Chapter 37
thirty-seven
I am not in the fucking mood for a dead body.
Not when all I can think about is Alice, sated and sleepy-eyed in my bed.
And the erection I assumed wouldn’t abate until I made it back to her side.
But a dead body does the trick.
Grayson taps his fingers on the center console. It’s odd to have him in the front seat with me, but this is no ordinary car ride.
I knew the second Brad’s name appeared on my phone—some new horror had come to light. And as much as it killed me to leave Alice after everything that happened tonight, I have people to protect.
Of course, it helps that I know my sweet girl is as safe as she could possibly be.
The Chinatown side street is awash with chaos. We unbuckle in unison, both jumping out of the Mercedes sedan without a word.
Up ahead, a surreal scene unfolds. Two cop cruisers sit at diagonals in the center of the street. Cold blue light swirls up into the chilly damp, casting sinister shadows on the vacant apartment building. Between the police cars, a black van sits idle, one word emblazoned on its side.
Coroner.
Grayson and I push into the throng of officers gathered around the side of the van. I extend my hand to their captain. “I’m Marco Amir, head of security for Stryker & Sons. This is Grayson Stryker.”
The captain gives a sympathetic nod. “Ah, yes. Good of you to come so quickly. We’ll need one of you to identify the remains. Though I have to warn you… they aren’t pretty.”
My boss and I look at one another. His jaw hardens while determination steels his green gaze. “I have to do it,” he decides, stepping forward. “Show me.”
They lead us to the open doors at the back of the vehicle. There, on a flat stretcher, is a black plastic bag, six feet long. The coroner unzips the top part, revealing a sallow, bloated face.
Grayson and I both stare down at the somewhat-familiar man. I hear him swallow hard, voice thickening. “Yes,” he confirms. “That is Theodore Stryker.”
At least… it was.
The man was never as good-looking as his brother or nephew, but his corpse is positively grotesque. Fit for the state of his soul.
The slight stench tells me he’s been dead for more than a day, at least. I level my gaze at the coroner.
“How long?”
The tall, thin man frowns thoughtfully as he re-seals the bag. “I’ll have to run some tests back at the morgue to confirm,” he hedges. “But based on the ambient temperature in the apartment… I would say he died Saturday night or very early Sunday morning.”
“Cause of death?” Grayson intones, his voice strangely hollow.
“Gunshots,” the coroner replies. “Two in the heart, one in the head.”
Old school, I think. Modern-day soldiers are no longer taught to execute enemies on sight, but decades ago, in the fifties and sixties, most intelligence agencies considered the three-shot style of dispatching an unarmed enemy compulsory.
“The shell casings are missing,” the police captain informs us, preempting my next question. “Most likely taken by the perpetrator. We’ll run ballistics on the wounds, in case they match a gun in our system. I understand there was an ongoing search for this man?”
I nod. “He’s wanted for interrogation regarding another investigation. We believe he had information about a violent assault perpetrated by his son. Who was supposed to be behind bars—but we just found out he made bail on Friday.”
That was the latest piece of information from Barnes, who dug into the prison-break side of things all weekend. We thought the ten-million-dollar bail would be enough to stop Ted from getting his son out—but apparently it didn’t.
Not that it did either of them any good.
My gaze snaps to the stairwell across the sidewalk, my mind working through the situation systematically. “May I inspect the scene?”
“As long as you don’t disturb anything,” he agrees, gruff. “Your associates are up there, too. They called us when they discovered a key broken off in the door. Whoever shot him must have done it on their way out, to keep the landlord from coming in.”
Damn it. Pierce and Brad have been here four times since Saturday night, and they only just noticed the lock? Sloppy work.
Rookie work.
And, ultimately, my fault. I’m supposed to be teaching them, not holding wedding planners captive in my apartment and watching them on my cameras at all hours of the day.
I take the steps two at a time, charging upstairs to find a sad, unlit landing with three doors. The one on the right hangs open, revealing a single, sparsely furnished room.
The moment I see it, Daniel’s bail makes sense.
Ted must have mortgaged everything he’d ever owned and sunk every penny he’d ever embezzled into freeing his son.
A shit investment, if you ask me. Considering I have mountains of evidence that would have ended up convicting the evil fucker either way.
Not anymore.
Now they’ll both rot where they belong.
A dark pool of dried blood occupies the center of the concrete floor, soaked into the cement for all eternity. Off to one side, Pierce and Brad stand talking with a forensic officer. As soon as Pierce sees me, he breaks away.
“Hell of a night,” I mutter, surveying the stark, sour room.
Brad shakes his head, his eyes fixed on the indelible stain on the floor between us.
