by Coyle, Matt;
“Who do you think did it?” Wide eyes.
“You tell me. From what I’ve learned, your husband didn’t have a lot of close friends. Just old SEAL buddies and a few friends on LJPD.”
“You’re right.”
“Well, at least we know what suspect pools we’re drawing from.”
“Are you okay?” She reached across and touched my hand. “I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through tonight.”
“I’m fine.”
“How did you get away?”
How did I get away? Now we were onto my demons that had nothing to do with her and her late husband. I couldn’t tell her the whole truth, but I needed to tell her some of it. “I’ve made some enemies in my life, as you found out this morning from Agent Richmond at the FBI. You already know about LJPD Police Chief Moretti. There are more. One of them had me followed tonight and the person who followed me, the same person who did this to me a few nights ago”—I pointed to my face—“saved my life.”
“How?”
“I’m not really sure. I was unconscious and probably drowning in a bucket of salt water. She must have fought off the guy with the ski mask.”
“She?”
“Yes. She’s a former MMA fighter who works for someone who doesn’t like me very much. She saved my life and risked her own and now she’s in the hospital and in bad shape.” I told her what Dr. Patel had said about Miranda’s condition.
“Why would she do that when she’s working for someone who hates you?”
“I don’t know.”
I didn’t know. Miranda and I had formed a strange quasi-Stockholm Syndrome bond earlier that day, but it couldn’t explain what she did. She was strong, well trained, and nails-tough, but the man she took on had her by close to a hundred pounds and was probably better trained than Miranda. And he was a killer. I knew that the instant I saw his eyes through the slits of his ski mask. Miranda had to know she’d be risking her life to save mine. She could have called the police and left the scene knowing I’d die but she’d be safe. The only way to save me was to take action immediately, no matter the risk. Somehow she fought Ski Mask off even after he’d beaten her so badly she might die.
“Is she going to live?”
“I don’t know.” Another life left shattered in my wake. I prayed for her, but didn’t know if I believed in God anymore. Or if He believed in me. He’d never answered my prayers, but maybe that was His test. Maybe He had to beat me down until I had nowhere to go but back to Him. But that made all the people who’d died or had been broken because of my actions mere pawns in my tragedy.
I wasn’t that important. If there was a god, I was a sideshow. God’s will, karma, it didn’t matter. I’d made my life, I had to deal with it.
“Who is this person that had you followed?” Brianne peered at me with her big blue eyes, challenging me not to lie.
“It’s better that you don’t know.” Certainly true.
“Why did he have you followed?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You have to start telling me something, Rick.”
“Brianne, I promise you none of this other stuff has anything to do with Jim’s case. The danger we’re in tonight does. I’m a believer now. Jim was murdered. Why else would someone kidnap and interrogate me about our visit to the FBI? Then, when they got what little they could out of me, try to kill me? But listen, they asked me what you knew. They’re not going to stop with me.”
“Then wouldn’t the safest thing be to call the police?”
“What if Chief Moretti is behind all of this? What if Jim called the FBI about him before he died? We go down to LJPD and tell our story, I might have a fatal car accident on the way home and you might commit suicide just like your husband.”
“Why do you think it could be Moretti? Jim didn’t trust him, but I don’t think he thought he was a murderer. Are you sure you’re not just basing your theory on your personal history with Moretti?”
“Maybe.” A fair question. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Moretti was running an extortion racket out of LJPD through asset forfeiture arrests and Jim was thinking about quitting the force because of it.”
“What?”
I told her what CIT Sergeant Ruiz had told me about the asset forfeiture arrests Moretti had ordered them to make and Jim Colton’s disgust with them.
“Jim never mentioned any of this to me,” Brianne said.
“I think the bulk of them occurred after you two separated.” I leaned forward in my chair. “You still want me to go to the police?”
“No.” She got off the bed and walked over to the nightstand and opened the drawer. Her back was to me, and I couldn’t see what she pulled out until she turned around. She held a Sig Sauer P229 pistol at her side, finger on the trigger guard. “And no one’s going to find me in my garage hanging by a rope.”
The Sig P229 was the service weapon of choice of LJPD. I’d looked down the wrong end of the barrel of enough of them to recognize it.
“You know how to use that?” But the way she held it easy in her hand told me she did.
The P229 wasn’t a typical choice for a woman. It fired .357 Magnums, which gave off a nasty recoil. Most women didn’t like that much of a kick. A lot of men didn’t, either.
“I went to the range with Jim every once in a while.” She ejected the magazine into her hand, checked to see if it was loaded, and snapped it back in place. She already knew it was loaded. That was just a show of her proficiency. I enjoyed the show. “I know how to pull the trigger.”
Brianne wasn’t like most women. I already knew that.
Still. “It’s different than the range when you’re pointing it at a live person who’s pointing back.” A lesson I learned the hard way.
“If it’s them or me.” She sat back down on the bed across from me. “I’ll pull the trigger.”
“Good. Keep that thing with you at all times until we get this mess straightened out.”
“What do you mean ‘until we get this mess straightened out?’ I thought tomorrow was your last day.”
