Read Online Beautiful Sacrifice by Elizabeth Lowell - Free Book Online

silent.
    Hunter scanned the upper balcony for unpleasant surprises. Nothing moved.
    “Looks like everyone’s tucked in with TV and cerveza,” Jase said.
    Hunter grunted.
    “You armed?” Jase asked.
    “The usual.” For Hunter, that was a knife in his boot. “What’s the dude’s name?”
    “LeRoy Ramirez Landry. First door on the right.”
    “Let’s hope Mr. Landry doesn’t do anything stupid.”
    “Paying rent here is stupid,” Jase said.
    “You take the door,” Hunter said. “I’ll cover you.”
    Jase stepped past Hunter, whose narrowed eyes were scanning the other closed doors. Landry’s apartment was closest to the stairs. That would make a fast retreat easier.
    Feeling watched from behind, Hunter looked over his shoulder and out at the street. His neck had felt like he was in someone’s crosshairs since he’d left the lecture room with the professor on his arm. It wasn’t a good feeling.
    Nothing moved below but a feral cat scrounging for fast-food scraps and slow rats.
    Jase knocked on Landry’s apartment door. The door sounded dry and hollow, empty as a cracked bone.
    “It’s been kicked out of the jamb,” Jase said in a low voice.
    “Saw it from the stairs.”
    “Cat eyes. You’ve been out in the jungle too long.”
    “I like being in one piece,” Hunter said.
    “Not arguing, just saying.”
    Jase knocked again. He didn’t want to shout out “ICE” if he didn’t have to. No reason to get trampled in the stampede out of the building.
    A gust of wind licked through the broken street door, toppling the empty beer cans at the bottom of the stairs. Across the hallway, a dog whined once.
    Silence spread like dirt in the hallway.
    Hunter and Jase knew that all the televisions had just been turned down.
    “Dude isn’t home or he’s hiding,” Hunter said in a low voice. “Everyone else knows we’re here.”
    “What a surprise.”
    “Yeah. If you happen to lean on that door and it gives way, technically it isn’t breaking and entering,” Hunter offered.
    He pointed to the finger-wide gap between the barely open door and the frame.
    “Man, and I was hoping to get in another misdemeanor today,” Jase said.
    “Stay tight. A felony might be just around the corner.”
    Jase scratched at the spot where his reversed baseball hat met the back of his head. “Well, I’m concerned about the well-being of this citizen who may or may not have become involved in a crime. We really should check out the place. I mean, it’s for his own safety.”
    “You’re such a good citizen,” Hunter said. “How do you do it?”
    “Clean living.”
    “You forgot constant prayer.”
    “That’s Ali’s job.” Jase put the back of his hand on the door, pushed. It scraped open. “Oops. Look at that. Busted. We better check that Mr. Landry is okay.”
    Jase pushed the door wide open and stepped to the other side of the frame. Hunter was already at Jase’s blind side. They had both been trained the same way, by the same life.
    Nothing was behind the door. No one was within sight. Curtains shifted. They were dirty enough to have been used as napkins.
    Not one sound came from inside the apartment.
    The cramped room seemed to cringe at the afternoon sunlight flooding through the open door. A coffee table was littered with envelopes torn open carelessly. Empty bottles of malt liquor stood sentinel by crushed cigarette packs and overflowing ashtrays. Cigarette butts stuck out of the ashes like finger bones.
    “Guess he lives on nicotine and alcohol,” Jase said. “No fast-food trash.”
    “Lotto tickets,” Hunter said.
    The colorful stubs were ripped up, tossed everywhere in a kind of loser’s confetti.
    Jase walked a bit farther into the room. Hunter’s movements mirrored his partner’s.
    The television was off, and Hunter could see where the screen had been dusted with an open palm. The ring of grime at the edges clung. He moved the back of his hand close to the screen. Cold. Like the room,