Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)(42)

All those years of going along. All those years of being a brave little girl, a good little girl. I couldn’t retaliate.

My mother had trained me too well.

At the end of the sixth session, in sheer frustration, my boxing coach, Dick, a retired three-time world champion, nailed me in the eye. It hurt. My cheekbone exploded. My eye welled with tears. I recoiled, stared at him incredulously, as if I couldn’t believe he’d done such a thing.

He jabbed me in the other eye. Then the gut, the shoulder, the chin. My coach started wailing on me.

And I took it. I hunched over, fists in front of my face, elbows glued to my rib cage, and let him beat me.

Brave little girl. Good little girl.

Making my mother proud.

Dick gave up first. Walked away in disgust. Muttering at me for not fighting, muttering at himself for beating up a defenseless girl.

And that did it. I finally registered my own pain. I finally heard someone calling me a defenseless girl and I lost it.

I attacked my fifty-five-year-old, gristle-haired, battle-scarred boxing coach and I tried to kill him. I threw jabs, right hooks, uppercuts, left hooks, solid punches, endless kidney shots. I chased him around the ring, corner to corner, and I discovered inside myself something I’d never known was there—rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. And not the good old, I’m twenty-eight years old and I’m finally pissed off at my mother rage, but the better, harder, I’m twenty-eight years old and I’m finally pissed off at me rage. Because I’d taken it. Because I was a good girl and a brave girl and I went along. So help me God I went along and I went along, and I was never going along again.

At the end of the session, my coach had one black eye and one swollen nose. I had two black eyes and bruised ribs. And we were both exultant.

“That’s it!” he told me again and again, dripping blood all over the boxing ring. “I knew you could do it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! Now, that’s boxing, Charlie. That’s committing to the punch!”

Turns out, I didn’t want to be Tomika Miller, running from shadows, constantly looking over her shoulder.

I wanted it to be January 21. I wanted to open that door. I wanted to look my killer in the eye.

And I wanted to beat the shit out of him, before plugging three to the chest. One for Randi. One for Jackie. And one for me.

I’d been a good girl once.

Now I didn’t plan on being a good girl ever again.


I ARRIVED BACK AT TOMIKA’S APARTMENT in the tenement housing unit at 8:26 P.M. I’d been told Stan’s shift as a security officer ended at seven. Usually, he had half a dozen drinks with the boys, then came home to terrorize his waiting family around nine.

Big guy. Six two, 280 pounds. Not fit. His security job involved sitting in a booth, checking ID at a major manufacturing plant. Basically, he made twelve bucks an hour to sit around and look intimidating. Which must have pissed him off, because then he returned home and threw his weight around.

According to Tomika, he was often packing and seemed to have an endless supply of firearms. Where they came from, she didn’t know and she didn’t ask. But he and his buddies liked to shoot beer cans off the rear fire escape at nights, and none of them had problems producing a weapon.

So I had roughly thirty minutes to prepare for a mountain of man who might or might not be packing multiple firearms.

My palms were sweating. My heart beat too hard in my chest.

I worked on breaking down my plan into short, manageable steps. First, quick buzz through the apartment, removing lightbulbs. Darkness was my friend, surprise my best advantage.

The instant Stan opened the door, he’d be back lit by the hall, a clear target. Best moment of opportunity would be those first two seconds, when he was caught unaware and completely haloed, while I’d be nothing but a faint shadow in the dark recesses of the living room.

My countdown to January 21 would continue. His would not.

Next step, hastily ransacking all kitchen and bedroom drawers. I found a. 22 and a tiny little ankle holster gun. I kept the ankle shooter, dropped the. 22 in the toilet. Then I discovered Stan’s tool kit and went to work. A precaution built into a precaution built into a precaution.

In the back bedroom, I left the window access to the rickety fire escape open—always good to have an additional egress, especially if neighbors responded to the sounds of gunfire by crowding the inner halls.

Nine oh one. Jittery. Not good. My own anxiety started to piss me off. Nerves? I’d been training and practicing for a f*cking year. What good were nerves to me? So sorry, Mr. Killer of My Two Best Friends, but can we hold off on our confrontation for a minute, while I calm myself down? Want a drink? Want a Xanax?

Here, take two.

Fuck nerves.

I was a lean, mean killing machine.

God dammit.

Footsteps. Out in the hallway. Heavy and ringing. Thump. Thump. Thump.

My heart rate spiked. My black turtleneck constricted around my throat, and at the last second, I had to take my shaking left hand off my Taurus to wipe my sweaty palm on the leg of my jeans.

I’d locked the front door. Everyone did in this building. Now I heard the jangle of keys. A rasp of metal teeth engaging the first lock, then the second. Front door flung open.

Two hundred and eighty pounds of Stan Miller loomed in the entryway.

“What’s for dinner, bitch?” Stan boomed across the darkened apartment.