by Debra Webb
“You want me to help you,” Banks scoffed, “the way Shelley helped you? Yeah, right. I don’t wanna get dead like her.”
Self-disgust cramped Braddock’s insides. “I guess it all depends upon who scares you the most, Banks. Nash or me.”
The stare-off lasted long enough for sweat to break out on the other man’s forehead.
“I can help you.” Banks swallowed hard. “You just have to give me time to set things in motion. Ty is careful.” He blinked for the first time. His hands shook as he shoved the hair back from his face. “You won’t be able to connect him to any of his past activities. It’ll have to be something new.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “Seventy-two hours.” Braddock let that sink in a moment. “That’s all the time I can give you. Can you make that happen?”
Banks nodded eagerly. “I’ll make it happen.”
“You get what I need on Nash and I’ll make sure you’re taken care of.”
“Can I leave now?”
Braddock dragged his chair back to the wall and removed the tape from the camera lens. “Absolutely. I’ll have someone take you to your car.”
Braddock left the room. Jenkins waited in the corridor. “Take that piece of shit to his car. It’s parked at that cantina on Drake.”
“Did he give you anything useful?” the junior detective asked, anticipation gleaming in his eyes. He wanted deeper into this case so bad it hurt. He followed Braddock around like a groupie. Told everyone he wanted to be just like him.
Braddock grinned. “He’ll get us what we need.”
Jenkins nodded as if he hadn’t expected anything less. “Of course. I don’t know why I asked. He didn’t have a chance against you.”
“Get some sleep. You’ll need it,” he told Jenkins before heading to his office. He needed to touch base with Greg Day at the lab. If that turned out to be Shelley’s blood . . . It wouldn’t be enough to nail Nash legally, but it would confirm a connection between the note he had received after his niece’s murder and the message to CJ. His cell vibrated. He checked the screen. Cooper. She’d relieved Jenkins an hour ago. The chief had allotted only three detectives on this case. They would have to do the best they could with minimal manpower.
“Braddock.”
“She’s waiting outside Banks’s house,” Cooper reported.
A frown furrowed across his forehead. “Jenkins is taking Banks to his car now. Keep an eye on her until I get there.”
After last night’s break-in, he would have thought CJ would be more careful. He should have known better. She’d spent her whole life taking care of her sister. To CJ’s way of thinking, finding her killer would be necessary to finish the job.
If it didn’t get her killed first.
4:05 PM
Braddock watched the house on Clopton where Banks resided with his aunt. CJ sat on the steps waiting for his arrival. According to Jenkins, Banks had made a stop at the liquor store on the corner of Drake and the Parkway.
CJ couldn’t get past the idea that Banks was the one who’d killed her sister. Banks would insist when she asked that it hadn’t been him. It had been the King.
The King. Braddock’s jaw tightened with the hatred that exploded inside him each time he thought of that bastard. He was a king, all right. King of a run-down village filled with desperate people eking out the same desperate lives their parents and their grandparents before them had eked out.
It was way past time the cycle was stopped.
The only way to end it was to neutralize its core. The hub that held all the spokes together, spinning in that vicious circle.
Change wasn’t about to come to this neighborhood as long as scumbags like Nash ran things.
Cooper didn’t see this case the way he did. Whoever had killed Shelley, Nash was responsible. He would have given the order. Just as he had two years ago when he’d murdered Braddock’s niece.
Fury whipped through him, slicing his heart into quivering pieces.
Sweet. Beautiful. And only nineteen.
Braddock had promised his brother when he left for Iraq that he would keep his family safe. His wife, daughter, and son would be well taken care of until his tour was over. Six months later, his brother had been shipped back home in a wooden box. Barely two months after that, Kimberly had disappeared. She had gotten into a fight with her mother. Declared that she was going to live with her uncle.
Braddock had given her a firm talking-to when she’d showed up at his door. He’d told her how much her mother needed her. How much her brother needed her. Then he’d made the mistake of telling Kimberly that her mother was on her way to Huntsville to pick her up. The next time he’d turned his back, the kid was out the door.
Her body hadn’t been discovered for nearly a month.
But Braddock had gotten the message mere days after her disappearance. A note, handwritten in blood.
No one fucks with me.
Analysis had immediately shown that the type was the same as Kimberly’s. By the time the DNA analysis came back confirming that it was his niece’s blood, her body had washed up on a Decatur riverbank.
That dull ache that lived inside Braddock roared. He’d gotten his niece killed. His determination to take Nash down for his crimes had prompted a reaction.
Nash had let him know that his interference would not be tolerated.
Braddock’s fingers tightened into fists. God, he wanted to kill that son of a bitch.
For more than a year and a half he had been working every case that could even remotely be connected to Nash. Missing prostitutes. Two homicides. Numerous assaults and robberies. Anything in the village or any other part of Nash’s territory, Braddock got involved. He worked day and night, seven days a week if necessary.
Whatever it took to legally bring that son of a bitch to his knees.
