§
Lenny took a long drag off a joint and blew a smoke ring towards the dirty ceiling. He lay draped across a loveseat, one leg hooked over an arm rest and his head resting on the other. To anyone watching, he appeared lost in ganja land and oblivious to his surroundings, but they would have been wrong. He’d learned a long time ago that the best way to learn things was to keep his mouth shut and his ears open, and right now his ears were hearing all sorts of interesting information.
“Ray wasted another bitch last night,” one man smirked as he shuffled the deck of cards. “I can’t believe Ciervo is okay with that.”
“He is, because he knows Ray won’t get caught,” another man replied. He took a swig of his beer before continuing. “No matter what, he’s the best at what he does. Ciervo isn’t going to waste talent like that over some worthless bitches.”
Lenny had intended to stay quiet, but this was the first he’d heard about Ray and he decided to risk speaking up. “Ray? Have I met him?”
“Probably not since you’re kinda new around here.” The man with the beer leaned back in his chair and fixed Lenny with an avid gaze. It reminded Lenny of a boy he used to know who lived to tell ghost stories. “Ray’s a hit man, been working for us since he was just fifteen years old, so that ought to tell you how cold-blooded he is. Story is that his mama was a real bitch to him, abusive and shit. When she died he was all alone, so Ciervo took him in and raised him like his own kid. Came to find out little Ray was smart as a whip, so Ciervo put him to work. Now we’re about to teach his son the tricks of the trade. Thing is,” the man leaned forward conspiratorially, “Ray has this nasty habit of killing bitches for fun. Now ordinarily that would cause a problem in the family, but since he always makes sure to clean up after himself, Ciervo looks the other way.”
“Hey, we all got our bad habits,” Lenny said smoothly, taking another hit and staring at the ceiling as the card players laughed loudly and returned to their game. The more he learned about the players in Ciervo’s organization, the more they sickened him. If it hadn’t been for the mellow calm the weed afforded him, he doubted he could have reacted so nonchalantly to the news of Ray’s little hobby.
His cohorts viewed him as an easygoing pothead with a few useful skills. If they ever discovered the truth, all the weed in the world wouldn’t be enough to save him. At the request of his stepfather, Nate had been undercover for the past five months, gathering information and evidence that would eventually put Cecily Ciervo behind bars for good. His dark looks had made it easy enough to pass him off as just another Italian goon, and with his paid-for connections and forged criminal history, they’d accepted him as one of their own without reserve.
As he sent another smoke ring towards the ceiling, a beautiful young woman with long black hair and light golden eyes walked in. She was Ciervo’s only sister and the only one of the family with a good head on her shoulders. She desperately wanted out of the family, but so far there had been no way for her to do so. Instead, she contented herself with feeding Nate information that would help him with his case.
Smiling seductively, she took a seat beside him on the loveseat and slipped her hand over his. His body stiffened slightly as he realized she’d slipped a flash drive into his palm. Without missing a beat, she leaned over him, letting her long hair cascade sensually over his chest, and moved her lips to his neck. As she reached his ear, she whispered, “Cecily knows who you are.”
She moved her lips down his neck to his chest, then pulled away with a throaty laugh. She pulled him to her as she stood up.
“Come with me,” she said seductively.
“Arianna, when you get tired of that pothead I’ll be right here waiting,” one of the men playing poker leered as they passed by the table.
She led him through the house to the bedroom, quickly shutting the door behind her as she dropped the seductive act. “You have to get out of here now,” she whispered urgently as she pushed him towards the window. “They’re on their way and they’ll be here any minute. That flash drive contains enough evidence to convict my brother five times over. Now go!”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me, I know what to do. GO!”
He didn’t wait any longer. Prying the window open, he slipped out and shimmied down the fire escape as fast as he could, dropping the last ten feet to the pavement. Once down he broke into a run. It was two miles to the nearest safe location. Lenny’s weed habit over the past five months hadn’t done him any favors in the lung department, but he was still capable of running the distance, and thanks to Arianna he had what he needed. His only question now was,” how on earth did Ciervo find out he was a cop?
