Keep Her Safe(60)

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because he was just Ahmed—the nice man who I saw two to three times a week, who gave me candy. He wasn’t the man who played basketball with me in his driveway, who coached my team, whose wife cared for me almost every day. He wasn’t a part of my life. But my dad was a part of yours—a big part. How can you not be furious? How can you not be fighting to make the people responsible for his death pay?”

“Because what if one of those people is my mother?” My voice cracks with emotion.

Sympathy flickers in her eyes, but it quickly vanishes. “My dad deserves to have his name cleared. What exactly does she deserve?”

Part of me is desperate to know the answer to that.

The other part hopes I never find out.

I march out the door, Cyclops on my heels.





CHAPTER 24


Officer Abraham Wilkes

April 23, 2003

“How’s your Coke machine doing, Isaac?”

“Nobody messin’ with it yet. Maybe having you loiter around the parking lot has helped scare ’em away.” The Lucky Nine’s maintenance man rests his forearm on the hood of my car. “Still no luck findin’ that girl?”

I grimace. “And no leads.” Every time my phone rings with an unknown number, my heart races. I’ve gotten a few calls, but they’ve led nowhere. Gutsy hookers, thinking they can bait me into coming to their rooms. I’m not going to track them down and arrest them. Not much else to do except tell them not to call again and hang up.

Isaac’s gaze drifts aimlessly over the lot. “I can tell she’s important to you.”

“She’s my wife’s sister,” I admit, something I don’t tell anyone when I’m canvassing. But Isaac seems trustworthy enough.

“I’ve been keepin’ an eye out.”

“I appreciate that. But I’m beginning to wonder if I’m talking in the wind. I’ve got a little girl at home, crying herself to sleep every night because she wants her daddy home.” And a wife that I’m lying to, because I can’t explain how I lost Betsy in the first place. It’s bad enough that I won’t ever forgive myself for it; I can’t bear what Dina might think. It’s best she doesn’t know about my run-in with Betsy until I can bring her sister home. Then . . . I’ll admit the truth and pay the consequences.

If I find her.

“What’s your girl’s name?”

“Gracie.” I smile wide. “Gracie May. She’s six and stubborn as a mule. She wouldn’t understand this, even if I did tell her.”

“But she will one day, and she’ll love you for it.” He says it with such certainty.

“Hope you’re right,” I murmur as I watch a bronze Chevy coast into the parking lot. It pulls into a spot almost directly across from me, right in front of the vending machine. The driver, a thin white guy with a shaved head and ink marking his throat, climbs out, seemingly in a hurry, his eyes casting furtively back toward the parking lot entrance where a dark SUV races in.

I recognize the vehicle, even before it comes to a halt and the men hop out, the reflective police decal on their bulletproof vests gleaming in their headlights as they round the truck, guns drawn and pointed. Dwayne Mantis is in the lead, the same stony look on his face no matter where he is. He was always a cocky son of a bitch, but he’s become even more so since Chief Canning created this special task force against drugs in Austin and tapped Mantis to lead it. I guess he has something to be cocky about, given the DA’s office has put more dealers away in the last six months than the previous two years, thanks to him and his team. And, if it keeps Austin’s streets and schools clean for Gracie, then I’ll accept his inflated ego with a smile and a thanks.

Mantis and the others surround the driver of the other car with purpose. He looks like a cornered animal.

“Isaac, you should go on about your business,” I murmur.

I don’t have to warn the maintenance man twice. He’s gone in a flash, leaving me to watch what I’m guessing is an impending drug bust from the privacy of my car.

The driver has his hands up and is arguing with Mantis, telling him he knows his rights and the police have no cause to harass him, that he’s done nothing wrong.

“Then you don’t mind popping the trunk for me?” Mantis says with feigned casualness.

“There’s nothing in there. It’s empty.”

“We received a tip that says different.”

“That’s a lie. You have no cause!”

Mantis nods toward Stapley, who reaches into the car and hits the release.

Mantis’s stern face splits with a wicked grin.

“That’s not mine! You planted it there!” the guy exclaims before spinning on his heels, looking intent to run. Two of the cops cut him off. They have him pinned against the hood of the car and in handcuffs in seconds.

“What do we have here . . . coke, meth . . . Jesus, this might earn us a commendation! Hope you don’t like freedom, because you’re not gonna see it again for a long time,” Mantis says jovially. He shakes his head to himself, but he’s enjoying every second of this. “Read him his rights.”

As the fourth officer begins reciting words I could say in my sleep, Mantis reaches into the trunk. When his hand reappears, it’s with a wad of money. He glances over at Stapley and then, barely missing a beat, he grabs a black duffel bag and tosses it through the open window of the SUV.