IT WAS like déjà vu all over again. The barred door slid back and there she was, the stars all in alignment on her broad shoulders.
“It’s really not what you think, Beth,” Mace said quietly as she sat hunched over on a metal bench at the back of the cell.
Her sister sat down next to her. “So tell me what it is about. Please tell me what the hell you and Kingman were doing down there last night.”
“We weren’t together. I didn’t even know he was there until his car flew in between me and the guys trying to shoot me.”
“What guys?”
“Town Car. Tinted windows. Didn’t the arresting officers fill you in?”
“I want to hear it from you. License plate?”
“No plates. At least on the front. I never saw the rear.”
“Go on.”
“They came flying at me. Rear passenger window came down a few inches. Saw the gun muzzle. A rifle barrel with a can attached.”
“And they fired at you?”
“Twice. And they would’ve gotten me if it hadn’t been for Roy.”
“And then what?”
Mace explained how she had gone back to the hoodle for help. “But my buddy wasn’t there, just two cruisers with blues I didn’t know. They jumped to the wrong conclusion.”
“Their report says they never saw another car.”
“It obviously had already peeled off. But Roy’s car hit it. You can take paint samples from his ride and see if you can get a match somewhere. And you’ll find the rounds either in Roy’s car or on the street somewhere.”
“We found no slugs, either in his car or on the street, and I’ve had a dozen cadets from the academy walking the line for the last five hours.”
“So you do believe me?”
“There’s also a line of smashed trash cans that Kingman apparently ran into. You sure the damage didn’t come from that?”
“Beth, I’m telling you the truth! There was a black sedan chasing us. Somebody fired a rifle from inside it. The rounds shattered the windows in Roy’s car and almost hit him. You sure you didn’t find anything?”
“No slugs, no casings.”
“Any casings would’ve ejected in the sedan. They must’ve gone back and policed the slugs.”
“That takes time, which makes it a big risk. Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“But who would want to kill you?”
“Do you have a few hours so I can give you a list?”
“Did you tell anyone you were going down there last night?”
“Just Roy. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“Kingman said he met you for a drink after you left me and then he went back to work. And he just happened to find you in Six D later, right before someone tried to kill you?” Beth’s frown hardened into a scowl. “Don’t treat me like a chump, Mace. I don’t deserve that.”
Mace hesitated just a moment, but it was obviously enough for Beth. “Okay, when you’re ready to actually tell me the truth, maybe I’ll be waiting on the other side of the bars, okay?” She headed to the door.
“Wait!”
Beth turned back. “I’m waiting.”
“I was with Roy at his office building last night while you were there.”
“Wow! Never saw that one coming.”
“Hey, you asked for the truth so don’t rip me for giving it.”
“Why were you there?”
“He told me about the construction site and things going missing and it made me think of the Liam Kazlowski case, you remember the elevator guy from five years ago?”
Beth nodded slowly. “I think of him sometimes sitting in his max security cell wondering where his balls went. You always did have excellent aim.”
“So Roy and I went there to see if we could catch the guy.”
“And calling your sister, the chief of police no less, never entered your mind?”
“For all I knew it was a wild-goose chase. I didn’t want to call you out on a hunch. Not when you were dressed so pretty,” she added lamely.
Beth’s face was so tight, the balls of her cheeks so hard against the overlap of skin, that it looked like she had been shrink-wrapped. “I don’t know whether to shoot you or drive you back to prison myself,” she said in a low, barely-in-control voice.
“Beth—”
Beth lunged forward, forcing Mace to jerk back flush with the cement-block wall. Her voice came at Mace like the thrusts of a knife.
“Within hours of me letting you walk away from a tampering and obstruction charge and me telling you to stay the hell out of the case, you turn right around and stick your nose right in it. What