§
Despite the sense of being watched that followed her all morning, Hazel’s run went off without a hitch. Back home she’d headed straight for the shower. Despite the cold morning air, she had still managed to work up quite a sweat. Now, standing under the showerhead with the warm water beating down on her, she let the steam envelop her as the water rinsed the sweat from her body. She knew it was going to be one of those days. The bad dreams and lack of sleep were bad enough, but the thought of having to deal with Owen and his dour mood AND Brook’s self-important, misogynistic blather made her want to call in sick and crawl back under her covers. She could already feel the beginnings of a migraine starting up.
Stepping out of the shower, she grabbed a towel and quickly dried off. The hot shower still hadn’t managed to knock the chill from her bones, and she shivered slightly as she got dressed. The bags under her eyes were impossible not to notice, and her cheeks now bordered on gaunt. Her appetite had vanished about the time the nightmares had started, and the results were clearly visible on her face.
As she toweled off her hair, she heard someone pounding on her front door. Her skin prickled as she ran silently on the balls of her feet into the living room, grabbing her pistol from the desk as she ran past. Peering through a carefully-shifted slat in the blinds, she checked the porch to see who was beating on her door so early in the morning. It was Nate. Without hesitation she flung open the door and let him in. She knew his undercover assignment wasn’t finished yet and for him to come to her place, something had to have gone wrong, and she knew without asking what it was.
“Nate!” she gasped as she shut the door behind him and quickly locked it. “Are you ok? What happened?”
It took him a moment to gather his composure. “My cover was blown. I don’t know how, or by who, but the sister of the one I was after gave me the heads up.” He ran his fingers through his hair and paced the living room. “I don’t get it. My alias was perfect! No hiccups, no problems, it was smooth sailing, until all of the sudden it wasn’t. Hazel, I don’t know what is going on but you were the first person I thought to go to.”
“You haven’t talked to anyone else?”
“Haven’t had time. I slipped out of a window there and ran straight here. I couldn’t call anyone in my department,” he added. “I didn’t have my cell when I left, and I wasn’t going to waste time trying to find a working phone booth.” He stopped pacing and leaned against the wall. “I need to get back to the station.”
“No problem,” she said, trying to remain calm. She’d always viewed her older brother as somewhat invincible. It was unnerving to see him so rattled. “I’ll call Dad and let him know what’s up, ok?”
He nodded and she quickly dialed their stepdad’s number.
“That’s weird,” she said, staring at the phone. “I don’t have any service.” That didn’t make any sense. There was a tower less than half a mile away from her apartment. Confused, she looked at Nate. He quickly averted his eyes but not fast enough to keep her from seeing the naked fear in them. “I need to use your restroom,” he said quietly before slipping away down the hall.
Hazel held her phone up and moved around the room, but it still showed no service. “What the heck?” She headed down the hall to the bath
room and knocked on the door. “Nate, let’s just go. I can’t get any service but I can drive you to the station.” When he didn’t respond, she knocked again, then tried the door only to find it was locked. “Nate, open the door!” she pleaded. Finally she took a step back and gave a powerful kick. The interior door shattered and flew open, and she quickly realized Nate had slipped out the window and down the fire escape. Before she could look out the window, she heard screaming coming from the hallway.
“Oh Lenny, where are you? Or should I say, Nate? I know you’re here you worthless snitch!”
Once more she ran on her toes to the front and peered through the blinds. She knew better than to look through the peephole; that was a good way to get a bullet in the eye. Her stomach flip-flopped when she saw three men standing in front of her door. One of them was Cecily Ciervo. For a moment she entertained a delicious vision of emptying an entire magazine into the crime boss’s chest, but he had two other goons with him and she wasn’t about to start a war in her apartment complex.
