by Mary Stone
Her blue eyes went wide. “What? You mean…no, oh my god, no.”
Relief and anxiety rushed up to greet him in equal parts. “Then what?”
The shadows moved along her throat as she swallowed. “It’s about Justin.”
Noah’s blood froze in his veins. As his pulse rushed in his ears, all he could do was stare at her.
When he didn’t speak, she went on. “About that email. My friend in Cyber Crimes sent me a message when he found out where it’d been sent from. I got that message on the same night that Eric called you. I wanted to tell you, but you…you just seemed so sad and frustrated. I knew that telling you about how that email had come from Harrisonburg would only stress you out more. I know what it’s like to be overwhelmed, and I didn’t want that for you.”
He wished he could wipe the stupefied look from his face. “Wait. Harrisonburg? You got an email from Justin, and it was sent from Harrisonburg? Jesus Christ, Winter! What is this, is this the Kilroy investigation part two? Are you going to be in BAU next week, or are you going to drop off the face of the planet for another three months?”
When her face fell, he immediately regretted the harsh tone. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to worry about that, to worry about me leaving or not being there for you. That’s why I went to Autumn instead and asked for her help. She was there with me the whole time, and Aiden offered to keep an eye on the case while I stuck to your father’s case.”
At the mention of Autumn, any remaining bluster was whipped away like a haze of smoke on a windy day. “You went to Autumn? And Aiden?” His voice sounded choked and hoarse. He hated himself for it.
She nodded, but her eyes were fixed on the floor. “I thought they could help me figure it out, and then I wouldn’t have to stress you out with it. I’m sorry.”
After an uneasy silence, he let out a weary sigh. Her logic made sense, and she couldn’t have asked for better help than Autumn. If anyone could talk sense into Winter before she went off the deep end, it would be Dr. Autumn Trent.
But as reassuring as it was to think that she had the help of two people who cared about her, he couldn’t help the nagging sensation in the back of his head. The nagging that insisted they’d returned to the days of the Kilroy case, back when Douglas Kilroy was still known only as The Preacher. Back when he was a faceless apparition, a harbinger of death. Before they’d learned that he was an old man whose grasp on reality had begun to slip from his fingers.
He shook himself out of the reverie. No, he still couldn’t get rid of the paranoia. Back in those dark few months, she had been willing to throw all those who cared about her to the wayside in the interest of chasing after a ghost from her past. Noah hadn’t realized it until now, but ever since he’d shot and killed The Preacher, he had been waiting for her to leave again.
That’s why this stung so fucking bad.
There was no doubt that what she had experienced that night had changed the course of her entire life. And in the back of his mind, he always suspected that she valued the idea of her past—of her vengeance—more than she valued any of the people she had in the present. He hadn’t realized it, but he had fully expected her to disappear into the shadows as soon as the chance to find her brother appeared.
He scrubbed one hand over his face and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like an asshole. But I…I just need to be by myself for the rest of the night, all right?”
It might have been his imagination, but he thought the light caught glassiness in her eyes as she nodded. “I understand.”
The words were hardly a whisper, and the sharp pang of guilt stabbed at him again.
As she made her way to the door beside his, he let himself into the chilly room.
Once the door latched, he let out a long sigh. Even if he tried, he couldn’t be truly upset with Winter for keeping another source of stress from him, especially if she’d enlisted the help of two of her close friends. But the entire situation felt too familiar.
Now, it was a little after seven in the evening, and he had the rest of the damn night to ruminate. He was torn between the desire to find a bar and the need to just shut out the whole world and sleep.
After he’d changed into gym shorts and a band shirt, he sprawled out on the king-sized bed and reached for the remote.
At least they hadn’t been put up in bargain rate rooms this time. Unlike Harrisonburg, this hotel had proper televisions and a whole host of cable channels.
Before he could settle on any show in particular, the buzz of his smartphone snapped his attention to the nightstand. When he spotted the caller’s identity, he straightened in his seat and muted the television. Scooping the phone off the wooden surface, he swiped the answer key and raised the device to his ear.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, honey. How are you?” He could hear the smile in Liv Alvarez’s words. It was the first happy voice he’d heard all damn day.
Rubbing his eyes with one hand, he chuckled. “I’m all right, I guess. Little stressed about this case I’m working, but I’m all right. How about you?”
“I’m good.” He could tell by her suddenly strained tone that there was more to the simple statement.
“But?”
She sighed. “Lucy got back from Santa Monica yesterday, so I went to visit her. She said that Eric showed up out of the blue in Richmond.”
Dammit.
He hadn’t wanted his mom to be forced to deal with Eric’s dramatic bullshit. He’d hoped to keep the situation away from her until it was resolved, and he could just tell her the story someday.
“Yeah,” he finally answered. “He did. It’s…it’s messier than I thought it was at first. I thought it was just him being an entitled dipshit, but now. I’m not so sure anymore.”
“That’s what Lucy said.” To his relief, the strain was gone. “She said she told you to keep your guard up around him, and she said she doesn’t think he’s telling the truth about why he’s there.”
Noah barely suppressed a groan. “She’s right. He’s definitely been keeping shit to himself.”
