The Sixth Man (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 5)
“Just get over here.”
Joe motioned Michelle to go ahead of him and they hustled over to where the other officer was standing.
They reached the spot and looked down.
The body was on its face, hands out wide, one shoe off. A bloody patch was dead center of the back where a bullet had gone in.
The other cop knelt down and turned the body slightly, while his partner focused his light on the corpse. There was no exit wound in the front. The round was still in her.
Michelle gasped when she saw who it was.
Hilary Cunningham, Ted Bergin’s secretary.
Joe shone the light at Michelle’s face making her look away. “Do you know her?”
Michelle nodded as she stared down in disbelief. In a halting voice she said, “She was the woman who gave me the keys to this house. She worked for the owner.”
“Well, lady, it looks like you just killed her.”
CHAPTER
23
THE PHONE BUZZED.
He slept on.
It buzzed again.
He stirred.
It tickled his pocket one more time.
He woke. “Hello?” Sean said in a sleepy voice.
“It’s me,” said Michelle. “And I’m in a shitload of trouble.”
Sean sat up in the bed and automatically checked his watch. He had fallen asleep in his clothes. It was one in the morning.
“What happened?”
Ten minutes later he knew as much as Michelle did as she succinctly recounted the past events.
“Okay, don’t say anything else to them. I’m on my way.”
“On your way how?”
Sean stopped halfway off the bed. “What?”
“No flights for six hours.”
“I’ll drive.”
“That’ll get you here about the same time as the morning flight and that’s if you drive straight through. Which means you’ll be a zombie or else you’ll be dead after running off the road and hitting a tree. Or a moose. I’ll be okay for tonight. Just get down here with your brain intact and let’s figure this out.”
“Wait a minute, are they holding you?”
“I’m not local. I have a car. A woman is dead. I was the only living person on the scene. They have my gun. Which is the second weapon I’ve had confiscated by the cops, so yeah, they’re holding me.”