Then, eleven months ago, Shelley Patterson had stumbled into his life. After he’d finished the investigation into the break-in at her house, Braddock had kept the friendship going with her. He’d noted how connected she was to both Banks and Nash. He’d seen her connections as an opportunity. Then he’d developed protective feelings for her. He’d wanted to help her. Not long after that he’d met CJ, and he’d been hooked on the Patterson sisters.
CJ had trusted him at first, even liked him on a personal level. The physical attraction had been off the charts. God, he’d wanted her and, he was pretty damned certain, she had wanted him too—for a lot more than a stress-relief fuck.
Until he’d screwed it up.
But Kevin Braddock was determined when it came to the job. He hadn’t let his failure with CJ stop him from pursuing his quest to get Nash. Three months ago Shelley had come to him with a plan to end the King’s rule once and for all.
Now she was dead.
Braddock had allowed that to happen. The same way he had allowed his niece to become a target.
Maybe it was time to stop playing by the rules.
Tyrone Nash was going down.
A black Charger rolled up the street, drawing Braddock’s attention back to the present.
His pulse quickened. Banks knew he was being watched. CJ was in no danger from him as long as that was the case.
But she was making herself a major target with Nash. And that was damned dangerous.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
2204 Clopton Street, 4:15 PM
Finally.
CJ heard Ricky’s Charger roar into the driveway at the back of his aunt’s house. Inside, the dog barked even louder in response to his master’s return.
She touched her back pocket and the cold metal cylinder there. Pepper spray was her only means of defense. She didn’t know if it would put a big dog down, but it would definitely slow Ricky down if he gave her any trouble.
Cell phone was in her front pocket. She was good to go.
The car that had been following her had disappeared. She’d been annoyed by the cop’s presence at the clinic, but now she kind of wished he were still
around.
She climbed the steps and stood at the door a moment before knocking.
Deep breath.
Be strong.
She raised her fist and banged on the front door.
The dog roared into action. Deep, throaty bark. Frightening growl.
CJ hooked her thumb in her back pocket, ready to snatch that pepper spray if necessary.
Heavy footsteps approached the door. There was no security peep hole. Since Ricky didn’t open the door right away she had to assume he had another way to identify his visitor. One of the windows, maybe.
He said something to his dog. The growling stopped instantly. The door opened.
“What do you want?”
CJ lifted her chin and glared at the hulk of a guy. Images of him chasing Shelley through those woods sent pain spreading out from her chest. “I have to talk to you.” She had to stay calm. If she wanted him to talk to her, she couldn’t go in there ranting and screaming. No accusing . . . just talking.
Ricky glanced at the street, right then left. “I told you to stay away from me. I don’t know nothing about what happened. Stop nagging my ass. I’m getting enough shit from the cops.”
She put her body in the threshold before he could shut the door in her face. “I do know something about it and we need to talk.”
“Whatever.” He gave her his back but left the door open.
His dog followed him, glancing back repeatedly at CJ.
She stepped fully inside and closed the door. Her heart hammered wildly but she couldn’t let him see just how scared she was. So she sucked it up and headed in the direction he’d already gone.
In the kitchen, he was in the middle of preparing a sandwich. His dog sat at his feet, his tongue lapping at his jowls hungrily.
“Spit it out,” Ricky said as he slapped mayo on two slices of bread. “I got things to do.”
She could just imagine what kind of things he had to do. “Shelley was pregnant.”
His gaze shot to hers. “What?” He made one of those faces that said he thought she was full of crap.
“I verified it at the clinic today. She was about six weeks pregnant.” CJ met his condescending glare with determination in hers. “Was it you?”
“Six weeks, you say?”
She nodded.
He braced his hands on the counter and appeared to pull up a mental calendar. Then he shook his head. “No way.”
“Are you certain? The two of you hadn’t been intimate in the past two months?”
He plopped bologna on the bread, rolled his eyes. “We were never intimate, Dr. Patterson. We fucked. You ever tried it?”
Equal parts fury and frustration burned her cheeks. He couldn’t know about last night. “Answer the question, Ricky. I’m not interested in discussing my sex life with you.”
After tearing off a big bite of his sandwich with his teeth, he laughed as he chewed. “You have to have one before you can talk about it. Is that it?”
“Did you and Shelley—”
“Yeah, yeah.” He took a slug of Maker’s Mark bourbon straight from the bottle. “No. Shelley and I hadn’t fucked in about three months. All we did when we ran into each other was fight.”
That couldn’t be right. “But you gave her a concussion and broke her wrist just a little over a month ago. What did she do? Blow you off?” Anger stung through CJ at the thought of this brute hurting her sister. He outweighed her by seventy-five or eighty pounds, stood eight or ten inches taller. Scumbag. Maybe he hadn’t killed Shelley, but he’d been abusing her for years.
Ricky shook his head. “I took the fall for that, but I didn’t lay a hand on her.” He took another slug of bourbon. “Here’s the thing.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Shelley’s dead and she’s still busting my balls. What the fuck’s up with that? I didn’t lay a hand on her a month ago and I still got harassed about it. I didn’t do nothing but yell at her the other night, and the cops are all up my ass.”
Of course he would say that. “I was told that you were the one who beat her.” Mr. O’Neal, the neighbor, had seen Ricky at Shelley’s that night. Had heard the yelling.
