Behind the Mask

by J. D. Cunegan

  Ramon didn’t even bother to suppress the shudder when he stepped through the heavy double doors, stuffing his hands in his pockets and doing his best to not look at the bodies sprawled out on the metal slabs, gray cloths hiding them from view. There were three bodies in the observation bay, and Juanita was standing behind the body furthest from the entrance, studying the contents of her clipboard.

  It was always too damn cold in here.

  The young detective stood opposite of Juanita, staring at her and clearing his throat. Either the sound had been drowned out by the central air unit, or Juanita had been so wrapped up in her work that she had tuned out everything around her.

  So Ramon rolled his eyes. “Were you planning to tell me?”

  Her shoulders jerking – that was as close as Juanita would ever get to being truly startled—she set down the clipboard once she saw Ramon standing across from the cadaver. She knew the look on his face all too well, that perfect mixture of sullen and angry only a male in the Gutierrez family could pull off. She folded her arms over her chest and cocked her head.

  “Didn’t think it was your business.”

  Ramon shook his head. “She was a fugitive and a murder suspect. Had she actually killed the guy under that sheet, you would technically be an accomplice.”

  “Then it’s a good thing my brother would never arrest me,” Juanita responded with a cheeky grin. “Besides, if she’s not the killer, then what’s the problem?”

  “She’s still dangerous.” Ramon cringed, because even he could tell how unconvincing that sounded.

  “Since when?” Juanita approached her brother, grabbing him by the arms. “What the hell’s gotten into you?”

  For once, the dead bodies were more interesting to look at. They certainly beat having to look Juanita in the eye when she gave him the look that said she wouldn’t let him weasel out of the truth. Other than Jorge, she was the only person who could see through Ramon like this; Jill had been good at that in her own right, but not the way his sister and fiancé were.

  He shrugged his shoulders, shaking his head and struggling to come up with the words. Part of Ramon didn’t even want to say anything, content to leave his insecurities under proverbial lock and key. It didn’t feel great, but it was better than laying them out for all to see.

  He glanced at his sister. There was that damn look again.

  “You were okay with her resignation,” Juanita said, filling the silence. “And okay, you freaked a bit about the other thing, but... Ramon, why are you so angry at her? What changed?”

  “She’s been hanging around the other vigilante.”

  Juanita frowned. “The one who killed those cops?”

  Ramon nodded. “I’ve been tailing her at night, just... making sure she’s okay, seeing if I need to step in for anything. But then I saw her with him the other night, and...”

  “First of all, you know she’d kick your ass for stalking her like that.” Juanita arched a brow and cocked her head to the side.

  “Would it help if I said I was following orders?”

  “But besides that,” Juanita paused, squeezing her brother’s shoulders, “have you looked into this other vigilante?”

  Ramon cringed and shook his head. He thought about the USB drive tucked away in his pocket, still unsure whether or not he should accept the FBI agent’s help. On the one hand... FBI. On the other, Ramon didn’t care for how Agent McDermott had appeared out of the blue like that and offered little in the way of concrete answers before disappearing.

  “Look,” Juanita added, “I have no idea what’s going on, and I have no idea why she was bleeding on my rug the other night. But whatever it is, I bet it’s nothing she’s doing.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because this is Jill we’re talking about.” Juanita shook her head. “She decided that being a cop wasn’t enough, so she became a superhero on top of that. Does that sound like someone who would haul off and murder people when she was already being hunted by the police?”

  “I know how it sounds—“

  “What does your gut say?” Juanita arched a brow, suppressing a smile when her younger brother shot her a confused glare. “I’m serious. I know cops, and cops love listening to their gut. What does your gut say?”

  Ramon shrugged. “That she’s innocent. And... I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

  “You’re standing in the middle of the morgue, and you’re thinking about food?” Juanita smirked and shook her head. “Go home, give Jorge a kiss. Get some rest. And maybe try to have a little more faith in your partner.”

