by Dana Mentink
“My only trouble right now is you.”
“I...”
The girl checked her cell phone. “Across the street in five minutes. If you don’t show, that would be your mistake.” She pocketed her phone. “You’ve got plenty to lose, don’t you? If there’s a cop or anyone at all following you...”
“There isn’t.”
“You’d better hope so for your family’s sake.” She walked away, crossing the street and heading for the cluster of trees at the end of the park.
Candace let go of the pepper spray and tried to squeeze her hands together to stop them from trembling. Jay Rico might be luring her to a quieter location where he could kill her without witnesses.
Marco would tell her she was being reckless, not thinking clearly, and he would probably be right.
Her only chance was to convince Rico that she would never testify against him or any of the Pack. The notion stung. Get this done, she told herself firmly. Protect your family and give Tracy back the future she deserves, the one her father envisioned for her.
“I’m doing everything I can, Rick,” she whispered.
After five painful minutes, she clutched her purse to her side and forced her shaky legs to carry her across the boulevard to a grassy stretch that curved along the sidewalk. Trees shaded the area and a small section of sand was home to an unoccupied set of swings.
She saw no sign of the blonde girl. A couple sat together on a park bench about twenty feet from the trees, sharing a pair of earbuds, probably listening to some music. They might hear her if she screamed, if she actually had time to scream. The memory of the switchblade at her throat made her swallow hard.
Walking slowly toward the trees, she wondered if Rico’s guys were watching her, closing in from behind. Jerking a quick look back, she saw no one.
A shadow appeared at the edge of the grove. Focusing, she found Jay Rico leaning against a broad trunk, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, faded jeans and ankle boots, his thumbs hooked in his belt loops as he slouched there. He scanned behind her, along the nearby street, as she prodded herself forward to meet him.
His lips curved into a cruel line, and she had no doubt he’d enjoyed every minute of the torture he’d inflicted on her earlier.
She forced down the rage that threatened to spill out. Just get it over with. “You don’t need to hurt my family. I’m not going to testify about Kevin Tooley or anything else.”
His sunglasses didn’t allow her to pick up any expression, but a look of satisfaction slowly crept across his face. “So I heard, but I wanted to look into your eyes when you said it. You’ve decided that justice isn’t worth the price?”
Candace took a slow breath in and out before she answered. “You are a thug and you deserve to be punished along with Kevin Tooley, but I’m not going to risk my daughter’s safety or anyone else’s.”
“So I guess your high-and-mighty sense of what’s right and wrong isn’t so cut-and-dried, after all. Fear trumps everything.”
No, love does, she wanted to say, but there was no point in it. She exhaled slowly. “Anyway, that’s it.”
She waited, but he remained silent. Was he telling the truth—that he just needed to see her in person to be convinced she wouldn’t testify? Had he sent the terrifying pictures just to torture her for his own twisted enjoyment?
“You got what you wanted. Leave us alone.” She turned to go.
“What about the sailor?”
“Pardon?”
“Your sailor man, Popeye. Is he willing to let it go, too? He running scared enough to retreat?”
Oh, how Rico underestimated Marco Quidel. “Yes. As a matter of fact, he’s leaving Pacific Coast Investigations.”
Rico laughed. “That right? Too bad. I was gonna enjoy killing him.”
“Is that how you handle everyone who threatens you?”
“That’s how I keep what I got. If your enemies ain’t scared of you, you’re gonna lose everything.”
What a way to live, she thought, binding people to you through fear instead of love. “I’m no longer a threat to you.” She started to walk away.
“But maybe I don’t trust you and the sailor,” Rico said, suddenly behind her.
She stopped and prickles erupted on her spine as she felt the cold metal of a gun pressed to the base of her skull.
“I got lots of enemies, baby. Lots of people gunning for me. That’s the price of being the lead dog. Could be that you’ll change your mind down the road and come gunning for me, too.”
Her mouth was dry as sand. “I won’t.”
He pressed the gun harder, sending sparks of pain through her skull. “But why should I trust you?”
“Because killing me would net you even more enemies,” she told him, forcing herself not to flinch. “The police, my family.”
His breath was hot against her neck as he spoke. “No one will see me do it, so the police will be impotent. As for your family...” He moved the gun up and down her neck in a grotesque caress. “They won’t come after me because they have too much to lose. Love can make you weak, if you let it.”
Her mind scrambled for what to say to keep him from shooting her. She recalled their first conversation.
You remind me of a woman I knew. Spirited and feisty.
“Did your girl make you weak when she betrayed you?”
“Quiet,” he snapped, pressing so hard with the gun that Candace’s eyes teared up.
Her whole body was shaking now. “You couldn’t own her and she left, isn’t that what happened?”
“Jay,” a voice screamed. It was the blonde from the deli. “Look out! They’re coming. They’re—”
Her words were cut off as a dark SUV rocketed across the parking lot and jumped the curb, shuddering over the expanse of grass. The driver cranked the wheel until the car was parallel to the row of trees. The passenger window slid down and an automatic weapon spat bullets in a deadly stream. The woman pitched over, onto her back.
