “Imagine his surprise when he hears that you’ve been arrested for murdering him. As it stands right now, Samara thinks he’s legally dead, because the FBI is keeping Kingsley’s identity and death a secret.”

“Of course,” Karen said. “If they let it get out that he was undercover, their targets will start eliminating anybody new that’s come into the organization, just in case he had a partner. Standard procedure.”

“Okay, so let’s go with this theory. Somebody stole your gun and took it to Samara, who then used it on Kingsley. Karen, it’s the only thing that really fits.”

“Yeah, but it isn’t going to help me much. The DA is still pushing to hang me for murder, regardless of who the victim turned out to be. On top of that, I won’t even be able to go to trial until the FBI is ready to acknowledge Kingsley. The only hope I’ve got at the moment is to pray you can convince a jury that the theory you just came up with is enough to cast doubt on my guilt.”

“Not necessarily,” Sam said. “We can leave Kingsley completely out of it and let them charge you with murdering Zeno Markakis, which is the identity Kingsley was using. The theory still holds up, that Samara killed him because he didn’t want to be involved in the murder of a police detective. It shouldn’t be too hard to convince a jury that Samara would have considered Zeno a witness he couldn’t afford to leave alive.”

Karen grinned and shrugged. “Okay, that might work. Carol would have to agree not to mention Kingsley in court, or make any reference to the undercover investigation, but that would only strengthen the argument. Think the DA would go along with it?”

“I’m pretty sure he would. It gets you on trial sooner, rather than later, so he’s making his big statement about fighting police brutality.” Sam reached over and patted her on the shoulder. “You just hang in there, and I’ll see what I can do. I hate the thought of you going on trial, but it might be the only way to save you from this.”

10

She nodded. “How did the kids take the news?”

“David wanted to try to help me,” Sam said, “but Katie just seemed shocked. I told him to call me if they need anything, but I’m going to make a point of stopping by to see them after school this evening.”

“Thanks,” Karen said. “They’re pretty tough, but they’re still kids. They both know where I keep the cash stash, so they shouldn’t need money for a little while. I just hope we can get me cleared sometime soon, because I don’t like sitting in here. Hell, I got cases out there I should be working.”

“Well, for now it’s me that needs to be working this case. And that reminds me, you said you were on the fourth floor when you heard the gunshots, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Do you know who you were talking to at the time? The police say there’s only a couple of old people who live up there, and they claim they don’t remember you ever being there.”

“Old people? The guy I saw wasn’t old, he was maybe in his early thirties. Blonde hair, blue eyes, about five ten, the kind of muscles that suggest a football uniform and perfect teeth. He was just coming out of the apartment on the right, I think it was 4A.”

Sam’s eyes had lit up as she spoke. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you got his name? If I can find him and get him to testify that you were with him when the shots went off, you’re out of here.”

She shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t. When the shots went off, the only thing I could think of was finding my gun and praying I would get out of there alive. I left him standing right where he was and took off running down the stairs.” She scowled. “I understand somebody is now claiming they saw me shoot the victim.”

Sam waved a hand in dismissal. “Yeah, but he’s not a threat. He’s an alcoholic who couldn’t be a credible witness if his life depended on it. He claims he saw you in the hallway knocking on the door, and that you opened fire as soon as the door opened. Blood patterns in the apartment make it clear that the shooting happened much further inside. I’ve already spoken to Carol about him, and she’ll have no trouble discrediting him.”

“What about the pregnant girl? I mean, all she saw was me checking the body for signs of life, but she still started screaming that I killed him.”

“I’ve actually spoken to her,” Sam said, “and she admits that when she saw you, you did not have a gun. I’m pretty sure she’ll stick to that if she has to testify, but that’s just another indicator that you’re telling the truth.”

Karen chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “I’m going to tell you something,” she said after a moment, “but I don’t want Carol to know anything about it. Okay?”

Sam narrowed his eyes. “Okay,” he said.

“You might try talking to Snake, boss of the Devils. Nobody knows this, but he’s one of my informants.”

Sam grinned. “That explains a lot,” he said. “He’s the one who took me to Nikki, the pregnant girl, and to Booker, the alcoholic. I got the distinct impression he doesn’t want to see you go down for this crime.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because we’re old friends. I busted him back when I was still in juvenile division, after you left. He surprised me with how intelligent he was, so I cut him some slack. It was just a pot charge anyway, so it wasn’t like he was getting away with much. He ended up joining the Army and was gone for a few years, but then he turned up back here as a dealer. I ran into him and found out he was only messing with light stuff, and he offered to feed me information. Ever since then, he’s called me up when he came across information about any of the other gangs, especially when somebody got killed. We have a little quid pro quo arrangement; he keeps the Devils out of any serious crime and lets me know about what the other gangs are doing, and I convince gang division to go easy on the Devils. Whatever information he gives me gets passed along to the boys at gang or vice, but nobody knows where I’m getting it. I have to keep it that way, so you can’t ever ask him to testify for me, no matter what he knows. Deal?”

Sam nodded. “Deal,” he said. “I think I’ll pay him another visit today.”

Karen grinned. “Tell him he knows just how grateful I’ll be if he can help you find proof I didn’t do this. He’ll know exactly what I’m saying, don’t worry.”

“Okay. You need anything?”

“Nah, I’m fine. Today’s commissary day, I get to order candy bars and instant coffee. What else could a girl want?”

Sam chuckled and tapped on the door. The jailers appeared a moment later to take Karen back to her cell block and let Sam out of the building. He thanked them for doing what they could for Karen, then headed back out to his car.

He had just gotten the car started when he remembered the text he had gotten from Carol the day before. He took a look and saw Officer Wilson’s phone number, then tapped it with his thumb. The phone dialed automatically and he put it up to his ear.

“Pete Wilson,” the officer answered.

“Officer Wilson, this is Sam Prichard. I’m sorry it took me so long to give you a call, but I’ve been pretty busy.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Wilson said. “There’s a rumor going around that the guy Karen is supposed to have killed was really an undercover fed. Is that true?”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that,” Sam said, knowing that was an answer in itself. “Carol Spencer said you wanted me to call.”

“Yeah. Listen, there’s a bunch of us who don’t believe Karen murdered anybody. The problem is that jerk Rivers is determined to try to hang her for this whether she’s guilty or not. He claims it’s because the chief is wanting to crack down on police brutality, but there’s a bit more to it than that.”

“Okay, I’m listening. What have you got?”

“I’m gonna give it to you, but I have to ask you not to use my name anywhere. Rivers is bad news, and I can’t afford to be on his bad side.” He seemed to take a deep breath, as if bracing himself for what he was about to do. “Carl Rivers is a bully. He pushes uniforms like me into doing a lot of what should be his legwork, and sometimes he even forces some of us to make statements that aren’t entirely true. It’s a matter of doing anything he has to do to make his case, but a lot of us are starting to wonder if he might be dirty. The reason I’m talking to you is because of this guy that we thought was dead, Samara. He’s been coming in and out of town for years, and Rivers has been seen with him on several occasions. It’s always in the dark, somewhere, like in an alley or something. Nobody knows what they talk about, but those of us who have seen them together get the impression they’re involved in something. Something illegal, to be honest.”

“Really? Any idea what it might be?”

“None of us have any specifics,” Wilson said, “but there’s one thing we’ve noticed, and it’s that right after they get together, Rivers goes out of his way to keep all of us out of LoDo for a couple of days. There’s something going on down there, and Rivers seems to be covering it up.”

“Interesting,” Sam said. “Even more interesting that Rivers was assigned to this case. I talked to Barnhart, but he says it was just a matter of not having enough of the actual homicide detectives available. Do you have any kind of opinion on that?”

“I don’t know anything for sure,” Wilson said, “but I heard last night that Rivers went straight to Barnhart when he heard about the shooting and asked for the case. Something about how he’d been trying to bust Samara for years, but if there were any truth to that we’d know it. He would’ve had us trying to dig up dirt on the guy, but every time we thought we had something on him, Rivers would tell us to drop it.”

“Why didn’t you ever go over his head?” Sam asked. “You could have gone straight to Barnhart, or up to the chief’s office.”

“Donnie Plimpton tried that a couple years ago,” Wilson said. “You might not remember him, he was only on the force for a couple years, but he tried going to Barnhart with a complaint about Rivers, and he got transferred back to traffic. A month later, he was directing traffic when a light went out and got hit by a car. Now, I’m not saying Rivers had anything to do with that part of it, but we all know damn well he got transferred because Rivers wanted him out of the way. Barnhart said the transfer was just because Donnie wasn’t working out as a patrolman, but I worked with the kid. He was a good cop, Mr. Prichard.”

“Okay, I get it,” Sam said. “Is there any kind of evidence that Rivers and Samara were breaking the law?”

“Nothing but what I already told you. Whenever they got together, we were all told to stay out of LoDo for a little while. The only reason for that would be to keep us from discovering whatever was going on, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do. And apparently Barnhart is either involved or stupid. Did your friend ever try going to the chief?”

“Donnie? I know he talked to the deputy chief once or twice, but it didn’t get him anywhere. He was still in traffic, and then when the car hit him it was a real mess.”

“I remember the news about that,” Sam said. “Did they ever catch the driver that hit him?”

“No, they didn’t. And to be honest, that’s one of the other reasons none of us go public about any of this. Donnie, he was a single man, but most of us got families.”

“Okay,” Sam said, “I appreciate this. You got my number on your caller ID?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, save it. If you come up with anything else, don’t hesitate to call me.”

The call ended and Sam put the car in gear. He headed back toward the apartment building in LoDo, letting what he had learned run through his mind during the drive across town.

Despite the fact that it was barely over forty degrees, there was quite a crowd in front of the building once again. Sam saw Snake sitting on the railing at the top of the stairs, and parked the car right out front. He climbed out with his cane and hobbled toward the building.

“Hey, Dick,” Snake said. “You bring some more money with you today?”

Sam smiled. “All depends on what might be for sale,” he said. “I’m looking for somebody who was here yesterday morning, a blond, football-player type, about your age. Ring any bells?”

Snake twisted his mouth in an expression of concentration. “Sounds like Freddie,” he said. “Why?”

“He might be a valuable witness,” Sam said. “Any idea where I can find him?”

Snake waved his hands and the crowd parted to let Sam get to the stairs. “Come on up, Dick,” Snake said. “He might be up with his old grandpa.” He got up from where he was sitting and led Sam into the building, then started up the stairs inside. Sam noticed that he walked up them slowly, taking it easy on the old guy with the cane.

It took them almost 2 minutes to make it to the fourth floor, and then Snake knocked on the door of apartment 4A. An old man answered a moment later and scowled at Snake.

“Whadda hell you want, you hoodlum?”

“Hey, Papa,” Snake said. “Looking for Freddie, he here today?”

The old man glanced back into the apartment and then turned back to Snake. “You see him anywhere? Why you looking for him? Why don’t you just leave him alone, he’s a good boy. Ain’t no hoodlum like you.”

Snake only smiled at the old man. “Come on, Papa, you know you love me.” He indicated Sam with a flick of his thumb. “This is Dick, he’s a private investigator. He’s trying to help that lady cop who got arrested for killing Digger. He thinks Freddie might be able to help.”

“Well, Freddie ain’t here. Him and that other hoodlum, what’s his name, they went off somewhere after all that commotion yesterday and they ain’t been back.”

“Sir,” Sam said, “it’s very important that I talk to him. Would you have any idea where he might’ve gone?”

“How the hell I know? These hoodlums, they hang around here and Freddie goes off with ’em, I got no idea what he’s up to. Maybe tomorrow you find him, come back then.” He shut the door in their faces.

Snake was grinning. “That’s Papa,” he said. “Some days, he’s as nice as can be. Other days it’s like all he wants to do is piss people off. Tell you what, I got your number. I’ll find Freddie and give you a call, okay?”

Sam looked around to make sure no one was in earshot, then turned back to Snake. “Karen told me give you a message. She said to tell you that you know exactly how grateful she’ll be if you help me prove she didn’t do this.” He watched Snake’s eyes, and saw the flicker of recognition he was expecting.

“If she told you that,” the big man said, “I ’spect she told you other things, too.”

“Yeah, she told me about an old friend. Somebody who got jacked up when he was young, but she cut him a break. She said he’s been a good friend ever since, and that I can trust him. He can trust me, too. One thing you learn quick in this business is how to keep secrets.”

Snake burst out laughing. “Especially when that secret might be able to tell you something now and then?” He held out a hand and Sam took it. “I know about you, Dick,” he said. “I know you’re a good guy, and if she trusts you that much, then so do I. What can I do to help?”

Sam bit his lip for a second. “Have you heard that Digger isn’t dead?”

Snake’s eyes went wide. “There’s some kind of rumor going around,” he said. “Rumor says it was Zeno who got whacked, not Digger. I’ve been saying it was bullshit. You telling me it’s not?”

“It’s not. Samara is alive, and I personally suspect he’s the killer, but I need to be able to prove it. Would you have any idea where he might go to hide? I definitely need to find him.”

“He’s got friends all over,” Snake said. “I’m not sure who they are but—thing is, a couple days ago he got all excited. Somebody he’s been trying to find for a long time, he said she’s back in town. That’s all I know, but if you can track down any of his old girlfriends…”

Sam’s eyes were big and round. “It’s not an old girlfriend,” Sam said. “Samara has a daughter who recently came back to Denver. If he knows she’s here, then she’s in danger. The whole reason Karen was looking for him is because the daughter came forward and finally admitted she saw Samara murder her mother and her little sister ten years ago.” He turned and headed for the stairs. “Call me if you come up with anything else, okay? I’ve got to go.”

As soon as he got into his car, Sam took out his phone and called Will Burton. “Will, it’s Sam Prichard. Listen, I know you’re concentrating on the case against Karen, but we’ve got another problem that’s probably bigger. Daniel Samara is still alive, and I have reason to believe he’s trying to track down and kill his own daughter.”

“His daughter? Why, Sam?”

“Melinda Samara was only 10 years old when she watched her father kill and dismember her mother, and a short time later she saw him kill her youngest sister, Ashley. She came to Karen a couple of weeks ago with this information, ready to testify. Karen went to Captain Barnhart and wanted to reopen the case, but he told her to hand it over to cold cases, instead. Somebody down there told her it would be a long time before they could get to it, and that’s why she was looking for Samara yesterday. She wanted to see him prosecuted for those two old murder charges, and she figured if she managed to pick him up, then you guys would at least be willing to go ahead and file charges.”

“Okay, so you think he’s going after his daughter to shut her up?”

“Yes. I just found out that he was telling people a few days ago that somebody, a woman, that he been looking for had come back to town. There’s no doubt in my mind he must’ve found out that Melinda is here, even though she’s married now and expecting a child. If he finds her, she’s probably dead.”

“Oh, geez, Sam,” Burton said. “I know this is going to cause me problems, but I’ll file for a warrant on Samara today, to pick him up for questioning. I’ll get hold of cold case and see what they’ve got, too, because I’ll need it to build a case. You got any idea where we can find this guy?”

“Not yet,” Sam said, “but I’m looking for him. But, listen, there’s more. I spoke with a patrolman this morning who tells me that Samara and Carl Rivers seem to be close. Every time Samara is mentioned in any police reports, Rivers has a tendency to make those mentions disappear, and the uniforms have noticed that he keeps them out of LoDo when Samara is in town.”

Burton made a hissing sound, and Sam could imagine the man sucking on his own teeth. “That’s a pretty serious accusation, Sam,” he said, “especially against a DPD detective.”

“Believe me, I’m fully aware of that. If I can come up with solid evidence on it, I’ll let you know, but I just wanted you to be aware that Samara has some kind of protection inside the police department. My guess is that he’ll know as soon as that warrant is issued, so it’s going to make it even more urgent for him to silence Melinda.”

“Yeah, I see your point. I can ask the judge to seal the warrant, but that won’t help unless we can find out exactly where he is.”

“Yeah, tough call. I don’t think sealing it is a good idea, we want this guy picked up if he even gets pulled over for a taillight out. Meanwhile, I’ll do what I can to make sure his daughter is safe and whatever I can to try to locate him. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

Sam ended the call and pointed the car back toward Melinda’s house, pushing it past the speed limits so that he arrived there in less than half an hour. He hurried up to the door and knocked, but there was no answer.

The file with her phone number in it was back at the house, so Sam took out his phone to call Indie as he walked back to his car. It took her only a moment to find the number and give it to him, and he dialed as he pulled away.

It rang four times and went to voicemail. “Melinda, this is Sam Prichard. I don’t want to alarm you any further, but I just learned that your father may have found out you’re in town after all. I know you were planning to leave, just give me a call and let me know that you’re safe, will you do that?”

He disconnected and dropped the phone into his pocket once more, driving along as he tried to figure out what to do. He was out of leads, and didn’t know where to look for the next one.

It was well after eleven, so he headed for home. Maybe a bite of lunch and brainstorming with Indie would give him some new ideas.

11

Sam turned the last corner on the way to his house and groaned. His mother’s car was sitting in the driveway, blocking his access to the garage. However, since he expected to be going back out before long, he didn’t let it bother him. He just parked on the side that was normally reserved for clients.

The groan, however, was because seeing his mother’s car meant he was probably going to find Indie’s mother inside the house with her. Kim, his mother-in-law, rented a room from his mother, Grace. The two of them were best friends, and just about inseparable.

He climbed out of the car and made his way inside, and sure enough, he found Indie, Kim and Grace all sitting at the table in the kitchen. Indie looked up and smiled, and motioned for him to join them. As he came into the kitchen and pulled out a chair, she got up and waddled across the room to come back with a loaf of bread and a big package of sliced roast beef.

“Self-service lunch today,” she said, as she settled herself back into her chair. “Your kid decided I didn’t need to cook, and who am I to argue with him?”

Sam grinned and quickly assembled a sandwich. “Mom, Kim,” he said. “How’s it going?”

Kim started open her mouth, but Grace beat her to it. “Samuel, it’s Beauregard again. I think he talks more now that nobody believes he’s real than he ever did before.”

Sam looked at his mother-in-law. “Okay,” he said. “What kind of advice does he have for me now? To be honest, I could use some.” He blinked. “Let me rephrase that,” he said. “I could use some advice that makes sense.”

Kim gave him a sad smile. “I don’t know how much sense it’s going to make,” she said. “Beauregard told me to give you a very specific message, and it comes in two parts. The first part says, ‘There are three sisters. One is dead, one wants to live, and one may choose to die.’ Does that make any sense?”

Sam was staring at her. “To be perfectly honest, I think it does. The case I’m working on right now involves a man who murdered one of his three daughters, so she’d be the one who is dead. I’m pretty sure he’s looking for a second one at the moment to kill her, so she’s probably the one who wants to live. It’s the third one I haven’t found. If she’s the one who may choose to die, then it may mean she’s already in his clutches, or in danger some other way.”

Kim’s smile got a little brighter. “Okay, that’s good, I guess. Now, the second part goes: ‘You need to use the resources nobody knows you have.’ How about that one?”

Sam narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. “Resources nobody knows I have? Dammit, Beauregard, why can’t you just speak plain English?”

Kim frowned. “Well, I guess that one didn’t help any. No idea what he might be talking about?”

“Not unless he means himself, and I’m not sure I consider that much of a resource most of the time. A resource nobody knows I have? I don’t know what that could be.”

“Well,” Indie said, “what kind of resources do you have that people do know about? Maybe if we tackle it from that direction, we can get an idea what he means.”

“Well, I’ve got you, and while not too many people know what you can do, there are a few who do. Normally, I’d have Karen; she’s usually willing to help me out when I need information from the police.” His forehead crinkled and he squinted his eyes in thought. “At the moment, I’ve got a local gang leader who happens to be an informant of Karen’s, he’s trying to help. Other than that, I can’t think of any…”

His eyes went wide. “Or maybe I can,” he said. “I talked to one of the patrol officers this morning, and he tells me that a lot of them think Detective Rivers is dirty and that Karen is getting railroaded for some agenda Rivers is working on. It’s possible that if I asked them, they might help me try to locate Samara. They know him, and there’s enough of them to keep an eye out for him.” He put a finger to his lips to tell them to be quiet, then dialed Officer Wilson.

“Wilson? It’s Sam Prichard. Listen, I need some help. Do you think it’s possible that the uniforms you know would be willing to help me track down Samara? I’ve got to find the guy, and going through official channels is probably not going to help.” He listened for a moment, then smiled. “That would be perfect. Call me the instant you know anything, okay?”

He said goodbye and disconnected the call. “Tell Beauregard I said thanks,” he said to Kim. “I might not have thought of that.”

Kim smiled but said nothing. Sam turned to his wife, but his phone rang at that moment. He snatched it out of his pocket and put it to his ear. “Prichard,” he said.

“Hey, Dick,” Snake said. “I found Freddie. Where you want us to meet you at?”

“Is there any reason we can’t meet at the apartments?”

“Just a feeling,” Snake said. “I’ve got a hunch Digger has somebody watching what’s going on there. Couple of people been asking lots of questions about why you keep coming around, and that’s kind of unusual. Most of the time, somebody like you coming around would just be something to snicker about. Nobody would be asking all these questions, know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I think I do. Okay, where else is a good place to meet up?”

“You know the old scrapyard out on 285?”

“Yeah, I know it,” Sam said. “I can be there in about 20 minutes.”

“Okay,” Snake replied. “See you there and then.” The line went dead and Sam started getting to his feet as he put his phone back into his pocket.

“I might have a lead,” he said. “Might be something that will clear Karen, or at least help. I’ll be back later on.” He leaned down and kissed Indie, then picked up his cane and headed out the door. He climbed into the Corvette and started it, backed out of the drive and started making his way south.

Between a heavy foot on the throttle and some incredible luck with traffic lights, Sam actually got there five minutes ahead of schedule. He wasn’t sure what Snake would be driving, so he parked the Corvette beside a semi-trailer sitting in the open lot outside the gate and shut it off to wait.

A big four-wheel-drive Dodge truck pulled in a few minutes later, and Sam recognized Snake in the passenger seat. The truck parked on the far side of the lot from where he was sitting, and he reached up to start the Corvette.

Snake and the other man started to get out of the truck, but suddenly another car, a 10-year-old Buick, came racing into the lot. It skidded to a stop near the truck and spun around, and Sam heard the rat-tat-tat-tat of an automatic weapon. Snake dropped down behind the truck and then popped back up with a pistol, firing from over the truck bed, but the man who had been driving was down on the ground. Sam twisted the key and the Corvette’s big 427 roared into life, and he slammed the car into gear. He raced forward just as the Buick took off again, spinning around and throwing gravel as it aimed for the exit.

Sam got one glimpse of the driver, but he was absolutely certain it was Samara. He slid to a stop beside Snake, who had run around the truck and was bending down over the other man.

“Are you hit?” Sam yelled.

“Not me,” Snake yelled back, “but Freddie’s in bad shape. I’m calling 911, you go get that son of a bitch!”

Sam dumped the clutch and took off again. The Buick had turned right onto 285, and Sam fishtailed around the corner. He could see the taillights of the Buick almost a block ahead, but he knew there was no way it could outrun the Corvette. He shifted up to third gear without even lifting his foot from the throttle, and the rear tires screamed as the revving engine threw all of its horsepower at them.

The Buick climbed the curb to get around a car at the stoplight and took a right onto Federal Boulevard. Sam swung wide and went around on the left, then whipped the wheel to the right and downshifted to second, sending the car into a controlled skid that brought him out straight on Federal. He was making almost 50 mph after the turn, and gaining rapidly on the Buick as he accelerated up to 90. The bigger car was weaving through traffic, but the Corvette could handle that tactic much better. Sam cut through places so tight that he half expected to rip off the mirrors, but the car did everything he asked of it.

After only three blocks, he was right on the Buick’s tail. The madman behind the wheel was whipping the car around like a maniac, and finally sideswiped a new Cadillac SUV. The big Caddy’s driver lost control and clipped a light post, then spun out and flipped over right in front of the Corvette.

Sam whipped the wheel to the right and squeezed between the overturned Cadillac and the curb, but managed not to lose more than a few feet on the Buick. He dropped back to third gear and floored the accelerator, prepared to ram the Buick if necessary, but then it whipped out into oncoming traffic.

Cars coming toward it began scattering, and suddenly Sam had a Ford pickup coming at him head on. He managed to cut around it on the right, and then found an old Chevy station wagon coming at him, so he whipped back to the left. He was forced to downshift and stand on the brakes, weaving his way through traffic that was going in both directions, and by the time he got to the intersection where he’d seen the Buick make a left, it was out of sight.

He cruised down the street anyway, looking in every parking lot and up and down the alleys, but there was no sign of the car. Sam pounded on the steering wheel and cursed, but after a couple of minutes, he turned and headed back to the scrap yard.

