“And you never actually saw him with the device from the dumpster?” Maxwell asked Xander.
“No,” Xander said, and shit, so much for that. “I saw him make other, easier stuff, like those Molotov cocktails and fake bombs and all, but he made that ignition device somewhere else, then had it in a backpack when I picked him up at the pier the other night. I just bought the stuff, stole the car, then stood guard at the entryway to the alley while he planted it in the dumpster. Plus, I’m no expert. Even if I had seen the thing before he put it in that dumpster, no way would I be able to say it’s the same as…that.”
He gestured to the on-screen photo of the scorch-marked and heat-warped device that had been recovered by arson investigation.
Hollister tilted his head, his mind clearly going a mile and a half a minute, and he asked, “So, you don’t have any locations or plans, or anything at all in writing? Not even texts?”
“No. Rusty did all the scouting for the test-run at The Crooked Angel himself.” At the unspoken question on everyone’s faces, and yeah, probably Gamble’s, too, Xander continued, “He was way too familiar with the area outside bar and the locations of all the city cams not to have been there at least once, and I’ve never seen him work with anyone else, ever. The only other person I’ve heard him even talk about is The Money, and no way would the guy paying for the job do any dirty work. It had to be Rusty.”
“Okay,” Maxwell said, leaning forward to brace his forearms over the desk in front of him. “So we can’t nail him for what he’s done…yet. How about what’s coming?”
Xander took his cue. “I wasn’t trying to bullshit you guys when I said I don’t know much. He told me the bare bones of the plan, which is everything I already told you about setting fire to some buildings while they’re being renovated and screwing a bunch of developers out of some money, but I don’t know which buildings, or exactly when. Most everything has just been prep so far, with me going out to buy materials and Rusty meeting with the money guy and working on those remote ignition devices. I was a little surprised when he said he wanted to set the fires remotely—I mean, he’s not usually shy about torching shit. In fact, he kind of gets off on it. But for this, I guess he doesn’t want to risk being right there at the scene and getting caught. Or hurt, although...”
Xander paused, his brows tugging downward in thought. “That burn scar, on his face? He seems kind of, I don’t know…boastful of it sometimes. He never tries to hide it. Not even when people whisper and stare. It’s like he likes to scare people with it.”
“It’s like a badge of honor,” Isabella said slowly, and Gamble’s gut iced over. He’d known guys like that in the Marines, who showed off their scars like trophies, or—worse yet—walked into harm’s way sometimes specifically to get them. It was very different than being okay with injuries that had healed.
Guys like that? They were far from okay with anything.
“Yeah,” Xander agreed. “I guess. Anyway, Rusty’s been pretty secretive with the actual plans. He doesn’t tell me much until things are about to go down. I really didn’t even know the dumpster fire would be outside of The Crooked Angel until we got there the other night.”
At this, Xander chanced a glance at Kennedy, who kept her eyes facing forward at the mention of her bar and the fact that her brother had, even unknowingly, been a party to the act that could’ve burned the place down if Gamble hadn’t been there to call in the cavalry so fast the other night.
Xander got the message, loud and clear. “So, yeah.” He shrugged, but the move seemed more resigned than noncommittal. “Until he calls me again, that’s all I’ve got.”
Sinclair looked at his detectives with a nod. “Okay, that’s a start. Maxwell, you and Hale and Garza pull city cam footage from in front of The Crooked Angel for the three days prior to the fire, see if we can at least put Rusty there, poking around, and let’s see if we can confirm that DMV address as current and try to get eyes on him there, too. Gamble, cross-check what you know with devices that have been recovered in other cases. And don’t be shy about digging deep.”
“Copy that,” Gamble replied. It would be a hell of a task, and time consuming as hell, but he’d do it with a smile on his face if it meant getting a break in this case.
“Kennedy, come up with a list of anyone who might have a beef with your bar. Even a small one. Moreno, you and Hollister get a background on Rusty. I want to know where he was before he landed here, family background, anything we can use to figure him out. In fact, see if the department can spare anyone from their mental wellness staff to help us get a bead on what’s going on in this psycho’s head.”