Her eyes seemed to sparkle now and had the look they’d had when she’d come over to my house a few nights ago. But she wasn’t high now. She parted her lips.
“I thought we were supposed to only communicate through email now.”
“Things have changed.”
She leaned in and so did I. Our lips touched and a warm buzz rushed out to all my extremities. She was right. Things had changed. I lived by just a few rules that shaped my life. Sometimes they were hard to obey, but they were the only skeleton of morality I had. I never broke any of them.
Until tonight.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“I NEED A shower.” The stink of fear left behind seeped from my pores. I didn’t want that to be the memory scent of our first time together.
“So do I.”
Brianne stood up, took my hand, and led me into the small, stark hotel bathroom. We kissed again, pressed against each other. Hard. Like our lives depended on each other’s contact.
She stepped back and unzipped my jacket and took it off, tossing it against the bathroom door. I unslung my shoulder holster and set it on the sink. Brianne took over again and grasped my t-shirt from the bottom, and I lifted my hands over my head so she could remove it. Next my pants. Unzipped and slowly pulled one leg off at a time. My shoes, socks. Underwear. Naked before her and to the wrath that would come down on me for breaking my own rules.
Brianne’s eyes lolled to piercing blue half-moons and she lifted her arms over her head. I pulled her shirt up and off. Black bra against pale, smooth skin dotted by freckles like beauty marks across her shoulders. Flat porcelain belly. I unzipped her jeans and eased them down while she swooshed her hips in concert. Long athletic legs of a tennis player against a black thong. I unhooked her bra, loosing round breasts that only hinted at gravity’s pull. She stepped out of the thong, took hold of me where I wanted her to, and led me into the cozy
stand-up shower.
Warm water matched the heat of our bodies. Brianne lathered me with soap, slow languid movements, giving special attention to the parts of me that needed it most. She rinsed me off and I repaid the gift. I made it as far as her breasts before she pushed away the soap and enveloped me. We were one pulsing being, split like an atom and joined back together.
When we were done, my legs wobbled and my skin, pruned. The punches, waterboarding, and the drowning had all been washed away. Contentedly spent and clean, except for the stain from the rule I’d just broken. I lazed above it, serene in the warm blanket of post-lovemaking. Fooling myself for the moment, that I could break the rule and be free of consequences. But down deep, just out of sight, I could sense the edges of dark shadows creeping in from their corners.
George met us at the door when we left the bathroom. His eyes looked E.T. big and he sniffed at our naked bodies, sensing the change in chemistry. Brianne shooed him away and had him lie at the foot of the bed.
“He’s used to sleeping on the bed ever since Jim and I split up.”
I looked at George and his uncropped Boxer ears perked up. “One of us is sleeping on the floor tonight. Your mom will have to decide.”
Brianne pulled back the sheets on the left side of the bed, then put her hand to her chin. “Hmm, let’s see. George does a really good job of keeping my feet warm. But he snores and his morning breath is just as bad as his nighttime breath.”
“Well.” I looked back at George then at Brianne. “Sounds like a draw.”
Brianne got into bed and pulled back the covers from the right side of the bed. “I think George will understand since you’re our guest.”
I slid under the covers and George immediately jumped up on the end of the bed.
“George, down,” Brianne said.
George looked sadder than his alien face should have been able to convey and slinked off the bed.
Brianne turned off the light and swam over to me in the dark. Her head found my shoulder, her hand my chest as I lay on my back. I slid my arm around her waist. Natural, like we’d been in this position together many times before. Her hair, slightly damp against my cheek. She smelled of autumn. Earthy and spicy at once. I stroked her hair and breathed her in.
“You know, as scary and disruptive as this night has been for you, it’s been the same for George. He can sense your anxiety, but he can’t ask you what’s wrong.”
“So along with being a gigolo, you’re a dog whisperer?”
“You think I’m a gigolo?”
“No.” She sighed. “But if I call you that I can try to convince myself this wasn’t my idea.”
I thought of Kyle Bates’s story of Brianne coming on to him at a beach party, but let it pass.
“And all the time I thought it was mine.”
“Gigolo.” Her head left my shoulder. “George, up.”
Soft double pad and then a flop on the bottom right of the king bed followed by a long sigh.
“Happy?” Brianne’s head returned to its spot.
“Si.”
“Jackass.”
Brianne nuzzled me and I let out a sigh that rivaled George’s. Content amidst the chaos. I’d known Brianne less than a week. Her life was a mess. So was mine. She was a couple days removed from the man she’d left her husband for and despised by her son because of it. I was a year past not stopping a woman I loved from moving in with her second choice whom she’d since married. And ten years beyond failing my wife on the last night of her life.
We were a good match.
And somewhere out in the night, hiding behind ski masks and shadows, were two men who wanted to kill us.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“SKI MASK.” My eyes snapped open, wide awake.
“Huh?” Brianne’s sleepy voice floated in the dark.
We’d separated during a sleep that we both desperately needed. But mine was over for now. I looked at the clock: 3:17 a.m. in red block letters.
