“Can I come to see the truck?” The question was one I’d been waiting to ask. Zee had found nothing at Mary-Ellen’s house, and the lead of John Smith had gone nowhere. But the old Ford still might hold a clue. “My son . . . he said he had a gift for me, and I just now realized it would still be in the truck.”
“We searched through the truck and found nothing, Mrs. Stark.” His voice was anything but conciliatory. Anything but understanding of a mother’s grief.
“Still, it would make me feel better to look for myself.” I knew he was lying about the cause of the accident. What I didn’t know was if he knew he was lying, or if he was in on this scheme. I hung up before he could argue with me.
“Zee, I’m headed into town. Do you want to come?” I grabbed his truck keys from the kitchen island. He had one of the guns from the tack room storage spread out in parts, cleaning it.
“No, I’ll stay.” He looked up over the scope. “I take it you aren’t going in for groceries?”
I shook my head. “No. Going to look at the Ford.”
He stopped moving. “What do you think you’re going to find?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. But maybe something. Maybe nothing. A clue, something to point us in a direction instead of just spinning our wheels in deep mud.”
Zee went back to his cleaning. “Sure. Get me something to eat while you’re there. Pizza would be a nice change.”
As I walked to the door, Abe let out a soft woof and limped to me. He was still healing too, one side of his body slowly growing in the fur where it had been shaved for the surgery. “You keep an eye on Zee.” I scrubbed his ears, and ran my hand over his head. His big dark eyes followed me as I stepped onto the porch.
I drove into town, slowing as I drove up the hill that had changed my world forever. Heart pain clawed at me and I refused its entrance, refused to break down. Not yet, I wasn’t done with justice for my boys yet.
My mouth quirked as I mouthed the word justice to myself. When had I ever actually given that and not only death? Perhaps this was the first time. Perhaps, I was turning over a new leaf. I snorted softly.
“What’s so funny? I want to laugh too,” Dinah said.
“Stop pestering her,” Eleanor said. “If she wants to share with us, she will.”
I tapped a finger on the steering wheel. “First time the three of us are seeking justice and not just death. I found it amusing.”
“Well, I don’t,” Dinah barked. “I want to get more kills.”
“Still trying to catch up to Eleanor?”
Dinah grumbled and went quiet after I spoke.
The police station was quiet as I pulled in. It didn’t look like they had anyone else visiting. I stepped out of the truck and headed up the short flight of steps. The woman at the front desk looked up as I came in, her hair pulled back in a ponytail so tight, it looked like she’d given herself a small facelift.
“Can I help you?” Her face was expressionless. Maybe there was a true facelift under there too. Or maybe she’d been touched up with myst.
“Here to see Chief Lars.” I smiled at her, but it was a hard smile, I could feel the edges of it, and how it didn’t reach my eyes.
She glanced down at her book in front of her. “He doesn’t have any appointments.”
“Excellent, then he will have time to see me,” I leaned in and read her name tag, “Doris.”
Flustered, she blinked rapidly and backed away. “I’ll get him.”
I stood quietly, waiting. There at the back of the big open room was Officer Schmidt and his younger partner whose name I’d never taken note of. I lifted a hand to them, waving.
Let them make of that what they would.
Doris was back a few minutes later with a heavy-set Chief Lars huffing behind her. “Mrs. Stark, you didn’t need to come all the way into town.”
“I did. I told you I wanted to see inside the truck to see about what my son left behind for me. If you didn’t find anything, then it’s still there.”
He shook his head, heavy jowls swinging. “We can’t have you climbing on evidence. And anything else is probably in the lake.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Evidence? So, it wasn’t an accident?”
He spluttered. “It was an accident. But even accidents have evidence.”
I took a step toward him. “The truck legally belongs to me now as my husband’s will left everything to me.”
“It’s still in the evidence locker.”
I shrugged. “I don’t have a problem with that. You can keep the truck for now, I only want to look in it. Of course, I can get a lawyer involved, but I’d rather not. It would look bad, don’t you think, to tell a widow that she couldn’t try to find a gift her dead son left behind for her?”
His jaw worked back and forth as his face reddened, and finally he huffed out a puff of air. “Fine. Follow me.”
He stomped through the main section of the police station and out the back door into what looked like a junkyard. A scattering of vehicles, all which had obviously been in accidents of some sort were there in front of me, sprawled out like dead animals. The old Ford was at the far end of the yard.
“Ten minutes,” Chief Lars said as though I were visiting with an inmate in a jail. I hadn’t decided, yet, if he was on the take or not. I suspected not, or he wouldn’t have let me get even this far.
I didn’t spare him another glance. As I strode forward through the aisle between the vehicles, I approached the passenger side of the Ford and peered through the window. The crumpled side door wouldn’t allow me in so I went around to the driver’s side. The driver’s door opened on the first yank and I slid into the truck.
I fought to keep my breathing even as I methodically slid my hands over and under the seats, as I opened the dash, as I forced myself to climb into the backseat, as I fought with the urge to bolt from the truck and the memories it held.
“What is in here? What do you think you will find?” Dinah’s voice was muffled.
