Justice Mine: a Base Branch Novel by Megan Mitcham Page A

pinned her with a gaze she couldn’t interpret. His eyes pleaded. His jaw worked. “Magdalena,” he said in a firm whisper.
    Hand still over her mouth, she nodded.
    “You’re okay. Use my phone there on the coffee table and call the Met. Tell them there’s been a break-in and that three men are dead.”
    As he talked, he searched Mike’s pockets. She had no idea what he sought and didn’t want to know. By the time she dragged her gaze away from him, he’d moved on to Davis’ corpse. She’d seen dead bodies before, but she’d never seen someone’s life leave their body.
    Mags sat on the sofa in a semi-controlled collapse, buckling knees and gravity doing most of the work. When she reached for his phone her hand jittered like a druggie’s on their second day of rehab. The device fell into her lap. Shaky as her hands were, she’d expected it to land on the floor. Magdalena balled her hands into fists to steady them before she pressed the screen to life.
    Her fingers hung over the numbers, but Law stopped her. “Don’t make that call. We have to go, now.”

13
    “ W hat ?” Magdalena’s gaunt features turned ghostly white. “Why? We have to tell the police what happened. You killed…because of me…three men are dead.”
    Law stuffed the disturbing papers into his pocket and carried their wallets, keys, and phones over to Magdalena. He dumped the collection into her lap then hoisted her off the couch in the crook of his arms. “I know you don’t get any of this. I’m still processing, and I am far more accustomed to this sort of thing than you.” His gaze traveled to the corpses littering Baine’s estate. “Just not this close to home.” She dropped his phone into the pile and wrapped one arm around his neck. With the other she grabbed her big tote. “I need you to trust me. Trust me to keep you and everyone we love safe. And don’t ever try and sacrifice yourself for me. Clear?”
    “Clear,” she rasped.
    As he hurried through the house, much like they’d entered it, he asked. “Do you have clothes at your dad’s?”
    “Yes.” Her mousey voice dragged him over hot coals, but he didn’t have time to worry about her emotional state. Her physical well-being took precedence at the moment.
    Law shoved his feet into his boots without socks and yanked his jacket off the hook. Magdalena’s eyes zeroed in on his chest. The pink of her pretty mouth formed an O.
    “Your cuts! Am I hurting you?”
    “All superficial. Quit worrying about me, Magdalena.”
    He strode through the back door. Since the frame lay in splintered pieces on the ground he didn’t worry about closing it. He carried her into her dad’s house, which boasted a matching frame, and up the stairs into the bedroom she’d occupied as a little girl. While completing the plumbing job he’d passed it several times, but refused to enter, hoping if he didn’t he’d rid himself of her haunting presence more quickly.
    He sat her on the bed and scooped the heap in her lap into the green bag. Then he shrugged on his leather jacket and zipped the front. “I need you to pack a bag with enough clothes to last you a few days, but small enough to carry on your back. Can you walk enough to do that?”
    “Yeah, I think so,” she whispered. Her eyes saucered, but her pupils weren’t dilated.
    “Socks?” He turned toward a short bureau.
    “Top left.”
    Law grabbed a pair of socks and eased them onto her feet. “You have three minutes.” He turned toward the door.
    “Where are you going?” The desperation in her voice kicked him in the solar plexus.
    “I have to see about the other body.” He kept walking, unwilling to look upon the disgust certainly marring her sweet face.
    Following the scent of foul barbecue, Law found the third chump in the bushes by the sitting bench of the side yard. The charred lower half of the body told Law he didn’t burn to death, but died of smoke inhalation. The bloke hadn’t planned on the firebomb