Free Against a Brightening Sky by Jaime Lee Moyer Page B

of those. Now, let’s get downstairs. I’m eager to meet Libby and Alina.”
    Dora strode down the stairs, head high and moving with that same ingrained confidence I’d attributed to royalty. I followed, thinking hard.
    She hadn’t fooled me; something was wrong. I’d just have to wait to discover what.
    Gabe
    Gabe stayed in the area surrounding Lotta’s fountain long enough to make sure all the bodies had been recovered and survivors accounted for. Shifting rubble and exploring damaged buildings took hours, a grim task for everyone involved. Smoke still clouded the air, a result of smoldering fires. The search was further complicated by trying not to bring down teetering skeletons of charred timber and brick on the searchers’ heads.
    One of the deputy coroners, a young doctor named Jefferson West, gave him a tally when they’d finished. They’d found five people trapped in a ruined storefront, all of them frightened and with minor injuries, but still alive. He counted that a victory, considering. More than a hundred and twenty bodies went to the morgue. West didn’t say how many of the dead were children, and Gabe didn’t push for an answer. He didn’t want to know.
    What he did know was bad enough. Nine of those bodies were cops, two of them the frightened rookies from his squad who had gone with Jack. Guilt dug its hooks in deep as Gabe watched their bodies carried away. The death of any man under his command always felt like his responsibility, his failure.
    He made sure the deputy coroner had all the dead officers’ names before the stretchers were loaded into the vans and taken away. There were enough officers on the scene from all over the city that finding out the names Gabe didn’t know right away wasn’t difficult.
    That held true until they tried to identify the unknown cop who’d set off the dynamite cache. Gabe had stared at the face of the strange detective with the long-barreled Colt, memorizing his features. Older with thinning brown hair, the dead man’s features were unremarkable. Forgettable. Even after spending time studying him, Gabe wasn’t sure he’d know the dead man again if they passed on the street.
    No one else recognized him, knew his name, or could say what squad he came from. A sick feeling took root in Gabe’s gut as patrolman after patrolman claimed not to know the stranger. He asked the coroner’s men to wait and tugged off the blanket covering the body.
    The stranger’s pockets were empty, as if the suit and overcoat were brand new and he hadn’t gotten around to filling them with spare change, trolley tokens, or sales slips from the tobacco shop. Gabe kept searching, but there was nothing for him to find. Nothing to tell him who this man might have been.
    Pulling the dented, bloody badge off the dead man’s overcoat and wiping it clean provided the only clue. The words engraved on the brass shield read Chicago Police Department, number 687. Gabe shoved the badge deep into his trouser pocket. No one recognized the dead man, because he wasn’t a San Francisco cop.
    Cold fingers caressed the back of his neck. Gabe thought hard about what a Chicago detective was doing in San Francisco unannounced and carrying a gun. More wind off the Bay swirled past, whispering in his ear. This stranger hadn’t been a cop at all. The explosion, the death of the gunman and his partner, were all part of a bigger, deliberate plan.
    Gabe straightened up much too quickly, gasping at the stab of pain in his side. Black spots skittered in front of his eyes. He took shallow breaths to keep from being sick and waited for the dizziness to pass.
    Sam materialized at his side, eyeing Gabe. Butler was a good nursemaid, allowing him to do his job and still keeping his word to Delia. “Are you all right? Maybe we should leave now.”
    â€œGive me another minute.” He caught Marshall Henderson’s