A Friend in the Dark - Gregory Ashe Page 0,30

Working fifty-sixty hours a week to put away scumbags.”

Rufus shifted. The muscles in his upper arm had tightened under Sam’s grip at the sound of her voice.

Sam glanced at him.

Rufus seemed to know her. Enough at least that he mouthed cop without pulling his attention away from the scene.

“Hey,” Marcus said, “first things first, we gotta get something straight. Five hundred dollars is bullshit—”

The woman shot him. The movement was clean, fluid, and unhesitating. A single shot. With a suppressor, Sam realized. Marcus dropped, flopping on the ground. His breathing had become a wet gurgle. The woman took four steps closer and shot again. Marcus’s head jerked once, and then no more gurgling.

For a moment, she considered him, and then she holstered the gun. She produced something from a pocket—disposable gloves, Sam guessed—and crouched next to Marcus. Whatever she did next, the shadows obscured, but Sam had an idea that they weren’t going to find Jake’s phone tonight.

Except. Except Sam had his Beretta M9. He was still a decent shot; the tremors were bad when he was stressed, but he’d put in a lot of hours at the range, and he just had to hit center mass from—what? Ten yards? Fifteen? But the idea was gone as soon as it came to him. He didn’t shoot unsuspecting people. He didn’t shoot people at all, if he could help it. And the fact that she was a cop had thrown everything sideways.

Whatever opportunity Sam had, it passed, and the woman rose, studied the scene once more, and then walked into the copse of cherry trees. Sam waited until her steps had faded. Then he counted out sixty seconds, released Rufus’s arm, and sprinted for the body.

Marcus was dead; the second shot had been to the head, a small hole—Sam was already thinking about calibers, bullet types—but enough to make sure nobody would ever hear Marcus’s story. As Sam patted the body with the backs of his hands, searching for the phone, for anything, Rufus scrambled up beside him, talking in a furious whisper.

“When a cop murders in cold blood, you run the opposite way.” Rufus motioned for Sam to follow him, to no avail. “Come on. That was Bridget Heckler. Jake’s sergeant. Oh my God, what the fuck is going on?”

Nothing in the front pockets. Sam rocked the body, checked one back pocket. He rocked him the other way. Pay dirt. Working the wallet loose, he let Marcus’s body settle. Then, shaking his head, he said, “Phone’s gone.”

“It’s a trophy piece now,” Rufus snapped, his voice so low, it was like the sound of shoe treads on gravel. “Sam, we need to go. She gave this fucker a third eye.”

Sam nodded, pushing up from the body, and he motioned for Rufus to lead them out of the park. They took a different route, avoiding the brambles and boxwood, hopping a different section of fence, cutting along the path until they came out of the park near the basketball court. A girl sat on a bench, trimming her weave, while two other girls in matching Knicks jerseys played a fierce one-on-one. Sam felt something unknot in his gut. A cop killing a man in a city park—nothing in him could understand that. But this, this was normal, this was life. He tucked his hands under his arms, hating how they gave him away.

They made it to the end of the block, and then Rufus froze and whispered, “Shit.”

Sam followed his gaze and saw Heckler walking the cross street toward them. She seemed to see them at the same time, and the look of shocked recognition on her face would have been comical under other circumstances, a kind of Tom-and-Jerry look when Tom’s just had the rug pulled out from under him.

All of this passed through his head in an instant before Rufus grabbed his wrist and pulled him into a run.

CHAPTER NINE

Rufus didn’t let go of Sam.

It didn’t matter that Sam could keep pace. It didn’t matter that Sam could hold his own, that he was armed. It didn’t matter that Sam had tensed up like a stone statue when Rufus had grabbed his shoulder at Bar.

Because for as long as Rufus held on, Sam was right there.

Still breathing.

Heart still beating.

Rufus made a sharp right on Avenue A and cut across St. Marks Place. The street was bustling with evening business—tattoo parlors that’d been inking Black Flag’s symbol of rebellion since before he’d been born, as well as a smattering of used