Good Night, Gracie

“Just do it,” Zach muttered to himself, hating any kind of procrastination. He believed in taking action, no matter what the consequences. That philosophy had saved his life on more than one occasion.

But as he started to type Gracie’s name, a pop sounded from the computer and the screen went black, leaving him in total darkness. He rose from the chair and flipped up the light switch on the wall. Nothing. The electricity was off. What he didn’t know yet was the reason why. A simple power failure or something more sinister?

Pulling his gun from his shoulder holster, Zach moved into the hallway. He didn’t have a flashlight on him, but he knew the house well enough to navigate his way through the darkness and into the living room. Once there, light from the street lamps shone through the large picture window, illuminating his path. He could see the shadow of the bloodstain on the carpet where Ray had fallen—a daily reminder of how much was at stake in this investigation.

He cocked the gun, then moved into the kitchen. Two voices, both male, emanated from the garage. Zach stopped when he heard a door open into the house and leaned back against a cupboard.

“Yeah, it sucks, but at least we get overtime,” said one of the men.

“Does overtime include the last four hours we spent at the bar watching the Red Sox?” asked the other.

“Hey, I’ll earn a lot more than that if the Sox can win that thing. I’ve got a couple hundred bucks on ’em.”

Zach holstered his gun. He recognized the voices and knew he wasn’t in any danger. They belonged to the department’s technicians, Shawn Foy and Jason Billings. Now he just had to find out what the hell they were doing here.

As the two men rounded the corner, the beam of a flashlight landed directly on Zach. They both jumped in surprise when they saw him.

“Damn,” Shawn exclaimed. “You scared the crap out of me, Maddox.”

“The lights were all off,” Jason said. “We thought the house was empty.”

“You were wrong.” Zach held one hand in front of his face to shadow it from the beam. “Turn that thing another direction before you blind me. Did you two shut off the electricity?”

“Sure did,” Shawn replied. “We’ve got orders from Brannigan to close up the house and pack up all the equipment—including the computer.”

Thomas Brannigan was Zach’s commanding officer and in charge of the Holloway case. Aveteran detective, he worked strictly by the book, which had caused more than a few skirmishes between the two of them. But he’d never done anything behind Zach’s back before.

“Do you always work in the dark?” Zach asked, looking between the two of them.

Jason scowled. “It’s not my fault. Shawn here thinks I’ll turn on the ball game and leave him to do all the work.”

“I don’t think it, I know it,” Shawn quipped. “That game was going into the fourteenth inning when I finally dragged him out of the bar. It’s not worth losing my job over.”

But Zach, once a rabid Red Sox fan, hadn’t cared much about baseball over the past three months. All he cared about right now was solving this case. “Brannigan didn’t say anything to me about moving the operation.”

“We’re not moving it,” Jason said. “We’re shutting it down.”

Zach stared at him. “Like hell.”

Shawn moved past him. “Sorry, Maddox, but we’ve got our orders. If you don’t like it, you’ll just have to talk to the boss. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner I can get back to the game.”

Zach followed them into the small office and watched them unplug all the cables from the computer. He couldn’t believe this was happening. Adding to his irritation was the fact that he hadn’t gotten a chance to reply to Gracie’s e-mail.

Certain there had to be a misunderstanding, Zach left the house and drove to Brannigan’s home. The trip from Holloway’s home on the south side of Boston took almost an hour. It was only when Brannigan answered his door wearing a robe and a scowl did Zach consider that he should have called first.

“Why the hell are you banging on my door at this time of night?” Thomas growled. “It sure as hell better be an emergency. My wife and kids are trying to sleep.”

“We need to talk.”

“Now?”

“It won’t take long.”

Brannigan’s scowl deepened, but he opened the door wider and waved Zach inside. “Make it quick.”

Zach crossed the threshold, almost tripping over a stuffed teddy bear in the foyer. Brannigan had four kids under the age of ten, a fact that was evident everywhere Zach looked. The toys littering the floor. The family pictures covering the wall. The cookie crumbs on the coffee table.

A sharp contrast to Zach’s place, which barely had any furniture. Just a sofa, a bed, and a thirteen-inch television set. Not that he minded the Spartan environment, since he didn’t spend much time there anyway.

“Well, get to it.” Thomas tossed a Barbie doll off the sofa cushion before taking a seat.

“I heard a rumor that you’re shutting down the Holloway case.”

“It’s no rumor,” Thomas replied. “You know as well as I do that this case has reached a dead end. We can’t afford to waste any more time on it.”

Waste time? Zach was certain he couldn’t be hearing him right. “So we just forget about it? Forget that Ray will never walk again? Forget that the scum who shot him is still out there somewhere?”

Brannigan’s face hardened. “I’ll never forget what happened to Ray. But you’ve been pushing the boundaries with this case ever since Ray got shot. I’ve given you some leeway, because he was your partner, but enough is enough. There are other cases to solve—other perps who need to be apprehended.”

Zach rifled a hand through his hair, grappling for a way to change Brannigan’s mind. His boss was a stubborn Irishman, but even he had to know this was a big mistake.

“You look like hell,” Thomas said, scowling at him. “When was the last time you shaved?”

“Why the hell does it matter? I’ve been busy.”

“You’ve been obsessed,” his boss countered. “I tried to call you at home tonight to give you the news about the investigation, but I had to leave a message on your machine. You were sitting in front of that damn computer at the Holloway house again, weren’t you?”

“That’s my job,” Zach reminded him.

“Don’t give me that crap,” Thomas spit out. “You’re not on duty twenty-four hours a day. You’ve lost weight and look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

“Maybe if you worried as much about this investigation as you do about my appearance, we’d have found Gilbert Holloway by now.”

Thomas slowly rose to his feet. “I’ve about had it with your attitude, Maddox. Don’t push me.”

But Zach didn’t back off. “Hell, somebody’s got to do it if we’re ever going to find the bastard who shot Ray.”

Thomas stared at him, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “I think it’s time you took a vacation.”

“I don’t need a damn vacation. I just need to work this case.”

“That’s not going to happen. You’re off the case and off the force for the next thirty days. Effective immediately.”

His words were like a sucker punch to the gut. “You’re suspending me?”

“Call it a mandatory vacation,” Brannigan replied. “There’s more to life than the job, Zach. You’re going to burn out at this rate. You need to find yourself a beach somewhere in the Caribbean and start hunting for women instead of criminals.”

He recognized that obstinate glint in Brannigan’s green eyes. The man wasn’t going to change his mind. Zach had gone too far this time.