“Who is he?” she asked again.
“His name is Aiden,” Baldwin answered. “It might as well be Death.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Taylor was sitting in the break room at the CJC, toying with a Styrofoam cup. She looked at the fat industrial wall clock for the thousandth time. Damn it, it was nearly noon. When were they going to come talk to her? And where was Baldwin?
This sense of doom, of not being able to do anything, was worse than anything she’d ever felt. Waiting wasn’t exactly what she was built to do. Kick ass, take names, and worry about the ramifications later, that was her job. Sitting around being protected, that wasn’t on the menu when she checkmarked the box and signed up to be a cop. She was the one who was supposed to be doing the protecting.
Instead, she sat in this overly bright room, away from the nexus of communication. Hell, she hadn’t even been allowed to drive herself to the office. Baldwin must have called in to Price, because a burly patrol officer named Bud had bodily taken her from the house and thrown her into his cruiser. He screamed off into the quickening morning with her in the passenger seat, slightly dazed at the ferocity of his action. She wasn’t accustomed to being pushed around.
Price had met her at the doors to the CJC, his mustache drooping. Fatigue, anger, hunger—all showed up in the man’s facial hair. Taylor had learned to read the twitching of his lips before looking into his eyes long ago. When she realized he was worn-out, she did look him in the eye. What she saw there worried her. More was happening than she was being told.
She’d been debriefed, escorted to this room, handed a cup of coffee and told to sit tight. Price had shut the door behind her and she’d half waited to hear the sound of the lock being thrown. It hadn’t, but she decided she’d listen to her boss and sit still. The minutes ticked by, ten, fifteen, thirty, forty-five, fifty-five. Nearly an hour passed with no word. The clock slammed into the top of the hour and she couldn’t take it anymore.
Oh, screw this, she thought. She stood, tossed the cup in the trash and got her hand on the door. She opened it to see Baldwin coming at her like a heat-seeking missile. He had dark circles under his eyes, but he smiled. There was still a tiny bit of lingering tension after their fight, but when he put his mouth on hers, all was forgotten. She luxuriated in his kiss, in his nearness. She wrapped her arms around his body, wondering if he was always this warm. She didn’t want to be the one who ended the kiss, waited for him to pull back. When he did, she stepped away, breathless, slammed the door and crossed her arms across her chest.
“That took more than an hour. Talk,” she commanded.
“Wait a minute,” he replied. “Price is—”
The door to the break room opened again and she jumped out of the way. Price entered the room. He didn’t speak, just helped himself to a cup of coffee. He sat at the table, took a healthy gulp and grimaced.
“God, that’s bad. It must be old.” He reached over his shoulder and tossed the remains in the sink, set the cup down on the table with a soft plop, then sighed heavily.
“Captain, what is going on?” Taylor’s words were measured. She was starting to get highly annoyed.
Price and Baldwin shared a look. Price’s nod was barely perceptible. Baldwin gestured to the chair, indicating Taylor should go ahead and have a seat. With a glare at them both, she did.
“What?” she asked.
“Okay.” Baldwin pulled out a chair with a scrape, and sat. “There are two things happening right now. We’re searching the woods behind our house for Aiden. He is exceptionally dangerous, and pissed off at me, which makes him even more frightening.”
“Baldwin, who is he?”
He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “That is a very long story.” He looked at Price. “This guy is on our wanted lists. He’s international, which is why you aren’t familiar with him. We don’t know why he’s in the States.” Price nodded, and Baldwin turned back to Taylor. “We have something else going on that you need to deal with first.”
“Just tell me what’s happening.”
Both men grew silent. Taylor waited for a moment, doomsday thoughts spinning through her head. When neither spoke, she threw up her hands in frustration.
“For God’s sake, I can handle it. Did my dad break out of prison, or my mother die?”
“No,” he answered.
“Then the world isn’t at an end. Just tell me already. You know I hate this kind of shit. Stop protecting me.”
Baldwin looked at Price, then back at Taylor. “The media has your videotapes.”
Taylor didn’t move, but her heart fluttered. She’d spoken too soon. The apocalypse was upon her. “No,” she said.
Price cleared his throat. “Yes. It gets worse. There is a tape circulating of the night David Martin died. It shows you shooting him.”
“I know I shot him. I was there, remember? He was chasing me through the cabin, trying to kill me. I had to shoot him. It was him or me.” Her voice sounded weak, and she sat straighter in the chair. “It was him or me,” she repeated more firmly. “Everyone knows that already.”
Baldwin nodded. “We know. But the videotape that’s been released doesn’t exactly show that.”
“What are you talking about? If it’s off the cameras that took the shots of us having sex—sorry, Captain—then it will show exactly what happened. I’ve seen the sex tapes. The angle would have been perfect.”
“The angle was perfect. But it doesn’t look like self-defense. He was begging you not to shoot him, and you take a step closer and plug him.” She started to interrupt but Price raised his hand. “I know you didn’t kill him like that. Your version of what happened stood up in court, and I know you wouldn’t lie. But someone has made it look like that’s exactly what happened, and it’s been fed to the media. We have a bit of a problem, as you can imagine.”
