Coup De Grâce

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “How about you tell us how they’re killing our women, and then we’ll go from there?” Downy asked shortly, curling Memphis into his body.

  I sighed and took a seat.

  I was sort of interested in hearing what Michael had to say.

  I’d gotten bits and pieces, but I still wasn’t fully up to par with what Michael knew.

  And apparently, the boys in front of me weren’t either.

  Which pissed them off.

  Greatly.

  Michael started talking, and by the time he was done, not just Downy was fuming.

  They all were.

  “What the fuck, man? My woman works there!” Downy roared.

  I reeled back.

  Downy was normally such a good natured man that it was a complete and utter surprise to see him get so worked up.

  It shouldn’t have surprised me, though.

  Memphis was Downy’s world.

  Anything that put her into danger would be a bad thing in his book.

  Downy shook his head. “We’re not even sure that’s where the threat is coming from. We only know that there is one. And that the connection is the women. I didn’t know until today, though, that that was where Memphis worked.”

  Downy calmed down slightly, taking a deep breath before he said, “Fuck me.”

  “Not now, darling. We’ll get to that later. After you rub my feet and brush my hair like the princess that I am,” Memphis said soothingly, rubbing Downy’s belly like she was coaxing a big beast into sleep.

  I snorted out a laugh, then turned in my chair to face my brother.

  He’d been awfully quiet, his face a mask of shadows as he studied the wall behind Michael’s head.

  Then my eyes narrowed on the awful, heartless man and my mouth opened so I could roar at him in outrage.

  “You didn’t tell me!” I yelled loudly. “Why wouldn’t she tell me? I’m her best friend, and you’re my favorite brother!”

  Nico didn’t even flinch as he turned his eyes to me.

  “It’s been rough. She wasn’t sure she was pregnant at first,” he said simply, shrugging in indifference. “Still not sure.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me. I tell you everything!”

  He gave me a droll look.

  “You tell me nothing,” he retorted.

  “I tell you what you need to know! You’re delicate!” I countered.

  He laughed, which was what I’d been trying to accomplish.

  Turning back to the room at large, I realized my mistake.

  These men didn’t find me and my mouth as funny as my brother did, and I could tell by the looks of annoyance on a few of their faces.

  I closed my mouth and inadvertently scooted closer to Nico, because mean, lying, betraying brother or not, he’d always have my back.

  Which he proved in the next moment by wrapping his arm around my shoulder and kissing the top of my head.

  Have I mentioned I love the hell out of my brother?

  “Alright, well how many of you have used this particular doctor’s office?” Luke asked, pinching the brow of his nose.

  “All of them,” I muttered under my breath. “It’s the only one in Kilgore.”

  Silence.

  I closed my eyes when I realized the silence was back and they were all staring at me.

  Shit!

  I pulled out my phone and kept my eyes glued to it, leaning my head against Nico’s shoulder as I listened to them talk, trying my hardest not to butt in where I wasn’t wanted.

  A text from my sister, Noel, came in while I was in my latest level of Candy Crush.

  Noel: I got a really weird call from your mother.

  Me: She’s your mother unless it was something awesome. Then she’s my mother.

  Noel: She wants to know why you aren’t paying your doctor’s bills.

  My brows furrowed.

  Nico’s phone buzzed, and I looked over at him to see his eyes furrow.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “I just got a really, really weird text from mom telling me she wanted to know why you weren’t paying your doctor bills. She asked if you were low on money,” Nico said.

  Michael, who’d been talking up until that point, stopped and turned to me.

  “You didn’t tell me you were having trouble paying your bills,” he left that hanging, and my face flushed in embarrassment.

  “I’m not having trouble. In fact, I’ve already pre-paid for the hospital as of last visit!” I replied huffily. “What the hell? Why would anyone call my mother? That’s like against the law or something…isn’t it?”

  Silence fell among the room, and something huge in the air started to radiate around me.

  Testosterone paired with fury started to fill the room, and I looked around at the men surrounding me as they comprehended something I hadn’t.

  “What?” I asked, settling on Michael whose eyes had gone flat.

  He blinked. “Call your mother. Ask her who called.”

  Surprised at the way he’d spoken to me, with zero emotion at all, I did just that.

  I called my mama.

  Dialing her number, I put it on speaker phone and set it on the desk in front of me, keeping my eyes focused on Michael.

  He didn’t look right.

  In fact, he looked like he wasn’t my Michael at all.

  “Nikki?” My mother answered. “What is this about you not paying your bills? You told me Michael was helping you pay when I offered to help you. Why would you lie about that? I only wanted to help you.”

  A blush rose to my face and I dropped my eyes from Michael’s flat ones the moment she called me on my lying ways.

  No, Michael hadn’t helped me pay.

  In fact, I’d paid all eight thousand dollars that I owed out of pocket myself, and I hadn’t asked him for a thing.

