by L. A. Witt
“You think he’d be stupid enough to come visit him in jail?”
“Why not?” I shrugged. “He’s got this whole cheerful ‘best coworker ever’ persona going on, and something like that would just make him seem like he’s got Brian’s back. No one would guess he’s playing him.”
Darren grunted softly. He opened his mouth to say something, but there was a knock at my front door.
I started to get up, trying to figure out how to rearrange Emily without disturbing her, but Darren was on his feet first.
“I’ll get it. Let her sleep.”
“Thanks.” I relaxed and patted my daughter’s shoulder. She murmured softly, but otherwise didn’t move.
The door opened. “Oh, hey, Darren.” Lisa. “Is Andreas here?”
“Yeah, yeah. He and Emily are in the living room.”
The door clicked shut. A second later, Lisa appeared, and even though her eyes lit up at the sight of our daughter, my blood turned cold at the sight of her. More specifically, at the bruise covering her left cheekbone and marks on her throat.
One glance at me, and the rest of her face reddened enough to almost mask the deepening bruise. She shifted her gaze to Emily. “I, um . . . didn’t need her to stay here tonight after all.”
I didn’t get up and didn’t take my arm off Emily. “What happened?”
Her jaw tightened, and she flinched as if her teeth hurt. Gingerly rubbing beneath the mark on her cheek, she didn’t look at me. “Are her things in the—”
“Lisa.”
She met my gaze.
Darren came into the room behind her, glanced back and forth between us, and disappeared into the kitchen without a sound.
I held Emily protectively against my side. “What happened to your face?”
“It’s nothing, okay?”
“That doesn’t seem like nothing.” I narrowed my eyes. “Is this why you couldn’t have her for a few days? Because you knew they would—”
“They would never lay a hand on her,” she snapped.
I actually believed that much. There was no honor among thieves or loan sharks, but even the most violent criminals usually drew the line at harming children. Those who didn’t had to be kept separate from the general population in prison for their own safety.
“Tell me what happened,” I said.
“Andreas . . .”
“Mommy?” Emily stirred next to me, and started to sit up. She blinked sleepily, then saw Lisa and smiled. “Hey, Mommy!” She hopped up and hugged her mom, but when they pulled apart, she tensed, recoiling slightly. “You hurt your face again.”
Lisa winced.
Again?
Hot anger surged through my veins. Keeping my voice as calm as I could, I called over my shoulder, “Hey, Darren—would you mind helping Emily pack her things?”
He came out of the kitchen, glanced warily at us, then motioned for Emily to come with him. She shot her mom an uneasy look. Lisa nodded, nudging her toward Darren, and they disappeared from the living room.
Once we were alone, I stood. “What does she mean, you hurt your face again?”
She chewed her lip and hugged herself.
“Lisa.” I carefully softened my tone. “What’s going on? I thought you had this under control.”
“I . . .” She exhaled hard and met my eyes. “The money I was going to give him fell through. I needed a little more time, and he”—she motioned at her bruised face—“didn’t like that.”
“How many times has this happened?”
Her shoulders sank. “It doesn’t happen often.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“This is the third time, okay? I’m getting things under control. I just—”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you needed money?”
“Oh come on. You don’t have three grand lying around any more than I do. Not with your other kids in college.”
“If it means keeping loan sharks from roughing you up and terrifying our child, I can come up with—”
“I’ve got it handled. My payments are up-to-date, and I won’t be late again. It’ll be fine.” She glanced past me. “I’d like to take her home before it gets too late.”
“Then look me in the eye and tell me she—and you—will be safe tonight.”
“We’re both safe.” She glared at me. “He’s got a daughter her age, and he’d tear off someone’s arm if they fucked with a child. He broke one of his own guys’ legs last summer for threatening someone in front of his teenage kids.”
I pursed my lips. Well, that answered my next question. That story had made it around the precinct several times over, and I knew exactly which loan shark it was.
“She’s as safe with me as she is with you,” Lisa pressed.
That much was true. In fact, she was probably safer with Lisa right now. An impatient loan shark wasn’t nearly as dangerous as a cunning sociopathic serial killer who’d seen my face. “All right. But if anyone so much as glances at you or cuts you off in traffic—”
“I know.”
She and Emily left, and I went into the bedroom. As I put on my ankle holster, footsteps behind me told me Darren had come in.
“Uh, everything okay?” he asked cautiously.
“No, it’s not.” I pulled my other gun and shoulder holster out of the dresser drawer, along with a spare magazine. “I need to go take care of something.”
“Um.” He eyed the gun in my hand. “You’re not going to—”
“No, I’m not going to shoot anyone.” I shrugged into the holster. “I’m just going to make sure this asshole doesn’t fuck with my family again.” I didn’t wait for a response, and brushed past him. I gathered my jacket, wallet, phone, and keys, and started for the door.
“Andreas, wait.”
I turned around, teeth clenched, ready to let him have it if he tried to stop me, and I was startled to see him pulling on his own weapon.
He swallowed. “I’m coming with you.”
“You— What?”
“I’m your partner.” He picked up his jacket off a chair. “Somebody needs to have your back.”
