Drake gently pushed her up against the car as his tongue probed into her mouth. Her lips were soft and warm, and he grabbed the back of her neck to bring them as close as possible. Patty started to breathe a little heavier, and he could feel her pressing her lower half against him.
“Get a room!” someone shouted from outside the bar.
Drake pulled his face away from Patty and laughed. Her cheeks were flushed, and only partly from embarrassment.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “It’s just—it’s just been a crazy day.”
Drake shook his head. Then he reached out and raised her chin with two fingers. Staring into her pale blue eyes, he said, “No, I’m the one who is sorry. My life… my life is, uh, complicated right now. And I’m not sure if I’m ready for a relationship.”
The corners of Patty’s mouth turned up and he saw a glint in her eyes.
“Did you think I was going to ask you to be my boyfriend, Mr. Drake? Is that it?” Now it was Drake’s turn to look away. “What makes you think this was anything more than a booty call?”
Drake’s ears were hot now.
“I-I mean, it’s just—”
Patty chuckled.
“You are fucking cute—like an old man teenager.”
“Okay, not sure if that’s good or bad or…”
Another laugh.
She opened the car door and winced at the grating sound.
“You want me to take you home?” Drake asked as they both got inside.
“Yeah, sure—wait, you know what? I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep much tonight.”
Drake opened his mouth to say something, then shut it. He had no idea if she was coming onto him again.
And if he’d be able to resist a second time.
“Ha, not like that,” Patty said, reading his mind. “Just take me back to the shelter.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
During the drive to the SPCA shelter, neither of them said much. Drake was tired, and both of them were still reeling from watching the disgusting video. And yet, he felt no need to fill the air with constant chatter. Even though this was one of his pet peeves—filler conversation—sometimes even he fell victim to its allure. But not in this case. He just felt comfortable around Patty. There was something about the way the woman carried herself that was attractive. She was confident, but not overly so. Just someone who knew themselves well enough to not care what others thought about her.
That was something that Drake could relate to.
As he pulled into the parking lot, Drake leaned over to Patty.
“Thanks for keeping an eye out and sending me the video. If you want, I can keep you updated. I’m going to catch this sick bastard.”
Patty raised an eyebrow.
“I really hope you do. I’ll tell you what, Drake, you catch whoever this savage that murdered the poor cat is and I’ll let you take me out again—just for drinks, though. None of that other stuff.” She smiled and got out of the car. “Call me.”
Patty didn’t wait for him to say anything, so he didn’t. He just watched her go, admiring the way her ass looked in her tight jeans.
What the hell, Drake… there must be something wrong with you.
After making sure that Patty got inside okay, and locked the door behind her, he pulled out his cell phone and started to drive again.
Screech answered on the first ring.
“Hey, Screech, you get a read on that video I sent? Any idea where it came from and who posted it?”
“Nice to hear from you, too, Drake. Now, are you going to tell me what happened at Hart Investigations?”
Drake frowned.
“Leroy didn’t tell you?”
“Yeah, he told me… he told me that he had to get Brock and then they had to save your ass.”
Drake doubted that Leroy would have used those exact words, but the recounting was fairly accurate. Truth be told, if Leroy hadn’t shown up when he did, Drake wasn’t sure what would have happened. The only thing he knew for certain, was that he wouldn’t have been kissing Patty if not for Leroy’s intervention.
Why did you push her away, Drake?
He grunted and tried to clear his head.
“You want to end up back in jail, Drake? Because that’s where you’re headed.”
“I don’t need a goddamn lecture,” he barked. Drake knew full well what would happen if he ended up in prison again. “You got me on this fucking cat case, and now I’m trying to solve the damn thing. Did you find out where the video came from?”
The words came out harsher than expected, but he was tired and annoyed.
Tired because he had spent the last few nights sleeping on a concrete slab at the bottom of 62nd precinct.
Annoyed because nothing he did seemed to go the way he wanted it to: first, he couldn’t even threaten Mackenzie Hart properly, then Cosmo was killed, and he couldn’t even have sex with a pretty woman who was practically begging for it.
“It was disgusting… that was one sick bastard,” Screech said.
“Yeah, I know. But did you—”
“Nothing, Drake. Man, this guy used a pretty advanced VPN—I tried to track him, but it was impossible. It first pinged in South Korea, then Siberia, just kept jumping around. I’ll keep trying but no promises. You really think it’s Cosmo in the video?”
Drake replayed his discussion with Patty about the breed, gender, size, and collar.
“More than likely. But even if it isn’t, even if Cosmo wanders home, I’m still going to find this sick fuck.”
“I expected nothing less.”
“Hey, what about the guy on Instagram who reposted the link? Can you track him down? Might get lucky, he might have been stupid enough to post his own video.”
“I’ll keep digging.”
Drake suddenly recalled what Mackenzie Hart had said to him when his ogre of a partner was squeezing the air out of his lungs.
“Hey, Screech, what’s going on with Nick Petrazzino?”
