by Chloe Cox
“This is the house we’re going to live in someday.” Lizzie pointed to the windows on the second level. “This is my bedroom, and that one’s Bette’s. We’re going to each have our own bathrooms. Mine will be blue and decorated with butterflies, and Bette will have rainbows in hers. Downstairs, there’s a living room with a window seat where I can read and draw, and a doggy door in the kitchen.”
“You have a dog?”
“No, but we will someday.” Lizzie pointed at the round brown face in the window. “Do you have a dog?”
“Not right now.” Planting his elbows on his thighs, he leaned down until they were eye to eye. “I know we just met, kiddo, but I’m going to make you a promise. This is going to be your home someday soon. You and Bette and your dog, because it’s going to be okay from now on. I promise you that.”
Lizzie regarded him stoically, in that way kids had. She wasn’t old enough to hide how she really felt. Just honest.
“Ok,” she said eventually. “I believe you.”
And she picked up a black crayon and began carefully drawing something on the red roof of her house.
“Who’s that?” he said.
“That’s you,” Lizzie said. “There are no more rooms inside, but you can live in the attic if you want.”
Cole looked down at his all black suit, shirt, and shoes, and grinned. “You know what a gargoyle is?”
Lizzie nodded without looking up. “They’re the monsters on top of churches,” she said.
“You know what they’re for?” Cole said. Lizzie shook her head. “They’re there to protect the people in the church. That’s their job. They live on the roof, and they protect everyone who lives under it.”
Lizzie looked at him, then squinted down at her drawing.
“Maybe you can be the gargoyle,” she said. “You’re already all in black.”
“I like that job,” Cole said. “Suits me.”
“Thank you for coming by, Mr. Cole,” Joe Palmer said from behind him. “We’ll take everything under advisement.”
Cole stood up. Mrs. Palmer was behind him, rolling her eyes.
“Oh don’t be coy, Joe,” she said. “Just go pack. Mr. Cole can take care of whatever he needs to take care of. Right?”
“Correct, Mrs. Palmer,” Cole said. He reached down, and Lizzie shook his hand. “Remember, I keep my promises, kiddo.”
“I won’t forget,” Lizzie said, seriously.
Cole nodded. For some reason, it was hard to leave. But the buzzing of his phone in his pocket got his attention—he must have hit upon the single pocket of reception in the entire block.
“Have a good weekend,” Cole said, nodding at the Palmers on his way out, his phone already in hand.
Good thing, too. Because when he looked down, there were missed calls. His phone lighting up with the notifications, all pouring in now that he had a single damn bar.
All from Bette.
“Damn it,” he said.
Standing around on the Palmers’ porch, waiting for her to pick up. Nothing.
Fucking nothing.
He checked his messages, then. Heard the one thing he didn’t want to hear. The one goddamn thing.
Cole made one more phone call as he ran to his car, cursing.
“Holt? Remember that favor?” he said. “I’m calling it in.”
31
Come on. Say it.
SAY IT.
Bette put on her dumbest, most placating smile, while inside she screamed bloody murder.
For a bag of slime on legs, Bob Faulkner was awfully circumspect. He’d been dancing around telling her to do anything explicitly illegal for a good frustrating five minutes now, while the fluorescent lights flickered above him and the walls of this musty old basement closed in around her.
“You know how lucky you are that you’re so damn fuckable?” he said, leaning forward on his sweaty little hands.
Bette’s fingers nervously found the cord of her special spy headphones again, and again she dropped it, paranoid that messing with it would mess with the sound quality of whatever she did manage to get on tape. She had to stay cool, and she had to stay on top of it. This might be her only chance to get some evidence to help her case, to protect Lizzie. And to help Cole.
Still, she was getting real tired of having to listen to this piece of crap. Really, really tired.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Faulkner, I really am,” she made herself say. “I’m really trying, I just don’t understand exactly what you need.”
“Jesus Christ,” Faulkner said, and slapped his hands on the desk. Bette jumped. Faulkner liked that. He smiled.
“You’re not screwing with me, are you?” he said. “You really are that dumb.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, and looked down at her feet. Anywhere was better than looking at him.
She stayed quiet as a dormouse then, some part of her sensing that maybe this was it. If she just gave Faulkner some space, he’d find a way to trip over himself, and incriminate himself on the tape she was making with her ridiculous spy headphones. She hadn’t wanted to do this. She’d been genuinely terrified, after what she’d seen the last time she came here, and after Cole’s warning.
But what choice did she have? Faulkner gave her a deadline. Cole didn’t pick up. And there was a part of her that felt like she should do her part to rid the world of her ex-husband. So Bette had suited up with her headphones and driven out to Faulkner’s office, determined to record the truth so she could do her part to stop these scumbags from hurting anyone else.
And now…
The moment hung in the air, full of possibility, while her heart thudded in her chest. Faulkner stared at her, sucking on his lower lip, rapping his fingers on the desk. Finally he sighed, closed his eyes, and pinched his nose between his fingers.
“You really need me to spell it out for you like you’re five, don’t you?” he said.
Bette didn’t say anything. Just tried to look as ashamed and dejected as possible. Wasn’t hard.
