Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

snarled, pain in his eyes. ‘Let me go or I’ll break your fucking arm.’
    ‘He . . . looks bad. If he was your friend, you don’t want to see him this way.’
    Clay’s lips thinned. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen worse. Let me go.’
    Joseph released him, following to make sure he didn’t disturb the scene. Maynard probably had seen a lot worse, but it was different when you knew the victim.
    Maynard abruptly stopped when he saw the red socks and sucked in a strangled breath as he walked around to see the head, the color draining from his face.
    ‘Oh God,’ he whispered. ‘Not again.’ Slowly he fell to his knees. ‘Not again.’
    Not again? What the— Oh, shit . Maynard’s story came back to Joseph in a rush. He’d lost the partner before Paige, discovering her body gutted by a vicious killer and left to rot. Now this partner was nearly decapitated. If I’d remembered, I would have held him back harder, kept him from seeing this . But Joseph knew it would have been fruitless to try to control Maynard. I would’ve pushed him away under the same circumstances .
    ‘ They cut him.’ Maynard uttered the words in a choked whisper. ‘They cut his head off. Oh my God. Fucking hell.’ He lurched to his feet and stumbled backward, his expression a mixture of shock, nausea, and pain.
    Joseph turned him so that he no longer stared at his dead friend. ‘Who is he?’
    ‘Isaac Zacharias. Sergeant, DCPD. Oh God. What am I gonna tell Phyllis?’
    ‘What was he doing for you?’ Joseph shook his shoulder. ‘ Clay . What was Zacharias doing for you that got him killed?’
    Maynard drew a breath and pulled himself together. ‘Bodyguard duty.’
    Bodyguard duty . The sick feeling in Joseph’s gut spiked. That Daphne would trust Maynard to protect her son made sense.
    New horror mixed with the grief on Maynard’s face. ‘Oh God. Ford. Daphne’s son.’
    ‘Zacharias was protecting Ford?’
    ‘Ford is the employee, isn’t he? Your father’s employee.’ It was calmly stated, but the vein in Maynard’s neck visibly throbbed. ‘Where is he?’
    ‘He appears to be missing,’ Joseph said grimly.
    ‘Does Daphne know?’
    ‘Not yet. We’ve tried to contact her. She hasn’t answered her phone this morning.’
    ‘She’s in court. Jury verdict today on the Millhouse case.’
    ‘How did you know to come here?’
    ‘Tracker on Tuzak’s car. All my people carry one, just in case they need backup. His relief called to say he hadn’t phoned in Ford’s location. I called Phyllis to see if he’d come home from his night shift. He hadn’t, so I tracked him here.’
    ‘Tuzak is Zacharias?’
    ‘Isaac Zacharias. Two Zacs. We called him Tuzak at the Academy. It stuck.’
    ‘You were in DCPD together?’
    ‘Yeah. I left, he stayed. He was a good cop. Smart. He never would have let some punk get the drop on him. How the hell did this happen?’ He turned to Joseph, his eyes suddenly suspicious. ‘And how did you know to come here?’
    ‘Ford didn’t show up for work this morning. Dad asked me to check it out. I found Ford’s SUV on the street at the other end of the alley. It’s probably been there all night.’
    The suspicion faded from Maynard’s eyes, replaced with a weary dread. ‘This is going to kill her,’ he murmured. ‘She was terrified something like this would happen.’ He turned, his gaze returning to his slain friend. ‘How do I tell her? She’s pregnant.’
    Joseph’s teeth clacked together, hard. ‘Daphne’s pregnant ?’
    Maynard shook his head. ‘No. Phyllis Zacharias. The baby’s due in a few weeks. Tuzak was just looking to make a little extra . . . for expenses.’
    Joseph pointed his flashlight to the AFID tags, noticing there were even more a few feet away. Zacharias’s killer had fired multiple cartridges. ‘Taser.’
    ‘Sonofabitch,’ Maynard swore viciously, then swallowed hard. ‘Sonofabitch,’ he repeated, this time in a whisper. ‘Phyllis can’t see him this way. She can’t.’
    ‘We won’t ask her to do the ID,’ Joseph murmured. ‘But we have two missing persons and I’m going to have to ask questions.’
    ‘Then ask me,’ Clay said harshly. ‘Phyllis only knew that he was working for me.’
    ‘Okay, we’ll start with you. Did Zacharias see anything weird? Anyone suspicious?’
    ‘No. He said it was a cream puff job, following around a squeaky-clean kid who didn’t even know he was there.’
    ‘Ford didn’t know he had a