by Jay Hogan
“Descriptions fit.”
I glanced at the shop, whose shutters were down and front door closed. “What the hell do they hope to achieve by holding out in there?”
Leanne shrugged. “Fucked if I know. I was kind of hoping you’d have the answer to that, being the more senior detective, and all.” She looked hopeful.
“Nuh-uh.” I dropped my voice. “There’s no way I’m taking over. You know you need this. So man up, detective, strap on those spurs, and go do your thang.”
“Well if that’s how it’s going to be—” Leanne huffed loudly and brushed off her trousers. “—all I can say, is you can kiss goodbye to that detective of the year prize at our annual Christmas knees-up.”
Oh, how they fall. “Don’t be too sure of that. I know the woman who’s awarding it.” I threw her a wink.
Her eyes popped. “Fuck. Carmen’s coming again, isn’t she?”
I nodded with a grin.
“Goddammit. Last year she managed to outdress and look sexier than all of us girls put together. She’s a fucking fashion menace. Now I’m gonna have to sweat nails and bankrupt my damn savings to get a better dress. Son of a bitch.” She grabbed her radio and ducked her head. “You guys ready back there?”
“All set” came the reply.
“Okay. We’ll hold down the front till you’re in and give us the all-clear. Then we’ll join you and take all the glory. You good with that?”
A muffled snort came back on the channel, and I chuckled and shook my head. Everyone loved Leanne. She had a quick wit, but she also knew her shit six ways from Sunday and she was gonna make a damn good senior detective once she got her confidence back. I trusted her with my life, no small thing.
She glanced at me, and I nodded. I was the only one who’d have any idea just how nervous she was. “Go get ’em, cowboy,” I whispered.
She blew out a sigh, straightened her ballistics vest, and lifted her radio. “On my count you lot…. And… three. Go, go, go.”
We held tight in position while three of the Armed Offender’s Squad hit up the back door and a dog team and one other squad member went in the front. The squad were the only ones with guns… so yeah… kind of a no-brainer. New Zealand police didn’t routinely carry weapons, gun confrontations still being rare. Some cop cars carried them in lock boxes, but we mostly left gun confrontations to the specialist squad, and even on the fringes, it never failed to make my heart thump out of my damn chest.
I fucking hated guns. I’d done the training and was actually a pretty good shot, but every time I held a gun, I felt sick with the responsibility. I was more than grateful the squad arrived before we had to do anything about those idiots inside by ourselves.
Shouts, barks, and disjointed instructions bled staccato through the police radio as we waited, nerves strung tight. Added to the indistinct flickers of movement through the glass door of the store, it made a ten-second wait feel more like an hour, and my jiggling knee was nearly taking out my front teeth in frustration. I nudged Leanne to her feet, and we circled to the back of the car just before the all-clear call came through. Leanne took lead and we headed in.
Drink cans littered the shabby linoleum floor along with flattened loaves of bread, spilt chocolate milk, half-eaten pies, cigarettes, and weirdly enough, several cartons of ice cream complete with spoons. The air reeked of tobacco mixed with the sweeter tang of marijuana, and it looked as if the two idiots had been enjoying a bloody picnic while they waited. For fuck’s sake.
Three sour-faced Armed Offenders, a chatty dog handler, and one very pissed-off German shepherd stood over the two cuffed teenagers, who sported amused, slightly befuddled expressions, looking anything but repentant. It was all I could do not to kick them where they lay for screwing up everyone’s day.
While Leanne poked through the contents of the boys’ turned-out pockets, I checked in with the Armed Offenders. “Weapons?”
The larger of the two, Asi, a Tongan behemoth I’d completed weapons training with, answered, “A baseball bat and a… gun.”
The way he eyeballed me raised the hairs on my arm, and my frown deepened. “The real deal?”
He nodded. “Nine millimetre.”
Son of a bitch. I shared a look with Leanne and cast a fresh eye over our prisoners. That changed things significantly.
I nudged the foot of the closest kid. “Where’d you two idiots get a gun?” In New Zealand it still wasn’t easy to lay hands on a gun without a gang affiliation, and even then….
He snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I glanced over at Leanne. “ID?”
“Got someone on it,” she said. “And they’re following with family checks for gang connections.”
I focussed back on the two on the floor. “Earning your stripes, kids? Is that what this is all about?”
The closest boy curled his lip in a well-practiced sneer “Arsehole.”
I smirked then turned to my colleague. “Hey, Asi, who have we got in custody right now?”
The big Tongan stepped closer. “Couple of the Scalper’s crew and three Hell Spawn affiliates. We’re short on cells. Might have to double bunk.”
The eyes of both boys damn near popped through their skulls with skittering fear. The reaction confirmed the likelihood of a gang connection, the robberies part of some initiation test, but not with either of those mentioned. Still, for a couple of greenhorn kids, they weren’t as overwhelmed as I expected.
“Should be nice and cosy in there.” I turned away and let them think on that for a bit.
Leanne strode over. “Nothing definite yet on the gang angle, but it looks like they’re brothers, James and Michael Tualofa.”
I faced the two again. “That right, guys? You brothers? Who’s who?”
The farthest away squirmed and continued to stare out the window, saying nothing. The nearest spat on the floor. “Fuck off.”
There was a good chance he was the eldest, but something about the two still didn’t sit right. They were too cocky. The spitter snagged my gaze for a second, then quickly let it go. I looked to Leanne. “Their parents must be so proud.”
She snorted. “Right, you lot,” she addressed the rest of the team. “Time to bag, tag, and get these two back to the station.”
There was an immediate flurry of activity, and I stepped outside to give them room, still wracking my brains. We were missing something. A few minutes later it hit me. The van. Shit. In every other robbery, the two involved had escaped in a van. I sprinted back inside and pulled Leanne aside.
“Where’s the damn van?” I hissed, eyeing our two prisoners laid out on the floor. The quiet one heard me, his gaze flitting nervously to his brother. Fuck.
Leanne twigged immediately and radioed for a wider perimeter check. There had to be a third, a driver stashed in the van, watching from somewhere safe, especially if it was a gang blooding. He’d be far enough away to not be caught up in anything if it went tits-up, but close enough to do the pickup. It was gang booty after all. But with streets front and back of the store, escape routes were numerous.
“You head out front, I’ll take the back,” I yelled to Leanne, who accepted my taking lead without comment. The small car park out back was jammed with police vehicles, and when I hit the street, it was a crapshoot which direction to take. I chose right because… who the fuck knew why? Two seconds later the sound of an engine gunning caught my attention and I quickly scanned the driveways. No van, but there was a side street about fifty meters away and… the front end of a van, in perfect fucking view of the back of the store.
I took off, radioing for backup and reaching the corner just as the van hit the intersection. A couple more strides and I was almost alongside.
“Caleb, drop.” Asi’s shouted command blared through my radio and I immediately hit the pavement and froze. Two shots rang out from behind, followed by the squeal of tires and sickening crunch of metal.
I sprang to my feet and ran toward the van, now bu
ried side-on in the garage door of a modest green-shuttered home across the road, its shot-out tyre spinning uselessly. The driver’s door hung open, the driver himself disappearing through the side gate of the property. And in the window of the property, an elderly frightened face pressed to the window. Fuck. If the guy got inside….
I pushed hard around the side of the house and tackled the driver just as he reached the back steps, momentum throwing us both to the concrete and into a stacked set of aluminium patio furniture, sending the lot toppling. Grabbing the runner’s leg, I was caught in a flailing mess of chair legs and body parts and almost lost my hold. Concerned shouts and the rumble of running boots alerted me to help close at hand and gave me the extra push I needed to fire my legs into action and launch myself over the thin wiry body doing its best to wriggle free.
With his face planted in the concrete, the man had few options, but that wasn’t stopping him doing his best to unseat me, bucking and scrambling for purchase. I had a lot more muscle on him, but the guy kept spinning out of my grip like a damn eel, furniture crashing around us.
