The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  “You don’t have to be scared. Not with me.” His finger hooked beneath my chin, and he kissed me. “I won’t let those memories crush you.”

  “I love you, Dax.” I let the truth flow through me, change my heart. I savored the way the word paired so easily with his name, and how the two rolled like magic off my tongue. And when he wrapped his big arms around me, I committed the feel of them to memory, mentally tracing them into my skin.

  Because by morning, he’d no longer be mine. There were secrets I hadn’t yet told him. Ones that would ultimately destroy both of us.

  33

  Dax

  Darkness obscured the room when I opened my eyes. I’d slept an entire day, thanks to pulling an all-nighter with Kenny. As the cloudiness smothering my brain lifted, I set my hand down on the spot beside mine. Empty. Raising my head up off the bed, I found the white glow of a note in the place where Nicoleta had been when I’d fallen asleep.

  I flipped on the nightstand lamp, and rubbed the sleep from my eyes to read the somewhat short message.

  Dax,

  I’ve sat here three hours trying to think of what to say while I watch you sleep. If the world were a different place, I’d spend every night staring at your face this way, but this is where I finally fold.

  You were and always will be my favorite mistake.

  You’ll find Tesarik at the Belle Isle Boat House this Friday night. 10pm.

  Don’t come looking for me. You won’t find me.

  Always yours,

  Nicoleta

  Crushing the letter in my palm, I shot off the bed to the window. The ‘Cuda still sat parked in the lot. I scanned the area as far as I could see, but could see no sign of her.

  Racing back across the room, I swiped up my jeans, and yanked them up over my legs, threw on my boots without tying them, and tugged on a shirt. My wallet sat on the table, and as I thumbed through the cash, I noted about two of the five hundred I’d had missing. Not that I cared she took it, but it meant she might’ve grabbed a cab, or bus. Keys in hand, I shoved the wallet into my jeans and jogged down the staircase to my car.

  I didn’t even know where I was headed, as I pulled out onto the main road and drove, eyes searching the open fields and buildings that passed on either side of me. Rubbing the top of my skull, I fought the urge to let panic swallow me, and kept driving. She could’ve been anywhere in the city by then, but I didn’t think about that.

  For two hours, I drove down roads and side streets. The only bodies bustling about in the darkness were the homeless, who clustered against the sides of the buildings and under makeshift tents. None of them Nicoleta.

  “No, no, no. C’mon, Nic.”

  I drove for another hour, visiting the few bus stops and train stations scattered throughout the city.

  As I turned back into the parking lot, sometime after ten, I looked up to the room that stood dark and quiet. I sat there for a moment, could almost see her phantom form up on the balcony, smoking one of my cigarettes. Gripping the wheel, I slammed my head against it and let out a roar of frustration.

  Part of me wanted to keep driving.

  Another part of me knew I wouldn’t find her.

  I dragged myself out of the car and back up to the room. Had no idea where she could’ve run off to, and I didn’t want to think that Tesarik, or Dmitry, might’ve found her before I did. That I could very well hear about her dead body, discovered dumped in some abandoned shithole, just like Livvie’s.

  The the absence of her closed in on me with a suffocating reality as I entered the empty room. I couldn’t even look at the bed, or the chair where she’d sat by the window.

  I picked up the extra burner phone, to see if perhaps she’d made a call, but the log showed not a single one—not even a cab ride.

  She’d literally walked out of my life.

  A cold certainty settled over me, at the same time a vile black poison crawled beneath my skin, infecting my veins with something dark and painful. Something that promised the kind of anguish I’d not felt in years.

  I rubbed the back of my head, willing it away, but like an old friend, it’d become familiar with all my tricks and evasions.

  With a swipe of my hand, I knocked the fifths from the table, sending them shattering in a firework of broken glass onto the floor. The intoxicating scent of whiskey filled the room as the liquor seeped into the carpeting. I shoved the whole table over and threw the chair across the room, her chair, and it slammed against the wall, leaving a hole in the drywall.

  Hands braced on the underside of it, I flipped the bed onto its side, watching the mattress flop against the nightstand, sending the lamp crashing onto the floor. In a matter of seconds, the apartment stood trashed and destroyed.

