Page 24 of Daybreak

“I don’t know what we are, but from the second we took Yankee Dan in for his statement, Cliff has challenged everything I’ve said and done. Acting like the old man gave us information during his interrogation that we didn’t share, and all that makes me wonder how Dixon ever found out the identity of the old man, or that I was the one who took his statement, when the only people who knew worked in our department.”

“Understood,” Samuels said. “I’ll let all of them know about the bounty and why you’re gone. I’ll also do some checking on my own. Be safe, and let me know when you get there.”

“Yes sir, will do,” Gunner said. Then he drove straight to the body shop, stripped his car of his personal effects and left it to be repaired, and called an Uber to take him home. It was only after he was sitting in the back seat with the sun in his eyes that he realized he’d left his sunglasses in the Mustang.

* * *

Samuels picked up his files and walked out into the Homicide department. He could tell that they were all curious about what was going on with Kingston.

“Detective Kingston will not be with us for a while. Someone has put out a hit on his life with a fifty-thousand-dollar bounty to go with it. He found out the hard way this morning when a biker rode up beside him on the Loop and took a shot at him. He missed Gunner and hit the car in the other lane. Kingston reacted with precision and ran the biker into the concrete wall and sent him flying. That was why he came into the precinct pissed and bloody.”

There was a communal gasp, and then everyone started talking at once.

“Damn it! Who did that? Who ordered the hit?” Cliff asked.

“Kingston suspects it’s the same person who ordered the hit and run on the homeless man who found the body of the Feds’ missing witness. When Gunner left here, he was on his way to Burgess Dixon’s office to confront him. I was not privy to the confrontation, but Dixon kept claiming his innocence until Kingston told him it didn’t matter, and that if anything happened to him now, the cops were coming after Dixon. Even if someone else is responsible, Dixon is going to be their first suspect, and the Feds are just itching to have another reason to arrest him. He’ll either call off the hunt or go down for it.”

The silence that ensued was telling.

Finally, it was Cliff who spoke up, and his voice was noticeably shaking. “I knew Gunner didn’t pull punches, but even I didn’t know he’d have the balls to do that. Damn. So, what happens next?”

“He is officially off duty until we are confident that the contract on him has been pulled. You’ll be working with Detective Rowdy until he comes back. And nobody goes to see him. Nobody calls him. Everybody minds their own damn business. I don’t want to think that I have a dirty cop in our midst, but Kingston is convinced that Dixon had far more information about our business than he should have. I have a meeting with the deputy chief. I will be filling him in on all of this and updating it with the Feds as well. He’ll be back when we see him walking through the door and not before. Understood?”

“Understood,” they echoed, and as soon as the lieutenant left the department, the guesses started flying, until Detective Frankie Adams bolted up from her desk. Her sunglasses were on top of her head, half-buried in a nest of magenta-colored curls, and there was a visible coffee stain on the leg of her pants.

“Shut it! Shut it now! Unless you have an actual fact that you wish to share, we do not tear into our own!”

The room went silent and then returned to a barely audible murmur.

Cliff Beale and Tom Rowdy looked at each other and shrugged, then Cliff began filling him in on the case they’d been working and gave him Gunner’s notes he’d just received to refer to.

* * *

Dixon was in a rage, but there was no one to blame but himself. He’d gone overboard on his desire to tie up loose ends, and it had backfired in a very big way. Not only were the loose ends still hanging, but things were beginning to unravel.

He sent his secretary home, threw a glass of water in Whistler’s face, kicked the bottom of his boot, told him to get up, and then left him on the floor in the outer office, gasping for air and wiping water out of his eyes.

Dixon went back into his office and closed the door, then got on the phone and called off the hit.

“End this today. The hit is off. No money will be forthcoming. Make the calls now, and don’t go to bed tonight until every last one of them has been notified.”

Two words from the voice on the other end of the call: “Message received.”

Dixon ended the call, laid down his phone, and then went to the wet bar and poured himself a double shot of scotch, downing it in one gulp. It had been a long time since he’d been bested, and it was a bitter pill to swallow, but he wanted nothing more to do with Gunner Kingston.

* * *

The Uber driver let Gunner out at his house. He locked the door behind him as he went inside, then sat down and called his dad.

It was loud and raucous inside the Tumbleweed Bar when Jacob’s phone rang. He glanced down, saw it was Gunner calling, and walked through the hall and into their home to answer.

“Hey, son! What’s going on?”

“I want to come home. If that’s okay.”

Something was wrong. Jacob could hear it in Gunner’s voice, but he didn’t let on.

“Of course it’s okay. Your room is always ready. Are you heading this way today or—”