“Ok,” Faulkner said. “Listen carefully, Barbie. I need you to go shake those fantastic tits in his face, ok? Do whatever it is you do. Tell him whatever he wants to hear. Get him to want you. And then get him to say something, anything, that sounds like it might be illegal. Even better, get him to play some of those sick fetish games with you. If it sounds like he’s hurting you, that’s gold, ok? Screaming for him to stop, that kind of thing. Get him to hurt you, get evidence of it, and we can use that. And then you can get your sister back. It’s that simple.”
Bette froze so her face wouldn’t betray a single thing.
She didn’t blink, didn’t move, didn’t even breathe.
The sick bag of absolute slime. Aside from the whole wanting to frame an innocent man thing, Faulkner didn’t care at all about what he was asking her to do. He didn’t care if she got hurt. Like her body was just a tool for his use. Like she wasn’t even a person, just an actual piece of meat.
Bette wasn’t naive enough for that to be a complete surprise. And yet it was still an absolute punch to the gut, hearing it out loud.
“You just need to be willing to swear to it, or better yet, record him on your phone, ok?” Faulkner went on. “I can show you how to do that.”
Bette swallowed. If Bob Faulkner tried to show her how to record someone on her phone right then and there, he’d see that she was recording him.
“Yes, Mr. Faulkner,” she said. “I think I can do that. I understand now.”
And I’ve got you on tape, my slime bag friend.
“About goddamn time,” Faulkner said. “Get me something today, Barbie. Today.”
“I will, Mr. Faulkner,” Bette said as she stood up to leave. “I promise.”
I will get you a pair of handcuffs, and an orange jumpsuit. Or a striped one? Some kind of freaking jumpsuit.
She smiled one last time, then turned around, and reached for the doorknob. Her heart beat a blinding rhythm against her ribcage, pulsing through
her whole body until her hand shook around the dull metal. Her palm slipped where it was sweaty, and Bette tensed her whole body around that damn doorknob until it turned, clicked, came towards her.
The door opened. She stepped through it, fighting the urge to look back and make sure she was really clear, that he wasn’t following her, that a hand wasn’t about to reach out and stop her.
And then…
She was free.
The door closed behind her. Faulkner was silent, an office wall and a door between them now. Nothing was in front of her.
Don’t run. Walk. Walk normally.
Her eyes blinking back against the glare of the fluorescent lights in the ceiling, Bette made herself walk down the hall. Around the turn. Up the stairs.
Walk like you aren’t getting away with something.
But she was. She had it. She’d been recording that whole time, and she freaking had it. Bob Faulkner on tape, admitting to blackmailing her to commit a crime, or something close to it.
Bette emerged into the light of day, and couldn’t stop her smile. It kept getting bigger as she hurried toward her car, like her relief was bubbling over, getting the better of her. She could barely contain it as it fizzed around her, in her. Good Lord, she was giddy.
It wasn’t until she was in her car that she let herself laugh. Laugh, scream, cry a little bit. She pounded on the steering wheel, not caring if she looked like a crazy woman to anyone in that sad little parking lot, and she laugh-cried her ass off.
Then she thought about Cole, and her relief turned to something more…interesting.
Because she had disobeyed an order again. No doubt about that. This was like disobeyed order number five, at least. But she couldn’t help but think that maybe he’d be proud of her, for doing what she did, under the circumstance she had to do it.
And of course, he’d have to discipline her for disobeying orders.
That’s where the smile came from. Maybe he’d discipline her, and be proud of her. Maybe you really could have it all.
Bette got out her phone to send the audio file to Cole, took a stomach-churning second to check that the recording really had worked, and laughed again.
Then someone pounded on the window of her car, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
Bette whipped her head around. All she could see was the stomach of a doughy man in a cheap suit. She looked to her right—there was another man, in another suit, on the passenger-side door of her car.
“What—”
Her door opened. Bette scrabbled at it, cursing herself for leaving it unlocked in a parking lot, but whoever it was yanked it open, far out of reach.
Then he reached in the car and grabbed Bette’s phone.
With horror, she looked up to find the face she knew she’d see. One of them, anyway.
It was Mascolo.
“What’s so interesting, Ms. Liffey?” he said. “You got somewhere to be?”
The door on her passenger side opened, and Turnbull ducked his head in.
“We’d like to talk to you, ma’am,” he said. “Bob Faulkner’s been concerned about your commitment to helping yourself get out of your situation.”
“I haven’t done anything, and that’s private property,” Bette said, her voice impossibly high. “Can I have my phone back, please?”
Maybe he wouldn’t see. Maybe he wouldn’t notice. Maybe…
“Those are fancy headphones, Ms. Liffey,” the one she assumed was Turnbull said suddenly. “I think I saw them at a security convention. They’re not exactly regular headphones, are they?”
“They’re just headphones,” she said. “And I just talked to Mr. Faulkner, we’re all good. Seriously.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Turnbull said. “Mr. Faulkner wanted to make sure you took this seriously.”
Bette tried to look straight ahead, her fingernails digging into her thighs. To her left, Mascolo was still messing with her phone. Quiet as could be.
