Fallen (24 page)

“I’m going to show the photos to your wait staff.”

“No problem. We follow the rules, by the way. No one under twenty-one and no drugs.”

As the man excused himself, Ryan peered into the rather offbeat crowd. Boyce was younger, so it might not be out of the realm of possibility for him to drop by to catch a band. But for the life of him, he couldn’t visualize uptight, conservative Nate coming here unless he was on the job.

You do that and I’ll fucking kill you.

Nate’s threat to whomever had been on the other end of the phone call that day still gnawed at him. The venue was dark and crowded, but there were also places for private conversation, he had noticed. There was a chance Nate had been meeting a CI here. Informants typically chose the meeting locales, places where they were comfortable. They had looked at Nate’s known informants, but Ryan wondered now if they should look harder.

Some time later, he went back out onto the sidewalk. None of the wait staff had recalled Nate, although one—a brassy-haired female with nipple rings visible through her thin top—thought maybe Boyce looked familiar. But she had been unable to remember anything else, including whether he’d been there alone.

Removing the APD placard from the dashboard, Ryan started his vehicle and pulled from the curb, disappointment filtering through him as he drove. But as he approached the intersection near the massive Georgia Dome, a particular ten-code on the police scanner broke through his thoughts.

Wanted suspect sighted.

His grip tightened on the steering wheel as he listened to the details.

Civilian reported sighting of suspect in June twenty-third police shooting … black male, mid-twenties, witnessed entering an abandoned building at Cutler and Bard. Bearing a gang tattoo on right upper arm, dressed in jeans, white underwear shirt and blue kerchief …

Pooch.

After he’d shot Antoine Clark, Pooch’s face had been on the news along with the offer of a reward for information leading to an arrest. The area the police dispatcher had identified was a haven for crime, particularly prostitution and drugs. It was also within Pooch’s comfort zone. Ryan was less than a mile away.

On impulse, he took a left against the light, cutting deeper into the urban jungle. The streets on this side of the Dome declined quickly, with buildings deteriorating into more run-down structures in the space of a dozen blocks. Traffic thinned as he passed a free clinic and MARTA station, then a row of increasingly shabbier storefronts. Ryan’s SUV halted just down from the building that had been a department store decades ago, before such businesses had moved north to the tony Buckhead community. The name
Schreiber’s
still
remained on its sun-faded stone front.

Reaching for his cell, Ryan called in a code to announce his arrival. No units were here yet, although he knew crimes in commission took precedence over a possible sighting,
and uniforms working this beat typically had their hands full. Exiting the vehicle to have a careful look around, he became aware of only two others on the street—a pair of youths a block away who appeared to be dealing drugs to passing cars. He blew out a tense breath, keeping a low profile and walking around to the building’s rear with his gun drawn. A door there stood ajar.

His blood iced at the female shrieks he heard coming from somewhere inside.

There were still no approaching sirens, although Ryan reasoned that units could be on their way covertly with lights off, just as he had done. He’d planned to wait for backup, but the urgency of the cries tugged at him, raising the hair on his arms.

There was no other choice. He slipped into the building’s interior.

Glock poised in front of him, heart beating hard, he inched down a dark corridor before reaching doors that led into an abandoned showroom. The wails he’d been following echoed off the walls of the vast space, making it difficult to obtain their originating location. Moving warily, his senses heightened, he felt the crunch of glass from broken-out display counters under his shoes. Although the street-level windows had been boarded over, he was able to make out grainy shapes due to the dim glow leaking from a skylight several floors above. Punched-through sheetrock and trash strewn around indicated vagrants were using the building for shelter. Hearing a noise, he spun and trained his weapon on shifting shadows in one corner. Several human forms—apparently junkies there for a fix—blinked listlessly back at him. None was who he was looking for. A nude, armless mannequin stood ghostlike in the shadow of an unmoving escalator that led to the second floor. The wailing—now mixed with a threatening male voice—was coming from upstairs.

Continuing to grip his gun in both hands, Ryan went cautiously up the dead steps.

Coming in view of the landing, he felt his skin prickle. The source of the caterwauling lay amid refuse, her legs clad in holey leggings and worn boots. She was sprawled out, appearing to have been knocked down, although she quickly sat up and scrabbled backward at Ryan’s arrival. Even in the darkness, he could see the white shock of her uncombed hair. She was old, thin, with razor-cut cheekbones and wild eyes. The smell of filth surrounded her. Nearing, Ryan took one hand off his weapon and raised it in a silencing gesture.

Glaring, she raised a bony fist and shook it. “You get out, too! Mine!
MINE
!”

In his peripheral vision, Ryan detected movement. A second figure was fleeing deeper into the building.

“Pooch! Police! Stop!”

The figure broke into a run. Ryan repeated the order, the slap of his dress shoes echoing through the building as he chased the rapidly retreating male past empty racks and overturned shelving units. A pale slash of light from another skylight made the white underwear shirt, the blue bandanna do-rag briefly visible before darkness swallowed them up again.

Thirty yards ahead, a door flew open. Breathing hard, Ryan cursed as the figure shot at him, the flash of a gun and the explosion of sound filling the air before the door clanged closed. Anger fueling his chase, hoping like hell backup was entering downstairs, he stopped only long enough to kick the door open, jump back against the wall and, heart hammering, peek around the corner with his gun pointed before continuing on. The stairwell was dark as a cave. Ryan heard the thud of Pooch’s feet gaining distance above him, no doubt headed toward the roof. Déjà vu traveled through him.

Hand sliding against the wall, Ryan felt his way blindly upward, tripping twice on the stairs until a door opening on another level provided a cleft of light before snapping shut again.

