Chapter Fourteen #2
“At least there’s that. Is my sister safe?”
“Yes. We’ve got an agent watching her at the hospital in LA.”
“Why?” Kit demanded.
“We wanted to see if anyone involved approached her.”
Kit frowned down at Nicchi. “Is that what you’re hiding? The identity of a weapons smuggler?”
Nicchi shook his head, looking as exhausted as Kit felt. “No.”
“But you’re not surprised,” Sam noted.
Nicchi tensed. And said nothing. Which was answer enough.
Baz’s gun remained pressed to the back of Nicchi’s head. “I’m really starting to hate this guy,” he muttered.
“Join the club,” Kit said.
“I’m not trying to hurt your sister,” Nicchi said stonily.
“Well, you’re not trying to help her,” Kit snapped.
“Children, children,” Brewer cautioned.
Kit glared at the special agent. “You’re not on my happy list, either.”
“Don’t care,” Brewer drawled. “Just here to do my job.”
“So am I,” Lennox said from the speaker, startling Kit yet again. “Sorry, guys, I muted myself while I checked into Brewer. His badge number is legit and I’m texting you a photo of his face so you can be sure.”
“Thank you,” Kit said. “I appreciate it.”
“No problem,” Lennox said. “Is he the guy you’re talking to?”
Kit looked at the photo attached to Lennox’s incoming text, then held her phone up to Brewer’s face. He smiled sweetly. Almost mockingly.
Kit rolled her eyes. She did not have the patience for an interagency pissing match. “It’s him. You can put your gun away, Baz.”
Baz lowered his gun but deliberately did not reholster it, and Kit loved him for that.
Sam was watching Brewer, who still had his gun trained on them. “You said you were looking for Paolo?”
“Not anymore. I heard you all say that he was dead when you were standing outside.”
Kit winced. They shouldn’t have been discussing a dead body out in front of Paolo’s house. “We are clearly not at the top of our game.”
Brewer looked mildly sympathetic. He would have looked more sympathetic were he not still holding a gun on them. “I’ve heard. Getting shot at will do that to you. Been there myself.”
“Why are you still holding a gun on us?” she asked.
“I don’t want anyone to make any sudden moves. Especially not Nicchi here, since he’s wanted for a shooting.”
Nicchi lifted his head to stare at Kit. “You don’t have a shred of evidence to prove that.”
“No, we don’t,” Kit agreed. “But no one has searched your house yet. That M40 you used on the shooter isn’t available just anywhere.
I kind of doubt you just threw it away. When Lennox gets here, she’ll arrest you and you can call an attorney.
You know the drill, Ricky.” She turned back to Brewer.
“But why are you holding a gun on us?” She gestured to Sam, Baz, and herself.
“Because you’re rogue, McKittrick, and unpredictable. I don’t want you touching any evidence. My partner’s on his way. We’ll take over this crime scene.”
“My boss is also on his way,” Lennox said. “You all can duel at dawn over the crime scene. Please don’t let him touch anything, Kit. Not until we get there.”
“I’m not sure we can stop him,” Kit said, feeling helpless.
“You can’t,” Brewer said, rather smugly.
She started to say something snarky when Sam spoke in that calm voice that grounded her.
“If you knew that Paolo was trying to smuggle guns last night,” he said, “why didn’t you arrest him then? I assume you knew he had the guns on Akiko’s boat. Why let him get away?”
Brewer frowned. “He gave us the slip.”
“He was right here in his house. You had to have checked.” Sam’s tone was reasonable and calm, but Kit knew him well enough to know he was going somewhere with his line of questioning.
“You might even have been listening in on his phone calls. If you knew he possessed illegal guns, you had enough for a phone tap warrant.”
“We did check,” Brewer claimed. “He was alive this morning.”
“Why didn’t you come here earlier?” Sam asked.
“Yeah,” Nicchi said bitterly. “Like before he was murdered?”
Brewer seemed genuinely regretful. “I wish I had.”
Probably because he’d just lost a suspect.
Oh. Now she understood where Sam was going.
“You were using Paolo as bait,” Sam said. “I imagine Paolo tried to contact the person who stood him up for the transfer last night. Am I close so far?”
Brewer said nothing.
Sam nodded. “I am close. Maybe his customer arranged a meeting—a time and place. You wanted the big fish, so you staked out the meeting place. Paolo never showed because he was already dead. His partner also didn’t show up because he—or she—had already killed Paolo and taken the guns from his shed. ”
Brewer shrugged, appearing to be reluctantly impressed. “I can’t say.”
Kit didn’t mind showing that she was impressed. “You’re right, Sam.” And how sexy was that? A nerdy guy in Clark Kent glasses who had a wonderful, gorgeous brain. “And now I’m wondering who Paolo was working with and how they connect to the deaths of Mary Sherman and Laurette Curry.”