The man on the other end of the line hesitated before answering.
“N-nothing. I mean, we did that job for him, getting the USB key from the DA, but that’s it. The job’s done.”
Drake knew Screech was lying. Even if Mackenzie hadn’t made it clear that Nick still had ties to Screech and DSLH, he would’ve been able to tell by the slight tremor in the man’s voice.
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” more confident now. “We only took that job because we were desperate. It was one time—wait, are you driving, Drake?”
Drake peered out the windshield. In the distance, he spotted a large, squat building surrounded by a chain-link fence. Out back he saw what appeared to be a loading dock.
“Yeah.”
He slowed as he neared the guard booth out front.
“Where are you going, Drake?”
Drake didn’t answer. He was busy trying to see if the booth was occupied.
“Shit,” he grumbled.
There was a man in uniform inside.
This was going to be tricky; there didn’t appear to be another way in.
“Drake, please tell me you’re not at the psych facility—please, for the love of God, tell me you aren’t going to try and visit Suzan.”
Drake instinctively checked that his gun was still in his shoulder holster.
“Listen to me, you can’t go see her. I—we will get her out. I promise. I’ve already called Schneiderman… he’s working on it. Dunbar, too. She’s safe now, but if you go in there…”
Drake slowed to a crawl as he approached the front gate of the psychiatric facility.
“Fuck, I’m done with this, Drake. If you go in there and try to pull her out, I’m done. I’m leaving… we fucking need you. You can’t go back inside… Drake? Drake?”
Chapter 43
A bark pulled Chad out of his head. This was quickly followed by the howl of another animal and then a hiss from what might have been a cat.
Confus
ed, he looked around. It took him all of three seconds to figure out where the sounds were coming from.
Not one hundred yards from where he stood was a building with a front made mostly of glass.
Chad’s smile grew until his cheeks started to hurt.
“The SPCA.”
He wasn’t surprised. When you were famous, shit just happened for you. It was like being rich… the more money you had, the more you made. If you were born without, however, acquiring any sort of real wealth was next to impossible.
There was a solitary car in the lot, but it was parked off to one side, probably abandoned or belonged to someone who wanted to park here for free and walk to the night life. Unlike the vehicle, the interior of the shelter was well lit.
Things were moving quickly, and Chad had to act equally as fast if he wanted to stay on top. His videos were top one and two now, and a local news station had already sent out a tweet about him. In a few hours, televised news would catch up to Internet news and his face would be everywhere.
Chad pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He didn’t smoke—smoking was so twenty-ten—but the pack of Marlboros was the perfect place to hide a pill or two, or a little coke. While he was currently bingo for both, he always carried a lighter in the pack just in case someone had a joint.
And it was this lighter that Chad was interested in now.
With the small plastic device in hand, he moved closer to the front of the SPCA, careful to stay in the shadows. Tucked out of sight, Chad scanned the entrance and identified a security camera aimed at the front doors. Concerned that there might be others, if not on the SPCA then on surrounding buildings, he looked around more diligently.
He was pleasantly surprised.
The shelter was a standalone building with considerable space between it and adjacent retailers, for obvious reasons. Across the street was a warehouse of some sort and while Chad suspected that it had several security cameras—warehouses were prime targets for thieves, especially ones off the main road—he thought the chance of being picked up on one of them at this distance was highly unlikely.
You’re safe here, Chad. The only people who are going to see you are the ones you want to see you.
Crouched and facing away from the SPCA camera, Chad slid his fingers under his bandanna with the intention of putting over his face.
Only, it wouldn’t budge.
The strip of Kenneth’s shirt was stuck to his forehead.
For fuck’s sake…
Sucking air through clenched teeth, he tried to ease it off his skin. The problem was that every time he pulled, the incision seemed to stretch with it and was on the verge of tearing. In the end, the only way he could get it off was to start at his temples and work his hands inward painfully slowly.
Eventually, the fabric came free, and he unraveled it and placed it over his nose and mouth, disguising his features.
This was not the end of the ordeal, however; there was also the smell to deal with.
It was so potent that Chad immediately gagged. The slimy texture was also nausea-inducing.
But having nothing else to cover his face, he had no choice but to suck it up. Sometimes, when you were a celeb, you had to make sacrifices for your craft. Christian Bale got under a hundred pounds for his role in The Machinist.
Shia LeBeouf didn’t think that fake cuts on his face did his character justice in The Fury, so he used a knife to make real ones.
What did a little odor and bodily fluid mean to Chad?
Absolutely nothing.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, and after a few seconds, he could barely smell the funk anymore.
Now, with the lighter in hand, he set about the task of finding something to ignite.
He struck gold down the side of the building: a giant recycling bin that was overflowing with paper.
Who knew that the SPCA had so much paperwork?
Even though he was now equipped with flame and combustible, the hardest part of his plan was yet to come: the filming.
Chad pushed the recycling bin to the corner of the building and then rooted through it, looking for something to set his phone on. The only thing remotely useful was a small box. It took some finagling, but he managed to frame a decent shot by setting his phone on top of the box and propping it up against a rock.
