Karma Patrol (31 page)

fter a brief negotiation session, Luke agreed to call for a second patrol car to pick him up and take him to the station, although he complained Jade was being overly paranoid. Which was rich, she reflected wryly, considering who was saying so.

Once he was gone, she decided to give the television another chance, and she managed to find a channel playing a detective show that wasn’t terrible. She watched it as she devoured her half of the pizza she’d ordered, saving the other half for Luke in case he came back hungry.

After holding out almost the entire afternoon, she finally gave in and checked her Karma Division app. Her area’s balance had shifted upward to 0.17, and she had to fight the urge to grind her teeth in frustration. Here she was, sitting in an apartment in the middle of her own territory while its balance fell apart, and there was nothing she could do about it without putting herself and a bunch of innocent people at risk. She’d ignored another two calls from Celia in the past hour. If the shooter wasn’t caught soon, it would be a toss up as to which of them would kill Jade first: Celia or the sniper.

She needed to get out. She hated being cooped up in this tiny apartment, even if it was Luke’s place. If she could just go outside for a minute, just to get some air, maybe her thoughts would stop chasing each other around in her head. Unfortunately, if she went outside, the best she could hope for was to be yelled at by the cops guarding her, and the worst-case scenario would involve her racing thoughts being permanently stopped by a sniper’s bullet.

“All dressed up and no place to go,” she sighed, glancing down at her outfit. Despite their vastly different styles, Shannon had done a good job when she’d picked out the clothes to bring to her. The emerald green sweater dress brought out the green in her eyes, and the black leggings blended seamlessly into her black boots. She’d taken the time to do her hair and her makeup, and she knew she looked fantastic. There just wasn’t anyone to see
her looking fantastic.

She briefly considered calling down to ask if one of the uniformed cops would come up and keep her company, so she would at least have someone to talk to, but they were supposed to be doing a job. Besides, she was an adult. She ought to be able to entertain herself for one day without needing anyone’s help. She hadn’t realized how much she enjoyed spending her days wandering the streets and talking to people until now.

She poked halfheartedly at her phone, changing screens in the Karma Division app from her catchment area’s stats to the employee locator. Her default setting was Midtown West, since she didn’t typically care where people were when they weren’t in her territory, and she tapped on each little dot in sequence. There was a pink one on Fifty-Fourth Street and Ninth Avenue that she knew would be Shannon before she touched it, and she wondered if her friend was staying close to the precinct on purpose or if she’d ended up there by coincidence.

Luke was on there too, a light pink dot to Shannon’s darker shade. She smiled to herself at the thought of telling him that, because he’d been added to the app due to his soulmate status, he was stuck being permanently pink. His dot was squarely over the police station, suggesting he was inside. Her own green dot was situated over the location of Luke’s apartment building, near the corner of Tenth Avenue and Fifty-Sixth Street.

There was one other green dot at the eastern edge of her territory. She touched it and was surprised to see Celia’s name pop up. Either her boss was just passing through, or she had business in Midtown she hadn’t told Jade about. If any employee of any of the Fate Divisions was going to be working in another employee’s area, it was traditionally considered polite to tell them what was going on, if only so they could plan around it. Celia was her boss, though, and she wasn’t obligated to run her schedule past Jade.

Celia might have tried to tell me
, Jade realized belatedly. Maybe the dozen phone calls she’d dodged from her boss hadn’t all been attempts to scold Jade for her area’s plummeting stats or her continued involvement in the sniper case. Maybe Celia was trying to do some karmic damage control in Jade’s place, or maybe she’d managed to get a meeting with whoever was heading up Destiny Division’s investigation. Jade’s app didn’t show any Fate Divisions employees near Celia, but Jade didn’t have clearance to see Destiny Division employees on her app, and wouldn’t unless she was promoted to account specialist. Given their interest in the sniper case, though, she suspected they had agents all over Midtown West in addition to whoever they’d planted in the FBI. Maybe Celia had convinced them to tell her something useful.

Jade thought about calling her then, to try and find out if she’d learned anything that might help Luke in his investigation. Regardless of why she was there, though, if Celia was in Midtown in the middle of the day instead of being in her office, it meant she was busy with something and wouldn’t welcome Jade nagging her for information.

She put the phone down, closing the app with a touch, and stood, deciding she might as well straighten up the apartment while she had nothing better to do. She’d only taken two steps away from the couch when her phone made its now-familiar angry siren noise. Her heart leapt into her throat as she grabbed for the phone, praying to see any names but theirs on the imminent danger alert.

Imminent Danger. Midtown West/306 W Fifty-Fourth Street. Jackson, Luke: Special Dispensation per Interpersonal Relations Division. All Department Assistance Requested.

“No,” she breathed, her mind whirling. She wasn’t anywhere near Luke. He was at the precinct. If he was being targeted now, when she wasn’t there, then they’d been wrong. She wasn’t the target.

