Witness Betrayed Page 2

  “Don’t you move, not an inch. Understand me? I will blow your head off if you do.”

  Novak didn’t move. He understood, all right. He rapidly sorted through his options. There weren’t all that many, so he played along, pretty sure he was dealing with the girl in the tan raincoat. He was damn annoyed she’d gotten the drop on him. It was embarrassing to be caught flat-footed in his apartment. He didn’t like it much. He kept his words measured. “I’m not stupid enough to try something with a gun at my head. You got me cold, lady. Put the gun down. You’re not gonna need it. Way I see it is you need my help. So let me help you.”

  Behind him, he could hear her rapid breathing. It was way off the normal range: quick, hoarse, raspy. Worse news, he could feel the slight trembling of the gun barrel now parting his hair, which meant her trigger finger was itchy, too.

  Novak sucked in some fortifying air and steadied himself. He didn’t want to make her nervous. She was nervous enough already. Slowly, he placed the binoculars down on the table beside him. “You’re the woman I saw earlier, right? The one the two guys were after? I saw you watching me. I saw them attack you. I’m the one who put the cops on them.” She said nothing. The gun was still shaking. “It looked like you were in big trouble down there. Why don’t we talk about this? You need to put the gun down before it goes off. It’s making me nervous.”

  “Are you Will Novak?”

  Okay, now that surprised him. She knew his name, and she knew where to find him. Only a few close friends even knew that he owned this building. He was rarely ever there. Her knowledge of his business was not good news. Novak had been around the block a few times, had been hunted and had been the hunter. His enemies were hard-line criminals and didn’t mess around when they wanted him dead. She could be one of them or she could be sent by one of them. His gut told him she wasn’t there to kill him, or she would have pulled the trigger when he was unaware of her presence. The noise on the street probably would’ve drowned it out, and she’d have been home free.

  On the other hand, no way would he take anything for granted. Maybe she was waiting to do it inside where nobody would see her. Whoever she was, she was pretty good. She had sneaked up behind him without him hearing a sound or sensing her presence. That rarely happened to Novak. He was well-trained, well-conditioned, and always aware of possible threats, but she had got him cold. Slowly, he raised his arms out to the side and spread his fingers. He did not want to spook her. She was edgy enough already.

  “Take off the headset. Don’t alert anyone or I will pull this trigger. Please don’t make me kill you. That’s not why I’m here.”

  Glad to hear that, Novak sure as the devil wouldn’t give her reason to shoot him. He obeyed, considering whether he should take her down now or later. It wouldn’t be hard. She was small, she was injured, and she was nervous.

  “Place both hands on top of your head. Do it now.”

  Novak obliged her. She was stressed to the max, her voice weak and trembling. He had no doubt she was either scared of him, perhaps because of his size, or nervous holding a man at gunpoint. Maybe she’d never done it before. But she wasn’t too frightened to confront him in his own apartment with a ton of people right below them, any one of whom could glance up and witness her accosting him. The gun barrel was shoved hard against his head and too unsteady to ignore. He could probably disarm her, and he might have already tried that if she’d had better control of the weapon. Even though she was standing behind him, he knew she was unstable, and that meant the outcome was unpredictable. It wouldn’t take much for that weapon to discharge. It was better to play along until she calmed down enough to listen to reason, and then disarm her.

  So he obeyed and said nothing. The woman reached around and snatched Novak’s loaded Kimber off the table. That’s when he saw the chrome handcuff dangling off her left wrist. The skin beneath the metal was bruised black. That shackle had been clamped on her wrist for a long time. She’d been somebody’s captive. Novak stayed calm. Nothing much rattled him anymore. He’d been caught up in worse predicaments than this one. He sat still, just waited for her to tell him what to do next. She definitely had come to him for a specific reason. She wanted something, all right, but it probably wasn’t his life. More than anything he was irked he’d been blindsided. He’d been caught like a novice. Claire Morgan would get a good gut laugh out of this story when she found out. He sat still and didn’t make any sudden moves. A moment later, the gun pulled back a bit. Novak breathed easier.

