Detached

by Elicia Hyder

  I turned in my seat and tapped my chest, the universal signal across the force to disable your body camera.

  “All my cameras are off.” He raised an eyebrow. “Why do they need to be?”

  I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “Call it damage control. What I’m about to say is going to sound completely nuts to whoever hears it.”

  “OK,” he said slowly.

  “Delta One.” A woman’s voice came over the radio, startling us both.

  “Geez, we’re not even technically on duty.” Essex shook his head as he grabbed the radio off its cradle. “Delta One.”

  “We’re getting calls about a car heading the wrong direction on Highway Fifty close to your location.”

  “I’m heading eastbound, just past Overlook Road.” He lowered the radio. “Nyx, cameras back on.”

  “Roger that.” Our conversation would have to wait.

  Dispatch started again. “It should be right on top of you. Gray four-door sedan—”

  “Essex, look out!” I grabbed the handle above my window.

  The truck ahead of us swerved, side-swiping the concrete wall dividing the highway. Essex hit his blue lights, but the oncoming car didn’t slow.

  It was heading straight for us.

  At the last second, the car swerved and slammed head-on into the green road sign. It impacted with so much force that the stakes holding the sign were ripped from the ground and the whole thing was flung into the ravine.

  Essex cut sideways onto the shoulder, and I was out of my seat before the tires stopped rolling. When I reached the car, I saw the driver slumped over the wheel.

  Essex radioed for EMS.

  The driver’s window was closed, and there were no sudden movements inside the vehicle. I looked into the back seat and froze. On the floorboard was a handgun and a huge bag of drugs.

  What the hell?

  I pulled my gun from its holster. “We’ve got drugs and a weapon in plain view!”

  The man in the driver’s seat had a shaved head, black scruff on his chin, and tattoos on his face.

  My biggest concern was the firearm. Essex covered me as I opened the back door—thank god it was unlocked—and grabbed the gun off the floor. I jogged back to the SUV, unloaded the weapon, and put it in the center console.

  Essex inched toward the car. “Delta One, I have an unresponsive Hispanic male . . .”

  As I got closer, I realized the man might not be so unresponsive. He stirred in the driver’s seat, slowly lifting his head off the spot where it landed on the wheel.

  When he straightened, I saw the number seven inked in a chillingly familiar font on the side of his neck.

  “Seven Kings,” I said, glancing at the back seat again. “Looks like fifty bricks or more of heroin back here.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me.” Essex looked inside. “If that’s what I think it is, I’m taking your ass to Vegas.”

  Essex tapped on the window. When the man’s bloodshot eyes registered us, he flinched, then frantically searched inside the car.

  “Hands where I can see them!” I shouted.

  The man looked at us again, clearly weighing options: fight, flee, or give up. God, I hoped we hadn’t used up all our luck finding the gun and the drugs in plain view of my body camera.

  One of his hands gripped the steering wheel; the other reached for the keys in the ignition. He didn’t find them.

  “Step out of the car with your hands up!” Essex screamed.

  In the distance, sirens wailed.

  With an angry huff, the man pushed open the door and got out, stumbling a step. He outweighed me by at least sixty pounds of muscle. “What the fuck am I doing here?” he asked, squinting.

  My head snapped back. Not what I expected. At. All.

  “Put your hands on your head,” Essex ordered calmly.

  “Fuck you. What’d you do to me?” The man staggered sideways and bumped into his open back door. When he grabbed onto it, he saw what I’d seen in the back floorboard. “Holy shit. What the fuck is going on?”

  “Get on the ground and keep your hands where I can see them,” Essex demanded.

  “I said—” He started toward me, but his legs wouldn’t hold, and he stumbled again.

  “Get on the ground!” I repeated.

  The man shook his head as if to clear it, then charged forward again. At the same time, a patrol car pulled in behind Essex’s SUV. The man looked toward the noise, and I took the opening.

  Holstering my gun, I darted forward, hooking my arm through his and wrenching it behind his back as I tried to take him to the ground.