Snake was standing next to an ambulance when Sam got there, and paramedics were working frantically on the man on the ground. Sam parked a short distance away and got out, hurrying over the best he could with his bad hip.

“Snake? How bad?”

Snake shook his head. “He’s hit bad,” he said, “but the docs think he might pull through. He’s in awfully good shape, bodybuilder, you know? They say that helps.”

Sam nodded. “That was Samara in the Buick,” he said. “I tried to catch him, but he managed to give me the slip.”

“Yeah, that was him. I told you, somebody back at the apartment building is being his bitch. Ain’t no way he shoulda known we were coming here. Only thing I can figure, somebody told him I had Freddie with me and he followed us.”

Sam threw his hands wide in an expression of disbelief. “But, why? Why would he want to kill Freddie?”

“Because Freddie told me exactly what you wanted him to be able to say,” Snake said. “Parks was upstairs talking to him when the shots went off. She wasn’t anywhere near the apartment when that guy was killed. Digger must have figured out why you wanted to talk to him, and decided he wanted to shut him up.”

Sam shook his head. “Where on earth could he get hold of an automatic rifle?”

“Hell, man, those are easy to come by. There’s at least half a dozen places in LoDo you could walk in and buy as many as you want.” He suddenly turned to look as a pair of police squad cars pulled in, their lights flashing but sirens off. “This is where it gets bad,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to bail me out, would you?”

Sam glanced at the squad cars, then turned back to Snake. “You got warrants out?”

“No, but they’re not gonna be happy about me packing a forty-five,” Snake said. “Especially since it ain’t got no serial numbers.”

Sam looked back at the squad cars and grinned, then turned back to Snake. “Just let me handle it,” he said. He turned and intercepted the two patrolmen as they were walking toward the ambulance.

“Mr. Prichard,” said Officer Wilson. “We got a report of shots fired?”

“Yes. The man on the ground was shot by Daniel Samara. He was on his way here to meet me, because he had evidence that would help prove Karen Parks is not a murderer. Samara apparently followed him, and opened fire on him with an automatic weapon as he got out of the truck.”

Wilson was eyeing Snake, who was trying his best to be invisible. “Yeah, report said somebody in the truck was shooting back. You know anything about that?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Sam said. “I was here, and all I saw was the wounded man went down, and Mr. Snake, there, he was ducking down behind the truck. I didn’t see any guns, and I never got the chance to return fire, myself. I followed Samara for several blocks, but he lost me again. He caused a few accidents, and I already called those in.”

Wilson looked at him for a moment, then just nodded his head. “Okay, then that’s how I’ll write it up. You gonna take care of Snake, there? Because if you are, then I’m pretty sure I never saw him here at all.”

“I’ll certainly be glad to take care of somebody who wasn’t even here,” Sam said, and Wilson managed to hold back most of the chuckle that wanted to escape. He turned to the other uniformed officer, who had stood back and only watched the exchange, and the two of them went into a huddle. Sam saw both of them glancing his way a couple of times, but then the second officer drove away. Wilson returned with a clipboard and wrote out what Sam had said, then asked him to sign it.

The ambulance left a moment later, and Snake climbed into the passenger side of the Corvette while Sam got behind the wheel.

“Man, Dick, this sucks,” Snake said. “Freddie, he’s pretty straight up. If he said Parks was upstairs with him, it probably would be enough to put a stop to this whole thing. I was half afraid something like this might happen, but I thought if I got him to you, you could keep him safe.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you try,” Sam said. “I need to get you to the DA, you can at least tell him what you heard.”

“Whoa,” Snake said. “I can’t be going to no DA. This thing me and Parks got, it works because nobody knows. Everybody thinks I’m a big outlaw, so they don’t know what I’m really doing. Parks knows, but I can’t afford for it to get out. If there’s no other way, I’ll come forward, but not right now.”

“Snake, the DA needs to hear it from you, you’re the one Freddie said it to.”

“Then you get his ass on the phone,” Snake said emphatically. “I cannot be seen going into no DA’s office. That would ruin me on the street, and might even get me killed.”

Sam shook his head, but took out his phone. He called Burton and put the phone on speaker as he waited for the man to answer.

“Will, it’s Sam Prichard. Listen, it turns out there is a witness who can testify that Karen was on the fourth floor when the shots were fired. Unfortunately…”

“Can you get him in here? Things are getting crazy, Sam, and I’m not sure which way the wind is blowing at the moment.”

“That’s what I was about to tell you,” Sam said. “Unfortunately, Samara just tried to kill my witness. He’s alive, but it looks to me like he might be in critical condition for a while. I doubt he’s going to be able to testify anytime in the next couple of days, but I do have with me the man who found him for me and heard him say it. You want to talk to him?”

“No point,” Burton said. “That would only be hearsay, and hearsay is not admissible. Tell me who your witness is, so I can put guards on his hospital room. I’ll do that right now, just to be safe.”

Sam looked at Snake. “Freddie Pilsner,” he said.

Sam held the phone closer to his face again. “Did you get that, Will? The witness is Freddie Pilsner, and he was shot just about twenty minutes ago.”

“I got it, I got it. Let me get this taken care of, and I’ll call you back if I learn anything new.”

“Okay, thanks. I’ll keep working on trying to find this bastard.” Sam disconnected and dropped the phone into his lap.

Snake took a phone out of a case on his belt. “Now let me make a call,” he said. He dialed the number and, like Sam, put the phone on speaker.

“Hey,” said a male voice.

“Panther, it’s Snake. You hear what happened yet?”

“What happened? Naw, what?”

“Digger followed me and Freddie, and unloaded an AR on us. Freddie’s in the hospital, in a bad way.”

“Holy shit,” Panther said. “Man, you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. There was a truck between me and Digger, so I ducked. Freddie didn’t get the chance. Who all you got around there?”

“Oh, hell, man, just about everybody. Want me to tell them?”

“No, no,” Snake said. “I want you to tell everybody that I want Digger. I want his ass alive, and I want it soon. You tell them that if I find out anybody is tipping him off on what’s going on, I’m gonna do some cuttin’, you got that? You tell them I’ll pay good money to find out where he’s hiding, real good money.”

Sam reached over and tapped his leg, and Snake turned to look at him. Sam mouthed the words, “Ten grand,” and then pointed at himself. Snake’s eyes went wide, but he nodded.

“Tell them all there might be as much as ten grand up for grabs if I find Digger. That’s a lot of money, and all I want them to do is hand him over to me. Ain’t gotta be no snitch to the police, just give him to me. You handle that for me?”

“Hell, yeah,” Panther said. “I’ll spread the word right now.”

“You do that. Call me back if you hear something before I get there.”

He hit the end button and dropped the phone back into its case, then turned to look at Sam. “Ten grand? Are you serious?”

“I’m absolutely serious,” Sam said. “Snake, there’s a lot about this case I can’t tell you, but it’ll be worth every dime if we find Samara. First off, I’m almost dead certain he’s the one who actually killed the other guy, and second, I’m absolutely sure he’s trying to track down his daughter to kill her. I’ll do whatever it takes to get this guy before he can accomplish that.”

Snake looked at him for a moment, then nodded his head. “You said the dead guy was a fed. If that’s the case, then he must have been working on the whole Greek mob thing. Am I right?”

Sam grinned. “You’re not entirely wrong, but it’s bigger than that. My gut feeling is that somebody in the crowd yesterday morning lifted Karen’s gun, then gave it to Samara. By using it to kill a federal agent, he set her up for a pretty big fall. He may not even have realized that the guy looked enough like him that we’d think he was the dead one, but once the news got out I’m sure he decided to take advantage of it. Don’t tell anybody else about this, because it’s supposed to be a secret, but right now he probably thinks he’s in the clear because everybody thinks he died.”

“Then why would he bother to try to kill Freddie and me? Something isn’t adding up, Dick. There’s something we’re not catching on to, here.”

Sam glanced at the outlaw beside him. “Now, that’s something we can agree on.”

12

Sam pulled up in front of the apartment building and was surprised to see no crowd out front.

Snake laughed. “Why you surprised? After you offered a ten thousand dollar reward, I’d be shocked if anybody was still here. They’re all out looking for Digger, trust me.”

“Well, I hope they have some luck. You’ll call me if anything comes of it?”

“Hell, yes,” Snake said. “You the man with the money.” He climbed out of the car and walked toward the building as Sam drove away.

Sam decided to go to the hospital and check on Freddie Pilsner. It only took him about fifteen minutes to get there, and he was glad to see that Burton had wasted no time. Four police officers were standing around the emergency room, and Sam recognized one of them from his days on the force.

“Charlie Stevens, right?” Sam asked as he walked up to the officer. “Remember me?”

Stevens nodded and smiled. “I remember you, Sam. You always treated us lowlifes with respect. How you been?”

“Hanging in there,” Sam said. “You’re here guarding Mr. Pilsner?”

“Yes, sir,” Stevens said. “Orders from the DA’s office. We’re supposed to make sure nobody gets to him without their approval.”

Sam nodded. “Good. Any word on how he’s doing?”

Stevens turned and glanced toward the room where several doctors and nurses seemed to be busy. “One of the doctors made the comment a few minutes ago that he’s probably going to pull through. Guy looks like he’s built like Stallone, back in his younger days, and I guess his muscles were so thick they slowed the bullets down enough to keep them from doing as much damage as they might have.”

Sam’s eyebrows moved upward. “Really? Maybe I need to hit the gym more often. Who’s the doctor in charge, do you know?”

Stevens pointed at the doctor who was coming out of the room. “That guy,” he said. “I didn’t catch his name, though.”

Sam stepped to one side and caught the doctor’s attention, then flashed his ID. “I’m Sam Prichard, a private eye. Your patient in there is an important witness in a case I’m working on. Can you tell me anything about the prognosis?”

The doctor sighed. “I think he’s going to live,” he said. “He’ll be going into surgery in a few minutes, to remove a couple of bullets that didn’t make it all the way through. There’s one lodged next to his spine, and another sitting just inside his right shoulder blade. Right now, we’re checking for signs of internal bleeding that we need to deal with, but it doesn’t appear that any of his major organs suffered any damage.”

“That’s good news, Doc,” Sam said. “Any idea how soon he might be conscious enough to answer some questions?”

“Well, it won’t be today. You might check tomorrow, I’d say maybe around noon or so. If everything goes well in surgery, he should be awake and coherent by then.”

Sam nodded. “All right,” he said. “Thanks for the update.”

He waved goodbye to Stevens and walked out of the hospital again. He got out to his car and sat on the front fender for several minutes, just trying to think of what he might do next.

He realized he hadn’t heard anything back from Melinda Davis, so he took out his phone and dialed the number again. Once again, it rang several times before going to voicemail. He didn’t bother leaving a message this time, but hung up the phone and called Indie.

“Hey,” she said as she answered. “I just heard something on the radio about somebody getting shot. It wasn’t you, was it?”

Sam grinned. “No, but I was there.” He told her quickly what had happened in his meeting with Snake and Freddie, and then about Freddie’s condition in the hospital. “That wasn’t why I called, though. Can you check on Melinda Davis’ cell phone? See if you can figure out where it is? When I talked to her this morning, she got all upset and called her husband. They were supposed to be leaving town to go somewhere safe, but I haven’t been able to reach her since then.”

“Sure,” Indie said. “I got the computer right here, give me a couple of minutes.” He sat on the fender and listened to her tapping on the keyboard, but it was only a little more than a minute before she spoke again. “Sam? According to its GPS signal, her phone is somewhere near the Washington Park Recreation Center. It’s on, but it’s not showing any completed calls since this morning. Had a number of incoming missed calls, though.”

A chill went down Sam’s spine. “I’m not that far from Washington Park,” he said. “I’m heading over there now. Is there any way you can help guide me to the phone?”

“Um, yeah,” Indie said. “Let me open another window and tag the GPS on your phone. I can get you within 3 feet of it, that way.”

“Okay,” Sam said. He put the phone on speaker and dropped it into his shirt pocket as he got into the car. “I’m on the way there now. It’ll take me about ten minutes or so, so just stay with me.”

“Okay, babe,” Indie said. “Sam, I hope she’s okay.”

“Me, too, baby,” Sam said. “Me, too.”

“Kenzie just got home a few minutes ago. She’s all excited about the Christmas play, and she’s in the living room telling our mothers all about it. Which reminds me, your mom says I should ask you about when you played Santa in the Christmas play. How old were you?”

“Oh, good grief,” Sam said. “I don’t know, maybe eight or nine? That was a long time ago, you know. I think I was eight, I think it was the third grade.”

“Aw, I bet you were adorable. Did you have the beard and everything?”

“Yes, and the red suit and the pillow stuffed down my pants. As I recall, everyone said I did a fantastic job. Had this big sack full of empty boxes I had to carry around, and a cardboard fireplace I had to jump out of. I did the best ‘Ho Ho Ho’ anyone ever heard.”

“Your mom says she has pictures,” Indie said with a giggle. “I told her I can’t wait to see them.”

“That would be mom,” Sam said. “I don’t think I can remember her not having a camera in her hand when I was a kid. She was always taking pictures of me and my sister.”

“Hey, and speaking of your sister, your mom says she’s coming in for Christmas. I’ll finally get to meet her.”

Sam grinned. Indie had only spoken to his sister Carrie on the phone. She hadn’t made it back home for Sam’s wedding, or even for a visit since then. She had been concentrating on her career as an actress for the last few years, and had finally landed a role on a weekly sitcom. It was only a small supporting role, but Sam made a point of letting her know how proud he was. His baby sister was on TV, doggone it, and he was telling everybody.

“It’s about time,” Sam said. “We’ll have to do something special while she’s here, something to make sure she never forgets this visit. Hey, I know, we could have a baby. That would make it pretty memorable, wouldn’t it?”

“You’re a smart-aleck,” Indie said with a smile in her voice. “It would be pretty awesome, though, if she was here to see little Sam Junior come into the world.”

“There will not be any Sam Junior,” Sam said with a mock growl. “There’s no way in the world I would saddle a kid with this name. Do you have any idea how cruel children can be? I was called Pam, Bam-Bam, Wham and a hundred other variations. No way, no way on earth. Besides, it’s going to be a girl.”

“Yeah? You think so?”

“Absolutely. I’m destined to be surrounded by beautiful women, so it’s gonna be a girl.”

Indie lowered her voice. “Sam, you know it’s perfectly normal for a man to want a son, right? I’m not going to be upset if it’s a boy.”

“Neither will I, but it’s going to be a girl. Me and God had this talk, so it’s going to be a girl.”

“You know, I told our mothers how insistent you are that it’s going to be a girl, and my mom says you’re just worried because Beauregard told you once he’s due to be reborn anytime. You’re not seriously afraid he would end up as our baby, are you?”

“Of course not,” Sam said. “I don’t even believe in Beauregard, you know that.”

“Then why are you so dead set on having a daughter instead of a son?”

Sam sighed deeply. “If I give you a straight answer, will you drop it?”

“Yes, if that’s what you want.”

Sam was quiet for a moment as he maneuvered the car around a corner. “Okay, here it is,” he said. “If we have a boy, I’ll love him as much as any man has ever loved his son, but this bum hip of mine makes it very difficult to do a lot of things. I couldn’t teach him to play football, or baseball, not properly. I can’t run. The stupid thing hurts if I’m on it for too long, so I couldn’t take him hiking. There’s just a lot of things that a man should be able to do with his son that I wouldn’t be able to do.”

It was Indie’s turn to be quiet, but she got over it quickly. “Sam, there may be a few things you can’t do, that there are a million more that you can. You could teach him about cars, you could teach him to ride a bike, you could take him fishing and hunting and lots of other things. Men teach their sons to play chess, and to play guitar and so many other things.”

“I know all that, but… Let’s just let it go for now, okay? Besides, it’s going to be a girl.”

“Oh, you are so stubborn.”

“Yes, and I’m also getting close to the park. You said it was close to the rec center?”

“Yeah, like on that curved road where people park in front of it. Let me know when you get there, and I’ll tell you how close you are to it.”

“Okay,” Sam said. “Give me about two minutes and I’ll be there.” He made the turn onto Humboldt Street from Kentucky Avenue, rolled past the park maintenance shops and then eased his way into the parking area for the recreation center. “Okay, I’m there. About three dozen cars along the roadway, here. I’m stopping, tell me which way to go.”

“Okay, her phone is about a hundred feet ahead of you, looks like it’s on the outer side of the road, almost in front of the entrance to the building.”

Sam eased the clutch out and let the car roll forward slowly. “Am I moving toward it?”

“Yes, about fifty feet more. Looks like it should be on your right when you get there.”

“Oh, crap,” Sam said. “There’s one car sitting by itself right about there, an older SUV. I’m pulling up to it now, am I close?”

“Sam, you should be almost on top of it. I’m keeping my fingers crossed you don’t find anything bad.”

Sam stopped the Corvette and shut it off, then got out and walked around it to the red Dodge Durango. A quick glance through the windows showed nobody inside, but the back end was piled with what looked like blankets and clothing. He leaned close to the back window and looked inside, but couldn’t tell if there was someone under all that stuff or not.

“Sam,” Indie’s voice said from his pocket, causing him to jump. “Your GPS signal is right smack on top of hers, right now.”

Sam grasped the handle on the tailgate hatch and pulled, and the tailgate opened smoothly. Very carefully, he pushed some of the clothes and blankets aside so that he could look underneath. He had only just begun when he uncovered a hand.

“Looks like I’ve got a body,” he said.

“Oh, God, Sam,” Indie said. “Is it…”

“All I can see at the moment is a man’s hand,” he replied. “I don’t think there’s another body here, though. I’m going to call the police now. I’ll talk to you in a bit, babe.”

“Okay, Sam. Let me know.” She hung up on him and Sam took out his phone to call the police department.

It only took a couple of minutes for the first two squad cars to arrive, with an ambulance and paramedics right behind them. Sam recognized the same paramedics he had seen earlier dealing with Freddie Pilsner, and they recognized him, as well.

“Mr. Prichard,” one of them said, and Sam saw that his name tag read “T. Garrett.” “Seeing an awful lot of you today.”

“Way too much.” Sam stood aside to let them get to the back of the Durango, and they began throwing the blankets and clothing over the back of the middle seat. A moment later, they uncovered a man who appeared to be in his very early twenties. They carefully checked for a pulse, and then Garrett started yelling.

“This guy’s alive,” he called out, and his partner ran for the ambulance. He was back a moment later with a large box, and the two of them began working on the man. “I’ve got a weak pulse,” Garrett said, “and BP is ninety over fifty. Let’s get him out of there.” The two of them lifted the man out and laid him on the gurney they had already brought out of the ambulance, then elevated his legs. The second EMT took his blood pressure again.

“No change, blood pressure still too low. I’m gonna start an IV drip, saline with norepinephrine.”

“Yeah,” Garrett said, “his heart rate is fast, but weak and fluttery. I think the guy’s been poisoned.”

The two of them worked steadily for a couple of minutes, setting up an IV and then putting an oxygen mask on to the man. Garrett had a machine sitting on the edge of the gurney, and hurriedly stuck electrical leads onto the victim’s chest before turning it on. Sam could see the little line of light jumping up and down, showing an extremely rapid heartbeat.

Garrett motioned to one of the policeman, who came forward and started checking the man’s pockets. He pulled out a wallet and turned to Sam. “Guy’s name is Tom Davis,” he said. “That mean anything to you?”

Sam’s heart sank. “Yeah,” he said. “I was trying to track down this guy and his wife, to make sure they were safe. The wife’s father is wanted for multiple murders, and she is unfortunately the state’s star witness.”

The officer looked back at Tom Davis, then turned his eyes to Sam again. “Well, this don’t look good, then. You think her father is the one that got to them?”

Sam nodded. “Nobody else would have a reason,” he said.

He explained to the officers about Samara and the murders while the paramedics finished whatever they were doing, then they loaded Davis into the ambulance and were gone. The officer who had spoken to Sam, and whose name was Jarvis, came back to him after it left.

“You need to look in the vehicle?” Jarvis asked.

Sam nodded. “Yeah, I’d like to. Stay with me, right?”

The two of them walked up to the Durango and Sam poked around in the back until he found Melinda’s phone. Another phone, presumably Tom’s, was right beside it. Jarvis held out a pair of rubber gloves and Sam put them on, then picked up the phones and glanced at their recent call list.

Tom’s phone had a couple of missed calls, but Melinda’s had several, including the calls from Sam. Both of them appeared to have started missing calls around eleven o’clock that morning. Sam handed the phones to Jarvis, who dropped them into an evidence bag, and then he went around the driver’s door.

He opened it up and leaned inside, but didn’t see anything that would indicate what might’ve happened to Melinda. There was no blood, no signs of struggle. Sam remembered Garrett saying he thought Tom had been poisoned, and suspected the same thing had happened to Melinda.

Sam closed the door and turned to Jarvis, just as his partner, Officer Wexler, returned from speaking to people in and around the recreation center. “I found a couple people who said they saw somebody drive up in this car, then get out and get into another one with someone else driving. Nobody got a plate number, but a couple of the girls noticed the driver of the second car. They said he’s probably in his late teens or early twenties, got short brown hair, a neatly trimmed beard and a tattoo of some Chinese symbol on the left side of his neck. Oh, and he’s really hot and buff, whatever that means.”

“Means he’s good-looking with a lot of muscles,” Sam said. “You guys need me for anything else?”

Jarvis shook his head. “No, you’re good. We know where to reach you if we need to.”

Sam nodded, shook both of their hands, and then got back into the Corvette. He started up and eased the clutch out, rolling slowly since the speed limit was only fifteen miles per hour, anyway, and took out his phone. He called Indie first, let her know that the man in the car turned out to be Melinda’s husband, and then called Snake.

“What you got, Dick?” Snake asked instantly.

“Someone else to look for,” Sam said. “A guy, maybe twenty years old, good-looking, well-built, with short brown hair, a beard, and a tattoo of some kind of Chinese symbol on the left side of his neck.”

Snake hesitated. “Why you looking for him? Can you tell me?”

“Remember I told you about Samara’s daughter? I just found her husband at Washington Park, alive, but it looks like he’s been poisoned. No sign of her, but a witness saw the guy I described pull up and pick up whoever dropped their car here with the husband in it.”

“Well, shit,” Snake said. “Ain’t but one guy around here fits that description, and that’s my buddy Panther. That thing on his neck isn’t Chinese, it’s Japanese. It’s supposed to mean Panther is some kind of ninja bad ass, but it’s bull. He’s tough, but he ain’t no ninja.”

“Ninja or not, he’s apparently working with Samara. Think you can find him?”

“I’m pretty sure, yeah,” Snake said. “He’s up in Nikki’s apartment right now.”

“Good,” Sam said. “Keep him there, I’m on the way. Don’t let him know that we’re onto him, I want that to be a shock when I get there.”

“You got it, Dick.” The phone went dead and Sam shifted gears as he accelerated.

13

Sam didn’t waste any time getting to the apartment building, and he found Snake waiting on the front steps once again. He hobbled up the walkway, and Snake simply got to his feet and led the way inside. When they got to the second floor, the outlaw tapped on Nikki’s door.

“Hey, Nikki,” he called out. “How about some coffee, you got any?” He winked at Sam.

There were footsteps inside, and the door was opened by a man who could only be Panther. Snake smiled at him. “Hey, buddy,” he said. “Have you met my friend, Dick?”

Panther glanced at Sam, and his face went rigid. He looked like he was about to bolt and run, but Snake laid a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back inside. Sam followed and shut the door behind them.

Nikki was sitting on the small couch in the next room, and Sam grinned when he saw a bassinet and a pile of baby clothes that probably came from a thrift store. The girl looked up at him and smiled, holding up a onesie for him to see. “I’m getting ready,” she called out, but then she saw the look on Snake’s face, and her own eyes grew wary.

“Why don’t we have a seat, so we can chat a little bit?” Snake asked. Panther looked at Sam and swallowed nervously, but he apparently didn’t feel quite ninja enough to try to get past Snake. He slowly sat down at the table, and Sam took the chair right across from him while Snake pulled his up beside Panther’s own. “This is my friend Dick,” Snake said. “Dick ain’t really his name, is just what I call him, because he’s a private dick. You know what a private dick is?”

Panther swallowed again. “Private detective?”

Snake looked at Sam with a big grin. “See? He ain’t as stupid as he looks.” He turned back to the nervous young man. “You remember when you got that tattoo on your neck, and I said it would cause you trouble someday? I said it was too easy to remember, you remember that? I said people would see you do something bad, and when they tell the police about that tattoo on your neck, the cops are gonna know it was you, right?”

Panther shrugged. “Yeah, I-I remember that.”

“Well, today’s the day. Some people just told my friend Dick that they saw you driving a car for the Digger a little while ago. You want to tell us all about that?”

