High Risk by G.K. Parks (books for 10th graders TXT) 📕

“It’s not great.”

“Shoulder too?” he asked.

“I’ll be okay.”

Emma washed her hands and removed the bandage at my neck. “It looks like everything’s healing. The internal stitches should melt away in a few more days.” She turned to Brad. “You don’t look so good either. What did you two do after I left? I thought you were going to make sure Liv took it easy. I hope you didn’t have her up all night working on some stupid case. She’s supposed to be resting, Bradley.”

“Em,” I warned, “leave him alone.”

Brad gripped the counter, internally debating with himself for a moment before speaking. “I’m not the reason she looks like that. I didn’t aggravate Liv’s injury and guilt-trip her into not taking her medicine. But I guess that’s okay since you don’t have to listen to her groan and whimper all night.”

“Liv, what’s he talking about?”

“Nothing.”

Emma swallowed. “The hairbrush. Shit. I thought you said you were okay.”

“I guess not.”

Emma examined the wounds again. “I’m sorry, Liv. This never should have happened.”

Brad’s cheek twitched, and he turned back to the stove. This was eating him up inside, and no matter what I said, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. He knew the truth, but until the bastards were in custody, my partner would continue to blame himself.

Emma replaced that bandage with a fresh one. “On a scale of one to ten, what’s your pain level?”

“I don’t know. A five.”

She gave me a look. “Which would translate to an eight.” She reached for the prescription bottle. “Take these as directed. Less if you can handle it, but only if you can handle it.” She gave Brad a look. “Happy?”

“Nope.” He finished making breakfast burritos, rolled them up, and put them on plates. He put one down in front of me and the other in front of Emma. He wrapped a napkin around his. “I gotta get ready for court. I’ll be back tonight. If anything pops up, Voletek knows to call you. I’ll try to get a progress report and see what I can find out.”

“Okay.” I gave him an encouraging smile. “Have fun testifying.”

He snorted. “Yeah, right.”

He disappeared out the front door, and I locked it behind him. I stared at the maps taped to the back of my door for a moment, wondering when these killers would strike again. Ballistics indicated two shooters. That meant we had two killers. Diego Eisner and Gravelly Voice. Up until now, I believed Carter Moore hadn’t killed anyone, but that would change. The ringleader would make sure of it. Their next hit would come with a body count. They might plan a perfect escape, but they weren’t planning a perfect crime. The man in charge liked to kill. He proved it with Jonathan Gardner, and based on the message he wrote in my blood, he now wanted to kill cops.

When I didn’t return to the table, Emma stepped into the hallway. “Liv, I didn’t know. You could have called me last night or made a run to the hospital to get things checked out. If I’d known you were in that much pain—”

“Don’t worry about it.” I took the maps off the door and spread them out on the coffee table. I didn’t tell Emma what I was doing and left the whiteboard turned to the profiles so she wouldn’t realize what case I was working on. As far as she knew, these were the facts Logan had wanted Brad to expound on for court today. “You didn’t mean to hurt me.” But someone did. And I had to do everything in my power to make sure he didn’t hurt or kill someone else.

“You need to eat, especially with those pills.” She brought my plate into the living room. “How much sleep did you get last night?”

“Not enough, but I can’t lie down right now. It helps to focus on something else.”

“What are you focusing on? What is this?” She sat down on the couch, and Gunnie jumped up beside her.

“It’s a clusterfuck of a case.” I reached for the burrito and took a bite. It’d be next to impossible to work with Emma watching my every move, but I knew they’d strike soon. It’d been too long. They stole the police uniforms for a reason. The last time they stole a uniform, they used it the next morning. They weren’t going to wait on this. “Do you mind turning on the TV?”

She searched for the remote while I finished breakfast. “What channel?”

“Flip through the locals. I want to see if there’s any news.”

She stopped on the tail-end of a local morning show, getting distracted by a cooking demonstration. That worked for me. While she and Gunnie watched a woman whisk eggs and chop chives, I sat down at the end of the couch and turned on my computer.

Diego Eisner, I typed his name into the corrections database. Once I had his prisoner number and release date, I grabbed my phone and sent a text to Mac. She called me a few minutes later.

“Hey, Liv, how are you feeling?”

“Okay. Where do we stand?” I asked while Emma watched me out of the corner of her eye. “Any progress on that pet project?”

“I haven’t come up with anything. The guys in homicide have been breathing down my neck for answers. The deep dive on Carter Moore didn’t turn up anything. He hasn’t turned his phone back on. The phone company gave us access to his records, but I haven’t found anything in his texts or calls.”

“No calls from unregistered numbers or burners?” I asked.

“No. The only people who call him are work, family, or his roommate.”

“Nothing else?”

“A few telemarketers, but I ran them too. I got a list of everyone who played