Joker Joker (The Deuces Wild Series Book 2)

by Irish Winters

  “Holy Cross Hospital. Step on it, Boss.” The telling word popped off his tongue like he’d meant to put Tucker Chase in the same category as Alex Stewart. WTF?

  The double-barrel horses beneath the hood launched the Challenger up and off the wet pavement like Seabiscuit punching out of the gates at Pimlico. Nothing better. Tate cupped Winslow’s head into his neck and hung on as the G-forces shoved him back into his seat.

  Her breathing was so shallow that he had to cock his head nearly to her lips to hear her inhale and exhale. Her body shook, but not from the cold or the rain. She’d already been trembling plenty at the window and talking out of her head. Something was damned wrong with her.

  It wasn’t until Ky’s hand clapped onto his shoulder that Tate realized he and Eden were stuffed behind him in the cramped backseat. “Oh, hi. How’s your ankle, Eden?”

  “She rolled it. Weak ankles. Who knew?” Ky teased.

  Tate didn’t get the joke. All he could see was Winslow’s pale face when she’d tumbled out of that window, her strength gone, the rain streaming down her neck, and no bandana in sight. The few tufts of downy gray fuzz on her head were plastered to her scalp. She’d be so embarrassed to know Tucker, Ky, and Eden had seen her like this. He smoothed the blanket over her head and tucked her in like a nun.

  “Hurry,” he breathed, his big, wide palms pressing Winslow into the cradle of his body, needing her to accept all the heat he could offer. Her vertebrae were noticeably distinct under that blanket. Please don’t die, he begged silently. Not you too.

  He should’ve known better. There was no such thing as a solitary man thinking desperate thoughts in a car full of psychics. He’d no more than finished his prayer when Eden’s fingers stroked the back of his neck. “Trust Winslow, Tate,” she pushed into his mind. “She’s just beginning to understand that she has personal power. Trust her. She wants to go dancing again—with you.”

  He choked as that tender kindness rendered all of his psychic blocks useless. “I love her,” he told Eden mentally, his heart stuck in his throat. “I know I shouldn’t, but I do. I can’t lose her too.”

  “You won’t,” Isaiah chimed in from wherever he was. It sure wasn’t from inside Tucker’s car. “Take a deep breath and know that we’ve all been where you are right now. You’re not alone in this, Tate. We’ve got you covered.”

  Tate nodded, ashamed that his emotions had gotten away from him. Damned if Tucker’s big, wide hand didn’t slap his knee next. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Tate got the message. He wasn’t alone.

  But he had been that day on the mountain. He’d been alone and scared out of his mind at what he’d done, and by the time he’d made it down, it was too late to save—her. This time had to end differently. Winslow was still alive, and they were on their way to a hospital, and he had four other agents who—

  “Friends,” Isaiah cut in psychically. “Get used to it, Tate. I know you can hear me, so stop pretending you can’t. You’ve got more friends than you want to admit.”

  He swallowed hard. “Yeah, I hear you,” he sent back. Okay, friends then. He had four friends ready to go to the mat for him. Tate bowed his lips to the top of Winslow’s bare head, wishing he’d brought that USMC cap with him. She was shaking so hard.

  As if he had to prove something, Tucker stepped on the gas and made it to the emergency entrance in minutes. Tate lost control of the situation then. Somehow—maybe he could teleport—Isaiah was already there with a team of medical personnel and a gurney under the overhanging roof. They lifted Winslow quickly from Tate’s arms. In a second, she was covered with heated blankets and on her way inside. He ran to keep up.

  Isaiah clapped a hand to his shoulder at the ER entrance. “Just so you know, your Jeep’s parked outside when you’re ready to go.”

  Tate slapped his pants pocket. Oh, yeah. He’d left his keys in the Jeep when he’d run after Pepe. So that was where Isaiah had been. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  The orderly or doctor or whoever that guy up ahead with the gurney was, took a sharp right along with his team of two women. Tate and Isaiah followed him down another hallway and into an open bay with smaller rooms around the peripheral. Winslow’s gurney went into the third exam room to his left.

  “What’d she shoot up with this time?” the guy who looked like he was in charge barked as he pressed a stethoscope to Winslow’s chest. Nametag: Dr. Keegan, M.D. “She on heroin? Meth? Grab me the Narcan.”

