The Killing Game

by Nancy Bush

  Iris had not been happy when Luke left the department. After screaming at him for all she was worth, she had broken up with him, flooding Luke with relief, which her sharp eyes had caught. She’d been instantly hurt, though she’d never said anything to him about it, and let’s face it, he hadn’t wanted to go into it either.

  That had been nearly a year ago. Luke had spent the next couple of months wondering what the hell to do with his life. Private security/investigation sort of found him, not the other way around, and he was still working through the hours to get his license. This had pissed off Iris no end. She couldn’t believe he’d given up being a detective with the Portland PD for some kind of “half-assed” private practice. Though they’d gotten under his skin, he’d ignored her rants and had set a course for himself with a determination that was new to him. Iris was no longer his girlfriend, so he was a free man and could do whatever he damned well pleased. Becoming a private investigator was what he chose.

  Last night he’d met with Opal and Yates and DeSantos, and they’d all gone down to Tiny Tim’s, which was little more than a hole in the wall, with some of the cheapest beer around. Tiny Tim himself, over three hundred pounds, eschewed all the microbeers and cutting-edge cuisine Portland was so famous for these days, and served up favorite standards like Pabst, Bud, and Coors, along with greasy fries, jalapeño poppers with basic ranch dressing or tarted-up with raspberry jam, onion rings, and hot dogs or hamburgers (lettuce and tomato extra, which the clientele didn’t often opt for). Tiny Tim’s also held a liquor license, and that was where Luke had made his mistake, going for Johnnie Walker Red, sometimes Black, once in a great, great while Blue, depending on how much money he wanted to spend. But last night it wasn’t about money and/or quality, it was about quantity, and Luke had had his fill and then some.

  “Are you going to the hearing?” Iris asked, drawing on a line of lip gloss with her left index finger.

  “I think I’ll wait for the CliffNotes.”

  “You’re not going for the friend you defended so much you quit your job?”

  “That would be a yes . . . I’m not going.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You’ve never understood the finer points of why I quit.”

  She thrust one fist on her hip. “Maybe you can explain it to me.”

  “Doubtful,” Luke said as he climbed out of bed.

  Two bright spots of color bloomed on her cheeks, little red flags of suppressed fury. “You oughta be more grateful to me for pulling you out of that bar. If you’d gotten in your car, you’d be in jail just like your good buddy, Ray.”

  “I wasn’t driving. I took Uber.”

  “You kissed me when we got back here,” she declared, practically in a shout.

  The noise caused his head to throb. “I was drunk. I was worried about Bolchoy. I’m still worried about him.”

  “You kissed me!” she repeated.

  “I do remember,” he snapped, his patience shredding. “You took off my shirt and you kissed me. I don’t know what you want, but whatever it is, it doesn’t look like I’m giving it to you. So, I guess I’m saying thank you? For seeing me home?”

  “You’re such an asshole.”

  “You’re not the first to point that out.”

  “Jesus, Luke.” She glared at him. “When are you going to wake up?”

  “I’m awake.”

  They glared at each other. Luke was the first to break away, his attention distracted as he considered what time it was. He might go to the hearing, but he had an eleven-thirty appointment, so maybe not. And Iris didn’t have to know until he showed up, or didn’t, anyway.

  “Bolchoy’s going to prison,” she said again. “He falsified evidence and Corkland’s got him dead to rights.”

  Luke shrugged. He didn’t know exactly what Bolchoy had done and he didn’t care anyway.

  “Why are you going down for him? He didn’t ask you to. If you go back to the department and talk to your lieutenant—”

  “I’m not going back.”

  “—he’d give you your job back. I’m just trying to help you.”

  “I don’t want the job back. I told you. I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing.”

  “I can’t play this game forever, Luke. I mean it.” Tears stood in her eyes.

  He shook his head. “I gotta get to work.” With a headache threatening to break into a crusher at the back of his skull, he brushed past her to his walk-in closet, the one nod to luxury in his two-bedroom/one-bath apartment.

