Playing with Fire (Judah Black Novels Book 4)

by E. A. Copen

The CD turned over and ACDC’s Thunderstruck kicked on. I stared at the bars jumping up and down on the screen set beside the dash. “God, Espinoza. Where have you been all my life?”

  I pressed down the parking break and shifted the wheel. “Well, let’s see what this baby can do,” I said and gave the car a little gas.

  Chapter Eleven

  I got from Paint Rock to the police station exit in Eden in twelve minutes flat. Two minutes of that were spent sitting at the border crossing on the way out of Paint Rock while they checked my ID and ran my tags. Guess I must’ve been driving it like I stole it or something. It was easy to do in a car like that where eighty felt more like forty. Driving down the street to the station at twenty-five felt like torture.

  The parking lot beside the station was mostly full, but Espinoza had a pass sitting in his dash with the number thirteen on it, so I pulled into the lot anyway. Each space was numbered and, like I thought, space number thirteen was empty. I carefully pulled into it, flanked on either side by dusty trucks.

  The hospital cast its shadow directly over the main branch of the Eden police department. The police headquarters were significantly smaller than the hospital, but that didn’t make it a less impressive piece of modern architecture. It had gotten a facelift in the last few years. The whole front was made of reflective glass, which made it look like there were two flags out front, whipping in the wind. Two stories tall, the building stretched back, made of red bricks placed in diamond patterns around white. A polished wall of steel gray held the inscribed names of the men and women who lost their lives in the line of duty. It was mostly full.

  I walked past it to one of three sets of glass double doors. The station lobby had a gray floor of polished granite and a glass ceiling up on the second floor. Stairs stacked on either side of a big desk in the middle of the room leading to a narrow catwalk filled with doors of wood and frosted glass. A detailed painting of a police shield decorated the floor between the front doors and the information desk along with the words: tendit in ardua virtis. Virtue strives for what is difficult.

  I walked up to the desk and leaned on it, producing my badge. The young man at the desk wore a clean, pressed uniform. Probably fresh meat from the academy. That’s what they do with the new guys, stick them on desk duty until they’ve earned a few stripes. “Can you point me to your holding cells?”

  The young cop picked up the phone and put it to his ear after pressing a button. “If you have an appointment, you can wait over there.” he said, gesturing with his chin toward a seating area off to the right. “I’ll call someone down to escort you.”

  I frowned and shoved my badge against his nose. “I don’t need an escort. Your guys are holding a material witness in one of my cases on a trespassing charge. I need him released yesterday.”

  Finally, he looked up at me, his features blanching. “Oh,” he squeaked out and slowly lowered the phone, “you’re a fed.”

  I clipped my badge back on my belt. “Ed Petersen with an E. Where is he?”

  “Let me pull that up for you.” The greenhorn’s fingers walked across a keyboard at breakneck pace. “He’s in interrogation two pending formal charges.” His eyes flicked back up to me, his cheeks reddening. “Would you, ah, like me to take you?”

  “Just point me in the general direction.”

  He turned and pointed to an open area behind him where stairs descended into the belly of the station. “Fourth room on the right at the bottom of the stairs. You can’t miss it. Big sign on the door.”

  “Thanks.” Whoever said I wasn’t polite when it counted?

  I pushed off the desk and walked around it to the stairs. No one stopped me. You can walk almost anywhere without being stopped as long as you look like you’re supposed to be there. Of course, if anyone had stopped me, all I had to do was give them the same speech I’d just given the green kid at the desk.

  I must have looked the sight, though, because several people near the stairs nearly crashed into each other when one of them stopped walking to stare at me. My clothes were wet and my face streaked with ash. There were blood spatters on my arm. I noticed them as I approached the stairs and tried to pull my sleeve down to cover it.

  “What’s the matter? Never seen a plainclothes cop before?” I snapped at the woman who’d stopped to stare at me.

  Her face flushed and she turned her perfectly contoured face away before her heels clicked off noisily. And that was why I didn’t have many co-workers as friends.

  Narrow hallways and low ceilings created a more cramped atmosphere below. Doors lined either side of the hall, clearly marked with signs. The first one on the right was an observation room. I glanced in through the cracked door at the dark room where two cops stood, arms crossed, watching a rookie try to intimidate a suspect into giving up information. One of the cops saw me looking in and reached over to close the door with a scowl.

  The next room was interrogation one, so I skipped it and opened the third door on the right to the darkened observation room for interrogation two. Someone from SRT was in there, a heavyset guy with a goatee. He stood, leaning against the back wall, typing into his cell phone. When I pushed the door open, he glanced up.

