LITMIR.BIZ

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vibrating with the aftereffects of the adrenaline, stopping only once along the way, at a drugstore.

      

      “SHE SAID YOU WERE A horrible drug dealer.” The young patrolman grinned at Zack.

      “Arrest her.” Zack tried to breathe normally. He leaned on the wall by the alley, his gaze still searching the street. “Lock her in the back of the car until I can breathe again. She knows something about the Bradley job.”

      The young cop snorted. “She didn’t look like she knew her own name.”

      Zack looked at him with distaste. He was tall, blond, and reasonably good-looking if you liked the movie-star type, but mostly he was just young. “Look, Junior,” Zack said. “When you’ve been around as long as I have, you’ll find out that it isn’t what they look like, it’s what they do.” He touched his lip, and his fingers came away bloody. “Ouch.”

      “And I heard you were a tough guy.” The younger cop grinned again.

      Zack stared him down until his grin faded. “You know who you remind me of? The kid cop in Lethal Weapon 3. You know, the one who says, ‘It’s my twenty-first birthday today,’ and right away you know he’s dead meat? You knew the bad guys were going to drill him.” Zack squinted at him. “Of course, in your case, it’ll be friendly fire.”

      “Ha,” the young cop said.

      “So where’s my suspect?” Zack said. “Do not tell me you’ve lost her. She’s the only link we’ve got to an embezzler.”

      “My partner Falk went to get her.” He grinned again. “He said he knew you, and that I shouldn’t shoot you even though you were obviously a dangerous drug dealer. They’re gonna love this back at the station.”

      Zack glared at him, and he swallowed and said, “Really, he’ll be back any minute.” He looked over Zack’s shoulder, suddenly relieved. “See? Here he comes now.”

      Zack eased himself off the wall with great care. Then he looked in the patrol car as it pulled up and straightened quickly. “Where is she?”

      “Wait.” Falk held up his hand as he got out. He slammed the car door and waved a piece of paper at Zack. “The good news is, she left her address.” He handed it over to Zack, who had slumped back against the wall. “You want Matthews and me to go pick her up?”

      “‘Lucy Savage,”’ Zack read. “Well, the last name’s right. That woman’s damn near feral. No, I don’t want you to pick her up. The reason I have to go pick her up now is because the two of you couldn’t hold on to her. I’ll handle it.”

      “You want us for backup? She must have been all of five-seven, maybe one thirty-five. You probably only got six inches and sixty pounds on her.”

      “Very, very funny” Zack pushed himself gingerly away from the wall. “Call Forensics and get some lab people down here. There’s a bullet in this wall.”

      “Your instincts tell you that?”

      “No,” Zack said with obvious patience. “The chunk of wall that sliced that hellcat’s cheek told me that. Somebody was shooting at her.”

      Matthews went over to the wall. “He’s right.”

      “Well, of course, I’m right. Just what I need—infant cops checking my work. Will you call that in? Please?” Zack glared at the younger man, who stomped back to the car, grumbling.

      “Was I ever that obnoxious?” Zack asked Falk.

      “What do you mean, ‘was’? You still are. You sure they weren’t shooting at you? I’m serious,” Falk added hastily when Zack turned his glare on him. “Not everybody loves you like we do back at the station.”

      “No,” Zack said. “It was her.” Zack looked back at the wall. “Helluva sloppy job, though. Broad daylight, not a chance of hitting her unless he was a lot closer. This guy is either a real amateur, or he was just trying to scare her and didn’t care if he picked off an innocent bystander. Like me.”

      “You sure you don’t need backup on this?”

      “Yeah.” Zack turned back to him. “I think I may just possibly be able to handle one medium-size woman by myself.”

      “I don’t know. She did a nice job on you. I think you need us.”

      “Oh, yeah, I need you and Junior here.” Zack jerked his head at the other cop who’d joined them again. “What was it, Falk? Nobody would work with you, so you stopped by the junior high for help?”

      “Hey,” Matthews said. “I’m twenty. I got two years of college.”

      “So do I,” Zack said, touching his lip again gingerly. “Fat lot of good it’s doing me here. Get on that bullet.” He turned and walked toward the parking lot and his own car.

      “Hey, Warren,” Falk called after him. “Did you have one of those famous instincts of yours right before she nailed you? Or right after?”

      “All great men are persecuted,” Zack said and kept on walking. He knew he was right about this Bradley thing. And Lucy Savage was very shortly going to be very sorry that she and John Bradley had ever messed with him.

      As soon as he took some aspirin and got some ice on his damn lip.

      

      LUCY UNLOCKED HER massive front door with its jewel-colored leaded glass and then crossed the vestibule to unlock the beveled-glass inner door. It immediately burst open under the pressure of the three dog bodies that were pressed against it.

      “Easy,” Lucy said, still worn-out from her adrenaline surge. She dropped down onto the tiled floor to pet them, and they piled around her in the warm glow of the colored sunlight that streamed through the stained glass.

      Einstein, the big sheepdog, flopped down beside her, but Heisenburg, the walking mop, and Maxwell, the little miscellaneous dog, both climbed into her lap to lick her face and burrow under her hands. She gathered them all to her, loving them and the warmth and color of her beautiful old house and, for once, herself.

      “I beat up a mugger today,” she told the dogs. “He attacked me and I beat him up. I won.” The dogs looked suitably impressed. That was one of the many great things about dogs. They were easy to impress. Not like Tina.

      But even Tina would be impressed with this. Carefully tipping the little dogs off her lap, Lucy stood and went inside the house.

      Her house. Every time she walked into it, she felt safe. The living room was papered in huge flowers in shades of rose and edged with wide oak woodwork, and the floors gleamed in the soft sunlight that filtered through her lace curtains. The fat, worn, upholstered furniture was splashed with flowers, too, in roses and blues and golds, and the mantel and tables were crammed with pictures, and flowers in vases, and books. She sank into the big blue overstuffed chair by the wobbly piecrust phone table and looked through the archway into her dining room, warm with the glow of the stained-glass windows there.

      Her house. She felt all the tension ease out of her. Her home.

      Einstein barked at her for attention, and she remembered Tina. She dropped her purse and the bag from the drugstore on the floor and dialed her sister’s number, absentmindedly scratching behind Einstein’s ears while she listened to the ring.

      “Tina?” she said when the ringing stopped, but it was Tina’s machine, so she left a message. “This is Lucy. I wanted you to know, I just beat up a mugger. I really did, and it was wonderful. And don’t worry, I’m okay. In fact, I’m great. You were right. I love you!”

      And then she hung up and relaxed into the threadbare softness of her chair, hugging herself.

      She really did feel wonderful. Sort of tired, but wonderful. Good tired.

      Her gaze fell on the drugstore bag where she’d dropped it, and she stood, swooping it

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