“What’s the problem? I’ll go on television and tell them what happened. That whatever they’ve been given is a fake.”
Baldwin and Price exchanged glances again.
Price spoke first. “Taylor, I can’t stop this immediately. We have to go meet with the Office of Professional Accountability. They are making some serious noise.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
She looked at Baldwin.
“Don’t worry, babe,” he said. “It will all be fine. Go with Price. I’ve got some calls to make. We’ll figure it out, I promise. Okay?”
Taylor stared at him, recognized that he was barely holding it together. Things must be worse than she could imagine. She licked her lips and gave him a tiny smile. She realized he’d been holding his breath.
“Okay.” She turned to Price. “But Captain, tell me one thing. How did this tape make it to the media?”
He had the good manners to look embarrassed. “I got an anonymous phone call around seven-thirty this morning, saying you were filmed in a compromising position. The caller assured me that it was going to air on the midday news. But whoever did this coordinated their attack, Taylor. The sex tapes haven’t broadcast yet locally, they are on the national cable news networks. Damn media fuckers didn’t bother to confirm the source. It was out before I had a chance to stop it.” His voice broke. “And I did try, Taylor. I did try. We could demand they take down the story, but that’s going to add fuel to the fire. The sex tapes and the subsequent shooting video, all of this has been carefully planned to take you down. We’ll figure out another way to fight it, I swear to you.”
Oh, this was not good. This was not good at all. The word national replayed itself in her mind a few times, giving her a real flavor of the exact type of shit she was in. Taylor shut her eyes, tried to remember the last time she’d been called in front of the OPA. It was still called the Investigative Services Division then, and it hadn’t gone well. There were new people involved now, new management. Maybe this would go smoothly. A knot in her stomach gave way to a fiercer, gnawing pain. She winced, swallowed hard, then opened her eyes.
“Fuck,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Metro’s Office of Professional Accountability was freezing cold. Someone had turned the air-conditioning on full, complete overkill considering the still moderate temperatures outside.
It took all of Taylor’s self-control not to shake. She didn’t want to give the wrong impression, didn’t want Captain Delores Norris to think she was scared. She figured the air-conditioning was a trick they used. Anything to make themselves feel more powerful. Price didn’t seem affected, just crossed his left ankle over his right knee and sat quietly, obviously lost in thought.
Taylor hadn’t had much contact with the OPA since David Martin’s death, only a standard investigation a month ago when she’d been forced to discharge her weapon into the killer called Snow White. That was fine by her. The officers of the OPA weren’t ever very popular with the rank and file. They couldn’t afford to be chummy, had to keep themselves separate, above reproach. No fraternization.
When the ISD became the Office of Professional Accountability, Fitz had immediately christened them the Oompas. Homicide had gotten a good laugh out of that, the name drifted through the ranks until it was almost second nature. Taylor figured everyone called the OPA crew the Oompa-loompas. Behind their backs, though. Never to their face.
When the new OPA captain had been tapped three months ago, the unit’s nickname became more prescient, and Taylor often wondered if their Chief of Police actually had a sense of humor. The new captain’s name was Delores Norris, and she couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. She beat Metro’s minimum height requirements by being black and a woman, moved quickly through the ranks and ended up as the head of the most hated department on the force. Her diminutive physical presence only perpetuated the nickname, and it didn’t help that she had slightly bowed legs that forced her body into a swaying walk. As she waddled down the halls, a faint strain of Oompa, Oompa could be heard. Taylor didn’t know how the woman stood being the center of so much derision.
Especially now. At the moment, Taylor was the target of the Oompa’s derision, and she didn’t feel at all amused by the situation.
Delores Norris sat high, back straight as an arrow, the cloth of her starched uniform jacket not touching the back of the chair. Her hair was cut short, close to her head, with wiry gray curls around the temples. She read a report in front of her, tapping her pen along the manila edge. Every third second, she looked up at Taylor over bright red plastic half-moon glasses and shook her head slightly. After what felt like an hour of this scrutiny, Norris closed the file, set the pen alongside.
“So, Lieutenant. I can’t tell you how disappointed I am to see you in my office today. You’ve had an exemplary career with Metro, one worth watching. I’ve been keeping my eye on you, young lady.” Her accent was odd, not foreign, but strange, like she was covering a severe lisp. She put emphasis on the wrong words, making the cadence of her voice grating.
Taylor felt like an errant schoolgirl. Making fun of the Oompa was easy when you weren’t face-to-face with her principal’s scowl. Taylor just nodded weakly, not sure what the woman wanted her to say.
The Oompa stared at her a moment longer and Taylor swore the woman’s lip twitched. Damn her, she was enjoying watching Taylor’s discomfort. The realization simply served to piss her off. She sat straighter and looked the Oompa in the eye. She’d done nothing wrong, she wasn’t going to be made to feel she had.
“You realize, Lieutenant, that these are extremely serious times for you. The videotapes of you having—” she stopped here, sniffed as if smelling an exceptionally foul turd “—having relations with your fellow officer are one thing. We’re going to have to deal with these charges separately. What’s most germane to this particular discussion is the video of you shooting your fellow officer. In cold blood, I might add. This is looking very bad for you, my girl.”
