cinder block. By the time I lifted myself off him he was already unconscious.
Behind me the fire was spreading. I had turned back to the flames, searching for Draper, when there was motion in the hallway behind me and a shot was fired through the air over my head.
I ducked and grabbed Cancerno’s Beretta as another shot was fired, this one blasting off part of the wall above me. Ramone must have found the revolver, because these shots were clearly rounds from a handgun and not slugs from his shotgun. I rolled onto my left shoulder and brought the Beretta up, looking for him. A shadow moved along the dark wall that separated the bar from the dining room, and I fired several shots in that direction. Then the shadow was gone, and I didn’t pursue. Draper was still pinned behind the bar, with the fire surging closer.
Crawling back to him from the way I’d come out was impossible now; the flames had devoured that end of the bar, the heat so intense I could only look with a sidelong glance, holding my arm up to shield my face. I ran around the front of the bar, switching the gun from my right hand to my left, then put my right palm on the surface of the bar and leaped, swinging myself over it, and onto the floor.
Draper was pulling furiously at his handcuffs, straining away from the fire that was now almost upon him. I ducked my head under the angled shelves and crawled to him. It was almost impossible to see anything now because I couldn’t keep my eyes open against the heat.
Relying on touch instead of sight, I felt for the handcuffs. The metal was hot when my fingers finally found it. I slid my free hand away, pressed the barrel of Cancerno’s Beretta against the thin central portion of the chain, and squeezed the trigger. Shards of metal and wood flew away, and I tugged at Draper’s hands, expecting them to come free. The cuffs held.
I put the muzzle of the gun back against the chain and fired again, and again. I was screaming until I choked on the acrid air. Unable to stand the heat anymore, I fell away, my hand still wrapped around Draper’s wrist. It took me a second to realize his wrist had come free with me.
Then we were on our feet and running out of the bar as flames surged behind us. Draper’s knees buckled and he started to go down, but I caught him and lifted him and then he seemed to find his balance. Clutching on to one another, we staggered out of the bar and into the dining room, which was also beginning to fill with smoke. The heavy front door loomed in front of us, and I hit it with my shoulder, but couldn’t get it to open. Draper found the bolt with one of his bloody hands, turned it, and then we fell forward, out of the bar, and onto the cool concrete of the front steps.
By now smoke was pouring out of the building, and windows ruptured with a soft popping noise that sounded harmless compared to the crackle of the flames. Draper and I scrambled out to the sidewalk on our hands and knees, gratefully gasping in breaths of fresh air. I tried to speak to him, but instead I fell onto my stomach, my chin bouncing off the concrete. I twisted onto my side on the cold, rough pavement of the sidewalk, watched the Hideaway burn, and waited for the sirens to begin.
CHAPTER 30
Joe and I saw the press conference on the television in his hospital room. Mike Gajovich had been relieved of duty pending a criminal investigation, his brother jerked from command of District Two along with him. The chief of police delivered the message with a firm voice, but he didn’t look at the camera. The mayor stood awkwardly next to him, trying to look grim and reassuring at the same time.
Beside me, Joe’s breathing was shallow but steady. His face matched the white sheets on the bed, except for his eyes, which were red and rimmed with dark purple circles. A handful of tubes ran from his body, and monitors hummed behind the bed, keeping watch. He could talk, but it took a lot out of him, so we didn’t say much. He kept his head on the pillow, but his eyes followed the television closely. When the press conference had concluded, I stood up and turned the television off. Joe spoke while my back was to him.
“No Richards.” The words came out in a rattling whisper, a hell of a lot of effort behind them, and I turned and nodded at him.
“They wouldn’t let him speak at a press conference,” I said. “Too much risk he’d tell it like it is.”
It was the first time I’d been alone with Joe since his condition had stabilized, and I still had trouble looking at him without feeling awash with guilt. The first thing he’d said when he saw me was “Thanks for the swim.”
He didn’t remember much of it. I’d talked him through it, but there had been a dozen cops in the room for that, it seemed, spilling out into the hallway, all of them taking notes and whispering to one another. We’d talk about it again sometime when it was just the two of us. But not today.
Jimmy Cancerno had died inside the Hideaway. Ramone Tavarez had been picked up four hours after the fire, and four hours after that he’d offered a confession to the murder of Anita Sentalar. Jack Padgett had handled the details of the setup, and recruited Jerome Huggins, but Ramone had fired the killing shot. He’d been paid fifty thousand dollars for the hit by Cancerno. Ramone said he was planning to buy an SUV with the cash. One with leather seats.
Ramone would still be charged with first-degree homicide, but his confessions carried value. He offered Padgett up for the murder of Larry Rabold and said word of Rabold’s involvement with the corruption task force had spread to Mike Gajovich’s brother, the District Two commander. There was no telling exactly what the Gajovich brothers would be charged with by the time it was all done, but it was safe to say they’d run neither the city nor the police department.
“If I’ve ever seen a more beat-up pair of guys, I can’t remember the boxing match.”
Amy stepped into Joe’s room and regarded us with a frown and raised eyebrows. I would have raised my own in response, but they were gone. The fire had taken care of that and left mild burns across my face, neck, and arms. I’d spent an hour in the shower trying to lose the smell of smoke and still hadn’t succeeded.
Amy took Joe’s hand and squeezed it, smiling at him as she studied the tubes leading from his body.
“Great to have you back with us,” she said.
“Thanks.”
You could tell he wanted to say more, but he was fading again, the medication and the trauma beating him back into sleep even as he tried to fight out of it. Amy kissed the back of his hand and placed it gently back on the bed, then stepped across the room to face me. She ran the tips of her fingers lightly over my burns.
“Make me look rugged, don’t they?” I said. “Sexy.”
“Keep on telling yourself that, soldier.”
She dropped her hand, glanced at Joe, whose eyes were closed now, then spoke in a hard-edged whisper.
“So you want to explain why the hell you needed to call me at five in the morning and make me drive out to see some lunatic living in an abandoned house?”
“You told him what I asked you to?”
She nodded. “That he should tell Cal Richards everything he told you, but leave Scott Draper out of it.”
“And he seemed agreeable?”
“Absolutely. I drove him to meet Richards. He said he didn’t want to see any other cops until he’d seen Richards.”
“Good. That’s what I told him to do.” I dropped into one of the chairs at the foot of Joe’s bed, and Amy took the other. She leaned forward and rested her hand on my knee.
“What happened last night, Lincoln? Three hours after I left the hospital, you’d found Corbett, killed Cancerno, and burned down a building. I’ve got to hear the story.”
“Hear it, or write it?”
“Hear it.”
So I told it. I’d had some practice—Cal Richards alone had made me go through it a half dozen times, and he’d been the third detective to get to me.
“And what, exactly, was with the message to Corbett?” she asked.
I’d stolen a cop’s cell phone and called her from the bathroom as dawn broke over the city.
“Cancerno was at the bar to kill Draper,” I said. “I was at the bar because I thought Draper was working with
