Jeremy stood there, chest heaving. He tipped his head back, then leaned forward, planting his palms on his knees as he gulped down oxygen. The deafening noise reverberated through his body as the seconds and minutes ticked by. His arm burned. His body ached. Finally, he stood and watched with fury as the final cars rushed by.
When the train was gone, he stared across the tracks at an empty field between himself and some abandoned warehouses. His ears rang, and the vibrations seemed to linger in his chest. Gradually, the noise faded until there was only the distant clang of bells again as the arms lifted at the railroad crossing.
Cursing, Jeremy tucked his pistol away. Frustration burned in his gut as he started walking back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHARLOTTE SPOTTED the patrol car parked along the lonely strip of road paralleling the train tracks. She pulled in behind it and dropped her phone into the pocket of her blazer before getting out.
Jeremy Owen leaned against the back of a pickup truck, arms crossed, talking to an officer who looked up from his clipboard as Charlotte approached. She vaguely recognized the officer, but he seemed to know her.
“Detective Spears.” He gave a crisp nod. “We’re about wrapped up here. Mind if I make a few calls?”
“Not at all.” He returned to his patrol unit and opened the door, and Charlotte turned her attention to Jeremy. “You keep showing up at crime scenes.”
He didn’t comment. This man didn’t talk much, she’d noticed, but he seemed wise beyond his thirty-three years. Combat would do that to you. Charlotte worked with enough veterans to know.
She nodded at his elbow, which was wrapped in a T-shirt. “What happened to your arm?”
“He nicked me.”
“He nicked you? Why didn’t you mention that over the phone?”
“Didn’t seem relevant.”
Charlotte stared at him.
Over the past two days, she’d had a chance to research Jeremy Owen, and what she’d learned impressed her. The former Marine had a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, not to mention a five-year tenure with one of the top private security firms in the country. So maybe she shouldn’t be surprised that when he’d called her to report scaring off a potential burglar at Oliver Kovak’s office, he’d neglected to mention being shot by the guy.
“Run me through what happened,” she told him.
“Like I said over the phone, I arrived here at approximately eight fifty to pick up some items from Kovak’s office.”
“What items?”
“An address book. Kira needs it for work.”
Charlotte crossed her arms. “Okay, then what?”
“As I was leaving, I heard a noise on the outside stairwell. When I went to look, the guy took off down the street at a dead run, which made me think he’d been planning to break in.”
“Makes me think that, too. Then what happened?”
“I went after him. He jumped that chain-link fence there. I followed. He turned and took a shot at me with a black pistol.”
“Suppressor?”
“No. Then he darted across the tracks there right before the train came, and I lost him.”
“He ran in front of a train,” Charlotte stated.
“That’s correct.”
She closed her eyes. “Jesus.” She shuddered to think how close she’d come to having another gruesome crime scene on her hands this weekend.
When she looked at Jeremy again, he was checking his makeshift bandage where the blood had seeped through.
“You need to get that looked at.”
He gave a noncommittal nod.
“You stated over the phone you think it’s our suspect,” she said. “Why do you think that?”
“The face, the build.”
“You got a look at him?”
“Yes.”
She glanced around the area, but it was dark and desolate. Oliver Kovak’s office was on the periphery of downtown—not exactly a happening neighborhood at this hour on a Sunday night.
She looked at Jeremy. “How sure are you about this ID?”
“Very. He closely resembled the suspect sketch.”
“But it was dark, and you were running. How can you be sure?”
He just lifted his eyebrows.
Charlotte looked out over the train tracks to the row of warehouses beyond. The suspect could be anywhere by now.
“It’s unclear how he got here,” Jeremy added. “Before the officer showed, I did a few laps around the block, looking for a black BMW.”
“And?”
“Didn’t see one. There was a dark green pickup in the vicinity that I noticed from the window of the office, but I don’t know if it’s related.”
She sighed. “Would have been good to have a vehicle.”
“Yep.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and a surveillance cam picked him up. What do you think he wanted at Kovak’s office?”
“No idea. Documents? Photos? Maybe something he was looking for at Logan’s house but didn’t find on the night of the murder.”
She looked at the bodyguard, who stood there stoically talking to her, as though he hadn’t been shot at an hour ago. He was calm and composed, offering detailed observations. Yet another person who would have made a good cop if he hadn’t been lured away by the private sector.
“So no license plate,” she said. “Guess that would be too lucky, huh?”
“We’ve got a print, though.”
“A print?”
“A palm print.” He glanced across the street and nodded. “When I was chasing him, he planted his hand on the hood of that black Mustang and slid over it.”
“What Mustang?” She turned and looked across the street, spotting a black Mustang parked along the curb. It was a GT, same as hers, only about ten years older.
Charlotte’s pulse picked up. “He touched the hood of that car? You’re sure?”
“I saw him do it.”
“Show me.”
Kira sat on the floor of her hotel suite, her laptop in front of her on the coffee table, alongside the box of leftover pizza from last night. She nibbled on a slice as she scoured the Web for anything linking Andre Markov to Gavin Quinn or his murdered wife.
There had to be something. Ollie was a good PI. The best in town. He’d been sure he was onto something big on the day of his death. But again, what was the link between a two-year-old assault outside a bar and the murder of a prominent doctor’s wife?
Kira went back to her copy of Markov’s trial transcript. As she finished off her pizza slice, she thumbed through the thick sheaf of papers. Then she slid it aside and took out the backup materials. Once again, she scanned the witness list from Markov’s defense team. This time, she got hung up on a name: Craig Collins. He was subpoenaed to testify, but it looked like he never actually got called to the stand, which happened sometimes.
Collins. Collins. She’d seen that name somewhere earlier today.
She reached for her accordion file on the Ava Quinn murder, which she’d been building ever since Brock had hired her. She flipped through the original police report, the autopsy report, several news clippings from the Houston Chronicle. She came upon the obituary.
Ava Collins Quinn, beloved wife, daughter, and sister, died on Thursday evening . . .
Kira’s breath caught. Could that be it? She skimmed to the bottom of the obit. She is survived by her parents, Michael and Margaret Collins of Houston; her brother, Craig Collins . . .