Page 61 of Daybreak

Harmon was all eyes as he walked into the place. Gunner Kingston was something of an enigma within the department. Not much was known about his personal life other than he was originally from West Texas, and then the big story about his mother and the armored car robbery she had been involved in before committing suicide.

“Nice place,” Harmon said. “Oh… This is my partner, Jerry Rimmer. So what do you have?”

“I assume you’ve got people checking the area for security footage, but I have some from a few days ago that might interest you. My laptop is set up on the kitchen island. Follow me.”

As soon as they were gathered around him, he opened the laptop. “The time stamp on this was just after 2:00 a.m. I didn’t see any of this until the next morning,” he said and clicked on the video, then stepped aside to give them the better view. “You will see this same blue truck with the headlights off circle this block four times in less than five minutes. The license tag is covered up. That was the first flag. They didn’t want to be identified. Nothing changes about the video on the second trip, or the third trip, but as the truck is coming past my house again, you can see headlights coming at the truck from the other direction. Look! There! That moment when the headlights flash on the windshield just before they pass!”

Harmon leaned down. “Back it up a sec. I want to see it again.”

“I can do better than that,” Gunner said, then clicked a few keys and pulled up the still shot Nora just sent him. “There’s the driver.”

“Damn… How did you—”

“I have a friend with a really good editing app. I asked if it could be made clearer. I got this back just this morning. Good timing, right?”

“Damn, Gunner. Your friend is good. But what made you want to dig deeper in the first place? I mean…besides the hidden tag?”

Gunner shrugged. “Everyone in my department knows this, but I guess they’ve kept it somewhat under wraps. A little less than two weeks ago, someone put a fifty-thousand-dollar bounty on my head. I didn’t know it until the first hit man took a shot at me on the Loop when I was going to work.”

Harmon’s eyes narrowed. “That was you? The dude on the Yamaha?”

“It was me. And my lieutenant immediately put me on leave until they could find out who ordered it. I had an idea. Confronted the bastard. He denied it, but we came to a mutual understanding as to why it would be in his best interests if he called the whole thing off. Then I sort of crawled into a hole and waited for the all-clear signal. That’s why I was so over-cautious about the truck.”

“Good lord,” Harmon said. “No… We didn’t know anything about it. Glad you’re okay.”

“So far,” Gunner said.

“The truck fits the description of one a neighbor caught on their security camera,” Rimmer said.

“Good. If you’ll give me a few minutes, I’ll upload a copy of the video and the still shot to a thumb drive. You can take it with you. Help yourself to coffee if you want. Cups are in the cabinet above the Keurig. Cookies in the cookie jar. I’ll be right back.”

Gunner made a run for his office, grabbed a new stick from the blister pack, and headed back to the kitchen. Both detectives were sipping coffee when he returned. He popped the thumb drive in a port and began the upload, and then the still shot from Nora’s email. As soon as the upload ended, he removed the drive and handed it to Harmon.

Harmon was all smiles. “Man, this is a big break for us. Thank you! We’ll give you cred for the find and upload that still shot into facial recognition. If the dude has a record, we should get a hit.”

“I don’t need cred. Happy hunting,” Gunner said.

“Stay safe, buddy,” Harmon said, and then they were gone.

Gunner sent a quick text to Nora.

It wasn’t who I was looking for, but we just IDed a neighborhood thief. Robbery is on his ass. Thank you for the trouble, sister.

It wasn’t any help for Gunner’s situation, other than knowing the man was not connected to Dixon’s list of hit men.

The next thing on his agenda was to check on Samuels. He called the hospital and got the news that Andy Samuels was in CCU but had been cleared for visitors.

Gunner’s badge was still clipped to his belt; he wouldn’t be carrying a weapon into the hospital, but he wasn’t traveling without it. He put it in the console as he got into the car and drove away.

* * *

It was a morning for chaos in Dallas, as was often the case. Reggie and Linda Townsend lived in a small suite on the lower level of the Dixon mansion. Reggie was the resident caretaker, and Linda was Burgess Dixon’s personal chef. They had been waiting for almost an hour for the boss to come down to breakfast and were beginning to be concerned.

“He’s never late,” Linda said.

Reggie shrugged. “Maybe he just overslept.”

“He could be ill. Or had a fall. You go up and check on him right now!” Linda said.