  “Agent Black,” he said with a nod and wiggled the cell phone back and forth. “Espinoza said to expect you. My name’s Olson.”

  We traded grips and I glanced to my left where a large observation window took up most of the wall. The interrogation room on the other side of the glass was a simple one. A plain table, plain chairs, camera, trash can. Ed sat in the chair farthest from the window, his arms crossed and thumbs tucked in his underarms. His gaze was fixed on the floor between his knees while his legs bounced up and down in a hyperactive pace. He was wearing a pair of olive jogging pants and a mismatched, pink tank top.

  “Did he give anyone any trouble?”

  Olson shrugged. “No. Complied with every order given, but hasn’t said much of anything. Hasn’t even asked for a lawyer or if he’s being charged.”

  I looked back at Olson. “Did anyone call his alpha?”

  “That’d be protocol, but Espinoza said there were special circumstances. Said we were to wait for you to handle it.”

  That was a good thing. Sal wasn’t exactly happy with Ed right now after finding out that Ed had lied to him. If Sal knew Ed had gotten arrested, he’d give Ed an ass chewing he’d never forget. He might even do more than that. Ed was playing a dangerous game, running off and getting into trouble without the pack there to back him up. He’d get himself kicked out if he wasn’t more careful. I was sure Ed knew it, too. Maybe he didn’t care. Mara would be worth it to him. He would have crawled into an active volcano for her.

  “That was the right call,” I told Olson and sighed, putting my hands on my hips. “Are they pressing charges?”

  “They’re running out of time to if they want to. We can only hold him for twenty-four hours and he’s been on ice since six this morning. I haven’t heard one way or the other. Either way, federal jurisdiction would trump that. You want us to spring him, Agent, he’s yours.”

  “Hold off on that. I’d like to talk to him first.” I waved to him and stepped back out with him on my heels.

  Olson slid a keycard through a magnetic reader and the little light turned from red to green. The door slid aside and he gestured into the room.

  Ed’s head snapped up and he went stone still, eyes wide. Fear colored his face for a moment before he quickly turned his head away. “You here to yell at me? Or am I finally getting booked?”

  “That depends on you.” The door slid closed behind me and I crossed my arms. “Why don’t you tell me what happened, Ed?”

  He kept his arms crossed and shrugged.

  “We can still do this the hard way. Process you. Keep you in a holding cell. Get you a public defender and let the courts have a crack at teaching you a lesson.”

  Ed lowered his head and slumped his shoulders. “It’d probably be better than whatever Sal’s goin
g to do to me.”

  I stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “You know better than that. He’s worried about you, Ed. So am I. Everyone is. It isn’t like you to get into this much trouble.”

  Ed let out a bitter laugh. “If you’re saying that, then you really don’t know anything about me. Everyone thinks I’m harmless. Geeky little Ed who fixes computers. I might not be big and scary, but don’t assume I’m harmless.”

  “I know you’re not a troublemaker, not like Sal and Valentino.”

  Ed pressed his lips into a thin line hard enough that the skin around his mouth paled a shade. “I don’t want to go to jail,” he said in a quiet voice. “But I know Mara wouldn’t join a group like that. I know it like I know a bard needs charisma points, Judah, like a ceiling is up and the floor is down. It just doesn’t make sense. She can’t be there by choice. She… She…” He sniffled and lowered his head, putting a hand over his eyes.

  I knew what he was trying to say, and there weren’t words for that kind of loss. He loved her, and she’d just left, not for someone else or a reason that made sense to him. Mara left him because she wanted to find a missing piece of herself. Maybe she thought the Tribulation Adventists could help her find it. Maybe she was up to something else. I couldn’t know. But if it didn’t make sense to me, I couldn’t imagine how confused Ed must be. There wasn’t anything I could do to make him better, but I could tell him he wasn’t as alone as he felt.

  I leaned over and put my arms around his shaking shoulders, giving him a tight squeeze. “I know. I know it hurts, Ed. I know how shitty you feel right now and how all you want to do is get back what you lost. And maybe you’re right. Mara might not be there of her own free will, but you have to know that charging into private property and harassing people there isn’t going to win her back.”

  “I know,” he choked out and sniffled some more. I pulled my arms away. “I know you’ve got a case and that I got in the way. I just don’t want to sit on the sidelines this time. I can’t stand to be so…”

  “Helpless?”

  He raised his bloodshot eyes to meet mine and sniffled again. “That.”

  “Well, you’re not helpless. Not completely. I have something I need your help with.”

  His throat bobbed. “Will it help Mara?”