Panther tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace. “Somebody got their wires crossed, I guess,” he said. “I ain’t seen Digger in a couple days.”

Snake smiled at him. “Really? Well, that’s good, because right now it looks like Digger is about to go down for at least two murders and maybe three, and probably one kidnapping and an attempted murder, and there’s always the possibility this is going to end up being four or five murders altogether. Now, I’m glad you haven’t seen him because I wouldn’t want you to be going up on murder charges with him, now would I?”

Panther swallowed again. “No, I wouldn’t want that either.”

Snake leaned forward so quickly that Sam barely saw him move, his hand flashing out to wrap around Panther’s throat. Nikki gave a loud gasp, and was suddenly staring at the two men.

“I want you to listen to me,” Snake said. “I want you to listen real close, because I do not like to repeat myself. These people who saw you, they already told the police. You and me, we both know a lot of the cops around here know who you are, and they’ll know it’s you because of that tattoo. Now, you help out my friend Dick, and may be he can put in a good word for you, so maybe you don’t go down for murder. Maybe you only go down for accessory, but you’re young, so maybe one day you can get out of prison and have your life back. You got one chance, Panther, one chance to come clean right now and tell us the truth. You gonna be smart enough to take that chance?”

Panther suddenly whipped his hand up and around, knocking Snake’s hand away from him. He was on his feet in an instant, and trying to get around Snake to the door, but the big gang leader was up just as quickly. He swung a roundhouse fist that caught Panther square on the nose, took him right off his feet and laid him on his back. Nikki screamed, and Sam snatched out his gun and aimed it down at where the young man lay.

As quickly as it began, it was over. Panther lay on the floor holding his bleeding nose, one hand up in the air to try to ward off anything else that might be coming. “Okay, okay,” he said, sounding as if he had a bad cold. “I’ll tell you, but I didn’t have nothing to do with no murders! He just called me and told me he needed a ride, he said he was in trouble and needed a ride.”

“Where did you take him?” Snake asked, kneeling down beside him.

“He called and told me to meet him at this gas station, and I did, and then he said to follow him out to the park. He dropped off that car he was driving and got in my car, and had me take him out to the mall. He had another car there, and he got in it and I don’t know where he went after that.”

Snake looked up at Sam and raised an eyebrow, but Sam only shrugged. He looked back at Panther. “Now, Panther, you and me, we go way back. How long you been a Devil? Two years? Three years? You think I don’t know when you’re lying to me?”

“I ain’t lying, Snake,” Panther said. “I swear I ain’t lying!”

“Yes, you’re lying. You know how I know that? I know because after I told you there was a ten thousand dollar reward, you went and told everybody else and they went out looking for Digger, but you didn’t go. If you were telling me the truth, you would have gone and done anything to get hold of him and find out where he is, so you could get that money. You like to get money, I know you do. So that tells me you got something else going on, something with him that you think is going to get you a lot more money than that. So, yeah, I know you’re lying to me. Now, I’m going to tell you one more time. This is your last chance. I want to know the truth, because that Digger, he’s got his daughter and he’s probably planning to kill her. If we find him and she’s alive, then I will ask my friend Dick to say something good for you, so you don’t do so much time. If we find him and she’s dead, you ain’t got to worry about the police. You ain’t got to worry about the police, because I will drag what’s left of your stinking, bloody corpse right straight up to the courthouse and leave you on the steps, you understand me?”

Panther stared into his eyes, still holding his nose and trying not to swallow the blood that was running back through his sinuses. He opened his mouth a couple of times, and finally he rolled to his side and managed to sit up, leaning back against the kitchen stove.

“She’s not dead,” he said. “Digger gave her something to knock her out, but she’s not dead. She—she’s gonna have a baby, and he wants it.”

Sam shivered as a chill ran down his spine. The thought of Samara getting his hands on his grandchild was unbearable.

“Then you know where he is,” Snake said. “Don’t you?”

“No, no, I swear I don’t,” Panther said. “I was telling you the truth, I just dropped him off at the mall. That’s all I know, I swear.”

“So he just told you all about his daughter, and how he wants to keep the baby? Digger, he don’t talk that much. The only way he woulda told you all that is if you saw her, and asked him questions. You know what? You’re probably lucky. You’re lucky he didn’t just decide to kill you for asking those questions, you know that?”

Panther’s eyes went wide. “Kill me? Why would he kill me?”

“For the same reason he tried to kill Freddie today,” Snake said. “Freddie knows too much, and I’m surprised he didn’t decide you know too much, too. Digger, he don’t like having people out there who know what he’s doing. He don’t like loose ends like that.” He turned and looked at Sam. “You know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking maybe we should just let Panther go, so Digger won’t be coming after us.”

Sam nodded. “I think you’re right,” he said. “Digger isn’t going to want this guy running around knowing he’s got his daughter, maybe talking about how he wants the baby. He could show up anytime, just to shut him up forever.” He looked down at Panther. “Snake’s right,” he said. “I think you need to leave.”

Panther stared at Sam for a moment, then looked back at Snake. “Man, oh, man, you don’t really think…”

“I don’t think nothing,” Snake said. “I know how that man works. He don’t like to leave witnesses, you know that. You know too much, so sooner or later he’s going to come after you. I think I don’t want to be around you when that time comes, and I don’t want you around Nikki, either.”

Sam glanced up at the girl at the mention of her name, and saw that her eyes were still wide as she stared at Snake. It wasn’t just fear in her face, though; Sam was sure that what he was looking at was probably affection and admiration.

Panther had tears running from his eyes. “Okay, okay, okay, I’ll tell you everything. Just don’t put me out there, don’t throw me out, okay?”

“That depends on what you say,” Snake said. “If it’s good enough, you don’t have to go. Start talking.”

Panther put his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees. “It was like I told you, he called me and said he needed a ride and wanted me to meet him at the gas station. I did, and I followed him to the park like I said, and then I took him out to the mall.” He swallowed hard. “Then he told me to follow him again, and we went out to Edgewater. He’s got some people out there, like Middle Eastern and Chinese people, and they live in this old warehouse. Somebody built a bunch of rooms inside it, just like walls with no ceiling, and a lot of them stay in those. They got some trucks in there, too, though, the kind that delivers stuff, and they use those when they want to take any of them somewhere else. He put that girl in one of them and locked it up, and then he told me to watch her while he went to go buy some food and stuff for her.”

Snake looked at him for another moment, then turned to Sam. “Any of that make any sense to you?”

Sam nodded gravely. “I’m afraid it does,” he said. “One of the things Digger was suspected of is bringing people into the country illegally.” He turned to Panther. “Did you actually get inside that warehouse?”

Panther nodded. “Yeah, but only for a few minutes. I think he just wanted me to see how big it was, like it makes him powerful or something.”

“Probably. How many people did you see inside it?”

“Maybe twenty, twenty-five. I didn’t exactly count them.”

Sam looked at Snake. “I think he might be telling us straight.”

Snake turned back to Panther. “So, where is this warehouse? You tell me the truth, buddy, because right now your life depends on it.”

“It’s on Fourteenth Street, just a little way off Lamar. A big brown building, used to be some kind of trucking company or something.” Panther’s voice sounded resigned, as if he was simply waiting for the ax to fall.

Snake turned to Sam. “What do we do now?” he asked. “Not much chance you and me can go take a place like that.”

“We don’t have to,” Sam said with a grin. He took out his phone and dialed Harry Winslow’s number. It rang twice before the old man answered.

“Sam, boy? Tell me you got something good.”

“I think I do,” Sam said. “Remember you said the undercover agent never found out where the people were being taken? I think I’ve got the location.” He proceeded to tell Harry about the warehouse and the people Panther claimed to have seen, then explained about Melinda’s disappearance. “My source says she’s hidden there in the warehouse, locked inside an old delivery truck. I need to get her out of there safely.”

“Let me make a couple of calls, son,” Harry said. “There is a team in place and waiting for this information. Just be ready when this is over, because you’re probably going to be called in on it. I’ll be in touch, or someone will.” The line went dead.

“We’re going to let Uncle Sam handle this part of it,” Sam said. “What we’ve got to do now is figure out what we’re doing with this guy. We can’t turn him loose, and I’m not ready to turn him over to the police. I’m fairly sure Samara has connections with one of the detectives on the force. If they get hold of Panther, here, he’d probably find out about it and let Samara know. We can’t risk that until the feds do their thing.”

Snake grinned. “That’s not a problem,” he said. He got to his feet and held out a hand to Panther. “Come on, buddy,” he said. “Let’s go downstairs, and if you get any wild ideas about trying to take me out, just remember my friend Dick has a big gun. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t mind shooting you just on principle, so if you give him a reason…”

Panther looked at Sam and scowled, then allowed Snake to help him to his feet. The two men walked out the door, and Sam followed, tucking his pistol inside the pocket of his jacket. They made their way down the stairs, then through a doorway that led to another flight going down into the basement.

When they got to the basement, Snake opened a large heavy door. Panther looked into the room behind it for a moment, then shook his head and walked in without argument. Snake shut the door and then took a padlock that was hanging near it and secured the hasp.

“Every once in a while,” he said to Sam, “I gotta dry somebody out, get them off meth or something. There’s a mattress in there on the floor, he’ll be nice and comfortable till we want to let him out.”

Sam pointed at the padlock. “Who else has a key?”

Snake pulled a key ring out of his pocket and shook it in the air. “Only me, Dick. Only me.”

Sam looked at him for a moment. “Do you just have something against my real name?”

“Nope. I just like calling you Dick.” He started back up the stairs and Sam followed, but Snake didn’t go back up to Nikki’s apartment. Instead, he walked out the front door of the building and sat on the wide concrete banister. Sam took a seat on the opposite side and took out his phone again. He dialed officer Wilson’s number and waited.

“Officer Wilson,” came the answer.

“Sam Prichard,” Sam said. “Wondered if you’d heard anything.”

“Not a lot,” Wilson said. “I heard you found another dead body, that right?”

“I hope not,” Sam said. “He wasn’t dead when I found him, anyway. The paramedics seemed to think he had a good chance to make it.”

“Hang on a minute,” Wilson said. Sam heard him speaking in muffled tones to someone else, and then he came back. “I just asked one of the other guys if he heard anything, but he hasn’t. So who was this guy?”

Sam started to tell him about Melinda, but then stopped. “I’m not a hundred percent sure,” he said. “I was looking for somebody else when I stumbled across him.”

“Yeah, you always do have that kind of luck, don’t you?”

“I guess so,” Sam said. “Okay, I just thought I’d check in with you. I’ll give you a call again later, or maybe tomorrow.”

“That’s cool. And don’t worry, I’ll call you if I run across this bastard.”

Sam disconnected and sat there in thought for a moment. He wasn’t sure why he had held back from telling Wilson about Melinda, but he always trusted his gut. Something told him not to give up too much information, so he listened.

He called Indie next. “Hey, sweetheart,” he said. “Can you check through Herman and see how Tom Davis is doing at the hospital? I’m pretty sure they won’t give out any information about him over the phone.”

“Yeah, babe,” she said. Sam heard her groan as she moved to reach her computer, but then she was tapping on the keyboard again. “Um, looks like he’s gonna be okay. They’ve got him admitted and in a room, but he’s apparently still suffering the effects of some kind of drug. Doesn’t say what it is, but he’s under observation for the next twenty hours or so. Apparently he’s also under guard, just like the other guy. Mr. Pilsner, by the way, has been downgraded from critical condition to serious condition. He’s also expected to survive, and he’s also still under guard.”

“Good. With Snake’s help, I think I’ve found out what Samara has been up to, the stuff the FBI was looking into. I just talked to Harry a bit ago, and he’s handling it. The tricky part is that Melinda is probably at the same location, so they have to try to get her out safely in the process. With any luck, this will all be over pretty soon. If we get Samara, I’d say there’s a real good chance we can hang the killing on him and get Karen out of jail.”

“I hope so,” Indie said. “She doesn’t deserve to be in there, and she needs to be out with her kids.”

They exchanged words of affection for a few seconds, then got off the phone. Sam sat there and looked at Snake, who grinned at him.

“So, what are we waiting for?” Snake asked.

“The feds are probably about to raid that warehouse now,” Sam said. “Once they get that under control, they’ll call me to come and pick up the girl, and probably Samara in the bargain. If everything goes well, we should be able to get Karen out sometime tomorrow.”

14

Snake nodded. “That’d be good,” he said. “Those feds, they trust you a lot, don’t they?”

Sam chuckled. “Yeah, I kind of fell into that. My very first case, I blundered right into an undercover federal operation working on stopping terrorists from getting their hands on a biological weapon that could have wiped out the city. There were good guys and bad guys, and I was stuck in the middle trying to figure out who was who. I guess the way I handled it was the right way, because they’ve used me a few other times since then.”

“Yeah,” Snake said. “I read about how you stopped that guy from throwing a nuke into Lake Mead. That was pretty awesome. Do you have an actual security clearance?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “A friend of mine joked earlier that my clearance is high enough for just about anything.”

“Yeah, Harry’s a pretty good old boy,” Snake said, his eyes on Sam’s.

Sam caught it instantly, and looked closely at the outlaw. “Oh, crap,” he said. “Are you gonna tell me…”

“You can keep a secret, right? You know they call me Snake, right? That’s because my real name is too damned embarrassing. Thaddeus Montclair the third, that’s me. I’m twenty-eight years old, and I spent three of those years working as an independent contractor for the CIA. Eight years ago, Harry was one of my supervisors. I did three tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq.”

“And now you run a street gang?” Sam asked, incredulously.

“Remember that first case of yours? As I recall, there was some sort of an undercover drug operation involved, right?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, there was.”

“When Harry was tapped to come down here and set that up, he got to pick a handful of people he wanted down here working the street. I had already let my contract expire, but he talked me into coming aboard. After you managed to kill that entire operation, he rigged it so I could stay on and keep a finger on the pulse, you might say.”

“Wait a minute,” Sam said. “Karen said she busted you back when she was in juvenile division, that that was how she got to know you.”

“And it’s absolutely true,” he said. “I was a seventeen-year-old punk, back then, a spoiled brat rich kid who thought he could get away with anything. She cut me some slack and I was smart enough to straighten out a bit. I joined the Army, which is where the CIA found me, and right after I had finished up my contract with them, Harry called me up and asked me to come sell dope for him. That’s when I hooked back up with Karen. She doesn’t know all this, but she likes having me out here where I can let her know about things. When the other gangs are killing each other or pushing the really hard stuff, I make sure she hears about it. It’s a pretty good deal for both of us.”

Sam shook his head. “So, what are you? Homeland Security?”

“Nope. I’m all on my own, now. Sometimes I run across something big enough to send up to Uncle Sam, but mostly it’s just the kind of stuff I give to Karen. The thing is, and this is the part very few people know, I do this because I know what cocaine and meth and heroin can do to people. The Devils are not allowed to use or sell any of that shit, or they answer to me. If somebody gets messed up on it and wants help, the word is out on the street they can come to me and I’ll help. I don’t do any of that easy rehab crap, though. You want to get off that shit, I’ll take you down the long road, cold turkey. That’s the only way, man.”

Sam looked at the outlaw for a few seconds, then smiled. “You’re an interesting fellow, Thaddeus,” he said.

Snake grinned. “Okay, remember about that security clearance? My name is something you keep secret, got that?”

“No problem,” Sam said. “I’m just curious, though, you said you were a rich kid? How do your parents feel about what you’re doing?”

“They know what’s really going on,” Snake said. “They moved to Florida while I was in the Army, and I manage to go visit them every now and then. It all seems to be working out pretty good.”

Sam started to say something else, but his phone rang. He still had it in his hand, so he looked and saw that it was Harry calling.

“Yeah, Harry,” he said.

“I have good news and bad news, Sam,” Harry said. “The good news is that a special task force that has been stationed in Denver for the last nine months has just rounded up a number of suspected terrorists from a warehouse in Edgewater. The bad news is that the young woman you’re looking for and her father were not there.”

“Oh, crap,” Sam said. “Is there any kind of lead on where they might’ve gone?”

“Nothing, I’m afraid. On the other hand, we were able to identify several of the upper echelon in a rebel faction of the Greek Mafia that has been involved in this operation. A computer and several cell phones were recovered that contained emails and recorded phone calls. Other agencies are currently rounding up those individuals, so you have come to Uncle Sam’s rescue once again. Your country thanks you, Sam. They might even send you a sweater.”

Sam chuckled. “Well, as long as I get something out of the deal,” he said. “Is there any chance I can get some help on locating Samara?”

“Sam, I wish I could say there was, but I’m afraid it isn’t likely. The only thing I can tell you is that when you find him, the government will certainly have a number of additional charges to lay against him.”

Sam nodded into the phone. “Okay, Harry,” he said, “thanks anyway. Give Kathy my best.”

“And our love to Indie and little Kenzie. Ouch! Oh, yes. Kathy wants me to ask you how soon the baby is coming?”

“Well, he’s due in about two weeks, but Indie says that’s not soon enough. I’ll be sure to call you when it happens, don’t worry.”

“You’d better,” Harry said. “I think Kathy wants to play grandma.”

The line went dead, as it always did when Harry was done speaking.

Sam let out a sigh and looked at Snake. “Well, the warehouse was raided and everyone rounded up,” he said, “but there was no sign of Samara or Melinda. They were already gone, and nobody has any idea where.”

“Man, that sucks. What are you gonna do now?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I’m just about out of options at the moment.” He hooked a thumb toward the front door. “Want me to have the police take Panther off your hands?”

Snake scowled. “Not just yet,” he said. “Let me work on him a bit. He might know things he doesn’t even realize he knows. If I get anything, I’ll give you a call.”

“You do that, and I don’t care what time it is. The only thing Melinda has going for her at the moment is the fact that she’s pregnant. If Samara has hopes of getting his hands on that baby, then he’ll probably keep her alive and healthy for now. If he starts to feel trapped, though, I’m pretty sure he’d get rid of her in a heartbeat.”

“I agree. What I’m hoping for is that he’ll show up here, maybe looking for Panther. If that happens, I’ll find some way to take him down and hold him. Then I will call you.”

Sam nodded and got up off the banister, then hobbled down the stairs and out to the Corvette. He got into the car and started it up, then tapped the horn once as he drove away.

It was already after four, and the sun was getting low in the winter sky. Even in the mile-high city, the days grew shorter when Christmas was drawing near. Sam took out his phone and called Carol Spencer as he drove.

“Carol, it’s Sam,” he said. “Any new developments on your end?”

“Nothing to get ecstatic about,” she replied. “Will Burton says there’s a potential witness that might help in the hospital, but nobody will get to talk to him before tomorrow. Are you having any luck?”

“No, as a matter of fact, I’m not. Remember Karen telling you about Melinda Davis? The one who came forward about seeing Digger Samara murder her mother and sister?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, don’t tell Karen, but he apparently tracked her down and is holding her. I was just informed that he’s planning to keep her until her baby is born, because he wants the child. Knowing what a piece of crap he is, I’m determined not to let that happen.”

Suddenly, Beauregard’s last message flashed across Sam’s memory. Three sisters, Sam thought. One is already dead, one wants to live and one may choose to die. Of course, that’s it! If Melinda thinks her father is going to get hold of that baby, she would probably choose to die before she let that happen.

“Carol, I’ve got to go. I just had a thought that might possibly help me accomplish something.”

“Okay, let me know if you get anything good.”

They said goodbye and ended the call, and Sam started thinking. Melinda is a prisoner. She’s terrified of her father for herself, but even more so for her baby. That means she’s going to risk anything she possibly can to get away, even if it means she could get killed. He pressed down on the gas pedal as he headed for home. There was one person he needed to talk to, the only one who might be able to see into Melinda’s mind at that moment.

He hurried into the house when he got home, and found Indie kicked back in his recliner. “Hey, babe,” she said. “We are mostly childless for the moment. The grandmas decided to take Kenzie out to the mall to see a movie.”

“She’ll love that,” Sam said. He sat down on the couch beside her and the look on his face must have told her that something was wrong.

“Sam? What’s the matter?”

“Harry called in the feds and they raided the warehouse, but Melinda and her father were already gone, nobody knows where. Remember what Beauregard said, that last time? About the three sisters? I had it wrong, I thought Samantha was the one who might choose to die, but it’s Melinda. Her father has her, and he says he wants to keep her until the baby is born. I’m pretty sure she’d rather die than let him get his hands on that child, but I can’t think like a pregnant woman. Can you put yourself into her position enough to think about how you would handle it?”

Indie’s eyes were big and round. “Oh, my God, Sam,” she said. “You’re right, you have to be. She’d do anything in the world to protect that baby from him, including killing herself.”

“Yeah, I think so too. The question is, how much time do you think I have to find her? How soon is she going to get desperate enough to go that far?”

Indie stared at the floor as she thought, slowly shaking her head from side to side. “Okay, she’s a pregnant woman. Letting anything happen to that baby is the last thing in the world she could think of, but at some point she’s going to remember how bad it was for her and her sisters. If she reaches the point that she feels there is no hope of being rescued, that there’s no way she could ever escape him, that’s when she’ll start looking for a way to end it all.”

Sam rubbed his hands over his face. “You see, the thing is, she might already be at that point. She told me that she can’t resist him, that she’s like a deer in the headlights. If he shows up, she says she just freezes and can’t refuse to do anything he wants.”

Indie looked at him. “Then, as bad as it sounds, right now you need to hope he’s keeping her close to him. Because the first time she feels like she’s out from under his thumb, that’s when she’s going to try it. That’s when she’s going to say that even dying, even letting her baby die with her, would be worth it to keep that child from suffering the things she did.”

She suddenly got up from the recliner and headed for the kitchen, and Sam followed. She sat down at the table and opened her computer, then started typing. “We’ve got pictures of Samara,” she said, “and I can find pictures of Melinda online, I’m sure. I’m going to start Herman scanning all the traffic control cameras. If they’re moving around on the streets, then maybe he can spot them.”

Sam reached over and tousled her hair. “That’s my beautiful little hacker,” he said. “Do you think there’s really a chance?”

“If either of them is sitting in the front seat of the vehicle,” she said, “then the traffic cameras are seeing them. Herman has some very good facial recognition code, so what I’ve got to do is feed him the pictures we’ve got and let him look for matches. There, he’s all set—and now he’s off and running. I told him to scan live feeds and archives, too, because that way we might find out what vehicle they’re in.”

“Okay. Is there anything else you can think of we might try?”

She looked at him and started to shake her head, then suddenly stopped. Her mouth hung open as she turned back to the computer and started typing again. “She’s pregnant,” she said. “If he wants to keep her until the baby is born, then he probably wants to keep her healthy. How far out did you say she is?”

“Um, I think she said about six weeks. Mid-January, that’s right.”

“Okay, good, because that’s a little too early for a bedroom C-section. Without special equipment and care, a baby born six weeks early probably wouldn’t survive. He’ll want to keep her for at least another month, even if he plans to kill her while the baby is being born.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked. “What’s a bedroom C-section?”

“It’s like in those terrible stories you hear, where somebody actually cut a baby out of its mother in order to kidnap it. There have been several cases over the last few years where some woman who couldn’t have a baby for whatever reason decided to steal somebody else’s, and actually cut it out of its mother. That’s almost always fatal for the mother, and it would be fatal for the baby if it was done too early. Hopefully this bastard is smart enough to realize that. If he is, then she’s probably got about four weeks before he reaches the point of trying it.”

“So what are you looking for, then?”

“I’m setting Herman to scan the security cameras at all the stores that sell prenatal vitamins and such. He’s going to be asking her what she needs, so that he can get it for her. Maybe he went out and bought some today.”

Sam’s face lit up. “I know he went to buy some food for her,” he said. “Babe, you’re a genius!”

“Are you just now figuring that out?” Indie asked, without taking her eyes off the screen.

A few minutes later, she had entered every possible item she could think of that a pregnant woman might ask for in Melinda’s situation, everything from prenatal vitamins to brewer's yeast. Herman, with the computing power of the incredible special laptop that Harry had acquired for her, could scan an entire day’s worth of video in a matter of seconds.

Unfortunately, there were almost two hundred traffic cameras and more than a thousand security cameras in the city of Denver alone. Scanning through all of them, particularly the archives, would take the better part of three hours.

15

Sam and Indie had gone back to the living room and were sitting on the couch while they waited for Herman to do his thing. They talked a bit about the baby, and tentatively agreed on a few potential names, but then Sam’s phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and looked at it, then quickly answered.

“Sam Prichard,” he said.

“Mr. Prichard,” said a man’s voice. “This is Tim Garrett, the paramedic? I just wanted let you know that man you found at the park is going to be okay. The doctors think he was drugged with trazodone, pretty big dose of it. If you hadn’t found him when you did, he probably would have died within an hour.”

“I appreciate you telling me,” Sam said. “I know he wasn’t looking very good there at the park.”

