Cry Me a River by Nancy Holder Read Free Book Online

torn, and that was good. Maybe that would slow him down, buy her some time. She moved in close.
    “What if
I
can find the people who did this? The individuals? And I arrest their asses and get ’em charged?” she asked.
    Jamal snorted. “Even with murder one, y’all will just let them out in a year or two. They know that. Our way … is more permanent.”
    Shit. Shit shit shit
. It was like she was back in that filthy alley, losing that other boy.
    “What if it wasn’t the Grandes? What if all you do is piss them off, and they retaliate? Then you’ll take another swing at them for no good reason. And sooner or later,
you’ll
die. You know that.”
    “Everybody dies,” he said. It was what stupid-ass gang members always said.
    “Okay, what if you die twenty years
after
you’re confined to a wheelchair,” she rejoined. “Or
after
your face is shot off and when women look at you, they scream. It’s not always zero to sixty, Jamal. Sometimes it’s wearing diapers and a big, hairy guy on probation helping you out of bed.”
    They had had this conversation before, when she flipped him. Maybe it would work again. Nothing else was working.
    “I got to be loyal,” he insisted.
    She jabbed her finger at him. “Hey,
I
put it on the line for you, more than once. Where’s your loyalty to me, man? What if one of your brothers takes a shot at
me?”
    At that, his hard, battered face softened. “I-I know,” he said. His eyes welled. “But did you see what they did to Malcolm?” He heaved a sob. Jesus, he was a mess. Only three years older than Clay; she had to remember that.
    “I did,” Grace said. “It was horrible.” She laid a hand on his arm.
    Somehow it was the wrong thing to do. Stiffening, he raised his chin. “We’re both after the same thing. You do it your way. We’ll do it ours. Whoever gets them first, maybe after that I’ll do what you say. You can take us someplace …”
    Then he lost the attitude and stared back down at the ground, and Grace knew he was still lying. He couldn’t see himself leaving the Sixty-Sixes, ever, unless it was in a coffin. And what did she think she could do about it? Gallop into their crib, guns blazing, and sling him onto the back of her horse?
    Hell, yeah
.
    Jamal jerked, and Grace heard the vibration of a cell phone in his baggy-ass jeans. His masters, she guessed, tightening the leash. What incredibly bad timing. “Gotta go.”
    “No,” Grace said. “Don’t.”
    But Jamal turned and ran down the street. Kicking at a bottle, she wheeled around and headed for the truck. Wind caught at the bottle, making it clink along the cracked sidewalk like a broken wheel.
    She called Butch, who answered immediately.
    “Follow him,” she said.
    “On it,”
Butch replied.
    One block north, a battered gray Corolla started its engine and slowly moved from the curb.
    Standing beside the opened passenger door of Ham’s GMC, Mr. Briscombe staggered in the direction Jamal had disappeared, one step, two, three … and then he collapsed on the sidewalk, grabbing his heart and groaning. Gray face, extreme sweating.
    “He’s having a heart attack,” Grace cried, racing to the stricken man. As she fell to her banged-up knees beside him, she felt a terrible sense of déjà vu.
    Just last night, she’d lost a citizen to death. Today, she sure as hell was putting up a better fight.
    “Detective Ham Dewey,” Ham said into his phone. “We need a bus. Here’s my location.”
    “You’re gonna be okay,” Grace promised Mr. Briscombe. “You are.”

CHAPTER
         FIVE
    Three hours later, Ham and Grace arrived at the scene of Malcolm’s hit and run. It was a stupid potholed street two blocks northeast of an OK All Day minimart-and-gas-station combo. The water in the potholes fluttered with the wind. Yards of straining yellow caution tape and sawhorses cluttered the road, while uniforms waved motorists and pedestrians off. Evidence markers were anchored with weights