Up in Smoke

by Tessa Bailey

  Now that this job had given her a function, now that she’d caved and gotten a more professional look, her barriers were gone. Her excuses. She couldn’t say fuck the man anymore and leave them eating her dust. She’d signed on for this squad because the face behind the whirlwind was closing in. Her twenty-fifth birthday had finally come to pass and she had something it wanted. Money. Money she had never asked for and didn’t know what to do with. An unexpected blessing, but an even bigger curse. Her plan had been to hunker down and prepare for the storm, but now that she was here, it felt permanent. Like a cellblock or her bedroom. She’d traded one prison for another. Even more confusing, she knew that once she got inside and saw Connor it would be okay.

  She lit another match and tossed it toward the gutter. A mixture of gutter water and God-only-knew-what put it out with a sizzle. Connor. Had she conjured him out of some secret place in her mind? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d done something like that, but it would be the first time it felt so good. On the way out of his apartment this morning, she’d stopped to watch him sleeping on the couch. His big body hung partly over the side, one hand resting on the floor, far too large for the piece of furniture he’d slept on. For her. So she could have a bed near a window. Accepting favors from others sat squarely at the top of her no-no list. Being beholden to anyone made her nervous.

  She didn’t feel that way with Connor. It only made her want to reciprocate. Do something to help him, make him happy, too. Yet she had no way of doing that.

  He likely thought she’d been abused. She had. But not in the way he might imagine. When she’d tried to explain her fear of being touched to the prison shrink, he’d kept digging, kept pushing for the real reason. It hadn’t been enough for him that, to her, touch came before being restrained. There hadn’t been many instances in her childhood, maybe none, where touch had led to anything else. Hugs, pats on the back, encouragement. No. Touch had been a means of putting her somewhere. Keeping her there. Locking her in her bedroom so adults could argue in peace, dragging her into the closet, cuffing her and shoving her into the back of a parked car.

  Then came the closeness. Air compressing in on her, like thousands of sticky hands. Cutting off her oxygen, bathing her skin in clammy sweat. Before she’d learned how to get free, the space confining her had become a representation of touch. It closed in on her and held her still, made her scared to move, paralyzed her. Her first time in prison had been torture. The guards, the other inmates, had learned her weakness early and exploited it. Touching, pulling, pinching.

  Erin gasped when the lit match she held in her hand burned her fingers. It jolted her into action. No more stalling. No more thinking about the past. She wouldn’t explore this odd assurance that once she laid eyes on Connor, the emotional teeter-totter tilting inside her would stabilize. For now, she would go with it. And make sure she always had a path leading out.

  She breezed into the closed-down community center with a loose-hipped gait, a small smile playing around her mouth at the sound of her boots’ bells tinkling. They couldn’t silence her completely.

  This morning, she’d woken up with a text message from Derek on her phone explaining that there had been a last-minute change of plans as to where they would be meeting. Yeah, sure. Like that guy didn’t have everything planned down to the tiniest detail. This recently abandoned building would be where they would meet from now on, and it suited her down to the ground. The fewer cops she had to deal with, the better. But when she heard voices coming from the basement, she stopped cold.

  God, her Achilles’ heel hadn’t been tested this frequently in a good, long while. They had to meet in a goddamn basement? Erin took a deep breath and eased down the stairs. As long as she kept the staircase to her back, she could get through twenty minutes. If it got to be too much, she would make an excuse to leave.

  And if they refused, she’d simply burn the place to the ground.

  Although the thought of Connor being trapped in a burning building made her sick. She wouldn’t let herself acknowledge the pull of knowing he stood just beyond the door. What was it about this guy that fought off the noise, the flames? She shouldn’t be craving his presence so soon.

  Erin pushed open the door. Derek broke off in midsentence and everyone turned to look at her. Her eyes unerringly sought Connor where he stood in the back of the room…prying plywood off a window? Sera stood a few feet behind him with a sympathetic hand outstretched, as if she could heal him with her Virgin Mother vibes. My job.

