Never Fear Read Online Free Page B

breakfast.”
    It rang a dozen times, then he hung up.
    â€œYou want me to write down his number for you?”
    I handed him one of my business cards. “And address.”
    He wrote the information down and handed it back.
    â€œA fax was sent from here last night. Would you have a record of it?”
    He shook his head and motioned to the fax machine on the counter.
    â€œJust a cash register receipt, fifty cents a page for local calls, a dollar for long distance.”
    Harrison and I walked outside and stood on the sidewalk. I glanced at my watch. It was already nearly noon. Waves of heat were shimmering off the pavement. Neither of us made a move toward the squad, as if we both knew that by taking that next step a line would be crossed that there was no turning back from.
    â€œA ranger found him around three-thirty,” Harrison said. “It would have been at least another half hour before Homicide reached the scene; that’s four o’clock.”
    The knot in my stomach began to tighten.
    â€œWhy would a cop confiscate a security tape before an investigation had even begun?” he added.
    Neither of us needed to answer that one.
    â€œSo who took it? Another agency—ATF? FBI?”
    â€œHow would they have known about it?” I said.
    â€œHe was under surveillance.”
    â€œThere’s another possibility.”
    Harrison nodded. “It wasn’t a cop at all.”
    We stepped onto the street and walked over to the squad. I started to open the door, but stopped and looked back at the yellow sign on the building across the street. PUBLIC FAX.
    â€œHe would have seen that sign last night; that’s why he stopped here. He walked or ran nearly two miles in his socks, his feet were cut from glass, and he saw the sign and thought of me. Why? What could I do for him that no one else could? And it’s not because I was the sister he never had, not at that time of night.”
    Harrison looked over at the sign for a moment, then turned to me. “You’re a cop.”
    I nodded.
    â€œWhy would someone take a tape?” I said.
    â€œThey don’t want their picture taken.”
    â€œAnd who doesn’t want their picture taken?”
    I felt myself crossing that line that there was no turning back from.
    â€œSomeone about to commit a crime,” Harrison said.

4
    A piece of crime-scene tape blowing in the Santa Anas hung from the chain-link gate that John Manning walked through before he died. The fence was off a side road that passed behind a small manufacturing plant. There were no streetlights, no houses. Across the river was a DWP power substation. The nearest traffic was a block to the south, where a bridge crossed the river. The sound of the 5 freeway on the other side of the manufacturing plant would have muffled the sound of a gunshot.
    I pushed open the gate and stepped through. The wind carried the heavy odor of the bright green algae that bloomed in the river. Ten feet inside the fence I stopped where a dark stain discolored the soil on the trail leading to a bike path along the riverbank.
    â€œAnything could happen here and no one would know it,” Harrison said.
    I looked at the stain for a moment and allowed myself to think briefly that it really was my brother or half brother who bled to death on this spot. I took a deep breath to try to slow things down, but filling my lungs with the stench of the river was not what I needed.
    â€œYou okay?” Harrison asked.
    I nodded and walked back up the path and through the gate to get away from the smell. I took a breath, and another, and things began to settle. Harrison stepped up behind me but didn’t say a word.
    â€œI spent years wondering what secret life my father led. This wasn’t what I expected,” I said.
    A tan Crown Victoria pulled onto the side street and parked behind our squad. Detective Williams of the Northeast division stepped out and walked toward us. He wore