SEVENTEEN
Marco heard the screams as he roared into the parking lot. A black SUV, vomiting gunfire, churned toward the trees, kicking up chunks of sod and grit. The couple who had been occupying a nearby park bench fled hand in hand from the park, faces frozen in terror.
A body lay prone on the ground in the shadows, a woman’s slender frame.
His stomach knotted into a cold fist. The car shot past the trees and headed away. Marco leaped from the bike and ran to the fallen woman, turning her over as gently as he could.
Blond hair, tight jeans, heavy makeup—the woman Candace had sprayed at the courthouse. Blood stained her stomach through her T-shirt, but it appeared to him that the bullets had skimmed her body rather than cutting through it, and she was breathing, her eyes beginning to open. He untied the jacket from her waist and pressed it to the wound, all the while scanning desperately for Candace.
“Candace,” he yelled. There was no movement from under the trees. Had she doubled back out to the street? Or was she unable to respond?
The blonde groaned and tried to sit up.
“Stay still. You need an ambulance.”
She batted at his arms. “Leave me alone.”
“Press here, with your hand,” he ordered, placing her palm on the makeshift bandage.
She did, moaning, tears streaking the black eyeliner down her cheeks in dark rivulets. Vulnerability peeped through the mask of gang girl toughness and he glimpsed the long-ago child she must have been. “Am I gonna die?” she whispered.
“No, not if you keep the bleeding under control and we get you to a hospital.”
The black SUV had made a sharp U-turn, returning for a second round of mayhem.
“Gotta get to cover,” he barked. He started to drag her
toward the relative safety of the trees, but she fought him, wriggling out of his grasp.
“I can’t go with you. I have to help Rico.”
Over her shoulder, he saw an Escalade approaching from the other direction, the two cars bearing down on each other in a deadly game of chicken.
“We’re going to get caught in the cross fire,” he snapped at her.
Again he tried to move her to shelter, and again she pushed him away, getting to her feet and half crawling, half running. This time he let her go, and sprinted toward the trees as the vehicles drew nearer. When the Escalade’s windows rolled down, he was behind the trees. Bullets tore chunks out of the bark as the driver ground to a stop. A guy in the back of the Escalade laid down a screen of cover fire while the wounded girl leaped into the backseat.
The black SUV moved to intercept, firing wildly, flattening one of the Escalade’s tires. Sound battered Marco’s ears as he weaved in and out of the trees. Park visitors screamed and ran for safety or dropped to their knees, covering their heads.
“Candace!” he shouted over the roar of bullets and car engines. He didn’t hear an answer as he swiped the sweat from his eyes, searching.
He yelled again, and her faint reply, “Here,” was sweeter than music to his ears.
She was crouched in a ball at the foot of an oak, flecks of splintered wood clinging to her hair. He flung himself to his knees. “Are you hit?”
She shook her head. “It’s probably Rico’s rivals, the Cliffs. They’re trying to take over his territory.”
“I—” His answer was drowned in an avalanche of noise. He pulled her to him as another fusillade of bullets plowed their own deadly pattern into the trees. Wishing he had his hands on some weaponry to force their retreat, or at least a set of body armor with which to swaddle Candace, Marco sheltered her body with his the best he could. When the shooting ended, they peered out from their feeble hiding place. He put together an escape route in his mind, but before he could tell her, she clutched his arm.
“Look.”
Jay Rico broke from the shadows of the trees, running for the waiting Escalade.
An act of desperation and idiocy, Marco thought. “He’s gonna get himself killed.”
A fresh stream of gunfire erupted from the SUV.
Candace screamed as Rico, struck repeatedly in the chest, flew backward and fell to the ground.
* * *
There was nothing to be done, Candace finally concluded, after another hour had passed. The police had cordoned off the scene and questioned her and Marco and the two other eyewitnesses thoroughly. Candace told them why she’d gone to meet Jay Rico and how he’d been ambushed by a rival party. The police confirmed it was most likely the Cliffs.
“Things have been heating up with them,” the cop said. “They didn’t take it well when he tried to move in on their territory, and now word’s out that Rico has some internal trouble in his organization.”
“He’s got more than that now,” Marco said.
“Rico was shot,” Candace added dully.
Marco nodded. “Multiple rounds to the chest. At that point the SUV retreated. Rico’s guys hauled him into the backseat of the Escalade and they took off.”
Ridley tapped a pencil. “So you believe Jay Rico is dead?”
“Probably,” Marco said. “But I’ll reserve judgment until I see a body.”
Ridley sighed, looking suddenly much older. “All the blood, sweat and tears we’ve put in trying to nail this guy and it comes to this. What a colossal waste of time and resources.”
Candace wondered if he would blame her for not accepting police custody at the beginning of the whole mess, but he didn’t. She was so muddled she no longer knew what the smart decisions were. All she could hold on to was that it was done. Over. She believed Rico was dead and he would never threaten her and Tracy again. It should have made her feel a sense of relief. Instead she was filled with sorrow.
