Cancelled Vows

by Lauren Carr

  “But no, you had to be the hero and kill two of my men—”

  “Two dirty cops,” David said.

  “They were just doing their job,” one of the men said before hitting David across the face with the butt of his rifle.

  Instantly, David fell to the ground. He felt warm blood ooze from the blow to the side of his head.

  “No!” Dallas screamed. “Don’t hurt him! He was only trying to help me!”

  “Hey, you caught them,” someone said from the rear exit that David and Dallas had run out of.

  David fought to push back the darkness threatening to overcome him. Need to stay alert. Have to help Dallas. They’re going to kill her.

  “Yeah, thanks to you, Orville,” Lieutenant Hopkins said. “We wouldn’t have if you hadn’t seen O’Callaghan on your security tape and called me.”

  “Just doing my job, Hopkins,” Orville said with a chuckle. “You know what they say: Beat cops don’t retire. They’re on patrol until they die.” He paused. “I expected more officers here for a cop killer. You only got three—”

  “This is a special case,” Hopkins said quickly.

  Suspicion seeped into Orville’s tone when he asked, “Where are the uniforms?”

  Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins answered his question with three shots.

  The hotel security officer dropped dead.

  Fighting to stay conscious, David watched the blood flow from the three gunshots that Lieutenant Hopkins had put into the security officer, who had then fallen only a couple of feet away from him.

  Behind him, he heard Dallas scream hysterically. He had thought she was a woman who could hold her own, but all of this must have been way more than she was emotionally prepared to handle.

  One of the officers rolled David over onto his stomach. Pinning him down with a knee pressed against his shoulder blade, the officer bound David’s hands behind his back with flex-cuffs.

  Hopkins shook his head at him and made a tsk, tsk noise with his tongue. “How tragic. Looks like you added a retired cop to your list of victims before you disappeared off the face of this earth, Chief O’Callaghan.”

  Through clinched teeth, David cursed the detective, only to be cut off by a sharp pain in the base of his neck. The sting from the injection shot through his body.

  “What did you do to him?” Dallas demanded in a high-pitched voice as everything around David went black.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “David is going to be fine, Mac,” Ed Willingham said, breaking the silence within the confines of the elevator racing up to their suite at the Four Seasons.

  Adding his two cents, Gnarly rubbed his head against Mac’s thigh. Mac responded by stroking the dog’s head.

  Their time spent at the police department swarming with federal agents leading the investigation of Lieutenant Abigail Gibbons’ murder had proven to be productive. Based on evidence proving that both of the police officers David had killed were indeed suspected of taking bribes and carrying out murder for hire, among other crimes, David O’Callaghan was no longer wanted for murder. Both he and Ali Hudson were wanted as material witnesses.

  Mac and Ed Willingham had chosen to keep Dallas’ true identity a secret until they were sure she was safe.

  Unfortunately, three of the suspected Dirty Six—and Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins—were still out there, and all were off duty. Mac had no doubt that they were looking for David O’Callaghan and Dallas Walker. When they found them, they would kill them. Two fewer loose ends to deal with.

  “David was special ops in the marines, Mac,” Ed said. “He’s not your average street cop. He knows how to take care of himself.”

  Mac swallowed. “I know, Ed.” He shot him a grin. “You don’t have to comfort me. David will be fine. He’s gone up against terrorists and killers and hired guns—he’s always come out fine.”

  The elevator doors opened.

  With Gnarly leading the way, they stepped off the elevator and headed down the corridor to the suite at the end of the hall.

  “You know, I knew your mother for—I hate to say how many years. When I found out about you—when she found you and made you her beneficiary—she explained that she’d had to give you up for adoption, but she refused to tell me who your father was.”

  Mac paused at the door leading into their suite. “She didn’t want to embarrass David’s mother.”

  “I know,” Ed said. “But she did tell me that you had a brother—a half brother.” He chuckled. “I should have put two and two together then. I didn’t know that she and Pat went all the way back to high school together.” He sighed. “What I’m trying to say, Mac, is that more than anything else, your mother wanted you and David to be friends—brothers—like you are now.”

  With a chuckle, Mac pushed open the door and held it open for his lawyer. Gnarly ran in ahead and jumped up to sniff the gift basket Archie had sent to see if there were any goodies left for him.

  Mac asked, “On that day you chased me for three blocks to tell me that I had inherited a fortune, did you ever dream that you’d end up here in New York City, trying to save my brother from dirty cops?”

  “Someday you and I will sit down and have a long talk about some of the things your birth mother got me into,” Ed shot back with a grin. After opening his valise, he removed a thick file and tossed it onto the desk.

  Mac checked his cell phone for messages but didn’t find any from David or Dallas. After the federal agents had voided the warrant for David’s arrest on suspicion of murder, Mac had tried to contact them at the same phone number Dallas had called from to give him the message about the forged postcard. Mac’s call had gone straight to voice mail. Most likely, he assumed, they had removed the phone’s battery so the police couldn’t trace the phone if they suspected the call was from David or Dallas.

