Bearcat, page 22
Dean’s eyes lit up like he was accepting an Academy Award. It was almost too easy. He leaned suavely against his armrest, eying me with interest. “I’m an open book, Ms. Hogan. Ask me whatever you would like.”
I played the part, asking him trivial questions about his career and his education. I asked about his aspirations and the good he hoped to do for the city. In return, he told bald-faced lies about cutting down on the disease of organized crime running rampant through the streets. I laughed at his jokes and made excuses to touch his arm. I asked knowing questions about any significant others in his life, and by the end of the interview, he was lovestruck.
Yup. I still got it.
“I think that’s all I need...” I shut my notebook softly and gave him a shy smile. “I hesitate to ask...but I get so turned around in this building...do you think you could walk me to my speeder?”
My performance was so spot on, I could feel the innocent blush spreading across the bridge of my nose. And Goldberg was putty in my hands. He hurried around to take my arm and I pressed my hand against his bicep, pumping even more air into his inflated ego. An encouraging smile and we were on our way.
He led us through the building, taking each corner as an opportune moment to lead me with a hand on the small of my back. When the elevator doors opened to the speeder port, I resisted the urge to gulp in a breath of clean air. Only a few steps farther.
We stopped beside an inconspicuous black speeder, stolen earlier that day, and I spun on my heels to find him only inches away, leaning oppressively toward me.
“This one is me...” My voice was sticky-sweet. I ran a teasing finger down his tie, and he gulped with nervous anticipation. His eyes were devouring me already as he ran his knuckle down my arm. I wanted to reel away, but I leaned into his touch instead. When his eyes drifted shut, and he bent forward for a kiss, I knew I had won.
He pressed a sickly kiss to my lips, and when he broke away, I gently opened the speeder door. When I gave him a gentle push toward the door, he needed no encouragement. He slid across the front seat to the passenger side, pulling me in after him. He pressed another hungry kiss to my neck and froze at the sound of the doors locking.
“Something wrong, lover boy?” I whispered into his ear.
His skin flushed nearly to the color of his stark white hair.
Odd. He appeared to be afraid to speak. Maybe it was the gun pressed to the bottom of his chin. It seemed he hadn’t noticed when I’d slipped it from his holster.
“Maybe a nice ride will calm your nerves. Take it away, Tommy.”
“Sure thing.” Tommy’s voice broke through the dashboard speakers. I had to admit, I’d been skeptical when he’d told me he could patch himself through in the place of an AI, but there he was, squeaking late-teen voice and all. Remotely, he engaged the autopilot, and the engine roared to life.
“Why don’t you give me that cute little pistol you’re reaching for?” I shifted the gun toward the hand that had been creeping toward Dean’s ankle. Had he really thought that would work? He placed the pistol in my open palm, his grip leaving a smear of sweat where he’d been holding it.
“Who are you?” he asked with a trembling voice.
“I’m pissed off and out of options. I suggest you buckle up.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EVERETT
“Dead heroes don’t get the girl,” Gwen whispered with valentine eyes. She nestled herself farther into my side and traced a finger along the scar on my shoulder. My heart thrummed comfortably beneath her palm. The warmth of the bed made it almost impossible to leave, and my wife wasn’t making it any easier. “Stay, Everett. Call in sick. You haven’t taken a day off in months.”
“You know I can’t,” I insisted. A stray hair dangled across her face, and I brushed it away, lingering on the softness of her skin. I pressed a kiss against her nonreciprocating lips. When I pulled away, her mouth was drawn into a tight line. Oh boy, here it comes.
“You can. But you won’t.” She rolled her eyes dramatically and scooted away. The cold rushed in to take her place.
“Gwen, I can’t do this. I’m already running late as it is.” I tossed back the covers, and my eyes snapped open. For a moment, I forgot where I was. My bloodied hair stuck to the cold floor as I rolled groggily to my side. A barren fireplace mocked me from across the frigid room.
I was still in the Mistress’s makeshift prison.
“Oh, thank God, you’re alive,” the watery voice of a woman whimpered from across the room. The woman from last night sat with her back against the wall, her husband’s head in her lap. The blood from his wounds stained her dress. It would probably never come out.
“Yeah, lucky me.” I pushed myself to my feet, and a wave of dizziness washed over me. “Has your husband woken at all?”
“No...” Worry strained her voice. She stared down at him as though her eyes could heal.
I shifted my gaze away, not wanting to intrude.
Outside, a shadow danced along the floorboards. I shuffled toward the door and pounded a fist half-heartedly. “Hey! Can we get some water in here?” I called through the door. No answer. The shadow shifted when I knocked a second time. “Come on, man. The guy’s dying.”
“Shut up, Daniels.” A familiar voice carried beneath the door.
“Mason!” I called hopefully. “Mason, you’ve got to help me. This man is—”
My words were cut off by the sound of a chair scraping across the floor. The shadow shifted and I heard the bolt slide back. The door swung open, and the light of the hall silhouetted Mason’s lanky frame and flaming hair. His shoulders hung disparagingly low. His fingers fidgeted at his sides, cracking as he clenched and relaxed them. His eyes were red-rimmed and murder-glazed. He stepped threateningly forward, and I found myself shuffling back without thinking.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. He merely stared at me with bloodshot eyes, shaking with rage. I opened my mouth, but I never had the opportunity to speak. Mason threw himself at me, driving his shoulder into my stomach and tackling me to the ground. My lungs burned as I gasped for breath under the weight of him.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” he demanded.