I blinked. Then I put up a hand. “No. This is the kind of thing that could cost you your badge.”
“And it could get you a bullet in the head if someone gets the drop on you.” He picked up his jacket, and his voice and expression were both non-negotiable. “I’m not asking, by the way.”
In the beginning, I’d have suspected this was just a way for him to bust me on IA’s behalf, but those days felt like a lifetime ago. I trusted him now. If anyone on the planet would have my back, it was him.
“Fine.” I opened the door and threw over my shoulder, “But we handle this my way.”
He didn’t argue.
The loan shark went by the name Pitbull. I didn’t know if he’d adopted the name before or after the also-white rapper had come along, but it had made him the butt of plenty of jokes in the precinct. It was supposed to make him sound tough. Not so much. Especially when he tried to portray himself as a rapper-pimp type. Wildly ostentatious clothes. Fancy cars. Surrounding himself with an enormous entourage of women. Buying Patrón for everyone in the VIP lounge.
Live it up, asshole, I thought on the way downtown. Sooner or later, we’ll figure out where all your dirty money is coming from.
He had a favorite club down on Ninth, and I parked out back.
“He’s easy to spot,” I said. “White guy, really loud. Always sits in the middle of one of those semicircular booths in the VIP lounge. Usually with half a dozen women fawning all over him.”
Darren nodded. “Got it. And you’ll be in the alley?”
“Yeah.” I paused. “Are you sure about this?”
“Absolutely,” he said without hesitation, and put a hand on mine. “He’s fucking with a cop’s family, and he’s fucking with your family. Son of a bitch is getting what’s coming to him.” The protectiveness in his tone and his expression made something swell in my ch
est. Darren wasn’t a dirty cop. He didn’t play on the wrong side of the law. But he hadn’t once tried to talk me out of this, and he hadn’t been interested in my attempts to talk him out of it.
“Put your game face on.” I patted his arm. “Puppy-dog eyes, remember?”
He nodded. “Those are what I’m best at.” He leaned across the console and kissed me lightly. “See you in a few minutes.”
And, with that, he was gone.
I watched him go, heart pounding. The plan was a simple one—he’d go in, tell Pitbull he needed a loan, and ask him to come with him to discuss terms. Pitbull didn’t like doing his negotiations out in the open, and Darren knew to play up the need for discretion anyway.
I left the car and slipped into the alley to hover by the club’s side door. Every second made me want to go in and grab the fucker myself, but I waited. Darren knew what he was doing. He could lay down that charm and those damn eyes like a pro, and Pitbull would see a desperate sucker willing to agree to all kinds of exorbitant interest rates.
Sure enough, not ten minutes after Darren had left the car, the back door opened. Music from inside exploded into the alley, and a second later, voices.
“—I ain’t got no patience for being played,” Pitbull was warning him as he stepped into my sight. “You late paying me back, we’re gonna have a problem, you understand?”
Before Darren could respond, I grabbed the back of Pitbull’s ridiculous designer jacket and flattened him chest-first against the wall.
“What the—”
“I’m talking now,” I snarled in his ear.
He stiffened. “The fuck is going on?”
I turned him around and pushed him against the bricks again. “You know who I am, Pitbull?”
His eyes were huge, darting back and forth between me and Darren. “Uh . . . should I?”
“Actually, you don’t want to.” I drew my pistol and shoved it up under his chin. “But you fucked up, so now you’re going to.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he screamed, trying to pull back but with nowhere to go. “What’s going on? What’s—”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” I hissed. “You know who Lisa Warner is?”
He blinked. “Yeah. Yeah, she owes me money for—”
I pistol-whipped him across the face, and let him crumple to my feet. He whined and writhed, clutching his head. I glanced at Darren, ready for him to step in and tell me to back off. He didn’t move. The puppy-dog expression was gone, and he was full-on pissed-off cop now. Still calm and cool, still restrained, but one nod away from fucking up Pitbull’s world. That did things to me I couldn’t begin to explain right now.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Pitbull moaned. “You show up in my club and—”
“Save it,” I snapped, and hauled him to his feet. “I came here to tell you that if you mess with—”
“Knife!” Darren shouted, and he snatched Pitbull’s wrist. A long switchblade clattered to the ground.
And suddenly I understood where Pitbull got his name. In an instant, he was a violent tornado of thrashing limbs. He was no match for the two of us, though. It only took a few seconds—though, God, it seemed like ages—to wrestle him down to the ground. Darren kicked the knife away and pinned Pitbull’s arms. I stilled his legs, and there was nothing left for the idiot to do but wrench and twist his torso until he was exhausted.
“You done?” I asked.
He exhaled and sagged onto the pavement. “What do you want, you fucker?”
Ignoring him, I glanced at Darren. “You okay?”
He grimaced a little, but nodded.
Together we pulled Pitbull to his feet. His nose was bleeding and there was a gash on his temple surrounded by a darkening welt, and he was breathing as hard as we were.
“What I want is quite simple, really.” I pressed the gun under his jaw again, just to let him know I was still deadly serious. “If anyone lays a hand on Lisa”—I dug the pistol in—“or my daughter, you will swallow your own testicles. You hear me?”
