Let the Devil Out (Maureen Coughlin #4)(92)

She released the breath, pulled in another. She heard the rattle in her chest, the one she got late at night from too many cigarettes. Nothing after that. A cat screamed in the distance. But nothing happened inside her. When had that quiet started? When she saw Preacher? When she’d seen the look in Wilburn’s eyes? All bad things must end, she thought. She had to stop killing herself sometime. Now seemed as good a time as any. She had already started being a better cop. Atkinson’s words were proof of that. She took one more deep breath, made the sign of the cross, and came down the steps. Back to work. She couldn’t live on magic spells.

She lit a cigarette and climbed into the cruiser, started the engine. She felt good, very good, but that didn’t mean she didn’t need coffee, and need it bad. She thought of Solomon Heath and his thermos. She had an idea. She’d promised him she’d be back. She hadn’t necessarily meant that night, but, she thought, she had given Little E and Shadow the chance to do the right thing, and they had, in their way, come through. She wanted to give Solomon Heath the same choice, the same chance.

He’d told her unbidden that the Harmony Oaks apartment complex was under Caleb’s supervision. It was possible that Solomon didn’t know about the apartment the Watchmen had used. Would she tell him what Shadow had said about Caleb? What he did when he heard the news that the NOPD had a living witness connecting his son to the Watchmen, a witness who had spilled in front of not one but three cops, would tell her an awful lot. Solomon’s next decisions after that would tell her everything she needed to know about him.

She was on a roll, doing the job Preacher had told her to do. There was only one thing to do, Atkinson had said so herself. Keep up the good work.

She put the car into drive and pulled away from the curb.





34

When Maureen returned to Solomon Heath’s house, she found the back door ajar. She couldn’t think of anything more unlike him than that. She walked up the steps and glanced at the security camera above the door. Looked like it was working. A break-in? If so, she wondered, where was the alarm? Where was the security company that should be responding to it? She backed down the steps and swept the yard, the butterfly box, and the shrubs with her flashlight. Nothing. Not even footprints in the grass. She reached for the radio mic clipped to her shoulder, changed her mind. For the second time that night she was in the one place both Preacher and the FBI had warned her not to be. No sense flushing her career down the toilet because Solomon Heath had a senior moment and left his back door unlocked.

Maureen stood on the path leading to the door, chewing the inside of her cheek. What she should do, she thought, was go get that coffee. A big one. She wouldn’t be going home after her shift. She would be there when Detillier searched that apartment in a few hours. Depending on what they found, it might be another twelve, eighteen hours before she slept again. So. Coffee. A lot of it. But instead of moving for the car, she stood there on the path, staring at the golden vertical line between the open door and the doorframe. But, damn, she thought, Solomon Heath didn’t seem the kind of man prone to senior moments. What if something had happened as he returned to the house? What if he’d fallen? Had a stroke or some kind of emergency. Just to be sure, she thought, for safety’s sake, I’ll take a look. She returned up the path.

She knocked on the door before reaching for the knob. “Mr. Heath?” She waited. She settled her other hand on her gun. Nothing from inside the house. “Mr. Heath? It’s Officer Coughlin. Everything okay?” She waited. No answer. She bumped the door with her shoulder. It opened into a small, second kitchen. She saw no sign of Heath, or of anyone else inside. The thermos they had shared sat on an island in the middle of the room. She entered the house, easing the door closed behind her.

There, behind the door, the golf club he’d held in the park stood propped against the wall. She checked the keypad on the wall above the golf club. The alarm had been deactivated. With the club in its place and the alarm off, Maureen figured nothing bad had happened at the back door. She looked around the kitchen. A familiar scent tickled her nose. Bourbon.

She stepped deeper into the kitchen. She considered calling out to Heath again, hesitated. Broken glass crunched under her boot. Fragments, she saw, of what was likely a highball glass, lying in a pool of spilled bourbon. She backed up. That, she didn’t like. Why would Heath drop a drink and leave it there without cleaning it up? Because, she thought, something much more urgent had commanded his attention. She checked the kitchen tile for footprints, saw a couple of dirty work-boot prints that were probably not Heath’s. All right, she thought, someone else is in the house. The story so far: After she leaves, Heath comes in the back door, turns off the alarm, sets the thermos down on the island, makes himself a drink. Everything is cool.

Then, later, something brings a sleepless Heath to the back door—a knock, maybe a voice. He opens the door, fresh drink in hand, and whoever is there backs him up into the kitchen, then does something scary enough to make Heath drop his drink. Which hadn’t happened that long ago, she thought. The ice cubes had hardly melted. A gun? Heath drops the drink and puts his hands up? He tries to set the drink on the island and misses because something else, like a man with a gun, has his strict attention. She had a good idea who that man with a gun might be. It was then Maureen heard voices coming from deeper inside the huge house.

She turned the volume down on her radio. Maureen was very glad she had not made more noise coming through the back door. Two men, arguing. One declaring, the other persuading. Her best guess: Gage delivering a lecture, Heath pleading not to die at the end of it. She could tell they were moving through the house. Away from her. She glanced at the back door. Solomon, you arrogant idiot, she thought. You let him in thinking he’d come to you, his old benefactor, for help one more time. That you’d keep him here for us, or maybe that you’d finish him yourself somehow. That he’d never come to hurt you, that no one would ever come to hurt you, in your big, safe house.