I didn’t have a chance to answer. He put his whole weight behind his fist, spreading blinding pain across my temple. I threw my hands up to cover my face, but the barrage didn’t stop. He struck a blow to the other side of my head, and I felt my temple snap against the hardwood floor. An array of black and purple began to blot out the edges of my vision. Was I bleeding? I couldn’t see anymore. The hits kept coming. And suddenly, Mason’s broken breath was all I could hear. “Why? Why would you do this?”
I managed to open my eyes. Mason hung over me, lungs racing inside his chest, his fist clenched in the collar of my shirt. Blood clung to his knuckles and spotted his neck.
“Why would you backstab us for her?” His eyes drilled into me with palpable agony. “Why?”
There was nothing I could say to make him understand, but something told me he didn’t want to. This wasn’t about me. A cough of blood spattered on the floor as I rolled onto my elbow before rolling back to face him.
Abruptly, Mason shifted away from me, falling to his knees, his head in his hands. “Toby is dead.”
“What?” He couldn’t be.
“He’s dead and it’s your fault.” Mason lifted his head, hard tears brimming behind his eyes. “You did a stupid reckless thing, and it got Toby killed.”
“How?” The question scraped from my suddenly dry throat.
“Charlene didn’t tell you? When she made her little visit, Toby just let her go. We could have stopped her, and instead, he held me back while she made her escape.” The red-rimmed eyes and rigid movements finally made sense. “The Mistress couldn’t let a traitor go free. She killed him herself. He looked her in the eye when she shot him.”
He let his eyes drop, and a solitary tear hung from his lashes momentarily. “If you had just done what you were told...none of this would have happened.”
His words seemed to drain the light from the room. He rose to his feet and crossed to the door, stopping with a hand on the handle. “She’s not coming back, you know. Word on the street is she heard you were here and she took off. Can you really blame her? I hope it was all worth it.”
The door shut, and the air suddenly felt too dense to breathe. I stared at the shadow disappearing on the other side, my mind spinning. I felt like retching, but I doubted there was anything left in my stomach to go.
“Are you okay?” the woman asked from behind.
“I’m fine.” Nothing was broken. I would survive.
I returned to my place by the wall and raked a shaking adrenaline-stirred hand through my hair. It came away with blood.
How had I let this happen to me?
My own words echoed through my head. You were reckless because you were broken, and I’ll never be like that. I stared down at my blood-stained hands until my eyes burned, and still I couldn’t look away.
I had seen hands like this before. Crimson etched into the deep creases on his knuckles and dried beneath his fingernails. My father had been so weak that he hadn’t even noticed when I tried to wash his hands clean. His breathing had been so shallow, I’d almost thought he was dead.
I’d stationed myself on a chair at the foot of his hospital bed, resting fitfully with my head in my arms. And I’d waited. Midnight had faded into early morning and then into afternoon before my father stirred.
“Son,” he rasped. He reached for the glass of water at his bedside and winced as the stitches in his shoulder made an effort to remind him why he was there. “How long have I been out?”
I handed him the glass and gently pressed him back to rest. “You got out of surgery late last night. Dad...do you remember what happened?”
Maybe it was because my father prided himself on his honesty and the bond of his word that I could always tell when he was hiding something. He licked his lips ever so slightly, marinating the lie. Shaking his head with pursed lips, he looked me dead in the eye. “I can’t remember a thing.”
“You can’t remember anything? And that doesn’t bother you?” Anger sparked to life in my chest and began to flicker. “Someone tried to kill you, Dad.”
“It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last,” he retorted. “I can’t say I love it, but it’s part of the job.”
“Sure.” My eyes burned into his, consuming embers. “You know, it’s too bad you don’t remember...because Sal does.” Crossing my arms, I leaned back in my seat and propped a spit-shined boot up on his bed. “Do you want to know what he said?”
“No,” my father insisted shortly.
“He says that you were told to wait for backup—that the two of you had the suspect pinned down and all you had to do was wait.” My throat burned as the words tumbled out. “Did you want to be the hero, Dad? Was that it?”
“Everett, listen—”
“No, you listen!” I shot to my feet so fast that the chair behind me flipped and clattered to the ground. Frustration and fear and humiliation created a threatening substance that brimmed in my eyes. “I have enough to worry about without you needlessly throwing yourself into the line of fire.”
The tremble in my voice betrayed the emotions roiling just below the surface, but the words were already tumbling out, and I couldn’t stop them any more than I could take them back.
“When Mom left, it’s like you died. And now all I’ve got is a lousy alcoholic who would rather die in a shoot-out than be a father.”
“What do you want from me, Everett? You want me to stop working?” he snapped harshly, his face turning a shade of red.
“I want you to come home at the end of your shift.” And just like that, a boiling tear seared down my cheek. “I want you to want to live, to stop losing control because you’re miserable. Everyone’s miserable. Get over it.”