“Yeah, I’ll say. When we got him to the hospital, he was just starting to come around, but it was still kind of touch and go. I was just back there with an accident victim and asked about him, and I just thought you’d like to know he’s going to make it.”

Sam thanked him again, and then ended the call. He turned to Indie and told her the news, and that’s when the computer chimed.

Indie looked toward the kitchen. “That was quick,” she said. “It hasn’t even been an hour yet.” She got up off the couch and waddled toward the kitchen with Sam following.

“We’ve got a hit,” she said as she clicked the first link. “That’s Samara about twenty minutes ago. He was at the drugstore at Jewell Square.” She clicked back and then tried the next one. “Bingo! Traffic control camera at Jewell and Wadsworth! He’s driving a delivery van, like one FedEx would use. It’s brown and white, with red stripes across the hood.”

Sam took out his phone and called Snake. “Samara is driving around in an old delivery van, like a bread truck. Looks like it’s brown on the bottom and the top half is white, but there are red stripes across the hood.”

“That’s an old Westmark bakery van,” Snake said. “They went out of business a few years ago, but I remember stealing boxes of donuts off them when I was a kid. It was sort of a rite of passage for us kids from the right side of the tracks.”

“Okay, good,” Sam said. “That might make it easier to spot. I’ll contact a cop I know who wants to help, see if he can quietly get some of the other patrol cars to watch out for it. Can you put the word out, as well?”

“Yep. The Devils are all out hunting him now, and just so you know, we decided if we get the reward, it’s being split among all of us. Everyone would get a few hundred dollars, and they all need it.”

Sam grinned. “What, dope dealers need money?”

“Screw you, Dick,” Snake said. “Most of my guys don’t sell any drugs at all, I keep a tight rein on that stuff. We make most of our money hustling booze.”

“Seriously? There’s a liquor store on almost every corner, how is there any money in that?”

Snake laughed. “That’s easy,” he said. “Most of those liquor stores don’t like to let stuff sit on the shelves too long, so when they’ve only got a few bottles of something left, they’ll sell it cheap out the back door. We sell it to the alkies down here in LoDo and double our money. It’s not illegal enough to make the cops want to bust us, and keeps the drunks at home instead of driving around looking for a bargain. Public service, man.”

Sam shook his head. “Whatever works. If you guys find Samara for me, I might add a bonus onto that reward.”

“You ain’t gotta tell me twice,” Snake said, and the line went dead.

Sam called Wilson and told him about the truck.

“A Westmark truck?” Wilson said. “Dammit, I just saw one a few minutes ago. I’ll spread the word, but I’m gonna turn around and see if I can spot it again.”

“Okay,” Sam said, “but be careful. Samara is dangerous, very dangerous. If you spot it, try to stay back and follow from a distance, then call me, alright? I’ll make sure you get credit for the actual arrest, but I need to be careful with this guy. It’s possible he has a hostage, and the sight of cops might be enough to make him get stupid.”

“No problem, Sam, I won’t spook him. I’d just love to be there when he gets caught, because I think he’ll give Rivers up in a heartbeat to try to save his own ass.”

Sam ended the call and put the phone away, then looked at Indie. “See anything else there?” he asked.

“Not yet,” she answered. “I’ve got Herman looking for the truck, now, too. That should be easier to spot than a driver’s face, and Herman can tell the difference between different vehicles. It’s just a slight modification to the parameters he uses for facial recognition.”

Sam stared at her for a moment. “Something you just came up with?”

“Oh, no,” Indie said, looking up at him. “I thought of this months ago, when you were chasing that woman who killed Carlos McAlester. We were using facial recog to track her, but if I’d been able to look for the car she was driving, it would’ve been faster, so I wrote code to give Herman the ability. It has limitations, but this truck is easy to spot, so it’ll work fine on this.”

“Don’t tell Harry about it. He’ll have NSA guys down here trying to copy it.”

Indie laughed. “He might,” she said.

Herman chimed, and Indie grew serious again as she looked at the monitor. “New hit,” she said. “He just passed the camera at Sheridan and Florida, heading north. I’m sending Herman to check the cameras ahead of him.”

Sam snatched his phone up again and dialed Snake. “Snake, it’s Sam Prichard. Listen, Samara just went north on Sheridan, passing Florida. My wife is hacked into the city’s traffic cameras, and she’s trying to track him. You got anybody up that way right now?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sending out a text blast while I’m talking to you. I can get a bunch of them to head that way so maybe they’ll see him.”

“Good,” Sam said. “I’m heading that direction myself, and I’m going to conference my wife in on this call. That way we can both hear her when she sees him.” He put Snake on hold and called Indie’s phone, then tied them together when she picked up. “Snake, say hello to Indie.”

“Hi, Snake,” Indie said.

“Well, hello,” Snake said. “I read your blog.”

“Chit-chat later,” Sam said. He leaned down and kissed Indie, then hurried out the door. A moment later, he was in the Corvette and heading northeast.

“He just passed Louisiana,” Indie said. “Wait a minute, hold on, hold on, he’s coming up to Mississippi with a turn signal on, turning left. He sitting at the light at the moment, waiting for it to turn.”

“I’m sending that out,” Snake said. “That’s really cool, how you can just follow him through the whole city that way. Is that those red light cameras?”

“No, those just take a photograph if you run the red light,” Indie said. “Traffic control cameras watch the flow of traffic, and a computer counts the vehicles coming up to an intersection in order to decide when to make a light turn green. They are video cameras, though, and always tied into their main computer through the Internet, so it’s not hard for me to get in and take a look at what they see. The problem is that they are only placed on bigger intersections; when he turns on to Mississippi, I won’t be able to see him again unless he goes all the way to Harlan Street.”

“It’s still cool,” Snake said.

“Okay, he turned,” Indie said. “I’m watching from the westbound camera but he’ll be out of sight within a couple of blocks.”

“Okay, watch for him at Harlan,” Sam said. “If he turns off somewhere in between, it’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“Hey, Dick,” Snake said. “You know how to hunt for a needle in a haystack?”

“No, how?”

“You get a bunch of kids to dive into it. I guarantee you, one of them is going to find it.”

Indie snickered. “I don’t know why I’m laughing, that wasn’t a bit funny,” she said.

“It might not have been funny,” Sam said, “but I get the point. If he doesn’t come out of that area, then we can send the Devils in. That truck is not going to be easy to hide, it wouldn’t fit in most garages.”

Five minutes later, Indie concluded that Samara had indeed turned off. She had checked all of the cameras around the area, but the delivery truck had not appeared. “Sorry, guys, I can’t see him anywhere.”

“That’s okay,” Sam said. “It gives us a grid. He’s somewhere between Sheridan and Harlan on the east and west borders, and probably between Arizona and Kentucky on the south and the north. There’s a lot of residential in that area, but there’s quite a bit of industrial, as well.”

“Okay, Dick,” Snake said. “I’ll send the Devils in to start looking around. Keep your phone handy.” He dropped off the call.

“Babe, I’m going to go on in and cruise around there, myself. I know it’s a long shot, but that truck will stand out if it’s not inside a building somewhere.”

“Okay, Sam,” his wife said. “Got my fingers crossed for you.”

Sam ended the call and dropped the phone into the passenger seat, then concentrated on his driving. He got to the corner of Arizona and Harlan and turned right, cruising along as slowly as he could without interfering with traffic. Every cross street, he looked both ways, but didn’t see the truck he was looking for. He made it all the way to Sheridan, then turned left and went up to Kentucky Street, where he turned left again.

Most of the residential streets between Kentucky and Mississippi were unbroken, so Sam took a left on the first one, Ames Street, and followed it all the way back to Mississippi. There, he turned right and went to Chase Street, then turned right again. He was cruising through residential neighborhoods, and didn’t see any place where the big truck might have been hidden.

At Kentucky, he turned left again and found Eaton Street going south, so he turned onto it and cruised slowly down its length. There was still no sign of the truck, or of a garage big enough to hide it in, but the next street west was Harlan, and they had already decided that the truck hadn’t made it that far. Sam decided to check the streets between Mississippi and Arizona, so he started to turn left but then saw another street going south of Mississippi to his right.

He turned to the right and went to the intersection, turning left to go south on Gray Street. He saw nothing, so he turned left onto Arizona and went to the next street, which turned out to be Fenton. A left turn took him north, and he scanned all of the homes and yards along the way, but to no avail. When he got back to Mississippi, he turned right and then took another right onto Eaton Court.

It struck him as odd that the street was named Eaton, because it wasn’t directly across from where Eaton had come out on Mississippi from the other direction. He didn’t waste a lot of time thinking about it, but took another left on Arizona…

The next street going north was Eaton Street. Sam knew that he had just come off of Eaton Court, before which he had been on Fenton and Gray even before that, and it suddenly dawned on him that the streets were named in alphabetical order. He cruised up Eaton Street until he got back to Mississippi, took a right and realize he was passing Chase Street on his left, but the next road on his right was Depew. He turned south again and followed Depew to Arizona, then took a left.

There were no more sidestreets between Arizona and Mississippi. He ended up back at Sheridan, turned left and went back up to Mississippi, then turned left again. He had already been up and down the streets on his right, so he looked to the ones on his left and spotted Ames Street again. He turned left onto it, but a block later it took a right, and Sam suddenly found himself staring directly at the Westmark Bakery truck he was looking for.

The truck was parked in front of a rough-looking house, and Sam noticed that there were a couple of junk cars around the yard. He stopped and backed up, then quickly drove back up to Mississippi Street. There was a convenience store on the left at the intersection, and Sam quickly put the Corvette on its west side. This intersection was the only way out of that area, so he wanted the car to be outside if the truck pulled out.

He managed to park where he could see behind the store and keep a section of the street in sight, then took out his phone and called Wilson. “I think I found him,” Sam said. “Can you get some people down here?” He told the officer where he was parked.

“On the way,” Wilson said. “I’ve got to call it in, but I’ll say I got a tip about a robbery suspect we’ve been looking for. I don’t want Rivers to catch on.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Sam said. “I just want to make sure we get the hostage out.” Sam bit his bottom lip for a moment, then made up his mind. “He’s got his pregnant daughter, and this guy seems to be planning to keep her until the baby is born. It’s the kid he wants, so her life probably isn’t worth much to him.”

“Considering who we’re talking about,” Wilson said, “I can’t say anything would surprise me. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, and I’ll have at least three more with me.”

They ended the call and Sam kept his eyes on the little stretch of the street that he could see. If the truck moved, he wanted to be ready to follow it.

It was just a bit more than ten minutes later when Officer Wilson pulled in behind him, and two other squad cars followed. With two in each car, that gave Sam a backup of six policemen, and he got out of his car to speak with them.

“On the other side of the building is Ames Street, and it goes down just a short way before it turns right and becomes Shirley. The house we are after is at the end of Shirley, on the left. You’ll see the big bread truck sitting right in its driveway, that’s the place. Now, I’m going to go ahead by half a minute, and I’ll be the one to knock on the door. Samara probably knows who I am, so things are going to get lively in a hurry. Wait at the corner until you see me get to the door, then give me thirty seconds before you hit the place. I want to get this guy, but getting his daughter back safe is most important. Are we ready?”

The officers agreed that they were and got back into their cars. Sam started up the Corvette and pulled around the back of the building, then turned on to the street with all three cars on his tail. When he made the turn at the corner, they hung back just enough to keep them from being visible from the house they were targeting, while Sam drove on up and put the Corvette right behind the truck.

He got out of the car and walked up to the front door of the house. He knocked, and the door was opened by a woman who looked like she was frightened. Sam held up his ID.

“Ma’am, my name is Sam Prichard. I’m a private investigator, and I’m looking for the man who was driving this truck. Is he around?”

The woman flicked her eyes twice to the right, and licked her lips. “Um, no, he went, um, somewhere.”

Sam pushed his jacket aside and put his hand on the grip of his Glock. “Oh,” he said, “would you have any idea when he might be back?”

The woman looked at his hand on the gun, then turned her eyes back up to meet his. “No, I don’t know if he’s coming back or not. He might—he might not come back.”

She flicked her eyes to the right again, then suddenly jumped backward and threw the door open. Sam snatched out his gun and stepped inside just in time to see Samara raise his own pistol. For a split second, Sam could see down the barrel, but then instincts took over and he fired once. His shot missed, but Samara jerked back and then took off running toward the back of the house.

Tires were squealing outside as the three squad cars roared up to the house. The officers came out of their cars with their guns drawn, and Sam shouted out the door that Samara was headed out the back. Three of the officers sprinted around the house, and Sam turned to the woman who had opened the door.

“He had his daughter with him,” Sam said. “Is she here?”

“Oh, God, yes,” the woman said. “Oh, God, you’ve got to get us out of here. He’s crazy, he’s crazy, he’ll kill us all.”

She pointed to a doorway, and Sam ran through it, still holding his gun at the ready. Melinda Davis was sitting in a chair beside the bed, her arms wrapped around her belly and tears flowing down her face. When she saw Sam, her mouth flew open.

“Mr. Prichard?”

Sam hurried over as quick as he could and knelt down in front of her. “Melinda, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, sniffling. “No, I’m all right,” she said. “Tom, my husband, he…”

“I found him,” Sam said. “He’d been drugged, but he’s going to be all right. The police are trying to catch your father, now, and then I’ll take you to him.”

She collapsed against him, sobbing. Sam kept an arm around her shoulders as she wept.

16

Wilson came into the house a few moments later, a scowl on his face. “We didn’t catch him,” he said to Sam. “He got into an old car that was out back and took off through somebody’s yard. By the time we could get back to our own cars, he was long gone. I called it in, so there is a BOLO out on him. The car was a big four-door Chevy, a brown one from the late eighties.”

Sam pointed at Melinda. “We did something good, though. I’m going to take Mrs. Davis to the hospital to be checked out, and reunite her with her husband. He was actually the man I found earlier, and it turns out he’s going to be okay.”

Wilson nodded. If he caught the fact that Sam hadn’t told him everything earlier, he didn’t comment on it. “Okay. The other lady here, Mrs. McGill, she says Samara has done business with her husband in the past, but they got into a fight. Her husband left with him earlier today, and she hasn’t heard from him since then. When Samara got here a little while ago, he claimed the husband told him he could hide here for a while, but Mrs. McGill wasn’t happy about it. That’s why she was trying to let you know he was here.”

“She did a good job,” Sam said. “If it hadn’t been for her, I might’ve walked right into a bullet. I just wish I hadn’t missed.”

Sam helped Melinda to her feet, and they walked out of the bedroom together. Mrs. McGill was crying as she talked to another of the officers, but she ran to Sam as soon as she saw him.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much. I just know he was going to kill me, he as much as said so. He said he hates leaving witnesses behind, so I know he was going to kill me.”

“I’m the one who should thank you,” Sam said. “You let me know he was there, and I really appreciate it. I don’t know how things would have gone down if it hadn’t been for that.”

He walked Melinda out to the Corvette and opened the passenger door for her, then helped her sit down in the low seat. He made sure she was buckled in, then walked around and got behind the wheel. The young woman was still crying as he made a U-turn and headed toward the hospital.

Sam looked at the clock on his stereo and saw that it was after five, so he called Indie. “Honey,” he said, “we found him, but he got away. I did manage to get Melinda back, though, and I’m taking her to the hospital now. She seems to be all right physically, but I figure they probably will keep her overnight for observation.”

“Sam, that’s wonderful,” Indie said. “I’m so glad.”

“Yeah, me too,” Sam replied. “The thing is, I need to get hold of Will Burton, and he won’t be in his office this late. Think you can track down his cell number for me?”

Indie giggled. “Give me three minutes,” she said. “By the way, are you going to be home anytime soon?”

“I hope so,” Sam said. “Why?”

“My mom just called. They want to bring dinner home, so they are picking up something from Boston Market. They should be here in about an hour, if you want some dinner tonight.”

“I’ll do my best,” Sam said with a chuckle.

Indie was quiet for about a minute, then came back on the line and gave Sam the phone number. He told her he loved her and ended the call, then dialed again.

“Hello,” Burton said.

“Will, it’s Sam Prichard. Hate to bother you outside of office hours, but I found Melinda Davis, Samara’s daughter. I’m taking her to the hospital now, and I understand you’ve already got officers watching over her husband. I think Mrs. Davis is probably going to be at risk, so…”

“Wait a minute, Sam,” Burton said. “The only one I’ve got officers watching is the Pilsner guy. Who’s the other one you’re talking about?”

A chill went down Sam’s spine. “Tom Davis, he’s the guy I found out at Washington Park. He’s Melinda Davis’s husband. Samara apparently drugged him and left him for dead at the park.”

“First I’ve heard about it, Sam. I’m going to find out what’s going on, right now.”

The phone went dead, and Sam felt Melinda staring at him. He looked over at her and saw the terrified question in her eyes.

“I’m not sure what’s going on,” Sam said, “but earlier today I was told that the police were standing guard over your husband. That should have been ordered by the DEA, but I just talked to him and he doesn’t know anything about it. He’s checking into it now and should call me back in just a minute.”

“But—you said he’s going to be okay, right?”

“That’s what I was told, yes. Right now, I’m just trying to figure out who else might have wanted the police to watch over him, and whether that’s a good thing or not. I’ve been told that one of our police detectives seems to be pretty close to your father; if he got wind of your husband being in the hospital, he could have set this up to try to keep Tom from being able to talk to anybody about what happened.”

Melinda started to cry again, so Sam concentrated on the street. He was just turning into the hospital parking lot when his phone rang again.

“Prichard,” he said.

“Sam, it’s Will Burton. The police guard on Tom Davis was ordered by the chief of detectives, Barnhart. I just spoke to one of the officers on duty there, and all he knows is that they were told not to let anyone near the guy. They are scheduled to be relieved at six, but they don’t know who’s coming to relieve them. I just ordered them to stay on duty, and I’ve called in a couple of deputy sheriffs, as well. I tried calling Barnhart, but there’s no answer on his cell.”

“I’m starting to wonder about Barnhart,” Sam said. “He sure seems to have Rivers’ back a lot, that’s the only reason I can think of for him to want Tom Davis sequestered. If Rivers really is tied up with Samara, he’s probably going to do everything he can to protect the man. Can you imagine how Samara would sing if he got caught? Giving up a dirty cop might get him something, maybe a shot at parole or something, someday. Rivers isn’t going to want to take the chance that might happen, so he’s going to do everything he can to keep the man from being arrested.”

“As much as I hate to admit it, you’re making sense. We’ll have to walk carefully on this one, Sam.”

“No kidding,” Sam said. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about this whole case that’s just off, not adding up. I’ve got a strong feeling that bringing Samara to justice is only going to be the tip of the iceberg.”

“You may well be right. For now, just keep your eye on Mrs. Davis. She’s still the strongest witness we have against her father, so I don’t want anything to happen to her. Do me a favor and stay with her until the deputies get there. Whoever was supposed to relieve those officers can just go back home; I want people watching over them that I absolutely trust, and right now that doesn’t include the DPD.”

“I will,” Sam said. “We are at the hospital now, so I’m going to take her in.”

The call ended and Sam parked the car near the emergency entrance. He got out and looked around, then walked around the car and opened the door for Melinda. He gave her a hand to hold onto as she got out, then kept watching around them as he walked her into the ER.

It only took a minute for the nurse at the front desk to get the gist of what Sam was saying, and then she called an orderly to take Melinda back to an examination room. Sam insisted on going along, and waited with her until a nurse came in and asked her to change into a hospital gown.

“I’ll wait just outside,” Sam said and stepped past the curtain. The nurse tugged it to make sure it was fully closed, and then Sam could hear her helping Melinda get changed. A few minutes later, the nurse stuck her head out and told Sam he could come back inside.

Melinda was up on the bed and covered with a sheet. The nurse took her vital signs and told them to wait a few more minutes and the doctor would be in.

“What about Tom?” Melinda asked.

“I’ll make sure you get to see him shortly,” Sam said. “There are deputy sheriffs on the way to take over watching him, and I don’t want to take you near him until they are in place. I know you heard me talking to the DA; there’s some evidence that your father is connected to one of the detectives, and it looks like he might’ve been the one to arrange the police guard on your husband. It may turn out to be very lucky that we found you when we did, because that’s the only reason we know there’s something fishy about that.”

Melinda shook her head, and Sam saw tears starting to trickle down her cheeks again. “He’s a monster,” she said. “My father, he’s a monster. He’s never going to stop, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life waiting for him to show up again.”

“No you won’t,” Sam said. “Just with your testimony, we can put him away for life. If we can prove he killed the FBI agent, then he’s definitely never coming back. Please trust me, the day isn’t far off when you’ll be free of him forever.”

She sniffled. “If only I hadn’t come back to Denver,” she said.

The nurse and a doctor came in just then, and Sam stepped out again while Melinda was examined. Sam heard the doctor explaining to her that his biggest concern was stress, which could cause problems for the baby or even send her into early labor. Because she was nearing the end of her term, he didn’t want to give her anything very strong, and Melinda said she didn’t want any kind of drugs in any case. When the doctor said he would like to keep her overnight for observation, she asked about being placed with Tom.

“Your husband is here?” the doctor asked. She gave him his name and he left the room, telling Sam he could step back inside.

The doctor came back a moment later with a deputy sheriff. “Well,” he said, “it seems you were correct that your husband is under guard. This is Deputy Sheriff Jenkins, who says he’s in charge of making sure your husband is safe. I’ve got to have his permission to put you in the same room.”

Jenkins stood quietly while the doctor was talking, then walked over to Sam and held out a hand. “Sam Prichard, right? You probably don’t remember me, but I was with the PD back when you started.”

Sam looked into his face for a moment, then smiled. “Darrell Jenkins,” Sam said. “I do remember, actually. You taught a class on investigative procedure, and it was one of the best I ever heard.”

They shook hands, and Jenkins grinned. “Nice to know somebody remembers it,” he said. “Nowadays, everybody wants to talk about psychology and profiling, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with good old police work.”

“I agree,” Sam said. “Will Burton called you in?”

“Yep. He told me to look for you here.” He turned his eyes to Melinda. “This is Mrs. Davis?”

“Yes,” Sam replied. “She’s a very important witness.”

“So Will tells me.” He turned to the doctor. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’ll make it easier to watch over both of them if they are in the same room.”

The doctor nodded and left the room. Jenkins turned back to Sam and motioned for him to step outside the curtain with him. When they were out of Melinda’s earshot, he looked at Sam and said, “I’m not a hundred percent certain what’s going on here, but Will says there may be something fishy with the city cops who were watching over her husband. I just came from upstairs and relieved them, but three more officers showed up and wanted to know why we were even there. I told them the DA had turned it over to the Sheriff’s office, but they were pretty pissed. Any idea what this is all about?”

“There is evidence that Detective Carl Rivers might be involved with the criminal element, namely Mrs. Davis’s father. Ten years ago, she witnessed him murdering and dismembering her mother, and then not long after that she saw him kill her little sister. You heard about Karen Parks?”

Jenkins snorted. “Yeah, I heard. No way in hell I believe she murdered somebody.”

“Well, Daniel Samara is Melinda Davis’s father, and he’s my number one suspect for the killing Karen was arrested over. She was at that location looking for him when it happened, and she got roughed up and hustled by some people when she got there. Looks to me like one of them stole her gun and gave it to Samara, and he used it to kill a man he was jealous of. What he may not have known was that the victim was an undercover FBI agent.”

Jenkins let out a low whistle. “This guy is real bad news, then. You think there’s a dirty detective involved?”

“It’s definitely looking that way. For some reason, even though he shouldn’t have had any connection to Mr. Davis at all, Captain Barnhart ordered police protection on the man. If he’s working with Rivers, then it’s quite possible the relief officers are also involved. Until just a little while ago, Samara had Melinda and was planning to keep her until her baby was born, then probably kill her. If we hadn’t gotten her back safely, I suspect her husband might have had a sudden and fatal relapse sometime tonight.”

“Well, not on my watch, he won’t.” He took a card out of his pocket and handed it to Sam. “It’s got my cell number on it,” he said. “Feel free to give me a call, anytime.”

Sam thanked him and gave him his own card, then they stepped back into the examination room. Sam introduced Melinda to Jenkins, and told her that he would check on her the following day. He left while they were preparing to take Melinda up to Tom’s room.

As soon as he got back into his car and started toward home, Sam called Snake. “I found Samara,” he said, “and I got his daughter back safely, but he got away. Last seen driving a brown, four-door Chevy, something old. The reward still stands, if you guys can find him.”

“I’m working on it,” Snake said. “Good that you got the woman back, though. She okay?”

“Shook up,” Sam said. “Nothing wrong with her physically, but the doctor is worried about stress causing her to go into labor. I got her in the hospital, and they’re putting her in the same room with her husband. Sheriff’s office is standing guard duty over both of them, so hopefully they’ll be safe.”