  “For God’s sake, Luke ...” she trailed off.

  “Iris, go home. Or to the courthouse, or wherever.

  “You just can’t wait to get rid of me, can you?” she asked bitterly, sweeping up an airy black scarf that she threw around her shoulders. Her makeup wasn’t even smeared, and he wondered how the hell she managed that.

  “We’ve been through this scenario before. A couple of times.”

  “We need to talk. No matter what you think, we need to talk.”

  “I’m all talked out.” He pulled out another pair of jeans and a white shirt, freshly pressed, and took them to the bathroom. Iris followed him and tried to hold open the door with the palm of her hand. “Iris,” he warned.

  “Listen to me. Just listen.” She pushed back on the door when he tried to close it with slow but steady pressure. “You can’t help Bolchoy. He doesn’t want to be helped. He wants to be right, and he’s wrong. He forged the Carrera brothers’ names on those confessions. He admitted he did it. This case is not subject to interpretation. You know it and I know it. It’s going to trial.”

  “The Carreras have intimidated and coerced and threatened. They zero in on their next real estate acquisition and drive everyone out. They don’t care how. They pretend to offer a fair price, but they never follow through. Anyone who thwarts them ends up in some kind of ‘accident,’ or some other misery befalls them. That’s what I know.”

  “You can’t be a one-man vigilante on this. The judicial system will get them eventually. Go back to Portland PD, or finish with that law degree. Luke, come on ... don’t let this get in our way.”

  He yanked open the bathroom door so hard, she fell forward and had to catch herself. “I’ve got a different job now.”

  “Private investigating?” she said with a sneer. Her eyes widened a moment later when he clamped his hands on her shoulders, turned her around, and steered her toward the front door. She actually tried to dig in her heels and grip the sides of the door frame. “My purse!” she yelled and, with a pungent swear word, he was forced to let go of her.

  “Don’t move,” he warned in a cold voice as he turned back and swept the purse from the nightstand, returning a few moments later and slapping the clutch bag into her hands.

  She gripped it in one hand, then raised up both in surrender. “This is ridiculous. Honestly, Luke. Come on.”

  “You don’t like what I do. You don’t like my friends. You don’t really like me.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “Darlin’, this is over.”

  To his consternation, her skin pinkened and he sensed that she was about to cry. She didn’t do it often, but she was about to do it now. “I love you,” she said tremulously.

  He shook his head, unable to come up with an answer to that one. The movement aggravated the headache forming like a storm. He eased Iris out the door, and this time she went meekly, as if all the stuffing had been smacked out of her. It made him feel bad, but not bad enough to change his mind. He needed to be separated from her. For good.

  Turning the lock on the door, he headed back to the shower, stripping off his jeans. He stood beneath the hot spray for a good ten minutes, then dressed in the fresh clothes on the counter. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to midforearm, then combed out his wet hair, the light brown strands unnaturally dark from the water. He stared into his own blue eyes, registering how harsh the light felt. Evil drink. What good had it gotten him? Bolchoy
wasn’t going to go free. Iris had been right about that.

  “Rule number one, buddy,” the older detective had told Luke when they’d first been partnered. “Stay the fuck out of my way.”

  Luke had been taken aback. It was his first job as a detective and he’d been assigned to homicide, a real coup. Or, at least he’d thought so in the beginning, until he realized everyone was having a good old hah-hah at his expense because he was teamed with Ray Bolchoy. Nobody, but nobody, wanted to be partnered with the gruff old-timer. Better to stay back in robbery or work missing persons, or vice . . . anything but homicide with the stubborn, single-minded detective.

  In those early days, Luke had learned that Bolchoy had a lot of rules, although most of them were superseded by rule number one. Luke tried hard to stay the fuck out of his partner’s way, though a few times he’d made the mistake of getting underfoot in an investigation, at least according to Bolchoy, and then there’d been hell to pay. It took years before Bolchoy trusted him enough to truly treat him as a partner, so many in fact that Lucas’s brother, Dallas, had urged him to quit long before he actually had.

