Page 22 of Daybreak

“Kingston. Cop. Black Mustang GT.” Then he quoted Gunner’s tag number.

The skin crawled on the back of Gunner’s neck. “Who the hell put out the bounty?”

“Don’t know.… Tying up loose ends… Am I gonna die?”

Rage followed shock. In that moment, Gunner knew.

Damn Burgess Dixon and his loose ends.

Four dead FBI agents.

Freddie Welsh—dead.

Yankee Dan—dead.

Gunner Kingston.

All of them dead…but him.

Gunner rocked back on his heels as the biker took a slow, rattling breath and closed his eyes. He checked for a pulse. The biker was still alive, and now he could hear sirens.

Gunner stood, looked at the wrecked Yamaha the biker had been riding and then at his own car, not as pretty as it had been ten minutes ago but still in one piece. And so was he.

But not for long if this was only the beginning. He had to take some drastic action fast, but right now, it was all about getting the wreck off the highway and traffic moving back at normal speed.

He stood aside as the ambulance rolled in, followed by two units from the Highway Patrol who began redirecting traffic. He gave the gun he’d recovered to two cops in a patrol car while the EMTs made short work of stabilizing Kevin enough to transport, then loaded him up and headed to a hospital with the police car behind them. Warren was already under arrest for attempted murder, and Gunner was anxious to get back in his car and off this freeway. Where there was one fool, there could be a hundred others.

As soon as the tow truck loaded up what was left of the Yamaha and the officers cleared the highway, Gunner turned his battered car around and headed to work.

By the time he got to Homicide, he was in a most shitty frame of mind. He entered the department disheveled and bloody, moving like a soldier going to war.

Cliff stood abruptly. “Gunner, what the hell happened?”

“Hell just froze over,” he muttered and kept walking—straight into Lieutenant Samuels’s office without knocking, closing the door behind him.

Samuels was on the phone when Gunner entered, but when he saw his detective, he ended his call and stood.

“What happened?”

“There’s a fucking fifty-thousand-dollar-bounty on my head. I know that because a biker on a purple Yamaha tried to take me out on the Loop this morning. His first shot missed me and hit the car in the lane beside me. I ran his ass into the concrete wall. The impact threw his body a good ten feet in the air before it landed on the hood of my car and slid off. He’s on the way to the hospital. He’s already under arrest for attempted murder…if he lives.”

Samuels paled. “What’s going on that I don’t know about?”

“I believe I asked him the same question. All the biker said was that there was a bounty on my head, and someone was tying up loose ends. Federal agents dead. A federal witness dead. Yankee Dan dead after finding the body, and because I brought Dan in, clearly, I am the last. I don’t know what Dixon thinks I know, but he’s not taking any chances. And I’m going to say this again. This is happening because some dirty cop in this division is feeding Dixon privileged information.”

“I want you to go home and stay there until we can get this figured out,” Samuels said.

“Like hell…sir. I’m about to have a Come to Jesus meeting with the bastard at his office, and if I don’t come back, then you’ll know it’s on him. And there’s one other thing I was going to tell you this morning for legal purposes. I am the unidentified man who won the Mega Millions lottery. My lawyer and I have already been to the Dallas Claim Department, signed the paperwork, and set up the payout. It won’t show up for a few weeks, but I’m telling you now so that no one thinks it’s dirty money when that shows up in my bank account.”

Samuels’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, sir, and I don’t intend spreading the news around. It will eventually leak after the money shows up, but I don’t want to face all that until I have to, so I’d appreciate you keeping that info to yourself.”

Samuels shook his head in disbelief. “You win the lottery, and someone puts a hit out on you. That’s the craziest dichotomy of personal issues I’ve ever heard, but my lips are sealed, and you have my support. I’ll order escorts to get you home and get a patrol at your house.”

“No, sir. Keep everyone else out of this, or they’ll just become another name on Dixon’s hit list. Just know that I’m about to yank a knot in Dixon’s ass and tie up some loose ends of my own. And for God’s sake, don’t say anything to the detectives out front. I don’t need someone giving Dixon a heads-up that I’m coming for lunch.”

Samuels was still arguing, shouting, “Wait, Gunner, wait!” as Gunner left his office.