  Connor held a metal crowbar, but it dropped to his side when he saw her, his gaze running over her as if checking for anything wrong. But she could only stare at the foot-wide space he’d opened up. A window. Obviously the building was on a slope, because through the wood he’d managed to pry free, she could see an empty parking lot, and an avenue lying just beyond. Her body could fit through it easily…from where she stood, there were approximately forty-eight steps between her and freedom. Breath filled her lungs. Had he done this for her?

  Connor buried the crowbar into the final plank of wood and ripped it off the window. Then he tossed both of them to the ground with a clatter. “Where were you?”

  She didn’t flinch under his barked question. “I had a hair appointment. You like?”

  He gave a sharp shake of his head and threw himself down into a metal folding chair. Bowen gave a slow whistle from across the room as Sera returned to him and sat down. “When a woman asks you that question, the answer is always yes, man.”

  Erin couldn’t take her eyes off Connor. Deep grooves stood out between his eyes; sweat beaded his forehead even though the basement was decidedly cool. He’d been…worried about her? And he’d used the time to make the space bearable for her. Why? Why would he do that for her? She didn’t know, but it made her feel wonderful. Like she belonged. Like someone had listened to what came out of her mouth and remembered it.

  She searched around the room for the closest available chair and found it beside Austin. Challenging anyone to comment with a dark, sweeping look, she grabbed the chair and dragged it over to Connor, the rusted metal scraping a loud protest the entire way.

  Connor watched her through narrowed eyes as she approached, obviously still angry with her for showing up half an hour late, or possibly for sneaking out of his apartment that morning without a word. It didn’t matter. She shoved the chair up beside his, close as it would go, and parked her ass right beside him. And just because it felt right, she buried her face in his shoulder.

  “Thanks for the window.”

  Connor ground his molars together against the adrenaline spiking through his nervous system. Had it really only been last night that he’d worried about his demons coming out to play? Here he was, less than twelve hours later and he felt dizzy with the need to expend energy. And not in a healthy way. This wasn’t good.

  When Erin hadn’t walked in at ten o’clock for the meeting, his skull had started to buzz. It had been bad enough waking up this morning to realize she’d sneaked right past him, bad enough that she hadn’t answered the other apartment door when he knocked. She’d confessed to him last night that someone wanted to “trap” her, and the possibility of that happening on his watch had conjured up a feeling he knew too well. Helpless anger. Impotent rage.

  If something happened to her…if somebody touched her…

  No amount of breathing exercises or happy place visualization had been able to ease the buildup of rampant anxiety. He recognized this part of himself. Thought he’d had a handle on the hereditary violence that had whirred inside him since adolescence. But he hadn’t anticipated Erin blowing in and rearranging everything. If this didn’t send a loud and clear signal to his brain to stay away from her, nothing would. He required order or the careful layers he’d pasted together over his damaged insides would strip away, little by little, and reveal what was hidden beneath. Too bad she was chaos personified. Disorder on two albeit sexy legs. She’d rip those layers off so fast, he’d get whiplash.


  Two other times in his life, he’d felt responsible for another person. One was his mother. She’d been through enough in fifty-five years and deserved to finally start over. Find some peace. That peace is why he continually sold his soul. First to the navy, then to his power-hungry cousin. Now, to the Chicago police. Anything to make up for what she’d been through at the hands of his father. Anything to atone for the fact that he’d been too small, too weak as a child to help her. To save her.

  The second person he’d felt responsible for had been his one-way ticket out of the SEALs. Coming to Chicago was supposed to mean a clean slate, leaving that shit in the past. He could sense impending disaster ahead when it came to the girl beside him. She was a wild card. An unknown variable. He couldn’t control her. Couldn’t keep her in one place without worrying if she’d vanish. Fuck, he couldn’t even touch her.

