Cop Town by Karin Slaughter Read Free Book Online

nothing. You could do anything for thirty minutes.
    Then it was Fox’s turn to be gassed.
    Hot tears blistered his eyes. He inhaled needles into his lungs. He panicked. He dropped to the floor. He begged for mercy just like all the worms who had come before him.
    That was where the shame came from. Not the crying or the choking, but the begging. Only once before in his life had Fox ever begged for anything. He was twelve years old, and he had quickly learned that there was no use begging, because nobody was going to help you but yourself. So, twelve-year-old Fox had vowed that his begging days were over, and then seven years later, he was at Camp Bumfuck rolling on the floor alongside twenty other grunts like a helpless, pitiful worm.
    Should Fox take even a little bit of pride in the fact that he wasn’t the one begging the loudest?
    A guy from his unit had died from exposure. Undiagnosed asthmatic, the brass had said, but who trusted the brass? Probably they were trying out a new formula on their own men before sending the caustic gas into the field. Wasn’t the first time. Wouldn’t be the last. War was nothing but a grand experiment. Behind every senseless tragedy, there was some guy with a clipboard.
    Fox had a clipboard of his own.
    He glanced down at his log.
0546: Exited building. Talked to no one.
0600: Breakfast at diner, usual table, usual waitress: one hardboiled egg, dry toast, black coffee. Read paper. Left twenty-five-cent tip
0628: Walked opposite direction from building, down 14th and around block
0639: Asked unknown businessman for time
0651: Sat on bench outside bank building, stared up at sky
0658: Rose from bench, went into apartment building
    Now what?
    Fox opened the glove box. He saw the pantyhose that had covered his face last night.
    Her pantyhose.
    The scope of the mission was changing. Fox could feel the shift almost like he was standing on a rug that was being slowly pulled from beneath his feet. This had happened before. Fox would be doing one thing, but somewhere in the back of his brain, his thoughts were mulling over other courses of action. All it took was some kind of lightning to strike. The bolt would hit his skull, and the thing in the back of his brain would jump to the front.
    And like that, he had options.
    Fox took out his binoculars and used them to find the familiar window. As he watched, the curtains were opened. He smiled at his luck. Sometimes, he missed the curtains. Sometimes, he would look up and his guts would turn to liquid because he had no idea how long ago the curtains had been opened, whether or not he had missed something important.
    But today, he saw her open the curtains.
    Fox noted a new time in his log: four minutes from now, because he knew that’s how long it took for the elevator to arrive on the correct floor, the short ride down to the lobby, the next elevator down to the parking garage, the quick walk to the right space, and bingo—exactly four minutes later, Fox watched Kate Murphy pull her car out of the underground garage.
    Christ, she was beautiful. The way the sun hit her face, he could almost let himself forget about her dirty little secret.
    Fox rolled down his window to let out the smoke. He put the clipboard on the passenger’s seat.
    Then he followed her.

4
    Terry’s anger pushed a low pressure into the car that reminded Maggie of the way she felt when a tornado was about to touch down. Her head throbbed. Her blood felt thick. The hairs on the back of her neck stood at a permanent attention.
    They should have been able to have a conversation about what had happened to Don and Jimmy. Two cops stuck in a car; it was normal for them to discuss the shooting, talk out what they were going to do next to make sure the killer was brought to justice. But Terry didn’t think of Maggie as a cop and Maggie sure as hell didn’t think of her uncle as a confidant, so they both stared grimly out the window and kept their thoughts to themselves.
    Besides,