by Julie Kriss
I stayed on the ground and looked up at him and said nothing.
Officer Kyle and I stared each other down for a long minute, alpha to alpha.
“I will end you,” I said to him, my voice low. A promise.
He grinned again. “No,” he said. “I don’t think you will.”
Still I stayed on the ground as he walked away. As he got in his cruiser and drove off.
Only when the sound of his motor vanished in the distance and I was alone on the road did I sit up. I picked up my driver’s license, but I left my condoms in the roadside dirt. I got up gingerly and brushed myself off, feeling myself sway with dizziness from the head blows.
Think, Riggs. Think.
This isn’t over. It’s never over. Not until you’re dead. So what’s next?
I got in Emily’s car and started it while warm blood ran down the side of my face. I pulled out onto the highway and drove, not knowing where I was going, not thinking. My thoughts were spinning.
I couldn’t go home, or to Riggs Auto. I had a little bit of money, and Officer Kyle hadn’t taken my phone. Other than that, I had the clothes on my back and that was it.
I mopped some of the blood out of my eye with my jacket cuff and kept driving. I didn’t think the drug bust was a lie—I had to warn my brothers, especially Luke. When it came out that the Thunderbird had burned in a fire in Casey’s dump, my brothers would get questioned. We’d done it clean, but I hoped to God we hadn’t made any mistakes. There were no drugs in the shop, and no evidence we’d set that fire, so in the end we’d probably skate on that one.
The bigger problem was what Officer Kyle had said about me being an informant. He knew who I was, which meant he was telling the truth about knowing the enemies I’d made. He’d pulled me over coming from a night at his ex-girlfriend’s house with my pockets full of condoms—he was fucking furious. I had no doubt he’d make good on his threat and make that call.
When he made that call, my life was forfeit, and so were my brothers’ if I avoided the hit.
If I disappeared, drove myself south and over the border to Tijuana or north and over the border to Canada, my enemies would kill my brothers in retaliation. And probably Tara.
I couldn’t run. I couldn’t dodge this. I’d made my choices years ago, and now I had to face the consequences.
I drove and drove, and slowly, through the haze of pain and anger, I felt a plan start to form. Something I just might be able to do.
It would be a sacrifice, but it would be worth it.
I pulled over, took out my phone, and made some calls. I sent a text.
Then I started the car, got back on the road, and went in the other direction, heading for the freeway to Detroit.
Twenty-Five
Tara
I was at work, writing emails at my desk, when my phone rang. I was on my third cup of coffee, pulling through the day and trying to stay awake after the wild experience that was last night.
I wasn’t just sore; my blood was humming, my skin warm. I had picked up my phone a dozen times to text Jace, but each time I’d put it down again. I was twenty-seven, and a professional at work. As tempting as it was, I didn’t want to be that woman.
Still, it was closing in on lunch time. There wasn’t a rule about texting your boyfriend on your lunch hour.
My boyfriend. I had a tall, tatted, ex-con boyfriend, and I was pretty damned happy about it. I was so happy that I was already wondering if I could see him tonight. Maybe I’d come to the guest house. Jace had years of sexual experience to make up for, after all, and there were lots of things we still hadn’t tried. We could—
My phone rang. It wasn’t my desk phone, but my personal cell phone, sitting in my desk drawer. I’d put it on silent, but I could hear it buzzing and buzzing. I should probably ignore it like the professional I was, but I cracked and pulled the drawer open, taking out the phone in case it was Jace.
It wasn’t Jace. I didn’t recognize the number. I thought of not answering, but there was a chime of unease deep in my stomach. I gave this cell number out to no one—literally no one. My parents had it, and Kyle, and John my boss in case he needed to reach me after hours. And now Jace. Frowning, I swiped the phone and answered it. “Hello?”
“Tara,” came the low voice on the other end of the line, unfamiliar yet familiar at the same time. “It’s Luke Riggs.”
