Free Shoot to Thrill by P.J. Tracy Page A

Rescue.”
    “A mere pipe dream. I can’t swim.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Why don’t I know that about you?”
    “Why would you? It’s not like you ever asked me to go surfing or anything. Shit. It’s late. I better call Angela.”
    While Gino checked on his hearth and home, Magozzi watched the neighborhoods deteriorate with each city block. This part of Minneapolis had never exactly been mink and pearls, but when the gangs moved in during the eighties and nineties, they left a lot of carnage in their wake. The MPD Gang Task Force had worked hard to sanitize things over the years, and they’d done an impressive job, but the lingering hangover of too much violence for too long was still evident. Half the houses were still unoccupied, and the few viable businesses that remained were girded in the graffiti-scarred armor of steel gates and chain-link fencing.
    Gino clicked off his cell phone just as Magozzi pulled into the parking lot of the Stop-and-Go. “How’s the homestead rolling without you?”
    “It all went to hell in a handbasket. The little guy has a fever and Helen has a sore throat. Angela told me to take vitamin C.”
    “What’s that do, and where are you going to get it?”
    “Are you kidding? She tucks shit like that in my pants pockets every day, and it does absolutely nothing except keep my marriage intact.” Gino craned his neck and looked out the windshield at the darkened Stop-and-Go sign. “When I was on the beat, the guys used to call this place the ‘Stop-and-Die.’ Doesn’t look much better than it did back in the day. And it’s closed, damnit. Don’t tell me we have to come back here tomorrow for interviews.”
    Magozzi shrugged. “My gut tells me Alan Sommers wasn’t killed by anybody he knew or worked with. Camilla said everybody loved him—and we didn’t see any Norman Bates-type stalkers on the vid.”
    “That was a bummer, wasn’t it? So Alan Sommers was probably just a great victim of opportunity for some sick asshole who wanted a little exposure on the Web.”
    “That’s what I’m thinking. Let’s see what turns up in his apartment and we can go from there.”
    Gino nodded, then unsnapped his holster and drew his gun. “I’m going in armed and dangerous. This place still gives me the creeps.”
    It took them a few minutes to find the battered metal access door behind the Stop-and-Go that led up a flight of stairs to a squalid, dark hallway of doors. The place was a true dump, crawling with cockroaches and rodents that didn’t seem the least bit put out by the presence of humans. If there were any other squatters utilizing the space, they were either dead, very quiet, or out for the night, because the place was as silent as an anechoic chamber. It was the kind of silence that was inherently and deeply menacing—and, oddly, the same kind of silence that kept you dead quiet. If you didn’t make any noise, the bad things might not find you.
    They found Alan’s place at the end of the hall and let themselves in with the key Camilla had given them. Magozzi flipped on a light, which cast a harsh, bare-bulb glare on a surprisingly tidy, freshly painted room that bore no resemblance to the scary hallway they’d taken to get here. There was a twin mattress on the floor, made up with a clean bedspread that Magozzi had recently seen in one of the IKEA catalogs he mysteriously received every couple months in the mail, even though he’d never shopped there. The tiny kitchen and bathroom were both spotlessly clean—not a speck of dirt or a roach or rat in sight—and there was the pervasive smell of patchouli incense that battled with the funk of mold that was probably emanating from the walls in highly toxic quantities. Alan Sommers had lived in a hellhole, but he’d obviously put forth some effort to make it livable.
    Gino ventured into the second room, which was little more than a big closet, filled with an astounding array of wigs, makeup cases, shoes, and