“Sheriff’s office? I figured the city PD would be responsible for that kind of duty.”

“Yeah, and normally they would be,” Sam said. “Come to think of it, maybe you can help me out on something else. You know anything about Samara and Detective Rivers, any kind of collusion or cooperation between them?”

“Rivers? I know that punk, he works gang division. What makes you think they might be involved?”

“It seems there are some patrolmen who think so. There’s an Officer Wilson who says they’ve been seen together several times, and that it always seems like they get kept out of LoDo whenever it happens.”

“Officer Wilson? You mean Pete Wilson?” Snake asked.

Sam’s eyebrows pulled together. “Yeah. You know him?”

“I know him. Dick, Pete Wilson is something of a hero, down here in LoDo. Most city cops, they find some young person hustling on the street, they take ’em to jail. Pete Wilson takes them to McDonald’s or somewhere and gets them something to eat, then he takes them to somebody who will let them crash for a while and try to get on their feet. You remember Nikki? He found her on the street turning tricks a while back, but instead of calling her in, he brought her to me. One of her tricks got her pregnant, but she didn’t have anywhere to go. I took her in, on the condition that she had to stay clean and off drugs. I put her in that apartment and she’s been doing pretty good ever since.”

Sam relaxed. “You had me worried for a minute,” he said. “I’ve been using him to help a bit on this case, and for a minute I thought you were going to tell me he was not a good guy. You did surprise me, though. I actually thought you and Nikki were an item.”

Snake chuckled. “Yeah, we are. I didn’t expect it, but it just sort of happened. I don’t know if I’m really ready to be a dad, but I guess we’re going to find out pretty soon.”

“I know this might be a rotten question to ask,” Sam said, “but is it going to bother you that it’s not your biological child?”

“At first, I thought it would. Once I got used to the idea, though, it just didn’t seem to matter anymore. First time the baby kicked my hand, I was hooked. Now I can’t wait to see what we get.”

“You don’t know? What has the doctor said?”

“Dick, she hasn’t been to a doctor. We can’t afford that, and she doesn’t have all the identification and everything she would need to get Medicaid, so we’re just doing the best we can.”

Sam shook his head. “Can’t afford it? I thought you said you were a rich kid. Can’t your folks help you out?”

Snake started laughing. “Yeah, I said I was a rich kid,” he said. “Unfortunately, my folks invested a lot of money in a couple of the wrong start-up companies. They lost pretty much everything while I was off with the Army and CIA. The only thing they had left was the little house in Florida, so they moved down there. My dad works as a greeter at Walmart, and my mom has a thrift store. She goes out to rummage sales to buy stuff she can sell. I haven’t even told them about Nikki, yet.”

“You really are an interesting guy, Snake. I gather you don’t have any money saved up from your government days?”

“I did. How do you think I bought the apartment building? Most of my tenants are on some kind of disability or something, so the rent money comes in. It pays the bills, but it doesn’t do anything left over. It’s not always easy to make ends meet, but we get by.”

“And everybody thinks drug dealers have lots of money. Listen, Samara is also wanted by Uncle Sam for other things beside the murders. It’s quite possible there will be some kind of reward from them, too, if he gets caught. If you guys can find them, I’ll do my best to make sure you get it.”

“We’re on it. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

Sam ended the call and drove on home. His mind was on Snake and Nikki and Samara, so he didn’t notice anything at first when he pulled into his driveway. He shut the car off where it sat, opened the door and started to get out, and that’s when he noticed that his front door was standing wide open.

17

Sam went carefully up the steps, his hand on his gun. When he got to the door, he looked quickly inside, ready to dive if bullets began flying, but there was no one in sight. He stepped into the living room and looked around, and the first thing he saw was the end table beside his recliner laying on its side.

“Indie?” he called out. “Babe? Are you here?”

It took him three minutes to go through the entire house, and he was beginning to panic. None of his family was there, but at least there were no signs of blood or anything. Unfortunately, the only sign of life was Sampson, the cat. He was laying on Kenzie’s bed, and Sam thought the poor thing looked worried.

He took out his phone and dialed Indie’s number. He wasn’t actually expecting an answer, so he gasped when there was one. “Indie?”

“Not exactly,” said a masculine voice. “You took my family, so I’m taking yours. Want to trade?”

Knowing the answer, Sam asked, “Who the hell is this?”

Samara laughed. “Hell, surely a famous private eye like you can figure it out. Damn, Prichard, I already gave you a big hint.”

“Samara,” Sam said. “If you hurt them in any way…”

“I won’t, unless you force my hand. I want my daughter back, Prichard. I don’t care how you do it, but I want her back. You want your family back, too, don’t you? Then you ought to understand. You get my daughter and bring her to me, I’ll give you your wife. It’s that simple, and it’s nonnegotiable.”

Sam thought fast. “I can do that,” he said. “Tell me when and where, I’ll go get her right now.”

The evil laugh came again. “Yeah, I thought maybe you’d see it my way. You go get her, then call me again. Once I know she’s really there, I’ll tell you where we can make the swap. But, understand this, Prichard. I’ll be watching. I see any sign of a cop, I’ll put a bullet in the back of your wife’s head and dump her body in the street. You know I’ll do it, so don’t even try to play me.”

“I won’t,” Sam said. “I’ll go get her now, and I’ll call you in just a little bit. But if you’ve hurt her, you need to know this: I will find you, sooner or later, and when I do, I will skin you alive. I’ll do it one square inch at a time, so that you live long enough to really understand what a mistake you made.”

“Then I think we understand each other. Get my daughter and call me.” The line went dead.

Sam stared at the phone in his hand for a moment, then started trying to think. There was no way he could hand Melinda back over, even if he could figure out how to get her away from the hospital. He had to come up with a plan, a way to get Indie and Kenzie back safely, but it was so hard to think when he was so close to panic.

He looked around himself again, and suddenly it dawned on him that something was amiss. Indie had said that their mothers were bringing dinner from Boston Market, but there was no sign of any food, nor of Kim or Grace. He dialed his mother’s number and she answered on the second ring.

“Samuel,” she said, but he cut her off.

“Mom, where are you? Do you still have Kenzie with you?”

“What? Of course we do, we are on the way back to your house. Why?”

“Don’t come here,” Sam said. “Take her to your house, keep her overnight. Indie is gone, and the man I’ve been after has her phone, so he must have her as well. I just talked to him, and he wants me to get his daughter and trade her for Indie.”

“Oh, my God, Sam,” Grace said. “This is terrible.”

“Yeah. Let me talk to Kim, I don’t want Kenzie to overhear any of this right now.”

“Oh, yes, I understand. Here she is.”

There was a rustling noise, and then Indie’s mother came on the phone. “Sam? What’s going on?”

“Don’t say anything in front of Kenzie,” Sam said, “but Indie has been abducted. The man I’ve been after has her, and he wants me to bring his daughter to exchange for her. Is there any chance Beauregard has any good advice right at this moment?”

Kim was quiet for a few seconds, then she came back on the phone. “He says you need to look at the numbers, Sam, but I don’t know what that means. He can’t explain it any better than that. He just says you need to look at the numbers.”

Sam growled under his breath. “I don’t know what numbers it is I’m supposed to look at,” he said. “Okay, look, I’ve gotta go. I’ve got to figure some way to get her back. You guys are taking Kenzie home with you tonight, and I’ll call you as soon as I know something. Don’t tell Kenzie what’s going on.”

“Okay, Sam,” Kim said, and Sam could tell that she was weeping. “Do whatever you can.”

“You know I will.” Sam ended the call and put the phone into his pocket. Beauregard said he needed to look at the numbers, but what numbers? One of the worst things about the phony old ghost was that his advice only made sense after it was no longer needed.

Sam began pacing around the house, trying to think of anything he might do to trick Samara into giving Indie back. The man was a cold-blooded killer, Sam knew, so he had to be cautious. The slightest mistake would cost Indie her life, and Sam knew that for certain.

Look at the numbers, what could that mean? Sam tried to think of any numbers that might fit the situation, but nothing came to mind. He stalked through the house, going into their bedroom, then back down the hall to the living room, into the kitchen…

Indie’s computer was sitting on the table, right where she had left it earlier. Sam sat down in the chair in front of it and tapped the touchpad to bring the monitor to life. He’d watched her use it a thousand times, but Sam’s computer literacy was pretty well limited to email and Facebook.

He knew the little icon for Herman, though. It looked like a big golden H. He put the cursor over it and tapped it twice, and the program opened up. There in front of them on the monitor was the input form, but Sam had absolutely no idea what to do with it.

There were probably fifty lines or more, each of them waiting for some kind of information to be typed in. There were fields marked name, email, phone number, image input and more, and several different drop-down boxes with lists of things to choose from. One of them was even a list of government databases that Herman had already found a backdoor into, but none of that would do Sam any good. He didn’t know how to tell the program what it was he was looking for.

Hell, he didn’t even know what it was he was looking for.

Look at the numbers. Look at the numbers. Beauregard, you dumb son of a bitch, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Numbers, numbers, what possible significance could numbers have in this situation?

He thought of many different numbers, from phone numbers to ages to license plate numbers and more, but none of them seemed to apply. The only one of those that could be of any use at all was Indie’s phone number, which was how Sam was supposed to reach Samara again. He didn’t think that was the number Beauregard was referring to, though. That would have been too easy.

What other kind of numbers could there be, he wondered. He stared at the input form on the computer monitor and tried to think of anything he might type in that would help. Still, the only number he could think of was Indie’s cell number, so he finally chose the text box marked “phone numbers” and typed it in. He hit the enter key, and watched as lines of code begin scrolling down the screen.

“Come on, Herman,” he mumbled. “Help me out here, would you?”

As if on cue, the computer chimed and a single link appeared on the screen. Sam clicked it, and a map appeared. At the bottom, two different strings of numbers showed up, and a pointer indicated a spot on the map.

Sam stared at it. Somehow, Herman had figured out what he needed and had given him the exact GPS location of Indie’s cell phone. Sam looked closely at the map, but it was too small to make out. He tapped it twice with the cursor, and suddenly another window opened with a much larger copy.

The pointer was situated near Highway 285 and South Colorado Boulevard. It was an affluent area, Sam knew, with several large churches, the Wellshire Country Club and hundreds of expensive homes. He tried to think of where, in that area, a man like Samara could find to hide.

It suddenly dawned on him that the map he was looking at was one of the Google maps, and he clicked on the Google Earth satellite image in the lower left corner. The screen changed before his eyes, going from a simple, drawn street map to a full-color image of the city from high above. The pointer stayed in place, and Sam used the cursor to zoom in on it.

There were three large churches that were almost on top of one another, and the pointer was stuck right into the rear parking lot of the Denver Evangelical Assembly. Sam stared at it for a moment, then got to his feet. “Good boy, Herman,” he said as he hurried out to the car. He shut and locked the door behind him, limped to the Corvette as quickly as he could and started it up. As he backed out of the driveway, he took out his phone and called Snake.

“Yeah, Dick,” Snake said as he answered. “Anything new?”

“Samara has my wife,” Sam said. “The son of a bitch took her right out of my house, Snake. He’s got her down on Hampden at the big Evangelical church. He wants me to get Melinda, his daughter, and trade to get my wife back.”

“Bump that,” Snake said. “What are you gonna do?”

“I’m going down there. My wife has this thing on her computer that can find the GPS on a cell phone, and he’s got her phone. It’s sitting in the parking lot, out behind the church. My only worry is that he says he’ll kill her if I don’t bring his daughter to him.”

“Man, this sucks. Sounds to me like the only thing you can do is exactly what he wants, bring him his daughter.”

“I can’t do that,” Sam said. “I wouldn’t, even if I could.”

“Right, you can’t. But it’s pretty dark out there right now, Dick, did you notice that? Wintertime, it gets dark early, remember?”

“What are you getting at, Snake? I’m not thinking clearly enough for riddles.”

“No problem,” Snake said. “I know where that church is. About a mile west, there is a big supermarket. Meet me there in twenty minutes, the parking lot right out front. I’ll have a surprise for you.”

The line went dead, and Sam shook his head. Still, he was at a point where he would take any kind of help he could get. It would take him almost fifteen minutes to get to the supermarket, so he continued driving while he wondered just what kind of surprise Snake might have in mind.

Sam had been sitting in the parking lot for only two minutes when four cars pulled in and drove directly up to him. Snake got out of the lead car, and a woman who looked very pregnant stepped out the other side. At first, Sam thought Snake had brought Nikki, but then he got a better look at the woman’s face.

“Dick,” Snake said, “I want you to meet Jackie. Jackie is one of the Devils, and we always tease him because he has such a pretty little face. We’ve used him a few times when we were pulling some little job that needed a distraction, because when he gets dressed up like a girl, he looks better than a lot of real ones. Thing is, he’s one mean little son of a gun; I’ve seen him put down guys bigger than me, so I asked him how he’d feel about helping you get your wife back, and maybe getting a piece of that reward.”

“I’m in, man,” Jackie said.

Sam stared at him for a moment, then chuckled despite himself. “Geez, in the dark, it just might work for a minute. Samara’s gonna go absolutely berserk as soon as he realizes it’s not his daughter, though.”

“I can handle him,” Jackie said, and Sam just shook his head. He even sounded like a woman, and even a little bit like Melinda.

“You let Jackie ride with you, then you call Digger and tell him you got his girl. We are going to go on down and watch for him to come out of that parking lot, then play leapfrog and follow where he goes. He won’t know we’re there, but whenever he gets to where he wants you to meet him, we’ll fan out and be ready to take his ass down. You show up with Jackie, get your wife away from him, and we’ll make our move.”

Sam ran a hand over his face. “I’ve heard crazier plans,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

“Okay, give us a few minutes to get into position. I’ll call you soon as we get down there, then you call him. Maybe he’ll just have you come right to the church, you think?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said, “but I’ll call you as soon as I get off the phone with him. Get going, I want to get my wife out of this.”

Snake turned around and got back into the car, and the others followed as he left. Two minutes later, Sam’s phone rang and he answered instantly.

“Okay, we’re here. There’s only one car in that back parking lot, a Lincoln, late-model. I’m sitting in a driveway half a block away from it, but I can see it pretty clearly. Looks like there’s two people in it, so I’m betting it’s them.”

“Keep your eyes on it,” Sam said. “I’m calling him now.” He ended that call and immediately dialed Indie’s phone.

Samara answered on the first ring. “Have you got her?”

“I do, and it wasn’t easy. Where and when?”

“I’m down on Hampden, the big church where it meets Colorado Boulevard. Denver Evangelical Assembly. Come around to the back of the building, and remember: I see any cops, she dies first.”

“No cops,” Sam said. “It’s just me and her, nobody else. I’m only about ten minutes away, I’ll be there pretty quick.”

Sam cut off the call and immediately called Snake back. “He told me to come to the church, but I didn’t want him to know I was this close. I told him I’m ten minutes away, which would be about right if I just left the hospital.”

“Okay, cool. We’ll be in position by the time you get there. Hey, that reward—that’s for dead or alive, right?”

“Damn right,” Sam said. “But alive would be better, if we can.”

“We’ll do our best.” The line went dead.

Sam looked over at Jackie. “You sure you’re ready for this?”

Jackie grinned at him, and Sam was struck again by the fact that he actually looked—well, pretty was the only word that would fit. “I’m ready, man,” Jackie said, and suddenly his hand flashed out and a butterfly knife appeared in it. “I can handle Digger. The way Snake tells it, he’s probably not going to be pointing a gun at me or anything. If he thinks I am his daughter, and he wants to keep her healthy, he’ll just want to get me in the car and get gone as fast as possible. I get close enough, I’ll take him down. The rest of the Devils are just ready to back me up if I need it.”

They sat still for several minutes, then Sam started up the Corvette and pulled out onto the street. He pushed it up to the speed limit and stayed there until he got close to the church, then slowed and downshifted so he could make the turn. He cruised slowly around the building until he saw the Lincoln sitting in the middle of the big empty parking area behind the church.

Its lights flashed once, and Sam pointed the Corvette toward it. He stopped about fifty feet away and got out of the car, leaving the lights on, then walked around and opened the passenger door. He made a show of helping Jackie out, while the young man kept his face down. He had one hand on his bulging, pillow-stuffed belly, and the other was over his face as if he was weeping. Sam was actually a little impressed at the performance.

They stepped out in front of the Corvette, the headlights casting them in silhouette, and then the door of the Lincoln opened. Samara stepped out, and then leaned down and said something to Indie, still inside. The passenger door popped open and she stepped out into the light.

Samara looked up at Sam. “Send her over,” he called out.

“Both at the same time,” Sam called back. “I don’t trust you, you bastard. When my wife starts walking, Melinda does.”

Samara turned and told Indie to go, and Jackie started walking a second later. He made a show of waddling, the way a pregnant woman does, the way Indie was doing at that moment, and Samara kept his eyes focused on him.

Jackie and Indie passed each other, and Indie’s eyes suddenly became very wide. She turned and looked straight at Sam, carefully avoiding any visible reaction. Sam was surprised, but he was absolutely certain Indie had spotted the fact that Jackie was a man.

She was only ten feet from Sam when Jackie suddenly grunted and fell to the ground. Samara rushed toward him, and bent down to grab hold of his arm, and suddenly a dozen Denver Devils erupted from the trees that surrounded the parking lot. Sam saw them, but they didn’t make a sound as they ran straight to Samara. Snake was in the lead, and it was he who made the flying tackle as Samara realized what was happening and turned to face them.

A gun went off and Sam immediately drew his pistol, but the rest of the Devils had landed on top of Samara. Indie hurried over to Sam and threw her arms around him, and Sam wrapped his left arm around her shoulders protectively as he kept the gun aimed at the pile of bodies.

“Sam,” Indie said breathlessly, “who the hell was that? And where is Kenzie?”

“Samara’s worst nightmare, I hope,” Sam replied, keeping his eyes on the fray. “Those are the Devils, and that was one of their guys dressed up like Melinda. Kenzie is safe with our mothers; when you were gone when I got home, I called to make sure they still had her and told them to take her home with them.”

“Let us up,” Sam heard Snake yell out. The men began getting to their feet, and it was only a dozen seconds before Snake and another man slammed Samara over the hood of the Lincoln he had been driving. Sam let go of Indie and hurried over, snatching out the handcuffs he kept on the back of his belt and slapping them on to Samara’s wrists.

“I heard a gunshot,” Sam said. “Is anybody hurt?”

“Damn, man,” Snake said, “mostly just my pride. Son of a bitch managed to punch a hole in me.” He pointed, and Sam saw that there was blood on his lower right abdomen, around the area where his appendix would be. “I’m okay, Dick, don’t worry. I’ve been hurt worse than this before.”

“I don’t care how tough you are,” Sam said, “you need to get to the hospital.” He took out his phone to call the police, but sirens were already screaming toward them. He dialed 911 anyway.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“My name is Sam Prichard, I’m a private investigator. I just apprehended a wanted felon, but he fired a shot at a man who was with me and wounded him. I need an ambulance and police at the Denver Evangelical Assembly as soon as they can get here.”

18

The Devils were vanishing, disappearing into the trees and bushes they had come running out of. Sam looked at Snake, who grinned at him.

“A lot of the boys,” Snake said, “they got their own reasons for avoiding the police. They hear the sirens, they have a tendency to disappear. Might be best if we don’t mention any names, right?”

Sam grinned back. “We were aided by unknown passersby,” he said. “That work?”

“It’ll do. As for me and Jackie, we helped you out because you helped save Freddie, okay? You couldn’t go to the cops, so you came to us and we said we’d help you get your wife back.”

“I can live with that. Here they come.”

Three squad cars came around the building and zeroed in on them, and the officers exited the cars with their hands on their guns. Sam held up his identification, and the officer who seemed to be in charge focused on him.

“You’re Prichard,” he said. “I’m Officer London. You want to tell me what’s going on here?”

Sam pointed at Samara, leaning against the Lincoln with Snake and Jackie holding onto him. “That’s Daniel Samara, he’s wanted for murder and several other crimes. Earlier today, he had abducted his daughter Melinda, and was planning to hold her prisoner until her baby was born. I managed to track him down, and was able to recover her with the help of some other officers, but then he kidnapped my wife and demanded that I bring his daughter to him in order to get her back. I have reason to believe that he has a connection to the DPD, so when he warned me not to go to the police I took them seriously. I approached these two men that I’ve come to know through the course of this investigation and asked for their help, and they came up with the idea of having Jackie, there, dress up as a female in order to trick him into the trade. Before he could see that Jackie was not his daughter, the big guy, Snake, tackled him and took him down, with the help of some people who were passing by. Once he was subdued, I placed him under citizen’s arrest and called 911.”

London’s eyes were wide as he looked around at Snake and Jackie, who both smiled and nodded. He turned back to Sam.

“I’ve gotta call this in,” he said. He picked up a radio that was clipped to his belt and spoke into it. “Dispatch, this is 5 Kilo. I have a private investigator who has apprehended a Daniel Samara, who he says is wanted for murder and other crimes. Please advise.”

“5 Kilo, wait one,” came the reply. There was silence on the radio for a couple of minutes, and then the dispatcher came back again. “5 Kilo, be advised Detective Rivers is en route to your location.”

Sam scowled. When London had acknowledged and put the radio back on his belt, Sam said, “Rivers is exactly who I suspect of aiding and abetting Samara. It’s probably not a good idea to let him take the suspect. I’ve already spoken to the DA about this, if you want to check with Will Burton.”

London narrowed his eyes. “Rivers? I don’t know what I could do. If he’s the detective in charge on this case, I’ve got to do what he tells me.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Sam said. “Remember, I was a cop before I was a PI. You can refuse to turn the suspect over based on my assertion that Rivers cannot be trusted in this matter, and I’m asking you to do so.”

“Mr. Prichard, that’s asking a lot. Going up against a Detective Sergeant can do a lot of damage to my career, and I’m hoping to make detective myself one of these days. Can you get a hold of the DA and get them to back this up?”

Sam sighed. “Let me try,” he said. He took out his phone and dialed Will Burton’s number, but this time it went to voicemail.

“Will, it’s Sam Prichard. I’ve caught Daniel Samara, but Rivers is on his way to take charge of the prisoner. I don’t think that’s a very good idea. Can you call me back as quick as possible?”

He put the phone away and looked back at Officer London. “He didn’t answer, but I left a voicemail. Hopefully he’ll call me back pretty quick. All I’m asking you to do is not release a prisoner to Rivers. You can take him to the jail yourself, that would be best.”

“Let me think about it for a minute,” London said. He walked away and spoke to the other officers, but Sam couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Another siren could be heard, and an ambulance arrived a moment later. Paramedics climbed out and took charge of Snake, ripping his shirt aside to see the wound. Sam saw that the bullet had passed all the way through, and though there was quite a bit of blood, it seemed to have already stopped flowing. That was a good sign, for it meant no major blood vessel had been damaged.

“Your biggest risk,” the lead paramedic said to Snake, “is infection. The bullet went through your shirt, and dragged pieces of it all the way through. It was almost certainly not sterile, so some nasty little germs are eating their way into your body right now. We’ve got to get you started on antibiotics immediately, and then the doctors can clean it all out when we get you to the hospital.”

Snake looked at Sam. “Dick, do you have any idea how much I hate hospitals? Do me a favor, would you? Check in on Nikki and let her know what’s going on. Tell her I’ll be home as soon as these Nazis let me go.”

Sam grinned at him. “I’ll do that,” he said. “I’ll be glad to.”

“Come on, we gotta go,” said the paramedic, and the ambulance doors were closed. A moment later it rolled away, and Sam turned to Indie.

“That’s an amazing guy, right there,” Sam said. “He, um, he’s sort of an old friend of Harry’s.”

Indie raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. She looked after the ambulance for a second, then turned back to Sam with a smile.

“That’s a secret, by the way,” Sam said. “Nobody else knows, and he wants to keep it that way.”

“I can understand that,” Indie said. “But that explains a bit about why he came to help.” She glanced over at Jackie, who was sitting on the hood of the Corvette. “What about him?”

“He’s a Devil,” Sam said. “According to Snake, the guy in the ambulance, he occasionally dresses up like that for—let’s just say, for less heroic reasons. When I told Snake the situation, he pitched Jackie on putting on his act to help me get you back. Of course, it might’ve had a little bit to do with the ten thousand dollar reward I offered for helping me catch Samara.”

Indie’s eyes grew wide. “Ten thousand dollars? Yeah, I can see where that might have had a little bit of an impact. I mean, it’ll be worth it if we can clear Karen.”

“I know,” Sam said with a sigh. “I should have discussed it with you first, babe, and I’m sorry.”

She scoffed. “Sam Prichard, I’m not the least bit upset about it. Sure, it’s a big chunk of money, but it’s not going to break us. I trust your judgment, Sam; if you felt it was necessary to offer a reward, then I’m completely behind you on it.” She gave him a mischievous grin. “Besides, it looks like you stumbled into another government operation. Maybe we can find a way to bill Uncle Sam for it.”