  This time? Tate’s fists clenched. They thought she was a drug addict. “No, it’s not that. She’s on some kind of cancer meds, and—”

  Isaiah cleared his throat as he set a large Yeti cooler that Tate hadn’t noticed he’d been carrying, on the narrow counter by the sink. “Dr. Keegan, I’m FBI Special Agent Isaiah Zaroyin, and this is Special Agent Tate Higgins. This woman is Winslow Parrish, and she’s in FBI protective custody.”

  He shifted his feet as he flashed his badge. “You’re right. She is on some kind of drugs, but she isn’t an addict. I’ve brought all the medications from her house and any combination of these may or may not be in her system. These are evidence, sir, and they may not leave my sight. Chain of evidence, you understand. If you want, I’ll gladly sit with one of your people while they log these pharmaceuticals into your database. We believe Miss Parrish has been under the care of an unscrupulous relative whom we are attempting to apprehend at the moment.”

  “I know where she is,” Tate bit out. The bitch. If not for Winslow needing emergency transport, he’d have stayed at that house and arrested Joyce—the hard way.

  Isaiah acknowledged him with one quick nod, his fingers tapping the plastic handle on the case. “You’re not dealing with an addict, Dr. Keegan. You’re dealing with a woman who’s been methodically poisoned for years, and all the proof you need is in this cooler.”

  Tate’s heart stopped. He turned on Isaiah. “How do you know all this?”

  Isaiah leveled a look at Tate—that look—the one that made him feel like Isaiah could see straight into his soul. He probably could. “I wanted to tell you before, but there wasn’t time. When you went after the nine-one-one on the bridge, I had the FBI lab run what was left in a hypo we found on the kitchen floor at Winslow’s house. Someone’s been playing doctor with several low dose prescriptions and this...” His fingers drummed the case, “is every last bit of drug-related paraphernalia and every last prescription bottle I could find.”

  Tate’s eyes dropped to the giant-sized cooler. Holy shit.

  Isaiah nodded as if he agreed or as if he’d—heard.

  “Linda, go with him,” Dr. Keegan ordered one of his nurses. “I want to know every last drug we’re dealing with in ten minutes! STAT!”

  While Isaiah ran out of the exam room with the taller of the two female nurses, Tate focused on Winslow. By then, she was in the hands of capable nurses and doctors, all with grim faces. Machines were being moved next her bed. The hospital gown she’d come to the hospital in was being removed, so Tate ducked out to let them do their job, and to give her the privacy she deserved. He took a seat outside her cubicle, but was quickly directed to a private room where, damn. Everyone was already there waiting for him. Ky. Eden. Tucker too.

  “Where’s Pepe?” he asked, stalling to get his emotions in check.

  “One of the K-9 handlers from the local police department has him for now, but Harley’s on his way in. He’ll keep him as long as you need.”

  While Ky clapped a hand to Tate’s back, Eden grabbed his sleeve and tugged him down to her level. She hugged him. All he could do was let her while he buried his face in her shoulder and lost it.

  “She’s going to be okay,” Eden murmured, her mouth to his ear. “You have to believe that, Tate. This isn’t like that other time. You’re not stuck on a mountain with no help in sight. There’s a reason Joyce didn’t poison Winslow outright. Think about this with me, Tate. Come on. Let’s sit down. There’s a lot you don’t know.”
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  It took him a minute to let go of Ky’s sweet wife. He’d worked the op with Ky that saved Eden’s life and the lives of a few hundred other FBI agents not long ago, but with her delicate body enfolding him like she cared… like he wasn’t the guilty bastard he knew he was... almost like his mother used to hold him... yeah. It took a long couple of minutes to blink the weakness out of his eyes and face his—friends.

  “You lost your mother when you were a kid, didn’t you?” Damn that Tucker Chase. He tossed a towel at Tate the same time he ripped the scab off a damned deep wound.

  Tate looked at his arrogant jerk of a boss through lowered brows. The ass. “What’s it to you?” he growled, his fist clenched at being outed in front of everyone. It was just possible Ky hadn’t known.

