Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) - Rhys Ford Page 0,14

there as the living room, heavy crocks of flour, sugar, and salt bashed to smithereens on a sea of red Spanish tile. The refrigerator doors were open, and the freezer’s contents were scattered about on a small round table set into an eating niche. Our shooter had taken the time to tear open bags of frozen vegetables and dump out everything onto the floor and counter. Ice cube trays were emptied, the cubes left to melt on the cushions of the kitchen chairs. All of the drawers were upended, mingling silverware with the flotsam and jetsam people gathered in their kitchen’s nooks and crannies.

I stood still and listened. Then I called out Brinkerhoff’s name, the echoing stillness in the shattered house staining my panic with fear. A low moan came from down the hall, and I sprinted toward it, snagging a cordless phone from the side table as I went by. I dialed 9-1-1 mostly by feel and dropped the phone on the floor when I entered the small room at the back of the hall.

Arthur Brinkerhoff was beneath a mattress, his frail shaking body pinned down by its heavy weight. Dark purple splotches marbled the papery skin stretched over his finely boned skull, a fringe of white hair circling the back of his head and spotted with blood. His lip was swollen and split, black speckles clinging to the corner of his mouth, and his eyes were crazed when I pulled the bed off of his chest.

The man was a fighter. I had to give him that, because as I crouched over him to pull him out of the mess he’d been trapped under, he gave me a solid left hook across my nose. I saw enough stars to qualify as a planetarium, but other than a little bit of ringing in my ears, it felt like my sinuses were still intact. I grabbed at his flailing arms, securing his wrists in a loose hold, mostly because I was afraid if I gripped too tight, I would shatter his delicate bones.

He was a lot older than I remembered, dotted with age spots and worn with grief. His baggy brown pants were dark across the crotch. The stink of stale urine hit me in the face. I didn’t know how long he’d been under that mass, but it couldn’t have been more than a few hours. I’d only spoken to the man that morning, but he was lost somewhere, trapped in a terrified maze with no anchor to pull him free.

“Arthur,” I practically shouted into his face, hoping to shake some reason back into his unseeing eyes. “It’s Cole McGinnis. You called me. You’re safe now.”

“McGinnis.” His watery eyes fixed on my face, and he grabbed at my shirt, his surprisingly strong grip stretching out the cotton fabric. He swallowed hard, and tremors shook through his thin arms, rattling his chest and legs as shock rippled through him. “You’ve got to save my Adele. They’re trying to take everything I have left of her. You’ve got to stop them. Please.”

Four

“I SWEAR to God, Los Angeles would be a safer city if I just threw you in jail,” O’Byrne snapped, shoving her jacket back with a flourish and planting her feet into a firm stance. “I’m pretty fucking sure criminals would break in just to beat the shit out of you.”

“Just charge admission so I can have a water bed,” I grumbled back, fidgeting on the short wall enclosing the Brinkerhoffs’ front lawn while an EMT cleaned out one of the cuts in my forehead. He’d already picked out a couple of chunks of glass, closing the tiny wounds with butterfly bandages, but from the clicking of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, I was going to be there for a little bit. “And I’ll need conjugal visits. At least once a day. Three times on Saturday.”

“Three?” The EMT’s eyebrows lifted. Smirking, he shook his head. “Your girlfriend must be hot or your ego’s bigger than you are.”

“My husband is hot, and I need the three times to keep him happy.” I hissed at the sting of antiseptic on my cut flesh. “Saturday’s when we do laundry. Pretty sure those three times will be me folding clothes.”

They’d taken Arthur Brinkerhoff away only moments ago, strapped down to a gurney and wrapped up in a thin blanket to fight off the shock bleaching his skin to a grayish white. Bobby was being interviewed by a stern-looking detective named Bishop, his