Beholden

by Pat Warren

  “Oh, shut up!” She turned, hurrying to the bedroom, needing to get away from him, wanting to curl up and die.

  Luke watched her leave, heard the bedroom door slam. The sadness in her eyes, there beneath the anger, was something he’d probably never forget.

  Jones had been right. He never should have touched her. She was too damn good for him, too sweet. He didn’t deserve her. But she was wrong. She’d have found him out and left him, in time. Better to hurt her now than later, he thought. She’d get over it, over him. She was too lovely to be alone too long.

  And he’d have yet another regret in his life. Only this one, he doubted he’d ever get over.

  Phil Remington sat down at his rolltop desk in his beautifully appointed Phoenix apartment, and let out a weary sigh. Swiveling his leather chair in a half circle, he gazed around. He loved this room. He’d decorated it himself in restful shades of blue, brown, and ivory. The antique clock on the mantel chimed the half hour melodiously. He gave the chair another half turn and looked out the window as the street-lights came on in the park three stories below. A peaceful neighborhood, a prestigious apartment building where many of the movers and shakers in the community lived. To a person, they admired him, respected him, sought out his company.

  And now it was all over.

  Phil turned back to glance at the arrest warrant on the desk top. He’d been so sure he could bluff his way through, that he could pass the lie detector test by sheer force of will, that even if he didn’t, they had too little on him to make a case. Circumstantial evidence was rarely enough. But that damn tape recording of Terry Ryan under hypnosis revealing that he was in the gray sedan had turned the tide. The Feds had been able to persuade a judge to sign the papers.

  At least they hadn’t humiliated him by arresting him right in his office, perhaps because he’d been acting chief, a further embarrassment for the department. Chief Deputy Bob Jones had personally served him his papers and allowed him an hour to go to his home and attend to a few personal matters before his lockup. Jones was waiting outside the door for him to finish up. Phil glanced at his Rolex. Twenty minutes left.

  He’d put his house in order, so to speak, then sat down with the phone. But he had no one he wanted to call. Not even Sharon, though she’d probably unknowingly started it all.

  Remington wasn’t the name he’d been born with. It’d been Ramon and he’d always hated it, hated being thought of as a spic when he didn’t even look Mexican, taking after his blond mother. The Ramons had been dirt poor, his high school dropout father a maintenance man, his mother a maid at one of the posh hotels in Scottsdale. With six kids, there was never enough money. They’d all married young, but not Phil. He’d worked three jobs, sometimes four, to get through college. Then top graduate from the Police Academy, the fair-haired boy expected to move up quickly in the ranks. And he had.

  Along about then, he’d met Sharon Ames, with her blond good looks and her moneyed family. Phil had been dazzled and, against her parents’ wishes, they’d been married. That’s when he’d discovered the wonders of being wealthy. A beautiful apartment, expensive clothes, fabulous trips, a new BMW every year.

  Only the marriage hadn’t worked. Sharon wanted children and Phil didn’t. He’d grown up in a house full of kids and never wanted to live like that again. Sharon wanted him home more, but he had to keep his job or lose his identity, the one thing he had going for him on his own. Even old man Ames respected him as a police lieutenant. But he hadn’t counted on petulant and spoiled Sharon filing for divorce. Stubbornly, he’d let her, sure she’d change her mind.

  She hadn’t and Phil discovered what it was like to have to live on a cop’s pay again. Sharon had given him a taste of the good life, then snatched it away. Phil decided he hated scraping by.

  That’s when it had all really begun. Slowly at first, so much money for just looking the other way. His good friend, Mac, had shown him how easy it was. By then, there’d been others in on it also. It wasn’t as if they were covering up killings. It was just a little harmless smuggling, a few dummy companies shifting money around. Hell, those dealers would have managed to transport that stuff across the border anyway. Who cared if the money filtered through a few dummy companies? Why not get in on the payoff?

  He honestly hadn’t known Swain was going to blast that reporter that evening. Scare him a little, sure. But not kill him. Then there’d been the incident with the girls’ car, then Foster and Manning. In too deep by then to get out.

