Chapter 4 - WAREHOUSE SEVENTEEN
Ruiz insisted on coming.
I told her the note said no police.
She removed her badge, locked it in the trunk of her car, and climbed into mine.
“Now I am an angry woman with a gun,” she said.
“That is not an improvement.”
“It is for me.”
We left the hospital at 4:06 a.m.
Rain still covered the streets, turning every traffic light into a smear of red and green across the windshield.
I called the recovery desk twice before we reached the river.
Lily was still in surgery.
Dr. Keene had not left the room.
A city officer Ruiz trusted had been placed outside the operating suite.
It was the best protection we could arrange without announcing that we no longer trusted the system.
Warehouse Seventeen stood at the edge of an old industrial block near the Illinois River.
Half the windows were boarded.
The other half were broken.
Trent Hale’s patrol car sat behind the building with the driver’s door open.
Its emergency lights were off.
Water ran beneath the tires in thin black streams.
Ruiz checked her pistol.
“Stay behind me.”
“I spent twelve years entering buildings where people wanted me dead.”
“And I spent fourteen years arresting men who say things like that before doing something stupid.”
We approached from opposite sides of the car.
Hale was slumped over the steering wheel.
The gunshot wound was exactly where Ruiz had said it would be.
A pistol lay near his right hand.
There was no blood on the weapon.
“Staged suicide,” she whispered.
“Probably.”
I looked through the rear window.
A Bradley campus evidence kit sat open on the back seat.
Inside were empty plastic bags, spare labels, and a roll of black evidence tape.
The same tape used on Lily’s hoodie.
Ruiz photographed everything with an offline camera.
“Hale changed the collection time,” she said.
“Or someone wanted us to think he did.”
A metallic sound came from inside the warehouse.
One tap.
Then another.
Then three quick taps.
The pattern froze me.
Three taps.
Danger.
Ruiz heard it too.
“Was that a signal?”
“Yes.”
We moved toward a side door hanging from one hinge.
The interior smelled of river water, rust, and old oil.
Rows of empty shelving created narrow lanes through the darkness.
A single work light burned near the center of the building.
Mark sat beneath it in a metal chair.
His hands were zip-tied behind him.
Blood ran from a cut above his right eye.
A man stood behind him with a shotgun pressed against the base of his skull.
The Sentinel employee from the hospital lay facedown nearby.
He was not moving.
“Drop the weapon,” the man behind Mark said.
Ruiz kept her pistol raised.
“Show me your hands.”
“You can see one of them.”
The shotgun pressed harder into Mark’s neck.
“Drop it.”
Mark looked at me.
His left boot was angled outward.
The toe pointed toward a suspended chain hanging from the ceiling.
I saw the reflection before I saw the second man.
A shape moved behind a sheet of corrugated metal to our right.
I lifted my hands slowly.
“Do what he says,” I told Ruiz.
She glanced at me.
Then she lowered her pistol toward the floor.
The hidden man stepped out.
He held a handgun in both hands.
He was young.
Blond.
A white bandage wrapped his right palm.
Connor Whitaker.
His expensive jacket was wet at the shoulders.
A thin blue stain marked the edge of his bandage.
“You came faster than I expected,” he said.
“Lily always said you were difficult.”
“You knew my daughter?”
He smiled.
“I knew enough.”
“You hit her.”
His smile disappeared.
“She should have handed over the phone.”
The words landed like a confession.
Ruiz shifted slightly.
Connor saw it.
“Do not,” he warned.
His right hand trembled around the pistol.
The bandage was already darkening with fresh blood.
“What happened to your hand?” I asked.
“Your daughter bit me.”
Pride rose through the horror.
Even outnumbered, Lily had fought.
“You needed three men to beat a nineteen-year-old girl,” I said.
Connor’s face flushed.
“I did not mean to break her jaw.”
“Six times?”
“She kept screaming.”
The man with the shotgun hissed.
“Shut up.”
Connor looked over his shoulder.
That was the opening.
I kicked the base of a rolling steel rack.
The rack slammed into the hanging chain.
A suspended engine block swung across the aisle.
The man with the shotgun ducked.
Mark threw himself backward with the chair.
The shotgun fired into the ceiling.
Ruiz dropped to one knee and shot the weapon from the second man’s hand.
Connor fired at me.
The round struck the steel rack inches from my face.
I drove into him before he could fire again.
We hit the concrete hard.
His bandaged hand opened, and the pistol skidded beneath a shelf.
He punched me with his left fist.
I caught his wrist and slammed it down.
“Who were the other two?”
He spat blood onto the floor.
“Go to hell.”
I twisted until his shoulder lifted.
“Names.”
The man behind Mark reached for the fallen shotgun.
Ruiz kicked it away and struck him across the jaw with her pistol.
He collapsed.
Mark rolled onto his side.
“Daniel.”
His voice carried a warning.
I looked down at Connor.
A red light blinked beneath his jacket.
Not a bomb.
A body camera.
He had been recording everything.
Connor smiled through split lips.
“Now they have you assaulting me.”
I tore the camera free and crushed it beneath my heel.
His smile widened.
“Too late.”
“It streams live.”
Sirens sounded outside.
Too many.
Too fast.
Ruiz looked toward the doorway.
“Who called them?”
Connor laughed.
“I did before you arrived.”
Red and blue lights washed through the broken windows.
A loudspeaker ordered us to drop our weapons.
Mark strained against the zip ties.
“The police commander outside is Captain Dennis Shaw.”
Ruiz looked at him.
“Meredith Shaw’s husband.”
Boots pounded toward the entrances.
Connor rolled onto his back and began shouting.
“Help.”
“He is trying to kill me.”
Ruiz raised both hands.
“We need to control the scene.”
“We do not control this scene,” Mark said.
“They built it.”
A side door burst open.
Tactical officers flooded the warehouse.
Their rifles moved past Connor.
Past the armed men.
Every barrel turned toward me.
Captain Dennis Shaw entered last.
May you like
He looked at Trent Hale’s body outside, then at the broken camera beneath my boot.
“Daniel Mercer,” he said, “you are under arrest for the murder of Officer Trent Hale.”
