Free Turn or Burn by Boo Walker

How had two women gotten weapons past security and, more importantly, why? Why did they come into that building on a suicide mission to kill Dr. Sebastian? Why were they so against the Singularity or the doctor’s research? Were there others involved? If so, I wanted them to pay. Ted would have done the same for me. He would have felt the same guilt that I did.
    Why did Ted have to die today?
    We parked a few blocks away this time and began to weave through the dispersing crowd. The protesters had lost their momentum and many of them were headed home. As we’d heard on the radio, they’d already cancelled the entire Singularity Summit. The streets were littered with signs and handouts and other waste. The police were doing their best to bring an end to the day’s disaster before anyone else was hurt.
     
    ***
     
    “Why the hell did you leave the scene?”
    “I had a man to protect,” I said. “What would you have done?”
    “Don’t test me.” Detective Coleman Jacobs did not frequent the gym unless the steam room was his only stop, and he proved that with a belly that had to be contained by a belt I felt sorry for. I’d never sympathized with leather until that day. A black man with freckles up high on his cheeks, he wasn’t that tall, probably five-ten. His pants were cut extremely wide, all the way to his ankles, to the point where they nearly covered up the toes of his shoes. And his tucked-in shirt showed the perfect curvature of his stomach. He was standing there, his hands planted on his hips, on the fourth floor of the Convention Center, very near the room where everything had gone down. Where Ted had been murdered.
    Detective Jacobs and I had to establish ourselves right out of the gate because I think we both had the feeling we’d see each other more than we wanted to over the next few days.
    “Test you?” I replied. “I was acting in the best interest of the doctor, who I was paid to protect.” I looked at Francesca, remembering my manners. “Who we were paid to protect, who was most likely the intended target. We had no idea what else to expect, so we made the decision to evacuate the doctor.”
    “All right, all right. I’ll let it slide. I don’t have time to play Whose Dick is Bigger? right now, Mr. Knox. Though I’d probably win.” He winked at Francesca. “I’m going to need you both to go sit with my guys over there and answer some questions. I’ll be back with you in a little while.”
    “Sure,” I said, deciding to warm up to him. He wasn’t as much of an idiot as I’d thought. Maybe a jackass, but not an idiot. “Sorry for the hostility. It’s been a long day.”
    “Well, I’m sorry about your friend.”
    “Where is he?”
    “In a van on the way to the morgue.”
    I nodded. “With the two women?”
    “Yep.”
    “How’d the other one die? Do you know?”
    “Looks like she ate a pill of some sort, cyanide maybe, but we’re not sure yet. She wasn’t shot.”
    “No, she wasn’t. How’d they get the guns in here?”
    “Look, I’ve got a lot of work to do. Let me worry about the details on my own.” He waved over one of his cronies, and he began to walk away. “And Mr. Knox,” he said. “Ms. Daly.”
    “Yeah?”
    “You two don’t go playing cowboy and cowgirl. I know about you both. I know who you are.”
    “Don’t worry about us. Just find out why this happened to our friend…please.”
    “That’s why they pay me.”
    The uniformed cops separated us. I took a seat at a wooden table in the main lobby next to a younger cop dressed in a crisp blue uniform. He should have just worn a sign that said Impressionable. I was about to eat this poor boy up.
    “Your name’s Harper Knox?” he asked me.
    “Yes.”
    “Jacobs said you’re a Green Beret?”
    “I was,” I replied.
    “Hats off to you, sir. I had a dream of heading in that direction, but it never panned out.”
    I looked him in the eyes. “Any idea what happened in there? Who they