From somewhere else a voice called back that Nate was outside, and the three men immediately ran off. On a hunch she checked her phone again, and saw her service had been restored. “Bastard had a jammer,” she muttered angrily as she quickly dialed her stepfather and crossed her fingers that he was where he could answer.
“This better be good, Hazel,” her father said groggily. “I was counting on another hour of sleep.”
“Dad, Nate is in big trouble. He showed up at my place ten minutes ago, said his cover was blown. Next thing I know I got Ciervo and his goons outside my apartment, and Nate has snuck out the bathroom window.”
“Did your brother call anyone?”
“No, he said he didn’t have his phone. I couldn’t even call you until just now. Ciervo must have a jammer on him. I got service back as soon as he left the building.”
Her stepfather immediately took charge of the situation. “I want you to get to our house right now. Don’t go to the station, don’t go looking for Nate, just come home immediately. Don’t take your usual route, make a few detours and watch your six. I’m on this.”
The line went dead, and at last the adrenaline surge from earlier gave way. For a moment she thought she was going to be sick as her body began to shake. Her older brother was out there with three goons after him, and there was nothing she could do about it. She kept remembering the look in his eyes when she’d said her phone had no service. He’d known immediately what took her considerably longer to realize: Ciervo had tracked him down like an animal, and intended to kill him like one as well.
Hazel knew their stepdad would find Nate. She just wished she could be sure it would be while he was still alive. Gritting her teeth, she swallowed back the wave of emotion that threatened to overtake her. Now wasn’t the time for it. Quickly jumping into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved pullover, she retrieved an extra magazine from the desk drawer and shoved it in her hip pocket. The thirteen-round magazines were illegal in the state of New York, but being a cop had certain advantages. With Ciervo and his thugs out and about, she needed all the advantages she could get.
Quiet as a mouse, she slipped into the vacant hallway. There were no cameras or security in her building. Her landlord was barely willing to fix the plumbing, let alone waste money on protecting the renters. She stayed tight to the wall as she ran lightly down the steps, on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary but seeing nothing.
Once out the doors, she quickly cased the street. Other than a few cars calmly passing by, she saw nothing. Everything looked normal. She pushed the unlock button on her key and hurried towards her car as fast as she could without risking drawing attention to herself. Once in the car, she clutched the wheel and desperately scanned her surroundings. Nothing. It was as if the trio of screaming Italians running around the block just fifteen minutes earlier had never happened.
The trip to her parents’ house seemed to take forever. Following her stepfather’s advice, she took the roads she normally avoided, all the while keeping her eyes peeled for any sign of Nate. For all she knew he had a safe house somewhere… or had been caught. She didn’t want to think about that possibility.
As she rounded the end of the block and her parents’ house came into view, Hazel saw an unfamiliar car parked in her usual spot. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as she drove past the house and pulled into the neighbor’s driveway. She waited in the car for nearly five minutes, watching the house and neighborhood for signs of anything unusual. At last she got out and crossed the yards to the front door. From outside she could see the light was on in her stepfather’s office, and she entered the house and made her way towards his room as silently as she could.
To her relief she found Owen and her stepfather alone in the office talking in hushed voices. Stepping into the light, she cleared her throat to alert them to her presence. Both men jumped, and she could tell by their faces that the news wasn’t good.
“I’ve made a few calls, no one has heard from Nate. Without knowing who blew his cover I can’t afford to let the department know, so as of now I only have my most trusted officers looking for him.”
“You had Nate investigating Cecily Ciervo,” she said angrily.
“And you better keep that to yourself,” he retorted.
“I plan to, but I can’t believe you didn’t at least tell ME that you’d sent my brother on a suicide mission!”
Her stepfather made an annoyed face. “It wasn’t a suicide mission, and this was hardly Nate’s first rodeo. He knew what he was getting into and what he was doing.”
“I don’t give a damn how many times he’s done this,” she snapped. “Ciervo is seriously bad news. For Pete sake, he’s my brother, YOUR SON! Couldn’t you just once be our father instead of our boss?”