  As Derek started talking at the front of the room, Erin smashed her nose against the side of his neck, breathed deeply, and sighed. He tried to ignore her when she pulled back to look at him, but the lure of her gaze was too strong to resist. Christ, she was even more compelling up close. She smelled like hair dye and matches, not exactly the most intoxicating of scents, and yet he couldn’t get it into his lungs quickly enough. A deep satisfaction rolled through him when he saw that the bags under her eyes were gone. She’d slept well in his sheets. Her hair spread out on his pillow. Unbelievable. The storm inside him had ceased with her near. It never happened this quickly, usually taking hours to subside.

  “What?” he asked, needing a distraction from the kick of lust the image of her sliding around in his sheets had conjured.

  “I drank all your orange juice this morning.”

  “I noticed.”

  She propped her chin on his shoulder. “Can you get the kind without pulp next time?”

  How could he concentrate when their mouths were so close together? “Are you planning on making a habit out of drinking my orange juice?”

  A beat passed. “If you stop buying it, I’ll know you don’t want me over anymore.”

  “I’ll buy the damn juice.”

  God, her smile. “I was going to come over anyway.”

  Derek cleared his throat, drawing both of their attention. “I don’t repeat myself, so I’d suggest paying attention. Especially you, Connor. I can’t be here twenty-four-seven and it’ll be everyone’s ass if you don’t know what’s going on.”

  Erin bristled. “I drank his juice.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t Kool-Aid?” Austin drawled from his lean against the wall. “We’re all expected to drink that, apparently.”

  Polly snorted and went back to inspecting her nails.

  “Continue,” Connor bit out. Not even his time in the navy had made him comfortable with authority. “You were giving us a profile of Maxwell Stark, but hadn’t gotten to why.”

  “That’s right. Stark.” Derek crossed his arms over his chest. “City treasurer for Chicago. He came up through the ranks quickly and we have a good idea why. He’s running for mayor at the end of his term as treasurer. We believe he used city pension funds to finance a private project in exchange for campaign donations.”

  “A crooked politician,” Bowen said from his usual place behind Sera, who was busy taking notes on a legal pad. “The shock might kill me.”

  “You said he moved up through the ranks quickly,” Sera commented. “This must not be the first time he has misused funds.”

  Derek nodded. “Stark has done it once before. Once that we can prove, anyway.” He made eye contact with each of them. “Last year, his assistant Tucker May took the fall for him in a similar situation. Stark had accepted a bribe from AllStock Warehouse to support their proposal to open a store in Chicago. They had met a lot of resistance from local small business owners and council members, but they were ultimately approved. There was an internal investigation, and a sizable amount of money exchanged hands before they broke ground.”

  Polly looked bored. “Doesn’t everyone just shop online now?”

  “We kept an eye on Tucker May while he served time downstate,” Derek continued. “His cell mate turned informant in exchange for a reduced sentence—”

  “Snitches get stiches,” Erin sang.

  Derek hung his head a moment. “What do you think you are, O’Dea?”

  “Oh yeah.” She waved him on. “Keep going.”

  “Thank you. May confided in his cell mate that Stark knew about the AllStock Warehouse bribe money. Stark orchestrated the whole thing and pinned it on him with a second set of books, claiming he’d never been the wiser.”

  Austin dropped into a chair beside Polly and winked at her. “Stark sounds like a real peach.”

  “His father is a career politician at the state capital, so he’s been bred for this sort of thing,” Derek said. “And he’s smart about it.”

  Sera shook her head. “What good does May’s cellblock confession do? He’s already been convicted. It’s his word against Stark’s.” Bowen laid a hand on her shoulder and she reached up to cover it. “It’s not unusual for a prisoner to proclaim his innocence. They all do.”

  “That’s where it gets interesting.” Derek walked to the whiteboard and uncapped a blue marker. “May took the fall willingly. Stark promised to oversee his investments while he served his time, in addition to a bag of cash when he came home. But those investments failed under Stark’s watch. May wasn’t quite so ready to play ball anymore.”