  He jerked free and spun, and his giant hands closed around my throat.

  Raising my right arm, I turned and sliced downward with my elbow, using all the power of my torso to trap his arm against my chest. The force pitched him forward, and his forehead slammed directly into my staples.

  As my knees crumpled, I angled my elbow straight back into nose.

  Crunch!

  Over my head, Essex clotheslined the man with his arm, tackling him onto the grass.

  Dazed, I slumped onto my side as Baker ran to help.

  Blood poured into the gangster’s mouth and down his neck. “Stupid bitch.” He spat, showering Essex’s face with red spittle.

  Essex pushed his face to the side. “Congratulations, asshole. That’s an assault charge. Try it again, and you’ll have a broken jaw to match that nose.”

  Baker grabbed the man’s wrist, and they flipped him over.

  Something warm oozed into my ear. I gently touched it and pulled back fingers dripping with blood. “Damn it.”

  “You all right?” Essex asked, his dark hair falling into his eyes as he clamped the steel handcuffs around the man’s wrists.

  “I’m fine.” Fighting the burning pain, I pressed the button on my radio. “Delta Three.”

  “Go ahead Delta Three.”

  “We have an unidentified male in custody, bleeding from the nose. Need EMS to evaluate.”

  “EMS is already en route.”

  Baker put a see-through mesh fabric hood over the guy’s head to prevent any more spitting, then I stepped back to let the guys hoist him up onto his feet. Another patrol car pulled up, and Jones got out.

  “Jones, got any clean towels?” I called.

  He went to his trunk and opened it.

  With blood still oozing into my ear, I walked toward the man. “What’s your name?”

  “Fucking cunt,” he grumbled.

  “Bet that looks pretty on your birth certificate. Wanna try again?”

  “I’m not telling you shit.”

  “What about the bag of drugs in your car? Want to tell us about those?” Essex asked.

  “You assholes planted it.”

  I tapped the circular lens next to my chest pocket. “Pretty sure all our cameras will tell a very different story. It was in plain view on the back seat.”

  “Fucking liar! I put that shit in the trunk—” The man’s mouth snapped shut as mine fell open.

  Baker laughed. “You put it in the trunk, huh?”

  Essex laughed too, shaking his head with disbelief. “Maybe you were so high you only thought you put it in the trunk. Instead, you left it with a loaded forty cal on the floorboard.”

  “Gun too?” Baker asked.

  “Yep,” I said.

  Essex pulled on gloves and turned the man around. “Do you have anything on you that will poke me, cut me, or stick me?”

  “I don’t even know how the fuck I got here!” he shouted at my boss.

  “I’m going to search the car,” I said.

  “Take care of your head first,” Essex said.

  Jones carried over a white towel. He handed it to me, looking at my head. “Geez, Nyx.”

  “Care if I ruin it?” I asked.

  “My wife might, but go ahead. Shit. I think I see your skull.”

  I pressed the towel against the side of my head. “Thanks for the backup.”
/>
  “What have you got?” he asked, following me to the crashed sedan.

  “Heroin, pretty sure.”

  “You’re shitting me?”

  “No, I’m not.” At the back door of the car, I draped the bloody towel over my shoulder and pulled a pair of thick leather gloves from my pants’ cargo pocket.

  “Why don’t you let me do that? That gash needs pressure,” Jones said.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’ve got it.” If it was hypnox, I had a better chance of surviving it than Jones. At least I’d understand what the hell was happening to me if I detached. “Stay back.”

  I carefully lifted the bag and carried it to the hood of the car. Jones and Baker joined me as I slowly removed one of the bricks, a tight bundle of heroin packets. I peeled back the tape and unrolled the paper. Inside were glassine bags stamped with “7K” and a gold crown.

  Jones and Baker took a step back.

  “Be careful with that shit,” Baker said.

  “I know,” I replied. “We have Kings’ Gold.”

  “Don’t touch it!” Essex yelled back.

  “This guy was driving the wrong way on the highway?” Baker asked. “Big mistake for such a huge haul.”