  Something I was regretting right now if the fury that was coming off of him was anything to go by.

  Shit!

  “And you know, I’ve supported you even though you sinned. I will always support you. Which is why when you get the bill in the mail, I want you to bring it to me and let me pay for it,” she chastised me sternly, the only way a mother knew how. “And I told them where you and Michael worked, as well as Michael’s home address because you shouldn’t lie about something like that. Bill collectors are not fun to deal with. They’ll call you any time of day.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Why wouldn’t she have just asked me herself, instead of sending a text to every one of my sisters?

  “Why would you have given them my work address? And Michael’s? He’s not even on the chart at all. They shouldn’t even know his name.”

  Had she been hoping that I wouldn’t hear it from my siblings?

  “Lolita, this is Michael. Nikki’s paid up in full as of last week. Was it a man or a woman who called?” Michael asked abruptly.

  “Oh, Micahel! I didn’t know you and Nikki were together. How are you?” My mother asked, her Spanish accent getting a little thicker with affection now that she wasn’t yelling at her daughter.

  “I’m okay, Lolita. Now was it a man or a woman who called?” He asked again, a little less polite this time.

  My mother didn’t notice, or if she did, she didn’t care that he was being short with her.

  “It was a man. He said he was the doctor, believe it or not. I couldn’t believe it when I spoke with him, but he seemed to be a really nice man,” Lolita chattered.

  That’s when things started to make sense.

  This wasn’t about any bills at all.

  This was about a killer.

  A killer who’d just put his sights on me.

  Chapter 19

  What do we want? Coffee. When do we want it? Right the fuck now.

  -Coffee Cup

  Michael

  “Got a warrant to search his place yet?�
�� I asked Luke.

  Luke shook his head. “Not yet. Judge Maddox is out of town, and we had to go to Bender. He’s not our team’s biggest fan since the last warrant that was served was the one where that old lady broke her hip.”

  I winced.

  That had been a complete clusterfuck and a half.

  We’d served an arrest warrant on a kid who’d been selling drugs out of his home, and we’d served it flawlessly, arresting the boy within seconds of breaching his home.

  Then the old woman had come out using her walker, and promptly tripped over her grandson who’d been lying on the floor in the middle of the living room, breaking her hip and arm in the process.

  It’d been horrible, and I’d felt horrible, but in our defense, we had told her to stay where she was until we could get the boy out.

  She hadn’t listened, and now we were still hearing about it three months later.

  My eyes moved from Luke to the corner of the command room where Memphis and Nikki were on a computer looking at baby shit, of all things.

  I smiled slightly, but it just as quickly fell from my face as I thought about how bad this all could’ve gone without my knowledge.

  All because I was trying to protect myself.

  Well, look where that got me.

  My woman in trouble.

  My child in danger.

  Me in danger because I was fucking around.

  Not to mention all of my colleagues and their wives.

  I didn’t deserve to live sometimes.

  I was a failure at life.

  Then I shut those thoughts down, realizing them for what they were.

  I’d forgotten my meds.

  Shit!

  “I need to go run by my place. I forgot to take my meds,” I told Luke. “I’ll be back in about ten minutes.”

  Luke nodded.

  “Got it,” he replied, keeping his eyes on his phone.

  I got up, walking out without saying a thing to anyone else.

  They were all pretty mad at me.

  As they should be.

  I was no good.

  Fuck!

  Stop!

  By the time I’d arrived at my house, I’d gone through quite a bit of self doubt before I got to my meds.

  I had the bottle in my hand and had just popped the pill when I realized that I wasn’t alone.

  Rookie mistake.

  Turning stiffly, I found myself faced with a man in all black.

  “Where’s the wife?” He snarled.

  That’s when I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t told Nikki where I was going, and hadn’t asked her to go with me like I’d contemplated.

  Thank Christ!

  The gun pointed at my head didn’t instill any fear in my heart like the thought of the gun pointed at Nikki’s head.

  I’d had this feeling before. The thought that I was going to die.

  Nineteen times.

  Each of those times I remembered with picture perfect clarity.

  And I was sure, if I made it out of this alive, that this time would be no different.

  “Call her,” he ordered.

  “Fuck you. I’m not calling her,” I told him, crossing my arms across my chest.

  I knew if I could stall him, Luke would figure something went wrong.

  I wouldn’t have left and stayed home with the chance of that warrant coming in.

  John, our computer expert, had already traced the calls to Lolita’s phone, and come up with the Women’s Center.

  There were six people on duty at the Women’s Center at the time of the call, and only two of them were men. And one of them had been in the room with a patient for the entire time it took to place the call. So we’d done our research. And had come up with one man.

  We’d applied for the arrest warrant for Stan Jones, M.D.

  And I had a feeling that was who this man was in front of me.

  “So, Stan. What are you going to do to me?” I asked, crossing my arms across my chest.

  Stan froze.