  Clutching my temples, I pressed my back against the wall and slid down to a sitting position onto the floor.

  She was gone.

  * * *

  I’d somehow fallen asleep on the floor and awoke around three in the morning with a stiff neck and my face smashed into the carpet. Eyes swollen and tired, I got up and stumbled down to the car, where I fell into the driver’s seat. Drunk on exhaustion, I pulled out of the lot and drove the streets again, head swirling and dizzy, like I’d downed some potent liquor. A thin sheen of sleep glazed my eyes, giving a slight blur to my surroundings, but the lights in my rearview mirror were unmistakable. I pulled the car to the side of the road, and when the lithe form exited the vehicle and sidled up to my door, I didn’t know what the fuck to do.

  Nancy bent forward enough that I could see she’d undone her top down to the cleavage, as usual. “You look like shit.”

  We had this game, she and I, that’d started when she’d busted me for weed a couple years back. In exchange for being let go, I’d given her the best orgasm she’d ever had. I’d later learned that she was married and a sex addict—attended meetings and everything to help curb her cravings—so after that first encounter, she’d put herself on a mission to get that same high. Every so often, she’d pull me over, and we’d fuck like rabbits—wham-bam on the hood of a car, in an alley, whatever got her most excited. She liked the chase, the fact that I’d never fall into some serious shit with her, but more than that, she liked the idea that she could pull me over any time of the day to get her fix.

  Eyes glued to the steering wheel, I shook my head. “I can’t do this, Nan. Not today.”

  “That’s twice you turned me down. I’m starting to take it personally.”

  “Not personal. I’m in a bad place right now.”

  “Which is exactly why you need to be in a good place.” Long, blood-red fingernails scratched down my arm, and my knuckles turned white, clutched to the wheel. Used to be a time she’d drive me wild with those nails, but in that moment, the sensation made me want to crawl right the hell out of my skin. “I can take you there. You know I can.”

  I could damn near feel the threads snapping inside my head.

  “Why do you do this, huh?” Brimming with resentment, I glared back at her, and the last bits of thread slipped as I finally lost control. “You got a husband. A fucking beautiful house in the suburbs. A perfect life. And that’s not enough for you. Why?”

  She pushed back from the car, her brows pinching in confusion. “’The hell happened to you?”

  “Answer the question. Am I nothing but a piece of shit to you? A fuck toy? A story you can go back and tell your little suburban bitch friends about, how you slummed it up in Detroit with some thug, while your husband was at work?”

  “Fuck off, Dax. Go get some sleep.”

  “No, fuck you! Fuck you, and fuck your perfect life.” I exited the car, and she kicked back a step, but I still accosted her, staring down at her small frame.

  “Back off. You don’t want to do this.” Her eyes held a world of warning, but not enough to make me follow her command.

  “I’m tired of being some portable dick you can fuck whenever you get bored.” I eyed her up and down and forced a mirthless laugh
. “Hey, you know what? I saw a bum up on Mount Elliott with a crack pipe. Maybe he’ll give you a rim job if you let him off on a warning. Better yet, you might get more gangbang for your buck by hitting up the crack house on Canfield.”

  Eyes flickering with hurt, she backed herself toward the cruiser behind her. “You’re an asshole, Dax. Want to know why women treat you like a fuck toy? Look in the mirror.”

  She got back into her vehicle, turning the lights off as she hit the gas and drove off.

  I stood on the side of the road, wishing I felt some measure of remorse, all the while telling myself what a rotten prick I was for not feeling a damn thing.

  34

  Dax

  Two days passed in that small, cramped apartment. Two days without Nicoleta. Two days of not bothering to eat. Or sleep. Two days of staring into the blackness of the room, wondering what the fuck I was going to do with my life.

  I opened the cabinet, where the bottle of fentanyl sat on the shelf.

  The last time I’d taken it, my buddy Rhys had found me passed out on the bathroom floor and driven me to the hospital. Landed my ass in detox, followed up by some pretty miserable nights after that. Nights I’d sworn I’d never put myself through again.

  No matter what.

  I closed the cabinet and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Could hardly look at my own reflection—like staring back at someone else for too long. Dark circles shadowed my eyes, which’d become bloodshot from lack of sleep. I looked like a goddamned zombie.