Sam wrinkled his face and thought. “Not too sure I’d hold my breath on that,” he said. “We don’t have Harry making sure we get rewards anymore.”

The sound of a car coming around the building at fairly high speed got Sam’s attention, and he turned to see a new Dodge Charger. He groaned, knowing that this would undoubtedly be Detective Rivers, and braced himself for what he knew was coming.

Rivers pulled up beside the police officers and got out of his car, then stalked up to them. Sam watched as they talked quietly for a couple of minutes, then he walked up to the squad car where Samara was locked into the backseat and leaned against it. When Rivers turned around, he scowled at the sight of Sam.

“Prichard,” he said as he walked up to him. “Step away, please, I’d like to speak to my suspect.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sam said, his eyes locked on the detective’s. “As I told those officers in the District Attorney’s Office, I have reason to believe that you and Mr. Samara have colluded in the past in order for Mr. Samara to evade prosecution. For that reason, I must insist that Samara be transported directly to the jail by the officer who has him in custody, and that you step aside as lead investigator on this case.”

Rivers glared at him for a moment, but then his expression turned into a smile. “You insist, do you? Well, let me tell you something. You can insist your way straight to hell, as far as I’m concerned. Knowing you, I’m frankly surprised that the suspect is even alive. Since he is, I have every intention of interrogating him, and if you get in my way you’ll find out what the inside of our jail looks like, lately. Now, step aside.”

Sam stood his ground for a few seconds, but the truth was that he had no legal authority. Without the assistant DA to back him up, there was nothing he could do. He walked back over to Indie and Jackie.

“Rivers won’t back down,” he said. “Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about it. Only his superiors can actually remove him from the case, and none of them are willing to do that at the moment.” He shook his head. “If they come up with a story they can both stick to, this will not go well for Karen.” He watched as Rivers opened the car door and pulled Samara out, then walked him over and put him in the back of his own unmarked car.

Rivers left him there for a moment as he spoke to the officers again. When he finished, he got back into the Charger and drove away.

“Mr. Prichard,” Officer London said. “Detective Rivers told me to tell you to report to Captain Barnhart tomorrow morning. The captain will fill you in then on what’s happening with the suspect.”

Sam nodded, but said nothing. London walked away and Sam turned to Jackie. “I need to find you a ride,” he began, but Jackie waved a hand to cut him off.

“I’m good,” he said, his voice no longer soft and effeminate but masculine and strong. “Snake tossed me the keys to his car, I’ll take it home.” He got up off the hood of the Corvette and held out a hand. Sam shook it firmly, and was surprised at his grip. The cross-dresser laughed. “Don’t worry, man,” he said. “Ain’t nothing girly about me, except having this baby face. I only dress up like this when it’s time to surprise the snot out of somebody, that’s all.” He turned and walked away, flipping through the trees toward the car Snake had been driving.

Sam took Indie’s hand and walked over toward the Lincoln. Another police officer was standing beside it, writing some information on a clipboard. He looked up at Sam questioningly.

“My wife’s phone is in the car,” Sam said.

“The car was stolen,” the officer said. “I’m really supposed to have it impounded as evidence.” He looked at Sam for a moment, then shrugged. “If you can see it, grab it. Don’t touch anything else inside the car, though, it’s going to be dusted for prints.”

“My wife was a hostage in that car,” Sam said. “Her prints will already be in it, so I’ll let her get it.”

The officer nodded and opened the driver side door. Indie looked inside, then reached in carefully and picked up her phone from where Samara had tossed it on the dashboard. She held it up for the officer to see.

“Ma’am, could you turn it on and show me that it’s your phone?”

“Sure,” Indie said. She powered the phone on and showed him the home screen, which had a picture of herself, Sam and Kenzie with Samson the cat. The officer smiled and nodded, and Sam took her hand and walked back to the Corvette with her. He opened the passenger door and helped her sit down inside, then walked around and got behind the wheel.

“Do you have any idea how scared I was?” Sam asked.

Indie reached over and took his hand into her own. “I can imagine,” she said. “But I wasn’t scared at all. I knew, without the slightest doubt, that you would find a way to get me out of that safely.” She made a wry face. “I’ll confess there might have been a couple of thoughts in there about how that bastard might get killed in the process. Is that bad?”

Sam burst out laughing. “I don’t think so,” he said, “or I’m a lot worse than you. I was entertaining thoughts of personally dismembering the son of a bitch. By hand, for that matter.” They leaned together over the console for a kiss, then Sam started the car. “Let’s go home,” he said. “But we’ve got to make a stop, first.”

“Okay, and I got to make a phone call.” She dialed her mother’s number, and Sam could hear Kim’s squeal of relief and excitement as she answered the phone. Indie explained what had happened, and that she was safe, then asked if Kenzie could just spend the night with her grandmothers. She was a little shaken, she said, and just wanted to relax for the night.

Grace and Kim were happy to agree, and they put Kenzie on the phone to speak with her mother. The child had figured out that something was wrong, even if none of those silly grown-ups would tell her the details. “Mommy, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, sweetheart,” Indie said. “You should know by now that Daddy won’t let anything bad happen to me. Don’t you know that?”

“Yeah,” Kenzie said, “but sometimes things go wrong.”

“And sometimes you are way too smart for a six-year-old. You’re going to stay with your grandmas for the night, and we’ll see you after school tomorrow. Okay, sweetheart?”

Sam drove to Snake’s apartment building and Indie couldn’t help smiling when the ever-present Devils cheered Sam as he got out of the car. She walked with him up the steps, laughing as the street gang patted Sam on the shoulder and congratulated him on catching Samara.

They made it up to the second floor, and Sam knocked on Nikki’s door. She opened it, saw him standing there and her face quickly turned to an expression of panic, but Sam smiled and spoke quickly.

“Snake wanted me to stop and tell you he’s okay, but he got a little scratch and the paramedics insisted on taking him to the hospital to get checked out. He’s fine, and he’ll be home shortly.”

“Really?” Nikki asked. “He’s always sticking his neck out, he drives me crazy.”

Indie looked at Nikki’s bulging belly, then stepped into the room and gave her a hug, which Sam thought was quite an interesting thing to see. “Trust me,” Indie said. “I know exactly how you feel. I’m Indie, Sam’s wife. You’re due pretty soon, too, right?”

Nikki smiled and nodded. “Two more weeks,” she said. “I am so ready to get this over with. This kid is kicking me to death, inside.”

“I know the feeling. I’m due about the same time, maybe we’ll see each other in the hospital.”

Sam cleared his throat. “By the way,” he said, “this brings something up. Snake says you haven’t been seeing a doctor?”

Nikki suddenly looked worried. “I went to the free clinic a couple times,” she said, “but they don’t really do much about pregnancy. The health department says they have a program, but there’s a waiting list to get on it, and I’ll already have the baby by the time my name would come up. Snake brings this lady around sometimes, she used to be a nurse. She thinks everything is okay.”

Indie looked at Sam, and he nodded. She turned back to Nikki. “Honey, you have to see a doctor before the baby is born. I’m going to call my doctor in the morning and get you an appointment, then I’ll come and pick you up when it’s time. Okay?”

Nikki gave a despairing shrug. “I can’t,” she said. “I don’t have any money for a doctor…”

“We’ll take care of it,” Sam said. “Snake just helped me save my wife, Nikki. Believe me, this is the least we can do.”

Nikki’s eyes bounced from Sam to Indie and back a couple of times, then she smiled cautiously. “I would kinda like to make sure everything is okay,” she said. “Before the baby is born, you know?”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Indie said. “I’ll call my doctor in the morning and see if we can get you in sometime tomorrow. I’ll come by and get you, and we’ll go together.”

She gave Nikki another hug, and then Nikki looked at Sam. “Did you get m—that guy, did you get him?”

Sam nodded. “Snake actually took him down, but the rest of the gang got a few licks in. The police have arrested him, and he’s on his way to jail now.”

There was a sudden expression of relief in Nikki’s eyes, and Sam couldn’t help thinking that he’d seen that same relief in Melinda’s eyes the day before, when they had believed Samara was dead. He suddenly realized he wanted to see it again.

They said goodbye and headed back out to the car. As they got in, Sam explained to Indie that he wanted to run by the hospital and let Melinda know that her father had been arrested. “She’s been through so much, it might help her relax a bit. The doctors were worried about stress sending her into labor early.”

Indie nodded. “Absolutely, let’s go.”

19

It took a little bit of time to get to the hospital, and Sam’s phone rang just as he was pulling in to the parking lot. He pulled it out and saw that it was Will Burton calling, and answered quickly.

“Sam, I’m sorry,” Burton said, “I just got your message. I checked everything out, and Rivers took Samara straight to the jail. They are in the interrogation room now, and I’m headed down there.”

“That’s a relief, then,” Sam said. “I half expected you to say that Samara escaped.”

“Not much chance of that,” Burton said. “I’m getting calls from two different federal prosecutors already, saying they are also bringing charges against him. One of them was talking about charges of treason and terrorism.”

“I’m not surprised,” Sam said. “Do me a favor and keep me in the loop. Rivers won’t tell me anything, and Samara is still my number one suspect in the Kingsley murder, the FBI agent Karen is accused of killing. Samara had motive and opportunity, and he would have taken a perverse enjoyment out of hanging it on Karen. He’s had a grudge against her since she questioned him over murdering his wife ten years ago.”

“I will. The wife okay?”

“Yeah, and thanks for asking. It’s a really interesting story, and I’ll tell you when I get a chance.”

“Looking forward to hearing it. I’ll call you when I know something more.”

The call ended and Sam dropped the phone back into his pocket. He had parked the car while he was talking, so he got out and helped Indie onto her feet, then the two of them walked into the hospital through the emergency entrance.

The emergency receptionist was cranky, but the sight of Sam’s ID was enough to get her attention. She called upstairs to a nurses’ station, then told Sam and Indie to go up to the fourth floor. They took the elevator up, and Deputy Jenkins was standing there waiting for them.

“I heard you got him,” Jenkins said. “Everything okay?”

“Better than okay. The son of a bitch abducted my wife, Indie. He wanted to trade her for Mrs. Davis, but some friends helped me pull a fast one and get her back safely.”

Jenkins looked at Indie and smiled. “Glad you’re safe, ma’am,” he said. He turned back to Sam. “We’ve got Mr. and Mrs. Davis in one room, and I get to handpick their security. Come on down.”

They followed him down the hall and to the hospital room, where two deputies were sitting just outside the door on folding chairs. Jenkins introduced Sam and let them know that Sam was authorized to visit the patients, and then they went inside.

Tom and Melinda were sitting in chairs, rather than in their beds. Tom looked at Sam warily, but Melinda burst into a smile.

“Mr. Prichard,” she said. She turned to her husband. “Tom, this is Mr. Prichard. He’s the private investigator I was telling you about, he’s the one who found you and called for help.”

Tom rose to his feet and extended a hand. “Mr. Prichard,” he said with a smile. “Besides the fact that the paramedics say I owe you my life, I owe you far more for saving my wife. I don’t know how to thank you.”

Sam shook his hand warmly. “Just call me Sam,” he said. “I was just stopping by to let you both know that Samara has been arrested. It happened about an hour ago, and he’s been taken to the jail.”

Melinda suddenly started crying. “He won’t stay there,” she said. “He never does. I know you’re doing your job, but you just don’t understand what a monster he is. He’s the one like you see in movies, you think he’s dead but then he jumps out and gets you at the last second.”

Tom went to her and gathered her into his arms, letting her weep on his shoulder.

“I’m planning to do everything possible to make sure that never happens,” Sam said. “Melinda, he’s been charged with murdering your mother and sister, and the federal government is charging him with many more things. I don’t think he’s ever going to have the chance to see freedom or daylight again.”

Sometimes, life situations can appear as if on cue. Deputy Jenkins’ radio suddenly began squawking, and he spun around and put it to his ear.

“This is Jenkins,” he said. “Say again?”

Sam had turned to look at him as the dispatcher came over the radio more clearly. “All units, all units, be advised of a felony escape. Suspect is Daniel Samara, he is driving an unmarked police vehicle and should be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Samara attacked and killed Denver City Detective Carl Rivers, then overpowered another deputy and took his weapon. He forced his way out of the building with a hostage and drove away in Detective Rivers’ car. Current whereabouts unknown, be on look out. Vehicle is described as a new Dodge Charger, solid black with concealed emergency lights in the grille. Again, suspect is Daniel Samara, wanted for the murders of Detective Carl Rivers and others, and should be considered armed and extremely dangerous.”

Melinda Davis began to scream.

Jenkins yanked the door open and found both of the deputies on their feet. They had also heard the dispatch and were standing alert with hands on their guns. “Keep your eyes open,” Jenkins said. “That son of a bitch shows up here, you shoot to kill! He’s not getting near these people, you understand me?”

Both deputies acknowledged their orders, and Jenkins turned to Sam. “You might want to get your wife out of here,” he said. “We know he wants Mrs. Davis, so it might not be the safest place for her at the moment.”

Sam nodded. “Can you check on my other witness, Pilsner? He’s under police guard here, as well.”

“City is watching him,” Jenkins said. “I talked to them a while ago, and he was still in ICU. I’ll make sure they know what’s going on.”

Indie turned to Melinda to try to say something, but she was weeping hysterically while her husband held her. Sam took Indie’s hand and led her out the door, whispering that they would check in with them later. They went to the elevator and down, then started through the emergency department toward the exit.

“Sam,” Indie said, “would he go after Kenzie?”

“It’s possible,” Sam said. “I don’t know if he even knows where our mothers live, but let’s take precautions.” He took out his phone and scrolled through his contacts for a moment, then hit one that he rarely used. The line rang twice, and then a man’s voice answered.

“Sam? Is that you?”

“Yeah, Ron, it’s me. I need a favor.”

Ron Thomas had once worked for Harry Winslow and the Department of Homeland Security. He and Jeff Donaldson had been Harry’s intelligence department, running a system of computers that could help them track terrorists and terrorist activity around the Denver area, but they were also highly skilled at other aspects of international security. When Harry was promoted up to DC, they had been offered the chance to go with him, but refused. Instead, they had decided to enter the private sector with their own security firm. They specialized in computer network security and corporate/industrial counterespionage, and they had been successful enough to have a number of lucrative contracts. That had enabled them to branch out into physical security, and they had hired a number of ex-military personnel who were quite good at what they did.

“Name it,” Ron said. “How can I help you, Sam?”

“I’m working a case involving one of the most dangerous killers I’ve ever come across,” Sam said. “We actually caught him an hour or so ago, but I just found out that he killed at least one cop out at the jail and has escaped. A few hours ago, he abducted my wife, Indie, and I’m afraid he may target my family. Can you arrange protection?”

“It’ll be my pleasure,” Ron replied. “Give me the particulars.”

“I need to put my wife, both of our mothers and my daughter somewhere safe. I’ve got Indie with me, and we are heading for our moms’ place now.” He gave Ron the address, and the security man promised to have a detail meet them there.

“We’ve got a safe house,” he said. “I’m sending a five-man detail, with an armored van. They’ll be at your mother’s place in twenty minutes.”

“Thanks, Ron.” They ended the call and Sam opened the passenger door of the Corvette and helped Indie inside. Her bulging belly made it difficult for her to climb in and out of the low car, so she held onto his arm until she was firmly in the seat.

Indie called her mother to let her know what was going on. “The guy who abducted me has escaped,” she said. “Sam has arranged for us to go into protective custody. We should be there in just a few minutes, and the security guys are already on the way.”

“Oh, God, Indiana,” Kim said. “How does he always get into these messes?”

“Well, gee, Mom,” Indie shot back, “when you hunt bad guys for a living, sometimes they get mad about it. We’ll be there in a few minutes, and we can talk about it more then.”

The ride from the hospital to Sam’s mother’s house in Lakewood would normally take almost twenty minutes, but Sam wanted to get there as quickly as possible. He pushed the car up to fifty-five as he rolled down West Alameda, even though the speed limit was only forty. It was coming up on ten p.m., and he didn’t really expect any problems. Most of the traffic ran close to that speed anyway, that late at night.

He turned left onto South Pierce Street and pressed down on the accelerator again, shifting up to fourth gear at about fifty miles per hour. He was still about eight minutes from the house, but suddenly the flashing red and blue of a police car appeared behind him, and he glanced into his mirror.

“Oh, crap,” he said. “Slide down in the seat as far as you can. I think that’s Rivers’ car.”

The black, unmarked Charger was less than three feet from the back of the Corvette, and Sam knew that no police officer would tailgate him that close while trying to pull him over. He grabbed the shifter and dropped it to third gear, shoved his foot to the floor and dumped the clutch. The Corvette shot forward, almost instantly hitting sixty-five, and the Charger came on just as hard.

Pierce was a residential street, and the speed limit was only thirty. With only two lanes and a bicycle lane, it wasn’t designed for high-speed pursuit. Sam needed to get on to a better road, he knew, but that wasn’t going to be easy. West Ohio was coming up, and he knew it would take him all the way back over to Sheridan, so he accelerated up to seventy to try to gain a little space between him and Samara.

“Call 911,” Sam said, raising his voice over the noise of the engine.

Indie was already dialing. “911, what is your emergency?”

“We’re being chased by a madman in a stolen police car,” Indie said. She told the operator where they were, and was promised that police officers would be on the way, but then Sam had to downshift and brake hard to make a fishtailing, sliding turn to the left. The phone flew out of her hand and onto the floorboard, where she couldn’t reach it again.

The Corvette came out of the turn still making almost fifty, but the Charger couldn’t handle it as well. Sam saw it falling back in the rearview mirror, and with the road ahead clear of any visible traffic, he punched the big 427 and gave it its head. The car shot up to eighty-five in a matter of seconds, and the Charger was struggling to catch up.

Forty-five seconds later, Sam saw the stoplight at Sheridan. It was red in his direction, but he didn’t dare come to a stop. The Charger, while a quarter-mile behind, was still coming. Sam whispered a prayer and downshifted all the way to second gear, let out the clutch and stood on the brake. The car slowed to just under forty-five as he got to the intersection, and his prayer was answered when the light suddenly turned green.

Sam cut the wheel to the right and floored the accelerator, making the rear tires spin and breaking their traction. The back of the car slid around so that its front end was facing south once again, and it slid sideways into the intersection before they bit in again. The car shot forward on Sheridan, where there was a lot more room to maneuver.

Of course, there was also more traffic. The Corvette whipped through it like it was being driven by a NASCAR pro, and Sam was a block ahead before the Charger managed to turn the corner.

On the bigger street, however, the hemi engine in the Charger could do its own thing. Sam was hitting a hundred miles an hour when the black unmarked began gaining on him again, but there was traffic ahead. The light at Mississippi was red, and there were several vehicles already stopped there.

With no sidestreets to turn onto, Sam did the only thing he could. He whipped the wheel to the left and moved into oncoming traffic, flew around the stopped cars and shot through the intersection at a hundred and five miles per hour. He had managed to guide the Corvette between two cars in the cross traffic, and the sound of squealing brakes and honking horns was a testament to the fear and anger their drivers had felt.

The Charger had its siren blaring, now, and followed Sam around the stopped traffic and through the red light. Sam was trying to keep an eye on the rearview mirror at the same time he was watching the road ahead, looking for any opportunity to break away from the pursuit, but there were a couple of semi-trucks turning ahead of him. The northbound traffic was heavy, as if a number of cars had just been released from a stoplight, and there was just nowhere to go. Sam had to slow down, so he downshifted to third and let the engine bring the car down below eighty before he stepped on the brakes again.

Samara, in the Charger, stayed off his own brakes and was suddenly on Sam’s rear bumper again. He tried to cut around on the left, but Sam whipped the Corvette over and blocked him, and had to cut to the right to block him again. He was still slowing down, because the trucks ahead were heavily laden and trying to get up to speed, but they hadn’t even gotten up to the speed limit yet. Sam was down to fifty and still gaining on them, but then he spotted a side street. He braked harder and dropped the transmission to second gear, then punched it as he whipped the wheel to the right.

The Corvette went into another controlled skid, suddenly facing to the west as Sam desperately tried to make the turn onto Arkansas Avenue, but the Charger was just too close. It clipped the right rear corner of the Corvette and sent it into a spin. Sam threw his right arm out protectively, trying to keep Indie safe in her seat, as the Corvette spun completely out of control. It bounced over the curb and shot into the parking lot of a liquor store, still spinning until its front end struck a parked Suburban. The windshield became a spider web of cracks as the entire front end of the Corvette was ripped away. Both of the windows and the doors disintegrated from the impact, showering them both with tiny pieces of glass.

Battered and bruised, Sam suddenly realized that what was left of the car had finally come to a stop against the brick wall of the building. His door was against the wall, and he frantically looked around to see what was happening. Indie was gasping for breath, her hands clamping her belly, and the black Charger was stopped in the middle of the street. Sam could see Samara staring at him, a pistol in his hand, but then a number of sirens rent the air.

A pair of squad cars came sliding around the corner, coming out the other side of Arkansas onto Sheridan. Samara scowled and shoved his foot down on the gas, and the Charger took off to the south with both of the squad cars in hot pursuit.

Several people came running out of the liquor store and approached the wrecked Corvette. Sam reached up and popped the latches on the t-tops, tossing them aside. He unbuckled his own seatbelt first, then released Indie’s.

“Baby? Indie, are you hurt?”

She shook her head, gasping for breath as though she couldn’t speak, but then she wrapped her hands around her belly and her face contorted. It took Sam a second to realize what he was seeing, as she began huffing and puffing, blowing air out and sucking it in.

Indie was going into labor.

“Hey, are you okay?” The people standing around the car were staring, not sure what to do.

“I called 911,” said another man, “there’s an ambulance on the way.”

“Thank you,” Sam called out. He forced himself upward and climbed out onto the rear deck of the car, then hobbled around to the passenger door. He tried to open it, but it wouldn’t release.

“Indie? We need to get you out of there.” She nodded, and Sam reached through the broken window and got her under the arms. As she pushed with her feet, he lifted her enough to help her stand, and then picked her up and lifted her bodily over the ruined door. When he set her on her feet, she was staring at the car.

“Oh, Sam, your car…”

“Forget the car,” Sam said. He reached back into the car and picked up her phone, slipping it into his own pocket for the moment. “There’s an ambulance coming, honey, just hold onto me for a minute till it gets here. Are you hurting anywhere?”

She looked up at him, with her eyes wide, then suddenly grimaced. “You’re damned right I’m hurting,” she yelled. “I’m having a baby, you idiot!”

The rattling foghorn sound of an approaching ambulance was suddenly heard, and Sam helped Indie sit on the back end of the car as it maneuvered through traffic and into the parking lot. She was doubled over in pain, one arm wrapped around her belly while her left hand squeezed Sam’s hand so hard he was almost ready to scream. The ambulance stopped close by and the paramedics leaped out while Sam started shouting to them that his wife was going into labor.

“Okay, let us have her,” said one of the paramedics. He pushed Sam gently away, then wrapped his arms around Indie and started walking her toward the ambulance.

The other one took hold of Sam’s arm and pulled on him. “Sir,” she said, “how badly are you hurt?”

Sam tried to push her away. “I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” he said. “We gotta get her to the hospital…”

“Sir, you’re bleeding,” the paramedic said. “We’ve got to see how bad it is, please.”

Sam looked at her for a moment, and then glanced down at himself where the paramedic was pointing. A bright red something was sticking out of his chest, and Sam felt a detached sense of curiosity about what it could be. The color looked so familiar, but he just wasn’t sure…

Holy crap, he thought, that’s a piece of my car! That’s a shard of the fiberglass from the front end of my freaking car!

Suddenly, there was excruciating pain and Sam’s legs almost collapsed under him. The paramedic caught him and helped him walk to the ambulance, where it took both of them to help him get inside. They put him into a seat, because Indie was laying on their gurney, and the paramedic began checking his vital signs.

Two squad cars arrived, and one of the officers asked Sam what had happened. He gave a short explanation of the events that led up to the crash, but then the paramedics told the officer they could talk to Sam at the hospital. A moment later, with Sam, Indie and the officer reassured that he wasn’t going to die on the spot, the ambulance took off toward it.

Over the protests of the paramedic, Sam took out his phone and called his mother. “Mom,” he said, “we’re not going to make it. Go with the security guys, just to be safe.”

“Samuel? Samuel, what is wrong?”

“We sort of had a wreck,” Sam said, “and then Indie went into labor. We’re on the way to the hospital. I’ll call you as soon as I can.” He ended the call over his mother’s protests, then dropped it back into his pocket.

