Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) Gary Ross (most popular novels txt) 📖

For a moment I pictured the public defender as a boy, listening to a tale of horror one child had survived but no child in a sane world should ever hear, except that every child must if the evil that produced such horror was to remain in the past.

“I take it then you know about Liberty Storm and my client, the keynote speaker at the diversity conference downtown.”

“Yes.”

“Back to your duty to warn,” I said. “Any idea where your client was staying, so police can find his confederates before people get hurt?”

“He mentioned an apartment and walking around a neighborhood but didn’t know how to get to it by himself because he’s been here only a couple weeks. I got the impression his friends have been here longer, especially somebody called Wally Ray.”

“So how did my name come up?”

“Once he started talking, everything was about Wally Ray,” Aronson said. “Wally Ray said this. Wally Ray did that. He never gave a last name but said Wally Ray was the one behind everything, the one supposed to take care of everything, like money for all of them to disappear, his lawyer cousin to get them out if anything went wrong. Then he said something completely confusing, but he seemed to think it might help him get a deal. It sounded like a threat. Only your last name came up, but I figured it had to be you.” Aronson paused. “After they got back from the art house, Wally Ray said he had a mind to pack a second Babyhawk, just for Rimes. Any idea what he meant by that?”

Excerpt Seven

In the Mouth of the Wolf by Drea Wingard, with Grant Gibbons (7)

One afternoon in mid-March, there is a knock on the door of the three-room LeDroit Park walk-up you will abandon before your book is published.

“Just a minute!” you call.

Holding the gun still unregistered in DC, you move to the narrow student desk near the door and tap keys on your laptop. After a moment, the screen fills with an image of the corridor. Unaware of the miniature camera mounted above your entry, Lieutenant Wesley and Sergeant Covelli of the Fairfax police gaze about as they wait for you to open the door.

Closing the laptop and sliding the gun into a drawer, you unlock the door without removing the security chain. Peering through the crack, you try to look surprised.

“Lieutenant! Sergeant!”

“Ms. Gibbons, finally.” Wesley lets out a breath as if exhausted. “May we come in?”

“All right.” Hesitantly, you unchain the door and step aside to let them pass. Making a show of locking up after them, you turn to find them standing in the center of your living room, unbuttoning their coats and facing you.

“Love the hair,” Wesley says. “And no glasses! Makes you look different.”

“Kind of the point.” You pause. “Are you here to tell me you arrested them?”

Wesley shakes her head. “But imagine our surprise when we drove out to your house and found a SOLD sign in front. Why didn’t you tell us you were moving?”

“A spur-of-the-moment decision.” You lower your eyes as if embarrassed. “I needed to be free of that house.”

We’ve been looking for you for weeks.” Covelli doesn’t even try to mask his annoyance. “Didn’t know whether you were hiding or in a shallow grave somewhere. Suppose we had made an arrest and needed you to—”

Wesley places a hand on her partner’s forearm. “It’s okay, Glenn. I’m certain Ms. Gibbons—excuse me, Ms. Wingard—has an explanation. Like a swastika on your door and a threatening phone call?”

Pleased your lawyer has told them what you said she should, you bite your lip, squeezing your eyes shut as if about to cry. “Wally Ray Tucker. He said we had unfinished business and he knew where my daughter was.”

Wesley draws in a sharp breath. “You could have come to us. Should have. We’d have had Maryland pick him up for harassment.”

“Instead you sold your house, all your stuff,” Covelli says. “Kept your friends in the dark.”

“For their own safety.”

“You had to know we’d find out about the name change sooner or later,” Wesley says. “As well as the move.”

Covelli’s voice is almost a growl. “You upended your life for this asshole.”

“He upended it when he killed my husband!” Tears come—real ones—and you begin to tremble. You drag the left sleeve of your blouse across your eyes but make no effort to hide the anger rising inside you. “I just wanted to get it back.”

“You wanted to get Tucker back too. Ruin his life.” Wesley comes to you, places a hand on your shoulder and gazes down into your eyes with earnest sympathy. “I understand. But the fliers? All that information you’ve been spreading around? You should have brought it to us instead of mailing it anonymously.”

“And sending it to every police agency and news outlet in DC metro,” Covelli adds. “Not to mention city councilmembers, county supervisors, the Supreme Court, and all 535 members of Congress. The only one you missed was the president.”

You step away from Wesley. “I sent it only to people who would read it.”

Covelli pulls a folded sheet of paper from his inside pocket. “But the boldest stroke was slapping this on public bulletin boards across two states and the District. You must have dropped coins into a FedEx copier like it was a slot machine.”

“I didn’t think my husband would mind if I used life insurance money to go after his killers.”

“Well, you hit the jackpot. Local and network news. Major newspapers around the country. Everybody wondering where you are.” Covelli unfolds the flier and holds it up to the light at the edge of a curtain. “Wanted in Virginia, for the murder of Washington Post reporter Grant Gibbons: Wallace Raymond Tucker and the White Supremacist group known as Liberty Storm.” He lowers the paper. “Where’d you get the picture of Wally Ray?”

“I’m a librarian.” There is more than a hint of pride in your voice.