  Leaning back, Phil closed his eyes. He’d been so certain that Nick or Ozzie would find the Ryan girl. He’d visited Mac and gotten word to Sam, begging them to hang in there. The only witness would be taken care of. Neither man had believed him.

  He’d had it all figured out. Moreno would retire and Remington would take over. He’d planned to ease away from the Russos, to get clean and stay that way. With what he’d put away and on a captain’s salary, he’d do just fine.

  But it hadn’t worked out that way. And now it was all over. His family would be shamed. Sharon’s father would finally be able to say, I told you he was no good. All his plans down the tubes, all his dreams up in smoke. He was once again Felipe Ramon from the wrong side of the tracks.

  He heard the discreet two knocks on the door, and Jones’s voice. “It’s time, Lieutenant.”

  “Right away,” Phil answered. Straightening, he picked up his service revolver. He knew how dirty cops were treated in prison. There was no other dignified way out.

  Sticking the barrel in his mouth, Phil pulled the trigger.

  Terry stood at the kitchen sink, looking out the window at the snow flurries that had been falling for the past hour. Each hour since her argument with Luke had dragged on, seeming like two instead of one. He’d moved to the second bedroom that night and had slept there since. Days they’d been scrupulously polite to one another, but cool and impersonal. She felt bruised, disappointed, heartsick.

  She prayed daily for a call telling them the court date was at hand so this maddening politeness, this enforced imprisonment, this torture, much more soul wrenching than her earlier confinement, could end. She felt listless and lethargic, unable to distract herself from her heartache.

  For his part, Luke seemed determined to keep occupied. He chopped wood until the pile was far greater than they’d use up if they stayed the entire winter. His way of coping, she believed. He’d found a fairly new lock in the storeroom and installed it on the gate, replacing the broken one. But she knew that wouldn’t keep out the Russos and Luke must have known, too. It had been something to do, something to pass the time, busywork to wear himself out so he could sleep.

  Terry wasn’t sleeping all that well. Funny how quickly she’d gotten used to curling up in his arms, drifting off with her head resting over his heart, the steady rhythm so reassuring. Now, she tossed, turned, pounded the pillows, wrestled with the covers, unable to get comfortable, or to turn off her churning mind. Over and over, she tried to recall the details of their last discussion, every word, each look, all the nuances. And for the life of her, she couldn’t come up with a way she could have avoided walking into the trap he’d set so beautifully.

  For she was convinced that, after Luke’s conversation with Bob Jones, he’d decided he’d made a mistake—a procedural mistake and a personal one—by letting her get too close. He was, first and foremost, a company man. Perhaps he’d even promised Bob he’d make amends, pull back from her, return to being the cool federal agent overseeing a witness who meant no more to him than any others he’d guarded over the years. And he’d done a magnificent job of doing just that.

  But in her heart, Terry was convinced it wasn’t his job that drove people from Luke. It was what he’d allowed himself to become because of his past. It was how he perceived himself as unworthy of someone’s love. It was his deep-rooted fear that history would repeat itself that had him withdrawing before anyone could leave him high and dry and hurting again.

  She understo
od how he felt, but he was dead wrong. However, she despaired of ever convincing him. And, after the cold way he’d dismissed her, after the way he’d all but recoiled from her stupid, spontaneous proclamation of love, her pride wouldn’t let her try. Somehow she’d make it through the following days, or weeks if it came to that. She was made of tough stuff, as her father used to say. She’d survived so far and she’d make it the rest of the way. And then, when it was all over and Luke was no longer around, she’d have plenty of time to mourn the loss of the only man she’d ever truly loved.

  The shrill ringing of the phone startled her into dropping her coffee mug into the sink. Her nerves were back to edgy and jumpy. She spilled out the coffee she didn’t want anyway and rinsed the cup as she heard Luke answer the phone in the other room.

