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Back The Short Drop
Chapters (61)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. CONTENTS
  5. START READING
  6. PART ONE
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. CHAPTER TWELVE
  19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. PART TWO
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  49. PART THREE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  54. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  55. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  56. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  57. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  58. CHAPTER FIFTY
  59. EPILOGUE
  60. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  61. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

By comparison, Dan Hendricks was an excellent partner. Twenty-two years in the Los Angeles Police Department showed in the simple, assured way he went about his business. Especially in close quarters, since he was only five foot seven and weighed maybe one thirty if you strapped a Thanksgiving turkey to him. Beyond that, he was tidy and wasn’t incessantly vulgar. And best of all, he didn’t need her to be a tough bitch, just good at her job. The problem, she was discovering, was that once you learned to be a tough bitch it was hard to turn it off.

Not that Hendricks couldn’t take it. The man could teach a master class in bad attitude. He was, without question, the most relentlessly negative person she’d ever met, and if he knew how to smile, she couldn’t testify to it. She had no doubt that being black in the LAPD—an organization with a historically awful record of race relations—could embitter even the most resilient person. But George Abe went way back with Hendricks, and he’d assured her that her partner’s negativity had nothing to do with being black in the LAPD. It was just Hendricks.

A phone rang, and they both reached for their cells. Hendricks answered his. The conversation was brief.

“Looks like that time is now,” he said.

“He’s here?”

“On the way. He wants you inside. There’s no telling how Vaughn’s going to react.”

That was the truth. There was history between her boss and Gibson Vaughn.

None of it good.

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

The rush had died down enough that Gibson could hear himself think. He glanced in the back and saw the last table preparing to leave. When they were gone he would commandeer a booth and spend another frustrating day looking for a job. It was Sunday, but he took no days off from job hunting. The mortgage on the house where his ex-wife and daughter lived was due in fifteen days. Fifteen days to find a job.

At least he couldn’t have asked for a better place to work. The Nighthawk Diner reminded him of home. His father had considered himself something of a diner connoisseur and passed it on to his son. To Duke Vaughn, diners meant independence and small-business owners, not franchises and corporations. The American commons, he called it. Land owned by one but to which the community holds an indisputable right. Not a romantic populist ideal, but a place where the mythology of America met its blacktop reality—for better and for worse.