“Hell yeah,” Bear said. “If some anti-American government uses the poison to melt my face, it sure as shit matters.”
“So, what do you need me for?” Jake asked.
“Muscle. Keats is working hard to find me. As you can see, Dominic is very good. But he is still on the inside with Keats and cannot show up at the meeting. I cannot show up alone, or these men will kill me and take the case. I want you to help…how do you say…level the playing field.”
“What makes you think they won’t kill both of us?” Jake asked.
“We bring your friend here. That makes three of us.”
“He can’t go,” Jake said. “He’s in law enforcement. One of the last good guys. Maybe I should just kill you and Dominic now.”
Voleski smirked. “You could try, but your friend Logan would die. Maybe become a state-side test case for Ares.”
“Maybe he’s not where you think he is,” Bear said.
“You mean where you moved him—Room 360 at Truman Medical Center under police protection? One inside the room, one outside the room.”
Bear’s jaw hung askew, but he slammed it shut. His wide eyes let Jake know Voleski was correct.
“As I told you,” Voleski said, “I have my contacts. Help me here. I get what I want. Your friend lives. You make a great deal of money. Everyone wins.”
The curtains opened behind Jake. Jake craned his head, and Petrov dipped inside to ask if everything was okay. Beyond Petrov, the guys who worked for Senator Young had made their way from the far side of the club to the bar and were now perched on bar stools. They peered into the room through the parted curtains. Their eyes widened at the sight of Voleski sitting on the couch. Voleski told Petrov everything was fine. As the curtains closed, Young’s men rose from their bar stools.
Jake twisted back to Voleski and did some quick mental math. Young’s men would have to cross the thirty feet to the room entrance, and either talk or fight their way through Dominic’s crew. That would give Voleski plenty of time to grab the case and bolt out the back door. Snell was back there, but Jake gave the edge to Voleski for experience in these situations. Jake figured he had twenty seconds to get his hands on the case.
Five seconds after the curtain closed, two distinct double taps of a silenced pistol puffed. The sound was barely audible over the background music bumping from the club, but he’d heard it enough in his life to be able to pick it out. Jake leapt from the couch toward Bear, out of the line of the doorway before the double tapped bodies outside the curtain hit the floor.
Voleski’s face contorted in confusion at Jake’s sudden movement, and he went for his gun, rising off the couch. Jake reached back to pull out his Glock, and Bear dug into his own jacket. Young’s men burst into the room. Two shots rang out. A dark hole appeared in Voleski’s forehead, and he slumped to his knees and pitched forward, crashing on top of the briefcase.
Jake trained his Glock on the first guy to the right of the door who had his own zeroed in on Jake. The other guy had his gun aimed at Bear who aimed at Dominic across the room. Dominic aimed two pistols, one in each hand, at Bear and the second at Young’s crew. Amazingly, nobody fired another shot. It was a Mexican standoff.
Chapter Thirty
The copper scent of blood oozing from the bullet holes in Voleski’s forehead and chest crept through the room. Young’s men framed the doorway, the curtain drawn enough to reveal the slumped bodies of Dominic’s men laying on the floor inside the club where the music bumped on without missing a beat. The four men aimed weapons at each other, eyes darting from person to person, gun to gun.
“I remember you,” the man with the gun trained on Jake said. Short-cropped hair, flat face and broad shoulders. “From the diner. You broke my nose.”
“Sorry about that,” Jake said. “I didn’t know who you were.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
“No,” Jake said. “You were being an asshole.”
“I get that a lot,” the man said.
“What’s your name?”
“Does it matter at this point, Caldwell?”
“I suppose not,” Jake said. “But it’s obvious we’re all not walking out of here alive.”
The man cocked his head. “Why do you say that?”
“Because we’re after the same thing. The case. At some point, someone will get restless and start shooting.”
The man licked his lips, considering the situation. “I’m Matarrese. My partner there is Pituro.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jake said.
“Yeah, right. Now what?”
