Acoustic Shadows Read Online Free Page A

young shooter, what’s his name? Coody? Said he’d heard the kid had his apartment booby-trapped.’
    ‘As a matter of fact, the FBI has sent an agent from their WMD office in Miami. A woman named Sara Logan. Know her?’
    Thiery took a long breath, let it out slow. He knew her well, though it had been a few years since he’d seen her. He knew her personally. ‘We’ve worked together on some cases.’
    ‘Problems?’ asked Croll, noting Thiery’s sudden uneasiness.
    ‘No,’ he replied.
    Croll stared at him now, his lidless eyes like a gecko’s. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to get out of this assignment, Agent Thiery.’ His smile was a painful grimace.
    Thiery returned his stare. ‘Not at all, sir. I just don’t want to get knee deep, then have the case pulled from me by the Feds. Besides, they seem to have resources we don’t, anymore.’
    Croll forced a laugh. ‘You believe this guy, Jim? I thought you’d be thrilled to take part. We need a hero to rise out of this, fellas, and frankly, the FDLE could use one, too.’
    ‘I’m flattered and very interested, sir. It’s just … it’s going to be a huge case. Complicated. If we’re going to follow the Feds’ lead, I’d rather it be up front and avoid a hostile takeover, or turf war. That’s all.’
    Bullock spoke up. ‘I think that’s all he’s trying to say. Right, Justin?’
    ‘That’s all I
did
say,’ said Thiery.
    Croll stopped smiling. ‘Well, okay. When you’re in the position to make those kinds of decisions, maybe you can go that way. For now, you’re the man, the SAS, the Special Agent Supervisor. Our man. Pull this thing together so Florida doesn’t continue to look like a bunch of morons who can’t even vote right. Do the job you’re supposed to be so good at,
capiche
?’
    Thiery nodded, but said nothing.
    Bullock’s face turned red. If he weren’t so close to retirement, he’d tell the governor to go fuck himself. He had no right talking to one of his men like that, especially Thiery, a solid cop who’d raised two boys by himself after his wife walked out on him ten years ago.
    ‘I’ll be in Washington,’ he said blandly.
    Croll looked at him as if trying to remember if he’d given him permission to leave the state, his eyebrow arched.
    ‘For the National Police Commissioner’s meeting?’ Bullock asked.
    ‘Of course,’ said Croll, then turned back to Thiery. ‘You want to fly down with me, Agent Thiery?’ Like he was offering a gift.
    ‘I should probably drive down. If I’m taking lead, I’ll need my car to get around.’
    ‘Nonsense. Fly with me. I’ve got a limo picking me up. It’ll be the fastest way. If you need a car, you can check out a cruiser at your Orlando office, right?’
    Thiery’s jaw muscles flexed. ‘Sure,’ he said.
    In a penthouse suite at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, eighty-year-old Emilio Esperanza watched the live coverage of the shooting at the Florida elementary school on one of the three big screen TVs. Another TV was set to the stock market, the sound turned off; banners of numbers flowing across the bottom of the screen reflecting in Esperanza’s eyes. The last TV was showing an old black-and-white gangster film. Esperanza picked a speck of tobacco from an unfiltered cigarette off his lip with his bony, blue fingers, and flaked it to the floor, then reached over and turned up the oxygen that ran into his nostrils via a plastic nasal cannula.
    ‘You should have a nurse doing that for you, Papa,’ said his son Julio, himself over fifty years old. His thick hair looked like a coiffed chrome helmet on his head. Tanned skin. Teeth like polished porcelain chips. His collar button was open on his starched, maroon shirt, Rat Pack-style, under his tailored, bone-coloured, linen suit.
    The old man’s eyes slid over to his son’s like those of a Komodo dragon eyeing its prey. He raised his wrinkled upper lip as if to spit.
    ‘That didn’t work out too