Unpunished Read online

  “Detective Gardiner?”

  He turned. The reporters, who had a grapevine that rivaled the cops’, had returned to their roost despite the late hour and Patty had let them, provided they stayed on the other side of the yellow tape strung across the bullpen. She hoped that they might talk now that their boss had died and open up without circumspection within sight of his blood on the floor. Rick wondered how that was working out for her. Then he wondered who was this blond hottie who knew his name.

  “That’s me.”

  She smiled, white teeth above an elfin chin and really healthy boobs. “I’m Lori Russo. We spoke on the phone.”

  “We did? Oh—the vigilante killings.”

  “Yes.”

  He’d blown her off, but here she was tossing her hair over one shoulder at him. Hot and not above using it to get what she wanted. She had a wedding band on her left hand, but who the hell cared about that nowadays? He straightened his jacket. “How’s your story coming?”

  “I’ve found out some interesting things from my contact in Phoenix. I’d love to talk to you about it.”

  “So would I,” Rick said, and meant it.

  * * *

  Jack sat in an uncomfortable chair against the wall of ER room 8 at Metro General, watching Maggie Gardiner sleep. The two doctors on duty had been occupied with a cardiac arrest, so a physician’s assistant had given her a shot of morphine to hold her over until one freed up—but then one of them found a few minutes to maneuver her arm back into its socket anyway. Now Maggie had both morphine and a relocated arm and looked more comfortable than she had on the floor of the Herald building.

  She should have let me go, Jack realized. She should have just opened her hand and released me into the air, or better yet, never grabbed me in the first place. No one would have blamed her—he still couldn’t believe he hadn’t pulled her over the side. The fall might not have killed him, and if he survived she’d have had a perfect explanation for her actions. No one would have known her true reasoning except him, and he could hardly explain their background to another living soul without hanging himself. He wondered if that alternative future had occurred to her, or would when the morphine wore off and she woke up with a throbbing shoulder.

  If he died, her secret died with him. Maggie Gardiner could have gone through the rest of her life with that burden lifted, could have left behind the constant fear that a few words from him could put her in jail. She’d be free.

  Then he thought, he should have let go of her. Let his body fall, let the darkness overtake him, leave this screwed-up world and his own paltry efforts to improve it. He had done what he could. He couldn’t do it forever and told himself he had no desire to try. He should have just let go.

  But surprise surprise, when the opportunity arose, he wasn’t quite ready to shuffle off this mortal coil—instead, he pulled Maggie’s arm out of its socket rather than take the chance that he might. He had clung to life just as fiercely as those clients of his with their voracious evil, who spread nothing but pain and death, as fiercely as they would have clung to theirs had he ever given them the opportunity to do so.

  This didn’t make him feel guilty for ending their lives. On the contrary, he felt proud of himself for saving them from those panicked, agonizing minutes before the crash, that feeling of utter and complete desperation. He had spared the world from their violence as he had spared them from that instinctual terror. He’d been kind. Much kinder than Roger Correa had been to any of his victims.

  Both Roth and Correa were dead. Each might have lived if their landings had been a bit softer. Roth’s body had pivoted just enough that the floor caught his head first, causing an internal bleeding that the doctors couldn’t fix in time to save him. A desk had snapped Correa’s spine. It might have left him paralyzed but had managed to kill him instead. Jack couldn’t decide which option he preferred, but thought he could guess the choice Correa would have made.

  Maggie stirred, turned her head, and caught sight of him. “Are you here to hold my hand?”

  “Making sure you don’t talk in your sleep.”

  She gave a tiny but amused snort.

  “How are you feeling?” he found himself asking, not sure why. In another life, another world, he used to say things like that. He might as well stay in practice.

  “Peachy. At least until that hypodermic wears off.” She blinked at him, once, lashes sweeping lazily over sky-blue eyes. “Good stuff. Unfortunately they won’t let me take it home in a six-pack.”