His eyes were huge and round, and he nodded as much as the gun would allow.
“And I do mean anyone. You understand?”
Pitbull gulped and nodded.
“Answer me,” I snarled.
“Yes!” He closed his eyes, cringing like he was sure I was about to pull the trigger. He didn’t need to know my finger was outside the trigger guard.
“You sure about that?”
“Yes! I won’t touch her. No one will.”
“No matter how late she is or how much she owes you, got it?”
“Yes, I got it.” He was practically in tears now, shaking and whimpering. “Nobody touches her. Shit, she can even have another month on her next payment. Just don’t shoot me, man!”
“That’s what I thought.” I loosened my grasp on him. “And as long as you stick to that, you won’t have to see this face again.” For emphasis, I tapped my own cheekbone with the muzzle of the gun, and he stared at me like I’d just put the thing in my mouth. “We understand each other?”
He nodded vigorously. “Y-yes, sir.”
“Good.” I motioned toward the door. “Get the fuck out of here.”
He scrambled away, not even bothering to collect the knife Darren had relieved him of, and hurried back into the club.
Darren watched him go. Then he picked up the knife, closed the blade, and pocketed it. As he withdrew his hand, he grimaced, flexing his fingers gingerly.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, just . . .” He held up his hand, showing the angry red scrapes. “Won’t be winning any beauty pageants for a few days.”
I looked at my own hands, which were a little bloody and would definitely be bruised tomorrow. “Eh, occupational hazard. What about your shoulder?”
“It’s fine.” He rolled it carefully. Turning to me, he smirked. “You know, you’re kind of hot when you’re playing the angry psycho.”
I rolled my eyes. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“And you didn’t get stabbed.”
“Good point.” I chuckled and put a hand on his shoulder as we started down the alley. “Thanks. Not just for catching that knife, but helping me rattle his cage.”
“He threatened your family. No need to thank me.”
“Still. I appreciate it.”
We exchanged glances and both smiled.
“Let’s go get some sleep,” I said. “We’ve got Brian’s arraignment in the morning.”
“Vic, slow down. What’s wrong?”
Darren’s words pulled me out of a semi-sound sleep. When I opened my eyes, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees and phone pressed to his ear. The tension in his back and shoulders was visible from space, and though I couldn’t make out his stepfather’s words, the distress in his voice carried loud and clear.
“What— Oh Jesus. How long has he been— Okay. Okay. I’ll . . . Tell Mom I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
My heart dropped. The visit with his brother had gone as well as could be expected last night, and Darren and I had both held out hope things would continue like this at least for a little while. Not with a disease like that. A good day was just primer for a swift kick in the balls. Something to make sure it hurt even more than it would have already.
Darren dropped the phone on the mattress. Leaning forward, he rubbed the back of his neck with both hands. The early morning light played on the scar on his back, sending a shudder through me like it often did. One of these days, I’d get used to that three-inch-long reminder of the night I almost lost him.
I sat up and put a hand between his shoulders. He jumped but didn’t look up.
“Hey,” I said. “You need to go see your brother?”
He nodded. “He was doing so well last night.” Darren exhaled hard. “It’s bad today. I don’t know how bad, but—”
“Then we’d better get going.”
>
At that, he finally turned around and met my gaze. “What?”
“Grab a shower.” I pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “I’ll put on the coffee.”
He deflated a little, and swallowed. “You don’t have to—”
“No, but I don’t think you need to be driving.”
“What about Brian’s arraignment?”
I glanced at the bedside clock. “We’ve got time. It’s not even eight yet.”
He turned as if to confirm what I’d said, and sighed. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Of course.” It was the least I could do.
I paced outside the assisted-living facility’s front door, alternately checking my email and texting with Paula about the case. She was on her way to Brian’s arraignment. I owed the woman big time—God help me when she called in this massive stack of favors.
But she understood. Her own mother’s last few years had been at the mercy of a much less aggressive form of dementia, so she empathized with Darren and knew how much his family needed him right now.
I’ve got you covered, she’d sent me. You go take care of your man.
Which was exactly what I wanted to do, but for now, all I could do was stay out here while Darren was inside with the family. He and I had agreed before we’d even arrived that it would be best if I didn’t go in with him. If Asher was struggling this much today, bringing in a stranger wouldn’t help. He’d begun getting violently agitated at the sight of people he didn’t recognize, especially on days when he was lucid enough to know he was forgetting things. Having someone present who he was supposed to know, but didn’t, turned him inside out. If it was someone he really didn’t know, and people tried to reassure him of that, he’d go into a rage over people lying to him and trying to placate him.
I checked my email again, then exhaled and dropped onto one of the benches near the door. I hated this feeling. Being helpless. Being useless. Asher’s deterioration was killing Darren, and whatever was going on in there right now . . . God, it must’ve been hell. I couldn’t imagine going through this with one of my kids, so how Vic and Jessica hadn’t caved in under the stress would always be a mystery to me. My own brother and I weren’t nearly as close as Darren and Asher, and watching him dying like this would’ve been unbearable.