“Don’t know,” Jake said. “In a typical Mexican standoff, whoever fires first loses. Nobody wants to go first. That’s why it’s a called a standoff.”
“So, we could be here all day,” Matarrese said.
“I don’t have all day, though. Mind if I make a call to speed things along?”
The muscles in Matarrese’s clenched jaw worked overtime. “Who are you calling?”
“Humor me.” Jake pulled out his cell with his free hand, keeping the gun trained on Matarrese. He hit the speaker button and dialed 9-1-1. The operator picked up on the second ring, and Matarrese’s eyes widened when he realized who Jake called.
“Yeah, I’m in the back room at Dreams downtown. There’s some dead guys on the ground and will probably be three more in the next couple of minutes. You might want to send someone over.”
He hung up, and Matarrese’s confident look melted like ice cream in a blast furnace.
“That was fucking stupid,” Matarrese said.
“Not really. I haven’t shot anyone. Your problem is you guys killed three men inside the club. People are going to start screaming any minute now when they see the bodies. The mountain of a bouncer will come barging in, and the cops are on their way. None of us want that kind of action. I figure we have a minute. Maybe two to figure this thing out.”
Fifteen seconds ticked off the clock. Out of the corner of his eye, Jake noticed Dominic shifting from foot to foot. This thing wouldn’t make it two minutes.
“The funny thing is,” Jake said, breaking the silence, “my buddy and I could give two shits about the stupid case. We’re more interested in the guys who put our friend in the hospital.”
Matarrese looked down his nose. “From what I hear, you’re a boy scout. Thought you’d be more interested in rescuing the damsel in distress.”
“Which damsel is that?”
“Don’t play dumb, Caldwell,” Matarrese said. “The girl locked up at Blue Heron. We saw you sniffing around there. You walk away now, we’ll kick her loose, and we can go our merry way.”
“Just like that?” The screaming girl. Jake didn’t know who she was but decided to play along.
“Just like that,” Matarrese said.
“What about the guys who beat up Logan?”
“Easy,” Matarrese said. He dipped his head toward Dominic in the corner. “It was Dominic over there and one of his buddies. One of his dead buddies lying outside the doorway.”
“Interesting,” Jake said. He kept his eyes on Matarrese. “That true, Dominic?”
“He’s a liar,” Dominic said. “I didn’t touch him.”
“We’ve got about thirty seconds left. We could take him out,” Matarrese said, ticking his head toward Dominic. “He can’t shoot all of us. We get the case; you get your vengeance for your buddy and the girl.”
Matarrese’s voice was calm, but his body language screamed he was about to squeeze the trigger, a slight shift to a better shooting position, arms tensing. Jake didn’t want to, but there was no other way to do this.
“You’re right,” Jake said. “We could do that. But, we won’t. Because the thing is, I know you’re the one who beat the hell out of Logan.”
Jake squeezed the trigger and shot Matarrese between the eyes. Pituro jerked his head in surprise, swinging his gun around toward Jake. Dominic opened fire with both pistols as Jake dove to the side, spraying shots to
ward Pituro and Dominic. Bear cried out, a loud thud following. Jake hit the floor and rolled, coming up in a crouch and taking aim at Dominic. He tugged the trigger, but the slide was back and locked—the clip was empty.
Dominic lurched forward; his face freckled with blood. He was grazed in the face and neck, but coherent enough to point both pistols at Jake. He lumbered across the room, and Jake dropped his useless gun and held up his empty hands.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Dominic,” he said. “I did you a favor by taking those guys out. Cops will be busting through the door any minute.”
Dominic stopped at the coffee table and glanced at the case. “And I thank you. But, I gotta kill you anyway. You know how Keats hates loose ends.”
Dominic raised the guns and took aim at Jake’s forehead. Three rapid shots sliced through Dominic’s chest and he crashed to the floor. To his right, Snell crouched in a shooter’s stance in the hallway.