  “Okay.” More heavy breathing; her pulse had to be racing. “Stand up slowly and walk backward into the house. Don’t turn around. Don’t try to alert anybody. Don’t try to disarm me. Keep your hands on top of your head. I’m real shaky, I’m warning you.”

  No kidding, Novak thought. Her voice reeked of desperation. On the other hand, the woman appeared to know what she was doing. That could mean she had been trained in law enforcement. He hoped she was acting alone, but he couldn’t be certain of that. There could be an accomplice inside the house behind her letting her do all the talking. There could be a second weapon trained on Novak’s head. Below them, the crowd laughed and drank and moseyed along, unaware of the deadly takedown going on above them. Novak rose slowly to his feet, kept his hands tight atop his head, and stepped around the chair. He made his way backward until he stood just inside the tall louvered French doors. He kept his eyes focused straight ahead. The girl across the street had put her sweatshirt back on. She was not looking in his direction.

  “Get down on your knees. Slow and steady now. Please don’t try anything. I don’t want trouble. I just want to talk to you.”

  “Then go ahead, talk to me.”

  Novak was not going down on his knees. Maybe she wanted to cuff him, maybe she just wanted to get him down before she shot him in the head, but it wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t about to let her prod him with that gun, either. He took a couple of seconds to appraise the situation. She was frightened but knew what she was doing. Her nerves were shot to hell, so anything could happen. She could be in shock from the brutal beating and whatever else those two men had done to her. He had to gain control of the situation before one of them ended up dead. It was time to get answers. He ignored the order to kneel.

  “Okay, lady, you said you wanted to talk. So go ahead. Tell me what you want. I saw you watching me. I saw those two guys come after you. I figure they gave you that black eye and busted lip, so I called in the cops to help you before they could hurt you again.”

  He heard the sound of metal clicking. She was messing around with the handcuffs. Then she said, “I need to cuff you. Please, just do what I say. I don’t know if I can trust you yet. You might be one of them.”

  “Wrong. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know who you are.”

  Novak could see her now; her image was reflected in the antique gold mirror hanging across from them in the dining room. It had been in that spot for almost a hundred years, and the glass was dark and spotted, but he could still see that she was definitely the woman he’d seen across the street. “Listen, lady, I’m not working with those two guys. I’m not going to try anything, so no need to put cuffs on me. Tell me why they hurt you. Let me help you. That’s why you came up here, right? So I could help you?”

  Novak had been guessing at some of that, hoping she’d trust him. The gun barrel moved back a bit and then pressed hard into the hollow at the base of his skull. “Get down on your knees like I told you. Don’t make me shoot. I don’t want to kill you but I will.”

  Her voice was lower and steadier now. He could barely hear her. He was pretty sure she was alone. “Who beat you up?” he asked.

  The pressure of the gun increased. Neither said anything. She was close to losing it; the tension in the room felt palpable. So Novak reconsidered. No way was he going to let her put handcuffs on him. He could spin around easy enough and snatch the weapon out of her hands.
It’d be easier if he was already facing her, but he had disarmed plenty of people who stood behind him. He lunged to the side, spinning low and to his left, but she was ready for the maneuver. She stepped back out of his reach and redirected her weapon to his heart.

  Novak stared at the Luger: chrome, German-made, 9mm, shiny bright with a carved ivory handle that she gripped tightly in her right hand. His .45 was in her left hand. The handcuff now dangled from her little finger. She was still barefoot. Her coat was slightly open in front. She was naked underneath. It looked as if she had been wounded. Blood was dripping down her leg and pooling on his carpet. The hat was gone, and there was a lot of blood soaking into some long and tangled wheat-colored blond hair. She was filthy, and she was trembling all over. Her heavy black eye makeup was smeared down on her cheeks, and her face was bruised worse than he’d thought. She looked in bad shape. She needed medical attention. Her gun hand was shaking back and forth like crazy.