Another flurry of movement went down before Sinclair turned to Capelli and said, “Get Xander set up for surveillance. Everything you’ve got.”
“Uh, no disrespect, Sarge,” Capelli replied with care. “But I’ve got a lot.”
“Well, good, because that’s how badly I want to catch this son of a bitch. So let’s make that happen before he strikes so much as one more match.”
18
Kennedy stood behind the bar at The Crooked Angel and served up drinks that might as well have been made with dishwater. But after the meeting at the Thirty-Third and all the yo-yo emotions that had gone with it, she was pretty freaking distracted. The fact that her brother and Gamble had both relocated from the intelligence office to the bar right along with her?
Yeah. Make that very freaking distracted.
At least the Xander portion of the equation was fairly straightforward. After sticking around the precinct for a little while to make the list Sinclair had asked her to, and wait for Capelli to wire Xander up nine ways to Sunday (seriously, who knew you could put tracking devices in things like a simple stud earring?), Kennedy had asked Xander if he wanted to come with her to The Crooked Angel so he could grab a bite to eat, and he’d shocked the crap out of her by accepting. It was, she rationalized, a free, hot meal, and more than he’d get at home. But she’d been glad he’d said yes, not only so she could be sure he’d eat a decent meal, but also to ensure that he’d be safe and not in North Point. If only for a couple of hours.
The Gamble part of things was…not so uncomplicated. He’d been right there, walking out with her and Xander when she’d asked her brother if he wanted to come to the bar. Kennedy couldn’t very well have not asked Gamble, too, nor could she deny the way her stomach had given an uncharacteristic and not-small flip when he’d said sure, he’d meet them there. Now, an hour later, he’d taken up residence at his spot at the end of the bar and started a non-conversation with Xander, by which the two of them sat next to each other and kept company in mostly silence, ate their burgers and fries, and watched baseball highlights flash over the big screen. January’s boyfriend, Finn, had joined them not too long ago, but with the cops at the Thirty-Third working hard on the case against Rusty, and Seventeen’s A-shift needing to be bright-eyed for their twenty-four-hour shift starting in less than twelve hours, the rest of the bar’s regulars were absent.
And thank God for that, because Kennedy was having a hell of a time keeping her eyes off of Gamble, and her brain off the way she’d felt as she’d fallen apart beneath him last night.
Never mind that, as other-worldly as the sex had been, it had been nothing compared to how good she’d felt waking up in his arms.
“Yoo hoooooo, earth to Kennedy.”
Kennedy jumped six inches off the bar mats, her boots landing with a muted squeak and her heart climbing up the back of her throat as January waved pointedly from beside her.
“Sorry, what?” she asked, tacking a perfectly blank expression to her face and capping it with a polite smile.
“I said, I don’t think that glass is going to get any cleaner.” January pointed to the pint glass in Kennedy’s hand, which was, in fact, sparkling under the bar lights. “You’ve been drying it for like, ten minutes.”
Shit. “Ugh, sorry. Guess I just zoned out.”
At least it was a tru
th she could tell. She didn’t necessarily have a bad poker face—hello, she’d been raised in North Point, where ‘do what you have to do’ wasn’t so much a last resort as a goddamned lifestyle—but still, she hated lying to her best friend.
Not that January wasn’t onto her, anyway. “You just zoned out,” she repeated, lifting an eyebrow over her skeptical, blue stare.
“Yeah,” Kennedy said, because even though she’d never zoned out in her life, that was her story and she was sticking to it. “Just daydreaming. You know.”
“Uh-huh.” January sent her gaze down to the end of the bar where Finn, Xander, and Gamble all sat with the remnants of their burgers, shaking her head a second later. “Okay, I know I’m being nosy and I’m going to say it. I just don’t care. What is going on with you and Lieutenant Gamble?”
“Nothing,” came Kennedy’s default, but January wasn’t having it.