  If only she could sleep, she’d go take a nap. She’d tried reading one of the few books in the cabin, and hadn’t been able to concentrate, the words blurring on the page. She didn’t even want to sketch, a pastime that had filled her empty hours for years. Her art usually absorbed her so completely that the world around her, including her troubles, would disappear. Not anymore.

  She wished she was hungry so she could occupy her time putting together a hearty stew or a pot of soup. But she had no appetite and noticed that Luke seemed to have lost his as well. They ate separately now, each opening a can of soup or fixing a quick sandwich at odd hours so as to avoid the other. Hard to digest anything when you swallowed it down with a huge dose of tension.

  “Get your coat on,” Luke’s deep voice said from the archway.

  Unnerved by the unexpected request, Terry swung toward him. “Where are we going and why?” Hadn’t he said they wouldn’t be leaving until the helicopter ride back to Phoenix? Could it be that the end was in sight and she was going home?

  “Into town, and I want to get going before the snow gets worse. I need to pick up something.” He walked to the storeroom off the kitchen and bent to pick up his leather boots.

  “What is it that’s so important?”

  Luke pulled on his right boot. “Dogs. I just called a guy from the yellow pages, runs a kennel. He’s got a couple of German shepherds he’s trained for police work.” He pulled on the second boot and straightened. “If they’re as good as he says, I want to get them for the yard.”

  “You called him? I thought the phone rang.”

  “It did.” He grabbed their jackets, handed hers to her. “The call was from Jones.”

  She watched him shrug into his jacket. Something wasn’t right about his face. She knew he was a master at masking his feelings, but it wasn’t working. He was worried and she had to know why. “What did Jones say that suddenly made you decide to get the dogs?” she asked quietly.

  He could have kept it from her, but saw no reason to. How much lower could she feel than she had been lately? At least, this would give her something else to focus on, something other than what could never be between them. “Remington committed suicide earlier today.”

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. Another death. When would it end? How many more would die? “I suppose this means he was guilty, in on the police corruption at Central?”

  “That’s how it looks.” He glanced out the window and saw the sky was darkening, the gray clouds heavy with snow. “Will you get going?”

  “But I thought you didn’t want me to leave here?”

  He sucked in a breath, knowing she wasn’t going to like what he was going to tell her. “I’m going to fix a pallet on the floor behind the driver’s seat. I want you to lie down there and I’m going to cover you so anyone looking in would only see some blankets and a tarp.” He saw her frown and hurried on. “Terry, it’s the only way you’ll be safe. The guy’s going to meet me in his yard with the dogs. The van won’t be more than a few feet from me at any time.”

  “But the windows are tinted.”

  “Not that much. And not the windshield.”

  Good grief, what else? “And if you buy the dogs, are they going to be all over me on the way back?”

  “No. He’s got cages for them that I’ll also get. And some stuff so I can build a dog door. I want them to sleep in the storeroom, yet be able to get out in a hurry if they hear something.”

  Terry pulled on her coat. There was never any use arguing with Luke. “I don’t understand what this has to do with Remington’s suicide.”

  Luke walked with her toward the front door. “Jones believes that Remington was the direct contact for both Sam and Nick Russo, and the big boys they deal with. He doubts if the corruption has gone higher, which means he was their main man, their best source. Now, they probably have no one with enough authority on the force to give them information they need to figure out what we’re doing. It’s just one more reason for them to eliminate you.”

  Although she’d known for months now that she was in danger, every time she heard it spoken aloud, it jarred her anew. At the door, she leaned against the frame for a moment, closing her eyes, trying to push back the rush of fear.

  Luke wished it didn’t affect him so, seeing her turning pale each time she heard another piece of truth. He believed in keeping his witnesses informed. After all, it was their lives at stake, as well as his. But somewhere along the line, Terry’s pain had become his.

  He touched her arm. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. Without a word, she turned and walked outside.

