Shielding the Suspect. C.J. Miller

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      Chapter 1

      Six months later

      Brady shifted in his easy chair and stretched his legs in front of him, flexing his foot and rubbing at the pain that shot from his heel to his thigh. His right leg ached when he sat for too long. Sadly, most of what he did involved sitting, as well as thinking and occasionally taking the edge off with a cold beer.

      He had nowhere to go and nothing to do except twice weekly rehabilitation appointments. One of those appointments was with the shrink from the hospital. He dreaded those visits.

      It was late and most televisions stations were showing infomercials. He reached for the remote to change the channel, but stopped when a knock sounded at the door. Who was visiting this late?

      He planned to ignore it and hope whoever it was went away. Instead, keys in the lock jingled and then his brother Harris’s voice called, “Brady?” as the door swung open.

      Brady didn’t want to deal with a family visit right now. “What are you doing here?” he asked, knowing he sounded surly. But that was how he felt. Surly and angry. He didn’t like people dropping by unannounced. Lately, he didn’t like seeing people at all.

      “Oh, my sincerest apologies. Am I interrupting your doing-nothing time?” Harris asked dryly.

      “What do you want?” Brady asked. He wasn’t in the mood for a lecture.

      “Since you aren’t returning your phone calls or emails, you left me the option of finding time away from an undercover operation so I could talk to you about something important.”

      Guilt mushroomed through him. Brady should have returned his family’s phone calls, but he wasn’t ready. He didn’t want them—or anyone—to see him this way. Now he’d forced Harris temporarily off an undercover mission. He’d add that to his list of screw-ups. He shut off the television. “You’re here. Say what you need to say.” Whatever it was, Brady wasn’t going to like it.

      “Reilly is in trouble.”

      Brady hadn’t expected that and he rose to his feet. The words lit a fire under him and for the first time in months, Brady had good motivation to get off his butt. “What trouble?”

      “Reilly was the first responder on a murder scene and he’s been accused of tampering with evidence,” Harris said. “He’s on administrative leave pending an investigation into the matter.”

      Reilly, the middle Truman brother, was a celebrated detective, his recent promotion a reward for the tough cases he’d solved. He would never compromise the integrity of an investigation by hiding or manufacturing evidence. “That’s ridiculous. Why would he tamper with evidence? What idiot would believe something like that?” Brady asked.

      “The mayor believes it.”

      “The mayor?” Brady didn’t like the pompous windbag who served as mayor of Denver, but since when did the mayor insert himself into police business?

      “Since the mayor is in tight with Lieutenant General Ambrose, and it’s his son who is the murder victim—”

      Brady started. “Lieutenant General Ambrose? Justin’s father? Justin’s dead?” Confusion streamed through him. What about Susan? How was she dealing with her fiancé’s death?

      “That’s right, Justin Ambrose. Your favorite person,” Harris said. “The mayor wants the guilty party found and he’s decided the guilty persons are Susan and Reilly.”

      Brady’s blood pressure soared and disbelief tumbled through him. Susan killing someone was more ludicrous than Reilly tampering with evidence. “The police will find the real culprit and then the mayor will look like the idiot he is and eat crow.”

      Harris snorted. “I’d agree if the lead investigator on the case wasn’t a ‘yes man’ jockeying for a promotion and too lazy to do actual police work.”

      “It can’t be that bad,” Brady said.

      Harris held out a folder. “It is. Look at the file.”

      Brady had respect for his brother’s colleagues and had liked the ones he’d met, but every job had its share of incompetents. He opened the file and scanned Harris’s notes. It was bad. “What can I do?”

      Harris sniffed and then wrinkled his nose. “The first thing you can do is call Mom so she can stop worrying about you. Then you need to take a shower, grab a shave, change into clean clothes and rejoin the rest of the world. This place is a dump. Take some pride in yourself.”

      His brother’s comments were justified. Brady felt and looked like crap. He hadn’t had a reason to care. Until now.

      “And once I re-civilize myself?” Brady asked, letting his voice drip with sarcasm.

      Harris nodded at the folder he’d handed Brady. “Read that cover to cover. I’ve kept notes on the case, nothing you can’t read in the news. Justin’s yacht was found covered in his blood and Susan was the last person seen with him. She was at the scene with blood on her hands and clothes.”

      “What? She was where with what?” Incredulity and concern tore through him.

      “Susan was on the boat. Justin’s body hasn’t been found. The ME states with the amount of blood at the scene, Justin couldn’t have survived. The police are looking for a body.”

      Brady closed the file. “She didn’t kill anyone.” He didn’t need to read reports about the case to know he was correct about that. “Was she with Justin when he died? How did she keep herself from being hurt?”

      Harris blew out his breath. “Susan doesn’t remember where she was and she can’t explain what happened or why. She has no signs of a head injury or concussion, and the lab didn’t find anything in her system that suggests she was drugged or sedated. She has no alibi for the night in question. I don’t believe she killed him, but I can’t offer any evidence or theory to the contrary. She hasn’t been charged because Justin’s body hasn’t been found.”

      When Susan was under stress, she shut down. She’d dealt with terrible things from her childhood, like having an abusive alcoholic for a father and an imbalanced mother, by ignoring them and pretending as if nothing was wrong. As an adult, Susan’s coping methods were better. She’d pour her emotions into her artwork, work through the problem and eventually talk about it, but her initial reaction was silence. The one sure way Brady had to get her talking was to get her into bed and let her direct the post-coital conversation. Whether it was the intimacy of the act or that she was relaxed and contented, Susan was most open with him during those times. But her old defense mechanism could be triggered if the situation was desperate enough.

      No way would she hop into bed with him now. Not only had he lost his chance with Susan, she was grieving for her fiancé. “Stress-induced amnesia?” Brady asked, wanting Harris’s opinion.