Falling On the Sword Read Online Free

you all the things he’s going to do to you when he gets that gun away from you. And all the while you’re standing there chuckling inside your head, because you’ve got him dead-to-rights. You’re looking at a dead man. He just didn’t know it yet. It was like you were his personal God. You held his life in your hands.”
    Alisa yawned.
    “ What did he do when you let off that warning shot off? Did he laugh at you? He think that instead of being gutless, you were incompetent? Did he think you didn’t know how to shoot? And then when he said something about the broad side of a barn, you just let him have it. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.”
    Alisa’s eyes met Locke’s. She looked as though she were about to unleash the hounds, but she calmed and leaned back in her seat.
    Locke smiled, knowing this girl wasn’t going to break easy. But that was okay. It was more fun to break a challenge.
    SEVEN 
    Carter entered interrogation room one. Rakowski was pacing. “What did she say?”
    “ Sit down,” Carter said.
    He did. “What did she say?”
    “ She did it.”
    “ What?” He slammed his palms on the table. “I did.”
    “ No, you didn’t.”
    “ She tell you that?”
    “ She didn’t have to.”
    Rakowski closed his eyes.
    Carter sat across from him. “So, let me tell you what really happened. You were sitting at home watching the Phils game when Alisa called you, I believe that. But when you get there McCullough’s already leaking from five holes. You think he’s dead. Hell, I would too.” Carter yawned and scratched his head. “So you and Alisa start working out your story. But there was one big problem: son of bitch ain’t dead yet. Now this is the part that I can’t figure out. Which one of you blew out the fucker’s cerebellum?”
    “ Does it matter?” Rakowski drew in his eyebrows. “Way I remember it, Brutus stabbed Caesar first and Cassius stabbed him last, but they’re both burning in the hottest ring of hell.”
    “ Freezing,” Carter said.
    “ What?”
    “ The hell for traitors is frozen.”
    “ Freezing, burning, whatever. They’re both in hell, right?”
    “ Yeah. Your point being?”
    Rakowski breathed in and let it out slowly. “But if nobody saw Brutus holding a blade on that March day when a cap was thrown into Caesar, then Cassius would have taken all the heat his own-damn-self.”
    “ You’re not asking me, what I think you are asking me?”
    “ She ain’t gonna make it in prison.”
    “ And you are?”
    “ Better than her.”
    “ You can’t do this, we can call it self-defense.”
    “ You think Councilman McCullough is gonna let that story fly?”
    Carter shook his head. “How can you ask me to do this?”
    “ How can’t I?” He tilted his head to the side. “I mean, what would you fall on your sword for? If not this? If not for your family? Then what?”
    Carter stood from his seat. “I can’t do that.”
    “ Sure, you can. It’ll be simple. You don’t have any witnesses. The evidence you got can be matched up to me. The gun’s in my name. It’s got my prints on it. So do the shell casings. You got my confession. The only thing that might throw it is the GSR.”
    “ You want me to tamper with evidence?”
    “ No, it’s not tampering if there’s no evidence to find. It’s not tampering if you don’t get caught. I forgot to tell her to wash her hands at the apartment. You can remedy that.”
    Carter shook his head. “How can you ask me that?”
    Rakowski leaned back. “Easy. You fucking owe me.”
    “ I don’t owe you this.”
    Jerry Rakowski stood from his seat and lifted his shirt over his head. He pointed at a large, jagged scar stretching across the left side of his stomach. “I believe you do.”
    EIGHT
    Locke finished her coffee. The Rakowski girl hadn’t said a word in almost fifteen minutes. In her frustration, Locke asked, “Do you like the coffee, at least?”
    Alisa took a sip, and then shook her head. “Not really. What flavor is