Jake climbed to his feet and rushed to the corner where Bear lay, Jake’s heart in his throat at the blood splattered on the nearby wall. He rotated Bear onto his back, terrified he might see the dead, glassy eyes of his best friend.
“I gotta stop hanging out with you,” Bear groaned. He placed his paw on his left shoulder, wincing as he touched the bullet hole. “I keep getting shot.”
“At least it was in the same shoulder as last time.”
Bear scowled. “Fuck you, Caldwell.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“We should get out of here,” Snell said. “I heard sirens even before the shooting started.”
“Makes sense,” Jake said. “I called 9-1-1.”
“What the hell for?” Snell asked.
“It surprised the shit outta me,” Bear said.
“I needed to get things moving,” Jake said. “Speaking of moving, we’d better get our asses out of here.”
They bookended Bear and tried heaving his three hundred-plus pounds from the ground. Bear growled as Jake yanked on his wounded shoulder.
“Jesus,” Bear said, his teeth gritted. “Why don’t you dig your fingers in the bullet hole and make it really hurt.”
“Help me,” Jake grunted. “I can’t pull your fat ass up by myself. Push up against the wall.”
Bear scooted two feet to the wall behind him and pressed his feet into the floor. The backstop of the wall combined with Jake and Snell tugging got Bear onto his shaky feet. He wobbled for a second and steadied. Outside the room, over the throbbing bass of the music, a scream erupted. If the volley of gunfire didn’t bring on the cavalry, the dead bodies on the floor might.
“Can you make it?” Snell asked. “My car’s parked in the alley.”
Snell led Bear along the hallway toward the open back door. Jake crossed the room and peeked through the curtain. Marco the Bouncer jogged across the club floor heading his way. Jake darted back in the room. Voleski’s body sprawled across the briefcase. Jake shoved him to the floor and grabbed the bloody briefcase handle and Voleski’s cell phone laying on the couch. With both in hand, he ran down the hall, out the back door, and into the Kansas City sun.
Snell flung the back door to her car open. They muscled Bear into the back seat. He leaned against the far window; his face crumpled in pain.
“Try not to get blood all over the place,” Snell said. “This is a Company car.”
Jake shut the door. “I gotta get my truck out of here before the police arrive and lock everything down. Meet me at my place.”
Snell nodded and hopped behind the wheel. He followed Snell as she tore out of the alley and cranked a hard right, away from the police car screeching in to block the alley. She swerved around a couple of creeping cars and swept south on Grand Avenue. Jake followed, alternating between the road ahead and the rearview mirror, looking for any signs of pursuit. So far, so good.
Twenty minutes later, they eased Bear onto the couch in Jake’s apartment. Bear was pallid, sweat dotting his forehead. Jake peeled off Bear’s coat and shirt and examined the wound. A chunk of flesh two inches long was missing from the deltoid on his shoulder.
“How bad is it?” Bear winced.
“I’ve seen worse. Hell, you’ve been shot worse.”
“You’d know, wouldn’t you?”
“We gotta get him to a hospital,” Jake told Snell.
“That’s a lot of questions to answer,” she said.
“I don’t need a fucking hospital,” Bear grumbled. “It’s just a flesh wound. Give me a needle and thread, and I’ll sew it up myself.”
Jake flung open the cabinet doors under the bathroom sink. He tossed still-sealed cleaning products to the floor and found a first-aid kit stashed in the back. He popped the lid and thumbed through the contents as he made his way back to the living room.
“Sorry,” he said. “No needle, no thread. Just some gauze and tape.”
Snell was on her knees examining the wound. “You don’t want to sew it up anyway. It’s too big. The bleeding’s slowed, at least.”
“Jesus God, that hurts,” Bear groaned. “You got any whiskey?”
Jake nabbed a half-full bottle from a cabinet above the kitchen sink and handed it to Bear. Bear held the bottle between his legs and screwed off the top with his good hand. He took a deep pull from the bottle.
“That’ll help,” he said, sinking back on the couch. “Now what do we do? We can’t stay here for long.”
