Death in the Sunshine (Retired Detectives Club, #1)(85)

Moira doesn’t move. She can’t. It’s happening again. Shit.

Her hands fly to her chest. Her breath is coming in gasps. It feels like there’s a vice around her chest squeezing the air from her. In her mind’s eye the alleyway in front of her morphs into the apartment in London and she’s hearing the aftershock of a different gunshot.

She sees McCord standing in front of her; an unregistered, non-police issue weapon in his hand. Their colleague, Jennifer, is lying in a fast-spreading pool of blood, her eyes open and unseeing. Porter and the goons have disappeared. There’s noise from outside the apartment – an armed response team are on their way up. Moira doesn’t move. ‘Why?’ she yells at McCord. ‘What the hell have you done?’

He’s backing away. Saying nothing.

She’s charging after him.

They’re on the balcony. The lights of London stretch out for miles beneath them. The wind howls and swirls around them. The rain is hammering down.

She yells at McCord again. ‘Why?’

He says something, but she can’t hear it. He’s shaking his head. Saying more, but the wind takes most of the sound. ‘ . . . never . . . don’t trust . . . I can’t . . .’

Then McCord is gone. He lurches sideways, and takes a dive over the balcony railing. Disappears from sight.

They’re twenty-four storeys up. There’s no surviving that fall.

The panic embraces her like a cloak. Holds her captive in its grip. Crushing the breath from her. She hears the armed response team enter the apartment. She’s gasping for breath but no air comes. Her vision swims. Her knees buckle. She’s falling then. Hits the porcelain tiles of the balcony hard. Still can’t breathe. Can’t breathe.

Stop.

Moira digs her fingernails into her palms. Blinks the memory away. She can’t let it take her. She has to stay present; help Rick and catch Donald. She focuses on her breath. Tries the quick tricks the doc taught her. Forces herself to believe it will work.

It has to work.

She can’t let Donald get away. Not this time.

Her breathing improves. Her vision clears.

Ahead of her in the alleyway, Rick’s lying on his back, groaning. There’s blood staining his T-shirt down one side and he’s pressing his hands against the wound. Donald is scrambling up. The gun isn’t in his hand any more – he must have dropped it in the fall. Moira rushes towards Rick.

‘I’m okay,’ says Rick, grimacing. ‘Don’t lose him.’

Donald’s at the bins now, pushing his way around them to get to the fence. Moira sprints after him. ‘Stop, Donald. It’s over.’

He glances back towards her but keeps going. Moira pushes herself faster. Sees he’s going to climb on to the end bin as a way to get up the fence. She can’t let that happen.

Scooting around the end of the bins, Moira slams into Donald shoulder first. She’s smaller than him, and lighter, but her momentum and her shoulder connecting hard with his ribs throws him off balance. They land on the ground. Donald seems dazed, and Moira uses that against him. Pushes him on to his stomach and pulls his arms up high behind his back.

‘Stay down,’ she yells. ‘Don’t move.’

Donald tries to fight her off, but with his arms pinned high he flounders like a landed fish. She presses her knee into his back for added leverage. Grips his wrists with all the strength she has left and hopes to hell that the cops arrive soon.





48


RICK


‘Use these,’ Rick says, wincing as he hands the laces from his boots to Moira. ‘They’ll hold him for a bit.’

She takes them, and gets to work lacing Donald’s wrists together in a set of make-do cuffs.

Rick feels light-headed now. Bends his knees and sits on to the asphalt. Swallows to stop the sick feeling getting worse. Pressing against the wound in his side helps. He figures it’s likely a through-and-through. There’s a lot of blood, but it could be worse. He’s had a few worse for sure, back in the day.

‘Can I get up?’ asks Donald. ‘This is real uncomfortable.’

Moira looks at Rick, and he shakes his head. She gives a small smile and he knows she agrees. Donald robbed his neighbours and killed a young woman; he deserves all the discomfort he gets.

‘Not till the cops arrive,’ says Moira.

Donald looks at Rick. ‘You asked me what was going on.’

‘Yep,’ says Rick. He tries not to grimace or let the pain weaken his voice.

Moira presses her knee harder into Donald’s back. ‘Tell us why you killed her, Donald.’

‘I didn’t mean to, man.’ Donald’s voice has a whine to it now. ‘It just happened and didn’t . . .’

‘Tell us how,’ Moira says. Her tone is granite hard. She shoves him in the back again. ‘Tell us what you did.’

‘She found out about the burglaries. One time I was making my escape and she was right there, on the other side of the backyard wall. She took my picture, man.’

It doesn’t make sense, thinks Rick. There wasn’t a burglary the night Kristen Altman was killed. There hadn’t been one for a few days. ‘So you killed her?’

‘No, not then, this is like a month back. I ran and I hoped she’d let it go. But she didn’t. She recognised me – she’d seen me playing blackjack over at the Flying Mustang Casino.’ He shakes his head. His voice turns bitter. ‘That goddamn casino, it’s the cause of this whole damn thing. If I hadn’t gone and played the tables, or if I’d quit when I was ahead, none of this would have happened.’