Luke Riggs had my number? There was only one person who could have given it to him. Which meant something was wrong. I felt my stomach twist. “Luke? What is it?”
“Where the hell did he go?” Luke said.
“What?”
“Jace. Where the hell did he go?”
I stared blankly at my desk. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“He went to see you last night,” Luke said, his voice tight like he was trying not to shout. “He didn’t come home this morning. He didn’t come to the shop. I have no idea where the fuck he is.”
I pushed my chair back. “That makes no sense. He left my place early. Like six.”
“Have you talked to him since?”
“No.”
“Neither have I. I got a text from him giving me this number and telling me to watch out for you and make sure you’re okay. He won’t answer his phone, his texts, anything. So where the fuck did he go?”
“I don’t know.” Jace wanted Luke to make sure I was okay? Why? I stood up, though there was nowhere I could go, nothing I could think of to do. “When he left this morning, he said he was going home to go to work.” Oh, god. If Jace didn’t make it home, then something must have happened. “Did you try calling the hospital? Maybe he got in an accident?”
“I haven’t had time to do a lot of phone calls,” Luke said, “because first thing this morning I had a team of cops at the door to the shop with a search warrant. They searched Riggs Auto and questioned me for hours on some bullshit charge. They just left twenty minutes ago. Jace warned me about that, too. Before he dropped off the face of the planet, he warned me that the cops were coming. He knew. So think again, and tell me—where did Jace get that information? And where did he go?”
I couldn’t put it together at first. Jace had left me to go home—I knew he wasn’t lying about that. But somewhere on his way home, something had happened. He’d texted Luke to tell him to call me, and he’d texted about the cops—the cops—
My knees went rubbery with shock. Kyle. It couldn’t be, and yet somehow I knew it was.
“Tara?” Luke said.
“Where are you now?” I asked him. “Are you home? I’ll come over.”
“Just tell me where he is,” Luke said, and then there was a voice in the background and the phone changed hands.
“Tara?” A woman’s voice. Emily.
“I don’t know where Jace is,” I told her. “Let me make a phone call and I’ll come over.”
“He’s not at the hospital,” Emily said. “I tried that. I lent him my car last night, and twenty minutes ago I got a text from him. He says he’s sorry, but he’s not bringing my car back right now. That means he went somewhere, right? Luke has just spent hours being questioned, and I’m losing my mind.”
“I’ll be right there,” I said. “Just let me make a phone call.”
There was a second of silence. “Tara, what aren’t you telling us? We need to know.”
“I’ll tell you everything when I get there. Just give me a few minutes. I’ll see you as soon as I can.” I hung up and hit the dial button on a different number, jabbing it with my thumb.
Kyle picked up on the second ring. “Yeah?”
He sounded cocky and angry and full of himself, and suddenly the anger rose in my throat, threatening to choke me. “What did you do?” I said. “Kyle, what the hell did you do?”
He was quiet for a second, probably deciding whether to play dumb. His anger won out. “A Riggs, Tara?” he said. “Was he one of your fucking charity cases? And to think I was worried about you fucking someone on the
force.”
“My life is none of your business,” I said. “None. You move on to your dating sites and your cop bunnies, and I’ll move on to whoever I want.”
“You think he’s a great guy?” Kyle said. “Did he tell you about the six kilos of coke in his car?”
I was struck silent. But that made no sense. “You’re lying,” I said.
“I am not fucking lying, you stupid bitch. Your ex-con boyfriend had six kilos of coke stashed in the trunk of his car. We raided Riggs Auto this morning.”
“No,” I said, but now I was remembering what Jace had said to me last night when I’d asked about his car. It had problems. I had to get rid of it. I’ll get another one. “No.”
“You want to see the search warrant?” Kyle said.
But I’d just talked to Luke, who was released and home with Emily. There was no way he’d be home if they’d found drugs at Riggs Auto. “You looked for six kilos of coke, but you didn’t find them, did you? They weren’t there.”