  As he turned to leave the morgue, Ramon couldn’t help but focus on the fact that Juanita didn’t use the word former to describe Jill. He would never admit such a thing out loud, and certainly not in Juanita’s presence, but she was often a lot wiser than him.

  CHAPTER 26

  “DAMMIT!”

  Hitori Watson tossed his smartphone onto his desk with a sigh before removing his glasses and scrubbing both hands over his face. A couple days’ worth of stubble greeted him, a reminder that he hadn’t seen his home since they had discovered Adam Jonas’ body near those railroad tracks. He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Whoa there.” Stevens approached Watson’s desk, sitting on the edge of it. “You kiss your mama with that mouth, Hi?”

  Watson shook his head and stared off in the direction of Captain Richards’ office, but his eyes were unfocused. “Whitney’s still not answering her work phone. All my calls are going straight to voicemail.”

  “This ain’t like her.” Stevens shook his head and made a tsk sound. “She’s been actin’ real strange ever since Jill resigned.”

  “And what’s with the trip to Paris?” Watson pinched the bridge of his nose. “Who just drops everything and goes to France while we’re in the middle of a case? Without telling anyone?”

  Stevens quirked a brow. “You know who else is in Paris...”

  “No.” Watson bolted from his chair with such force that it spun in circles as he headed for the break room. Stevens followed, shutting the door behind him. “No. No no no. That is...” Watson sighed and shook his head. “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying. That’s not Whitney. She would never do that.”

  “Could say that about every other cop he’s wrangled in over the years.” Stevens busied himself by pouring a mug of what passed for coffee at the Seventh Precinct, reaching for the sugar before thinking better of it with a grimace and choosing to take the sludge black. His first sip came with a grunt and a grimace. “Look, I don’t like the thought any more than you do, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t at least ask the damn question.”

  Watson opened his mouth to respond when his smartphone buzzed against his hip. With a sigh, he snatched the device and pressed it to his ear. “Watson.” His eyes locked with Stevens’ when the voice on the other end spoke. “You do? Great. Detective Stevens and I will be right over.”

  Stevens frowned as Watson pocketed his phone. “What’s up?”

  “BWI,” Watson said, pushing past his colleague. “There’s someone there we need to see.”

  BALTIMORE/WASHINGTON International Thurgood Marshall Airport...

  Seldom, if ever, did sending someone’s information to federal agencies and TSA actually lead to someone being stopped as they tried to leave the area. But for once, Watson had found a stroke of luck. He and Stevens flashed their badges to the TSA agent—a rail-thin man named Sutton—standing guard over a windowless room to the left of BWI’s main security hub. Three separate lines of travelers snaked around the rope, would-be passengers either burying their noses in their phones or looking as if they would rather be undergoing a root canal. But Watson and Stevens were more interested in the woman sitting in that tiny room, the one with the short black hair and the look of indignation etched into her features.

  “Finally,” she muttered. “Tell TSA to let me go.”

  “Now why would we do t
hat?” Stevens asked as Watson took the seat across from Lori Taylor. “We’re the ones who told TSA to grab you in the first place.”

  “You’re a fascinating woman, Ms. Taylor,” Watson said, digging a tablet from his shoulder bag and queuing up a video to be played. “You claim to serve as legal counsel for the Baltimore police, yet no one in the department seems to know who you are.”

  Stevens arched a brow. “But I bet David Gregor does.”

  Lori rolled her eyes. “David Gregor is a legitimate businessman.”

  “Oh, we’re not questioning that,” Watson said, turning the tablet to face Lori. She was greeted by a top-down version of herself, one holding a handgun and pointing it at a man tied to a chair. “We do wonder, though, what to make of this.”

  Watson tapped a button and the video began to play. Lori stared at the monitor with a clenched jaw, watching the murder of Joel Freeman play out all over again. Voices were muffled, but the evidence would still be enough for police to get the conviction they were after. Acid churned in her stomach, more from anger than anything else, and she turned her eyes away when the video ended.