  I’d thought the same thing. Serious drug dealers were usually more careful. “Baker, can you finish searching the car?”

  “Sure thing.”

  I pressed the towel against my bleeding head with one hand and pulled out my phone with the other. I tapped the number for narcotics in my phone book.

  “Gregg,” she answered.

  “Hey, it’s Nyx. I’m on fifty, eastbound just before Clear Creek. You won’t believe what I’ve got in front of me.”

  “Try me.”

  “One of the Kings and a huge bag of Kings’ Gold.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Shit. I’m close. Be right there.”

  “Cash,” Jones announced, laying a roll of money on the car’s roof.

  Baker let out a low whistle. “Damn. Thick wad.”

  “Got a name!” Essex called. He held up a driver’s license. “You won’t believe it.”

  We all looked over.

  “Lucas Costa, thirty-one, of Las Vegas.”

  My stomach clenched. Lucas Costa. The man we were all looking for, on both sides of the Boundary. Costa didn’t wind up on this highway by accident; Orion brought him here.

  “Nicely done,” I whispered if Orion was listening.

  A cold, invisible hand lighted on the back of my neck.

  I walked over to the man in handcuffs. “You’re Norina Grumley’s boyfriend.”

  “I don’t know that bitch,” Costa growled.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “He says he borrowed the car from a friend,” Essex added.

  “Did you borrow the gun too?” I asked.

  Costa glared at me.

  I walked back to Essex’s SUV to get the weapon. Of course its serial number had been filed off. I put it with everything else on the hood of the sedan.

  An ambulance with red lights flashing pulled up beside us. “What have you got?” Dani Lunn asked, pulling on gloves as she got out of the passenger’s side. She stopped when she saw me. “Jesus, Nyx.”

  “Hi, Dani.”

  “What the hell happened to you?” She looked over her shoulder as she approached. “Bring my bag!”

  “It’s OK. Just split some staples. We’ve got a bloody nose over there for you to check too.”

  She looked over at Costa, then flashed me a smile as she checked my head. “You have something to do with that?”

  Baker smirked. “Oh, he deserved it.”

  “No doubt.” Dani’s face sobered. “Nyx, I can’t fix this here. You have to go to the ER.”

  I groaned.

  “Sorry. You want to ride with us? I don’t recommend driving.”

  “I’m not driving. I’m already on light duty, riding with Essex.”

  “Light duty, right.” She laughed as she pressed a wad of gauze to my head. “Hold this here. How’s your head feel?”

  “It hurts.”

  “Any spots in your vision or dizziness?”

  “Nothing like that. I don’t think he hit me hard enough for another concussion. Just in the right spot to split open the gash.”

  “Better be glad.”

  While Dani wrapped my head in gauze, her partner went over to where Costa was now sitting behind his car. The male paramedic examined Costa’s bloody face. When he finally rejoined us, he shook his head as he pulled off his gloves. “It’s broken.”

  “Damn it.” I clenched my jaw and sucked in an angry breath. “I should have kneed him in the nuts. That wouldn’t have required a hospital visit.”

  “What’d he do?” Dani asked.

  “Tried to choke me.”

  “Then he’s lucky he didn’t get worse.”

  Essex walked over.

  “You’ve got two who need to go to the hospital, Sarge,” Dani said.

  “Thanks, Dani.” His eyes flashed toward me. “She OK?”

  “Staples have to be redone, but yeah. She’ll be fine. Want us to take anybody?”

  “Better let us.” Essex looked back at Costa. “He’s a fighter. Nyx, you want a flashy ride to the hospital?”

  “God, no. No offense, Dani.”

  She smiled. “You guys stay safe.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  An SUV flashed its lights as it pulled up behind my car. “Gregg,” Essex said as he took Costa to his SUV.

  Sergeant Gregg got out of the driver’s seat, carrying a black backpack. “What the hell happened out here?”

  “What do you think the odds are that we found a King with a back seat full of hypnox heroin, driving the wrong way down the highway?” Essex asked.

