AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He stands.
“At least Joe Champi got shit done.”
Fifty-One
Jimmy
JIMMY KEEPS TELLING HIMSELFthat he’s spending too much time and energy chasing a ghost, that he should get off Champi, that all he’s going on with Champi is his gut.
But his gut, which has rarely failed him, won’t allow it. Keeps telling him, shouting at him sometimes, that Champi is still alive, and that he’s the one who made Gregg McCall go away.
And if he didn’t have something to do with the murders of the Carsons of Garden City, he might know who did.
He’s thinking about McCall and the Carsons again tonight, sitting in the front seat of his car, telling himself again that being overly cautious is never a waste of time, especially when the job is keeping Jane safe.
He knows what Jacobson told Jane about Champi before court today, how their paths crossed a few times in the past. And maybe, Jimmy thinks, that’s all there is. Maybe coincidence isn’t always the load of crap that he believes it is. Who knows what Jacobson, even as a kid, might have paid Champi to make problems go away? Or what his old man might have paid when he was still around? Mickey Dunne said Champi didn’t come cheap, even when he was still on the job, that his prices just went up when he started freelancing. The guy sounds to Jimmy like that fixer on television, Ray Donovan, except Jimmy watched the show a few times and the character—he can’t remember the name of the actor who plays him—does have some redeeming qualities.
By all accounts, Champi had absolutely none.
“Put it this way,” Mickey said. “If Champiisstill alive, I’m shocked he didn’t kill her dog.”
Jimmy is back in front of Jane’s house, waiting for Kenny to come relieve him for the really late shift tonight. He has his laptop with him, using his phone as a hot spot rather than hijack some neighbor’s Wi-Fi, trying to get back to work on the Jacobson case, refocus himself on that, reading back on the guy again, looking for something or anything that might help Jane out. Still searching for something or anything that will convince her and Jimmy both that the guy didn’t do it.
The trial is starting to grind her down—Jimmy can see it. She even admitted to him today that she’s tired, the first time she’severadmitted that.
Jane keeps saying that the evidence against Jacobson istooperfect. Jimmy doesn’t want to debate the point with her, because he knows how much she wants him to be innocent, as much of a royal pain in the ass as he is. Maybe needs him to be innocent so she can live with herself. But maybe the evidence is perfect because it’s real.
Because the guy did it. Killed those people—father, mother, daughter—in cold blood.
So he googles Rob Jacobson again, taking another trip down memory lane, and is about to switch search engines when the first bullet shatters the passenger window.
Fifty-Two
I’M WIDE-AWAKE ATthree in the morning, unable to sleep again, still reading over today’s testimony from my forensics expert, having just let Rip out and then back in again, when I hear the first shot.
I’m in sweatpants and a T-shirt, my sneakers still on from being in the yard, as I grab the gun from the table in the hall and head for the front door.
I hear the second shot then, from up the block, from where either Jimmy’s car is or Kenny’s—I don’t know if Jimmy has been relieved yet.
I’m out the door, staying low as I move along the front of my house, cutting across Marty Getchel’s front lawn, then sprinting for the street.
It’s Jimmy’s car.
I manage to exhale when I see him sitting next to the driver-side door, the window on the passenger side gone. He’s holding his hand to his right shoulder. I see the blood on his white T-shirt starting to spread.
Shit.
At the same time I look to my right and see a figure running toward Abraham’s Path.
“You’re hit,” I say.
“I’m all right. Through-and-through.”
“Call 911.”
“Already did.”
“I’m going after him,” I say.