His police training told him to wait, but his assailant had invaded his home and pistol-whipped him. Spat on him. Ryan ground his teeth. The need for comeuppance won out. He wanted to be the one to slap on handcuffs and drag the son of a bitch to jail.

Gulping in a steadying breath, he shouldered his way through the door and out. Black night cloaked the sky above him. The weather-battered roof he stood on shone an eery gray in pearlescent moonlight. Rusted air-conditioning boxes and a large ventilation system cordoned off the space. The skylights’ domed tops curved like the backs of whales in water. Just beyond, a figure stood in the shadows.

“Pooch!” Ryan yelled again. “Drop the weapon!”

Pooch fired—the bullet zinging off the equipment’s metal—then sprinted toward the ledge. His athletic body sailed upward, legs and arms cycling as he long-jumped through the air.

He disappeared.

Ryan dashed to the ledge, breathing hard.
Shit.
Pooch had cleared the six-foot distance between the empty department store and next-door building. Already, he was more than halfway across the lower, second roof. Too far away for Ryan to get off a shot. Pooch looked back, raising his middle finger, racing on.

His lungs squeezed with the decision. Ryan couldn’t believe what he was about to do. Returning his gun to his holster and backing up, he burst forward, feeling his heart jolt and hearing his own hard grunt as he cleared the space, too, dropping painfully and rolling several times on the next roof. He picked himself up in time to see Pooch making another Olympian leap toward the next building.

A scream split the air.

Winded, adrenaline shooting through him, Ryan jogged to the ledge and peered dizzily down. His gut clenched. Pooch lay two stories below, his body twisted and motionless on the asphalt. Two squad cars had in fact arrived and were now parked haphazardly on the street with lightbars flashing. An officer rounded the narrow alley’s corner and crept toward the body with his gun raised, not that such caution was needed. The already pooling blood reflected the strobe lights.

Perspiring, his body hot, Ryan scrubbed a hand over his face. He wondered what Pooch had been doing here—whether he had been serving as a bagman for the two drug dealers working the street, or whether the BOLO had forced him to take refuge in the decrepit building, resulting in a turf war with the old woman who clearly considered the second floor hers.

Pulling his eyes from the gruesome scene, he turned to see several more officers now fanning onto the adjacent department store roof.

He reached for his shield. Holding it in the air, Ryan identified himself.

Chapter Twenty

Late-afternoon sunlight trickled
through the leaves in Atlanta’s affluent Tuxedo Park neighborhood. Ryan and Mateo sat in the Impala across the street from Ian Brandt’s estate, which was nestled in a wooded setting a few blocks from the Governor’s Mansion. The house was typical of the residences here—a gracefully aged, Tudor-style mansion with impressive stonework and veils of climbing ivy. An iron gate closed off the driveway and property.

Ryan checked his watch. Based on the information from Brandt’s receptionist, it had been a relatively simple matter to check Hartsfield-Jackson’s flight schedule and estimate his return.

“Strong turnout for Boyce’s funeral this morning,” Mateo noted above the AC’s drone. “He was highly thought of.”

Ryan grunted an agreement, his eyes remaining on the house as he searched for some sign of life inside it. “Six commendations. That’s a lot for a kid his age.”

“He wasn’t exactly a kid. He was what? Six years younger than us?”

Ryan didn’t respond. Maybe he just felt that much older. He still thought of Adam as a kid, too.

He’d been on the lookout in the cemetery for anyone who didn’t fit—someone who appeared voyeuristic or stood out in some undefined way—but he had seen no one among the sea of midnight-blue uniforms other than those who appeared to be grieving friends or family. At least Boyce hadn’t had children, Ryan thought, elbow propped against the passenger-side window as he continued staring out. Boyce’s ex-wife had appeared devastated despite the boyfriend who had shepherded her into the seats in front of the rose-covered casket and open grave.

“Are we going to talk about what went down last night?” Mateo broke into his thoughts. “Obviously, you’re not planning to bring it up.”

Ryan shrugged. “There’s nothing you don’t already know. Pooch came up short on the second jump. End of story.”

“It’s all in the report.”

“Yeah.”

“Christ, Ryan.” Mateo shook his head. “What the hell were you doing out answering calls like some uni? You know the mandate. No one goes out alone.”

He’d been expecting this. Until now, they’d been tied up with the funeral, then a detectives’ briefing with the task force—not much time for a partner-to-partner conversation. Ryan answered with forced patience. “I was following up on a lead on the shootings, all right? A ten-code with Pooch’s description came through on the radio, and I was in the area. I went to check it out.”

“I could’ve gone with you to that club last night. All you had to do was ask—”

“I didn’t want to pull you away from your family. It was a public location.”

“And it couldn’t have waited until daylight?”

“No.”

Mateo drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, clearly agitated. “Look,” he said finally. “I get that you wanted Pooch. I don’t blame you. But good cops are being offed. If there
is
a serial killer out there, who’s to say you weren’t being set up?”

Ryan made a scoffing noise and scratched the back of his neck.

“Think about it,” Mateo persisted. “You already know Nate and Boyce were at that club. What if the killer was there last night and saw you? He could’ve called in that sighting so he could follow you there. Bagging one of the primaries on his own case would be a real trophy.”

“You’re really out there,” Ryan muttered.

“I don’t think so. Pooch has been all over the news since he shot Antoine. So our guy calls in a false sighting, knowing you’re blocks away, itching to get your hands on him and likely to be a first responder. It could’ve been bait to get you there.”

“Here’s the flaw in your theory.
It wasn’t a fake sighting
.” Ryan flashed on the gruesome image of Pooch’s shattered skull. “You ought to use that vivid imagination of yours to write a movie script. Make some real money.”