Dream Chaser - SETTING

by Ashley, Kristen

  Yup.

  My hero.

  “I can live with that.”

  He drew in a deep breath, his wide chest expanding with the intake, and let it out.

  Once he did that, I carefully lowered the boom.

  “I need to make some peace with her. I’m not okay with not seeing Portia and Jethro.”

  “I get that,” he replied. “But you aren’t gonna eat shit to find it.”

  I pressed my lips together.

  “Kathryn,” he said warningly, eyes on my mouth.

  “They’re worth eating shit over and I miss them, Boone,” I said quietly.

  It took a beat before he hissed, “Fuck.”

  I moved the three steps between us and put my hand to his abs.

  “She isn’t going about it right, but her life did get derailed. She participated in that,” I said the last quickly when he looked ready to interject…heatedly. “But I can see her pining for what her friends have, and she doesn’t. I can see getting depressed about it and having trouble facing the enormity of her responsibilities. She’s acting spoiled, yes. And selfish, yes. And childish, yes. And I don’t know if she’s ever going to grow up. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I have to give it some time, get out from under this cloud with Brett and those cops, and then find a way to build a bridge I can walk over so I can see the kids.”

  “Okay, but there has to be a line you’ll draw, Ryn,” he advised. “Breaking your back, putting your dreams on hold, getting so strung out you’re passing out…” He shook his head.

  I nodded mine. “I’m with you. And I promise, I’ll listen if you think I’m at a place that line needs to be drawn, and I’ll be aware of what’s happening, so if the time comes, I’ll do it myself.”

  He studied me as if assessing my veracity.

  Then he murmured, “I’ll accept that promise, baby,” bent and touched his mouth to mine.

  God, I loved it when he did that.

  I pressed into his abs with my hand as I leaned into him with the rest of me.

  “And I’ll repeat, I love how you look out for me,” I said.

  “Good,” he replied.

  “And Mom loves it too.”

  Something flickered in his eyes, showing me he was pleased with that, and his mouth relaxed as he said, “I’m glad.”

  “So thank you for giving it to me, but also, thank you for giving it to her too.”

  “Shit, you’re sweet,” he muttered.

  “That’s what I’m always thinking about you.”

  With that, he closed his arms around me and we made out.

  When he let me up for air, I told him, “But, just saying, the way other people behave doesn’t affect your hero status.”

  His brows shot up. “My what?”

  “You need to be the hero, Boone,” I replied. “I get that. I love that about you. And not to be too gushy, but you’re that to me and nothing they do affects it.”

  “I need to be the hero?”

  I wasn’t able to put my finger on his tone.

  So I said cautiously, “Baby, before we were even together, you looked into things to find out what was going down with me so you could step in and help. You heard Brian talking smack to me and laid him out. You mow Whitney’s lawn because her husband isn’t there to do it. We haven’t gotten into that sitch with the sheikh’s son. And you’re a freaking commando. I think evidence is strongly suggesting you have a hero complex, and that is not a bad thing.”

  He stared down at me.

  Then he actually threw his head back and burst out laughing.

  I wasn’t sure what I was saying was funny, but I still smiled at him while he did it.

  When he sobered, he gave me a squeeze and said, “I’m takin’ this serious because you would know.”

  “Sorry?” I asked.

  “Babe, you race in to save the day every freaking time. Even when people are treating you like shit, you go for it.”

  Hmm.

  “It’s not about being a hero though,” he went on. “It’s about being a decent person.”

  Hmm again.

  “But I got the sense you were a little miffed that Brett got in there first, helping me out with the house,” I noted.

  “That’s different, Ryn, because you’re my girl and no guy wants some other guy to lay tens of thousands of dollars of anything on their girl.”

  Oh.

  Right.

  “That makes sense,” I muttered.

  He was grinning at me, and through it said, “But in the end, it was about what was best for you and what you want out of life, so I’ll remind you I did not swing my dick and push you into giving it back.”

  No, he didn’t do that.

  I pressed closer to him.

  Boone took the hint and started making out with me again.

  We did that until Mo showed to take my security detail for the day.

  After Boone shook hands and bumped forearms with Mo on his way out, he turned to me and gave me a chin lift and a tender look before he walked out the door.

  And I knew.

  I was in love with that man.

  I was going to live my life with him.

  I was going to give him babies.

  I was going to die (years and years from then) loving Boone Andrew Sadler.

  And I knew from our morning conversation that he would disagree, but in a roundabout way, I had Angelica to thank for putting in motion the breakdown of the wall I’d built between him and me.

  Of course, I’d never tell her that.

  Or Boone.

  That didn’t make it untrue.

  But in the end, it didn’t matter.

  Because he was mine.

  That was all that mattered.

  And as gross and gushily romantic as it sounded, I didn’t care.

  I was going to remember that morning, that chin lift and look he gave me before he left, and I was going to do that for the rest of my days.

  Because it was the moment I realized that Boone was all that would matter for my eternity.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Widow and the Rat

  Boone

  Boone’s phone ringing pulled him from sleep.