It wasn’t perfect—the angle was too low—but after a couple of adjustments, Chad thought that this was the best he could do given the circumstances.
He quickly logged into IG using his VPN and was surprised to discover that his newest account hadn’t been shut down yet. Not only that, but it had blown up. It was filled with trolls, of course, most of whom seemed to come via Anon’s profile, but that didn’t matter.
It was all about the exposure.
The thing that bothered him was that Anon had racked up a significant following of his own.
“Piggyback on my fame? You cock sucker,” he whispered through clenched teeth. Chad had heard about this, about others clinging to the coattails of those who had achieved success. It was one of the reasons why football players tended to go broke after just a few years in the league. Sure, they made millions but as soon as they made it big, everyone and their uncle came out of the woodwork, asking for handouts.
After a final, furtive look around, Chad shook his shoulders out and prepared himself.
Don’t let it bother you—this is your doing, Chad. No one else. You worked for this—you worked your ass off for this. Everything you ever wanted is about to come true…
Chad crouched in front of his mounted camera, lining his face up with the lens.
Then he went live.
“You guys liked the cat. You guys loved the squirrel.” His words were muffled due to the wet piece of shirt covering his face, but Chad was pretty sure that all his fans could still understand him. “Now, you’re going to see them all burn.”
With that, he quickly walked away from the camera and grabbed the recycling bin. He wheeled it near the front entrance and then flipped the lid open. After pausing to look directly into the camera, he flicked his lighter and allowed the small yellow flame to illuminate his face.
That’s going to make for an awesome thumbnail.
From there, things happened almost too quickly. He just barely touched the flame to a piece of loose-leaf paper and it immediately caught fire. Within seconds the entire bin was smoking.
The only thing that kept him calm was knowing that millions of people were watching.
With fire licking at his hands, Chad wheeled the bin backward and then ran forward. It smacked into the glass, which made a strange warbling sound but didn’t break.
“C’mon.”
The fire was growing so hot now that he was forced to turn his head to one side and crouch a little to avoid any severe burns. He was pretty sure his hands were signed, but Chad was determined.
Chad didn’t give up.
This time, he backed all the way to the curb and then sprinted toward the building as fast as he could. The corner of the recycling bin struck first and instead of flexing, the tempered glass instantly exploded. Millions of tiny cubes rained down, each one reflecting the still growing flames, trapping and then projecting their orange light. It was such a beautiful sight that even after the bin tipped and fire shot across the SPCA lobby, Chad just stood there, staring.
The flames took a little longer to get going inside the building but when they did, the sight was even more impressive. It wasn’t the fire but the heat that eventually forced Chad back—the heat and the smoke.
Gasping, he retreated to his phone and picked it up. Then, with the sound of howling animals chasing him, he retreated from the building, keeping his camera rolling at all times.
After a few minutes, he realized that there was another sound filling the night, one that was even louder than both the raging inferno and the animals’ desperate cries.
His own laughter.
Chapter 44
Drake hung up t
he phone and came to a stop just after turning onto the small drive that led to the gate.
With Screech’s words echoing in his ears, he let his eyes drift from the guard booth to the building behind it.
She’s in there… Suzan’s in there somewhere. She’s all alone, scared, desperate.
He couldn’t imagine what she’d been through. From what he’d heard, Suzan had been there when Beckett had died—she’d been there and had had a breakdown. But he knew firsthand that Suzan had been dealing with some deep shit even before this tragedy.
Drake’s mind started to drift back to when he’d been incarcerated, and Suzan had snuck in to see him.
Have you ever… have you ever done something that you’re not proud of? Something that has affected you in a horrible way, but something that was right? Or, at least, that you think might be right? I’m talking about bad things, Drake. I’m not talking about going against what command told you, I’m not talking about skirting the rules to get the bad guy. I’m talking about… bad… things.
He had been confused about this line of questioning and had done his best to clear Suzan’s mind. But now, after reading Sergeant Yasiv’s words…
Was she really thinking of killing someone?
Drake shook his head.
No, no way. Besides, Dr. Nordmeyer is alive. I saw her.
There was no denying that things had been easier when he was sitting on the beach in the Virgin Gorda, but that was the case with life in general, wasn’t it? If you just ignored everything, it wasn’t hard to live a peaceful existence. The problem was, you couldn’t hide forever, and problems tended to snowball in your absence.
Drake didn’t want to go back to prison. He didn’t want to make an ass of Dunbar and Screech and everyone else who depended on him and supported him. But he couldn’t just let Suzan stay here, either. She needed him and the last—
Someone knocked on his widow and Drake’s heart leaped into his throat. Adrenaline followed, and he snaked his right hand beneath his jacket and felt for the butt of his gun.
“Sir. Sir. This is private property and the facility is not accepting guests at this time.”
Almost Infamous (Detective Damien Drake Book 9) Page 16
