Harvestland

THIRTY-THREE

The candlelit motel room had the look of a romantic scene. Both Noah and Sofia did not miss the irony as they sat on the queen-sized bed and thought of their lovemaking experiences in this very room. Now here they were, awkward friends waiting out the night in a repeat love den.

After Andrew's abrupt departure, they had become bored and restless, cooked up in the room alone with all the action going on outside. They sat watching sluices of rain stream down the window, listened to the muffled pitter-patter of the downpour against the motel, made mindless conversation.

They were almost thankful for the sudden intrusion of Officer Uhl. He barged in without knocking.

"Everything okay in here?" he asked, equipped again with his shotgun. Noah and Sofia both sprung up from the bed.

"Fine," Noah said. "What's up?"

Uhl frowned. "Detective Lehman and Chief Graves have been killed."

"What!" Sofia said.

"Where?" Noah asked.

"At David Collins's office. Mr. Collins himself barely escaped. We just got the call."

"Where's Detective Daly?" Noah asked.

Uhl frowned. "Mr. Collins said he saw two killers. The details aren't clear at this point, but he said Daly was one of them."

Noah narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that Detective Daly is one of the killers. Everyone out on the street is looking for him."

"What!" Sofia screamed it now. "That's not possible."

"She's right," Noah said. "This is wrong. What is going on out there?"

"I know how this sounds," Uhl said. "Look, it's what we've been told. My orders are to make sure you two are safe. But I wanted to keep you both in the loop, make sure you know your enemy. Now I'm right outside the door. I'm going to call in some more units soon, when they've wrapped up at the Collins building. With Detective Daly and whoever else on the loose out there—"

"He's not involved," Sofia said. "That's a lie."

"Whoever's out there," Uhl said, "I'm going to make sure they're not getting in here. I'm calling in back-up. You'll both be safe."

Before they could ask any more questions, Uhl left with a curt nod. He left the two of them standing there staring at each other.

Eliza was dead.

Andrew gritted his teeth and gripped the steering wheel of the SUV as he cut through rain that fell like knives. He tore through town to the police station.

He would get there before Collins did, show the cops the tape of Eliza's murder, and convince them what kind of man Collins really was.

On the police scanner pegged to the dashboard of the SUV, a neat feature to Collins's security firm vehicles, Andrew heard his name. Associated with words like homicide, weapon, dangerous.

Collins had made a call and painted him as the killer. When he made it to that station, he'd be met by a blaze of gunfire for killing the chief. He was as good as dead. Even if he could somehow explain himself, Collins owned the police.

He listened to the ATL out on the company vehicle he was driving and went for the bag of blow from his trench coat, powdered his nose to sharpen that focus. He chased it down with a shot from his flask, the car swerving out of the lane a bit, jerking in the rain.