  Ryn’s hair was all over his chest, her scarf was dangling down his stomach and over his side that she wasn’t dangling over, and he’d worked her over so good that night, she didn’t even twitch with the noise.

  Which made him want to smile even when he wasn’t feeling like smiling when his phone was ringing—he turned his head and checked his clock—at nearly three in the morning.

  So not to wake her, he moved carefully, but quickly, to end the noise.

  He checked the screen.

  The call was Hawk.

  Boone did a quick mental scan of jobs they were on, and outside Jorge, Auggie and Zane (another member of Hawk’s crew) being out of town on an assignment, there was nothing anyone was on that required night work.

  He took the call warily but alertly with a “Yo, Hawk.”

  “I’m texting you an address. I need you here. Fast. And stealth mode, Boone.”

  Boone tensed and that’s what made Ryn stir.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked Hawk.

  “Yes, and no. Mueller and Bogart are both dead,” Hawk answered.

  At this news, Boone couldn’t stop himself from shoving three inches up the bed, which didn’t stir Ryn.

  It roused her.

  Her head came up.

  But fuck.

  Goddamn Cisco.

  He couldn’t just wait for them to shake something loose.

  Granted, shit was dragging out, which sucked for Ryn, but Cisco had been feeling it a lot longer.

  It was nearly two weeks after his parents left town. Ryn was officially out of PTO, but Smithie was still paying her and she wasn’t liking that. Keeping a man on her was getting difficult. And with nothing happening anywhere at all with anything on that, the team had had two discussions on wh
ether they thought a man on her 24/7 was necessary anymore.

  Hawk was feeling better safe than sorry.

  Boone was torn.

  He absolutely agreed with better safe than sorry.

  But Ryn was struggling. They were closing in on sending a press release that Smithie’s was going to a revue and they were going to have a big thing the opening night. Smithie had installed additional lighting, special effects apparatus and modified his stage to accommodate the range of the girls’ routines.

  It was almost go time.

  And although Ryn was working with Lottie and Pepper and Dominique on their routines (not Hattie, Hattie was in full shutdown mode, which was something else Ryn and all the Dream Team were struggling with), they weren’t getting Ryn any closer to getting back to her life.

  And obviously, with this, Ryn’s Felon Fairy Godfather had decided to take matters into his own hands.

  Again.

  “Fucking Cisco,” he said to Hawk.

  “What?” Ryn whispered, part sleepy, part concerned.

  “It wasn’t Cisco,” Hawk said. “Murder suicide.”

  Holy fuck.

  “Say what?” he asked.

  “Just get here, Boone,” Hawk ordered. “And fast. I don’t know how long Eddie can keep this scene clear for us to take our look. Axl’s on his way to keep an eye on your place and Ryn. His ETA is five minutes.”

  “Text me, I’m there,” he said.

  “Out,” Hawk replied and disconnected.

  Boone dropped his phone hand and looked through the shadows to his woman.

  “I gotta go, sweetheart.”

  “Is Brett okay?”

  “As far as I know, but I gotta go.”

  “Why’d you say his name?”

  “Baby, he’s not involved.” He cupped her cheek in his hand. “I jumped to conclusions. But I gotta get somewhere and I gotta get there fast. We’ll talk when I get home. Yeah?”

  She didn’t even take a beat.

  She nodded.

  Christ, he loved this woman.

  A realization he came to the instant she walked out of the bathroom in her chemistry teacher getup.

  That wasn’t about sex.

  That was about Ryn homing in on something he thought he told her as a throwaway and moving on it to give him a memory he’d never forget.

  Not an orgasm he’d never forget (though he might not forget the ones she gave him that night either).

  He could not imagine the courage it took to put herself out there like that for him.

  But she went all out to put herself out there for him.

  She knew now she could go for it.

  But it took some serious fucking guts to make herself vulnerable to him in a way that was beyond their current play, but could serve to enhance it, or she could have fallen flat on her face.

  Doing it for him.

  Boone loved that.

  And he loved her.

  She’d been demonstrating how much there was to love before she did that.

  Oh yeah.

  Absolutely.

  As well as after.

  Case in point, him saying he had to get gone from their bed at three in the morning, and her not laying him up by asking questions.

  But his sweet Ryn in glasses and pumps, looking out for her man, that was the moment he knew.

  He just knew it now even more when he kissed her quick, she rolled away from him, and he got out of bed.

  Boone got dressed and kissed her quick again before he went out the door.

  He had the text, and with their investigation, he already knew the address.

  It was Bogart’s house in Englewood.

  He spotted Axl’s Jeep before he got in his car and knew his bud was out there somewhere, keeping an eye on things.

  He then drove to that address and parked three blocks away, in the shadows between streetlamps, and he took alleys and walked close to fences, swinging wide of the glow of streetlights, until he hit Bogart’s back gate, which was ajar.

  He went through, opening the gate slowly with his shoulder so he could stop it if it made noise. He moved up the back walk, and Hawk had the back door open before he got there.

  Light above it was motion sensor, but it didn’t activate.

  Bulb still there.

  Boone couldn’t see clearly through the dark, but he could still see some of the silver at the turn of the bulb.