God, the woman’s ridiculous enunciation and emphasis made Taylor want to scream. Instead, she spit, “Oh, sure, let’s just skip over the fact that we all know that isn’t the truth and that I shot David Martin in self-defense. He was trying to kill me. Might I add the grand jury agreed with that assessment, as did your office?”
“Taylor,” Price warned.
Taylor clenched her teeth together. When she didn’t speak, the Oompa jumped in.
“Well, Lieutenant, I must say that the video is quite damning.”
Taylor didn’t ungrit her teeth. “The video has obviously been doctored.”
“So you claim, Lieutenant, so you claim. But that’s not such an easy thing, now is it? Stepping on your peers on your way up the ladder wasn’t enough for you?”
“What?” Taylor swung her gaze to Price, who was sputtering with indignation.
“Captain Norris, I resent that implication. Lieutenant Jackson’s record is spotless, she earned her way into the position. You are completely out-of-bounds here.”
“Am I, Mitchell? You’ve had this girl’s back covered for years. Perhaps it’s time to let her stand on her own, spread her wings, and see if she can actually fly.”
“I don’t see that this is the time for metaphor, Delores. We’re talking about the career of one of the most decorated officers in the department, a woman who has the respect of the troops and her management.”
There was no question of the implication of Price’s statement, and Taylor fought to keep the smile off her face as the Oompa’s head began to explode. The painfully proper elocution vanished.
“How dare you imply that I don’t have the respect of the troopsss! Why, I’ll have you know that I’ve been commended no lessss than four times for my devotion to this department—”
“Delores.” Price leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. “I’m not implying anything about your career path. I’m just saying that in addition to being an excellent officer, Lieutenant Jackson has forged the respect of her peers through exemplary fieldwork, as well as years of investigative practice. She’s an asset to this organization. She tells me that the video was doctored, that she did not shoot Detective Martin in cold blood, and I believe her. I’ll fight you to the death on this one, Delores. Trust me on that.” Price’s fury was barely contained. He ran a hand over his bald head, where beads of sweat were starting to form.
Taylor was shocked. She couldn’t remember ever hearing her boss tell a superior to fuck off, but he’d just done it. And the Oompa knew it. She darkened to an unhealthy puce and returned her red glasses to her face to cover her discomfiture. She finally cleared her throat and looked at Taylor again.
“Well, my girl, that was an impassioned plea on your behalf. Suppose you tell us what happened that night.” She flipped on a tape recorder that sat at her elbow. “For the record, of course.” The Oompa smiled, and it was a nasty thing to behold. Still four shades of angry, she looked like a possessed Potato Head doll. The Mister version, not the Missus.
Taylor shook that image from her head and looked to Price, who was frowning, obviously still upset. He nodded, twisted a finger through his thick mustache. “Taylor, tell us exactly what happened. Don’t leave anything out.”
Taylor sat back in her chair and blew out a breath. She had a few choice things to say to Delores Norris, but she’d have to bite her tongue. No sense getting into a pissing match with the woman who had a say in her eventual sentence. She nodded at Price, took another deep breath, and began.
“Okay. Trust me, every single detail of that night is etched on my brain. It’s not like I could forget.” Taylor brought up that evening from her memories, forehead creased as she recited the story.
“I was trying to decide how to tell Captain Price what I’d discovered. I must have picked up the phone ten times in ten minutes. I knew how bad this looked, knew it was going to ruin careers. But it had to be stopped.”
*
Taylor hit redial, heard the call connect and start ringing, then clicked the off button and returned the phone to her lap. If she made this call, there wa
s no going back. Being right wouldn’t make her the golden girl. If she were wrong…well, she didn’t want to think about what could happen. Losing her job would be the least of her worries. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t.
She set the phone on the pool table and went down the stairs of the cabin. Stepping into the kitchen, she opened the door to the refrigerator and pulled out a Diet Coke. She laughed to herself. Like more caffeine would give her the courage to make the call. She should try a shot of whisky. That always worked in the movies.
She snapped open the tab and stood staring out of her kitchen window. It had been dark for hours, the moon was gone and the inky blackness outside her window was impenetrable, but in an hour the skies would lighten. She would have to make a decision by then.
Taylor turned away from the window, eyes unfocused. There was no other way. She couldn’t, wouldn’t compromise herself for that fool. An unfamiliar sound brought her back to the moment. It sounded like the transformer at the base of her driveway, a deep electronic humming. A fraction of a second later there was a loud crack, then the lights went out. Her heart pounded and she chided herself. Silly girl, she thought. In this section of Bellevue, the lights blew out all the time. Nashville Electric Service had a crew on call for this area twenty-four hours a day. It sounded like a simple power surge had caused the lights to blow. Now stop being jittery. You’re a grown woman, you’re not afraid of the dark.
She reached into her junk drawer and groped for a flashlight. Thumbing the switch, she cursed softly when the light didn’t shine. Batteries, where were the batteries?
Lieutenant Taylor Jackson Collection, Volume 1 Page 109