“He does that.”
The unabashed sarcasm brought a slight smile to his lips. “Yeah, he does, doesn’t he? Don’t worry about it, though. I know he’s a slippery bastard, and I know better than to believe he’s got any real interest in mending fences.”
His mom laughed. “That sounds more like a child of mine.”
“Hey, you raised an FBI agent.” He chuckled. “Between the bureau and the Middle East, watching over my shoulder is probably ingrained in my DNA by now.”
“Eric, though.” Some of the gravity had returned to her voice. “I always tried not to say anything bad about him while you guys were kids. I didn’t want my negative opinion of him to taint how you two saw your father, but you’re adults now, and I think you’ve caught on to the type of person Eric Dalton is.”
“No doubt about that,” Noah muttered.
“I don’t want to say that he’s emotionless. He cares about some things, but, well…those things aren’t us, honey. They’ve never been us. He puts his wife and his other two kids on a pedestal, but there’s something about me, you, and Lucy that never quite worked for him. I swear, he didn’t start out that way. When we were in high school, he was different. But once he got a taste of how the other half of the world lived, that changed something in him.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve gathered.” Noah’s voice was hushed.
He didn’t give much of a shit about Eric, but he still hated what the man had put his mother through. There weren’t many people kinder or more down to earth than Olivia Alvarez, and she didn’t deserve the second-class treatment she’d received from Eric.
“Lucy said you told her he owes someone money?”
Noah leaned back against the headboard. “He sure does. Some seriously nasty people, in fact.”
“Huh. I can’t say I’m surprised. I always thought he’d dig himself into some
sort of financial pit. I just figured it’d be with a bank, and not someone who wants to shoot him in the kneecaps.”
Noah laughed. That was the funniest damn thing he’d heard all day.
But even through the humor, there was one thing that Noah found uncertain.
If all the Russians wanted was to shoot Eric in the kneecaps, he wasn’t so sure he’d stand in their way anymore.
19
The streetlight glinted off the face of my watch as I checked the time. As much as I wanted to pace back and forth beside my car, I swallowed the compulsion and gritted my teeth.
The quiet crunch of tires against asphalt and the drone of an engine drew nearer, but the headlights had been turned off before the driver even pulled into the vacant lot.
A temperate breeze carried the salty scent of the ocean as it wafted past. Clenching and unclenching one gloved hand, I didn’t let my glare drift away from the figure of the man behind the steering wheel.
I’d been prepared for him to show up with a couple henchmen, but for once, he’d heeded my request to meet alone.
He might not have known the significance of his adherence, but I did.
Tonight was not the time to test my patience.
If Alek had shown up with two or three of his underlings, I’d have been tempted to shoot them all. I didn’t know if I’d emerge from such a firefight victorious, but right now, I didn’t especially give a shit.
The corner of my mouth twitched as Alek shoved the driver’s side door closed.
As he approached, I could tell from the rigidity of his gait that he was every bit as on edge as I was.
Though it might have been counterintuitive, his nervousness alleviated some of my own paranoia. Which was strange because, if Alek was nervous, then there was a damn good reason for me to be nervous too.
The Russian enforcer was six-four, broad-shouldered, and tattooed. In the warmer months, I’d caught sight of enough old-school Russian prison tattoos to establish that Alek was as battle-hardened as mafia men came. I didn’t know much about his past, but my instincts told me I didn’t want to know.
Born in the USSR during the early 1980s, Alek had been orphaned at a young age. He’d never said as much, but the tattoos on his hands told me more than I knew he ever would. Every piece of artwork on Alek’s skin told a story.
On the back of his left hand, the letters SLON were an acronym that roughly translated to “from my early years, nothing but misery.” Another tattoo around his middle finger was a symbol associated with orphans—a reminder to trust no one.
A reminder that he was alone.
Fabric rustled as Alek crossed both arms over his broad chest. “Detective Smith. You said you have news for me?”
I nodded. “Based on that look, you’ve already got an idea what it is.”
He shrugged. “Humor me.”
“The man your guy Sergei killed last night.” I had to pause to keep my voice from becoming a guttural growl. “Misha Pelevin. He wasn’t Misha.”
Alek’s posture stiffened, and I felt the tension radiate from him as he waited for me to continue.
“He was an undercover federal agent. Jesus, you weren’t supposed to kill him!” There it was, I thought. There was all the stress and rage that had festered beneath my otherwise calm exterior all damn day.
With a sigh, Alek’s gray eyes shifted to the nearby harbor. “I know. Sergei got…how do you say? Carried off?”
“Carried away,” I said through clenched teeth. “Yeah, he did. Look, this isn’t the Baltimore PD we’re dealing with anymore, all right? This isn’t the police department with a budget stretched thinner than a piece of cheap toilet paper. This is the federal government! What did Misha know?”
Alek shook his head. “Not much. He had only been around for a few days. You know as much about him as I do. He was asking about Eric Dalton, about what Eric Dalton owed us.”
I narrowed my eyes. Alek might have been several inches taller than me and built like a brick shithouse, but I’d been in the Baltimore police department for almost my entire adult life.
