Page 4 of Daybreak

Cliff flashed his light around the area, making sure there weren’t any more surprises up here. Satisfied he wasn’t about to get jumped, he threw out the obvious question. “Hey, Gunner, do you think the old man was telling the truth?”

Gunner glanced at him and frowned. “About what? That he found a body and stole the shoes and socks? Yes. Do I believe he used the phone on the corpse to call it in? Yes. And you and I both know that Freddie Welsh was beaten, tortured, and dead at least a day before he wound up here. I don’t see an old homeless man with nothing but dirt on his hands doing any of that, do you?” Gunner said.

Cliff nodded. “Yeah, right… I wasn’t thinking.”

“Your call to Samuels lasted a while. What else is on your mind besides the job? Who else did you call? Your bookie? We pay attention to the evidence, not the obvious.”

Cliff felt seen. He had called his bookie, and he was looking for the obvious to get this over with.

“So, he didn’t see anyone?” he asked.

Gunner frowned. What the hell is wrong with him? They were standing in the farthest, darkest corner of the upper level. Was he really going to have to explain this like his partner was five?

“Turn off your flashlight,” Gunner said.

Cliff flipped it off, and within seconds, Gunner turned his off, too, putting them both in immediate darkness.

“Can you see me?” Gunner asked.

“Well, hell no,” Cliff said.

Gunner turned his light back on. “Right, and Dan Helford didn’t have a flashlight, and there were no lights on anywhere in this building. He only heard the doors opening…and all he saw were the silhouettes of three men coming in and two men going out. He was a good fifty yards away on the second level, in a warehouse without power. I couldn’t even see your silhouette when I turned off my flashlight, and you were standing less than five feet from me. We’re going down now. You wait for the Feds until they’re on-site and then head back to the station. They’ll bring their own forensics team, and they can call the shots. I’m going to the station to get his statement on record. Did you tell Samuels who the victim was?”

“Yes. He said he’d deal with it,” Cliff said, but he was frowning all the way down.

He and Kingston had been partners for seven years, and the man still scared him a little. He’d just made a fool of himself and lost the last thousand dollars in his savings account, all in one night. If Gunner didn’t kill him for stupidity, his wife would do it for his betrayal.

* * *

An ambulance arrived as Gunner was leaving the premises. He glanced over the Dallas skyline to the east, then down at his watch. Daybreak wasn’t far away, and he knew where coffee and sausage biscuits could be found at this hour of the day.

Less than an hour later, he was walking into the precinct carrying a sack of sausage biscuits and two large coffees.

Frankie Adams, the only female detective in Homicide, was in the hall as he came off the elevator. She saw the food he was carrying and grinned. “Hey, Kingston! You shouldn’t have!”

He glanced at the circus of colors in her spikey hairstyle. “Nice look. Where did they put my witness?”

“I don’t know. Ask Rowdy. The patrol officers handed your guy over to him.”

Gunner called out to the detective coming out of the break room with a coffee cup in his hand.

“Hey, Rowdy! Where did you put my guy?”

“Interrogation room A,” Rowdy said. “He stinks.”

It was the tone of his voice that stopped Gunner. He turned, frowning at the smirk on his face.

“He’s homeless. That means no change of clothes, nowhere to bathe, and no hot coffee. No freaking food to eat,” Gunner said and walked out.

Rowdy glanced down at the coffee he was holding and tried to shrug off the disapproval in Kingston’s voice, but it was unmistakable.

Frankie Adams was not surprised by Kingston’s defense of a homeless guy. For a hardened homicide detective, Gunner Kingston had an unexpected soft side. A shiver of wishful thinking rolled through her as she watched him walking away—admiring his broad shoulders and the way he moved. It was more like stalking…but sexy stalking. Hard case or not, no man should be that hot, that sexy, and unattached. And he was a lookalike for her favorite actor of the moment. Brandon… Brandon something.

“Oh, fudge. I never can remember that man’s name,” she mumbled, grabbed her phone, pulled up Google and typed in, “actor who plays Spencer Dutton on the TV series 1923.” The name Brandon Sklenar popped up. “That’s it. Brandon Sklenar. No wonder I can’t remember his last name. I can’t even pronounce it.” She walked away, still mumbling. “Yeah, he looks like that dude…only better.”

Unaware he was the object of a Frankie Adams fantasy, Gunner stepped into the interrogation room with the coffees and the sack of sausage biscuits, then stopped. Shock followed by pure anger rolled through him. The old man was still barefoot, and still in handcuffs.

“Did they look at your foot yet?” he asked.