  Uttering a heavy sigh, Mac opened the minibar and took out a bottle of beer for him and scotch for Ed. Within minutes, the lawyer was completely absorbed in his work on the case and was preparing various defenses. He wanted to be several steps ahead of the district attorney regardless of what he decided to do—which would depend on how things worked out once they brought David in from the cold.

  Mac was more concerned with the condition David would be in when they did bring him in. Standing at the window and gazing out across Central Park and the city, Mac wondered where David was and whether he was safe. A chill moved down Mac’s spine when the night air blew against the thick window of the high-rise hotel.

  Hope he’s warm enough.

  Glancing down at the phone in his hand, Mac tried to will David to call him. Knowing David, he probably wasn’t asleep—wherever he was.

  “Have you talked to Chelsea since all this happened?” Ed asked from the desk without looking up from his paper work.

  Her name reminded Mac that the last time he’d spoken to Archie, she’d said Chelsea was spending the night at the hospital for observation after having a seizure at the nursing home. There would be plenty of opportunities for Dr. Seth Blanchard—or Dr. Love, as Archie called him—to make his move.

  “No,” Mac said. “Archie was afraid to upset her with the news after her seizure.”

  “And David doesn’t know she had a seizure and is in the hospital.”

  Mac shook his head. Gazing down at the phone in his hand, he went over to the door leading into his bedroom. “I’m going to get an update from Archie and try to get some sleep.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Ed said with a wave of his hand.

  Leaping over the coffee table that was blocking his way, Gnarly galloped into the bedroom and jumped up onto the bed. Too distracted to notice, Mac sat on the edge of the bed and thumbed the speed-dial number for Archie’s cell. He was surprised when she answered on the second ring.

  “Good evening, my love.”

  It was close to two o’cloc
k in the morning, and he’d expected her to be asleep after a day of taking care of wedding duties while Chelsea was in the hospital. He’d been planning to leave a sexy, even naughty, message on Archie’s voice mail for her to receive when she woke up the next morning.

  He would have preferred that. Awake, she was able to ask questions to which he had no answers. “Where‘s David and why is the FBI looking for him?”

  After providing Archie with a full rundown of the last two days, Mac concluded with, “But I’m not worried, hon, David can take care of himself.” He told himself that if he said it enough, he might start to feel it.

  “It sounds like these dirty cops are working for someone else,” Archie said. “Do you know who?”

  “That’s why I’m calling you, dear.”

  “Really? You need me?” Her voice brightened.

  “I’m going to e-mail some scanned photographs to you from a file that Audra Walker put together for a book she was working on. Most of them are candid shots from when she went to high school. I want you to use your facial-recognition program and compare the people in these shots to pictures of my list of suspects to see if you find anything.”

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “The night she disappeared, Audra Walker left ZNC studios totally motivated to return to this book about the Texan Romeo and Juliet,” Mac said. “Something someone said or did gave her a breakthrough on the case.”

  “Anyone at ZNC from Texas?” Archie asked.

  “No,” Mac said. “And no one there even claims to have known anything about the case. Audra’s former assistant has contacted the local law enforcement for the case file, but all physical evidence was destroyed. The case had been closed as a double suicide.”

  “Then what angle was she planning to take with the story?”

  “Suppose it was murder?” Mac asked. “Audra was a witness to Romeo and Juliet’s car going over the cliff. It was on fire before it went over.”

  “If it was going to catch fire, it would have after going over,” she said.

  “Exactly,” Mac said.

  “If Romeo and Juliet faked their deaths, how’d they send that car over the cliff without them being in it?”

  With a shrug of his shoulders, Mac said, “One of them could have placed a rock on the gas pedal before or after setting fire to the car and rolled out right before it went over the cliff. Everyone would have been so focused on the car that they wouldn’t have seen them slipping away into the night.”

  “And since it was a cliff,” Archie said, “no one would have thought anything when they found the rock used to hold down the gas pedal inside the car. Very clever.”

  “I’m sending you pictures of all our suspects here. Maybe one or two of them came from that small town in Texas, and Audra recognized them.”

  “So they had to kill Audra Walker to keep their secret,” Archie said. “E-mail the file over, and I’ll get right to work on that.”

  “I would have thought you’d be tired after taking care of wedding stuff all day,” Mac said.

  “I need something to take my mind off this wedding,” she said. “Seriously, dear, this is one strange wedding.”

  “Stranger than ours?” Mac asked.

  “It’s right up there,” she said. “Chelsea never should have gone to see David’s mother. According to Bogie, Violet really upset her, which Bogie swears is what led to her seizure. Then Dr. Seth ended up being an old friend of Chelsea’s. Too good of an old friend, if you ask me.”

  “So he sent her some flowers to cheer her up? He’s trying to make an old friend feel better. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Remember when you and I were in the hospital at the beginning of the year? You’d been shot. You almost died.”

  “Yes,” Mac said, “I remember. I was there. What about it?”

  “Do you remember how hard it was to find a doctor?” she asked. “There were nurses and aids everywhere. But if you needed or wanted a doctor, you couldn’t find one anywhere. And when you did find one, he wouldn’t have any answers for you because you weren’t his patient.”

