Singularity Read Free Page B

back onto the highway, Stevens pulled a crinkled wrapper from a small plastic bag near his feet. Carefully, he drew out a dripping sausage-and-egg croissant and bit into it wholeheartedly. Sullivan watched him in mild horror as grease and bits of processed flour dribbled down the other man’s dimpled chin.
    Stevens finally glanced over at him, and narrowed his eyes. “What?”
    “That shit will kill you,” Sullivan said before looking back to the rain-slicked road.
    “What else am I going to eat?”
    “Something healthy.”
    “Okay, smart-ass. What, pray tell, is healthy at a gas station?”
    Sullivan smiled and shrugged. “Boiled eggs, jerky, string cheese, apples, oranges, protein shakes—”
    “Oh, fuck you,” Stevens said, and bit another mouthful off the drooping sandwich. “Better than not eating anything,” he retorted.
    Sullivan smiled and picked up his coffee, sipping at the steaming opening in the plastic top.
    The two agents rode in silence for several miles, save for the incessant patter of rain on the roof and the hissing of the tires. Stevens finished his croissant and balled up the wrapper before tossing it into the plastic bag. After sipping his coffee, he turned toward the younger agent and furrowed his brow.
    “So what do you think?”
    Sullivan glanced at him before looking back at the road. “I think we might have a gang retaliation. I’m guessing Alvarez was set to testify against someone higher up for a plea. That someone got to him before he could.”
    Stevens scratched a piece of dry sunburned skin from his cheek. “Dirty prison officer?”
    “That’s just my guess. You?”
    “I’ll hold my tongue till we see the crime scene.”
    Sullivan nodded. Stevens was right. There would be no way to tell exactly what happened until they were knee-deep in the death itself. Even then it might be difficult to extract any inkling of a suspect.
    “Rain just won’t quit.” Barry’s voice broke Sullivan out of his reverie. He looked over at the older man, who stared out of the passenger window. “I’ve never seen this much rain in my life.”
    Sullivan nodded. “They’re saying Duluth is headed for over a hundred million dollars of repair. Hopefully we can make it into Singleton.” Stevens shifted in his seat and continued to stare out of the window. Sullivan examined his friend, and finally brought his eyes back to the road. “I’m guessing you heard about it?”
    Barry turned toward him, studied him for a moment, before shaking his head. “I just heard the bare bones of what happened, that Richardson is still in the hospital.”
    Sullivan rubbed his right eye and took another sip of coffee. “Yeah, he’s got a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain. He’s not awake yet, but they’re saying he’s going to be fine. He looks terrible. I went to see him yesterday.” Sullivan paused. “We went out to see about a witness, maybe a suspect on that shooting a few weeks ago in the southern part of the county. Woman and guy were blown almost in half by a shotgun in a trailer just outside of Littleton . Looked like a drug hit. Money was gone and everything was torn apart. I called that informant, Maxwell, I use sometimes. He told me that this guy named Todd Lemanski ran with both of the deceased on a regular basis, and that he had a house a few miles from the crime scene.”
    Sullivan flicked the lever for the high beams, as the sky darkened further and night seemed to fall instead of the expected dawn. The rain pelted down harder, creating a cacophonous symphony around them.
    “Richardson and I went out there to ask him a few questions and walked into a nice little meth lab. Lemanski must’ve been brewing the shit for years. There was enough stuff in there to light up half of the state. We saw all this through a window as we were knocking, and Richardson spots Lemanski making a run for it toward the back door. He goes in through the front and draws. I ran around the opposite side of