Free Fatal Justice by Marie Force Page B

metal in the alley behind the house caught their attention.
    “What was that?” Freddie whispered.
    Sam drew her weapon and gestured for him to do the same. She pointed him toward the front door and headed for the back of the house.
    Moving slowly, her gun leading the way, Sam crept toward the back door. Another clatter rang through the alley, announcing the presence of a cat, a raccoon or a foolish perp returning to the scene of a crime. Sam hoped and prayed it was the latter. The door swung open.
    “Freeze!” Sam caught a brief glimpse of Reese’s startled face before he turned and bolted. “Freeze, police!” She took off after him, down the back steps and through a fetid alley stacked three feet deep on both sides with trash. Normally, she might’ve taken a shot at him, but he was no good to her dead. He had information she desperately needed. Hoping Freddie would cut Reese off at the other end of the alley, Sam chased after him, her thighs burning from the exertion, her lungs tight from the cold air pumping in and out.
    Reese looked back, saw she was gaining on him and fired an erratic shot over his shoulder. The bullet whizzed past Sam’s right ear, fueling her rage and her desire to catch him. That might’ve worked on my dad, you son of a bitch, but it’s going to take more than a cheap shot to take me down . Running on adrenaline, she jumped over the bag of trash he threw in her path, came down on a patch of black ice and went flying.
    Her chin took the full brunt of the fall. Sam howled with pain and tried to get her unarmed hand down to break the second half of the fall. Elbows and knees connected with hard pavement. She looked up in time to see Reece round the corner at the end of the alley. Freddie was nowhere in sight.
    For a long moment, Sam lay there assessing her injuries and trying to catch her breath. The cold air made breathing painful, but that pain was nothing compared to the burn in her chin, knees and elbows. Forcing herself to move, she got up and called for backup to start a canvas of the neighborhood. Clearly, Reese hadn’t gone far after butchering his family.
    With each step more agonizing than the last, she made her way slowly to the end of the alley. Not seeing Freddie, she moved around to the front of the house to find him slapping cuffs on the arms of a stocky, dark-haired man. Her heart began to race. Had he gotten Reese after all? But when he turned the cuffed man around, Sam could see that it wasn’t Reese but his brother, Hector, whom they’d interviewed the day before.
    “What’ve you got?” Sam asked Freddie as she limped up to them.
    “What happened to you? You’re hurt.”
    “I’m okay. I fell on some ice chasing Reese. No biggie. What’s up with him?”
    “You have blood pouring from your chin, and you say no biggie?”
    Sam wiped away the blood with an impatient sweep of her hand and gave him a look that said he’d better start spilling on Reese’s brother.
    “Caught this guy coming in the front. He said he needed to get a few things, and he has every right to go into his brother’s house.”
    “It’s a crime scene,” Sam reminded Hector Reese. “You were told to stay out of there.”
    “My mama wanted some of the kids’ things,” he said in a surly tone, glaring at her. “This is hard on her.”
    “If that’s so, why’d you bring your brother with you? The same brother you told us earlier today you couldn’t find? The same brother who killed those kids your mama is grieving over.”
    “I didn’t bring him here,” Hector retorted. “And he didn’t kill no one.”
    “Oh, so we’re supposed to believe it’s a coincidence that you and your brother were sneaking into the house at the same time?” Glancing at Freddie, Sam added, “You buying that, Cruz?”
    “Not for one second, Lieutenant.”
    “Got anything you want to tell us, Reese?” Hector looked down at the ground, his posture tight with hostility.
    “I’ll take that as a no.”