Knight In Black Leather by Gail Dayton (ebook reader ink .txt) 📕

had nothing to do with the original offense. He didn't want it reaching out to hurt Pete. Or Marilyn.

He heard someone moving behind him, sensed Jackson's presence just over his left shoulder. "When did she die?" Eli asked. "Do you know?"

"Early estimate is between five and six yesterday evening."

So she'd already been dead when he tried to buy Flash off. No wonder he hadn't wanted to deal.

"Why do you ask?" Jackson asked.

"The Flashman gave me till midnight to get him what he wanted." Eli turned around, leaning heavily on his crutch, too tired to move any further. But he couldn't look at her any more.

"What was that?"

"Her kid. A little boy just turned nine."

"You know where he is?"

Eli met Jackson's gaze. "He's safe. His dad took him away someplace safe. Out of Pittsburgh."

Jackson nodded, accepting the fact that Eli wouldn't tell him anymore. "So Dwayne killed her before the deadline was up."

"If the estimate is right."

The cop's eyes narrowed as he looked at Eli. "You're not thinking about anything stupid like payback on our friend Dwayne, are you?"

"No. He's not smart enough to keep from getting caught. Prison time for a guy like Flash is better payback than anything I could do. Besides, something happens to him now, I know who you'd look at first. And I got people still alive to look after."

"The lady out there?" Jackson tipped his head toward the door.

"She's one."

Curiosity evident in every line of his face, Jackson didn't say anything else.

"We done here?" Eli straightened, took his weight back on his good leg getting ready to move.

"Yeah, unless you want to tell me what truck hit you."

"Two baseball bats and a tire iron ran me over." Eli shrugged. "Flash, probably, warning me away. But you can't prove it by me. It was three guys I didn't know."

"We'll need you to make a statement. Maybe we'll find something that will give us a way to Flash."

Eli started toward the door. He needed to get out of here, back to Marilyn. "Later, maybe. I'm tired. We've been up all night."

"So have I." Jackson opened the door for him.

"Yeah, but we're civilians."

"I'll call. We'll want statements from both of you."

"I don't know anything," Marilyn said. "I was only the driver."

"Whatever you know, Mrs. Ballard. It could be more help than you realize." Jackson pulled a crisp white business card from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. "Call me if either of you remembers anything else." He looked hard at Eli while he spoke, like he suspected Eli hadn't told everything he knew.

Which he hadn't, but Jackson didn't need to know that Eli was Pete's dad. Nobody did. Including Pete.

They got to leave the building by the front door, which saved at least half a block of walking. Eli's aching legs were grateful, as was his good arm which kept getting new bruises from the crutch. He'd get rid of the thing, except his broken leg would probably ache worse if he did. And Marilyn would pitch a fit.

The drive back to Marilyn's was punctuated only by yawns. Eli couldn't banish the sight of Teresa's ruined face or her pale, wasted body from his mind. He hadn't killed her. Flash had done that. Teresa's stupidly foolish behavior had made it possible for Flash to get his hands on her. But Eli hadn't done much to stop it.

Eli followed Marilyn silently up to her apartment, aching all over with exhaustion, weighed down even more with regret and sadness. It wasn't quite grief, this weight on him. Given Teresa's lifestyle, early death had been almost inevitable. But not a death like this.

Inside the apartment, Marilyn opened out the sofa bed. "I know I got more sleep than you did, but I'm still exhausted. I vote we pretend it's night and go to bed now."

"Whatever you want." No matter how tired he was, Eli doubted he would sleep. "I'm sorry you saw that."

"So am I." Marilyn paused in the middle of getting pillows from the closet. "And yet, I'm not. I--I think I needed to see her. To understand just how evil this Dwayne Flashman person is."

A smile twitched at Eli's mouth. "I haven't thought of him as Dwayne in years. When we were kids, anybody calling him Dwayne instead of Flash would get a beatin' thrown down on him. And since he was bigger than me most of the time back then, I usually got the shit beat out of me. Pissed him off when I finally started growing."

"You knew each other on the streets?"

"Yeah. He hasn't changed. He was a mean, sick sonofabitch then, and he's meaner and sicker now. But you don't have to worry about him." Eli's leg ached in its cast, but if he sat down, he'd just have to get up again.

Marilyn left the bed and approached him. "Let me help you off with that T-shirt."

"Thanks." Eli raised his good arm and curled his body down so she could reach.

"You think Flash will give up on getting Teresa's son?" she asked, as she expertly whipped the shirt over his head and left arm, leaving him to work it down off the cast.

Did he? "Probably. There's plenty of other kids out there, easier to get hold of."

But then he was sure Flash had killed Teresa the way he did because Fat Fred had died that same way. Flash apparently thought Eli had something to do with the old man's death. Flash hated Fat Fred almost as much as Eli had. But Dwayne "Flash" Gardner was Fat Fred Gardner's son. Father-son things were complicated, and got even more complicated in the circles where the Gardners ran.

"It makes me sick, thinking about that man on the loose," Marilyn said. "Do you think the police can catch him?"

"Yeah, I do." Of course he had his doubts about how quickly they'd manage to do it and whether, once caught, they could keep him in jail. Eli hobbled into the bathroom, peeled out of his jeans, and took care