Read Online Green Light (Sam Archer 7) by Tom Barber - Free Book Online

pull a copy of the case files for him,
the first time he’d seen them since the shooting. After noticing
something that didn’t ring true, he’d decided to pay Karen Casey a
visit late Friday afternoon, thinking she might be able to shed
some light on who might have wanted to kill her daughter. She’d
been cold, distant and edgy at first, the atmosphere only changing
when she accidentally dropped a china cup from a high shelf on the
floor, smashing it to pieces. After a pause Archer had bent down
and cleaned it up without a word, which seemed to thaw her
frostiness towards him.
    After
that, she’d opened up but hadn’t told him anything that wasn’t
already in the file. Then, just as he was leaving the building he’d
found four cops waiting for him on the street, taking him down
right outside Karen Casey’s apartment building. Royston’s
handiwork, no doubt; no-one else could have moved in on him that
fast.
    The son of a bitch must have had me watched, Archer had quickly realised.
    He was waiting for any excuse and I gave it to him on a
plate.
    He’d
been cuffed and arrested on harassment charges, which was complete
bullshit. He’d been pissed off but not worried, expecting to be
taken to the station and released after he made a call to Shepherd
and explained what had happened.
    However,
he hadn’t been given that opportunity; he’d spent the rest of
Friday and all day Saturday in the Precinct. Then late last night,
officers had come to his cell, saying he was being transferred
until his hearing on Monday due to overcrowding at the East Village
Precinct.
    Instead
of another police station, they’d brought him here.
    The
moment Archer realised where he was headed, he’d understood just
how badly he’d screwed up and why other detectives had warned him
to watch his back after his suspension. As punishment for getting
Rach to access the case-file and then speaking to Karen Casey, let
alone the humiliation of getting flattened by Archer in front of
his subordinates, the fat Lieutenant had pulled some strings and
arranged for Archer to be admitted to Rikers for a weekend
stay.
    And this
place wasn’t exactly a country retreat.
    As the
gate locked behind him, Archer continued to walk forward, keeping
his shoulders back and staring straight ahead, ignoring some
cat-calls and wolf-whistles. From the moment a fresh inmate arrives
in any prison, the cycle begins; existing inmates look for ink, ask
about background, assess the newcomer physically to judge where
he’d fit into the pecking order. Until now, Archer had only ever
seen it from the other side.
    As he
moved forward into the heart of the yard, he realised word hadn’t
got out yet that he was an NYPD detective. If it had, he’d have
known about it already. Putting a cop inside a jail for the weekend
was like throwing meat to a pack of starving wolves and Archer had
realised last night when he’d been locked in his single-man SHU
cell that because he was suspended, Royston could dump him in here
with no real consequences. Whether this was teaching him a lesson
or exacting the ultimate revenge was irrelevant.
    The
reality was he was here until tomorrow morning and he knew he’d be
lucky to make it that long.
    Straight
ahead of him were some empty bleachers which he made a bee-line
for, avoiding eye contact with anyone and maintaining a totally
blank expression despite the adrenaline pumping through his veins.
Arriving at the wooden slats, he stepped up and took a seat on the
second row, relieved to have his back to the fence and his eyes
covering the yard.
    It was
sunny but chilly, the DOJ overalls providing scant protection
against the cold wind and he shivered, goose-bumps appearing on his
forearms as he rested them on his knees. The yard in front of him
was about the size of half a football field, all concrete with
razor wire on the high walls, a basketball court and two free
weights sets. The ball game was shirts against skins, the torsos of
the men not