He was.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Aaron sounded resigned. As Luke walked over to his desk, he wondered who’d just won the betting pool on how long it would take him to ignore his medical suspension and come back to work. Given Aaron’s reaction, it probably wasn’t him.

“I’m fine,” Luke told his partner, offering him the pictures he held. “Here. That’s the guy.”

Aaron glanced down at the top photo to find Cowden staring up at him.

“You’re sure?”

“I didn’t see him at the crime scene, but I did see him earlier that night. When Jade and I went out to dinner, before the shooting at her building, he was sitting at the bar watching her.”

“Hell,” Aaron said with feeling, and Luke nodded his agreement.

“Cowden was in an enclosed space with both of us, in a quiet place where it would have been easy for him to kill me, Jade, and any witnesses that might’ve seen him do it. Instead, he left the restaurant and waited until we were outside her building. Why?”

“Maximum impact on the city?” Aaron guessed. “We’ve been thinking his motivation is to cause chaos. Killing a couple of people in a restaurant wouldn’t rile up the news networks the way another sniper attack would.”

“But it’s not all about chaos. The politicians… Do we know who died in the shooting last night?”

“They weren’t his usual crowd,” Aaron replied, nodding at the new pictures posted on the bulletin board. “An aspiring actress, an accountant, an off-duty firefighter, and a minor league baseball player. No politicians in the bunch.”

“So either they were just convenient targets or they were important to him for some other reason.” Luke considered the careers Aaron had listed. Would any of those people have been important to Destiny Division? Jade had suspected the shooter was targeting people with important destinies. “Have you come up with any evidence against him?”

Aaron shook his head. “Victims’ phone records are all unremarkable; no shared numbers among them. He could’ve used a bunch of different burner phones to call them, but I still don’t know how he would’ve lured the victims to be in the same place at the same time. Kalindi and Mitch are tailing Cowden.”

He was interrupted by his phone ringing, and he checked the caller ID before answering.

“Speak of the devil,” he said as he put it on speakerphone so Luke could listen. “Hey, Kalindi. How’s the tail going?”

“We lost him,” she replied, her frustration audible even through the tinny speakers. “He went into a store on Forty-Eighth Street, and when he never came back out, we went in looking for him. There was a back door. He’s gone.”

“Jade,” Luke realized, feeling a warning twinge in his chest. “I have to get back to Jade. If he goes after her—”

“She’s at your place,” Aaron reminded him as he hung up with Kalindi. “And you’re the most paranoid guy I know, so she’s got a bulletproof front door and a dozen high-powered weapons in there that she can use to defend herself. Not to mention the two cops on guard duty downstairs. She’ll be fine until you get there.”

“Still, I’m going to head back.” Intellectually, he realized the truth of what Aaron was saying, but he wasn’t going to feel secure until he’d seen Jade safe and sound with his own eyes.

“I’ll walk you out,” Aaron offered, and they headed for the squad room door together.

Jade had just enough presence of mind to grab the bag that held her gun as she ran out the front door, sprinting for the stairs. She slammed past several of Luke’s neighbors and one of the uniformed officers at the door, but she didn’t even slow down when he recognized her and grabbed for her arm to stop her. The precinct was close; she could get there faster on foot than she could in their car, in no small part because she would have to convince them to take her first. She didn’t need anyone’s permission to run, and she tore down Fifty-Sixth Street toward Ninth Avenue, trying desperately to outrun the three-note chime that indicated the death of the alerted subject.

She’d nearly reached Fifty-Fourth Street when her phone made the same noise again; not the death chime, not the all-clear chirp, but the angry siren of the imminent danger alert. She fumbled it out of her purse, dodging cars and pedestrians, and glanced down at it long enough to read the alert.

Imminent Danger. Midtown West/306 W Fifty-Fourth Street. Carter, Shannon: Interpersonal Specialist, Interpersonal Relations Division. All Department Assistance Requested.

Her heart sank as she realized what must have happened. The alerts went out to the personnel of all divisions, and Shannon had been just down the block from the precinct. She must have gone to try and help Luke.

Jade put on a burst of speed as the precinct came into sight, and as she approached from the wrong side of the street, Luke and Aaron came out of the far entrance. Shannon was about fifteen yards ahead of her, close enough to the two men to reach out and grab Luke…which was exactly what she did.

He turned, startled by the interruption, and Shannon stepped in front of him as a loud bang echoed down the street. Jade jerked to a stop, uncomprehending, as she watched Shannon stumble and fall.

“Shannon,” she breathed, horrified. Time seemed to stop, and she watched in slow motion as the other woman collapsed on the sidewalk, a bright red stain spreading across the front of her shirt. “
Shannon
!”

Her phone trilled two alert tones back to back. The first one was the imminent danger alert: hers, now that she’d entered the sniper’s kill zone. The second was the death chime.