Cash Burn by Michael Berrier Page A

House. It’s a building people live in.”
    Flip twisted his neck. A faint pop passed through the still air. This convict might bolt. Or fight. Adrenalin pumped through Tom’s veins, flushing away the fatigue.
    Flip didn’t answer.
    “I know you were in there, Convict. I know it. I can see it on your face.” Tom stepped forward. “That’s your third strike. You know what that means. Prison till you die.”
    Flip bent his head forward, looked past Tom to one side of the hallway, then the other. He faced Tom and sneered. It might have been meant as a grin.
    Tom’s palm itched for the handle of his Glock. He angled his body to hide his right arm and unsnapped the strap locking the weapon in place and stepped toward Flip. “You cut the power and found the unlocked door. You were in her room and she knew it. The kid surprised you, didn’t he?”
    Flip’s face relaxed, and laughter burst out. Tom was close enough to smell the rank sourness of his breath.
    Somewhere down the hall behind a closed door, a voice called out telling them to shut up. Flip looked past Tom to see where the voice had come from.
    “What’s so funny, Convict?”
    “Nothing. Nothing’s funny, Officer. I just can’t figure why you keep showing up here.”
    “She knew you were in there.”
    He leaned against the jamb again, and his arms filled the sleeves of his sweatshirt when he crossed them. “Then where’s the LAPD? How come I’m not in a holding cell someplace?” He brought a finger out, and poked Tom’s chest. Tom slapped it away. Flip laughed again. “I’ll tell you why. Because you got nothing. You spend your night spying on me. Show up here at midnight asking your stupid questions. What do you think you’re going to get done here, Officer Cole?”
    “Where were you tonight, Convict?”
    Flip stood and put a hand on the edge of the door. “I was right here in my home , Officer. I was meditating, contemplating my new law-abiding life. And now I’m going to go to sleep because I have to go work at my law-abiding job in the morning. Unless you’ve got any more questions.”
    “I’m going to search your cell.”
    “Knock yourself out.” Flip stepped into the hallway and Tom locked him out.
    The kitchen was no cleaner than it was the last time Tom was here. The bed was still unmade.
    Tom kept seeing the mother’s face—Kathy Russell’s. Minding her own business, trying to raise a son with a few problems, and this convict busts into her house and kills him. The certainty that it was Flip made Tom want to take him in and let him sweat in jail until he got around to scheduling a parole hearing. But he had nothing on him, and Flip would be out again in a few weeks.
    It was maddening. All his training, all his experience told him to stay professional, not to take this personally, but Tom felt his own inability to do anything about the kid’s murder like an accusation.
    He went to the chest of drawers and drew out the top drawer. He dumped its contents on the bed. Clots of socks and underwear rolled out. He dropped the drawer on the floor. The next one held a couple of T-shirts. Those went on the bed too, and the second drawer clattered on the floor.
    Finding nothing only made him angrier.
    The last two drawers were empty, but he pulled them out anyway and ran his hand along the inside of the cabinet. Nothing. He leaned it away from the wall and let it fall to the floor.
    Someone in the apartment downstairs pounded on the ceiling, and a muffled shout came through the floorboards.
    Tom went to the bed. He lifted the mattress away from the box springs. Nothing hidden; he tossed it up against the wall anyway. Clothes and blankets jumbled away from the edges. Nothing was under the box spring either.
    He went to the bathroom, reached behind the toilet, felt the cool, vacant porcelain of the tank and lifted the lid to peek inside. The medicine chest was nearly empty.
    In the kitchen, he rifled through the dishes piled in the sink, ran