“‘Nothing’ does not make a man look at a woman the way that man has been looking at you all night. Nor does it make a woman daydream while absently looking back at said man, and it definitely doesn’t make a woman’s face turn the color of your face right now. So, please. Spare me the indignity of looking gullible enough to swallow that ‘nothing’ you just served up and try again.”
Oh, God, Gamble had been looking at her? “Okay, okay. Fine,” Kennedy said, blowing out a breath. “It’s…complicated.”
January snorted. “What, are you a Facebook status now? Kennedy, please.”
Tension scattered, at least for the moment, Kennedy chuffed out a soft laugh. “I just take my job here really seriously. I don’t normally sleep with regulars.”
“Oh, my God!” January’s stare widened, her mouth parting in surprise that turned to a cat-in-cream grin a millisecond later. “You slept with him?”
Aaagh, she was seriously off her game when it came to anything having to do with the big, broody lieutenant. “Maybe?”
“Come on, girl.” January at least had the grace to press her lips together to hide the smile that all but broadcast to the universe that they were talking about the fact that Kennedy had, in fact, recently been gifted multiple, earth-shattering orgasms by a guy who was sitting about a dozen feet away from them. “I mean this objectively, because I’m stupidly in love with my boyfriend, but Gamble is hot. I’m betting you remember sleeping with him in vivid detail.”
“Oh, it was vivid, all right,” Kennedy said, her cheeks heating. “But still complicated.”
“What’s complicated about it? Either you like the guy or you don’t.”
“I do like him.” Whoa, where had that even come from? “I just…you know, probably shouldn’t.”
January measured her with a sidelong glance. “Unless I’m missing something, you’re both single. Judging by the looks you’re sending across the bar at each other, you’re both interested, and you’re obviously compatible.” The last word arrived with a reprise of her grin. “So, honestly, why shouldn’t you like him?”
Her friend’s tone was so genuine that Kennedy actually paused. She’d sworn to follow protocol, which meant she couldn’t exactly tell January about the case they were building against Rusty, or that she and Gamble and her brother were all working on it together. January might be tough, but she’d learned her hard-ass ways from her father, and Sinclair had made it wildly clear that Kennedy needed to follow every last rule in the book from here on in.
But to that end, there was certainly no rule that said she and Gamble couldn’t tumble into bed together just because they were both working on the case that would keep Xander safe. Yeah, maybe Gamble saw through her a little more than she’d like, but he was also a decent guy, and he’d already proven they were definitely in sync in bed (and in his shower…sweet baby Jesus, the man had done things with his tongue that had made her shake like a busted washing machine). Neither of them wanted anything serious. Hell, he’d seemed just as fine with her falling asleep at his place last night as he’d been when she’d left this morning without any pleasantries like coffee or small talk.
Which meant Kennedy had exactly zero good answers to January’s question.
“Oh, my God, this has officially been the quietest shift ever.”
A chorus of groans sounded off in the common room, and Gamble heaved a loaded, internal sigh. He considered schooling de Costa on the error of her ways—be careful what you wish for was a fucking thing when you worked a job like this—but since pretty much every other first responder in the room had just given the rookie an oh-no-you-did-not-just-say-that-out-loud stare, he figured he’d keep his yap shut and let the village raise the child.
“Don’t go borrowin’ trouble, now,” Hawkins warned, looking at DC from the recliner where he always read the paper before hitting the bunks at night. “Fate’s a finicky girl, and she’s got damn good hearing.”
“I’m not so sure she’s not taking today off. We’ve been on exactly two calls in the last fifteen hours, and they were both false alarms,” de Costa pointed out, her chin up and at ’em. “Ambo hasn’t even treated anyone for so much as a paper cut!”
This time, Gamble’s sigh made it past his lips, but Quinn beat him to the verbal punch. “Girlfriend.” The paramedic looked up from whatever primetime reality show Faurier had conned them all into watching and shook her head. “Seriously, if I have to treat someone with a severed limb or a femoral bleed tonight because you said that…”
“Gah.” Luke Slater, their other paramedic and Quinn’s live-in boyfriend, winced from his spot beside her. “I’m all for doing my job and taking care of people who need it, but even I will pass on both of those scenarios, thanks.”