Who had photos of Akiko on her bedroom wall.
“Which,” Lennox said, “is why we’re going to let Navarro and the brass duke it out with these guys. If the ATF knows who we’re looking for, I’d hope they’d extend professional courtesy and give us a heads-up.”
Brewer smirked.
Kit had to take another breath. She was tired. Her temper was frayed. And she still had to tell her sister that Paolo was dead.
“This isn’t funny, Special Agent Brewer,” she said quietly. “My sister’s life is in danger. My life is in danger. Paolo is dead and his brother is sitting here grieving. Have a little fucking respect.”
Brewer nodded, contrite. “I’m sorry, Detective. You’re right. Let’s wait for your lieutenant and we’ll figure this out.”
“Thank you.” She looked around at the mess in the kitchen and had an awful thought.
What if Akiko’s house was in a similar state because Paolo had used her boat to smuggle guns? Had Paolo’s contact tossed Akiko’s house, too? What if she’d been home? Would she be dead like Paolo?
Did the Feds suspect Akiko of being involved? Brewer said they had someone “watching” Akiko at the hospital.
Protecting her, my ass.
Kit really was off her game. Those should have been her first concerns.
She wanted to demand answers from Brewer but held her tongue. If they didn’t suspect Akiko, she wasn’t going to put the idea out there. But the Feds would have been foolish not to.
Goddammit, Paolo. What have you done?
San Diego, California
Tuesday, January 31, 9:45 p.m.
“Oh no.” Kit stood in Akiko’s living room, surveying the damage. Her sister’s tidy house was trashed, just like Paolo’s had been.
“Poor Akiko,” Sam murmured. “This is a huge cleanup job.”
“What were they looking for?” Lennox asked. She’d come with them after Navarro had arrived at Paolo’s house. Or, perhaps more correctly, she’d allowed Kit and Sam to come with her. “I mean, I don’t expect you to know. I’m just thinking out loud.”
Kit sighed. “I know.” Lennox had been incredibly helpful, at considerable risk to her own career. “You know you could get dinged for being here with me.”
“I don’t think so.” She moved closer to Kit and lowered her voice. “Navarro and I had a talk. He says I should consider you my mentor for the time being.”
Kit blinked at her. “For real?”
Lennox nodded, her black bob swaying around her heart-shaped face. “For real. I don’t think you should worry, Kit. Some things are just…theater.”
“A suspension is not theater,” she muttered.
“I agree. It shouldn’t be, anyway.” Lennox crouched and pushed at a small figurine on the floor with one finger. “Nice carving.”
“My father made it for her.” Several of Akiko’s figurines had been tossed to the floor. It took all Kit had not to sweep them up protectively. But this was evidence, so she left them alone.
“I’ve heard about his carvings.” Lennox stood, looking a little embarrassed.
“Actually, I bought one of his carvings at a charity auction a few months ago. I didn’t know who the artist was until I’d brought it home.
It was going to be a gift for my mother, but once I found out it was a Harlan McKittrick original, I kept it and got my mother something else. ”
Lennox was much nicer than Kit had anticipated. “What was it that my pop carved?”
Lennox dug in her pocket and pulled out an intricately carved violin. “I played as a kid and my mother still plays. I carry this one for luck.”
Kit pulled her own good-luck charm from her pocket. It was a cat with a bird perched on its head, carved by Harlan. Kit and Wren. “So do I.” Then she felt sick. “Do you think they’ve broken into my place, too? Taken my other carvings?”
She rarely slept in her boat, which she rented from one of her foster brothers. She’d been staying most nights at McKittrick House for weeks now. But the boat was where she kept her belongings.
She had sixteen small carved wrens on a shelf in her bedroom, gifts from her father. He gave her one every year to remember Wren. Rage mixed with her panic. If someone had damaged her birds…
“We’ll go there as soon as we’re finished here,” Lennox promised.
Kit felt too young all of a sudden. Young and scared and vulnerable and she didn’t like it.
“You’ve got good security at the marina, Kit,” Sam said calmly. “And that guy who docks next to you is so nosy, I’m sure he’d have noticed someone lurking around. But I’ve just texted Baz and asked him to drive to the marina and stand guard at your place until we get there.”
Baz had stayed behind at Paolo’s house, acting as Kit’s eyes. Navarro wouldn’t allow Kit to stay but tolerated Baz’s presence.
“Where is Akiko’s security system?” Sam added. “Can we view the footage?”
He was redirecting her anxiety in a way that didn’t embarrass her. He’s too good to me. “It’s all online. Akiko should have gotten an alert on her phone that someone had broken in, but she didn’t. She would have called me if she had.”