Dead Drop by Jack Patterson (reading cloud ebooks txt) 📕

Chief Roman scuttled Kittrell’s Friday evening plans when he leaned on him to produce some results. Quinn threatened to crawl out of bed and assist Kittrell by reviewing the files, but Kittrell insisted his partner remain at home resting. Catching Quinn’s nasty bug would slow down Kittrell, and that was something the chief explained wouldn’t be tolerated.

Their brief successful capture of Wayne Geller left Chief Roman craving a win—a big win. He wanted to solve the case on the robbery that left Sid Westin dead and gain some closure for all parties involved. Everyone on the force united around this desire, but it wasn’t translating into finding another person involved in the robbery. Or even solid leads for that matter.

Kittrell had spent a good portion of his Friday night combing through surveillance footage in the surrounding area and digging through Geller’s phone records to uncover a connection to the other robbers. But he’d come up empty. All the numbers Geller called from the phone he had with him were to burner phones. It was nearly impossible to link them to another person—and Kittrell was finding this to be true.

Once he reached his desk and began sucking down his Starbucks, Kittrell tried to think of any ways to identify and locate any of Geller’s accomplices. Old girlfriends, former employers, relatives, bar haunts—they’d all resulted in nothing significant. His ideas were drying up fast.

A knock on the side of his cubicle brought him out of his personal doldrums.

“Detective, I’ve got something you might be interested in,” said Woody Franks, a fellow detective, as he tossed an envelope with the name Phil’s Paint Shop scrawled on the front onto Kittrell’s desk. “Some guy dropped this off at the front desk. Said you’d requested the footage from his surveillance camera and he was out of town until last night.”

Kittrell picked up the envelope and dumped out the flash drive. “Did he say what was on it?”

Franks shrugged. “I’m just relaying a message, but not that I know of. He didn’t know what we were looking for, did he?”

“Thanks, Franks. I’ll take a look at it.”

“Chin up, Kittrell. Roman’s feeling the heat right now, but he’s a realist. He won’t hold it against you forever.”

Kittrell looked down at his desk. “That’s not helping.”

“Better you than me.” Franks winked. “Later.” He disappeared around a corridor.

Kittrell sat still for a moment and then got up and wandered down the hall in search of someone on the forensics team to help him dissect the evidence. He couldn’t even remember where this business was, but he figured it must’ve been important if he put in a request for security camera footage. After fifteen minutes of wandering the halls looking for help, he gave up and found a studio to examine what was on the drive himself.

“I’ve seen them do this a thousand times,” Kittrell muttered aloud. “I’m sure I can figure this out.”

In less than five minutes, the computer started to whirr. Kittrell jammed the flash drive into an open USB port and started clicking. He found the digital time stamp that aligned with the time the robbery occurred. The images jutted by on the screen for several minutes, yet nothing appeared to be significant. At least, not yet anyway.

Then a flash on the screen—and Kittrell froze. He backed up the footage and slowed it down to make sure what he saw was actually happening. He paused on a frame showing a white van pulling into a discreet garage entrance in a back alleyway behind the business. Zooming in on the license plate, he wrote it down on a sticky note and rushed back to his desk to check his files. He dug out some of his files and located the report about Sid Westin’s white van. The license plate numbers matched.

He’d done this a thousand times, but his heart always started racing when he collected a piece of evidence that could help him catch a perp. Rushing back to the studio, he opened a web browser and searched for the address of Phil’s Paint Shop. He needed to determine the approximate location affiliated with the garage entrance.

“Gotcha!” Kittrell yelled. He scratched down the street name and number on a sticky note again and sprinted back to his desk. He re-read the address back to himself: 860 Harrison Street.

He started to dial Chief Roman’s number to tell him that they needed to get a SWAT team over there—or at least a forensics team to comb the place. But as Cal was dialing the number, he heard dispatch squawk something on the scanner that made him freeze.

We’ve got a possible 187 reported at 860 Harrison Street. Requesting assistance.

Kittrell glanced down at his note. The addresses matched.

He didn’t waste any time. He grabbed his keys and jacket before sprinting out the door to his car. As a frequent patron of nearby favorite pizza joint, Serious Pie & Biscuit, he knew the area well. It wasn’t any more than a ten-minute drive even in rush hour traffic.

As he drove, Kittrell hoped against hope that it was a mistake, that perhaps he got it wrong and the address was 840 or 850. He’d been wrong before, but not often—yet he’d never wanted to be so wrong in his life.

When his car skidded to a stop in the alleyway behind the store, he didn’t bother to shut the door as he got out and ran toward the flashing lights. Two cars had beat him to the scene, and all the officers had their guns drawn.

“Come check this out,” one of the officers shouted.

Kittrell rushed inside the garage and flashed his badge at one of the other officers. He scanned the area and couldn’t believe what he saw. Three bodies were scattered throughout what appeared to be a staging area for the robbers.

He couldn’t be sure what happened, but he tried to cobble together a theory. Given that the men lying dead around the room were indeed