  The meeting with Tesarik would take place in three days, and if I didn’t get my shit together soon, I’d miss my opportunity to end that bastard before he got his hands on Nicoleta again.

  Nicoleta.

  Her name was a sledgehammer against a thin wall of porcelain. Couldn’t even think about her without wanting to break something.

  Couldn’t stop thinking about her, either, though. That was the shit part of it all. Where was she? What was she doing? Who was she with?

  I didn’t want to begin imagining some unworthy cocksucker putting his hands on her after me. Some limp-dick who’d take her as nothing more than a pretty face, never knowing what she’d been through, because she’d never tell them.

  Except, she wasn’t the type to jump in the sack with someone else. Only one she might consider going back to was Dmitry.

  The thought struck me like a baseball bat upside the head. In fact, why wouldn’t she go back to Dmitry? He could protect her against Tesarik, and even if a small part of her feared him, she trusted him, too.

  I darted into the still-trashed bedroom and searched for my wallet. Beneath the overturned table, I found it lying in the broken glass, and I lifted it up from the floor, careful not to get the small flecks on my fingers. I thumbed through the cash for the white card with the embossed phone number stuffed inside.

  Anxiety wound tight in my stomach as I nabbed my phone and dialed the number. I just wanted to know she was safe, wherever she was.

  “Hello, Mister Wolfe.” The voice on the other end held some familiarity from our first meeting, thick with that Slavic accent.

  “Where is she?”

  “Perhaps we should plan to meet. I’d like to discuss a few things with you.”

  “Yes. We should.”

  “I’d like you to come to my office. It’s public, so you’ve nothing to be concerned about. I’ll text you the address.”

  Eyes screwed shut, I breathed hard through my nose to calm the knots still twisting in my gut. “Just tell me one thing. Is she okay?”

  “No. I don’t think she is. Keep an eye out for my text.”

  I don’t think she is? What the fuck did that even mean?

  The phone clicked, and my heart slammed against my ribs in a bid to break through the bone, as I waited for his text. My stomach coiled and churned, until the address popped up, and, hands trembling, I scrambled to plug it into the map. I’d throttle the little bastard’s neck, if he’d so much as laid a single finger on her.

  With the directions leading the way, I hopped in the ‘Cuda and drove, not giving one fuck about the fact that meeting up with a known criminal was probably the dumbest shit I’d ever done. Desperation took the wheel as I drove through the streets, into the downtown district, until I reached an enormous building on the corner of Mack and John R.

  I glanced down at the directions, and double-checked against the text to make sure I’d pasted them correctly.

  What the fuck?

  I lifted my eyes to the sign posted out in front.

  Crestwood Psychiatric Center.

  Idling at the curb, I noted all of the cars parked in the lot, and the well-kempt grounds that surrounded the tall brick building. If it were some kind of trap, surely he wouldn’t have chosen that place in broad daylight, over some abandoned shithole in the middle of nowhere.

  Curiosity getting the best of me, I turned the ‘Cuda into the lot and made my way into the building.

  A receptionist greeted me in the lobby, a pudgy older woman with friendly eyes and cup of coffee in her hands.

  “How can I help you?” she asked with a smile.

  I didn’t even know whom to ask for. “I’m … here to see someone.”

  “I figured that. Didn’t think you were here to admit yourself, or something.” She giggled as she lowered the coffee cup and set her hands to a computer keyboard. “Name?”

  “Mister Wolfe?”

  The familiar tone raised my gaze toward the man I’d seen back at Sharky’s weeks ago, only instead of a black trench coat, he wore a white lab coat over a three-piece gray suit with Doctor Emberle stitched above a pocket.

  With one hand tucked at his side, he walked toward me, extending his other hand.

  Not a single scar marred the surface of his skin.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked without shaking his hand.

  “Come with me, Mister Wolfe. Perhaps I can shed a small bit of light on what must be utterly confusing at the moment.” Not a trace of the accent, either.

  “Yeah. Perhaps you can.” I followed after him, into the crowded elevator, and up to the third floor, keeping him in my sights as the doors opened to a long corridor of offices. Each one we passed bore names on their door, all of them followed by a string of credentials.