  “As you can imagine,” Watson paused to put the tablet away, “we have a lot of questions.”

  Her gaze fixated on the wall to her left, Lori sucked in a deep breath. She shook her head and pursed her lips, her left leg bouncing up and down the way it always did when someone was antsy or impatient. She was mad at herself more than anything, but there was plenty of resentment left over to go around.

  “Joel Freeman bein’ outta prison’s a good start,” Stevens muttered, sitting on the edge of the table, making sure his service piece was in full view.

  “Not to mention why you killed him,” Watson added. “In David Gregor’s penthouse, no less.”

  “I want a lawyer,” Lori said, her gaze still on the wall.

  “Well, how ‘bout that.” Stevens smirked and shook his head as he grabbed the cuffs that had been tucked into his back pocket. “You’re smarter than I thought.”

  Lori shook her head—because apparently, she hadn’t been smart enough to doctor or erase security camera footage in the madness. And that one little mistake had the potential to make everything else unravel.

  CHAPTER 27

  THE LAST TIME DANIEL Richards had donned the coal black hooded cloak, he had taken a life. A couple lives, if he was being honest with himself. He still lost sleep over that, even as he reminded himself—yet again—he had done so for Jill’s benefit. But he had long ago made peace with the fact that his willingness to do right by her would occasionally mean doing things he wasn’t proud of. Months ago, that meant killing. Earlier that day, it had meant letting her walk out of Holding and making sure she slipped out of the Seventh Precinct without anyone being the wiser. Now, it meant trying to track down a Russian man, one who could likely kill Richards with little more than a flick of his wrist.

  Slipping out of the Seventh’s back entrance, remarkably free of surveillance, Richards couldn’t help but smile. He was a great many things, but right now, smart wasn’t one of them. His judgment always seemed clouded when it came to people named Andersen; it had been that way with Paul, and it was even truer with Jill.

  Good work—keep me posted.

  Richards pocketed his phone after sending the text. The weight of the firearm on his hip was comforting, even if he knew logically that it would likely do him little good if he encountered the other vigilante in a foul mood. Even as he wandered through downtown Baltimore’s numerous alleys, his eyes scanning the dark surroundings, Richards understood how foolish this was; he was better off going home to Evelyn. But what good would he be to her so long as his concern for Jill overwhelmed every other thought?

  The sound of footsteps around the corner stopped Richards in his tracks. He found himself holding his breath, trying to will his heart back into a steady rhythm as he pressed his back flat against the wall. He drew his gun out of instinct, peering out from under his hood and waiting for the first sight of whoever was approaching.

  As the steps got louder, Richards cradled his gun in both hands, training it on the corner. If this was who he hoped it was, he could put two in the guy’s chest before he realized there was anyone else in the alley. Not that Richards cared for taking another life—his stomach churned at the thought—but if it meant giving Jill one less reason to look over her shoulder...

  Before Richards could react, a blur snatched the gun out of his hands. Richards watched, stunned, as another man dressed all in black removed the clip from the weapon before bending the nozzle at a ninety-degree angle. The other man tossed the gun aside with a shake of his head.

  “That is one problem with this country,” the man said in a thin Russian accent. “Too many guns.”

  Richards pushed himself off the wall, charging at the man. The plan had been to wrap his arms around the man’s waist and drive him into the pavement. But the vigilante sidestepped with ease. Richards stumbled forward until he caught himself on the opposite wall. The movement caused the hood to fly back off of his head.

  Richards turned and sneered at the other man. He wasn’t overly muscular, but his body was clearly in peak physical condition. Had it always been that way, or was that a result of Dr. Roberts’ freakish experiments? Even if Richards hadn’t been about thirty years this man’s senior, he was still out of his league. Especially now that he was unarmed.

  “What do you want with Jill?” he asked.

