Page 14 of Nobody's Fool

I scream as I crash to the ground.

I don’t know if I should try to fight my way out of this, but I distantly recall my police training on dog attacks. If you’re already down on the ground, stop moving. Curl in a ball and cover your neck and head with your arms. I do that now, go into a protective shell, my phone still in my hand.

The dogs are on me now, surrounding me. The barking has stopped. They are low-growling, staring at me with black eyes and bared teeth. They look ready to pounce. I stay very still and wait. It is, to put it mildly, terrifying.

Then a man shouts, “Down!”

The growling stops immediately. The dogs’ teeth vanish. Their tails wag as they back away. I risk a look and see the silhouette of two men standing near me. One of them is pointing a gun in my direction.

I blink up at them and say, “I’m sorry for the intrusion. I was just taking a walk and got lost.”

“Were you now?” one of the men, the smaller one, replies, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Get up.”

I manage to lift myself up and move back onto the edge of the grounds. Yep, two men. The bigger one, the one with the gun, has a moon-shaped head, complete with old-zit craters.

“Nice place,” I say.

“Who are you?”

“I’m a cop.”

“Can we see your badge?”

“Ex-cop actually.”

“An ex-cop hiking in the dark on private property,” Smaller Guy says. “Is that what you’re telling us?”

I try a smile. “Well, I have had a bit to drink,” I say, hoping that explains it. His face tells me that it doesn’t explain a damn thing. Gun Guy looks at Smaller Guy and nods. Smaller Guy takes out his phone.

“Spell your name,” Smaller Guy says to me. I do. Gun Guy keeps the gun on me while Smaller Guy types into what I assume is his phone’s search engine. While he does, Gun Guy strolls over to me and, without the slightest warning, punches me deep in the stomach with his free hand. The air whooshes out of me. I drop yet again to my knees, trying to gather a breath.

Gun Guy grabs me by the hair. “Can’t leave us alone, can you?”

I try to gather a breath. Gun Guy looks back at Smaller Guy. Smaller Guy says, “Sami Kierce, ex-NYPD detective, fired for endangering civilians and incompetence.”

Gun Guy still has his hand in my hair. “Who hired you, Sami?”

I shake my head, the breath finally returning. “No one,” I manage.

“One way or the other,” Gun Guy says, “you’re going to tell us why you’re here.”

I decide to go with something close to the truth. “I’m an old friend of Anna’s.”

I check their faces for a response, but the lighting makes it difficult to see expressions. I am still on my knees. He still grips my hair.

“I could just shoot you,” Gun Guy says. “What do you think, Tee?”

“Hmm.” Smaller Guy Tee is reading off his phone, his face aglow from the screen. “Whoa, check this out. This is the guy who messed up the Burkett case.” He looks up at me. “Do you know we’re friends with the Burketts?”

I say nothing.

He looks back down at his phone. “Kierce here was fired for violating police protocol. Multiple times, it says here, including the Burkett case. Being sued up the wazoo for putting a civilian in the hospital. Lots of his arrests are now being challenged, including—get this—the murder of his own fiancée. Described as erratic and dangerous.” Smaller Guy Tee looks up from the phone and grins. “Yeah, we could definitely kill him and claim self-defense. I mean, he’s erratic, dangerous—and trespassing.”

“Right,” Gun Guy says. “Exactly. Oh, and guess what? I have another gun on me. Untraceable.”

Smaller Guy Tee is warming up to this. “So we just say he pulled it on us. Our word against the word of a dead man.”

“Yes. And once we shoot him—once he’s dead—we can put the gun in his hand. Fire it even, so he has powder residue.”

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