by Janey Mack
Do what, exactly?
He grabbed my arms and the both of us struggled to our feet. It would have been a lot easier if I hadn’t had to lift him.
Coles pulled me in tight to his chest.
Ugh.
But instead of pivoting toward the TV crew, he faced us toward the limo. A hulking shell, the bulletproof windows of the warped armored doors were crisscross crackled, bulging outward like glowing spiderweb balloons. Bright yellow flames tongued the edges of the melted roof as the viscous black smoke roiled into the air.
“We’re going to wait,” he said.
“For what?”
“The patriotic backdrop of flashing lights and scores of Chicago’s finest.” He tipped his head until it was touching mine. “Hear the sirens?”
I stood there, waiting for the convergence of EMTs, hating him. The limo continued to burn.
“Fucking armored car.” Coles gave a derisive snort. “I bought the thing to save my life.”
“It did,” I said. “Without the armor, we’d be a pile of shredded beef shrapnel in a puddle of blood.”
Coles’s face tightened. “Let me do the talking.”
“Yessir.”
The Jake was ablaze with sirens and lights and men and women from every possible city service: police, fire, ambulance, gas and electrical, building inspectors, and of course, more news crews. It was like someone had shaken open an ant farm and every ant immediately set to work to rebuild their city.
A full-staged press conference in less than thirty minutes after the explosion.
Look out, Domino’s.
Satisfied, Talbott Cottle Coles stepped forward and raised his arms, revival preacher–style, basking in the tension while giving the news reporters time to set the stage. “It is moments like these that define us as Americans. As Chicagoans.”
He took a deep breath, held it, and released it with a serious nod. “I’m here tonight because an ordinary person—a humble meter maid—spotted something unusual and did something about it.”
He smiled down at me. “Allow me to introduce my Irish angel, Maisie McGrane.” Coles put his hands together and, like a bunch of trained seals, the crowd started clapping.
Slicker than a scuba diver in a sea of lube.
“Her quick thinking and fast action turned what could have been a life-ending tragedy into an inconvenience.” Coles put his hand to his heart. “It is for this reason that I am meritoriously promoting parking enforcement agent Maisie McGrane to Chicago police officer on my personal security detail, effective immediately.”
I stood there, dumb.
My brass ring.
Slathered in an indelible layer of political grease and bat shit.
At least I didn’t wince.
“Miss McGrane!” shouted a reporter. “How do you feel?”
Coles’s fingers crushed my shoulder.
“Uh . . . flattered.” I glanced down at my skinned knees. Did he think my baby butt just fell off the milk truck? I smiled. A syrupy one full of treacle. “And . . . filthy.” In more ways than one.
The reporter and crowd laughed. Coles let go of my shoulder and stepped slightly in front of me. “I promise you, Chicago, we will catch the perpetrators of this horrific and senseless act of violence.. . .”
The news crews gushed righteous starlight and gumdrops all over his brave self.
Time to take a powder.
I cut around the rear bumper of a CFD fire engine. My skin was cold and tight, and my mind was a blur.
I need a phone. I need to get out of here. I need . . . Hank. My legs trembled like a newborn fawn’s.
“Maisie?” Ernesto laid a hand on my shoulder. “Where you think you’re going, chica?” He wrapped me in a foil shock-protection blanket. “I’m checking you out.”
Daicen was waiting at a nylon camp stool in front of a paramedic truck. I sat down and he put his hand on my shoulder. “Heroic, Snap. Truly.”
Ernesto took my pulse. “How you feel?”
“Fine,” I said. “A little drifty, maybe.”
Ernesto flashed a light in my eyes. “Follow my finger.”
He went through a laundry list of checkpoints. I complied, not fully paying attention, floating instead as I listened to Daicen on the phone, reassuring the family. He walked across the courtyard, palm against his open ear.
Antiseptic stung my knee. “Yikes! Take it easy.”
Ernesto moved to another palm-sized abrasion I didn’t recall getting.
“Could you call Hank?” I asked.
He took his phone from his jacket pocket and held it out to me. I shook my head. Ernesto looked at me sideways, wondering if I was concussed. “You want me to let him know you’re okay?”
I nodded.
“Okey-doke.” He smiled and handed me a bottle of Gatorade. “Drink this and don’t move. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I nodded and he took off, cell to his ear. I rubbed my eyes with my dirty hands, making my eyes itch even more.
I’d pretty much sell my soul to take a shower.
Leticia sashayed up next to me and surveyed the scene. “Damn, McGrane, what a mess.”
“How’d you get out here?”
She threw her chest out. “I am a supervisor with the TEB. Ain’t no one gonna tell me I can’t check on my weebles.”
I nodded and pulled the foil blanket tighter, not feeling so hot.
“So tell me, that out-of-pocket TV shit true, McGrane?”
“What?”
“You’re gonna slave for that fascist peckerwood?”
I’d rather hit every red light for the rest of my life than work for a sleazoid like Coles. “What?” I said. “And leave all this?”
“I didn’t think so.” Leticia laughed. “Dhu West opened the bars. The party’s gonna be sick!”