“No shit,” he mumbles. “We were doing our usual surveillance, checking to see if the door was unlocked or if anything in the hallway had been disturbed to indicate movement. But then I noticed the key snapped off in the lock. I knew that would give the police probable cause to search the place, so I called them and you.”
I clap a hand on his shoulder. “You followed protocol. Good man.”
Pierce scuffs his boot on the floor. “I should have seen that damn key in the lock,” he admits. “I was here so many times. I came up here last night… I can’t believe I didn’t notice that the whole handle was jammed.”
Really, it’s my own fault for trusting a rookie to think like a seasoned detective. Most people would presume a door is simply locked when the handle doesn’t budge. It takes experience to think outside the box.
“You did what you could,” I tell him honestly. “Now the real work starts.”
“R-real work?”
His nervous stuttering and wide eyes send a pang rebounding through my chest. Alice.
My hand twitches toward my phone, but I quell the impulse, inhaling deeply. “Yes. Ted is a murder victim, which makes it a hell of a lot easier to get access to his financial statements and phone records. It should be simple enough to find our suspect based on those.”
Brad comes closer, frowning. “What do you mean?”
I sigh. “Someone wanted this man dead—but only after Daniel was shot. There has to be a reason. I’m assuming there was a third person working with Daniel and Ted to bring Grayson and Mason down.
Or perhaps pretending to work with them.
They probably smuggled Daniel into the party somehow, came here to collect their payment before word of Daniel’s death could reach Ted, and then shot Ted to tie up loose ends.
Now, they think they’ve gotten away without leaving any accomplices behind. ”
We saw double-crossing all the time when I worked in the NYPD’s Organized Crime division. My father used to quote Benjamin Franklin on such occasions. The famous words return to me as I stand in the former apartment of two of our three targets.
“Three men can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”
Anger tightens Pierce’s expression, along with a touch of denial. It’s natural, I suppose. We keep stepping on cockroaches only to find more. It’s like Whack-A-Mole.
“How do we know Ted was the one paying off the accomplice?” he asks.
I shrug, numb. “We don’t. But it feels logical.
Ted poured all his money into this—he posted Daniel’s bail, paid for all the lawyers.
We’ve always suspected that he kept some of the money he tried to embezzle from Stryker & Sons.
It seemed like, no matter how many times we stripped his resources, he always came back with more. ”
Pierce chokes on his outrage. “That’s—”
“I know,” I say, staring down at the dried black blood. Fucking karma.
My focus flickers over to Brad, who—I now see—keeps dribbling his weight from one foot to the other. Huh.
“You guys were both here all night?” I confirm, raising my voice to make sure they both hear me.
When Brad turns from speaking with the forensic specialist, his eyes are wider than usual. He looks at Pierce before he answers me. “Yeah… all night. Since, like, what? Four? I think Barnes left around four.”
My eyes narrow. “Like around four?” I repeat. “This is a fucking murder investigation, Forrester. We can’t deal in approximations here.”
Pierce shoots Brad a dirty look. “We got here at four,” he confirms, solid. He glances back at me. “Barnes left right after we arrived.”
But there is something neither of them is telling me. “… and?”
A silent argument ensues. They both send severe glares at each other until Brad finally shifts on his feet again. “I, uh… I had to step away. For about an hour. Around six.”
Pierce stares right at his partner. “Tell him why, Brad.”
A dark flush seeps into Brad’s ruddy face. Oh, for fuck’s sake. Am I running a fraternity?
I throw up my hands, halting him. “If you left your post to get your dick wet, I don’t need details.”
The forensic officer snickers in the corner, smirking over her clipboard. Carajo.
When Brad doesn’t protest, I know I’m right. I shake my head. “I’ll dock your pay for the hour. But consider this your one and only warning, Forrester. Leave your post again? You might as well not come back.”
He swallows audibly and shuffles his feet again. “Yes. Sir. Understood.”
I still don’t like his posture. I make a mental note to try to look into whoever he met up with. If it’s someone the Strykers know.
Because I have a feeling that whoever this third person is?
They aren’t done.
And the wedding—the one Alice is killing herself to create—is the perfect target for someone with Ted’s cash and a grudge against the Strykers.
I just don’t know who it is yet.
Pierce’s cough interrupts my train of thought. He stares down at the blood stain like it disgusts him. “This is sick.”
He isn’t wrong. The scene in front of me speaks of someone methodical and cold. A seasoned murderer.
They walked in, lifted a gun, and shot the man three times. He probably died before they even bothered to tell them that they’d gotten his son murdered, too.
I wonder if the two Strykers were surprised when they saw each other in hell.