“Hazel,” Owen warned, “now isn’t the time to be getting emotional.”
Hazel’s blood was boiling now. “Don’t you even go there Owen, don’t you dare! You care about Nate as much as I do. He was a brother to you so don’t pretend this doesn’t scare the hell out of you as much as it does me. I can’t believe you two acting as if this is nothing. What the hell is wrong with you guys?”
“It won’t do Nate any good to make this personal, Hazel, you know that. You let emotions come into play and that’s when people really start to get hurt. We have to stay emotionally detached on this.
“I can’t do that,” she snapped. “Nate is my brother and he is your son. You should be doing more about this than just sitting around here pretending it isn’t personal.”
Both men looked away from Hazel’s withering glare. At last her stepfather spoke up. “I love you and your brothers very much, Hazel. You should know that. But right now I have to be Chief of Police or I’m no good to Nate or anyone else. The only thing I’m sure of right now is that Nate’s alias was unbreakable. The only way his cover was blown was if another cop blew it. Until I know who that is, I don’t dare bring the department in on this. For now, we have to trust that Nate is smart enough to take care of himself until we can find the rat and then come for him.” He reached out and took Hazel’s hand, holding it tightly between both of his. “Hazel, I need your help. Nate needs your help, but we need you as a cop, not a freaked out sister. Can we count on you?”
His words had a calming effect on her, and she nodded. “What do you need me to do?”
“Put all your focus on your Slitter case. I want anyone paying attention to you to think it’s business as usual. And until we have your brother, I don’t want you away from Owen’s side for a minute. Check in with me every hour, both of you, and I’m telling your brothers to do the same. That’s an order. Am I clear?”
“Crystal,” she replied. “Are you going to tell Mom?”
“No, and neither are you,” he said firmly. “Not yet. Your mother couldn’t handle this right now.”
Once her stepfather was finished giving them instructions, she saw her way out of
the room and stood in the hallway silently with Owen. There were millions of things swarming through her mind at that moment, none of which she wanted to share aloud. She wanted for him to speak, but he remained uncomfortably silent.
She watched as Owen moved awkwardly towards her. He put a warm hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “We both know that Nate will be fine. He is strong and smart. We both know that as well. Believe that he is okay.”
That was what she wanted to believe, but in the real world it was impossible to believe in something as hopeful as that. Despite his reassuring touch she did not think there was any way she could focus today, but she had to. She had to bury herself in her work to push back the morbid thoughts that entered her mind.
“Owen, I want to believe that he is fine, but you didn’t see him. He was terrified. I have never in my life seen him so scared before. I just can’t get that image out of my head. Why didn’t he stay with me? I could have helped him.”
“Nate wanted to protect you, that’s all. Now I need your head in this case with me. We are going to solve this murder, and you will get your brother back. I promise you that.”
All she could do was nod. There was nothing else that she could do at that moment. She wanted to go to her old room and curl up on her bed and bawl. However, Owen was right. She had to put her head in The Slitter Case. If she didn’t do that, nothing productive would happen. Inhaling deeply, she steeled herself against her emotions and mentally detached from Nate’s predicament. It was the only way she’d be able to get through it all.
“You want to go in to work now?” he inquired.
“Yeah, we might as well.”
As they were walking out of the house, she paused on the front steps to watch parents hurry their children towards the bus stop. She wondered if their lives were always so peaceful and happy, or if they too went through the trials her family had endured.
She’d forgotten how messy Owen had been until she slid into his car, but refrained from commenting on the mountain of wadded up paper, discarded junk mail and empty takeout containers. At least she hoped they were empty, though the slightly off-putting odor of his car suggested otherwise. He drove slowly through the neighborhood while Hazel kept her eyes peeled, hopefully looking between every parked car and down every alley for signs of her brother.
Family Ties Mystery Series Box Set Page 45