  Someone had unscrewed it.

  And he doubted Hawk came equipped with a ladder.

  In other words, they weren’t the first ones that night who arrived in stealth mode.

  Boone walked in.

  Eddie was there.

  Hank was not.

  Mag was there. Mo wasn’t.

  Too many people, too much attention.

  Crew was few.

  There were also two dead bodies illuminated by Eddie and Mag’s cell phone lights, and at first glance, it said murder suicide.

  Boone didn’t believe that shit for a second.

  “Confession,” Eddie grunted.

  Boone turned his attention to him and had trouble seeing him since the curtains were closed and the phone lights were aimed low. But on the dark shadow that was his body, Eddie’s head jerked to indicate something, and he kept talking.

  “Says they conspired to kill Crowley because he’d found out they were taking freebies from prostitutes and money on the side to provide protection for some pimps. Says Bogart did the kill, but it was Mueller’s idea to frame Cisco. Mueller was to the point he couldn’t live with it any longer. Bogart was not happy Mueller was trying to talk him into coming forward and coming clean. This unhappiness grew to the point Mueller no longer felt safe, because he was beginning to feel it was a certainty that Bogart was going to take him out or maybe harm his family. And so Mueller took care of the situation the only way he knew how in order to give Crowley the justice he deserved.”

  Boiling that down, this set him up to be the hero in the end. Mueller did bad, was ridden by guilt, both of them serving the ultimate justice for their brother in blue.

  Absolute horseshit.

  Boone did not comment on this.

  He remarked, “That’s a lot for a suicide note.”

  “Yeah,” Eddie replied shortly.

  “And how are you here and no one else is?” Boone asked.

  “Because I got a text from Mueller saying the situation was taken care of and Hank and me, Mitch and Slim, and Hawk and his boys could back down.”

  Boone sucked in breath.

  “And Hank called about five minutes after I got my text, saying he got a text, like me, from Mueller’s number, saying the girl is safe and Cisco is clear. The girl, we’re guessing, is Ryn,” Eddie finished.

  Boone felt his throat tighten so it took effort to force his question out of it.

  “What the fuck?”

  “You got me,” Eddie did not quite answer.

  “It’s too fuckin’ tidy,” Mag put in.

  “We’re right in our suspicions. It’s not just these two. It’s bigger,” Hawk said. “And it started getting messy, so they’re cutting off the dead weight and circling the wagons. If they’re smart, whatever they’ve been doing will end with the end of these two.” His shadow swung an arm to indicate the bodies. “But my gut is telling me that isn’t where this is heading.”

  “Get the heat off, lay low, reorganize, come back smarter and stronger,” Boone guessed.

  “Yep,” Hawk agreed.

  “You unscrew the motion sensor bulb?” Boone asked Hawk.

  But Eddie cut in. “What?”

  “Bulb out back is there, and it’s been unscrewed enough not to make a connection,” Hawk told him.

  Eddie nodded his head and Boone knew he made a mental note of that.

  “And Corinne Morton and Ryn?” Boone asked.

  Eddie answered.

  “Forgot to mention, that was in the suicide note too. Morton, to flush out Cisco. Ryn, for the same thing. Though accordi
ng to Mueller, who supposedly wrote the note, that was Bogart’s idea. A felon he’d collared and set on Ryn, and Bogart did the deed himself to Morton who Mueller said was putting pressure on them on behalf of her client because she knew they were dirty. So they not only wanted to use her as a means to an end, but also did her to shut her up.”

  “I wanna read this note,” Boone said.

  Eddie’s cell phone light swung that way.

  Boone engaged his own, kept it to the ground, a couple inches in front of him, and moved in that direction, careful not to disturb anything.

  As he moved, Mag asked, “What about the dead prostitute?”

  “No mention of her,” Eddie answered.

  “Forgot about her?” Mag went on.

  “With these fucks, better guess, to them she just didn’t matter,” Eddie replied with unhidden disgust.

  Bending over it, not touching it, he read the note.

  Small, messy handwriting.

  Though precise on the lines of the narrow-ruled paper.

  There was a lot there, all of it that Eddie summed up, all on one sheet, including what Eddie didn’t say. That Eddie and Hank were the ones to get the heads-up because they were “good cops” Mueller knew would “see this through for Tony” and that Mueller was sorry for all he’d done.

  Nice and shiny and tied up in a bow.

  Boone got closer and trained his light right on it.

  A man’s hand. Deep depression of the ballpoint. Could indicate written under stress, which could come from a man who knew he was about to murder his partner and shoot himself. Could be he wrote it with a gun to his head and knew his time on that earth was coming to a swift end.

  Boone would tell them to go fuck themselves, though.

  If he knew he’d been laid out and was going to take the fall, his blood would be on that paper, not his handwriting.

  And he’d met Mueller once, but he knew in his gut Mueller was that same kind of man.

  But the guys behind this, whoever they were, would not leave a note that wasn’t in Mueller’s hand.

  Unless they knew a fantastic forger.

  “We need to track down all known forgers,” Boone muttered.

  “Yep,” Hawk agreed.