In more ways than one, I’m sure.
“Don’t go letting my Ernesto babysit you all night, hear?”
I nodded and she reached in her banana-yellow satin bag and handed me my iPhone. “You owe me. Obi was tryin’ to pocket it. And I know you don’t want that little perv trifling in your private business.”
“Thanks,” I said. I hit the Home button. The screen lit up with an unopened text from Hank from an hour and forty-six minutes ago.
Hank: Wire live. Leave NOW.
“Whassup?” Leticia frowned, with a nod at the phone. “You lookin’ ghosty.”
“Nothing. Just a message from my . . . electrician.” I tried to swallow, but my mouth had dried to dust.
Leticia gave a little shimmy. “You hear The Five is considerin’ me for a guest spot?”
Unable to speak, I gave her a thumbs-up.
“I gots a great agent,” she said and salsa’d across the courtyard to Daicen and Bliss.
I sat in the chair, shivering in my tin foil blanket, drinking Gatorade, trying not to think.
“Yo, Snap.” Cash plunked down on the ambulance’s bumper step. “We found him. Lee and I.”
“Who?”
“The fucktard who tried to kill Coles. In an alley across the street. Dead. Remote at his feet.” He dug his cell phone out of his pocket.
“Oh?” I squeaked. Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph.
“Throat crushed, neck snapped,” he said absently, scrolling through his phone. “I know how it’s done, just never seen it before.”
A one-second kill. Small dots of light danced in front of my eyes. The very first hand-to-hand combat kill Hank had shown me.
He’d been here. And at what cost?
“What the—? It’s gone.” Cash’s iPhone screen showed ones and zeros. “It’s gone!”
I swayed. “What is?”
“The text. Lee and I each got one. An attempt was gonna be made on Coles, complete with a photo of the rat-faced, one-eared skell in the alley. Jaysus, why else do you think we came crashing out of the hotel with Coles? Lee thought for sure he’d be a shooter.”
I put my head between my knees and sucked air. Hank tried to
warn them, too.
Cash squatted down next to me. “You okay, Snap?”
No. Not even a tiny bit.
Lee said, “She all right?”
“Sure.” Cash patted me on the back, none too gently.
“Can I have a minute with her?”
Lee took the seat Cash left. “SWAT doesn’t run investigations. Still, an encrypted text and a murdered and guilty perp sets a guy to thinking.” His brown eyes narrowed. “Somehow I’m guessing you’ll tell me it’s just one of life’s little mysteries, right?”
“Yeah.” My mouth lifted up at the corner. “I mean, who could possibly want to kill Talbott Cottle Coles?”
Lee nodded, thinking it over. He shrugged, leaned forward, and kissed me on the cheek. “One of these days we’re going to have a real date, Maisie. And that guy of yours will be nothing but a hazy memory.”
That guy of mine.
I wish.
Chapter 50
My phone buzzed. “Hi, Mom,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Thank God, baby.” I could feel her tears over the line. She gave a giant sniff. “Talk to your father.”
“Hi, Da.”
“What the hell were you thinking?” He didn’t wait for an answer, his voice low and furious. “You weren’t. Jaysus, Mary, an—You could have been splattered to kingdom come.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not working for Coles!”
That got my back up. High enough so a sizeable part of me didn’t want to come clean. But I was too damn tired. “No. I’m not. I want to be a cop, not work for a criminal.”
“For the love of Christ—”
“Although I’ll admit the shine’s come off. A bit,” I said, getting cagey. Of everything, really. Peterson and Ferret were another talk for another day. “For the time being, Parking Enforcement suits me just fine.”
Before Da could reply, the phone was nicked from my fingers.
I stared up into Hank’s face, brutal and grim. His pale gray eyes were hard, and the tic at the base of his jaw pulsed double-time. “Mr. McGrane? Hank Bannon. I’m taking Maisie home.” He clicked off the phone and slipped it into his pocket.
“Fourteen,” he said in a voice colder than anything I’d ever heard, telling me what I already knew.
Hank’s Law Number Fourteen: A good plan violently executed immediately is better than a perfect plan executed later.
He held out his hand. “Let’s bounce.”
I took it and he led me away from the hotel, the noise and lights and smoke.
“I should have listened—” The words tumbled free-fall from my mouth. “I’m sorry, Hank. So very sorry.”
He slowed and put his mouth to my ear. A sexy shiver rippled down my spine.
“Never look backwards, Peaches. Or you’ll fall down the stairs.”
I have got to start reading Kipling.
Maisie McGrane will return in
CHOKED UP
A Kensington trade paperback and
e-book on sale January 2016!
Photo by Jeph DeLorme
JANEY MACK grew up always wanting to be a cop, but her dad wouldn’t let her, so she did the next best thing and created Maisie McGrane, who gets to do everything she can’t. She lives with her husband and children in Scottsdale, Arizona, within driving distance of her brothers.
Please visit her at janeymack.com.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2015 by Janey Mack
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-6177-3690-2
First Kensington Electronic Edition: July 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1-61773-690-2
ISBN-10: 1-61773-690-2
First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: July 2015
