The Casey Collins Trilogy*12 Drummers Drumming*Night on Fire*East Past Warsaw by Diana Deverell

Author:Diana Deverell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Sorrel Press
Published: 2015-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

20

“A test?” I repeated. “What do you have in mind?”

“Nothing complicated,” Dawna said. “You stay here. Keep working on your project. The guilty parties will expose themselves by trying to get to you. We’ll know which of us is right.”

Disbelief raised the pitch of my voice. “You want me to set myself up for target practice?”

She waggled her hand in a minimizing gesture. “Copenhagen cops have assigned a protective detail to your flat. We can take other precautions.” She dropped her voice so I had to lean closer. “You want to find out who offed your partner, you have to do this.”

Her scheme might expose Gerry’s killer. It might get me killed, too. I said, “You proposed this to Blixenstjerne. And he vetoed the idea.”

“He couldn’t ask a civilian to take so big a risk. That’s what he said.” She smiled. “He never said you couldn’t volunteer.”

I hesitated. I owed Gerry. I wanted to find his killer. Was I doing the right thing, rejecting Dawna’s idea?

She picked up on my uncertainty instantly. “We can get these guys.” She was as fervent as the captain of a basketball team down ten points at the half. “Stay,” she said in that mesmerizing voice. “Finish the project Gerry was working on.”

For Gerry. He would have wanted me to do it. But there were too many variables. I rubbed the heel of my hand over my forehead. “I don’t know—”

Out of sight in the hallway, something banged against the wall and smashed to the floor. Glass shattered explosively.

I flung myself out of my chair. I dived behind Dawna’s desk, pulling her down beside me. She crouched, breathing hard through her mouth, hands scrabbling at her pants cuff, exposing the holster Velcroed to her calf.

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” a man said in a voice I knew well.

I rose slowly to see over the desktop.

Andy stood in the doorway, his expression sheepish.

Dawna was upright again, her voice taut with anger. “What the hell were you doing?” she asked him.

“Smacked into some damn picture,” he replied. “Wasn’t paying attention, I guess.”

“Lucky you didn’t get hurt.” Dawna laid a palm-sized .22 caliber pistol on the desk, the lightweight metal soundless against the glass top.

I stared at it, trying to get my pulse rate down again. Dawna was carrying a concealed weapon, a violation of Danish law, US government regulations, and international agreements. Maybe I could convince her to lend it to me. Of course, if I’d had a gun one minute ago, I’d have shot Andy. I glanced toward him.

He was still in the doorway. “Sorry,” he said again. “Didn’t mean to startle you.” He wore Levi’s and a short-sleeved cotton shirt of washed-out Madras plaid. I’d seen the shirt before, a long time ago. The colors had bled and blended to a softer shade of yellow green that set off his eyes. Andy and his shirt, older but wearing well. Both still looking good.

He spoke directly to me. “Post One told me you were in the FBI office. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

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