  Not a single word exchanged between us, until we reached the door that read Doctor Michael Emberle, M.D.

  “You’re a quack?” Trailing behind him, I glanced around the office, where a large desk sat in front of a window overlooking the city, with two bookshelves lined in medical reference books at either side.

  He offered one of the two leather chairs set in front, and rounded the desk to the larger leather reclining seat behind it. “I prefer headshrinker. Has a nicer ring to it.”

  “Not a crime lord, then.”

  “Not since I last checked my police record, no.”

  “A smartass, though.” I plopped onto the chair, my body stiff and wary and probably in all kinds of shock. Made sense, seeing as he hadn’t convinced me back at Sharky’s that he was anything special. Just didn’t carry himself like a criminal.

  “My apologies, it comes with the territory, I suppose.” He pointed to a crystal liquor decanter set off to the side. “Would you like a drink? Might loosen your muscles up a bit. Keep you from punching me in the face.”

  “I’ll take one. You first, though.”

  He pushed up from his chair, pausing for a moment. “You’re welcome to pour them, if you’d like. Though, if I was going to poison a man like yourself, I probably wouldn’t offer bourbon in the middle of the day.”

  “I’ll get my own, thanks.” I strode across the room, glancing back at the bastard for any tricks he might’ve pulled. Tipping the decanter, I poured the amber liquid into two snifters and returned to my seat.

  He held the glass up like a toast. “Bottoms up,” he said, tipping it back, and he swallowed it in one gulp.

  More at ease, I did the same and settled back
into the chair as the liquor warmed my muscles.

  “Why’d you tell me you were Dmitry back at Sharky’s?”

  “Would you have met with me if I’d told you I was a psychiatrist, or quack, as you so eloquently put it?”

  “Probably.”

  Brows lifted, he set the snifter onto the desk. “Noted. I’ll try to remember that next time.” Entwining his fingers, he sat back in his chair, seemingly more relaxed, as if he’d needed the drink more than I had. “I’ll admit, the first night I met you in that bar, I was pissing my pants. I brought two of the orderlies with me in case things went south.”

  “What do you mean by next time? Next time, what?”

  “I’m thinking the best thing is if I give you a little background on Eden.” Even if that was her real name, it sounded strange coming from him. “I’m not supposed to divulge patient information, due to confidentiality, but I’m assuming you’ve had relations with her in the past week, and for the sake of you not coming back to gun down my office, I’m going to bend the rules a little.” His cheeks puffed, and he blew out a breath. “Where to start? I’ve known her since she was fourteen years old. She was admitted here following a nervous breakdown that resulted in a failed attempted suicide. At the time, I was assigned to her, and I spent a good six months trying to get her to speak. She’d become aphasic, or mute, rather, and suffered from an intense fear of water, particularly bathtubs.”

  I’d only recently learned of her fear for water, and I supposed if she’d not been so hopped up on Hedonic that first week I’d taken care of her, I might’ve learned sooner rather than later.

  “After some speech therapy, during which she didn’t bother to participate much, she finally spoke.” He relayed her story with the same enthusiasm as if he were reading it straight out of a medical record. Like a dictation. “She called herself Nicoleta, and spoke with what we determined to be a Russian accent at first, which she later dropped. Over time, she relaxed quite a bit. Trusted the staff here. Became much more agreeable, and we felt that, with the proper medication, she could be discharged. That lasted about two months before she was readmitted for stabbing a young man at her school, whom she claimed tried to rape her.” Again, he spoke robotically, as if a kid trying to rape her didn’t boil his blood the same way it boiled mine right then. “Fortunately for her, and with a bit of persuading from myself and the school administrator, the young man’s family opted not to press charges, but she was to continue her sessions with me. Nearly a year passed before her mother suffered a massive heart attack.” His brow finally pinched together in a troublesome way. “Instead of calling for help, Eden sat beside her and watched her die. When police arrived, she told them that her mother had been part of some plot to kill her. Again, she found herself readmitted under my care, and it was during those sessions that she told me about Dmitry, his bodyguard Aleksey, and how she befriended this well-known crime lord. She also told me about the supposed snuff video in which she’d allegedly been pushed into a river with an anchor tied to her ankles.”