  “The wrong way?”

  “Yeah. Like he wanted to get caught,” Essex said.

  Gregg looked at me. “You OK?”

  “It’s just blood. The drugs are on the hood.” I led her toward Costa’s car.

  Gregg pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. She shook her head in disbelief when she saw it. “What are the odds, indeed.”

  She put on a paper mask and pulled an extra-large, double-seal evidence bag out of her backpack. The guys and I kept a safe distance while she put the heroin into it.

  “Costa’s got warrants out of Vegas and Reno. Assault and a couple of FTAs,” Essex said, standing beside me.

  “Think he’s here hiding out?” I asked, watching Costa snarling through his mesh hood sitting at Baker’s feet.

  “Maybe.”

  “Or maybe he’s permanently relocated with so many of his other buddies,” Gregg said as she sealed the bag. “I’m going to put a rush on this at the lab, but I’m sure it’s the same shit. Nicely done.” She smiled at me. “Two huge arrests and it’s only Tuesday? It’s like she’s going for a big promotion or something.”

  I laughed and shook my head.

  “You in on that pot too, Gregg?” Baker asked.

  “Fifty bucks on Nyx.” Gregg smiled and carried the drugs to her car. “I’ll probably see you guys back at the station.”

  “We have to stop at the ER first,” Essex said as we followed her.

  Gregg looked around to see who was in earshot and lowered her voice. “You were right about your mother. She said she didn’t know anything about hypnox. It was a total waste of time.”

  “Hate to say I told you so,” I said.

  “You did. She’s a real piece of work.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault. You’re nothing alike.”

  My nerves calmed. “Thanks.”

  Gregg got in her driver’s seat. “Good luck with the head, Nyx.”

  I waved to her. Then Essex and I returned to our team. “Thanks for getting here so fast,” I said to Baker.

  “Shit. I came to make sure the perp wasn’t dead.” He winked.

  “Jonesy, you wan
t your towel back?” I offered it to him. It was soaked in red.

  “I don’t know. Will some of your luck rub off on me if I take it?”

  “Only if you wrap it around your waist and wear it like a skirt,” Baker said.

  Jones opened his car door. “Hell, it’d be worth a shot.”

  “We’ll see you guys later,” Essex said, pulling Costa back up to his feet. “Thanks for backing us up.”

  “No prob. Try to leave some bad guys for the rest of us,” Baker said, getting in his car.

  When we reached the emergency room, Celise took one look at Costa’s face and grinned at me. “Wonder how this happened.”

  “He went for her throat,” Essex said, clearly not appreciating the joke.

  “Then I guess he’s lucky he isn’t dead.” Celise opened the electric doors behind her. “You bust open your stitches?”

  “The staples,” I said.

  She led us to the open emergency room. “Nyx, over here. Sarge, put the big guy in here.” She pulled the curtain closed between Costa’s bed and mine. I pushed it back to the wall before sitting on the bed.

  Essex cuffed both of Costa’s arms to the bed rails. “Be careful. He’s a spitter.”

  “I’d better grab a face shield.” Celise stopped on her way out. “Do you still see Dr. Pratts?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  Celise jerked her head to the side. “She’s here with a patient.”

  “Shit.” My personal phone rang. It was the station. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  She winked and left the cubicle.

  I put the phone to my ear. “This is Nyx.”

  “Hey, it’s McCormick. You bringing in one of the Kings?” Rick McCormick worked gang division.

  “As soon as we get him cleared from the hospital. I broke his nose when he got handsy.”

  “Good. How long before you’re at the station?”

  I looked at my watch. “I dunno. An hour or two maybe.”

  “All right. I’ll head that way soon.”

  “It’s not too late?”

  “Can’t risk him bonding out before morning. Let me know if something changes.”

  “Will do.”

  Dr. Pratts walked around the corner and froze when she saw me. Her face melted into a frown as she crossed the tile floor. “Corporal Nyx, what don’t you understand about light duty? I said no fights.”

  I pointed at Costa. “This one’s not my fault.”