by Eden Butler
Vaughn hears Jimmy’s boots against the ground as he walks toward them and the Marine feels Mollie tense at his side, but then there is a whirl of light, the high pitched squeal of a police cruiser moving toward them and then Vaughn can’t see Jimmy’s weathered boots anymore.
Mollie circles around Vaughn, laying his head in her lap. “It’s okay.” He feels a kiss, right on his forehead and then hears, blissfully, tires squealing, doors slamming shut and sees the .45 on the cement as cops run away from them, toward wherever it was Jimmy must have run. “He took off, baby. That asshole got away.”
“What about the other one? The one that hit me?” He can’t manage more than that, but Mollie already reads him well; she catches his meaning.
“I don’t know. Didn’t get a look at them, but they knocked you over the head and ran.” She paused, looks toward the elevator. “That guy from your sister’s office. That Alex guy. He was coming out of the elevator, tried talking some sense into Jimmy. That asshole shot him.” And from the dimming light of the parking garage, Vaughn spots the high polished shoes and crisp starched pants.
“Dammit.”
“Facial lacerations and a concussion He needed stitches on the back of the head where he was hit. All in all, not anything life threatening.” Mollie and Viv walk with the elderly doctor down the hallway, bypassing two nurses who run toward a room with the echo of an alarm ringing out. “He’s lucky we got to him when we did. He lost a lot of blood.”
Viv’s shoulders relax and her hold on Mollie’s hand relaxes a bit. Mollie had never expected the woman to reach out to her, certainly not to hold her hand, but she suspects the fear Viv felt at losing Vaughn had made her forget professionalism. No one remains calm when they think someone they love is dead or dying. Mollie has seen that too often in her life to think differently.
“Thank you, doctor.” Viv offers the man a nod and then pulls her hands to her face, covering her tears with her fingers.
“Here.” The handkerchief is old, one Evelyn McShane had given Mollie when she was fifteen. It’s seen many fits, many mascara smearing moments.
“Thanks.” Viv pats her face dry then notices the monogram on the fabric. She fingers the double MMs and quirks her eyebrows at Mollie.
“Mojo didn’t give me that, if that’s what you’re thinking.” When Viv offers it back to her, Mollie stuffs it in her pocket. “It was from a woman who was the only real mother I’ll ever have. She had it monogrammed with my initials for my fifteenth birthday.”
Viv’s mouth is set firm, but there is a softening at Mollie’s revelation. Mollie thinks she spies a small flicker of sympathy in the glossy shine of the DA’s eyes.
“I’m glad you’re okay. Mojo will be happy,” Viv says.
Mollie follows Viv toward Vaughn’s room. “How’s my dad?” Mollie asks. It’s killing her that her father is free, stuck in some safehouse and she can’t be with him. For once she’d like to talk to him without having to monitor what she says, to speak about who and what she wants without the judging eyes of a prison guard focused on them.
“He’s good. I’ve got a doctor coming in everyday to check up on him.” Viv laughs, resting her fist under her chin as they stop in front of Vaughn’s open door. “He doesn’t like that and he really doesn’t like the fact that the doctor won’t let him have a beer.”
Mollie joins Viv to lean against the door jamb, watching Vaughn’s large chest moving up and down. He has a row of stitches arching around his left eye. “Daddy hates doctors. He always said that they play guesswork. Well, educated guesswork.”
“That’s the truth.”
“Don’t let him give you shit about the beer.” Mollie meets Viv gaze, hoping the woman understands her meaning. “He’s a loud bastard sometimes, but he’s all bark. You tell him yourself that he can’t have the beer. He’s completely useless when a pretty woman is around.”
Unexpectedly, Viv blushes and Mollie notices the pinking skin moving down her face, toward her chest. “Well, I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
“What about Alex? Did he have any family?”
Viv’s face falls and she pulls her attention back to her brother. “No. He was too busy jumping when I barked to have a social life and his folks have been dead since he was eighteen.”
When Viv rubs her temple, Mollie throat tightens. “He saved my life.” She turns toward Vaughn’s bed. “He saved both of our lives.”