When he finally spoke, it was not what Bette wanted to hear.
“I think we have a problem, Ms. Liffey,” he said quietly. “You’re going to have to come with us.”
“They put her in the back of an unmarked car,” Holt said over the speaker. Cole clenched the steering wheel in his big hands, feeling like he could crush it if he let himself. Rein it in.
“You get the license?”
“Of course,” Holt said. “I’m looking at it right now.”
“Good man,” Cole said.
Calling Holt had been a damn good decision. He’d asked his friend to keep an eye on Bette while he went after Duvall, just in case. Hoping it wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately, it had. Holt had been going over to Bette’s place to let her know the deal when he’d seen her run out of her apartment complex at speed. Then he’d followed her to Faulkner’s office, but before he could talk to her, Mascolo and Turnbull had picked her up and put her in the back of an unmarked cop car. Now Holt was following the cops, who had Bette in the back like she was being taken in.
Only Cole was pretty sure she wasn’t being taken to the police station.
“Are you calling this in?” Holt’s voice crackled on the Bluetooth speaker.
Good question. Cole still hadn’t been assigned a partner in this field office, a sign the anti-corruption work he did was not real popular with some folks upstairs. Mark Duvall still wasn’t an official case, and Cole had no proof of anything. And he didn’t know who else was on Duvall’s payroll. There was nothing to call in, and no one to call.
Cole would take care of this himself.
“Not yet,” he said, biting out the words. “Don’t lose sight. I want them to know you’re tailing them. Make them cautious, keep them from doing anything immediately stupid.”
Like putting a single hand on Bette Liffey.
“Any idea where they’re headed?”
“Yeah.”
And if Duvall so much as touched her, he was a damn dead man.
32
Bette sat in uncomfortable silence in the back of the unmarked car, her hands balled into tight little fists at her sides. Part of her felt like a child, sitting in the back of that big car while a couple of huge adults sat up front and ignored her. But she was not a child, and no one in that front seat was her friend.
They hadn’t spoken to her the whole time. Not a damn word. She’d asked questions—repeatedly. Questions like, “Where are you taking me?”
“Am I actually under arrest?”
“Can I call my lawyer?”
They’d just sat there, silently. Like she was a ghost. Or a thing. Like anything she might have to say didn’t matter even a little bit.
This is really bad. Like, out of a movie or something, not real life. It’s really, really bad.
She kept telling herself that, thinking she could get herself to react, panic, do something. But if she did anything, they’d say she’d been resisting arrest or whatever. There was nothing she could do that wouldn’t make everything worse.
It wasn’t until she realized that they definitely weren’t going to a police station that she tasted bile in the back of her throat. She recognized this neighborhood.
It was where she’d lived with Mark.
So she definitely wasn’t being detained by the cops. She was being detained by her ex-husband’s hired muscle, because they’d found the recording she’d made of Faulkner.
She was in a world of trouble.
Bette opened her mouth to speak, to say something, anything, to get them to turn around and maybe just keep her phone and let her out somewhere, but nothing came out. She was too scared. And then Turnbull’s eyes flashed in the rearview mirror.
“We got a tail,” he said to Mascolo.
First time she’d heard his voice since they started driving. It unnerved her.
Both men tensed.
In front of her, Mascolo nodded as he turned onto Mark’s street, and then into the gated driveway to Mark’s equally gated house.
�
��You stay down here and deal with it,” Mascolo said. “I’ll take her up to Mark.”
That was when Bette stopped feeling numb, and started feeling very, very frightened.
Cole forced himself to slow to a reasonable speed as he turned down Duvall’s street. He already had the address memorized. Knew where the house was on the street, knew how far back it was, knew what kind of security system Duvall had, which was the kind only the truly paranoid or the truly criminal could afford. Knew everything, except how far that crazy bastard was willing to go.
And now he had Bette.
He pulled the car in behind Holt’s, midway down the block, hidden by a nice low hedge wall. His shoulders tensed, and he forced them down. He would keep cool. Would keep control. It was weird how an emergency forced you to clarify your priorities. Cole had been working on building a case against Duvall since he came to NOLA, but none of that mattered now. Duvall had Bette. And Cole loved her.
He would be a Dom first, and an agent of the law second.
Holt got out of his car at the same time Cole got out of his, nodded, looked back towards Duvall’s house, the roof barely visible over the ten-foot wall that surrounded the property.
“They just went in,” Holt said. “They saw me.”
“Let’s go,” Cole said.
Holt frowned. “Those are two armed dirty cops and who knows what other security,” he said. “We should call it in.”
“Nothing to call in,” Cole said.
He was already walking toward Duvall’s wall.
“I know friendly judges,” Holt said. “We could get a warrant, work out the jurisdictional stuff.”
Cole stopped, then. Turned around. Fixed Holt with a look.
“I’m not leaving her in there,” he said. “And I’m not waiting another second. Do what you need to do.”
“Damn it,” Holt muttered. But he fell in behind Cole, his footsteps crunching on the light gravel.
Cole eyed the security camera on the corner of Duvall’s wall, then at a spot just to the side of it. The blind spot. About twenty yards away from the front gate, which was also easily scalable.