  “You need a doctor,” he told her softly, not moving a muscle.

  She swayed slightly. Her weapon did, too. Her finger was not alongside the trigger the way it should be; it was on the trigger and ready to tug it back if he looked at her wrong. Not good, that. Novak kept his eyes latched on the weapon and then moved his gaze up to her swollen eye. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret. Nobody needs to get hurt here.”

  “Then do what I say. Please, I’m tired, I’m just so tired.”

  Weak but determined, she meant it, all right. She looked tiny standing next to him. Novak stood six feet six inches; he towered over her. At around two hundred forty pounds, he was easily double her weight. Even if she hadn’t suffered from abuse and exhaustion, she couldn’t best him in a fight, not without some major ninja skills. They stared wordlessly at each other. Tension was building, slowly and steadily.

  Then, without any warning, the hall door across from them burst wide open and slammed against the wall behind it. Both Novak and the girl went down into defensive crouches. One of the men chasing her earlier stood in the threshold holding a Glock 9mm with both hands. The intruder and the injured woman with Novak opened fire simultaneously. Novak lunged forward and tackled the woman around the waist and took her down to the ground behind the couch. He grabbed his Kimber out of her hand. She was hit in the arm and bleeding profusely, but the man at the doorway was dead, hit center mass with a double tap, right through his heart.

  Novak didn’t have time to think before the dead guy’s partner showed up in the dining room archway and let loose with a barrage of fire. Novak rolled to the end of the couch and came up firing. He hit the guy in the head and throat, knocking him back into the dining room where he went down, choking on his own blood. Novak stayed low, behind the couch, and waited for number three. Nobody else showed. After a few moments, he took a knee beside the girl. She was on her back, moaning and already half-conscious. Her upper arm near the shoulder was a bloody mess.

  Novak pulled a throw off his couch and wrapped it around her arm as tight as he could knot it, hoping to slow the bleeding until the paramedics showed up. The woman had already lapsed into unconsciousness. He got up and checked out his apartment for more gunmen but found no one. Both assailants were dead. Then he walked out onto the balcony and picked up his headset. The crowd below still moved blithely along, unaware of what had just gone down in his apartment. Either they hadn’t heard the gunfire or thought it was fireworks.

  “This is Will Novak. Requesting ambulance and homicide detectives. Home invasion. Two dead, one wounded. Come down the back alley between Bourbon and Royal. I’ll be there to wave you in.”

  “Got it. What the hell’s goin’ on, Novak?”

  Novak dropped the headset without answering. A siren shrieked on from somewhere down around Canal Street. He hurried back inside and searched through the pockets of the two dead men. He found wallets, keys, and cell phones. He stuffed all of them into his coat pockets. He left everything else in the apartment untouched. The evidence would clearly show that two men had burst inside and attacked them. It was all right there with enough forensic evidence to satisfy any practiced detective. He checked the girl’s arm, realized the bleeding had not slowed down much, and tightened the tourniquet. Then he ran downstairs to the back alley and waited for the shrill sirens to find him.

  Chapter 2

  The ambulance skidded to a stop, spraying gravel on the two NOPD patrol cars coming right behind it. All three vehicles had their sirens shrieking like banshees. The EMTs scrambled out and jerked a gurney from the back. Novak led them quickly upstairs to his apartment, and the medical technicians immediately went to work on the wounded woman. Novak stood back, said nothing, and watched the police clear the house and string crime scene tape across the entrances. Two more patrol cars arrived with flashing lights, and those officers worked to keep Mardi Gras rubberneckers out of the alley. Novak hovered near the woman and answered questions, mostly with the truth: “I have no idea who she is. I don’t know her. I’ve never seen her before.”