Viv touches Mollie’s arm, gives it a gentle squeeze not unlike how Vaughn did in the car a few hours before. “I’m glad for that. I just can’t figure what he was doing there.”
“This whole mess is confusing. Vaughn said Emily called telling him that Jimmy was in custody. That you guys wanted me down at the precinct to identify him.”
When Viv stands up straight, head whipping toward her, Mollie’s hands shake and tight knots form in her stomach and the sudden, unexpected realization of the truth hits her. “She’s the mole?”
“Shit,” Viv says, immediately pulling out her phone. Before she speaks into the receiver, she flags down two troopers standing down the hall. They’d been there since Vaughn was brought in, likely on Viv’s direction. “Don’t you freaking move from this room, I don’t care who tells you to leave.” Phone at her ear, she turns, nods at Mollie. “And don’t you leave either. I want someone with you 24/7.” Another minute passes before Viv disconnects her cell. “She isn’t picking up. I would have never thought—” She immediately opens her message app and starts moving her thumbs across the screen.
“Viv, what about my dad?”
“Don’t worry about him, honey. He’s well protected. We’ve got guards on him.” She looks up from her text. “And I trust them. These are people I’ve known my whole life, a few troopers my dad trained, a few that I know I can trust. Mojo is safe. I promise you, Mollie, no one can touch him.”
When Mollie looks down the hall, gives a quick glance to the two beefy troopers standing on either side of the door, Viv pulls on her arm. “Listen to me, Mollie, I made a promise to your dad. Not one damn thing is going to happen to you. He’s all you have.” The woman looks around the trooper at Vaughn inside his room. “No one understands that better than I do.” An alert sounds on Viv’s phone and her gaze returns to the screen. She nods once then deposits her phone into her bag. “I’ve got to go, but I mean what I said. You stay with him. Please? I need you to do that for me. Don’t leave this room until I come back.” When Mollie hesitates, doesn’t answer quickly enough, Viv pulls on her arm again. “Promise me, Mollie?”
“Yeah,” she says, meaning it. “I’m not going anywhere.”
FIFTEEN
Vaughn wakes with light brown hair against his face. It reminds him vaguely of his leave in Thailand and the sweaty black braid of the girl he met the night before when something called Dragon Venom burned his throat and his senses. Half an hour after drinking the vile stuff and Vaughn would have given that girl anything she wanted. She settled for his body, at least for that night.
But Mollie is not some random Taiwanese girl who couldn’t pronounce his name. She isn’t like anyone he’s ever known and so he doesn’t mind that she fell asleep against him on the uncomfortable hospital bed. He doesn’t mind the low, wheezing snores that move from her nose or the drool that dampens his gown.
He does mind the thick erection that strains against the blanket. Sighing, he adjusts himself, tries to move over, to give Mollie more room, but the movement has her stirring, has her wiping the moisture from the corner of her mouth.
“Hey,” he says when she looks up at him. “Sleep well?”
“Vaughn.” Then Mollie rushes to sit up, tries to jump off the bed, but he clamps his arms around her waist.
“Where you going?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.” She looks behind her to the hard plastic recliner that is extended in a pathetic excuse for a bed. “That thing was so hard and my back still aches a little from the wreck.” When Mollie tu
rns back, brushes her arm across Vaughn’s leg and notices his morning issue, her voice dips and Vaughn loves the way it sounds sultry and tempting. “And you looked too good laying here all alone.”
“I’m glad you joined me.” He moves to kiss her, then thinks better of it. His mouth feels dry and he’s pretty sure fuzz has grown on his teeth. “They leave me a toothbrush?”
Mollie hops down from the bed and shuffles in the bathroom, coming back through the door holding up a toothbrush and small tube of paste. “You need help?”
“I think I can manage.” Vaughn swings his legs over and leans against the IV rod as he moves into the bathroom, taking Mollie’s offered shoulder to support himself when his head begins to swim. Before they reach the bathroom, he notices the window in the door and the trooper who eyes him. “What’s with the security?”