  “Wasn’t?” Bowen shifted on his feet. “Something happen to him?”

  Derek nodded once. “May disappeared.”

  “From prison?”

  Erin shrugged. “It’s not as hard as it sounds.”

  “May was cooperating with us.” Derek paused to let that sink in. “He had the proof we needed that Stark took the bribe. He’s also in possession of evidence that Stark approved a private development in exchange for campaign funds.”

  “Stark got to him,” Connor said, his voice sounding rusty. “Found out he was going to talk.”

  “That’s the assumption,” Derek confirmed. “We need to find him.”

  “What if May is dead?” Erin wanted to know.

  “Yeah,” Austin chimed in. “Stark doesn’t sound like the type to leave that kind of liability hanging around.”

  Derek tapped the blue marker against his palm. “Each of you will be working a different angle. If we can’t find May, we trap Stark a different way.”

  Erin flinched against him at the word “trap” and Connor quashed the urge to drag her onto his lap. Not for the first time, he wondered if she could handle what came their way. She might present a cavalier attitude to everyone else, but he’d seen what lay just beneath last night.

  “This is where you six come in.” Derek uncapped the marker with his teeth and made a circle on the whiteboard, writing “Stark Campaign Headquarters” through the middle. “Sera, this is where I want you. Finding out everything you can. Listening, asking the right questions. We’ve built you a solid résumé and alternate identity that gets you in as a campaign staffer. Working close—”

  “Nope.” Bowen started shaking his head. “No fucking way.”

  “—but not too close with Stark. The mayoral election isn’t for a few months and he’s only there a few times a week.” Derek gave Bowen a challenging look. “Are you saying she’s not capable of handling it?”

  Feeling an unwanted spark of sympathy for Bowen—he knew from experience that the guy lived for his girlfriend—Connor spoke up. “I think he’s saying he’s not capable of handling it.”

  “Not my problem,” Derek returned.

  “Can you get me in there as a”—Bowen snapped his fingers—“whatsitcalled, too?”

  “A campaign staffer. And no. Best I can do is put you on surveillance outside headquarters.”

  Sera murmured something to Bowen and he fell into the chair beside her, looking numbed out. Derek sighed and moved on. “Polly, I need you to set Sera up w
ith a mic that feeds out directly to me…and Bowen. If you can get your hands on Stark’s financial records—”

  “Cake.”

  “—then try to track down any and all suspicious activity.”

  Polly scrolled through her phone. “This barely passes as a challenge.”

  Derek ignored her. “Erin, getting in and out of prison is your specialty. Find out how May did it. Or Stark did it for him, as the case may be.”

  Erin shot forward in her seat. “Dude, I thought the point of this little dream team was to keep me out of prison.”

  “This time, you’ll be there as a visitor,” Derek said drily. “Connor, go with her. Tomorrow morning, I have you scheduled for a visit with May’s cell mate. See if you can get anything else useful out of him. Suspicious behavior before May went missing, anything that could point us in the right direction.”

  “On it.”

  “What about me?” Austin made a sweeping gesture over his body. “You’re going to sideline your most valuable player?”

  Connor decided he didn’t like Austin. Especially when Erin chuckled under her breath at his mock outrage.

  “You’ll be utilized when the time comes.”

  “Is this meeting over?” Bowen asked.

  “Yes, but keep your phones on in case I need to be in touch.” Derek capped the pen and shoved it into his back pocket. “Let the games begin.”

  Chapter Six

  When Connor walked into his apartment, Erin gave him her best smile. She’d used this particular smile only one other time in her life, and it had ended in her first successful bank robbery, so she felt good about her chances of Connor complying with her request. At nineteen, she’d gotten tired of living in the back of her car and reasoned the bank wasn’t really using that money. Not actively. She’d used this exact smile to gain entry to the bank after hours, tempted the armed guard into the vault with the promise of a quickie, and subdued him with his own nightstick.