A broken splinter of wood caught in Marlow’s shirt, just under his arm. He felt it dig into his skin as he twisted around so his back was to the alley. The door rattled as someone on the other side threw themselves against it with a thud of muscle against wood.
Once. Twice.
The door popped open and jammed against the bin. Marlow reached up, dug his fingers into the crevices between the bricks, and hauled himself up. He braced his feet against the brick ledge and glanced around.
This part was where he was either lucky or not. The alley ended behind the cafe in a blank concrete wall, dumpsters shoved up against it behind the “wolf proof” cage. Marlow hadn’t been able to see what was on the other side. Now he crab-walked along the metal edges of the cage, steadied by his grip on the brick, to the wall.
“Hey!” the cop barked from behind him. “Think about this, Marlow. You can still hand yourself in. You said you didn’t kill that man; this is how you can prove it. Tell us who did.”
Marlow took a quick glance back. The cop leaned out the broken window, body twisted around and a gun aimed at Marlow. If he’d been one of Franklin’s, he’d have probably taken the shot already.
“Yeah,” Marlow said. “Good idea. Give me a couple of days, and I’ll get back to you on that…”
A shadow of begrudged amusement crossed the cop’s face. “Not how this is going to play out,” he said.
“Kit Marlow! You’re under arrest!” the second cop skidded into the alley, gun out and held low in front of her. “Don’t fucking move, or I’ll shoot!”
The first cop pulled a frustrated face and jerked his head around. “Cartwright, stand down,” he said. “This is under control.”
Marlow saw Cartwright start to raise the gun, the tension in her shoulders and the decision in the set of her mouth. He pushed himself off the side of the building and jumped over the wall.
Or Cartwright saw him start to move and took her shot.
It happened so quickly that even Marlow couldn’t swear his interpretation was the right one. Either way, his feet hit the metal roof of the lean-to garage on the other side as a bullet bounced off the wall where he’d been a second ago. It was close enough that a chip of brick caught his cheek.
The garage roof creaked as he landed, but it held under his weight. He slid down it on his ass and dropped over the edge into the alley, into a stack of old car parts. It wasn’t his most graceful landing ever, half pratfall and half tumble, but he hadn’t broken anything.
Marlow kicked a broken headlight out of his way and scrambled to his feet. He brushed himself off as he jogged down the alley, turned left as he reached the street, and slowed his pace to a steady walk. The adrenaline that hit his bloodstream wanted him to run, but that would draw attention. He ignored the twitch of muscles in the backs of his thighs and the over-clocked thump of his heart as he walked calmly along.
He stole a hoodie from the back of an unattended chair outside a cafe and shrugged it on. It smelled of someone else’s sweat—fresh and sharply salty—and a faint underlay of smoke that itched in his nose. He stuck his hands in the pockets and found the original owner’s lighter, but not his cigarettes.
It took a block before Marlow saw his next opportunity. A man in a hastily donned suit—the tail of his shirt was untucked and there was a price tag still on the sole of the trainers as he tugged them on—ranted into the phone he held against his ear with one shoulder. Annoyance lilted in his voice as he tied the laces.
“…Ididrent a locker. No. I did,” he said. “Will you listen? Just… Well, if you’d let me finish. Yes. That’s what I said. Ididrent one. Yes, like you said, one by the office. When I got there this morning, someone had broken into it and stolen my shoes. Just my shoes. Obviously not my phone. I’m on my phone. Anyhow, I’ll be there soon. Okay? Fuck sake.”
He hung up with an irritated jab of his thumb and dropped the phone into his pocket. After an irritated sigh, he picked up the cup of hot broth. He held it in both hands, fingers interlaced, and breathed in the steam.
Marlow bent down on his way past—and had to bite the inside of his cheek against the oof of pain as his shoulder twinged—and lifted the phone out of the man’s pocket. The screen was still on. Marlow took a second to remember Cade’s number and then pulled up the man’s texts to send a quick message.
2nd date? Same as the first. Noon.
He paused for a moment, thumb poised above the Send button. It was a lot to ask. Cade had already gone above and beyond what was reasonable in trying to track down who’d taken over from Piper. Now he was supposed to help a fugitive who might, for all he knew, actually be a murderer?
Cade wasn’t a cop, and wishful thinking aside, he wasn’t Marlow’s anything.
But he was the only person Marlow trusted right now. So Marlow hit Send, deleted the message—it could be retrieved if the techs looked for it, but it would slow them down—and gave the phone a quick wipe on his sleeve before he dropped it onto another table.
Whether Cade got back to him or not, at least he had a plan now.
Like the cop had said, the best way to prove Franklin was a liar was to find the real murderer.
Chapter Three
“PART OF MEdoesn’t blame him,” Bennett said. “Every full moon, we go out and put our asses on the line to get clawed up and bitten, beaten and killed, all for a government salary. You know the department doesn’t even have to pay us overtime if they call us in to cover a staff shortage? Essential duties.”
Cade crossed his arms and rocked onto the back legs of his chair. “Really?” he said. “You should talk to our recruitment agent. Cold Winds has a very generous benefits package for any null employees who pick up the slack during the full moon. Plus, we have a very generous compensation scale for employees injured in the line of duty.”
Without looking up from her notes, Beth added in a dry voice, “We also have full dental.”