  “Be a writer,” Dallas had told him. “Your partner’s a crackpot who’s nearing retirement but won’t retire. Unless they force him out, you’re stuck with him for more of your life than you need to be. It’s worse than a marriage. Go back to writing that stuff you did in college.”

  Easy for Dallas to say. Yes, he liked writing, but he wasn’t a great writer. He knew that. His best attempts were filling out reports. He had a technical mind, and it was restful putting things down in chronological order. But a writer? Of fiction? Yeah, sure, Dal. I’ll get started on that right away . . .

  He drove to his office in a dark mood, annoyed by the uncommon humidity that seemed to hang in the air like an invisible shroud. It wasn’t his nature to be gloomy, but Iris, and the hovering hangover that hadn’t fully presented itself yet, was getting to him. He parked his truck in the spot behind the back door that led to his office. The door was rust-colored, from paint and maybe just because it was, and it was one of many other rust-colored doors that lined the back of the strip mall. He’d rented the one-room space alongside the Asian fusion restaurant for next to nothing. The scent of curry occasionally wove through the air, which had a tendency to draw him like a cartoon finger of aroma, beckoning him inside, but otherwise his office was exactly what he needed.

  He sat around and shuffled papers and kept an eye on the clock. It was early. Still time to hit the hearing. He wanted to support Bolchoy, but he didn’t want to get snagged by more reporters; they always pissed him off. Still . . .

  He headed out at eight-fifteen, fighting the snarl of traffic that took him east on the Sunset. He almost didn’t make it in time and then had to pay for parking three blocks away. It was hot and his shirt was sticking to him. He hurried up the steps, but sure enough, that piranha of a reporter, Pauline Kirby, was standing in his way.

  “Mr. Denton,” she called loudly. “How do you think the hearing will go for your friend, er, ex-partner, Ray Bolchoy?”

  “I’m hoping the judge sees there’s no reason to go to trial.”

  “So, you don’t think the charges against Bolchoy are credible?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter.” He tried to move past her, but she kept with him, step for step.

  “But you believe in Bolchoy’s innocence.”

  Innocent wasn’t a word he would choose for Ray Bolchoy. We all just want this in the rearview,” he said, then ducked inside.

  He took a seat toward the rear and waited while everyone got set up. He saw the Carrera boys seated across the aisle from him. They both wore those supercilious smiles he detested, but he tamped down his frustration as he watched the defense and prosecution put up their evidence. It was difficult at first to tell which way the judge was going to rule until the prosecution couldn’t come up with the false confessions Bolchoy had allegedly turned in. Luke gazed in surprise at his old partner, who sat stoically beside his lawyer. He suspected Bolchoy had done exactly what he was accused of. He was a man out for justice, whether it was legal or not. But if there was no evidence then maybe . . . ?

  It took the judge less than ten minutes to rule there wasn’t enough evidence for trial. Luke felt like shouting and would have, except for the pounding in his head. Instead he settled for a victory smile he made sure the Carrera brothers saw. They both sported stone visages with cold glares.

  Luke left the courthouse and sneaked around the crowd to avoid the Kirby woman, though she spotted him and tried to chase him down. He ran through a McDonald’s drive-through on his way back to the office and picked up a coffee with cream. His headache was a dull throb, barely discernible. The joy over Bolchoy’s victory made everything else seem less of a problem.

  Of course his old partner was still out of a job. Maybe the union would get him back in, but the captain had never liked him and the feeling was mutual. Bolchoy was nearing retirement, but he didn’t seem any too anxious to give up the work he loved. If he wanted his job back, Luke hoped he would get it, though he thought it was unlikely.