“What the hell happened in there?” Snell wiped her bloody hands on a towel from the coffee table.
“Matarrese was the one who beat up Logan. He was going to shoot us all and take the case. I took care of the problem. That’s one piece of the puzzle solved.”
“You said you were going to point him out to me when you saw him,” Bear moaned.
“I didn’t really have time.”
Bear’s lip jumped to a snarl. “I’m just pissed you were the one who got to shoot him. Now what?”
Jake crossed to the window, mulling over the events of the last hour. Something didn’t sit right.
“How did you know we were rolling into a trap?” he asked Snell.
Snell studied the floor. She pressed to her feet and stepped toward the kitchen, delicate like she was walking on eggshells. She dropped the bloody towel on the floor and slumped against the wall.
“You’re a shitty liar,” Jake continued.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to.”
She crossed her arms, hugging herself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do,” Jake said, storming over to her. “You’ve been holding something back since we met, and I want to know what it is. You tell me right now or I’m turning this stupid briefcase over to the cops. The KCPD and the FBI can get into a big pissing match.”
“You can’t do that,” Snell said, lunging forward, eyes wide.
The veins in Jake’s neck popped, and he jabbed a finger at her. “Like hell I can’t. Spill it. Everything. Right now.”
Tears welled in Snell’s eyes. She shifted around before clomping to the couch. She plucked the whiskey bottle from Bear’s grasp and took a slug.
“It’s complicated,” she said. “I have someone to protect, and if I don’t turn over that case to the right people, something bad will happen.”
The last piece clicked into place. Jake flashed back to her office and her hand covering the mouse pad, hiding it. The mouse pad with the picture on it. Voleski’s comment in the club about the girl. The scream for help from the cell phone on the dead guy. He was such an idiot.
Jake dropped his chin to his chest and blew out his cheeks. “They have your daughter.”
Snell clamped her eyes shut, her face falling. Large tears spilled down her cheeks.
“What daughter?” Bear asked. “What the hell is going on?”
Jake held out his hand, gesturing to Bear to relax. Snell took a minute to compose herself and wiped her tears with her hands.
“Four days ago, my daugh
ter didn’t come home from school,” she said. “I thought maybe she stayed after for an extra volleyball practice. Sometimes the coach springs an optional workout on them. When dinner time came and went and she still wasn’t there, I tried calling her cell phone and got no answer.”
Jake handed Snell a box of Kleenex from the desk.
“She has that damn cell phone in her hand twenty-four hours a day. She even sleeps with it. After three or four calls with no answer, I was worried, so I drove to the school. There was her car sitting alone in the parking lot. I pulled up next to it and found her keys on the ground, and the cell phone battery.”
“They took the battery so you couldn’t trace it,” Bear said.
Snell swiped a Kleenex across her eyes and clenched her fists. “I freaked out. My worst nightmare. I knew something happened. Then my cell phone rings. A man’s voice tells me she’s safe, but if I wanted to see her alive again, I had to do something.”
“What something?” Jake asked.
“Get the case. Voleski was in the wind by then. The name rang a faint bell, but I couldn’t place it. Whoever was on the other end was pretty damn sure I’d be able to track him down and get the case back. I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on or they’d kill her.”
“Who called you?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Bullshit,” Jake said.
“I swear to God, I don’t know who it was.”
“What did you do?”
“I started pulling files and linked Voleski to Keats from our investigation. I gathered everything I could find. I spent every waking moment pouring over those files trying to find Voleski, but the guy was a ghost.”
“That’s what was in your file box when I met you in the parking lot,” Jake said.
“I thought I could use Logan to get Voleski and the case.”
“You hired Logan?” Bear asked, his brown eyes flying wide.
She looked at Jake. “I didn’t know he involved you in this mess until after I hired him. I remembered you from our case files. Once I saw the fixer for Jason Keats was involved, I figured my chances of finding my daughter doubled. I asked Logan not to tell you who hired him.”
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 41