What a waste, indeed. A life of crime and violence ended in an inevitable hail of bullets. At least innocent bystanders had not been hurt, but there had to be a different way for it all to have turned out. She wanted to close her eyes and pray, but that would have to wait until the police interviews were complete and she could find a place to be alone.
Marco checked in with Dev, and Candace was reassured to hear that Tracy was happily beating Dev at checkers and he had prepared her a lunch of microwave popcorn and apple slices. At least it wasn’t ice cream. Brent agreed to come and retrieve Donna’s van.
As she climbed onto the back of the motorcycle, Candace was grateful for the excuse to hold Marco tight. Gripping his strong torso anchored her against the storm she’d just experienced. Wind whipped her hair under the helmet and she let the past few weeks unroll in her memory, one hideous moment after the next. The recollections felt surreal—the grenade thrown through her kitchen window, the ambush near the freeway where she’d first met Rico face-to-face, her fingers gripping the fire escape railing at the clinic.
Climb up on the edge and jump...
She squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s done, Candace. You don’t have to think about it anymore, ever again.”
But there was one niggling detail, one piece of the puzzle, that refused to go quietly back into the box. She should let it go, but the private investigator in her would not be silent.
“Marco,” she called over the wind, as they passed a crowded coffee shop. “Can we stop there?”
He pulled into the small parking lot, squeezed into a space, and they went inside.
“You need a little time before you face everybody?” he asked.
She smiled. “No, but that’s very nice of you to ask.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I’m getting to be a real sensitive guy.”
She laughed, amazed that it was possible she’d held on to her sense of humor through the last four months. “I know you really want to take me to task for going to meet Rico without you.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “It was ill advised, but there’s no point in going over that right now. I understand, now that you’ve told me about the pictures he texted you.”
“Thank you for that. I need a Wi-Fi connection to do some research.”
He frowned. “Presuming Rico is dead, aren’t we...done with this case?”
“Just one more thing I want to know if I’m ever going to be able to put it all behind me.”
His frown deepened. There was a scratch on his chin from the dive under the trees, and the stiffness in his movements told her he was still in pain from preventing her fall at the clinic. The four months had been an excruciating journey for him, also, physically and mentally.
She wanted to touch, to smooth away the worry lines that grooved his forehead.
“Please,” she said. “I need to do this.”
The copper flecks sparked in his eyes. After a long moment he said, “After what you’ve endured, you deserve some closure.”
She was grateful that he understood, respected her desire to end things on her own terms instead of ordering her to cease and desist as he would have done in the past. She put her fingers lightly to his chest, surprised that they had finally stopped shaking after what she’d just experienced.
“Maybe you really are turning into a sensitive guy,” she teased softly.
“Don’t let it get around.” He looked at her fingers, his own hands moving a fraction as if he wanted to reach up and touch her, but he didn’t.
“I just need one minute...” She paused. “And a vanilla latte?” she suggested hopefully.
He rolled his eyes and groaned. “I’ve been reduced to the coffee guy. That hurts.”
“Coffee Guy is a fabulous nickname. What was your nickname in your SEAL days, by the way? All this trauma hasn’t made me forget. I haven’t had a cha
nce to pry it out of Dev yet.”
“And you never will.” Muttering, but with a small smile visible, Marco turned and went to buy her a coffee.
The hot sweet brew soothed her, the touch of normalcy helping her temporarily put aside what had just happened to her, and to Jay Rico. Ten minutes of surfing and she had the answer she was looking for.
“Dr. Finch said Yolanda’s mother was unable to come for her after she was run down by the car. I used the PCI resources and I found her. Anna Tooley is still alive. She rents an apartment about forty-five minutes from here.”
Marco sipped from his bottle of water. “And we need this information why?”
“I can’t explain it exactly, but I have to know more about what happened to Yolanda Tooley. It somehow has a bearing on Kevin Tooley. I just need to know.”
“Private eye instinct?”
“Maybe. Are you willing to make a stop there before we go back? Since we’re going home soon and...and you’re still planning on leaving PCI, I guess this is our last case together.”
It hurt to say it and Marco’s face was unreadable. She didn’t find the regret or hesitation she was hoping for. He stared at his hands. “Yes.”
“You are convinced Rico’s not dead, aren’t you? But even if he survived, there’s no reason for him to come after me again. No trial.”
“If there’s the slightest chance that he survived, I need to pursue that. Just like you’re pursuing this thing about Kevin Tooley’s mother.”
“Is this your ego talking?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Doesn’t matter. I’m going to find him.”
“Fine. If you’re so determined, then stay with PCI and we’ll work the case together.”
He looked away. “I’m going to move on. I’ll have more flexibility to act away from the agency, and you’ve got Brent and Dan. Plenty of help. It’s the right time for me to go.”
Pain shot through her heart. Why should he second-guess his decision to leave, anyway? He’d joined the company only as a favor to her father and a means to keep an eye on the Gallagher women, his adopted family. Now they were all grown and married, or headed that way, with men to watch over them.
