Roses Are Red Read Free Page A

as those murdered in Silver Spring, Maryland. They lay motionless, spread-eagled on the floor. He was quite sure that they were dead, but he checked the vital signs, anyway. Their features were unbearably contorted and their bodies twisted. They looked as if they had fallen from a great height.
    “To perfect crimes,” the Mastermind intoned over the grotesquely sprawled bodies.

Chapter 7
    I TRIED TO CALL CHRISTINE early the next morning, but she was screening her calls and wouldn’t pick up. She’d never done that to me, and it stung. I couldn’t get it out of my head as I showered and dressed. Finally, I went to work. I was hurt, but I was also a little angry.
    Sampson and I were out on the streets before nine. The more I read and thought about the Citibank robbery in Silver Spring, the more troubled and confused I was about the exact sequence of events. It didn’t make sense. Three innocent people had been murdered —
for what reason?
The bank robbers already had their money. What kind of cruel and twisted sickos were they? Why kill father and child and the family’s nanny?
    It turned out to be a long and consistently frustrating day. Sampson and I were still on the job at nine that night. I tried calling Christine at home again. She still wasn’t picking up, or maybe she wasn’t there.
    I have a couple of tattered black notebooks filled with names of street contacts. Sampson and I had already talked to more than two dozen of the prime ones. That still left plenty for tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. I was pretty well hooked into the case already. Why kill three people at the bank manager’s house? Why destroy an innocent family?
    “We’re dancing around something,” Sampson said as we drove through Southeast in my old car. We had just finished talking to a small-time hustler named Nomar Martinez. He knew about the bank robbery in Maryland, but not who did it. The late, great Marvin Gaye was singing on the car radio. I thought of Christine. She didn’t want me out here on these streets anymore. She was serious about it. I wasn’t sure if I could quit being a detective. I liked my job.
    “I had that same feeling with Nomar. Maybe we should have brought his ass in. He was edgy, afraid of something,” I said.
    “Who’s not afraid of something in Southeast?” Sampson asked. “The question remains. Who’s gonna talk to us?”
    “How about that ugly mutt there?” I said, and pointed toward the street corner we were approaching. “He knows everything happening around here.”
    “He spotted us,” Sampson said. “Shit, there he goes!”

Chapter 8
    I SPUN THE STEERING WHEEL hard to my left. The Porsche skidded toward a stop, then hopped the curb with a jolting
thud.
Sampson and I jumped out and started to run after Cedric Montgomery.
    “Stop! Police!” I yelled at him.
    We shot down a narrow, twisted alley behind the small-time enforcer and all-around tough guy. Montgomery was a source of information, but he wasn’t a snitch. He just knew things. He was in his early twenties; Sampson and I were both a whisker past forty.
We worked out and we were still fast —
at least in our minds.
    Montgomery could really move, though. He was a blur up ahead of us.
    “He’s just a sprinter, sugar,” Sampson huffed. He was at my side, matching me stride for stride. “We’re good for the long haul.”
    “Police!” I yelled again. “Why are you running, Montgomery?”
    Sweat was already forming on my neck and back. The perspiration was dripping down from my hair. My eyes were burning.
But I could still run. Couldn’t I?
    “We can take him,” I said. I accelerated, turned up my jets. It was a dare — a challenge to Sampson, a game we’d been playing for years.
Who can? We can.
    We were actually gaining some on Montgomery. He looked back — and couldn’t believe we were right behind him. Two freight trains on his tail, and there was no way for him to get off the track.
    “Put it in