  Tucker raised both hands to placate. “It’s the same reason I know where you live. I’ve trusted the Bureau before, and found out the hard way that decision wasn’t smart. Everything went bad because I didn’t know that the guy at my six had betrayed us. This is my team now, so yeah. I know what happened up on that ridge when you were a kid. Your mother fell to her death, and you think you’re responsible. It’s called survivor’s guilt.”

  “I am responsible.” Tate dragged the towel over his neck and chest. Shit, why’d Tucker think he had to do this now?

  “And I say you’re not. How old were you when it happened?”

  Tate wanted to knock his boss’s fat head off and every last tooth out of his big mouth. “You’re all so smart, you tell me.” He whirled on Ky and Eden. They were just as bad as Tucker, butting in where they had no business.

  The damnedest light glimmered in Tucker’s face. “You were twelve, Tate,” his said softly, his bluff and bluster gone. “You were the same age as my kid was when I finally got him away from his mother and back into my life. You were a little boy. God, you were just twelve...” He let the word hang, and as it hung there, the room filled with the stone-cold memory of the day a twelve-year-old boy stopped believing in magic and miracles and fairytales. When that kid became a hard man at Death’s mercy.

  Tate hooked the towel around his neck and glared at his arrogant boss. Even at twelve, he’d been sturdy and strong, built for nothing but a lifetime of toil and labor. It served him well that day. Alone, he’d dragged his mother out of that canyon in the tarp he’d always carried with him for emergencies. Only he’d never expected the first time he’d use it would be for—her.

  He swallowed hard remembering the many times he’d fallen to his hands and scraped his knees because his legs gave out on the lonely trip home. The stinging sleet that fell over him and his mom, covering them both in a shroud of ice before he got her home. The tears at every lousy step. The bleakness in his dad’s sharp-as-razor eyes when he’d seen his son, when he knew and screamed, “What have you done?!”

  Jesus Christ, what could a kid say to regain his father’s love after a crime like that? Not a damned thing.

  Eden hadn’t let go of his wrist yet. Neither had the memory let go of his heart. His chest heaved with the burden he’d packed since that day. That was why he disliked people. They hadn’t lived through what he had. They could all afford to be happy and carefree and gossip and joke. He couldn’t. Life ceased to be even remotely good the day he’d let his mother—my Mom for Christ’s sake!—die. I couldn’t reach her. She fell. And every time I close my eyes, she keeps falling…

  “I know,” Eden sent to him, “and I’m so sorry, Tate.”

  Tears brimmed at his lashes, threatening yet another breach he couldn’t allow. This was no sitcom they were discussing. This was the deepest, rawest hole in his heart, and by hell, it was off-limits. Tate summoned his one and only psychic skill, and he slammed the door in their faces. “Back off,” he growled, enforcing his number one rule. I don’t need people.

  “You never had a grip on her, did you?” Tucker again, damn him.

  Shifting his boots and widening his stance, Tate stared him down, daring the man to say one more word.

  Cue the silence.

  Now everyone knew what kind of a man he was. And yeah, he understood why his father had screamed at him like he did that day. Hell, Tate had screamed right back at him. “I did it! I killed her!” Because it was him up there on that mountainside. Just him! Not his dad. Not some plucky hero come to save the day like happened in the movies. It was just some kid who’d let his mom die.

  His dad knew better, and so did he. They’d both ended up crying and holding each other until the night grew too dark and the storm too fierce to stay outside with her. Tate swallowed hard, damned near choking on the sharp lump forever caught in his throat.

  But they couldn’t leave her outside, not with bears roaming free and wild. Wolverines. Foxes. Eagles. They’d brought her into the cabin so no animals could get at her. The next day, they’d wrapped her in her favorite blanket and dragged her back up the mountain she’d loved. They buried her in her favorite place in the sun, high above the spot where she’d fallen. It took a while because of the storm and the ice, but, yeah. They got it done, he and his dad and a lot of tears.

  Life was never the same after that. When she died, she took the sun and the stars with her, the scent of the sea on the wind and Tate’s reason to live. He still woke up screaming some nights, lost in those last few seconds of her life. Always reaching for her, but always coming up empty-handed.