Vaughn likes Mollie hovering over him. He finds it funny that this tiny woman, who is generally fiercely independent and full of piss and wind most days, sits him down on the edge of the tub, fixes his toothbrush and hands him a glass of water so that he isn’t forced to stand in front of the sink. As he brushes, she cleans the counter and tosses the plastic cup wrapper into the bin. “How much do you remember?” Mollie leans against the sink watching him brush.
The cold lid of the toilet clicks against the tank when Vaughn opens it and he spits, taking the towel Mollie offers him. “I remember you getting knocked down and then hearing a gunshot.” He darts his gaze to her, moving his eyes up and down her body. “You okay?”
“Not a scratch.” He doesn’t like that she frowns, doesn’t like how she lowers the toilet lid to sit and immediately grabs his hand. “That Alex guy, from Viv’s office?” Vaughn nods. “He interrupted Jimmy.”
“Oh.” Vaughn tosses the toothbrush onto the sink, but doesn’t release Mollie’s hand. Concentrating, he tries to remember Alex being in the parking garage. He has a vague recall of someone drawing that punk Jimmy’s attention away from Mollie, but the harder he thinks, the quicker the pounding drum in his head beats. “Is he okay?” As soon as he asks, Mollie’s expression tells him all he needs to know. “Shit.”
“According to the cops, Alex called 911 before he interrupted Jimmy. They think he must have heard the shouting and immediately dialed the number.”
Vaughn had never liked Alex. He always thought the guy exploited his position in Viv’s office for his own benefit. But, looking down at Mollie’s hand, watching how steady her fingers are, how whole and safe she looks, Vaughn can’t help but feel gratitude. Alex may have been a little shit, but when it mattered, he had sacrificed without hesitation. He did what anyone with an ounce of courage would do, same as Tony Williams, same as Vaughn’s father.
His chest tightens, thinking about Alex, how the guy’s life was cut too short. “I hate that he got caught up in this.”
“Me too. Viv said he didn’t have any family.” Mollie leaves the toilet and helps Vaughn to his feet. “She had no clue he was at the precinct.”
“That is weird.” Mollie eases Vaughn against the bed and he lays back, his head swimming. He immediately blocks out the overhead light with his arm across his eyes. “He wasn’t the one I spoke to. It was the girl, Emily.”
“That’s what I told Viv.” The rail on the bed squeaks when Mollie brushes against it and sits next to him. “Vaughn, Emily’s the mole.”
He pulls his arm from his eyes. “What?”
“Viv was shocked too. She’s been trying to find her, but no luck so far.”
Emily was a sweet girl. Vaughn didn’t know her well, but she’d always been kind, helpful, if not a bit shy. He can’t imagine someone like her being mixed up with a drug cartel. “She doesn’t seem the type,” he tells Mollie pulling her closer to him with a hand on her hip.
“I’m not,” Emily says, walking into the room.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Mollie yells.
Immediately Vaughn sits up, pulling on Mollie’s arm, hand searching for a weapon and when none could be found, he grabs the TV remote, trying to stand in front of Mollie as Emily lingers in the doorway.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, take it easy.” Emily holds the door open wider. “Look, your sister’s here. She knows I’m here. Honest.” She looks through the doorway and into the hall. “I swear, she just stopped to talk to one of the troopers.” Emily retreats a bit, sliding to the left as Viv enters the room.
“It was Alex, he was the mole, not Emily.” Viv says, flopping down on the extended recliner. Vaughn hasn’t seen his sister look this tired since she picked up from the airport after planning their father’s funeral. Her hair is a mess and there are heavy bags under her eyes. “Emily was digging through Alex’s apartment, forgot her cell in her car. That’s why I couldn’t get a hold of her.”
“Is that right?” Mollie says, folding her arms across her chest. Vaughn had seen her frown like that often enough to know when she was smelling bullshit. He didn’t buy the story either.
“Apparently Alex called her, told her that I wanted you two at the precinct, asked her to call you.” Viv stretches her legs and then rests against the wall. “The cops searched his home. There were receipts for forty gallons of gas.”
“Why is a receipt for gas suspicious?” Mollie hasn’t uncrossed her arms, hasn’t moved at all since Viv began her explanations.