“Come on,” de Costa asked, her brown eyes brimming with the sort of ambitious restlessness that rookies tended to have in mass quantities before they’d seen enough to realize they had to either temper it or burn out. “Do you guys really want to just sit around all shift?”
Okay, yeah. It was definitely time for an intervention. “Everyone in this room has been on a shift they wished had been quiet,” Gamble said, his voice low. “You’ll have one soon enough. Until then, don’t piss off your fellow firefighters. And for Chrissake, don’t tempt fate.”
de Costa bit her lip, taking in the nodded agreement from Faurier, Dempsey, and their squad-mate, Tyler Gates. Those guys on rescue squad responded to not just every fire call in their district, but to search and rescue calls, water recovery at the pier, and pretty much every unthinkable disaster fielded by dispatch. They’d no doubt seen some of the worst cluster fucks the world had to offer.
And didn’t Gamble know exactly what that could entail.
Pain twisted in his chest, and he promptly buried it, way down deep. “Anyway. I’m going to turn in,” he said, pushing himself up from the couch he’d been sharing with Kellan and Shae and pivoting toward the hallway leading to the bunk room. At twenty-two thirty, it wasn’t terribly late, but none of his fellow first responders so much as batted a lash as they offered up a round of goodnights. They had to get up and get out for every call that came in, even the faulty carbon monoxide detectors and people who had heartburn instead of heart attacks, and everyone in the house knew how exhausting the interrupted shuteye could be, even if there was no action to go with it.
Not that getting extra sleep was why Gamble had hightailed it out of the common room. But he wasn’t about to ’fess up to the fact that decent rest hadn’t been part of his nightly drill since before he’d become a firefighter, so hey. If a little misdirection was what it would take to get his ghosts back where they belonged, then he was cool with slanting the truth.
Heading through the bunk room, Gamble hit the locker room, brushing his teeth and going through his bedtime routine with efficient motions. He returned to the small office that doubled as his private bunk—one of the perks of being a lieutenant—and closed the blinds that covered the window overlooking the main bunks. Gamble dragged off his boots and uniform pants, swapping them out for a pair of sweats, but lined everythi
ng up on the chair beside his bed so it was within reach.
Truth was, de Costa hadn’t been wrong. Today’s shift had been one step up from watching paint dry. Most of the time, that wasn’t a bad thing.
But every once in a while, it was the calm before the unholy shit-storm.
Gamble clicked off the lamp on his tiny bedside table and settled in beneath the blanket on his bed. Shadows danced over the ceiling, courtesy of the row of narrow windows set high along the far wall. Gamble watched them shift and change, unable to keep the tightness that had clung to his chest ever since the night of the fire at The Crooked Angel at bay.
Jesus, Gamble. Stop worrying. This mission’s gonna be a cakewalk. We haven’t seen any action for weeks, and anyway, it’s a routine escort. Plus, if anyone can sniff out trouble before it goes down, it’s you. So, really, we’re money. Aren’t we, Perez?
His pulse beat faster, his blood pounding in his eardrums in a rapid thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP, thump-THUMP, but his defenses weren’t enough to dull the memories welling up from inside of him. He could still call up the smell of the air that night, dusty and cool, see the sand-packed path that had been beneath his boots with startling accuracy in his mind’s eye. Feel the shockwave from the IED that had exploded with such force that he’d literally been thrown off his feet like a rag doll despite his size, and his ears had rung for days.
He’d still heard the screams, though. Flannery, Perez, Cho. Weaver had been the only one who hadn’t screamed.
He’d never had the chance.
Gamble’s phone buzzed softly, ripping him back to his bunk. His heart raced in a frenetic rhythm, his breath clogging his throat with short, sharp bursts that didn’t make it to his lungs. Panic gripped every one of his muscles, insidious in the darkness of his room, as his phone buzzed again. He palmed the thing out of sheer habit, blinking through the shadows he’d learned to both fear and hate, and he forced himself to focus on the screen.
Down Deep_A Station Seventeen Engine Novel Page 19