  Piotr laughed and shook his head. He sidestepped another charge, grabbing the older man by his hood to keep him from faceplanting into the wall. He lifted Richards a foot into the air, squinting.

  “And who does that make you?” A dark smile crept onto Piotr’s face. “The overprotective father figure?”

  “Your worst nightmare if you touch her.”

  “Oh, how cute.” Piotr tossed Richards to the ground with a shake of his head. “You are old and feeble. Otherwise, I would have snapped your spine in two by now.”

  Feeble? Feeble?! Oh, that was it... this guy was gonna get it. But before Richards could get back to his feet, he felt the sole of a boot pressed against the small of his back.

  “Do us both a favor,” Piotr said, “do not get up.”

  “You led Jill right into a trap.”

  “I was trying to lead her to the truth.” Piotr shook his head, adding more pressure with his foot when he saw Richards’ arms moving. “I had not foreseen that David Gregor’s lover would kill that man.”

  “That man was supposed to have been in jail.” Richards managed to turn his head just enough to peer at Piotr out of the corner of his eye. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that?”

  “I do not.”

  “And what about the lover?” Richards asked, trying not to shudder at the thought of David Gregor sharing his bed with anyone, let alone someone who claimed to align herself with the police department.

  “She only concerns me as far as how I can use her to get to him.” Piotr lifted his foot off of Richards’ back, reaching down to grab the hood and hoist the captain back to his feet. He spun Richards around to face him, eyes narrowed. “He means to go after Jill.”

  Richards rolled his eyes. “Which is different how?”

  “I do not have details.” Piotr paused to glance over his shoulder. He heard sirens in the distance, exhaling when he realized they were growing quieter in the night. “Whatever it is he has planned, it is final.”

  Richards swallowed. He hated the way the word final sat in his gut. It was inevitable, he supposed; this dance those two had done over the past several months couldn’t last forever—especially now that Jill was, more or less, a fugitive. Gregor’s connection to her father complicated the relationship even further, and while Richards was sure Jill would never do something she would lose sleep over... his paranoia wouldn’t shut up about it.

  “Set plans in motion before hopping a plane to France.” Richards shook his head. “The perfect alibi.”

 
“There are answers in that penthouse.”

  Richards’ eyebrows rose. “The same penthouse that’s now a crime scene.” He scoffed when Piotr nodded. “Say you’re telling the truth. What could possibly be in that penthouse that’s so damn important?”

  Piotr’s eyes darkened. “Gregor’s downfall.”

  Richards doubted that. If whatever Piotr was after was so important, Gregor would never keep it in such an accessible place. David Gregor was a great many things; to the best of Richards’ knowledge, stupid was not one of them. Yet the captain couldn’t see any sign that Piotr was lying. Then again, if he really had been trained from childhood to be a soldier, he likely knew how to hide such tells.

  So Richards looked Piotr in the eye. It was disconcerting. Even though Piotr’s face appeared the picture of boyish youth, Richards swore he could see a faint red glow in one of his eyes.

  Richards grimaced. He would never get used to that sight.

  “Do I frighten you, old man?”

  “Not enough to make me back down if you’re lying to me.”

  Piotr’s smile brightened. “Then I guess it is a good thing I do not lie.”

  Releasing his grip on Richards’ cloak, Piotr gave his chest a quick pat before nodding once. He acted as if he had never disarmed the captain and bent his gun to the point where it was no longer useable—thank goodness that was Richards’ civilian piece. Still, Richards didn’t care for Piotr’s carefree attitude, if that was in fact what it was.

  “So... Gregor’s downfall.” Richards pursed his lips.

  “It has everything to do with Paris.” Piotr gave a knowing grin and a wink before turning on the balls of his feet and running into the night. He was so fast that Richards had barely registered his departure by the time he had rounded the corner. Sighing in resignation and exhaustion, Richards hunched down to pick up what was left of his gun.