Page 83 of The Liar

He raised his weary eyes. “There were some noises above earlier. Kind of a quiet thumping. I didn’t think much of it. I assumed they were having sex or reorganizing the place. It didn’t last long, so I let it go.”

That must have been when the perp was ransacking Portia’s apartment. But had it been Hanson, or someone else?

“Nothing else disturbed you? Or do you recall seeing anyone you didn’t recognize in the building?”

He started to shake his head but then stiffened. “Wait. I did hear what I’d thought was a car backfiring. It woke me, but I fell back asleep pretty quickly.”

My breath caught. Gunshots could be mistaken for a car backfiring. “Do you have any idea what time that was?”

“I’m not sure.” He scrunched his face up, thinking hard. “Maybe an hour before the paramedics showed up at my door.”

Shit. We’d been at the apartment a good while beforethe paramedics had arrived, so if he was right, then Hanson must have been shot shortly before we got there.

“Am I safe?” he asked, catching his lower lip between his teeth. “Should I leave?”

“If you lock your door and shut the window, I don’t see any reason for you to be concerned. We’ll have a police presence in the building to keep an eye on things, so you should be able to get another few hours of sleep in safety.”

Assuming he could calm his mind for long enough to fall asleep. There was every chance that would be asking too much of him, given what had happened.

He deflated. “Okay, thanks. Is there anything else you want to know?”

I rose to my feet. “Not right now, but someone will be by to take your statement when it’s light out.”

He followed me to the door and waited while I left. I paused in the corridor and the lock clicked into place. I walked over to the next door, debating whether to knock. They might have heard something useful, but it felt like a waste of time canvassing the building when I should be out searching for Portia—and hunting down the bastard that shot my partner.

My phone rang, saving me from deciding. I accepted the call and raised the phone to my ear.

“Jo?” It was West.

“I’m here,” I told him.

“Zeke got back to me with something interesting. Are you alone?”

I looked both ways down the corridor, a bad feeling creeping up my spine. “Yes. Why?”

“According to Zeke’s intel, Sewell isn’t on duty.”

I frowned. “Okay, so maybe he got called in on his time off.”

“If he did, Dominguez wasn’t the one to make the call.She’s been trying to organize a pair of detectives from the Missing Persons unit to take over the case.”

My stomach hardened. “But we haven’t seen anyone from Missing Persons.”

“Because she hasn’t managed to assign a team yet,” he replied, as if he’d expected that response. “She’s having difficulty getting anyone to answer the phone. There’s something else.”

I rested my back against the wall and lowered my spare hand to my holster. The hairs on my arms were standing up. Something felt very wrong. “What?”

“Detective Sewell’s older brother, Dirk, is a former Marine Corps sniper.”

I sucked in a breath. “Shit. He’s been discharged?”

“Dishonorably, after a female colleague accused him of sexual assault.”

My mind raced. I ran through the facts. Sewell was here under false pretenses. His brother was a military-trained sniper. West’s father and Detective Neal had both been killed by a skilled sniper.

“Is he in Chicago?” I asked, even though I suspected I knew the answer.

“His last known address is an apartment near Sherman Park, which he shares with his brother.”

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