  After that day, he grew restless and wary, antsy that something just as unforeseen could steal his father too. Little did he know his dad was already gone. When the morning came for Tate to enlist, Shane was nowhere to be found. Tate ended up alone at his mother’s grave to tell her where he was going and why, but he couldn’t locate his father then, nor any day since. The man who’d raised him and loved him and taught him all he knew about the Alaskan wildlife just up and left him behind.

  “Her name was Rain,” Tate said quietly, giving his team something if they’d just shut up and leave him alone. “Rain Higgins.” And she loved the wilderness and fly-fishing and living off the land and... me. She loved me.

  “You lost your father around the same time.” Isaiah came out of nowhere with those words. He stuck a Starbucks in Tate’s hand. A venti. With a sleeve.

  Random acts of kindness like that will get you every time.

  Tate blew out a long sigh. As much as he didn’t want to, he said, “My dad. Shane. He walked into the trees early one morning. Never came back.” I don’t know where to look any more...

  It was then he noticed that heavy hand on his shoulder belonged to Tucker, not Ky. Eden and Ky now stood at one side, Tucker on the other. Eden’s eyes were plenty red and teary. Ky’s face was grim. Isaiah’s across the way was—thoughtful, as if he was trying to decide something.

  Yeah well, me too. Like if I should quit this chicken shit outfit and go look for my dad. Like if I should shut the hell up. Tate looked down at that Starbucks in his hands, sick of being the center of attention.

  “My kid, Deuce…” Tucker cleared his throat. “He, umm, Deuce lost a good buddy back in Vietnam. My ex took him there, and, anyway, Deuce met this skinny little orphan. Luke. It was tough the way he got killed, and Deuce still has nightmares. He wakes up screaming some nights, and I… and I…” Tucker coughed. “I feel so damned useless. Me. A SEAL and an FBI director. None of that means anything when I can’t fix what happened to my kid, and, damn it. A father should be able to fix anything for his kid. It’s like a knife in my heart that I can’t. If I had a time machine, I’d go back and do things differently, but I... I can’t. Life doesn’t give us second chances. Evil exists and bad things happen, and that’s just the way it is. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  That was unexpectedly—weird. It almost sounded as if Tucker had a heart for a second. Tate stood there and took it until his boss caught him in a big-guy bear hug, spilling his coffee in the process. “I’m sorry,” the cocky son-of-a-bitch growled against his cheek. “I’m damned sorry about your mom, Tate. I know you miss her e
very day.”

  Like that helped? Finally hearing someone acknowledge that she’d lived, and that he’d loved her with all his heart? Knowing all of that was gone? Tate blew out a deep breath and pushed Tucker away. He didn’t hug men and enough was enough.

  Ky and Eden patted him down with hands full of napkins and they mopped the coffee off the floor. Isaiah disappeared for a minute, then returned with another Starbucks, and it was time to change the subject.

  “Tell me what you know about Winslow and her mother,” Tate ordered.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  When you’re dying, you’re supposed to see a bright shining light that pulls you toward it, and that light is supposed to be warm, and you’re supposed to feel good, aren’t you?

  Winslow didn’t. She’d been poked and prodded from every possible angle by the time she pried her bleary eyes open. But then she had to shut them again. The rows of overhead lights in this new nightmare were too bright. They turned the insides of her eyelids a vivid pinkish red even with her eyes closed. Turn them off. Someone, please.

  She groaned and angled her head to the side, her lips parched. “Lights,” she meant to say to no one in particular, but her dry mouth made it sound more like “blah.”

  A shadow blocked the brilliant glow enough that she took a chance and cracked one eyelid to see the crinkled straw sticking out of a plastic bottle headed her way. She took a long draw on that water bottle, thankful for small miracles. When she’d soaked the gritty sandpaper in her throat enough that it stopped hurting, she whispered, “Could you please turn the lights off?”

  “I’m sorry, but no. I can’t,” someone replied.

  Winslow couldn’t decipher the gender of that voice. It was too fuzzy. Too far away. And fading fast. She closed her eyes and gave in to darkness.

  “What’s Joyce Parrish’s real name then?” Tate couldn’t believe what Isaiah had just told everyone. His clothes were dry by then, the towel tossed to a vacant chair.