Free Vigilante Mine by Cera Daniels Page B

unseeing green eyes stared up at a darkening sky. Her chest tightened. Another death. Old Town didn't need more ghosts. She narrowed her eyes at the body. Those eyes, the jutting cheekbones, they were familiar somehow.
    "I know him," Amanda said, careful not to stir the gravel around the body as she squatted by its side. Dockers, olive green slacks, and a plaid button-up with a sizeable bullet hole through the chest. Cursory glance said cause of death, but —
    "Friend or foe?" Ryan asked.
    "I don't . . . " The man's identity was right on the edge of her memory. She held out her hand. "Phone. I've got to call Dispatch."
    Ryan relinquished her cell and her thumb mashed the "2". Flipping to speaker phone so she could use the camera built into the device at the same time, she paced around the body and snapped shots for the crime scene unit. As she detailed the scene and ordered out a team, snowflakes grew more frequent. "I've got a person of interest in custody."
    She called her lieutenant next and he answered in a huff. "I knew you couldn't stand down. Look, we haven't IDed the precinct vic yet. I don't know any more than the news outlets, so just hold your horses."
    The precinct vic?  Amanda flipped the speaker off and jerked the phone to her ear. "You found a body."
    At the precinct. Her heart skipped about a dozen beats. Did that mean the rest of Greg's tip, about the man wearing a mask, was also true?
    Silence. Then, "Why are you calling me on your day off, Detective?"
    She turned her side to the crime scene. A dead body in-house should have been a big deal. All hands on deck. Why hadn't he bothered to bring her in? "Apparently, you're not the only one finding bodies today. Sir."
    "Where are you? Werner — "
    She hung up on him, frustration punching along the inside of her skull. And yeah, maybe a little bit of hurt. Her phone rang almost instantly but she sent it to voicemail as she turned back to the body.
    "Recognize him yet?" Ryan asked, nodding at the body.
    She nodded, pushing doubt aside as recognition drove home. "An informant. One of ours." Something flapped in a gust of winter wind and she flipped it over with her toe.
    A mask.
    Amanda stared at the black strip of fabric with two holes cut out of the center.
    "I just wanted to see who the stiff was."
    Her gaze slammed toward the young knife-wielder and she narrowed her eyes. "He was wearing this?"
    He leaned away from Ryan, but her companion held firm. "Yeah." He clamped his lips shut in a thin line and then sighed. "You're not gonna believe me until you run the gun. It's not mine. You won't find my prints."
    She glanced over at the tiny pistol with an uncomfortable feeling he'd told the truth. A pistol that tiny wouldn't account for the size of the bullet hole in this man's chest. "I found you kneeling over a dead body with a weapon," she said, but she stared down at the victim with growing dread. The mask pointed her right back to her mysterious masked attacker and with the victim's relationship to her precinct . . . 
    Rumors almost always held a shred of truth.
    Amanda punched redial.
    "I'm following CSU your way, Werner. What's going on?"
    "Was the other victim wearing a mask?"
    "Yes." The answer came fast, and angry. "Don't touch anything until I get there."
    This time, he hung up first. Amanda's fingers were too numb to press the button.

 
     
     
     
    CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    Lieutenant Dale skirted the yellow "Do Not Cross" tape with long, punishing strides, closing in on their spot by the CSU truck with a look meant to be as intimidating as a rampaging T-rex. Related homicides meant Dale would need manpower. He'd want her back in full capacity. Finally. Amanda strove to keep triumph from bleeding into her expression.
    "I want you gone." Dale stopped in front of Amanda, but he pointed to Ryan then jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Mr. McLelas, if you so much as set foot in front of a camera regarding this incident, that privileged neck of yours