  “So—”

  “Not so with Chelsea,” Archie said. “No, no, no! Dr. Seth Blanchard is on her case, and from what I’ve seen, he’s not giving it up any time soon. He was there when I got to the emergency room. He was there when they checked her in. He was there when they took her in for the MRI. He was there to make sure she liked her dinner”—she let out a squawk—“and when she mentioned she didn’t like the mac and cheese, he took it and left and came back a half hour later with baby back ribs and fries!”

  “Where did he get the baby back ribs?”

  “He went to some little joint that the two of them used to go to in high school! So then I had to listen to them spinning tales about how much fun they used to have back in the good ol’ days!” Her voice went up an octave. “Mac, I think this doctor has some stalker tendencies. What if Chelsea ends up not being at the hospital tomorrow morning? What if this Seth decides to kidnap her because he wants her for himself?”

  “And you’re thinking this because he got her baby back ribs when she complained about the mac and cheese?”

  “When I was in the hospital and complained about their lousy mac and cheese, no one went out to get me ribs!”

  “Darling, I would have if I hadn’t been in the next bed over with a bullet in me.”

  “Like I said, this is the weirdest wedding I’ve ever been in … And I thought ours took the cake.”

  “Leave him alone!”

  Dallas’ voice sounded like it was traveling to David from the end of a long tunnel. Hard fingers pressed on the muscles on his upper arms before he was lifted up from where he was lying on cold concrete and dragged facedown across the floor. When he was dropped, he felt the smooth texture of sheet plastic on his face.

  “Wake up!” The toe of a boot connected with his ribs. With a groan, he rolled over onto his side and tried to make sense of his surroundings. Between the drug he’d been given and the fact that his hands were bound with a zip cord behind his back, movement was difficult.

  “Stop it!” Dallas yelled before he heard the sound of a slap.

  Although he couldn’t see her, he sensed that someone had knocked her to the floor.

  “Don’t touch her,” he wanted to scream, but his mouth wasn’t working yet. The drug they had injected into his neck still had a strong hold over him.

  Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins’ voice echoed all around him until he was able to place him a few feet away. Lifting his head, David saw that the detective, who was clad in a long black wool coat and slacks, was standing at the edge of the clear plastic spread across the concrete floor. He was speaking into a cell phone.

  “Yeah,” the detective said. “We got both of them.” He paused to listen to the caller’s question. “No, no witnesses or trail. The boys were able to track O’Callaghan down off the grid. As far as anyone will know, he and the girl escaped.” A grin came to his lips. “No way Faraday and that mutt of his would be able to find them here. They’re all looking for them in the city—not Long Island.”

  His vision clearing, David looked around and saw that they were on the freezing concrete floor of a building still under construction. Only the floor and outer walls had been constructed. Some, but not all, of the interior walls were complete. Nearby, David saw a stack of drywall and rolls of insulation. Three men dressed in overalls and work gloves surrounded him.

  Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins finished his phone call. “It’ll be done by the opening bell on Wall Street.” With a smile, Hopkins disconnected the call and slipped his phone into the pocket of his coat. “Kill them both.”

  “Anything specific?” the largest of the three men said as he glared down at David.

  “Just seal both of their bodies in the walls, and get it done this morning,”
Hopkins said. “The construction workers will be back at work tomorrow, and the drywall needs to be dry so they won’t suspect anything.”

  The three officers grinned at each other.

  Squatting down close to David, Hopkins shook his head with mock sadness. “Sorry I can’t stick around, O’Callaghan, but I have a meeting at the department first thing this morning. The captain is personally supervising the whole department’s search for you and Ms. Hudson.”

  David responded by spitting in his face.

  The three officers moonlighting as paid assassins chuckled at the fury that crossed Lieutenant Hopkins’ face. The two men locked glares while Hopkins fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his face.

  “As I was saying,” Hopkins said while tucking the handkerchief into his pants pocket. “I wish I could make you a little bit more comfortable, but I’m afraid that’s out of my hands. You see, Sauer and Logan were good friends, and the boys here are really pissed that you killed them the way you did. I’m sure, being a cop, you understand.”

  Finally, the feeling returned to David’s tongue. “Go to hell, Hopkins.”

  “You’ll get there first, O’Callaghan.” Hopkins rose to his feet. Seeing a gun in one of the men’s hands, he said, “Use silencers on those guns. We don’t want any reports of gunshots.”

  While Lieutenant Hopkins crossed the floor to take a construction elevator down to the street, the three men chuckled among themselves. Each one of them took a silencer out of his pocket and screwed it onto his weapon.

  “You should have just let Sauer and Logan kill you, Chief,” the shortest of the three said before delivering a kick to David’s ribs. “Because they were going to kill you fast.” He kicked him again. “By the time we’re through, you’re going to be begging us to kill you.”

  David flexed his stomach muscles in preparation for another blow—but the next one came from behind him when a different officer kicked him in the kidneys. The pain shot up and down his back. David rolled over. He bit his tongue to suppress the cry of pain.