  Luke swore ripely. She didn’t believe him, no longer trusted him. With his backing away from their personal involvement, she’d apparently decided he’d also abandoned his professional responsibilities. Not altogether, of course. But that he wasn’t as deeply committed as before. It wasn’t true, but how could he convince her without starting another discussion that would only lead them in circles?

  Damn, but this job sucked more often than not, he thought as he locked the door and followed her.

  At eleven o’clock that evening in a rundown section of Phoenix, an older man with thinning hair sat in a corner booth of a dim bar nursing a beer. The man he was waiting for was late, as usual. Nick Russo liked to keep people waiting. It was a power play, designed to show that he was more important than they, a way to intimidate. Too bad most people weren’t convinced.

  Nick was a poor imitation of his brother, Sam. If Sam was sent up, Nick would never be able to keep things together. The whole organization at this end would fold because Nick didn’t command the respect he so sorely sought. He was a flashy dresser who liked to play the ponies and surround himself with cheap women. He hadn’t bothered to learn the business because he’d always had Sam taking care of him, cleaning up his mistakes, alibiing his weaknesses.

  Still, Nick was a man to be feared, mostly because these days he was running scared. Frightened men made stupid mistakes when their backs were to the wall, as Nick’s now was. And he had a hair-trigger temper, a man who acted first, then thought about it. His eyes on the tavern door, the old man ran an unsteady hand over his head and wondered why Nick had called this meeting. He had a gut feeling it wasn’t going to be good news.

  Ten more minutes passed before he saw Nick come through the door, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He shook down the collar of his tan Burberry raincoat as his dark eyes scanned the bar’s occupants. Spotting the old man, he signaled to the bartender, who waved back, then he made his way to the back booth.

  Nick hated this seedy joint, but used it often for meetings he didn’t want to be seen having. Mickey behind the bar kept a sharp eye out for the law and never watered Nick’s drinks or charged him for them. It was a form of insurance. He slid into the booth opposite the old man, noticing the strain on his face. “How are things, Pop?”

  “You know damn well how they are.” He put the bottle to his mouth and drank, pleased that his hand was steady. It wouldn’t do to let this punk know that inside he was shaking.

  “You hear anything I might like to know?” Nick asked as Mickey set a chunky gla
ss filled with golden liquor and one ice cube in front of him, then quickly left them alone.

  “That’s my question. You got far more sources than me.” Nick had on a cologne so strong that it overpowered the beer smell that permeated the place. The old man took out his handkerchief and blew his nose.

  Nick put out his cigarette, tasted his Jim Beam, then sat back. “You sure you didn’t hear from her, Pop?”

  Eyes on the bottle he toyed with, he shook his head. “They’re not going to let her call. You know that.” He couldn’t know. No one could. He hadn’t even told Emily, afraid she’d go to pieces and tell someone. Surely this cheap hood couldn’t have tapped his phone. If Nick knew for sure, he’d be all over him. He was fishing, that was all.

  Nick’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You better not be lying to me, old man. Because if you are…”

  John Ryan’s temper flared. “I’m not the liar here. You guys promised me no one would get hurt, and look what’s happened. My niece is dead, that nice reporter kid. Those two young cops. And now Remington. You heard?”

  Nick waved a dismissive hand. “He was a fool. I told him to hang tough. He was weak, impatient. He deserved exactly what he got.” He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “If you know something, you better tell me. Sam’s about ready to sing and that’s not going to be good news for you, now is it, Pop?”

  Ryan ran a nervous hand across his chin, surprised to find he hadn’t shaved today. He was getting sloppy, careless, just like Emily had told him. Because he no longer cared, about himself, about anything. “I don’t care what happens to me. I just don’t want anything to happen to Theresa. If she gets hurt in any way, I’m going straight to the commissioner.”

  Like hell he would. “Now, Pop, let’s not be hasty. I got a deal for you. You contact Terry, tell her I’ll fix her up anywhere she wants to go. A house, new ID, money. Whatever she wants. But she’s got to act now. Word is that the trial date’s coming up fast.”

  “I tell you I don’t know where she is.” Which wasn’t exactly true.