Watch Your Back Read Free

Which was to Robinette’s advantage. ‘She disarmed the man with the knife, then pinned him till the cops came. She did the same with the second guy, the fighter. The shooter ducked into a white Camry and drove away.’
    Henderson looked reluctantly impressed. ‘She’s only five-three. She must be very skilled.’
    ‘Unfortunately, yes. Which is why I picked you to go after her. You have better skills.’ Specifically an Army sharpshooter badge, amazing recall, a robotic ability to focus, and a cold-blooded tenacity that would put a dog with a bone to shame.
    Back in the day, Henderson had been one of the few soldiers Robinette had trusted to watch his back. That hadn’t changed. What had changed was the flag they fought under. Long ago and far away it had been red, white, and blue. Now, it was a hundred percent green. Benjamins, Lincolns, even Washingtons. Cold. Hard. Cash. It was the only thing that really mattered.
    ‘I need Mazzetti taken care of,’ he continued. ‘And you’re the best marksman I have.’
    Henderson nodded once. ‘True. Why is everyone else after her?’
    ‘Her old partner was on the take, paid by rich parents who wanted the crimes committed by their misunderstood darlings to disappear. He’d plant evidence against innocent people and arrest them for the crimes. He was damn good at it – until he got caught. Now he’s dead.’
    ‘And she was in on it, too?’
    ‘ I think so,’ he lied, ‘but nobody else seems to.’ His life would have been so much easier had she been. ‘They’re after her because she’s trying to “right” all of Silas Dandridge’s wrongs.’
    Cold blue eyes flickered in recognition. ‘Silas Dandridge? I remember that name. An article about him came through my newsfeed when I was in the Sudan, so that would have been March, last year. He worked for that lawyer who controlled a whole team of dirty cops.’
    ‘And ex-cons. Stuart Lippman was an equal opportunity employer, now equally dead.’
    Henderson frowned, pondering. ‘The article said Lippman had it set up that if he died under “suspicious or violent circumstances”, a record of all his operatives and the crimes they’d committed would be sent to the State’s Attorney.’
    No, not all , Robinette thought, but he nodded. ‘That record was Lippman’s life insurance. Kept his operatives from killing him and kept them watching each other, too. If one turned the boss in, all of them suffered.’
    ‘Clever. So why does this one cop have so many enemies if she wasn’t in on it?’
    ‘Because she’s been investigating the Lippman cases. She’s closed four in the last month – three rapists and an armed robber who had innocent men sitting in six-by-eights, paying for their sins. Some folks aren’t happy to see this particular beehive disturbed.’
    ‘Guess not. Three rapists and an armed robber. Busy lady.’
    Robinette shrugged. ‘She’s had some time on her hands.’
    ‘She got fired, then. Guilty by association.’
    I wish. ‘No. There was an IA probe after Dandridge was exposed, but she passed.’ With flying colors, none of which were cold-hard-cash green. She was a cop who couldn’t be bought. ‘She’s on disability leave, shot by one of those crazy Millhouse KKK groupies outside the courthouse.’
    ‘I saw that story on TV. It made international news when I was in Madrid, between assignments. That would have been in December, right before Christmas. Sixteen-year-old girl got pissed because her baby-daddy was found guilty of murder so she started shooting everyone on the courthouse steps. She shot a couple cops. Which one was Mazzetti?’
    ‘The one that killed her.’
    ‘ That was Mazzetti? She nailed the kid right between the eyes, even though she was bleeding like a stuck—’ Henderson abruptly halted. ‘I’m sorry, Robbie. That was insensitive.’
    Robinette shrugged. ‘Just because it was insensitive doesn’t make it less true. We’d already established that Mazzetti’s