  Luke wheeled into the parking lot at 11:19. His 11:30 appointment was with Helena Garcia, a skittish woman who felt her husband, Carlos, a Colombian native who had become a naturalized citizen, was planning to kidnap their young daughter and take her back to his home country. The fact that said husband was a pretty happy guy who’d started his own landscaping company after working years for another firm and, from what Luke had discovered, was gaining clients all the time, didn’t speak to her fears very well. Luke had tried to tell her as much, but she’d just gotten mad at him, and then, for a moment, when she’d snatched up his stapler and drawn her arm back as if it to hurl it at him, he’d wondered if maybe she was the unstable one and was projecting her own plans to possibly kidnap their child on Carlos.

  She’d managed to put the stapler down, but it had taken her a while. Too long, in Luke’s biased opinion. He’d carefully tried to counsel her. “Your husband doesn’t seem to have any reason to leave the country. I talked to a couple of his clients. Called them up and asked what they thought of his work, and all I got back were glowing reports.”

  “It’s all a fake!” Helena was a redhead with a temperament to match.

  “I picked the clients at random. I could go down the list and call every name you gave me. Maybe there’s somebody who doesn’t like him, but . . .” He’d trailed off, leaving her to hopefully see the waste of time ahead of him.

  But she hadn’t. “I have to take Emily away. It’s the only way to keep her safe.”

  “Now, Helena, that’s a bad idea.”

  He’d further explained that she would be breaking the law, not Carlos, and he’d thought he’d gotten through to her. Then, yesterday, she’d called up screaming. Carlos had apparently picked up Emily from day care without telling Helena, and when she’d gone to collect her, Emily wasn’t there. She’d immediately called Luke on his cell phone, read him the riot act up one side and down the other. Then she’d returned home to find her husband’s truck in the driveway and Carlos and Emily inside the house sharing bowls of ice cream.

  She’d called Luke back to tell him, but she hadn’t apologized for her rant. Now Helena was due to meet him at his office and sure enough, almost on the dot, he saw the silhouette of a woman outside the obscured glass of his office door. He expected her to just bust in, as she was wont to do, but this time she hesitated. Maybe she’d thought over her behavior after all. Curious, Luke got up to open the door, but then the handle twisted and the woman entered, along with a blast of blinding, hot September air that damn near broiled him where he stood. He had to lift a hand to shade his eyes in order to see her.

  His visitor wasn’t Helena. This woman’s hair was soft brown and long, swept into a loose ponytail at her nape, held by a dull silver clip. Her eyes were green with thick, dark lashes, a certain wariness lurking in their depths, and her nose was straight and a trifle pointy in
a way he kind of liked. Her mouth could have been kissable except for the way it was currently drawn into a thin line of disapproval or worry. She was medium height, with a taut body that looked as if she spent time at the gym, but just now she wore lightweight tan pants and a cream-colored blouse. She held a laptop bag in one hand that seemed to be her purse.

  “Lucas Denton?” she asked.

  It was the hottest day of the year when she strolled into his office, as cool as cherry ice cream.

  The line ran through his mind unsolicited. He was torn between laughter and annoyance. Damn you, Dallas. He thrust out a hand. “It’s Luke.”

  She held on to the doorknob a tad too long, as if she were about to make an about-face and leave. It took her a moment to shake his hand, but the handshake was firm.

  “Andrea Wren. And it’s Andi.”

  “Wren,” Luke repeated. He reached around her and shut the door, cutting the heat and blinding sunshine.

  “Sorry,” she apologized.

  “No problem.”

  “Yes, I’m from those Wrens,” she admitted as Luke walked back behind his desk. He gestured to his client chairs and she chose one, smoothed the back of her skirt, and settled herself on the edge.

  “I’m going to guess this has something to do with the Carrera brothers.”

  She tried to smile but it didn’t reach her lips. “This morning I was approached by Brian Carrera. Threatened by him, actually. I know your story, and I wondered if you would help me find a way to put the Carrera brothers away for good. Legally.”