“He didn’t own a car. They also found a map of downtown Cavanagh. There was an inked-in route from the church to the precinct. He was our guy.” Viv pats the spot next to her and Emily joins her. “The fire investigators took statements from several people who were in the area when the fire first broke out. Two witnesses claim that they’d seen Alex near the church just before it started.”
“So you think Alex was working with Jimmy?” Vaughn asks.
“Yes, we believe so. We think he started the fire to divert the police’s attention, keep everyone out of the precinct. But the funny thing is, he wasn’t the only accomplice.” Viv opens her bag and passes a mug shot to Mollie and when she looks down at it, her mouth drops open.
“Bullshit.”
“Mollie, he confessed,” Viv said, sitting up to rest her elbows on her knees.
Viv nods for Mollie to hand Vaughn the photo and his face mimics Mollie’s jaw drop. “The scrawny DJ?” Viv nods. “Come on, Viv, this is crap.”
“Cavanagh PD caught him hanging around Mollie’s place. That old lady friend of yours called it in.”
Vaughn pulls Mollie down next to him on the bed, hoping she would lose the fierce frown throwing lines across her forehead. “This kid is a punk, Viv. I’ve met him. That night, at the awards banquet? He’s a little shit, but he’s harmless.”
His sister has taken on the same hard frown he’s seen a handful of times over the past year. Viv is was still young, but in moments like this, when her worry and anxiety are at their zenith, the small wrinkles near her mouth and dark circles under her eyes are exaggerated. “Yes, well, that little kid is the son of Winston Richards, attorney for the Vasquez Cartel. They are the ones trying to stop Mojo from testifying.”
“What?” Mollie’s voice is high pitched, peppered in shock and disbelief.
“Exactly. He’s well placed, had plenty of opportunity to take your stuff. It was a distraction, I’m sure. So Jimmy could get a lay of your place, maybe plant some bugs or figure out your schedule, Mollie. The kid was there for your equipment. The brat really wants to be a DJ.” Viv digs in her bag, pulling out a breath mint. “That would lead you right to him. Jimmy attacks you and Bret gets your gear and Mojo gets sent a message that you aren’t untouchable.”
Mollie shakes her head even before Viv has finished with her explanation. “But the fire at the alumni office, and Autumn’s attack?”
“The fire was Jimmy. We knew about the Shelby, but the idiot didn’t trash the car. Bret told us Jimmy said it was too pretty to ditch. He’s cocky enough not to get rid of it or use something else for the robbery.”
Mollie stares down at
the picture and Vaughn can tells she’s trying to convince herself that the facts are not fiction. “What about Jimmy? Where’s he now?”
“We’re looking, Mollie. We’re still looking.”
The mug shot lands between them on the bed when Mollie drops it. “And my dad?”
Viv walks to the window, slipping a finger between the blinds so she can look out. Vaughn knows this move—his sister had perfected it over the years, first lying to their parents about where she’d been when she missed curfew, then, later, lying to him over Skype when Caroline had done something Viv didn’t want Vaughn knowing about. She was an expert at deflection, and right now she used that skill to make Mollie wait, to delay her response because she was trying to work out how to best give bad news. When his sister drops her hand from the blinds and takes a steady breath, Vaughn moves toward Mollie, knowing what was coming was not going to be good.
“Mojo’s testimony is recorded and…” There is no expression on Viv’s face, no quick sympathetic frown, no apologetic head tilt. That alone has Vaughn worried. “He’s on his way into Federal Custody.”
“What?”
Hands up, placating as Mollie jumps up, Viv’s voice is strong, confident. “This is how these things are done.”
“You conniving bitch—you’re sending him back to jail! You promised! You and your boss promised he would go free! That was the deal.” Vaughn manages to pull Mollie back, to hold her against him before she goes after his sister. But restraining her doesn’t keep her voice from raging or attracting the attention of the guards in the hallway. “My dad trusted you and you what? Feed him to the sharks?”
“Sis, what the hell?” Vaughn moves Mollie around, standing between the two women. “This is shitty. What were you thinking?”
