Chapter 2 - THE BADGE IN THE SMOKE
The gun fired.
I screamed and threw myself sideways.
The shot cracked through the apartment, deafening in the narrow hallway. Something heavy collapsed behind me.
For one stunned second, I waited for pain.
None came.
“Claire!”
The armed man lunged through the smoke and grabbed my shoulder.
I swung at him blindly.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Look behind you.”
I did.
A second man lay near my kitchen doorway.
Firefighter coat.
Black gloves.
A pistol inches from his hand.
Blood spread beneath his shoulder.
He had been standing behind me.
The first man hadn’t fired at my chest.
He had fired past it.
The fire alarm kept screaming.
Smoke rolled across the ceiling.
I turned back toward him.
He was in his early sixties, broad through the shoulders, gray hair wet with sweat. His right hand held the gun.
His left held the gold badge.
And suddenly I recognized both.
Not him.
The badge.
A narrow nick cut across the lower edge.
I had made that mark when I was nine years old.
My father had left his badge on the kitchen table. I dropped it while pretending to arrest the family dog.
Dad had laughed until Mom yelled from the other room.
After his murder, police told me the badge had been stolen during the robbery.
I stared at it now.
“That belongs to my father.”
The man’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
My fear turned instantly into fury.
“Who are you?”
“Frank Mallory.”
The name hit me.
Detective Frank Mallory.
My father’s partner.
The man who had stood beside me at the funeral twelve years ago and told seventeen-year-old Claire Sullivan that her father had died bravely.
Then he disappeared from my life.
I had not seen him since.
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“You told me his badge was gone.”
“Yes.”
“You told me the case had been investigated.”
His eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
I slapped him.
Hard.
Frank didn’t move.
“Good,” he said quietly. “Now we have to leave.”
The wounded man groaned.
Frank kicked the pistol away from his hand.
Smoke thickened.
“The fire isn’t meant to burn the building,” he said. “It’s meant to push you toward the stairwell.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s how they do it.”
They.
I looked at the man in the firefighter coat.
“Police?”
Frank didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
My phone was still on the floor beside the cassette player.
I reached for it.
Frank caught my wrist.
“No.”
“De Luca’s security called me.”
“And whoever is watching the building can track that phone.”
“How did you find me?”
His jaw tightened.
“Your father taught me where frightened people go when they need four walls and no questions.”
Before I could demand more, glass exploded in the living room.
Frank shoved me down.
Another shot came through the window.
He fired back once.
“Move.”
We ran.
Not toward the stairwell.
Frank dragged me through the service corridor as smoke filled the apartment behind us.
The wounded fake firefighter shouted something into a radio.
The phrase followed us into the hall.
“Package moving east.”
Package.
Me.
At the laundry exit, a man in a black coat appeared.
I froze.
Frank raised his gun.
The newcomer raised both empty hands.
“Matteo Rinaldi.”
I recognized the voice immediately.
De Luca’s head of security.
The man who had called me.
“You were supposed to get her out five minutes ago,” Matteo said.
Frank gave him a look full of old hatred.
“You were supposed to keep them from finding the building.”
Matteo’s expression hardened.
“They came through police emergency access.”
Frank lowered his weapon by an inch.
“That narrows it down.”
“To half the Chicago Police Department?”
“On a good day.”
Even terrified, I heard the bitterness.
Matteo guided us into an underground parking structure.
A black SUV waited with its rear door open.
I stopped.
“No.”
Matteo looked back.
“Ms. Sullivan—”
“I’m not getting into another safe house while men trade pieces of my father’s life over my head.”
Frank glanced toward the ramp.
“We don’t have time.”
“Make time.”
I pointed at the badge.
“Twelve years ago you stood beside my father’s coffin. You looked me in the eye and told me his badge had been taken by whoever robbed him.”
Frank said nothing.
“You had it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it was never logged into evidence.”
My anger faltered.
“What?”
“I got to the road before uniforms.”
He looked down at the badge.
“Your father was already dead. Wallet gone. Service weapon gone. Badge still clipped inside his coat.”
“Then why take it?”
“Because I saw who arrived next.”
“Who?”
Frank’s face became strangely tired.
“Men who were supposed to investigate his murder.”
Matteo opened the SUV door wider.
A siren wailed somewhere above us.
Frank continued.
“I knew if that badge went into evidence, it would disappear. Same as his notebook. Same as the original crime-scene photographs.”
“So you stole it.”
“I preserved the only thing I could.”
“You let me believe some street robber took it.”
“I let you believe whatever kept you from asking why it was missing.”
I stared at him.
“You were protecting me?”
“No.”
His answer came too quickly.
“I was protecting myself.”
That hurt more.
Matteo looked toward the garage entrance.
“Now, Claire.”
We got into the SUV.
The moment the door closed, Frank pulled a handkerchief from his pocket.
Blood covered it.
Only then did I notice the dark stain spreading beneath his jacket.
“You’ve been shot.”
“Grazed.”
“That is not a graze.”
“I’ve had worse.”
Matteo started the vehicle.
As we sped through the garage, Frank placed my father’s badge in my palm.
It was heavier than I remembered.
Warm from his hand.
I ran my thumb over the little scar I had made as a child.
For twelve years, I had carried a clean version of my father’s death because other people had decided the truth was too dangerous.
That ended tonight.
“The tape,” I said.
Frank’s face changed.
“You heard it?”
“Three detectives planning to kill him.”
He looked out the window.
“I heard your voice.”
His eyes closed.
“You’re sure?”
“I spent an hour replaying it.”
“Claire—”
“You laughed.”
“No.”
“One of you did.”
“But not me.”
“You said his name.”
Frank slowly looked at me.
“Yes.”
The inside of the SUV seemed to shrink.
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“You knew they were planning to murder him.”
“Yes.”
Matteo swore softly.
I could barely breathe.
“Were you one of them?”
Frank’s eyes filled with something that looked dangerously like shame.
“I was one of the men in that room.”
I moved away from him.
He didn’t try to stop me.
“Did you kill my father?”
“No.”
“Did you help them?”
His silence lasted too long.
My stomach dropped.
“Frank.”
He looked at the badge in my hand.
“Your father knew they had turned me.”
“Turned you how?”
“They had my son.”
I stared at him.
“He was fourteen. Leukemia. My insurance stopped covering an experimental treatment. Raymond Kessler offered to make the bills disappear.”
“Kessler?”
Even I knew the name.
Police Superintendent Raymond Kessler.
The most decorated law-enforcement officer in Chicago.
Frank’s mouth twisted.
“I thought it was a favor.”
“And it wasn’t.”
“No favor from Raymond Kessler ever was.”
The SUV slowed sharply.
Matteo checked the mirror.
“We have company.”
Two unmarked sedans had entered the street behind us.
Frank pulled his gun.
I grabbed his sleeve.
“Finish.”
He looked at me.
I saw twelve years of guilt sitting behind his eyes.
“They told me to give them the location of your father’s meeting.”
My throat closed.
“And you did?”
Frank nodded.
“Where?”
“An abandoned freight road near Calumet Harbor.”
The same deserted road where my father’s body had been found.
I stopped breathing.
May you like
Frank looked straight at me.
“I was the man who told them where your father would be.”