He roared to his knees and managed to throw me sideways, the corner of the solid timber table slamming into my head, and for a second, the whole world flickered and threatened to go dark. I tasted blood, but there was no time to think about it. After lurching forward, I pretty much fell on top of his back and somehow managed to grab one of his wrists, but I was still struggling to secure the second, when out of nowhere he arched up and threw me to the side, scrambling onto his back.
With that single wrist still floating in my grasp, I punched my knee into his thigh to lever myself up and threw my body atop his. He grunted and his free hand flew to his side. I chased it but found a broken aluminium chair leg instead. Throwing it aside, I’d gotten almost to my knees when the white heat of a blade sliced low into me. A second quickly followed, and I fell to the side just as a thousand shouts pounded in my ears and the chuckling man was dragged from under me.
Hands forced me onto my back, and I caught a hiss of shock seconds before something clamped down hard on my belly and the world drifted off into a quiet welcome fog.
Drake
TWO HOURS without needing to track the worn-out route across the hall to the bathroom and I was counting it a win. A big one. Step class had nothing on a Crohn’s flare-up for ticking off leg day. Not to mention the core work involved with cramping and endless diarrhoea. I had more toilet time in a year than most people did in ten, and every minute was best forgotten.
Exhausted didn’t even begin to describe my current state. Crohn’s rarely took a break while you slept—it was a 24/7 service. Sleep deprivation came as part of the package, and last night had been no different. I avoided using television to pass the time at night. It kept my mind churning, making it damn near impossible to even grab twenty minutes, and I needed every catnap I could muster. My mother was gonna crack a fit when she caught sight of me this morning. The brief once-over I’d risked in the bathroom mirror confirmed I’d give a zombie a solid run for their money, though to be fair, they probably looked healthier.
That conclusion was cemented by Dana, who’d popped in to update me on my pregnant clients, one clean delivery earlier in the week and another looking likely over the weekend, but they had it all in hand. No word from Prim. My heart sank at that, but it was early days.
I still wasn’t sure how I felt about returning to work, and Dana had more bad news on that front. The Midwifery Board had notified the clinic they would be reviewing Prim’s case. Standard practice with any unexpected death during a delivery, and no one anticipated I wouldn’t be fully cleared, but still, it was the last thing I needed.
It was also likely Prim would be asked for her account and God knows what that would do to her or what she would have to say. I’d gained a little more perspective on the whole fiasco and finally accepted I’d done everything I could at the time, but just the thought of wrapping my hands around another tiny pair of shoulders and helping lift them into the world scared the living crap out of me.
Dana had cast a single glance over my admittedly less-than-winning appearance and pronounced me persona non grata at work for at least a month, and insisting I talk to someone as a nonnegotiable part of that deal—a therapist-type someone, she’d clarified. When I opened my mouth to argue, she’d threatened to make it two. But yeah, a therapist probably wasn’t such a stupid idea. Even I could see I had a few things that needed talking through.
Joanne poked her head through the door as she’d done every fifteen minutes since my last roam to the porcelain throne, the same unspoken question in her eyes.
I gave her a thumbs-up and she fist-pumped the air. “Yes!” Then she disappeared singing a painfully off-key rendition of “We Are the Champions.”
The woman was certifiably crazy, but I shared her enthusiasm, and every fibre in my body prayed that just maybe I was winning… finally. It was too soon to thank the new drug on its own, but there had to be some correlation to this faster-than-usual turnaround. If so, it was a welcome addition to my anti-Crohn’s arsenal, but I was trying not to get my hopes up too soon.
Of course, clearing the air with Caleb yesterday had to have helped as well, but I really didn’t want to think on that too hard. He’d read me the riot act. Not that I hadn’t deserved it. The problem with any chronic arse-kicking disease was that it was really, really fucking hard to see past your own shit when things got bad, to see anyone else’s point of view. The blinkers simply came down and you switched into survival mode.
Letting Caleb inside that survival wall was a huge deal. It meant stressing about my feelings, goddammit, and talking, and so I hadn’t, plain and simple. I didn’t want to consider how badly he might have been affected. And his job? Holy shit. I was never gonna be able to face Leanne again.
I’d almost convinced myself I was doing him a favour. Who in their right mind wanted to change sheets, be verbally abused, feed, water, and be exposed in general to a dubious selection of multisensory delights from the Crohn’s top ten playlist? Caleb, apparently, and I was still getting my head around that one.