“That’s because he got rid of them,” Kyle said. “We have a report from a dirtbag on the outskirts of town that someone set fire to the back of his dump lot. What do you want to bet that was your precious boyfriend and his brothers, burning evidence?”
“You are so full of shit,” I said, angry again. “Jace is not a drug dealer.”
“Right, he’s just a car thief,” Kyle said sarcastically. “That’s so much better. He’s an ex-con, and his father is in prison for dealing in stolen cars and a bunch of other shit. His brothers are scum who are no better than he is, and one of them is a corrupt cop. You’re telling me Jace Riggs didn’t do a little dealing to make money after he got out of jail? A guy like him? You’re dreaming, Tara. I cannot fucking believe you.”
I closed my eyes. Kyle didn’t know Jace. No one knew Jace—no one except his brothers and me. This was what I was up against, being with Jace: everyone making assumptions, thinking they know what they don’t know. This was what it was going to be like all the time.
That was, if I ever saw Jace again.
Jace, where did you go? Were you afraid of getting arrested? Where did you go?
Of course he was afraid of getting arrested—of course he was. A cocaine charge was enough to put him away forever. “So what did you do?” I said to Kyle. “You got to him somehow?”
“Not somehow,” Kyle said. “He was right there, front and center. We’ve been keeping an eye on him and his brothers. I got on shift this morning and got a call from one of the guys on the overnight. Jace had gone to an address last night and never left. Turned out it was yours.”
My stomach sank. “So you stepped in, and let me guess. You pulled him over.”
“Like taking candy from a baby,” Kyle said. “I was mad, but maybe Riggs was disappointed. You’re a lousy fuck. Were you a cold fish with him, Tara, like you were with me?”
I swallowed my fury. I wanted to shout at him, but of course that was what Kyle wanted. That was always what Kyle wanted. “You don’t understand anything,” I said through clenched teeth. “Not about Jace, not about me, not about anything.”
“If you mean I don’t know that your ex-con cock is a CI, too late,” Kyle said. “I know that, too. And I don’t care.”
Jesus, could this get any worse? Jace’s whole world was blown apart, and I’d been sitting here at my desk, oblivious. “Just tell me one thing,” I said. “Why? Why Jace? Why the Riggs family? What did they ever do to you?”
“It wasn’t personal, Tara,” Kyle said. “It was just a little housecleaning. Even with Mike Riggs put away, the Riggs brothers are a dirty stain in the middle of Westlake. It’s easier if they just go. So we arranged some encouragement. But this morning, when Jace Riggs left your place…” He paused, and I knew his good ol’ boy tone was a lie. Kyle was furiously angry. “It got very fucking personal this morning. Your new boyfriend is dead. I hope he was worth it.”
And with that, he hung up.
Twenty-Six
Jace
It was one o’clock in the afternoon, but my brother Dex was just getting out of bed. I knew this because I was sitting in his apartment, watching him put on a disintegrating pair of jeans. “You want a coffee?” he said to me.
“No,” I said.
“Well, fuck that,” Dex said. “I was going to send you out to get me one.” He buttoned the jeans and looked at me. “Jesus, your face looks terrible.”
I dropped into a chair. I had never been to Dex’s place before. He lived in a crappy rental apartment in a faceless Detroit high rise with scratched floors and dents in the walls. The furniture was what should be called hopeless bachelor chic since it wouldn’t have looked out of place in my guest house. “I’ll explain,” I said.
Dex sat on the sofa across from me and rummaged through the junk that littered the coffee table. He hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt. He wasn’t as hard-muscled as I was, but we had close to the same build—strong, not bulky. Dex had a tat on one bicep—he’d gone easy on the ink, like Ryan, because he’d been a cop. Other than that, his physique was lean and mean. Growing up, Dex had always been the master of the dirty fight. He probably still was.
