Free Cry Wolf by J. Carson Black

Laura got a glimpse of his face—just a pale orb in the dark.
    Couldn’t place him. But the alarm bells were clanging now.
    Something was wrong, something was out of place. Her cop instincts kicked in.
    Frank knew .
    “Matt—I’ll be back, okay?”
    She got up and went out through the wrought-iron gate. She kept with the crowd. She could see the man bobbing up ahead like a cork on a stream. One of many corks. He turned his head and looked at something across the avenue. She saw just a wedge of face, pale in the streetlight, which had just blinked on.
    She knew him. From where?
    Then it came to her: Joel Strickland.

    Back at their table, Matt looked at her quizzically. “What was that all about?”
    “Just some guy I recognized.”
    “Who?”
    She sat. “It’s the husband, you remember, the ex-husband or estranged husband of Ruby Ballantine?”
    He knitted his brow. “I remember you telling me about him. Construction, right?”
    “I just saw him.”
    “And?”
    Laura rubbed her forehead. The feeling was visceral. There was no explanation, except for her cop’s instincts. She said, “Remember, I thought Ruby Ballantine and Alex Williams killed Sean Perrin, but I couldn’t prove it, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “But I saw him right now—Strickland.” She paused. It didn’t look right. He was here, near All Souls Shoppe. Maybe he was seeing Ruby again. Maybe they had parted amicably. There were all sorts of reasons for her to think that, but it still bothered her.
    Wrong place. Wrong time.
    Matt leaned forward. “You think, what? That he had something to do with Sean Perrin’s death?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What do you want to do about it?”
    Laura looked at her half-eaten plate, her glass of wine half-full.
    “I guess, nothing.”
    But it had ruined the moment.

    Later they went by Matt’s shop. His partner, Dave, was just about to close up, and they stayed around talking for a while. The people on the streets had turned to a few separate knots of friends talking, but the crowd had dissipated and before you knew it the streets were empty.
    As they stepped out onto the sidewalk, Laura said, “Let’s go check out All Souls Shoppe.”
    “Why?”
    “I’d kind of like to check on Ruby.”
    “What’s going on? Is this about her ex?”
    “I don’t know.”
    He shrugged. “Always trust a cop.”
    “Always,” Laura said.
    “Always and forever,” he intoned.
    “Always and forever.”
    They walked up the street. The store was closed now, but when Laura peered through the windows she could see a light on way in back.
    All Souls was on a corner.
    Laura said, “Let’s walk around to the alley—see if she’s in back.”
    They followed the street to Hoff Avenue, the narrow strip of asphalt that ran behind the 4 th Avenue stores and served as an alley. Mission cactus about eight feet tall corralled the dirt lot behind Ruby’s shop.
    A car was parked diagonally to the store, driver’s door open, lights on, engine running.
    For a second, Laura thought it was Ruby’s car, that she was in the process of packing up her car and closing up shop, but then she spotted a charcoal-gray Armada parked up against a small adobe outbuilding that matched the store. She’d seen the Armada before and knew it belonged to Ruby.
    The running car was an old beater from the eighties—Plymouth Horizon with a temporary license sticker in the window. The car’s windows were dirty but she could see someone sitting in the driver's seat. Someone wearing a hooded sweatshirt.
    It took her a split second to grasp the significance. She pulled her weapon and started toward the car just as two shots rapped out, one almost on top of the other.
    The door burst open, slamming against the side of the building, and a man ran outside. Laura glimpsed a woman lying on the floor just before the door banged shut.
    Ruby?
    The man headed for the car.
    No—not a man.
    Laura didn’t know how she knew—maybe it was the way the figure moved,