“Did Shelley say it was me?” He crammed another hunk of sandwich into his mouth.
CJ had to think about that a moment. She and Shelley had spent the whole time arguing when CJ was here last. But now that she thought about it, Shelley didn’t say it was Ricky. CJ had taken O’Neal’s word for it.
“I didn’t think so.” Ricky swallowed. “I’m the one she called for a ride to the ER. But I didn’t lay a hand on her. The next day the cops questioned me about it just because I was the one who took her to the hospital.”
CJ rubbed at her right temple. That dull ache just wouldn’t go away. “Did she tell you who did it?”
“You have to ask?”
A frown furrowed. “Are you saying Tyrone beat her up?” Was it possible Tyrone had killed Shelley? CJ needed to take a big step back and look at this without all those emotions getting in the way.
Ricky laughed. “Are you serious? He don’t get his hands dirty like that. But I guarantee you one of his people took care of it for him.”
“But why?” CJ couldn’t fit all the pieces together. “Shelley worked for you, right? Why would Nash get involved?”
“She used to work for me. Two and a half, three months ago she started working directly for Tyrone kind of under the table, if you know what I mean. I raised hell with her about it, but I know the food chain around here. Tyrone’s the top and I’m somewhere in the middle. So I shut the fuck up and recruited some fresh meat to take her place.”
CJ gritted her teeth. Don’t let him see your disgust. Keep him talking. “Is it possible Nash was the father?” CJ had butted heads with Nash a few times years ago when he’d been a fledgling tyrant. He’d had a thing for her, sort of. She’d kept telling him no when he would ask her out, until her name was shifted to his mortal-enemy list. And then he’d tried to take what she wouldn’t give him. She’d left her mark for him to remember that he couldn’t always have what he wanted.
“I doubt it.” Ricky reached into the fridge and pulled out what appeared to be a small chunk of raw steak. He tossed it to the dog. The big animal devoured it. “The King don’t touch the whores. Like you,” Ricky pressed with a haughty look, “he keeps his sex life private.”
CJ let the ugly reference to Shelley being a whore slide. It hurt her to think it, but it was true.
“Could one of her johns have gotten her pregnant?” Surely there was a way to narrow down the possibilities.
“I don’t think she was working the streets for Tyrone. I think she was working on something else for him. Like I said, under the table.”
God. What did that mean? “Was she muling drugs?” She’d done it before.
Ricky shook his head. “Don’t think so.”
This was going in circles. “Was there a guy in her life? Somebody new?”
“Yeah.” Ricky leveled his gaze on hers. “She got off on letting me know she was moving on to bigger and better things. Apparently, she misjudged her worth.”
Again, CJ let the comment slide. She didn’t want to argue with him. She wanted answers. “Do you know who the guy was?”
“Matter of fact, I do.” He smirked. “She had herself a cop.”
Tension prodded CJ’s instincts. “Was she dating this cop?” The only cop she was aware her sister ever talked to was Braddock. Dread welled inside CJ. Images from last night elbowed their way into her head, turning the sickening dread into something far more painful.
Ricky shrugged. “Maybe. Mostly she was playing him. Or he was playing her.”
“Can you spell that out, please?” Jesus Christ. Couldn’t he just give her a straight answer? But then, maybe she already knew the answer. God, if she found out Braddock had . . .
He wouldn’t do that—not again. Shelley wouldn’t have . . . surely she wouldn’t have.
“I don’t know. But they were up to so
mething. You should ask him if he knocked her up.”
“Do you know this cop’s name?” she asked, just in case it was someone else. It had to be someone else.
“Sure. You’ve met him already. It’s Braddock. Asshole,” Ricky muttered, then downed another slug of bourbon. “He’ll get his. Soon, at the rate he’s going.”
“If you . . .” She had to get out of here. She had to think. Then she was going to find Braddock and demand some answers. Or maybe she would kick the shit out of him just on principle. Report him to his chief. Something! “If you think of anything else, will you let me know?”
Ricky plopped the bottle of bourbon on the counter. “I know she was your sister and all, but she’s dead. You can’t bring her back. Why you doing this? You gotta know you’re stumbling around in hazardous territory.”
“I have to do this. I’m not letting her killer evade justice the way my father’s killer did.” CJ looked him square in the eye, tried to read his reaction.
Ricky moved his head side to side, heaved a big breath. The smell of bourbon had her holding her breath.
“You did something most around here couldn’t manage.” Resignation cluttered his expression. “You got out. Escaped. What the hell you doing taking this risk? Go back to Baltimore, CJ. You don’t belong here no more. That’s the other side of the coin, girl. Most of these people”—he gestured magnanimously—“spend their whole lives trying to get out but can’t. You got out. But you can’t come back. You ain’t one of us no more.”
CJ should have thanked him for answering her questions. But she couldn’t. She had to get out of there. His words kept echoing around her.
You don’t belong here no more.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
3021 Appleton Street, 5:05 PM
The door opened after his first knock. Braddock sized up CJ’s state of mind in one glance. Outraged.
