Jane steadied herself, trailing her fingers against the brick wall as she rounded what she figured must be the last curve in the alley. Whose idea was this? Hers, she had to admit. Bobby was already out of sight. If anyone were back in the dead end, waiting, she’d see them in about two seconds.
Voices. Yelling. Police? Someone yelled “Police!” Jake? Sounded—did it?—like Jake. Or was someone calling for the police? Calling for help?
She skidded to a stop, tucked her body behind a chugging black air-conditioning unit. One heel twisted in the rock shards between the bumpy cobbles, and she fell hard, yanked off balance, landing on her bare knee. Camera still rolling.
“Jane!” Bobby’s voice. Calling for her.
Or warning her? She felt her stomach clench, felt the tension of the decision she needed to make, and make right now. Should she turn, run, get help? Or at least get away? Bobby had told her two plainclothes cops were down here, so it must be safe. Right? Unless he’d been wrong and they weren’t two plainclothes cops, they were simply two guys. And with who knew what agenda.
She stared across the empty alley, trying to assess. A man had been stabbed to death not a block from here. The cops were clearly looking for the bad guy. But what if the cops had followed the bad guy down this alley, and now they were also dead, and Bobby had run right into their—
Go. She turned away, ready to head for the safety of the park and the multitude of police. But wait—leave Bobby? Who the hell was he, anyway? A street kid she’d instantly believed?
The yelling had stopped, but still there were voices, only lower. The air-conditioning unit kicked on, vibrating against her shoulder, making it impossible to make out words. Her scraped knee was bleeding, lovely, and she couldn’t quiet her pounding heart.
“Jane! It’s okay!” Bobby’s voice again.
Footsteps. Coming toward her. They crunched in the gravel of the cobblestones, walking deliberately. Not running.
She closed her eyes. Just two choices now. She could run. Or she could wait. But she could no longer hide. She opened her eyes.
“Jane!”
Jake.
* * *
Jane?
Jane. In high heels and a black suit, hiding behind a rusting air conditioner in a filthy back alley a block away from a murder.
Jake attempted to keep the top of his head from blowing off. He’d left a still-complaining Hewlitt in the care of DeLuca. They ordered the paparazzi kid with the camera—what if they’d shot him?—to stay put. The kid had insisted that Jane Ryland, the reporter for Channel 2, was following him down the alley. But Jake knew Jane wasn’t a reporter anymore, for Channel 2 or anyone else. So this kid was full of crap.
“Holy shit, Jane, what the hell’re you doing?”
“Getting up,” she said. “What’re you doing?”
She hauled herself to her feet, one hand clutching a metal handle on the side of the air conditioner, the other holding some device. Her suit jacket flapped open, T-shirt grubby with dust and smeared with black stuff, her hair half out of its ponytail, her tote bag strapped across her body. One knee was bleeding, Jake saw, making a narrow red trickle down her bare leg.
“You okay?” He gestured toward her knee.
She looked down, licked a finger, and wiped away the blood. “Just a flesh wound,” she said. “Cobblestone attack.”
“Jane?”
“Yeah?” She was smiling as if this wasn’t absurd.
“You realize this is ridiculous? Having this conversation? There’s a paparazzi kid, showed up with a camera, insisted he’s with you. I almost shot him, for God’s sake. What the holy hell are you doing back here?”
Uh-oh. He knew that expression. Jane had something to tell him, and he wasn’t going to like it.
“Jane? I’m serious. There’s been a crime committed. We’re looking for a suspect. I don’t have time for—”
“I know, Jake. It’s complicated.” She paused, seemed to be considering again, then held up the device in her hand. “Detective Brogan? You’re looking for a suspect? Can you tell us what happened in Curley Park?”
“Is that a camera, too? Are you fre—” Jake paused, trying to sort this out. She had a camera and was asking questions. Why? Whatever the reason, anything he said was about to be recorded, and that meant he needed to evaluate everything that came out of his mouth. He’d started to say, “Are you freaking kidding me?” then stopped. He narrowed his eyes, shading them from the sun with one hand. Jane still pointed that thing at him. “Ms. Ryland? Are you here in a capacity as a reporter?”