“A clue,” I said. “Anything.”
Focus, just focus. That was my mantra and I kept it running through my mind on a loop.
The first thing I realized was that the police hadn’t done any sort of search of the truck. If they had, they would have found the middle seat in the back could open. Just as I was doing now. The middle seat had been a storage place for Bear’s toys when he’d been younger that Justin had put in himself, delighting Bear to no end. I flicked the small latch that held it closed and lifted the lid.
In the bottom of the storage space was a tiny box wrapped in shining red paper and tied with a sparkly green bow, slightly water damaged but otherwise intact. I slid it out and tucked it into my coat pocket. This was not the time to open it, and not even the real reason I’d come. At best, I had only a few minutes left to search the truck. I let myself out of the driver’s door and looked to the front entrance of the yard. Chief Lars had gone back inside.
“Fool,” I muttered as I dropped to my knees, and slid under the truck. The only thing the chief had right was that the brakes had failed. There was no way they’d frozen. That was one of those urban myths people said happened to them when their brakes were just shitty.
I found the brake lines, slipped my gloves off and worked my fingers over the thick rubber. There.
I found what I was looking for. Not a cut in the brake lines, but puncture marks, subtle under my fingertips. Made with a clamping tool that forced many, many holes into the rubber, allowing the brake fluid to leak out over time.
This particular trick . . . I knew who it belonged to.
Tank Follietta. Punctured brake lines were something he was known for far and wide in the circles I used to run in. Even an abnormal would die in a bad car crash. I ran my hand over the rubber again to make sure, finally taking a knife from my shoulder holster and slicing off a piece. I held it to the light. “Fuck it all, Tank.” There was no doubt in what was right in front of me. I tucked the rubber line into my pocket
to show Zee. To be sure I was on the right path.
Tank was one of my father’s business associates, in a way. One of the thugs tied to Mr. Mancini, the head of the Mancini family in New York. Tank had used this trick more than once to eliminate a rival for his own boss.
I was going to kill Tank slowly for this. Because worse than the fact that it was Tank was that I’d considered him something of a friend in the past. Someone I could almost trust. Or at least I knew wouldn’t toss me under a bus without a warning first. Of course, there was that fact that he wouldn’t have known it was me, hidden as I was with Zee’s ability. “Shit.” I didn’t want to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. Not even Tank.
I slid out from under the truck and stood to find Officer Schmidt’s young partner watching me with narrowed eyes.
“What were you doing under the truck?”
I fished the gift from Bear out of my pocket. “Looking for this.”
“Your kid hid his gift for you in the chassis?” The disbelief was obvious, clear.
I shrugged. “He was a smart boy, handy . . . not unlike his father.”
I didn’t care if he believed me or not. That wasn’t the point. The point was that I’d found something solid. I knew who I was going after now.
I pushed my way past the younger officer, then paused a few steps away from him. “You got a name?”
“Officer Ryan.”
I gave him a nod, and continued on my way. “Officer Ryan, thank you for checking on me.”
He escorted me out of the police station without another word.
My drive home was uneventful; I didn’t look at the lake. Didn’t even notice the hill. I couldn’t, not with the way my mind was racing and where it was taking me.
Punctured brake lines. Tank Follietta. Mancini.
What the ever-living hell had Justin been wrapped in? The answer was not one I had thought for an instant in the last two weeks. I’d hoped in the dark of the night that Justin had been in some sort of gambling ring, that maybe he’d been cheating on me and the woman had him done in . . . but this? To truly have ties to the Collection? Despite what Zee had suggested, I’d not thought it possible.
I hated being wrong.
I pulled onto the driveway of my home and sat in the truck, thinking. Apparently, I sat too long because Zee came out to find me. He opened the driver’s side door and peered in.
“What? Was there something on the truck?”
I pulled the line from my pocket and held it out to him. “Punctured brake lines. They used a clamp,” I said.
He sucked in a sharp breath as he ran his hands over it. “Shit. Follietta?”
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Tell me I’m wrong. Justin couldn’t have had some sort of tangling with the Collection, could he? I mean . . . wouldn’t we have figured it out? He had no magic of his own.”
The words sounded ridiculous in the same sentence, and yet they made sense in a horrible, mind-numbing sort of way. The Collection didn’t take it lightly if you crossed them. I knew that from working for my father—his ties to them were enough to make him one of them from the outside—but if the Collection was involved with the accident, then that meant there had to be money and power on the line, and no small amount of magic.
The score Justin had been talking about made more sense now. With great risk came great reward. But . . . that also meant Noah was in on this scheme of Justin’s.
I made myself step out of the truck and go inside. “There’s a way to be sure of what’s happening. You know Romano Industries keeps records for Mr. Mancini. His people don’t like the tech shit.”
“No, don’t go there. They will have you killed if you get caught. I can’t ward you that well, Nix.” Zee followed my line of thinking but I was already way ahead of him.
“Zee, my father’s business has enough ties with the Collection and we both know he had spies on the inside. We know because I helped him set them up and get them in.” My father was so blindingly arrogant that he kept tabs on the heads of the families he dealt with, not only so he could emulate them, but so he could use his ties with them. He thought maybe he could blackmail them.