Turns out I was being a selfish prick, go figure. And now? Well, it wasn’t like we’d really sorted anything for good, but just slowing things down and giving myself permission to not decide about us right now had somehow made everything easier. The kiss hadn’t hurt either. Turns out talking helps reduce stress… now there’s a novel thought.
Speaking of the man, I’d heard nothing from him since he’d left on the call-out yesterday, and I was trying not to worry about that. Considering how I’d spent the last week shutting him out of my life, I could hardly get pissy about a half-day’s silence on his end. I was still mulling over whether to text or not when a knock on the door startled me. Expecting my mum, I called out for her to come in.
The door blew open, and a woman marched in, but one thing was certain, it wasn’t my mother. Not unless Alison Park had suddenly sprouted six inches and started taking fashion tips from RuPaul’s Drag Race. Son of a bitch.
“Carmen? What are you doing here?”
The woman arched a sassy coiffed brow and I flustered immediately.
“You’re welcome, of course.” I stumbled. “I’m just… surprised is all. Did the desk send you through?” My room was on lockdown to anyone not on my visitor list, and the question earned me an eye roll of epic proportions that had my cheeks burning. The very notion Carmen would seek permission was, of course, ridiculous.
She ignored the chair and perched on my bed instead, her gaze taking quick stock of my obvious exhaustion, protruding bones, IVs, and darkened room. A painted nail ran the length of my cheek, and she looked like she was fighting the urge to cradle me in her arms. She didn’t, but I could see it was a close call, and my heart warmed at her obvious concern.
Decked out in a royal-blue pantsuit matched with a red-and-white-striped blouse, three-inch black heels, and sporting a tight chignon and black-framed glasses—did she even wear g
lasses?—the woman was channelling her inner boardroom bitch, and a flutter of nerves ran through my chest. Nothing about this felt even remotely okay. And when her gaze finally settled on mine, and that steely expression softened into something more like anguish, I finally freaked. My heart jumped in my throat and lodged there, my hands shook, and every fibre of my body went on high alert.
“Where is he?” I choked.
Her gaze never wavered. “Upstairs, in ICU.”
Bile surged up the back of my throat. No, no, no. “What…? Is he…?. Oh God….” The words wouldn’t come. Nausea rolled through my gut as I sat there, mouth gaping, both hands flying to cover it.
She took one and held it in her own. “He was knifed below his vest, but―”
“Knifed? Oh fuck, no. Jesus, Carmen….” I threw the words at her, panic building in my chest as my stomach threatened to disgorge itself.
She took my other hand and squeezed both tight. “He’s okay, Drake. Take a breath. He’s okay. Come on, breathe with me, sweetheart.”
We locked eyes, and I couldn’t help but follow her words, and slowly, slowly the panic eased. Carmen said he was okay, right? She wouldn’t say that if it weren’t true. This is Carmen. He’s okay. Caleb’s okay.
She squeezed my hands again. “That’s it, sweetheart. Now….”
My stomach suddenly heaved, and I dragged myself free of her grip. “Sorry, I have to go….” I stumbled from the bed, hand over my mouth. She caught me by the elbow, holding me up till I got my legs under me.
“Bathroom?”
I nodded and let her help me across the hall, where she waited while I sat and tried not to lose my mind. “What happened?” I asked through the closed door.
“He was called to a robbery-in-progress―”
“But that was yesterday―.”
“You wanna hear or ask questions?”
Goddammit. I bit back an angry retort. “Go ahead.”
“Some kids earning their gang stripes, apparently. They arrested the kids but there was a getaway van with another guy they didn’t know about. Caleb ran the van down on foot as it tried to take off, and one of the Armed Offenders Squad shot out the tyre. The driver hoofed it, so Caleb followed, idiot that he is, and managed to tackle the driver to the ground, but the arsehole had a knife and got Caleb below his stab vest. He also took a blow to the head, which knocked him unconscious, and he didn’t really come around before surgery. Still hasn’t,” Carmen’s voice trailed off.