20

When the ambulance arrived at the hospital emergency room, two orderlies were waiting for it. One had a wheelchair, and they helped Sam into it as the paramedics pulled the gurney out and rushed Indie inside. One of the orderlies pushed the wheelchair, and they put the two of them into adjacent exam rooms. The center curtain was pulled back, so they could see each other.

“Is this your first baby?” The nurse asked Indie the standard questions, while another one was checking her blood pressure and other vital signs. “Just relax, honey, you’re doing fine.”

Another nurse was going over Sam, and had already helped him take off his jacket, then cut away his shirt. “Sir? We’re going to have to take you down to x-ray. We need to find out just how deep this thing has penetrated, okay?”

“Like hell,” Sam growled. “That’s my wife over there, having my baby! I’m not going anywhere!”

“Sir, we have to get an x-ray. We’ll only be a few minutes, I promise you, but we’ve got to get an x-ray to see just how long this thing is. That’s the only way we can…”

Sam pushed the nurse away and grabbed the fiberglass shard that was sticking out of his chest. It was just over his left nipple, he figured, and appeared to be going in at an angle, so he wrapped his hand around it and pulled. It came out with a ripping sound, and blood began to pour down his side, under his armpit.

Sam held the piece and looked at it. “About seven inches,” he said. “Only about two inches of it was stuck inside me and oh my God, that hurts!”

The nurse’s eyes were probably as wide as they had ever been, and she suddenly stuck her head out through the curtain. “Doctor Miller,” she shouted, “Doctor Miller, get in here, STAT!”

A doctor stepped through the curtain and looked at Sam, who was still holding the bloody shard. “He ripped it out,” the nurse said. “I told him we had to get an x-ray to see how deep it was, and he just ripped it out!”

Doctor Miller looked at the wound, then gently took the shard from Sam and looked it over. A moment later, he looked into Sam’s eyes. “That was about the dumbest thing you could have done,” he said. “This thing was just long enough that it could have reached an artery. You’re an extremely lucky man, do you know that?”

“Look, Doc, I…”

“Shut up,” the doctor said. “Now, if you had let us take an x-ray, we could have gotten that out of there without doing any further damage, but you’ve managed to rip yourself wide open. This is a piece of fiberglass, and the way it’s broken tells me it probably came off of a car. The edges were jagged, and you probably got bits and pieces of fiberglass still stuck inside the wound. What you’re going to do now is lay still, while I try to get all of them out.”

The doctor barked a few orders at the nurse, who rushed out and returned a few moments later with a stainless steel tray. On it were numerous surgical implements, and she set it on a wheeled table that she pushed over near the doctor. He was drawing liquid into a syringe, and then thumped it to get the air out before quickly jabbing it into the area around the wound.

“This is a local anesthetic,” he said. “The pain should go away in a moment, and it’ll let me do what I’ve got to do to try to fix the damage you caused. I understand that’s your wife beside you, and you are perfectly free to watch what’s going on, but if you so much as move while I’m trying to clean this up you could make things a whole lot worse. You understand?”

Sam looked up at him. “I understand,” he said. “Listen, I need to get word to somebody upstairs. There’s a Deputy Jenkins up on the fourth floor, and I need to talk to him right away.”

“I’ll see what I can do about that,” the doctor said. He glanced at the nurse, who nodded and stepped out again. “Now, hold still.”

Sam turned his head to watch what was going on with Indie. There were two nurses over there, now, and one of them was encouraging her to breathe through a contraction. The other was setting up an ultrasound device, and a moment later another woman arrived to operate the machine.

Sam watched as they squirted gel onto her belly, and then the ultrasound tech did her job. He could hear them talking, and was relieved to hear that the baby seemed to be all right. One of the nurses told her that she was in early labor, and should do her best to make herself comfortable in between contractions.

The nurse came back a few minutes later. “Doctor? The deputy is here.”

Doctor Miller nodded. “He can come in,” he said. “Just tell him not to breathe on my patient.”

Jenkins stepped through the curtain a few seconds later and looked at Sam. “Good Lord, Sam,” he said. “What the hell…”

“Samara spotted us,” Sam said. “He turned on the lights and tried to get me to stop, but I knew the car. Chased me across half of Denver, I think, and I wiped out trying to make a turn. Piece of fiberglass from the hood got me, and Indie has gone into labor. Last I saw of Samara, he was running from a couple of other squad cars. You heard anything?”

“Only that he’s still on the loose,” Jenkins said. “I don’t know how, but he gave the officers the slip and got away. I heard there was a wreck involved, but I didn’t know it was you. You gonna be okay, Sam?”

“Of course I am,” Sam said. “I’ve got Doctor Miller, here, taking care of me.”

“He’ll be fine,” Doctor Miller said, “if I don’t decide to euthanize him. This idiot decided to perform surgery on himself before I could get here, could have killed himself.”

Jenkins grinned. “Meet Sam Prichard, Doctor Miller,” he said. “There’s not a lot about him that would surprise me.” He turned his eyes back to Sam. “I’ve got the men upstairs on alert,” he said. “It sounds like Samara has a grudge against you personally. I think I’m going to put a couple of men on you, as well.”

Sam nodded. “The way he was acting, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries again.”

“I’ll call it in now, Sam. Should have somebody here in fifteen minutes or so. You stay quiet and do what the doctor tells you, you hear me?” Jenkins turned and walked back out through the curtain.

Sam glanced down at what the doctor was doing, and saw him using tweezers to pull pieces of fiberglass out of the wound. He was fascinated for a moment and watched, but then Indie groaned and his attention went back to her.

She was having another contraction. Sam tried to think about how far apart they were, but he really didn’t know that much about women in labor. It just seemed to him that things were going a lot faster than he would’ve expected.

There was a scream from out in the emergency room, and then Sam heard a gunshot. He reached for his pistol, but the nurse had removed it in its holster and put it somewhere out of reach. Doctor Miller pressed him back down as he tried to sit up, but Sam shoved him away.

“Back off,” Sam said. “That son of a bitch is coming to try to kill me and my wife. Where the hell is my gun?”

The nurse pointed to where she had laid the gun on the counter to the side of the room, and Sam slid off the table onto his feet. He felt a little wobbly, but managed to hobble across and grab the pistol out of its holster, then eased up to the curtain.

“All of you stay out of sight,” he said. “I’ll handle this.”

“Mr. Prichard, you’re still bleeding profusely,” the doctor said, but Sam ignored him. He found the gap in the curtain and poked his head out quickly, and saw Jenkins laying on the floor, blood pooling around him. There was no sign of Samara, but there was no doubt in Sam’s mind that was who fired the shot that took the deputy down.

“Stay here,” he said. He stepped into the emergency room, his gun held at the ready as he scanned the area. There was no one in sight at the moment, and Sam figured everyone had ducked into whatever cover they could. He slowly walked down the aisle between the examination rooms and finally spotted a nurse who was bent over a small child on an examination table. She was obviously trying to protect the child with her own body, and Sam felt a split second of great admiration.

“Where did he go?” Sam asked, and the nurse turned her head to look at him.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I think I heard the elevator.”

Sam took one more quick look around, then ran as quickly as he could with his bad hip to the elevator. The indicator overhead said it was on the fourth floor, and Sam pushed the button to call another one down. The one beside it opened immediately, and Sam got in and pushed the number four.

Several gunshots rang out overhead, and Sam allowed himself to hope that the deputies had put an end to Daniel Samara. He braced himself against the wall of the car as the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened, then quickly stuck his head out and looked toward the room where the Davises would be found.

Both deputies were down on the floor, and Sam heard another shot ring out. He took off out the elevator, ignoring the screaming in his hip and his chest as he raced to the room. He hit the door with his shoulder and whipped around, his gun ready, but all he saw was Tom and Melinda Davis huddled together on her bed. There was no sign of Samara, so Sam checked behind the door to be safe, then looked at the frightened couple.

“Was he here? Where did he go?”

They shook their heads, neither of them able to speak. Sam turned and looked up and down the hallway, and that’s when he saw the streak of blood on the floor. Samara had apparently been hit in the last exchange of gunfire, and he was dripping blood.

The radios on the belts of the deputies were squawking, and Sam reached down to grab one. He keyed the mike and spoke quickly. “This is private detective Sam Prichard,” he said. “I have three officers down and an active shooter in St. Joseph’s Hospital. The shooter is wounded, and I am trying to find him. I am injured and need all the help I can get, so send backup.”

He let go of the button and the dispatcher came back instantly. “We’ve got help on the way, Mr. Prichard,” she said. “Stand down, let our deputies do their job.”

Sam keyed the mike again. “And how many will die while I wait?” He dropped the radio and stepped out into the hallway, following the trail of blood.

Something isn’t making sense, Sam thought. He came all the way up here and shot these deputies, but didn’t go after Melinda. What’s he doing?

A moment later, Sam heard a noise ahead. The trail of blood was beginning to veer toward one of the walls, and the sound Sam heard came from a room three doors up on the right. A sign sticking out from the wall said, “Medical Supplies.”

That was it, Sam realized. Samara was wounded, so he had gone for something to deal with the injury. He was undoubtedly planning to come back to Melinda and Tom, but Sam wasn’t about to let that happen. He eased over by the wall and moved as silently as he could toward the supply room.

When he got to the door, he listened for a moment and then sprang into action. He leapt around and shoved the door wide open, his gun aimed ahead of him, and there stood Samara. He had apparently heard Sam coming in spite of his efforts to be quiet, because his own gun was pointed straight at the door and at Sam.

“Drop the gun, Samara,” Sam shouted. “I got back up on the way, there’s no way out.”

“Yeah? That’s what that asshole Rivers thought, too. How about you drop your gun? Put it down, and I’ll let you live.”

“No way. I’m taking you in, Samara, and you’re going down. We’ve got you on at least three murders now, and I’m betting we can pin a few more on you before it’s over. Did you know your buddy Zeno was really an FBI agent?”

Samara laughed. “He wasn’t a very good one,” he said. “Come on, Prichard, this is a Mexican standoff. If either one of us fires, the other probably will and we both die. Don’t you have a wife to get back to?”

“Put down the damned gun,” Sam said. “I’m not gonna tell you again.”

Samara fired once, throwing himself to the right as he did so. The bullet whizzed past Sam’s ear so close that he felt the air in its cup, and he inadvertently flinched. He squeezed off a shot of his own, but Samara had gotten behind a metal cabinet and was pushing it forward. It crashed into Sam, knocking him down onto his back, and his elbows struck the floor. His hand opened as his arm went numb, and his gun clattered to the floor and skated away.

The cabinet was shoved aside and Samara filled the doorway, his gun aimed directly at Sam’s face. “I gave you a chance, Prichard,” Samara said. “You could have just walked away, but you’re too stupid for that.”

Sam looked up and realized he could see straight down the barrel of the gun. A dozen things went through his mind, but most of them was the regret that he would never see the child that was being born downstairs at that moment. He raised his eyes to look directly into Samara’s own, and the killer smiled at him.

The shot rang out, and Sam was amazed that he was able to hear it. He would have thought the bullet would enter his brain before the sound could reach his ears, but then he saw Samara jerk. The killer turned his head to the left and started to aim his gun that way, and Sam looked to see what he was aiming at.

“I won’t let you kill him,” screamed Melinda Davis. “I won’t let you kill anyone else!” She was standing in the hallway, holding a gun she had obviously taken from one of the fallen deputies. It was she who had fired the shot Sam heard, and now Samara was raising his gun to aim at his own pregnant daughter.

She was holding the pistol in both hands, and squeezed the trigger again. Sam heard the bullet fly by, missing Samara completely. The evil bastard began laughing, as he took a stronger stance and leveled the gun directly at her.

“What’s the matter, baby girl,” he said mockingly. “Did you miss Daddy?”

Melinda screamed, a scream of rage that had no meaning other than pure hatred, and she fired once more. This time, the bullet struck Samara in the center of his forehead, and Sam was shocked to see an expression of utter surprise on his face. It wasn’t real, of course; a bullet entering the brain that way meant there was no time for any sense of surprise, no possibility of realizing what had happened. It was just that his face went slack, and that was what made it appear that way.

And yet, somehow, Samara stood for several seconds. His arm slowly lowered, the weight of the gun pulling it downward, but it wasn’t until it was actually pointing at the floor that his knees finally gave. He dropped straight down, collapsing like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and Sam scrambled over to snatch away the gun.

He found his own pistol and picked it up, then slowly managed to struggle to his feet. Melinda was still standing in the same spot, still holding the gun out in front of her, and Tom was walking carefully up the hall behind her. Sam looked at him, and fought down the disgust that rose up at a man who would let his wife take such a risk.

“Melinda?” Sam said. “Melinda, it’s over. Put the gun down, it’s over.”

She shook her head. “Not with him,” she said. “With him, it’s never over.” She took three steps until she was standing almost over her father’s body, then she pointed the gun down at him and fired once more. This bullet struck him in the face, and tore it completely away.

Sam reached out and carefully put his hand over the gun, and she let go. Tom hurried up to her and she spun and wrapped her arms around him. He held her while she wept, and then he looked into Sam’s face and saw what Sam was trying to hide.

“It’s not what you think,” he said. “I took the gun from the cop on the floor, but she—she wouldn’t let me come after him. She grabbed it and twisted on it until I was afraid it would go off and hurt her, so I let go. She pointed the gun at me and told me to stay there, and then she came after him.” Tears were flowing down his cheeks as he spoke, and Sam suddenly realized that he was probably telling the truth. Melinda wouldn’t have wanted him to come out and face her father; it was something she absolutely had to do for herself, at last.

“She saved my life,” Sam said. “Who cares how it happened?”

The elevator door opened down the hall, and several police officers spilled out. They had guns drawn and aimed at the three of them, so Sam quickly dropped the three guns he was holding.

“I’m Sam Prichard,” he called out. “It’s all under control, the shooter is down.”

The officers swarmed around them, and all three of them were put against the wall for the moment, but Sam continued to explain what happened. The officers released them, and suddenly there were doctors and nurses all over the place. Many of them went to check on patients on the floor, while a doctor took one look at Samara and pronounced him dead.

Sam surrendered his Glock, and the other guns were collected as well. His gun would have to be compared to the ballistic markings on the bullets that killed Samara, but it was simply procedure. The police knew what had happened, and who had actually killed him. Under the circumstances, Sam was certain there would be no charges filed against Melinda Davis.

21

Sam took the elevator back down to the main level, and went directly to the examination room where he had left Indie. He stepped through the curtain and was shocked to find her gone, so he grabbed the first nurse he saw and demanded to know where she was.

“They took her to a delivery room,” the nurse said, staring at the shirtless man with the gaping wound in his chest. “Down the hall, through those double doors. I don’t know which room, but she’s down there.”

Sam hobbled down the hall and through the double doors, then heard Indie’s voice. She was screaming obscenities, and Sam couldn’t help but grin. Indie was the type who couldn’t stand that kind of language out of anybody else.

He made it to the door the sound was coming from and stepped inside, but a nurse grabbed his arm and forced him into a chair. “Stay put,” she said. “Doctor Miller is going nuts looking for you!”

She stepped out of the room and was back only a minute later with Doctor Miller.

“Mind if I finish what I was doing?” the doctor asked. “You can stay in the chair, that’s okay.”

Sam shrugged. He was paying attention to Indie, who was so obviously in pain that it was breaking his heart. The doctor knelt down beside him and reached for something the nurse was holding, and Sam felt cold liquid running down his ribs. The doctor had washed off the wound, and was preparing a suture.

“I had pretty well gotten everything out,” he said, “but I still need to stitch you up. Think you can hold still for five minutes while I get this done?”

“I’ll try,” Sam said.

Indie suddenly turned her face to look at Sam, and the thought struck him that she looked a little bit like some demon-possessed person in a movie. “You! You son of a bitch, Sam, you did this! I’m gonna kill you when this is over, do you know that? I’m gonna kill you!”

Sam was staring at her with his eyes big and round, but suddenly her face went slack and she threw her head back. A second later, she was blowing again, breathing through another contraction the way she’d been taught in their Lamaze classes. Sam was frustrated at not being able to help, but the adrenaline of the last few hours was suddenly wearing off. He was almost gasping for breath as the doctor continued to stitch up the hole in his chest.

“There you go,” Doctor Miller said. “I’m going to prescribe you some antibiotics, and I want you to make damn sure you take them. No matter how good a job I did cleaning that out, there’s bound to be some infection I couldn’t get.” He got to his feet and looked down at Sam. “I heard you got the guy,” he said. “I just want to say…”

“I didn’t get him,” Sam said. “His own daughter shot him dead.” He looked up at the doctor. “She saved my life in the process.”

Doctor Miller looked at him for a moment, then glanced over at Indie before looking back to Sam. “Well—congratulations on your baby, anyway.” He turned and walked out of the room.

Sam looked over at Indie just in time to see her burst into a huge smile. The doctor who was sitting between her upraised knees, and whom Sam hadn’t even noticed before, was holding something up for her to see, and Sam pushed away the nurse who was trying to put a bandage over his stitches and staggered to his feet. He hurried the best he could over to her bedside as the doctor handed her a bloody, wet mess.

Indie was beaming, and she took a moment to realize Sam was there. When she did, she looked up and smiled.

“It’s a boy,” she said.

A moment later, one of the nurses took the baby to be cleaned, and Indie collapsed back on the bed. She looked up at her husband and the demonic face was only a memory. “I love you, Sam Prichard,” she said. “We have a baby boy.”

“Damn right,” Sam said with pride. “Sam Prichard has a baby boy.”

The nurse had shoved the chair over to the bed and gotten Sam to sit down again while she applied the bandage. Sam took a couple of minutes to tell Indie what happened upstairs, and she reached out for his hand and clasped it to her cheek.

“Sam,” she said, “do you ever think about getting out of the PI business?”

Sam swallowed. “Is that what you would want?”

Indie held his hand tightly to her cheek and shrugged. “I get scared,” she said. “I always make jokes about it when Mom or Grace says something about you falling into such dangerous situations, but I get scared. What happens if, one of these days, the bad guy gets lucky? How would I go on without you?”

Sam gave her his best cocky look. “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” he said. “I’m pretty hard to kill.”

“That’s because you’re so lucky,” she said. “The problem with being lucky like you is that you have to be lucky every time. A bad guy only has to get lucky once, and then you’re gone. I get scared, Sam.”

“I understand,” he said. “We can talk about it, okay? Maybe—maybe there’s something else I could do.”

There was a sudden commotion out in the hallway and Sam got up to go and look, but his knees began to buckle and he sat back down. A moment later, the door opened and a large man wearing tactical gear and holding a small submachine gun poked his head in. “You Prichard?”

Sam grinned. “Yep,” he said. “You found us. Bring them on in.”

The man smiled and held the door open. Grace, Kim and Kenzie came bustling through a moment later, while four other men took up positions around the doorway. Kenzie came running to Sam, and he barely managed to pick her up and put her in his lap. She looked at the bandage on his bare chest and then turned her face up so she could look into his eyes.

“Daddy,” she said solidly. “Did you get shot again?”

“Nope, I didn’t. This is just a little scratch. Me and Mommy were in a little bit of an accident a while ago.”

The nurse suddenly returned with the baby and gently placed him in Indie’s arms. He was wrapped in a blanket and there was a tiny little hat on his head. Kenzie leaned close, her eyes wide.

“Is that ours?”

“He sure is,” Indie said. “Meet your baby brother.”

Kenzie stared at the baby for a moment, then looked up at Sam. “You said it was gonna be a girl,” she said accusingly.

Sam made a face that said, “What can you do?” He pointed at the baby again. “A boy is okay, though, right?”

Kenzie went back to staring at the baby. After a moment, she nodded. “What’s his name?”

Sam and Indie looked at one another and grinned. As one, they turned their eyes to look at Kim.

“Where is he?” Sam asked.

Kim looked at them for a moment, confused, and then she broke out in a smile. “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “Beauregard says he’s going to be staying where he is for a while. But he says he feels honored.”

“Honored?” Grace asked. “What does the old spook have to be honored about?”

Sam looked at his mother and smiled. “Believe it or not,” he said, “even though I’m pretty sure Beauregard is just some sort of alter ego of Kim’s, he’s kind of a part of the family. Indie and I had talked it over, and on the off chance that it might be a boy, we decided to name him after that old soldier. Mom, Kim, Kenzie—I’d like to introduce you to Beauregard Samuel Prichard.”

“Oh, my God,” Grace said, “you’ve got to be kidding. Why on earth would you saddle him with a name like Beauregard?”

“Relax, Mom,” Sam said. “We’ll call him Bo, for short.”

Grace shook her head. “Oh, I feel sorry for this kid. Do you know how many times he’s going to be called Bo Peep?”

“He might,” Sam said. “Other kids can be pretty cruel when it comes to picking on your name. On the other hand, getting called ‘Pam’ and such as a kid is probably one of the reasons I turned out as tough as I am. It won’t hurt him.”

Kim laughed. “I think it’s perfect,” she said.

A nurse came in suddenly, holding Sam’s jacket and holster. “You left these down in the ER,” she said, “and your phone has been ringing.”

Sam thanked her and took the jacket, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He checked the call history and saw that he’d been getting calls from his mother, from Kim and from the main number of the DA’s office. That one had called several times, which surprised him since the office would be closed. He hit the button to call it back, and put the phone to his ear.

“Sam Prichard? Is that you?”

Sam’s eyes narrowed, because he didn’t know the voice. “Yes,” he said. “Who is this?”

“This is John Pemberton,” the man said. “I’m the chief deputy district attorney. I’m calling because I was called in tonight on the case Will Burton had been working on, Karen Parks.”

A sense of dread suddenly hit Sam. “What happened to Will?”

“Will Burton was at the jail when Daniel Samara made his escape,” Pemberton said. “Apparently he was just coming through the door and tried to stop Samara. He was shot once, through the heart, and died at the scene.”

Sam let out a sigh as his family watched him. “I am so sorry to hear that,” Sam said. “Will was a good man.”

“Yes, he was. Unfortunately, he’s gone and I have to take up his caseload. I don’t mind that so much, but this case about Karen Parks—I’ve been going over his notes, and he seemed pretty certain that she was innocent. Everything I’ve got, though, says he’s basing that on you. I’ve been trying to get hold of you to set an appointment for us to meet in the morning. I want to know what you’ve got that backs up his theory. Can we get together?”

“Absolutely,” Sam said. “I can be there around ten, if that’s okay?”

“That’ll be fine, Sam. Listen, I understand you were there at the hospital when Samara was killed. I want to get a statement from you on that, as well.”

“No problem, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“Okay. Ten o’clock, then.”

Pemberton cut off the call and Sam dropped the phone back into his jacket pocket. None of his family had ever met Will, so Sam simply said that Samara had killed another victim, and the DA wanted to talk about it in the morning.

By this time, it was nearly midnight. Sam was not being kept overnight, but Indie and the baby would be. Sam needed to go home and get cleaned up, he said, so he kissed Indie and his new baby son, then asked his mother to give him a ride home.

Forty-five minutes later, clinging to the handrail, Sam slowly and carefully managed to walk a very sleepy Kenzie up the stairs and got her tucked into bed. He hobbled back down the stairs to his own room and decided a shower could wait till morning. He fell down onto the bed and was asleep within minutes.

His phone woke him at seven thirty in the morning, and he answered it groggily. “Sam Prichard,” he said.

“I hope so,” Indie said with a giggle. “I’d hate to think I was calling the wrong husband.”

Sam forced himself up and sat on the edge of the bed. “Hey, baby,” he said. “How are my babies doing this morning?”

“Very well, actually,” Indie said. “Your son is trying to drink me dry. Oh, Sam, he is so adorable.”

“Yes, he is. I think he gets that from you.”

Indie sighed. “Sam, I just wanted to talk to you for a minute. About what I said last night, I don’t really…”

“Babe, you’re not the only one who’s been thinking about these things. There’s a part of me that thinks it’s time for me to slow down a little bit, start to take things a little easier. Kenzie kinda got to me last night. A little girl shouldn’t have to wonder every time her daddy gets a boo-boo if he got shot, you know what I mean?”

“I know, but I also know this is something you love to do. I don’t want to ever make you feel like you have to give up what you love to make me happy. That’s not what it was about, Sam.”

“Honey, I never thought it was. I’m serious, I’ve already been thinking about this. Even before this last case, to be honest.”

“Well—you could always go back to singing. I’m sure there’s a dozen bands around here that would love to have you out front.”

“Nah, it’s like Travis said. I’m a good singer, but I’m not a great singer. Real stardom was never going to come my way. I don’t think I want to give that another try, I had my fifteen minutes of fame from music.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Then, what would you do? If you gave this up, I mean.”

“Well, Ron Thomas has been trying to offer me a job for a while. They do mostly corporate and industrial stuff, and they could always use a good investigator. I thought about talking with Ron, maybe taking him up on it.”