He found what he was looking for, which was a small bowl with weed in it. “Helps me think,” he said as he dug out his rolling papers.
My head was throbbing and my temple hurt. I could feel that the blood had dried on my cheek and my jaw. I should probably get up and wash it off, but I didn’t want to move. I was suddenly very fucking tired.
I opened my mouth to talk when a voice came from the bedroom behind us. “God, what time is it?” A woman. “Fuck me, I have to go to work!”
“Then go,” Dex said without looking up from his papers.
There was a minute of shuffling, and then a woman came out of the bedroom. Even half asleep and disheveled, she was ridiculously sexy—long legs, a fall of honey-blonde hair, dark-lashed eyes, pouty lips. She wore black leggings and an oversized camisole over a black lace bra. “Where are my shoes?” she mused aloud, and then she saw me, dried blood and all. “Oh, hi.”
“Hi,” I said politely.
“This is my brother,” Dex said to the woman, barely glancing at her. “Now go.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “You’re an asshole.” The words had no sting to them. She poked around the apartment, found a pair of three-inch heels in the corner, and put them on. She walked over to Dex—how women balanced on those things, I would never know—and slid a hand over his bare shoulder. “Bye, sexy.”
Dex flinched. “Go,” he said again. It was his usual I-don’t-give-a-fuck tone, but I knew better. I’d seen that flinch, and I saw the brief look in his eyes when she touched him. I recognized it. It was pure, unadulterated misery, and for a split second it overtook Dex like he was going to throw up.
The woman didn’t notice. She gave a huff and a giggle and walked out the door.
“You don’t even like her,” I observed to my brother.
Dex glanced up at me from where he was rolling his joint. “She called me last night,” he said. “She was looking for a fuck. I was supposed to say no?”
That was Dex’s usual MO: let women come to him. I heard Tara’s voice in my head. That’s how people express, however unsatisfyingly, their desire to be close to another person, even for a short time. She was so fucking smart. “You should find a nice girl,” I said to Dex. “Someone who’s good for you.”
Dex licked his rolling paper. “So should you.”
“I did, but it’s all fucked up. I think I’m going to lose her.”
Dex lowered his unlit joint and made the sign of the cross with the side of his hand, like the Pope. “Bless you, my son, for you are truly a Riggs,” he said. “Now tell me what’s going on.”
So there had been a nice woman that Dex had screwed it up with. I briefly wondered who she was. It was interesting, but it wasn’t the reason I was here. My phone started to buzz, and I knew that someone—probably Luke—had told Tara that I was gone.
I quickly powered my phone off before I could read her texts and put the phone back in my pocket. “The coke was a setup,” I said to Dex.
Dex had his lighter in his hand, but he went still. “What?”
“Straight up,” I said. “A setup courtesy of the Westlake PD.”
Dex’s dark blue eyes narrowed as he thought it through. “Nora Parker?”
“Not her,” I said about Emily’s mother. “The rest of them. They think she’s gone soft on us because of Luke and Emily.”
“So plant some coke at Riggs Auto, and we’re done,” Dex said. “Shit, I should have seen it.”
“There was a raid on the garage this morning,” I said. “I warned Luke it was coming.”
Dex found his phone on the table and looked at it. “Six phone calls,” he said. “I was asleep.” He ran his hand through his hair. “They won’t find the Thunderbird, but is there anything else there? Anything Dad left? You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” I said. “Dex, it gets worse.”
He looked at me, took in the dried blood on my face again, and he nodded. “Tell me.”
So I told him. About Officer Kyle tailing me, pulling me over. About the fact that he was Tara’s ex-fiancé. About how that made it personal for him. About how Officer Kyle knew I was a CI. Dex was the only person in the world I could talk to, because Dex already knew.
When I finished, Dex tossed the unlit joint and the lighter down on the table and scrubbed both his hands through his hair. “You think he meant it?” he said. “You think this cop will make the call?”