  “How do you know my name?” He asked stiffly, re-gripping the Glock in his hand.

  I shrugged. “You fucked up.”

  Simple words, but they really pissed him off.

  “I did not fuck up!” he snarled. “I did everything right!”

  See, serial killers had a certain way they did things.

  They didn’t deviate.

  Which was why I knew he wouldn’t shoot me until my ‘wife’ was here.

  “What do you have against cops?” I asked calmly.

  Stan’s eyes narrowed.

  He had a hoody on, and it was covering his head, but since he was facing me, I could still get a pretty good indication of what he looked like.

  About five foot ten, hundred and eighty five pounds. Brown or really dark green eyes. Brown hair. Tan skin. Small hands with no wedding band.

  Black pants. Black lace up boots. Black hoody.

  “You don’t need to know why. Just suffice it to say that this earth should be rid of you and every one of your kind,” Stan hissed.

  My brows rose. “Really?”

  He sneered. “Really.”

  I laughed.

  “Got it. How about I take a guess?” I asked.

  I recalled the notes in the case.

  The details of each doctor.

  Stan’s page listed him as widowed.

  Also listed him as not having any living children.

  “Did we kill your wife?” I asked.

  It was heartless, yes, but it was effective.

  “Don’t you say her name!” He bellowed.

  I refrained from saying that I ‘didn’t say her name at all.’

  Bingo.

  “Did a cop take your kid, too? Or did your kid take his own life because your wife died?” I continued cruelly.

  Stan shook his gun at me, waggling it around as he started to scream at me.

  “It was all you! You! She did nothing to you! All she did was get pulled over, and then one of you,” he hissed. “Shot her because he thought she was going for a gun. She didn’t even know how to shoot a gun!”

  He ended that explanation on a shrill scream.

  I felt sympathetic.

  Of course I did.

  Accidental shootings happened.

  It sucked, extremely, horribly bad, but it happened.

  Cops, on a daily basis, had to deal with so much shit from everyone that, at times, we expected everyone to be bad.

  When we pulled someone over, we aren’t happy to do it.

  We’re wary.

  When we pull you over, are you going to be accepting of why we pulled you over?

  Will you rant and scream at us for doing our jobs?

  Will you pull your gun on us? Pull out a knife from some hidden place inside your car and stab us with it. Will your passenger do something?

  A car to most people is just that, a car.

  A car to a police officer is a weapon.

  It can run over us. It can hide larger weapons. It can get you away from us and put other people, innocent people, in jeopardy. It can house more than one person who could potentially harm us.

  So you see, there are multiple facets to look at when a police officer pulls someone over.

  All of this is running through our brain.

  We have to be extremely cautious, doing what we do.

  Whether this was what happened with Stan’s wife or not, I would never know.

  But even if it was or wasn’t, that didn’t give him the right to take out his hurt and pain on every single police officer that he came into contact with.

  “I’m sorry, Stan,” I said seriously.

  And I was.

  I was sorry he had to experience something like that.

  I would hope had the same thing happened to me that I would find the strength to move on.

  To make this world a better place.r />
  I wouldn’t, however, start shooting and killing innocent people.

  Especially ones that were carrying our next generation like these innocent women were doing.

  “You can shove your sorry’s up your ass,” Stan snarled. “Sit down in that chair right there. We won’t have to wait much longer. I called your woman’s mother. I know she gets home around this time.”

  I closed my eyes very briefly, thankful that this time wouldn’t be one of those times.

  She was safe at KPD headquarters.

  Thank God.

  Stall. That’s all I had to do.

  It’d been thirty minutes since I left.

  And I knew Luke had seen right through my hasty exit.

  He was very aware of my shortcomings, and I’d made sure that he was up to date on my state of mind.

  He was aware that something wasn’t right, and I knew he’d come to check on me if I was gone longer than thirty minutes.

  My disease and conditions were all about checks and balances.

  I was very open with everything about me…to the right people.

  I needed those people in my life to keep me on the straight and narrow.

  Luke. My parents. My sister and brother. A few doctors.

  Nikki.

  I smiled slightly.

  She had no clue just how much she helped.

  “Why are you smiling?” Stan asked, ruining my good thoughts.

  I shrugged. “No reason.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  And to keep him talking, and me breathing, I continued to ask questions.

  “Why the cop’s wives. Why babies?” I asked carefully.

  He sneered.

  “Why would I want to bring more of those bastards into this world? Not by my hands, no sir.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t aiding in any more births to people like you.”

  I shook my head.

  The degree of his hate was staggering.

  To take his problems out on innocent children was just jaw dropping to me.

  “What would your wife think about all of this?” I asked softly.

  Stan’s eye twitched, and it was long moments before he answered.

  “Well, I’m not sure why she would even matter anymore. She’s gone, and I’ll never need to know what my wife thinks about any of this,” Stan’s voice broke. “Because she’s so gone. Gone, gone, gone.”