“Everett—”
“No. I’m going to stay with Sal.”
He called after me, but I was already halfway to the door. As I stepped out into the hall, I tossed a final word over my shoulder. “Call me when you pull yourself together.”
The memory faded away, and I was back in the Mistress’s penthouse. The blood on my hands flaked off and drifted into the grains of the hardwood floors.
Stupid. I had become just like him. Reckless fear was what had driven me to make a deal with Agatha in the first place...and with Dean, I had been so desperate for a way out, that I’d ignored all the warning signs that something was off. I was reckless, and it would cost me my life.
I dropped my head and surrendered to the pain settling across my body. The gunshot wound in my shoulder had broken open again, and a wildfire of bruises was already spreading across my ribs and face. I was so tired of fighting. Tired of losing. Tired of being someone I hated.
Charlie’s words echoed in my head. It was like she had pulled them right out of my mind. You don’t think I look into the mirror and see the same thing you do? I’m not oblivious to the blood on my hands.
The thought of Charlie stung as much as anything else. I hadn’t believed she would be dumb enough to come looking for me, but even so, it was a stinging relief. A voice in the back of my mind reminded me that I had always known she would leave someday, and I buried it beneath the knowledge that she would be safe. That was all that mattered. That’s all that would ever matter.
The weight of my wounds pulled at me, and I let my eyes fall shut as darkness closed in to numb the pain.
CHARLIE
Through the rain-dappled windshield, the moon glazed across the bay and disappeared below the stilted clubhouse erupting into the night.
From the port alley in which I had parked the speeder, I surveyed the entrances. The men posted at the doors were likely nothing more than hired bouncers. They wouldn’t appreciate my little gift the way the inner circle would, and they definitely wouldn’t let me through the door without a key imprint. So, how to get inside?
“Ready for our little charade, Dean?” My passenger made no attempt to respond, his eyes still wide with fear. He had made no more attempts to escape. At least, not since he made a lunge for the door and I shot him through the hand. He needed his legs, but his hands were fair game as far as I was concerned.
I took one last glance at my target—the bouncer at the southern door. The gentleman stood slouched against the doorway, his hornlike nose the only part of him extending out of the shadows into the entrance floodlight. Honestly, he looked more like a crow than a man. Every so often, his gaze shifted to the watch on his wrist. He would examine it for a short moment and then return to staring out into the southern loading bay. Poor guy was probably bored stiff. Lucky for him, his night was about to get a whole lot more interesting.
“Come on, Dean. Let’s get this show on the road.” I stepped out into the rain, keeping my gun fixed on him, and gestured for him to slide out through the driver’s side. The rain cascaded over the edge of the speeder and down the rim of his hat when he stepped out. With a grimace of pain, he tucked his bloodied hand into his pocket, and the illusion of “nothing out of the ordinary” was complete.
Let’s hope he didn’t mess this up.
I was careful to make him see me tucking my gun into my pocket. It would still be trained on his back, and I made it abundantly clear that I had no qualms about pulling the trigger.
Minutes later, the bored bouncer saw us coming and shrugged away from the threshold. Despite the way his shoulders rounded off at the edges like a ball—or a potato—he held himself with a dangerous stature that said he was more than he appeared. Dean approached him with his badge displayed and a scowl on his ugly face.
“Police Chief Goldberg. I need to speak to the owner of this establishment about a robbery that occurred yesterday afternoon. We have reason to believe he may have been witness to the event.”
I had to hand it to him; he delivered the lines well. He gave the bouncer an expectant look, waiting for the door to open.
The brute crossed his arms and centered himself in front of the door as if this were the moment he had been training for all his life. “Piss off.”
“Excuse me?” Dean actually sputtered in genuine disbelief.
“You heard me. Get lost.” A satisfied smirk planted itself on the bouncer’s face and only grew as Dean gaped at him.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, did I have to do everything around here? I dug the notebook and pen out of my pocket and started scribbling furiously across the paper.
“What was your name, sir?” I asked with an icy glance at the man.
He returned my gaze with a matching chill. “Who are you?”
“Trudy Hogan, reporter for the City Daily. I just want to make sure I get your name correct when I tell our readers how the Bronx Hollow callously refused to help track down the vicious thugs who brutally murdered three innocent bystanders in an armed robbery yesterday. Honestly, I should get the name of your boss too. My readers are very keen on details, you know.”
He thought on that for a moment, eying me with suspicion, apparently trying to determine if I was bluffing. At last, he shifted to the side, making way for the two of us to step inside. Dean tucked his badge away and gave the bouncer a curt nod as we passed.
“Not exactly a very imposing police chief, are we?”
Dean shot me a seething look but made no reply. He and I both knew he hadn’t gotten the job on merit.
We strolled quietly down the a hall that emerged into the heavily occupied bayside lounge. The room itself was surprisingly quiet. Soft jazz played from somewhere in another room while waiters popped from table to table, delivering lavish cocktails in long-stemmed glasses to guests with genetically engineered faces and twisted mustaches. The two of us stood out like crows in a snowstorm.
