Chapter 5 - THE GUN THAT WASN'T THERE
I showed Detective Shaw the image.
Her expression hardened instantly.
"That's the man from the hospital?"
"Yes."
"And that's your safe?"
"Yes."
"What's inside?"
"One handgun."
"Registered to you?"
"Yes."
"Anything else?"
"Passport. Old credentials. Some documents."
Shaw looked at me sharply.
"What kind of credentials?"
"Federal. Expired."
"What agency?"
"Marshals Service."
I did not mention the task group.
Not yet.
She was already calling the patrol supervisor.
Within minutes, officers were dispatched to my house.
I stayed at the hospital.
Every instinct in me wanted to go.
But Jake was asleep ten feet away.
Mason's warning remained lodged in my head.
They put my son in the hospital.
If I left him now to chase a man carrying my gun safe, I would be proving Raymond's favorite sentence true.
Your daddy isn't here to protect you.
So I stayed.
Twenty-two minutes later, Shaw received the call.
The house was empty.
The safe was gone.
The back door had been forced.
Nothing else appeared missing.
Not the television.
Not Christine's jewelry.
Not the laptop on my desk.
Only the safe.
Someone had broken into my home specifically for the gun and documents inside it.
That was not burglary.
That was preparation.
"They're going to use it," I said.
Shaw lowered her phone.
"Use what?"
"The gun."
"For what?"
"I don't know yet."
"You're assuming a lot."
"No one steals a traceable weapon from a house connected to an active assault case unless they want the weapon or the owner."
She did not argue.
Perez joined us.
"We put out a BOLO on Vargo."
"Do you have his address?" I asked.
"Two old ones."
"Vehicles?"
"Working on it."
I opened the encrypted app.
Mason had already sent a message.
THE SAFE WAS THE TARGET.
I typed back.
I KNOW.
His response came quickly.
THEN YOU KNOW THE NEXT PART.
I did.
If somebody had my gun, there were only a few useful things they could do with it.
Kill me.
Kill someone else and frame me.
Plant it somewhere.
Or threaten someone while making it look like I had done the threatening.
All four possibilities ended badly.
I looked at Shaw.
"I need the serial number entered as stolen immediately."
"Already happening."
"And I want it documented that the security image shows Vargo carrying the safe."
"Already happening."
She gave me a pointed look.
"You can let us do our jobs."
I nodded.
"I'm trying."
That was true.
It was also one of the hardest things I had done in years.
At ten-fifteen, Evelyn Cross arrived at the hospital wearing a dark coat over jeans and carrying a leather folder thick enough to stop a bullet.
She was in her fifties, silver-haired, sharp-eyed, and entirely unimpressed by everyone.
"Michael Hale?"
"Yes."
"Evelyn Cross."
She shook my hand once.
"Where is your wife?"
"Unknown."
"Of course she is."
She opened her folder.
"Emergency petition is filed. Judge Halpern is reviewing it remotely."
"How long?"
"I do not predict judges."
"Fair."
"The video helps."
"Good."
"The mother's false statement helps more."
I frowned.
"How?"
"Because family court judges see relatives lie for each other every day."
Evelyn's eyes hardened.
"A parent who witnesses violence against a child and then lies to police about who started it is a different problem."
She looked through the glass at Jake.
"That problem gets judges out of bed."
I liked her immediately.
"What do you need from me?"
"Restraint."
I almost smiled.
"You're the fourth person to say that tonight."
"Then perhaps you should notice the pattern."
She flipped a page.
"Any arrests?"
"No."
"Domestic calls?"
"No."
"Substance abuse?"
"No."
"Affairs?"
"No."
"Threatening messages to your wife or her family?"
"No."
"Anything from your old federal work that can be weaponized in court?"
I hesitated.
Evelyn noticed.
"That pause cost you twenty thousand dollars in a deposition."
"I worked sensitive cases."
"That was not my question."
"One operation ended badly."
"How badly?"
"An informant died after my supervisor ordered us to stand down."
"Your fault?"
"No."
"Were you blamed?"
"Unofficially."
"Were you disciplined?"
"No."
"Did you quit because of it?"
"Eventually."
Evelyn studied me.
"And your wife's father somehow knows about this?"
"I think so."
"How?"
"I don't know yet."
She tapped her pen once.
"Find out before opposing counsel does."
Then her phone buzzed.
She read the screen.
"Temporary order granted."
I exhaled.
"Jake stays with you."
"Christine?"
"No unsupervised contact pending hearing."
"Raymond, Brian, Scott?"
"No contact at all."
"Good."
"Do not celebrate."
"I'm not."
"Good."
Evelyn gathered her papers.
"Because your wife filed something too."
My stomach tightened.
"What?"
"A petition for a protective order against you."
For a moment, I simply stared at her.
"On what grounds?"
"She claims she fears you will abduct Jake and harm her family."
I laughed once.
It sounded ugly.
"She watched her father smash our son's head into a driveway."
"I know."
"And she filed against me."
"Yes."
Evelyn slid a copy across the table.
"Read paragraph twelve."
I did.
My blood went cold.
Christine had written that I kept a firearm in the home.
She described the make.
The model.
The location of the safe.
Then she claimed I had once told her that if anyone hurt Jake, I would "make them disappear."
I had never said those words.
Not to her.
Not to anyone.
"This was filed when?"
"Nine-fifty-eight tonight."
I looked at the clock.
The break-in had happened shortly after.
Evelyn followed my thought.
"What?"
I handed her my phone and showed her the image of Vargo carrying the safe.
Her expression changed.
"Oh."
"She identifies the gun in a court filing."
"Then a man connected to her father steals it twenty minutes later."
"Yes."
Evelyn sat back.
"That is either an extraordinary coincidence or an exceptionally stupid conspiracy."
"Raymond isn't stupid."
"Then assume the move has another layer."
Her words barely left her mouth before Detective Shaw's phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Closed her eyes for one second.
Then looked at me.
"They found your gun."
My body went still.
"Where?"
"In a vehicle two blocks from Raymond's house."
"Whose vehicle?"
Shaw's expression told me the answer was worse than I expected.
"Brian Bell's."
I waited.
There was more.
"And there was blood on the passenger seat."
Evelyn stood.
"Whose blood?"
"We don't know yet."
Shaw looked directly at me.
"But Brian Bell is missing."
For three seconds, nobody spoke.
Then my normal phone rang.
Christine.
I answered on speaker because everyone was standing there.
Her breathing was ragged.
"Michael?"
"Where are you?"
She ignored the question.
"What did you do?"
Evelyn's eyes narrowed.
"Christine, where are you?"
"They found Brian's car."
"How do you know that?"
She started crying.
"What did you do to my brother?"
I felt the trap closing.
"Nothing."
"Your gun was in his car!"
Shaw immediately held up a hand.
That detail had not been released.
Not to the public.
Not to Christine.
Not by police.
I looked at the detective.
She looked back at me.
Christine was still crying into the phone.
But now I heard it differently.
Not grief.
Performance.
"Christine," I said quietly.
"Who told you where my gun was?"
The crying stopped.
Only for half a second.
May you like
But half a second was enough.