“But would you be happy? Trying to figure out who stole the pencils and where the missing formulas went?”

“You know what? My work isn’t what makes me happy. What makes me happy is my family. You, Kenzie, now Bo—even our mothers and that stupid ghost. That’s where my happiness comes from, Indie. I think I can be every bit as happy chasing down an industrial spy as I possibly could chasing down an international spy.”

“Well, I guess it could be worth a try. You don’t have to give up your license, so if it doesn’t work out, you could always go back to being a PI.”

“I’m planning to give Ron a call and talk about it,” Sam said. “This morning, I need to go try to close the case for Karen. I’ll be up to see you before too long, because I need to try to talk to Freddie Pilsner this morning before I go see the DA. Let me get a shower, and I’ll get Kenzie off to school and head up there.”

“Okay, babe. We can’t wait to see you.”

They said goodbye and Sam went to take a shower. He had to peel the bandage off his chest, but the stitched injury was small enough that he figured a couple of Band-Aids would work just as well. After he had gotten out of the shower and dried off thoroughly, he dug in the medicine cabinet until he found a box of big ones, then managed to get two of them over the stitches.

He got dressed for the day and then went to wake Kenzie, who was sleeping in after being up so late. She yawned but cooperated, and the two of them decided to go out for breakfast, so they went out and got into the Honda Ridgeline Sam had bought for their family car. There was a nice little restaurant not far away, and the two of them had waffles and orange juice. They finished up in plenty of time to get Kenzie to school, and then Sam headed toward the hospital.

When he got up to the fifth floor, where Freddie Pilsner’s room was found, he got another surprise. There were two rooms with deputies gathered around them, and several of them recognized him.

“Sam,” one of them said. His name was Garner, and Sam had known him for several years. “I heard you were almost killed last night. Everything okay?”

Sam grinned. “Pretty good,” he said. “I was looking down the barrel of Samara’s gun when his daughter took the gun from one of the deputies he had killed and ended up shooting him. Hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

Garner’s eyes narrowed. “You said he killed the deputy? Who?”

“Who? The ones who were guarding the daughter, and Jenkins.”

Understanding suddenly dawned on Garner, and he broke into a smile. “Sam, they’re not dead,” he said. Jenkins is in this room, he’s in rough shape, but he’s gonna pull through. Markhurst and Baumgardner, they were in a little better shape than him. Both of them got it in the gut, so they’re going to be off work for a long time, but they’re going to live.”

Sam’s own smile spread from ear to ear. “Man, that’s good to hear,” he said. “Tell Jenkins I’ll stop by to see him in a while. Right now, I’ve got stuff I got to get done.”

He went on to the next room, where Pilsner was being cared for, and the deputies there congratulated him on the new baby as they opened the door for him. Sam saw Freddie laying back in the bed, but he was awake. He stepped inside and introduced himself.

“Freddie? I’m Sam Prichard, private investigator. They tell me you’re going to make it, and I’m glad to hear it.”

“Yeah, me too,” Freddie said. “One of the cops out there said you got the son of a bitch?”

“Actually, it was his daughter who shot him. Long story, there. What I need to talk to you about is Karen Parks. You feel up to some questions?”

“Sure. This is the stuff Snake was asking about, right?”

Sam nodded. “Yes. Listen, would you mind if I record this?”

“No problem, go ahead.”

Sam took out his cell phone and set it to record video, then held it out so that it caught both of them in its view. “Could you tell me your name, please?”

“I’m Fred Pilsner,” Freddie said. “Everybody calls me Freddie, though.”

“Can you tell me, Freddie, from your own personal knowledge, where detective Karen Parks was at when the shots were fired the morning the FBI agent was killed in your apartment building?”

Freddie nodded. “Yes, I can. She and I were talking just outside my grandfather’s apartment on the fourth floor. She was looking for Daniel Samara, and somebody had told him he was up on our floor, but that wasn’t true. I told her to check on the second floor, and that’s when we heard the gunshots.”

“And that’s when she went downstairs? After you both heard the gunshots?”

“Yes. She grabbed at her holster and said, ‘shit, my gun’s gone,’ and then she ran down the stairs. I went back inside to check on my grandpa, and I heard a little bit later that Samara was killed, but then it turned out it wasn’t him. I was really shocked when I heard that Detective Parks was arrested, because I know damn well she didn’t do it.”

“Freddie, would you testify to this in court?”

“Hell, yeah,” Freddie said. “Detective Parks is one of the best cops the city has ever had. She can be tough, but she knows when to give a kid a break, too. I owe her my life, because she’s the one who busted me when I was a teenager and messed up on crack. She got me into a program that helped me get clean, and got me into bodybuilding, taking care of myself. Wasn’t for her, I’d probably be dead by now.”

Sam shut off the camera and dropped the phone into his pocket. “Freddie, I really appreciate this. This is exactly what I need to prove she didn’t kill the guy. I’m pretty certain Samara did, but we may never be able to prove that for sure. I’m just glad we can show that Karen didn’t do it. You’re right, she’s one of the best cops we’ve ever had.”

He shook Freddie’s hand and left the room, then stopped to check on Jenkins. The deputy was awake and they talked for a couple of minutes, but his painkillers made it more of a comical conversation than a sensible one. Sam promised to come back later and left the room, then headed down to the second floor to see Indie and his son.

That’s when he got another surprise. Indie had been placed in a room with another new mother and baby, and Sam’s eyes bugged out when he saw Nikki and Snake.

“Okay,” Sam said, “it’s not fair when you start copying everything I do.”

Snake laughed. “Wasn’t on purpose,” he said. “I got home from the hospital about the time you were being brought into it, and Nikki was complaining about her back hurting. I got her down and started rubbing her back, and that’s when I noticed that it was tensing up every twenty minutes or so. I asked her how she was feeling, and she said she was having cramps, so I brought her to the ER. Sure as the dickens, she was in labor.” He pointed at the baby Nikki was holding, and said, “That’s our new baby girl. We named her Hope.”

Sam grinned and nodded. “That definitely sounds appropriate,” he said. “I gather you’ve met my son, Beauregard?”

“And a fine looking boy he is. How are you feeling? I heard you got into a bit of a scrape, yourself, last night.”

“Yeah, totaled my Corvette. I actually ended up with a piece of it sticking into me, got nine stitches out of the deal. Listen, I just came down from seeing Freddie upstairs. I got a video of him swearing that Karen was upstairs with him when the gunshots went off. I’m meeting with the DA in a little over an hour, and I expect this to clear her completely. I appreciate you hooking me up with him.”

“Man, I appreciate you. That reward, that’s going to make a big difference for a lot of us in the Devils. Even after we split it up, it’s going to help all of us a lot.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Sam said. “I’ll go to the bank today and take care of it.”

Indie waved a hand to get his attention. “Um, I need to talk to you about that reward,” she said. “I sort of mentioned to Snake and Nikki that you decided to raise it, after everything they did for us last night. That was okay, wasn’t it?”

One of Sam’s eyebrows went up. “Of course, honey,” he said. “How much did I raise it?”

Indie gave him a sheepish grin. “You raised it up to twenty-five thousand,” she said. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“It’s perfectly fine,” Sam said. “After all, if it wasn’t for Snake and Jackie, I might not have gotten you back, and Bo might not be here at all. You can’t put a price on that.”

“A man’s gotta do,” Snake said, “what a man’s gotta do. Samara, he was one bad son of a bitch. I couldn’t handle the thought of something happening to the wife of my new friend Dick. And by the way, I hear he’s really gone for good, now?”

“He sure is,” Sam said. “He showed up here at the hospital and shot three deputies. I was going after him, but he got the better of me and knocked me down, made me lose my gun. I was literally looking down the barrel of his and thinking that I was never going to know my baby, when his daughter picked up the gun from one of the fallen deputies and ended up shooting him dead.”

“His daughter?” Nikki asked suddenly. “What?”

“Samara had three daughters. One of them died when she was still a child, because of something he did. The oldest one came forward a while back to tell Detective Parks that she saw him murder her mother and little sister, which is what started this whole thing. She’s also pregnant, and Samara kidnapped her yesterday, because he wanted to hang onto her till the baby was born and take it. Snake, there, helped me find where they had gone, and I was finally able to get her out safely. She’s been upstairs here in the hospital ever since, under guard. We think he was coming back after her last night.”

“Oh,” Nikki said. “What—what happened to the other daughter?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “She had a rough life, but nobody has seen her in quite a while. We’re not sure whatever happened to her.”

22

Sam visited with them for a few more minutes, but then it was time to go see Pemberton at the DA’s office. He kissed Indie and told her he’d be back, then rode the elevator down and went out to get into the Ridgeline. He started up the truck and headed downtown, and arrived at the DA’s office less than twenty minutes later.

He was a few minutes early, but Pemberton told the receptionist to send him on in.

“Sam? Good to meet you,” Pemberton said. “Just wish it could have been under better circumstances.”

“So do I,” Sam said. “I’m really sorry about Will.”

Pemberton shrugged, but there was a sorrow in his face. “Sometimes, we just end up at the wrong place at the wrong time. I have to look at it that way, or I’ll go crazy.” He pointed at a chair and Sam sat down, then Pemberton took his own seat behind his desk. “Sam, what can you tell me about Karen Parks? Will was under the impression you were going to produce evidence that would clear her. Any luck with that?”

Sam took out his phone and called up the video he had just made, then handed it over. Pemberton hit the icon to make it play, then sat and watched all the way through it. When it finished, he waved it at Sam. “Can you send a copy of that video to me, like right now?”

“Absolutely,” Sam said. He took his phone back and sent the video by email to Pemberton’s account.

“I’m going to forward it on to Judge Charleston, now. If you want to come with me, I’m supposed to meet him as soon as we’re finished. I’ll tell you now, after seeing this and everything else that Will had, I’m going to file for immediate dismissal of all charges and ask the judge to release her right now.”

“I would love to come with you,” Sam said. Pemberton asked him a couple more questions, and then they got up and went to see the judge in his chambers.

“Judge Charleston, this is Sam Prichard, the private investigator that’s always in the newspapers. Sam, the Honorable William Charleston.”

Sam and the judge shook hands, and then the three of them sat down. The judge looked at Pemberton and smiled.

“I got that video you sent me,” he said. “I’m assuming you’re ready to concede that Karen is not guilty?”

“Hey, that’s not fair, Your Honor. I never said she was, remember? I am, however, now thoroughly convinced that she is not guilty, and I wish to file a motion to dismiss all charges. I would also like to ask you to issue an order immediately for her release from the jail.”

“And those are two petitions I will be happy to grant. If you gentlemen want to give me about ten minutes, I will have my clerk write up the release order so I can sign it, and one of you might be so kind as to take it out to the jail and get that poor woman out of there.”

“I think that’s my job, Your Honor,” Sam said.

Sam and Pemberton went out of the room, and Pemberton shook his hand. “Sam, I’ve got to go get the motion for dismissal filed. I’ll leave it to you to go break Karen out.”

“My pleasure,” Sam said. He sat down on a bench in the hall and waited, but it was actually less than ten minutes before a clerk came out looking for him. He handed Sam an order for release, and Sam headed out for the jail.

Despite having the order, it took almost an hour for Karen to be processed out. Sam waited in the lobby of the jail, and got to his feet when she was finally allowed through the door that led back to the jail itself. She spotted him and hurried across the floor, then threw her arms around his neck.

“Sam, you did it,” she said. “I don’t know how you did it, but you did. How can I ever say thank you?”

“You just did, Karen,” Sam said. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

“Fine, but take me somewhere that has decent coffee. I need a big one, and you need to fill me in on what happened.”

They went to a nearby restaurant and were lucky enough to get a booth by itself, where they could talk freely. Sam explained to her the events of the case, and she literally gasped when he told her about Indie being abducted. She didn’t seem terribly surprised at how much help Snake and the Devils had been, though.

And then Sam told her about the final confrontation with Samara. When he explained that it was Melinda herself who shot him dead, Karen’s eyes grew wide.

“Sam, is she still at the hospital?”

“As far as I know, yes. They said she was pretty much in shock after that, and her husband told me that they might end up keeping her for a few days, just to be sure the shock and stress doesn’t send her into early labor. It’s still a little too soon for her baby to be born.”

“Well, yours was a little early, too, wasn’t it?”

“No more than a couple of weeks,” Sam said. “According to the doctors, a due date is just a guess. The actual day of birth can be as much as three weeks either way from that.”

“You’re telling me? I gave birth to two kids, remember. Neither one of them wanted to wait until the day they were supposed to show up.” She smiled at Sam and reached across to pat him on the arm. “I can’t wait to meet your son, Sam.”

They finished their coffee and headed for the hospital, and Sam confirmed that Melinda Davis was still listed as a patient. She was still in the same room, so Sam took Karen up the elevator.

With Samara dead, there was no longer a reason to have guards on Melinda’s room, so Sam only knocked and pushed it open. Tom and Melinda were sitting in chairs again, and Tom looked up and smiled when he saw Sam. Melinda burst into a smile when she saw Karen, and jumped to her feet. The two women embraced while Sam stood by and watched.

“Did you hear what happened?” Melinda asked.

“Yes,” Karen said, nodding. “Sam told me all about it. I’m sorry you had to go through that, but it might have been for the best. Now you know for sure that he’s gone.”

“And you’re out of trouble now, right?”

“Yes. Sam was able to find a witness who could prove I wasn’t there when that poor man was killed. We assume your father did it, but we may never know for sure.”

“But at least it’s over. I only wish…”

Karen cocked her head and looked at the girl. “You only wish what?”

Melinda shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Hey, did you hear that Sam’s wife had her baby last night? I’m going down to meet him. Would you like to come along, meet Mrs. Prichard and their baby?”

Melinda looked at Sam. “Would that be okay?”

“Of course,” Sam said. “Have you ever met a dad who didn’t want to show off his new son?”

Melinda managed a smile and she and Tom followed them to the elevator and down to the second floor. They were chit-chatting along the way as they went to Indie’s room, and Sam opened the door and led them in without bothering to warn anyone they were coming.

Things happened suddenly, then. Indie looked up with a smile when she saw Karen, and immediately held up baby Bo to show him off, but Melinda suddenly froze just inside the door. Sam felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and instinctively looked for a problem, but all he saw was Nikki, staring at Melinda.

Before either of them even spoke, a number of things clicked in Sam’s mind. Once, when Sam was talking about Samara, Nikki had slipped and it almost sounded like she started to say “my” in reference to him, but Sam hadn’t actually caught it at the time. Then there was the fact that Snake said she had turned up six or seven months ago, pregnant from turning tricks. Just a couple of hours earlier, she had been extremely curious when Sam mentioned that Samara had been killed by his own daughter, and even seemed worried that Sam might know something about the third daughter.

He looked directly at Nikki. “Samantha?” he asked.

“Samantha?” Melinda asked. “Samantha, is that you?”

Nikki suddenly started crying. She nodded her head, and Melinda rushed over to throw her arms around her long-lost sister.

Slowly, the story came out. Samantha had been institutionalized when she was a young teenager, but the conditions in the institution were deplorable. She had been both physically and sexually abused there, and had reached the point of feeling that no one cared about her. She had cut off contact with her family, refused visits and resigned herself to a life of misery, but then one of the staff members had learned about the abuse and quietly had her transferred away.

In the new institution, she was treated humanely and her self-esteem was slowly being rebuilt. Unfortunately, there were budget cuts that meant some of their patients had to be released, and she was one of them. She was placed in a shelter, but it reminded her too much of the original institution, so she ran away.

Naturally, with no means of support, she ended up turning to prostitution in desperation. One of her clients had asked her to travel with him to Denver, and ended up abandoning her there. She started walking the streets like so many other girls, but she was so ashamed of herself that she started using drugs. That was how Officer Wilson had found her, and he had taken her to Snake. Snake got her off the drugs, and the two of them had developed a relationship.

And then Samara had reappeared. Nikki had recognized him instantly, but she had changed so much that he didn’t know her. She carefully stayed inside her apartment whenever he was around, terrified that he would realize who she was. Like Melinda, the thought of him ever getting near her baby was more than she could bear.

“But,” Melinda said, “why didn’t you ever call? Mom and Dad, our foster parents, they would have happily taken you back in.”

Nikki sobbed. “I was a whore,” she said. “I was too ashamed. I didn’t—I didn’t want any of you to know, not ever. I just figured it was best if I stayed away, so you’d never know.”

Melinda wrapped her arms around her sister again, and the two of them sat there and wept together.

Indie looked at Sam. “How do you do it? How do you manage to find so many unrelated things that come together to bring about such happy endings?”

Sam looked at her with his eyes wide. “Hey, it isn’t me. All I wanted to do was prove Karen wasn’t a murderer, remember?”

“But it’s just so weird,” Indie said, and Karen nodded her agreement. “All of them ended up here in Denver at the same time, both the girls and their father. How could all of these things just coincidentally come together, and not only lead to solving the old cases, but end up reuniting the two sisters?”

“You know the old saying,” Karen said. “They say, ‘God takes care of fools, drunks and children.’ I personally suspect we could add ‘and goodhearted private investigators’ to that list.”

Sam’s phone rang and he stepped into the hall to answer it. “Sam Prichard.”

“Sam, it’s John Pemberton. Can you meet me at my office, like right away?”

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Sure, I guess. What’s up?”

“Something I don’t want to go into over the phone. How soon can you get here?”

“Uh, give me about fifteen minutes or so. I’ll be right there.” He stepped back inside the room and went to Indie. “That was the DA’s office. I have to go back there for something, but I don’t know what, yet.” He kissed Indie and told Karen to wait for him, then made his way down the hall to the elevator.

Fifteen minutes later, he was walking into Pemberton’s office. He took the chair in front of the desk when it was offered, then looked at the deputy DA. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“You showed me a video this morning,” Pemberton said. “I’m going to show you one, now. The thing I need you to understand is that this video was taken illegally, so it has to stay between you and me. You can tell Karen Parks about it, but nobody else gets to see it. Deal?”

Sam’s eyebrows came down, but he nodded his agreement. Pemberton did something on a laptop on his desk, then spun it around so Sam could see the monitor.

The view that opened up showed the inside of a jail interview room. It was one of those rooms with the one-way mirror, and the dim lighting told Sam they were looking through the glass.

“What you’re about to see is a video that was taken with a cell phone through the one-way glass,” Pemberton said. “A police officer who happened to be at the jail when Samara was brought in took this video illegally, because the detective in charge, Carl Rivers, specifically ordered all recording turned off on this room while he interviewed Daniel Samara. He put the phone up against the glass, so it was even able to catch the audio, and then he went about his business because no one was supposed to be in the observation booth. After everything went crazy, he went and got his phone and found this. Just watch.”

A door on the other side of the room from the mirror opened, and both Samara and Rivers walked in. Samara was in handcuffs, but Rivers took them off as soon as the door was closed behind him. They sat down across the table from each other and were silent for several seconds. Finally, Rivers spoke.

“What the hell are you doing, Digger? You were supposed to get out of town, not hang around here messing with Prichard.”

“Screw you, Rivers. I just found out my daughter was in town, and she’s gonna have my grandbaby. I went and picked her up, and that bastard Prichard tracked me down and stole her away. I just wanted my little girl back, that’s all.”

“You dumb son of a bitch,” Rivers said. “Do you have any freaking idea how much trouble you’re in? Your little girl is the state’s star witness against you. She’s planning to testify that she saw you kill her mother and her little sister, that you even made her hold the trashbags open while you cut her mother up in little pieces to get rid of her. You know what that’ll do to a jury? They’ll be demanding the return of the death penalty.”

“It’d be her word against mine,” Samara said, his tone mocking. “My daughter had a really hard life, she’s a little bit crazy. It wouldn’t be a bit hard to prove that. I’m not worried about anything like that.”

“Yeah? Well, what about the murder of a federal agent? That guy that was killed in your apartment was fed, you jackass. FBI, undercover. He was working you, trying to find out about the Greeks. God only knows how much information he turned in, but it’s bad enough they managed to find the warehouse. Homeland Security and FBI went in there today and cleaned house, while you were conveniently gone. Did you know something about that? Did you know it was coming?”

“Hey, screw you! I don’t give nobody up like that, you know that. And don’t worry, it won’t take me a month to get a new operation set up. I’ll keep the money coming, don’t you worry.”

“I’m not worried about money,” Rivers said. “I’m worried about you acting so damn stupid that you’re going to get us all caught. You have any idea what they would do to me if they ever found out how much I cover your ass?”

Samara gave him an evil grin. “Yeah? Wonder what they’d do if they knew the things you used to do with my little girls? Think that might be worse?”

“That never gets brought up, you agreed. I cover your ass, you don’t ever talk about that. Remember?”

Samara jumped to his feet and leaned across the table, planting his hands on it. “Do I look covered? I’m sitting in jail, you stupid prick. All I want to know is how you’re going to get me back out of here.”

Rivers looked incredulous. “Get you out of here? Digger, I don’t think there’s any possible way. Not any legal way, that’s for damn sure. You let me work on it for a bit, and I’ll see what I can do. Maybe I can arrange for you to accidentally be let out the wrong door for recreation or something. Just don’t get in a hurry, because it’s gonna take a while to set something up. There’s a couple jailers who can be bribed, but I have to be careful about it or it will blow up in my face.”

“I don’t give a shit about your face,” Samara said. “I want out of here, and not in a little while, I want out of here today. If you can’t arrange it, by God, I can. What you need to do is get off your ass and figure out how to make it happen.”

“Why? So you can go back out there and raise more kinds of hell than most people have ever seen? I don’t know if you’re just going senile or what, but you’ve been acting crazy for the last few weeks. I don’t know how I can keep this whole thing from turning into a big disaster, but you can bet the Greeks are looking at me to do that.”

“Hey, you agreed to take their money,” Samara said, “so they naturally expect to be able to call on you. You do your job, everything goes well. You know that.”

“I’m doing my job!” Rivers shouted. “I’m doing my job. My job is to try to keep the heat off of you while you bring God only knows who or what into the country, and I’ve been doing it just fine. Now, we’re hearing that what you’re bringing in is terrorists and bombs and God only knows what else. Is that true?”

“You know better than to ask questions about that,” Samara said. “It’s all on need to know, and you don’t need to know.”

“I need to know that you’re not going to blow everything just because you want to get cozy with your daughter again. Now, I’m going to put you in a cell, and you’re going to wait until I can figure out what to do about this. You understand?”

When he thought about it later, Sam figured that Rivers never saw it coming. Samara, as big as he was, could move like a striking snake. Faster than Sam could imagine it happening, he was up on the table and had his arms wrapped around Rivers’ neck. He gave one hard twist, and Rivers’ face went completely slack. When Samara let go, the detective fell to the floor instantly.

Sam was quite sure he was dead, just that quickly. Samara went to the door and started pounding on it, yelling that Rivers had collapsed, and the door suddenly opened. Samara stood aside while two deputies ran in, then grabbed one of them by the neck and snatched out his gun. He dragged his hostage out and kicked the door shut, locking the other deputy inside. The video showed that deputy banging on the door and yelling for help, but none seemed to be coming.

The video ended, and Sam looked up at Pemberton.

“So, we finally have evidence that Rivers was dirty. I was telling Will that there were officers talking about it, already.”

“Yes, I know. All this video does is prove it, but we could never have used it for evidence in any case. The law says that at least one of the parties being recorded has to know about the recording if it isn’t covered by a warrant, and neither of them knew. From a legal standpoint, this is completely inadmissible as evidence.”

“I know that. What I don’t understand is why you’re showing it to me. This has no real bearing on Karen’s case, which is what I was working on.”

“I understand that. The thing is—the thing is, we seem to be having an awful lot of corruption in the police department lately. When this video showed up this morning, sent through an anonymous email server, the DA and I sat down and talked about it. She wants me to come up with a way to determine which of our city and county cops are corrupt. I told her the only thing I could think of was to try to hire you.”

“Me?”

“Hell, yes, you. Sam, you’ve found more corruption in local law enforcement in the last year and a half than internal affairs has found in fifteen years. I think that if you started digging, you’d find any dirt there is to find. I’m proposing that you come to work for the DA, right out of this office. You’d have your own division, and we’d even provide enough of a budget for you to hire some extra investigators of your own. Let them do all the legwork, and you write the reports.” He pointed at the computer. “You could help us put a stop to this sort of thing, shut down corrupt cops and get rid of them. What do you say, Sam? Interested?”

Sam stared at him for a minute, then shrugged his shoulders. “I have to think about it,” he said. “How soon do I have to give you an answer?”

“Sometime soon,” Pemberton said. “And preferably before your wife gets around to writing a blog about it. This is something we want to keep secret, Sam. We might even give your department a name that would camouflage it, so nobody really knew what it did.”

Sam stared at him for another moment, then slowly got to his feet. “Give me a couple of days to think this over. I’ll let you know shortly.”

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