He stopped in front of the TV, where Patricia Kwan had been lying when he’d first come into the house yesterday. A dark red patch stained the carpet. This section was cut off from the rest of the room by a yellow smear of police tape. To the right of the tape, the front window was cracked and full of holes, and there were jagged pieces of shiny mirror all over the sofa. Plastic numbers had been placed across the floor. Noodles or someone else from Ident had already been here.
Striker bypassed it all and circled back to the master bedroom.
The room was ordinary. Untouched. The bed was made; the dresser drawers were closed, and the closet was shut and blocked off by a hamper full of laundry. Everything smelled of lemon-scented laundry detergent. The furnace air hummed as it blew through the vents.
Striker stepped into the room and looked around. A few things caught his eye — a dresser full of knick-knacks, a pile of folded clothes on a chair and a photograph of Patricia and her daughter, Riku.
It was a grim reminder of their failure. Despite the Amber Alert and the unprecedented manpower, the girl still hadn’t been found. It was distressing because everyone knew the rotten truth: the more time that passed, the less chance of survival.
Striker looked hard at the photo. Mother and daughter were at an outdoor event somewhere. Both looked hot and tired, but were smiling and drinking red punch. Striker felt uneasy while studying the photo. The people in the frame might have been Patricia Kwan and her daughter, but it could just as easily have been him and Courtney.
He tried not to think about it, and approached the dresser.
It was made of dark maple wood. Solid. In the first three drawers he found nothing. Just socks and underwear and belts and shirts — the usual stuff. In the bottom drawer, he found something that made him pause. At first the drawer looked filled with only papers — mostly bills and lawyers’ invoices — and change, but mixed in with the copper pennies and silver dimes was a glinting of dull, rounded brass.
A bullet.
Striker pulled some latex from his pocket, gloved up, then reached into the pile and plucked up the round. He held it up to the light and studied it. Forty calibre, for sure. The casing was dull and scratched, and the head was partly compressed, as if it had been loaded one too many times, which was probably why the round was sitting here in the drawer, unused. Striker looked at the top of the round, studied the inset of the head.
It was a frangible round.
Hollow-tip.
He got on his cell, called the Info channel and got them to run Kwan for an FAC — a Firearms Acquisition Certificate. Within seconds, the reply came back negative. She didn’t have one now, and never did. Which begged the question: why did she have a round in her dresser drawer, and where did it come from?
The thought tugged at his mind, and he rolled the round back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. He looked at the photo again, saw the two women smiling back at him, and something grabbed his attention. The T-shirts they wore were exactly the same — dark grey with a small red and blue crest on the upper left side of the chest. Striker couldn’t make out the numbers in the crest, but he was pretty certain they were 499. Which meant one thing: the Larry Young Run — an annual event funded by the Emergency Response Team. It was the same shirt Meathead had been wearing the other day.
Striker looked at the round in his hand, then back at the shirts both women were wearing. He got back on Info, ran Patricia Kwan all ways, then waited for the response. When he got it, he hung up and called Felicia. She answered on the third ring.
‘Get up,’ he told her.
‘What? It’s barely six.’
‘I’m at the Kwan house.’
This seemed to wake Felicia up. ‘You find the girl?’
‘No.’
‘Then what?’
‘Patricia Kwan,’ he said. ‘She’s a cop.’
Fifty-Eight
Courtney woke up and stared at the ceiling. Morning light broke through the curtains. The outside porch lamp seemed abnormally bright, and it bugged her eyes, worsened the dull thud in the back of her brain. She felt like she was hungover. Like she’d drunk a two-litre of coolers. Her mouth was dry. She needed water.
She got up, shuffled into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water from the Brita jug. Outside, the sky was dark grey, and it matched her mood. Thoughts of Raine filled her head, as they had all night long.
Had Raine done it?
Had she had sex with Que?
The thought made Courtney frown. She wanted Raine to be happy, and she hoped her first time was perfect, but she also felt alone all of a sudden, as if Raine losing her virginity had somehow set them further apart. Raine hadn’t called her since yesterday, and it felt like there was a gap developing between them already.
It worried her.
She sat down at the breakfast nook and tried to convince herself that nothing was wrong. It was just her — like it always was. She stared out the window at the Japanese Plum tree in the back yard. All the branches were bare. Everything felt so mixed up, not only in her head but in her heart. She sat there, drinking water and thinking of Raine and Que and Bobby Ryan, and then of Dad. So many strange emotions. When her thoughts turned back to Mom, she made herself get moving.
She showered and got dressed. Then ignoring a slew of missed calls from schoolfriends, she called Raine’s cell.
Got nothing. She then remembered Raine was using the new iPhone Que had lent her. She called that number, too.
Got nothing but an automated message service.
Courtney cursed. She left a message, then snagged some money from the top of Dad’s dresser and headed out the front door. Starbucks was only two blocks away and she wanted an Americano and something loafy. She’d barely gotten two steps down the walkway when she saw the police car out front. A hunky cop in uniform stepped out, marched towards her. He was young, about twenty-five, and hot. Short brown hair, dark blue eyes, and a dreamy smile.
‘Back inside, Courtney,’ he said.
She blinked. ‘What?’
‘Gunman from the shooting’s still out there.’
She thought it over, nodded. ‘I know — but I’ve got nothing to do with that.’
‘Your father’s orders.’
She felt her cheeks blush. ‘I’m almost sixteen, I can do what I want.’
His face tightened. ‘Come on, kid, you’re putting me in a bad situation here.’
Kid?
She felt her warm cheeks grow hotter. Knew they were red; knew she was blushing bad. So she spun away from him, scampered back up the steps and went inside and slammed the front door behind her. For a second she just stood there in the darkness and felt the humiliation wash over her. She walked through the house to the back door, saw another marked cruiser out back, and saw the cop inside on his cell phone. The guy hung up, then looked at the house, as if he’d been warned she might come that way.
It was so totally embarrassing. She grabbed the portable phone from the kitchen, called Dad, waited. It was picked up after three rings.
‘Morning, Pumpkin.’
‘What the hell is going on?’
He made a surprised sound. ‘What-’
‘You got cops outside the house, front and back — they won’t let me leave.’
‘It’s for your own protection.’
‘I don’t need any protection. I’m supposed to meet Raine and Bobby today.’
‘You can see them when we find this guy.’
‘Well, how long will that be?’
‘A while.’
‘But the Britney concert’s tonight.’
He cleared his throat, made a sound like he was thinking. ‘There’s no way you’re going to any concert. Not with this whack-job still out there somewhere.’