I’d held my own against guys his size before, and if he gave me a reason, I’d do it again.
“And what did Eric Dalton owe you?” My words were deathly calm.
Until now, I’d kept my nose out of whatever in the hell the Russians had cooked up with Eric Dalton’s help. I helped the Russians find routes to pump drugs into the city, and I gave their dealers and suppliers a heads-up when the department was planning a raid.
But until now, I hadn’t fucked with their real business.
Rubbing his eyes with one hand, Alek let out another sigh. “A rat.”
“He was going to help you find a rat? A traitor, not a literal rodent, right?”
Alek’s mouth was a hard line. “Traitor, yes. There is a RICO case, and the traitor is a witness. There are many of my people in prison right now because of this case. If the witness lives, they will stay in prison.”
“What does that have to do with Eric Dalton?”
In the split-second of hesitation before Alek spoke, all I could hear was the rush of my pulse. My hands were clammy, and I was freezing and suffocating all at the same time.
It didn’t matter what Alek’s answer was.
Whatever in the hell the Russians wanted with Eric Dalton had the potential to spell disaster. Alek didn’t need to tell me as much.
I could feel it in the damn air, in the salty ocean breeze.
Shadows moved along Alek’s unshaven face as he clenched his jaw. “Eric Dalton’s son is FBI. He can get us to their witness.”
Should’ve just asked Misha, I thought bitterly. “What’s his son’s name? And how much longer will it take for him to get you to this witness?”
“His son is Noah Dalton. Eric has two days left.” The malevolent glint in Alek’s eyes told me I was getting dangerously close to a guarded secret.
I didn’t care.
Eric Dalton might not have been my problem before Misha was killed, but he was damn sure my problem now.
“What happens in two days?”
When Alek didn’t respond right away, I couldn’t help the derisive chuckle that slipped from my lips.
I locked my eyes on Alek’s before I forged ahead. “Misha, or I guess I should say Agent Hansford, wanted to know about your deal with Eric Dalton. Now, if you want me to help you and Sergei stay out of this shitstorm, you’d better tell me what I’m up against, you follow me?”
Alek blew out a long breath as he ran a hand through his dark hair. “We have his daughter and her husband. Husband has been dead for two days, but Eric doesn’t know. If he doesn’t get us the witness, his daughter dies.”
“How is Eric planning to pull this off? Is he just going to ask his son for a favor?” I kept my tone calm. Nothing good would come from a shouting match with a Russian mafia enforcer.
After what I could only assume was an internal debate, the anger slipped away from Alek’s visage. “He and his son are not close. He said he would…convince him.”
“What do you do if he can’t ‘convince him?’” This had begun to feel like an interrogation.
“We go to his son ourselves.”
I almost laughed in his face. “Your backup plan is to kidnap a federal agent and make him tell you where your rat is?”
“Do you have a better plan?” The rage hadn’t returned to Alek’s eyes, but there was a different type of indignation on his face. The type that bordered on desperate.
I ground my teeth together and shook my head. “No. But you need to think really, really hard before you go through with this. You’re talking about going directly after a federal agent.”
A hint of self-satisfaction edged its way onto Alek’s face. “Let me worry about that, Detective Smith.”
I almost rolled my eyes. If I didn’t have such a long-standing rapport with Alek, I suspected he would have punched me in the throat by now. “Why the hell didn’t you come to me with this first?”
He shrugged. “Lawyer said that this witness is federal, not state. Baltimore cops can’t access federal witnesses.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
“Fair enough. I’ll find out what I can on my end. I’ve got a contact in the bureau. I’ll see if he can give me an update on their investigation.” Agent Tim Gibbs hadn’t gotten his hands dirty like me, but he had a tendency to be helpful.
In the last few years, I’d learned how to use Tim’s penchant for helpfulness to my advantage. Now, thanks to Sergei, I’d have to dust off the old machinations.
Though I knew the easiest option to avoid being implicated in Agent Hansford’s death was to eliminate the loose end—Sergei—I also knew better than to bring up the idea to someone as loyal to the Russian syndicate as Alek. There was a good chance the enforcer would shoot me just for the suggestion.
“Stay away from Noah Dalton.” I tried to keep the threatening edge out of my voice. Just because I was confident in my ability to hold my own in a brawl with Alek didn’t mean I wanted to poke the beast. “We’re already dealing with the murder of one federal agent. We don’t need to add another body to the count.”
Alek lifted his chin. “We’ll do what we need to do, Detective.”
I didn’t bother to offer another rebuttal. There was no point.
If Alek and his people got the bright idea to go after Noah Dalton, I’d be sure to have my go-bag ready for a last-minute flight to Panama.
At this point, I was in far too deep to make an argument in favor of sparing a law enforcement official’s life.
The Russians paid me handsomely for the information I provided. But the risk was about to outweigh the reward.
Eric Dalton had damn well better pull through.
Agent Black’s words had echoed relentlessly through Eric Dalton’s head for the entire day.
A federal agent was dead. A wife had been widowed, and a child had been left without a father.
None of this was supposed to happen. Noah was supposed to give the Russians their witness. That was all. That was supposed to be the end of Eric’s involvement with the Russian mob.