That was the thing about my father, nothing was too dangerous or taboo, not if it meant he was making money or gaining power.
That included having his twelve-year-old daughter trained as one of his enforcers. He’d created a weapon that could think for itself in me.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “The databases would be the place to start. We both know I can get in and out without being caught. I’ll go old school, no wards. It won’t be hard, and it will give us evidence. If I must kill Tank, I will. But we both know he’s getting old. And fat. You think he’d have been able to get under the lowered chassis of the Ford?”
“Point taken.” Zee’s jaw was tight as we walked into the house side by side. “It’s still a shitty idea.”
“You got a better one?” I fired at him as I strode away, down the hall to my bedroom. We’d set the room right, and flipped the mattress so the slash marks were underneath and unseen as if they had never been. I shut the door behind me then sat on the bed. I put my hand on the outside of my coat pocket, feeling the edges of the package within.
Slowly, I pulled the wrapped gift out and stared at it.
I flipped the card over.
You’re my best girl, Mom.
Love, Bear.
I put my fist to my mouth and bit down on my knuckles as I fought the pain the words lit inside my heart. Shaking, I stood and went to the dresser, opened the top drawer and put the present in. “Not yet, Bear. I’ll open it, but not right now.”
I backed away. There was a lot to do to prep for a trip to my father’s main place of business. A knock on the door turned me around.
“Come in.”
Zee poked his head in. “We need to have a hard talk.”
I frowned. “All right.”
He opened the door fully and leaned on the frame. Abe pushed past him and placed himself between me and Zee.
“Well?”
“You stole a lot of money from your father headed for Mr. Mancini when you left your . . . position. You sure that isn’t the reason all this is happening?”
“You said yourself if this was about me, I’d be dead right now.”
His mouth tightened. “The Collection isn’t like your father, Nix. He might think he’s like them, he might try and be like them, but he isn’t. They never would have hired me, an ex-special ops guy with no family to use against me. They train their own, and they don’t step outside of their bloodlines. You stealing all that money . . . if they’d found you, they’d want to make you suffer. They’d want to hurt you, Nix.”
I stared at him. “You mean they would do this, they would kill everyone I love first.”
He gave me a tight nod. “Exactly. And we both know your father would have thrown you under the bus when you walked away. That money was his, and it was going to the Mancini family. You were supposed to deliver it. It was your father’s payday to get into the Collection, officially.”
He didn’t have to remind me. I recalled the weight of the cash in the two large bags. I’d been planning my escape, waiting for the right moment to get away from my psychotic father and his cronies, to get away from all those who’d hurt me. I let Zee’s words sink in. “Then this could still be partially my fault then. I could still be the reason we were found.”
“Yeah, it could, but I doubt that you are all of it.”
I hunched my shoulders, guilt and shame swelling through me. I fought through it, pushed my way to the top of the drowning emotions. I forced my mind and not my heart to think this through. “And the coded papers? The fact that it was Justin’s spaces, not mine that were tossed? They didn’t even go to the barn.”
He tipped his head to one side. “You know, I’ve looked into Justin’s life through the years, used my connections where I could to make sure he was safe. Whoever is helping him is better than anyone else I’ve
ever seen. He’s squeaky clean. Those coded papers could be nothing. Maybe it was a random robbery because people knew we’d be away. That happens with funerals and weddings when they are announced in a paper. Their homes become an easy target for thieves.” His eyes were inscrutable. I tried to decipher what he was really thinking and couldn’t get anything back.
I rubbed a hand over my face.
“They took nothing but the family bible, a bible I saw on his desk when he was working on that code,” I said. “Not much value in a bible printed in the 1960s. Unless there is something of value added to it somehow.”
He let out a sigh and I took a step toward him. “Wait, are you just trying to talk me out of this?”
With a nod, he turned away, his shoulders drooping. “You are the only family I have left, Nix. And you are like a daughter to me. I . . . I don’t want to lose you, too.”
I blinked several times, trying to reconcile this grizzled old man with wounds of war etched into his skin, with the soft words he was saying. He was a killer as much as I was, more so in some ways. He’d been at it longer.
“Thank you. But don’t try and talk me out of it again.” I kept my tone as soft as I could, but even I could hear the iron in them.
Zee grunted. “If you’re really going to do this, then we’d best get your flabby ass in shape.”
“Flabby ass! I still run ten miles most days, in addition to the barn work.” I glared at him.
He shook his head. “If you’re going after the Collection, you need to be in top shape, Nix. And that means you’re going to need patience. The mob isn’t going anywhere. It’s time to hone your edge, and make you a weapon the Collection will fear once more.”
Chapter Seven
True to his word, Zee set to retraining me, treating me as though I were one of his newbie recruits rather than the veteran killer I was. He at least gave me the full six weeks so my arm and pelvis crack healed for the most part, anyway. At the end of the long days, my bones ached like I’d been pummeled. Then again, I had been in some cases.
Fury of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 1) Page 9