She lowered the camera. “Yeah, actually. I am. Listen, Jake? I have some pretty interesting news, but I promise I won’t shoot what you say, okay? See? Camera’s down? The paparazzi kid told me he’d seen two cops, I guess one of them was you, running after someone. So I figured I’d—I mean, were you running after someone? Was that the person in the ambulance? What happened?”
“Are you asking as you? Or as a reporter?”
Her face changed again. “I work for Channel 2. For now, at least.”
“Jake!” his radio crackled in his back pocket. “Get back here!”
“Crap,” Jake said. He turned toward the dead end, where he’d left DeLuca, Hewlitt, and the kid. If the kid was somehow in cahoots with Hewlitt—could that be?—there’d be a damn three-ring circus about to go down.
Jake pointed at Jane. “Stay right here.”
But no. She could not be here, this was potentially a disaster. He had no idea what DeLuca needed or why, but it was no place for Jane. He couldn’t even process what she’d just told him—she worked at Channel 2? Since when? Right now, it made not one shred of difference.
He pointed the other way, toward the alley entrance. “No. Get out of here. Now. Go!”
“Jake!” DeLuca’s voice again. “Hewlitt!”
He turned, drew his Glock again, and powered back into the dead end.
* * *
Hyoolit? What did DeLuca mean by Hyoolit? Like, haul it? Hurry? Had he wanted Jake to hurry? What was going on down there?
Jane watched Jake’s back for about ten seconds. She contemplated his order to get out. Stay? Or go? Safer to go back to civilization, but safe didn’t make headlines. She checked the camera. According to the digital readout, it still had forty minutes of power.
Stay or go? She frowned as she leaned against the wall again, trying to hear, closing her eyes as if that would make her other senses more acute. Nothing. No noise from the dead end. No yelling. No gunshots. That had certainly been DeLuca’s voice calling for Jake. So they had been the “two cops” Bobby had seen. But what—or who—led them into the alley? Whatever or whoever it was, seemed like someone had been carried away in an ambulance, and someone was still down there. If she stayed right here, behind her friendly neighborhood air conditioner, she could wait, keeping still, and see what happened. She nodded, agreeing with herself. Jake would have no way of knowing she’d ignored him until whatever happened was already over. And then it would be too late for him to care. Hiding was the answer.
Her phone rang.
Kidding me? She had turned the volume to the highest possible level to make sure she didn’t miss a call. Now the stupid thing was giving her away. She pawed into her bag with both hands, managed to whap the thing to vibrate before it could ring again. So much for her plan to hide.
She paused, listening again. Voices, certainly, even raised. In anger? In fear? But nothing she could understand. Traffic rumbled from the surface road a block away, a few seagulls yelled at each other, the air conditioner’s droning now familiar. She dropped back into her crouch, behind the black metal, seeing a swipe on the side where a coating of grime no longer existed. Grime most likely now on her suit jacket.
No sign of Jake. Either he hadn’t heard her phone or was too busy to check it out.
She took a calming breath, then another, balancing one hand against the warm cobblestones. She was fine. At least she had a moment to collect—
Her phone now vibrated like an angry bee in the side pocket of her tote. She looked up, scanning the alley in both directions. She turned the phone off again. Whoever it was would have to wait. The newsroom, no doubt. Some journalism realities never changed, no matter where she worked. Those people, cocooned safely in their buildings all day, had no idea what it was like in the field. They’d call every ten minutes asking what’s new. Well, if something were new, wouldn’t she be calling them? And all the time spent answering the phone was time she couldn’t spend getting the story.
Two hours ago she’d been discussing journalism theory with a pompous-ass news director. Now there was no more theory. Now there was reality. Baking sun, complaining thigh muscles, ruined suit, shredded heels, and a semi-twisted ankle. And a murder—maybe two—that was still a mystery.
DeLuca had told Jake to “haul it.” Why?
Was something wrong? Or was something right?
Two of the people back there were good guys, that she knew for sure. But that was all she knew.