Maybe he’d just taken a little cash or a spare laptop to look the other way.
But the prickle was telling him that this was no mistake. It wasn’t a fuckup.
It was a setup. And King Tut was only part of it.
Carmichael shrugged. “Your prints on that piece, kid. Your word against mine. You’ve got a bright future. I knew that first time I met you. But you can’t do the job alone. You need friends, people you can trust. Can I trust you, Turner?”
The prickle racing over Turner’s skull turned to the crackle of wildfire. If he was involved with Tuttle and the robberies, why not get rid of him quietly?
Why bring Turner here to witness the shoot?
Turner saw it all then. Car hadn’t just chosen him as cover because he was Black. He’d chosen him because Turner was ambitious—so hungry to get ahead, he could be nudged. He could be used. Tuttle’s dead body was Carmichael’s chance to bring Turner into the fold. Two birds with one stone.
Once Turner wiped the gun and wrapped Tuttle’s finger around that trigger, once he repeated Carmichael’s lies, he would belong to Big Car.
“You set this up. You set me up.”
Carmichael looked almost impressed. “I’m watching over you, kid. I always have. There’s no big decision to make here. Do the smart thing and you’re on the fast track, my heir apparent. There will be nothing in your way.
Or try to play hero and see how far it gets you. I have a lot of friends, Turner.
And it won’t just be you who feels the heat from this particular burn. Think about your mama, your granddad, how proud they are of you.”
Turner tried to understand how he’d walked into a pile of shit this big.
Why hadn’t he seen trouble coming this time? Or had he just gotten complacent? He’d been waiting for disaster so long, he’d gotten too used to fear. His alarms had tripped so often, he’d started ignoring them. And now he was crouching by a dead body, being threatened by a man who could destroy his career with a whispered word, who wouldn’t think twice about
hurting the people he loved if he wronged him. He was about to cross a line into a country he didn’t want to know. He would never find his way home.
“I don’t want to do this,” Turner said. “I’m … I’m not a criminal.”
“Neither am I. I’m a man doing his best in a tough situation, just like you.
Doing wrong doesn’t make you wrong.”
But it might. Turner wasn’t stupid enough to believe this would be the last favor, the last lie. This was only the beginning. Car would always have more friends and better connections. He’d always be a threat to Turner’s family, his career. Do the wrong thing and he’d keep rising, so long as he kept Car’s secrets, followed his commands. Do the right thing and he’d tank his career and put his family in Carmichael’s crosshairs. Those were his choices.
“That kid you killed,” said Turner. “That was a bad shoot, wasn’t it?”
“He wasn’t a kid. He was a criminal.”
“So you know your way around. You’re not going to let us get jammed up with some amateur-hour bullshit.”
“I’ve got you.”
There was Turner’s answer, loud and clear. He’d been on one side of the law and now he was firmly planted on the other. How long had it taken?
Thirty seconds? A minute?
“You’re one of the good ones,” Car said, his eyes kind. “You’ll come back from this.”
“You’re right,” said Turner, taking his first steps away from the rules he’d always understood and abided by. He didn’t know if he’d come back from this. But Car wouldn’t.
Turner rose and shot Chris Carmichael twice in the chest.
Big Car didn’t even look surprised. It was like he’d always known, like he’d been waiting just the same way Turner had for something bad to happen.
He didn’t so much fall as sit down and then slump to the side.
Turner wiped the piece clean just as Car had told him to. He tucked it into Tuttle’s hand, fired another shot so the gunshot residue would at least seem plausible, though there was so much flying around this crime scene, the forensics would be shit anyway.
He heard sirens shrieking, tires squealing, officers shouting to each other as they surrounded the building.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to Delan Tuttle. “He’ll be a hero.”
He couldn’t fight the tears that came. That was okay; the officers arriving would think he was crying for Big Car, his partner, his mentor. Chris Carmichael, the legend.
I’ll play until they get tired of playing—that was the promise he’d made himself. He was a good detective and no one was going to tell him differently.
No matter how much shit they made him walk through, no matter how much blood he got on his hands.
Only then did he realize that sense of foreboding was gone. No prickle.
No fear. They’d done all they could to him.
He closed his eyes, counted to ten, listened for the sound of boots on the stairs. The sirens faded until all he could hear was the sound of his own breathing, in and out. The rain had stopped.
