Tight Race (Lillian Byrd Crime Series Book 6) by Elizabeth Sims

Author:Elizabeth Sims [Sims, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spruce Park Press
Published: 2022-01-09T05:00:00+00:00

23

Before leaving, I dumped the silk bedsheets into the shopping bag from the sporting goods store. I knew I was fucking around with evidence, but hey, that famous blue dress sat under a bed with dust bunnies for a year or whatever. At the very least, I could give the sheets to Anna, and she’d see to it they’d be processed as evidence. I knotted the bag shut and held it under my arm as I went out the same back door. I closed and locked it with my key. As I turned to go, the light of a thousand suns burst into my eyes and a voice commanded, “Freeze! Police. Don’t take another step.”

Fuck. I froze, and the light dropped from my eyes. O’Brien stood there, alone, pointing his flashlight at the ground.

“Get back in there,” he said.

This wasn’t good.

“Uh,” I said.

“You heard me.”

Slowly, I unlocked the door again, half expecting to get shot in the back. O’Brien grabbed my arm and shoved me into the little receiving room. His brief, tight grip on my upper arm, like a blood-pressure cuff, was disturbingly effective at making me want to comply. There was no shaking him off.

He more or less flung me away from him, then kicked shut the door. He felt for the switch for the overhead light and snapped it on. Solid and menacing in jeans and a sweatshirt, he shut off his heavy black flashlight and kept hold of it. The hem of his sweatshirt had gotten hiked up over the butt of a semiautomatic pistol in a belt holster.

Well, Lillian, old girl, you might have fucked up one too many times. One of my self-debates flashed by in a second:

Me: Whatever happens, tell him to go to hell.

Me: No, I have to cooperate, give him something.

Me: Saying nothing is safer, always.

Me: This is not a typical arrest. It’s him versus me, and I think defying him will just make him mad.

Me: You have a point.

O’Brien puffed out his cheeks, which were pink from the exertion or excitement of apprehending me.

“I could take you downtown and book you for trespassing,” he said in his oddly clear voice. “Larceny, too, it looks like.” I always expect a guy built like that to be growly, but this one sounded like a youth pastor.

I waited, my mind racing. The cleanliness of this room, the steel shelves crammed with colorful cans and boxes of groceries, the white tile floor, made me uneasy. I felt like O’Brien and I were like a couple of paramecia in a petri dish.

“I need to know what you know,” said the detective.

“Man, not much. I suppose it’s futile for me to ask what you were doing following me.”

His flat stare did not change.

“Or,” I said, “whether I could get my lawyer involved in this conversation.”

“Heh. Listen, I want to solve these murders, but I have a problem.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m serving more than one master.”

I wouldn’t have thought he had it in him to be so cryptic.

He said, “Why

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