“Go back to sleep,” I whispered. “I have to run an errand. I’ll be back in less than an hour.”
“What?” Movement. The bedside light flicked on. Brianne rolled over and faced me. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. What kind of an errand do you have to run now?”
“I just have to go check on something.” If I told her where, she’d worry and try to stop me. “I won’t be long.”
“Where?” She sat up in bed and my vagueness had accomplished the opposite of my intention.
I wanted to tell her I had to go check on Midnight. But now, through our actions tonight and the actions of my captors earlier, we were in this together.
“I have to go by the auto body shop and check on something.”
“Are you crazy?” She sat up. “What if they came back?”
“Even if they did, they won’t still be there now.” I got out of bed. “I’ll be fine.”
“What is that?” She stared at my stomach.
I looked down. A large blue bruise mushroomed across my stomach below my breastplate. The sight of it reminded me that it hurt.
“That’s from the guy with the ski mask.”
“That looks horrible. It wasn’t there when we were in the shower.” Her cheeks pinched upward. “Does it hurt?”
“Must have taken a while to form. It doesn’t hurt much.” Except when I took a deep breath.
“Did it hurt when I rubbed soap on you?”
“Nothing hurt then.” I smiled.
“Rick, you can’t go back there.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be careful and I’ll be armed.”
“You were armed the last time you went there.”
“I’ll be ready this time.” I walked over to the desk and grabbed a shirt and pair of underwear out of my backpack and put them on. My stomach ached with each movement, but at least Brianne wouldn’t have to look at my bruises anymore.
“What do you have to check on?” She folded her arms across her chest like a parent questioning a teenager on a Friday night.
“Miranda must have knocked the ski mask off the guy who tried to kill me. I think I saw it on the ground when I rushed her to the hospital.”
“So what?”
“His DNA will be on it. If we go to the police, they might be able to get an ID on the guy if he’s in the criminal database. If not, we might be able to send it to a private lab.” That would take money I didn’t have. Brianne might not either. Didn’t matter. The ski mask was evidence and I had to grab it before someone else did.
“I’m coming with you.” Brianne got out of bed and opened a suitcase lying on the floor.
“Stay here with George and try to get some sleep. I’ll be back in less than an hour.” I walked around the bed and put my hands on her shoulders. “I won’t take any chances. If I even think someone’s there, I’ll turn around and come right back.”
“You’re the only person who believes me about Jim’s death.” She took my hands off her shoulders and held them in her own and looked up at me with big eyes. “You’re the only person left I can trust. I can’t do this without you.”
“You won’t have to.” I kissed her. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Call me when you get to the auto body shop.”
“I’ll text, in case you’re asleep.”
“I won’t be able to sleep until you get back here. If I don’t hear from you in a half hour, I’m calling the police.”
“Make it forty-five minutes.”
I finished dressing, put on the loaded shoulder holster, then my coat, and left the hotel room. Fatigue pulled at my body, but my senses were hyper-alert. I scanned the empty hallway and walked in the opposite direction of the elevators. Brianne’s room was on the seventh floor. A lot of stairs to ground level, but I couldn’t risk an elevator. You never know who’ll be staring at you when the doors open. I found the staircase at the end of the hall and scooted down the seven flights.
I got to my car without seeing another soul. Good. I didn’t w
ant to see anyone for the rest of the night. And a few days on top of that. Except for Brianne, my broken rule.
I made it back to Paulie’s Auto Body Repair in less than five minutes. I circled the block twice looking for the black Range Rover and the company van that had been in the parking lot when I’d arrived earlier. Nothing.
I parked across the street from Paulie’s and entered the dimly lit parking lot on foot. I pulled the Smith & Wesson from the holster and formed a shooting platform keeping my upper body still and duck walked with my knees bent along the fence. The only cover I had was the night. I went slowly, letting my breathing steady and my eyes adjust to the deepening night as I moved away from the one light on the side parking lot. I made it around the back and was relieved that neither the black Range Rover nor the van were parked there.
The relief was short-lived when I saw that the corrugated metal door to the body shop was closed. No light seeped out beneath it. Shit. Someone had come back and cleaned up the scene. I checked the lock that secured the door to a steel ring in the foundation. Combination. Damn. I found a conventional door with a knob just north of the car entry. I pulled out my lock pick set I kept in the trunk and went to work. A minute later, I got the doorknob unlocked, but the door wouldn’t open. Dead bolted from the inside.
Probably didn’t matter anyway. Ski Mask or his partner had come back and scooped up any evidence left behind. Including the black ski mask that Miranda had pulled off my attacker’s face. No DNA left behind. No way to ID him . . . except.
I whipped out my phone and ran to my car. I punched Alan Rankin’s number on the way. No answer. I jumped in the car, fired the ignition, and burned rubber onto Sorrento Valley Boulevard and punched the number again.
“What the hell do you want, Cahill? It’s three forty-five in the morning.”
“Is Miranda still in the emergency room?”
“Why the hell do you care?”
“Because she can ID the man who attacked her, and he won’t let her live to do that.”