  “They’ll give you meds.”

  A not-amused snort. “They won’t be any stronger than Tylenol. Prescription drug addicts have ruined pain meds for everyone. Don’tcha hate that?”

  He didn’t return her smile. “You could have just let me go.”

  Okay, this wasn’t practice he needed to stay in, this heart-to-heart crap.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I could have. I wonder what Dr. Michaels will make of that.”

  “Why didn’t you”—Stop talking, Jack—“let me go? It would have seriously uncomplicated your life.”

  “Yeah,” she said again, as if pondering a mildly interesting phenomenon. “But I didn’t want to.”

  She should have let him die, but didn’t. She was a good person, was Maggie Gardiner. It almost made him feel guilty for lying to her about Ronnie Soltis. Also known as Reign.

  Almost.

  “I guess . . .” Maggie was saying, staring at the small dots on the ceiling tiles.

  “Guess what?”

  “I guess I think we make a pretty good team. Sometimes. In a way.”

  “We’re not a team, Maggie,” he said. But her eyes had already closed.

  Acknowledgments

  First, I’d like to thank Phillip Baker at the Fort Myers News-Press for giving me two tours of the printing plant along with all sorts of information and for helping me fix one of the murders in this book. Also Melissa Montoya-Ocampo and Tony Rybarczyk at the News-Press and Sgt. Dana Coston at the Cape Coral Police Department, who put me in touch with all these interesting people. Visiting the News-Press was a huge help to me since I couldn’t get time to spend at Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer. (P.S. The motto “Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way” was actually the motto of the New Mexico State Tribune in Albuquerque, and later all Scripps newspapers.)

  * * *

  I would like to thank the authors of the following fascinating books:

  Brock, George. Out of Print: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital Age. Kogan Page, Philadelphia, PA: 2013.

  Doctor, Ken. Newsonomics: Twelve New Trends That Will Shape the News You Get. St. Martin’s Press, New York: 2010.

  Jones, Alex S. Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy. Oxford University Press, New York: 2009.

  Manjoo, Farhad. True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society. Wiley, Hoboken, NJ: 2008.

  McChesney, Robert W., and John Nichols. The Death and Life of American Journalism. Nation Books, Philadelphia, PA: 2010.

  McCord, Richard. The Chain Gang: One Newspaper Versus the Gannett Empire. University of Missouri Press, Columbia, MO: 2001.

  O’Shea, James. The Deal From Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers. Public Affairs, New York: 2011.

  Teachout, Zephyr. Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin’s Snuff Box to Citizens United. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA: 2014.

  * * *

  Thanks as always to my sister Mary, who is always there for a medical question. And my sister Susan, who is a one-woman PR force.

  I want to thank Michaela Hamilton for her tireless editing of this manuscript, as well as Morgan Elwell and the rest of the great team at Kensington Publishing.

  And of course, my agent, Vicky Bijur, and her group at the Vicky Bijur Literary Agency for their continuing belief in me.

  Photo by Susan M. Klingbeil

  About the Author

  New York Times bestsell
ing author Lisa Black introduced the characters of Maggie Gardiner and Jack Renner in her acclaimed suspense novel That Darkness. She is the author of seven novels in the Theresa MacLean mystery series and two novels written as Elizabeth Becka. As a forensic scientist at the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office, she analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, hairs, fibers, paint, glass, DNA, blood, and many other forms of trace evidence, as well as crime scenes. Now she is a latent print examiner and CSI for the Cape Coral Police Department in Florida, working mostly with fingerprints and crime scenes.

  Lisa has lectured at writers’ conventions and appeared on panels, and is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers. As a forensic specialist, she is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists, the International Association for Identification, the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts, and is a Certified Latent Print Examiner. She has testified in court as an expert witness over sixty-five times. Her books have been translated into six languages. She lives near Fort Myers, Florida. Visit her on Facebook, Twitter, or at www.lisa-black.com.

  Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com