  After they were done grilling Novak, they made it clear they were not satisfied with his responses. So he sat down at the dining room table and waited for the homicide detectives to come on scene. That’s when he would really get the third degree. He was the only witness to a double murder and had shot one victim dead himself. Lucky for him, he was acquainted with most of the NOPD detectives, at least by name, and knew several very well. That would work to his advantage and give him leeway with the truth. He knew better than to up and take off, even though he wanted to when the mystery woman was carefully loaded onto the gurney and rolled down to the waiting ambulance. He followed the EMTs, wanting information on her chances.

  “How bad is it?” he asked the female paramedic as she slammed the rear door. She stopped briefly but was in a hurry.

  “Her arm’s chopped up pretty bad but doesn’t look like much bone damage. She’ll be going into surgery as soon as we can get her there.”

  As she walked away, Novak called out to her, “What hospital?”

  She stopped with her hand on the driver’s door. “Charity. We need to get her name. If you know it, you need to tell us. Somebody needs to be notified.”

  “I don’t know, believe me. If I did, I’d tell you. I’d never laid eyes on her until tonight. She showed up here uninvited, and all hell broke loose. Those guys were gunning for her, not me, that’s my take on it. Why, I haven’t a clue. Get going, I’ll come over later and talk to you.”

  Then they were gone, pulsating siren shattering the quiet night. The detectives assigned to the case showed up inside his apartment fifteen minutes later, one right after the other. Novak was pleased to see the lead investigator was Gabriel LeFevres. Gabe was an old friend of Claire Morgan’s and a man that Novak knew fairly well. He would probably take Novak’s word on what happened and trust him to be truthful.

  Frowning, Gabe approached Novak, but he was looking at the blood spatter and the two victims sprawled on the floor in pools of their own blood. He stopped at the door and snapped on plastic gloves and paper booties. He was tall, maybe six feet three inches, Cajun-born in the bayou with black hair and dark skin to prove it. His eyes were big and brown and intelligent. Claire always said Gabe could see right through lies, and she was dead-on. That made him a hell of a good detective. He had started his career in ATF, and his last case there had not been a cakewalk. He had successfully infiltrated and worked undercover inside a notorious motorcycle gang called the Skulls. He had risen up fast to become their leader and survived inside for two years before he brought down every single member of that gang on drug charges. All were still in jail. When he reached Novak, he said, “What the holy hell went down in here, Novak? This looks like a damn war zone.”

  “Yeah, it pretty much was. The girl who got shot? Don’t know her from Adam. She showed up here with a gun, and so did the victims. Never seen her before tonight, Gabe, I swear to God.”

  Gab
e didn’t even try to hide his skepticism. “Don’t give me that shit. You know more than that.”

  Novak wouldn’t have believed himself, either. “Not this time. The woman is a complete stranger. I have no idea who she is or where she came from or why she came up here to see me.”

  Gabe eyed him for a moment. “Okay, then tell me what you do know. Exactly what went down here, and don’t leave anything out. We just talked to the hospital, and the woman’s still in surgery. Preliminary call is she’ll recover. The wound wasn’t as bad as first thought.”

  “Her shoulder looked done for.”

  “Okay, let’s get down to the facts. Your side of this thing. From the beginning.”

  “My side?”

  “There are always two sides. We’ll get hers when she wakes up. You know how this works. You’re a detective.”

  So Novak told him exactly what happened. It didn’t take long, but neither had the shootout. Gabe stood there and listened, hands on his hips, looking as if he didn’t believe a word that came out of Novak’s mouth. Then he did his job. He examined all the blood soaking into Novak’s creaky hardwood floor and the blood spattered on the couch and doors. He looked at the bullet-pocked, blood-spattered wallpaper and gauged all the angles, and then he stood silently and watched the CSI techs gather up spent shell casings while the medical examiner searched through the pockets of the two dead intruders. They found nothing of interest—all of that was in Novak’s possession because he wanted to know who they were before the cops did. Then Gabe came back to Novak and told him to repeat his story again.

  Novak did so, almost verbatim, that being for show, but Gabe remained unconvinced. “So that’s it in a nutshell, huh? Novak, cut the crap and tell me who these guys are and why you’re smack-dab in the middle of another bloody crime scene.”