  “I don’t know. I do know it has something to do with Gideon Reed and that you’re the only person in the whole county who can help me with it.” I leaned in closer to whisper. “And it’ll have to be off the record. BSI can’t know about it. I’ve got a hard drive I need you to crack.”

  Ed blinked and licked his dry lips. “Really?”

  “Would I lie to you? You’d know.”

  Ed stole a glance at the two-way mirror on the other side of the room. “So, about the charges…”

  “No charges are being filed,” I said with a faint smile. “And Sal doesn’t even have to know if you don’t want him to. This can be our secret.”

  His eyes met mine again and his face went blank. “You mean that? I thought…I thought you two didn’t keep secrets from each other?”

  “Well, Ed, let me let you in on a secret. Everyone’s got secrets. No matter how close two people are, there are just things they don’t tell each other. It’s important to have secrets, places in your head you know are yours. You understand?”

  “I think so.” He nodded and rubbed his palms on his jeans. “How about we bust out of here, then? I’m dying for a cheeseburger and a soda.”

  I smiled and clapped Ed on the shoulder as he rose. “We’ll hit a drive-thru on the way out of town,” I promised him. “But first, I need to swing by the hospital.”

  Ed shrugged away from my hand on his shoulder. “Sal’s not still there, is he?”

  “No.” I put an arm around Ed and led him to the door. “I’ll explain on the way.”

  ~

  The hospital was close enough that we could walk. By not taking the car, I avoided paying for parking, too, which I was convinced was one of the hospital’s largest forms of income.

  We came out the police station into the late afternoon sun, the scent of cooking asphalt, and car exhaust. Bass from a passing car mixed with the distant wail of a car alarm and the muffled chatter of people on the street. Ed stepped up beside me, hands in his pockets. He stared at a crack in the sidewalk and kicked at it. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”

  “You’re not trouble, Ed. You’re a friend. That said, if you keep getting yourself into trouble with the law, I can’t keep bailing you out. Next time I tell you to leave it to the cops, please do. Or at least don’t get yourself caught if you’re going to take matters into your own hands.”

  I turned and started down the street. It wasn’t crowded, but it wasn’t empty, either. The early shift at the hospital hadn’t let out yet, and the restaurants up and down the short strip hadn’t yet gotten their dinner rush. Two uniforms, beat cops coming back from the coffee shop judging by the iced coffees sweating in their hands, halted when they saw me and gave me a once over, stopping when they saw the bloodstains. I waved to them as we passed. “Fellas. How’s the coffee?”

  They didn’t answer me, but I heard one of them say to the other once we’d passed, “You know who that was?”

  “No,” said the other. “Should I?”

  “She’s the fed.”

  “You mean that werewolf’s bitch?”

  The back of my neck itched as they stared me down.

  Ed leaned forward, watching my face. “Why don’t you tell them to shut it?”

  “Why? What good’s it going to do, Ed? You can’t change people. I can argue with them all day about me, my reputation, anything, but it won’t change a thing. End of the day, what I do has to speak louder than what I say. They’re not my enemies.”

  “But what if they’re members of the vanguard? The way they’re glaring at you…” He turned to cast a glare of his own behind him, one that could have made toddlers cry and dogs bark. Ed’s eyes took on a slightly lighter shade of honey brown.

  I put a hand on his arm. “It’s wasted effort to stop and argue with those who choose to be ignorant. What they think of me doesn’t change the fact that I’ve got a job to do. I’m here to help people, not to make friends or win any popularity contests.”

  Ed planted his feet, turned ninety degrees and gestured down the sidewalk toward the cops who still stood, staring at me. “Yeah, but they—”

  “Trust me, Ed, I’d love to break their smug little jaws.” I turned and glared back at them, making sure to say it loud enough that they could hear me. “But we don’t need to stoop to their level. We can be better. Maybe not perfect, but as long as we’re a little better every day, someday maybe that ignorance will disappear.”

  Ed nodded, shot one more angry look behind him, and we started back down the street. “So, you said you’d fill me in. Who’s at the hospital?”

  “Gideon Reed. I shot him.”

  Ed stopped again, this time with a dumbfounded look on his face.

  My statement clearly warranted further explanation, so I gave him a quick rundown. When I got to the end, I stopped and pulled the hard drive out of my pocket. “This is what Creven was after. Now, I don’t know who hired him, or what’s on it, but he said it contains answers to questions I never thought to ask.”

  Ed plucked the hard drive from between my fingers and turned it over in his hands. “Creven works for Kim Kelley.”

  “Yep.” I waited for him to work through what I had.

  “Kim is Marcus’ daughter. Marcus is Fitz’s CEO and Fitz supplies supernatural testing materials to BSI…” He lifted his head and stared off into the distance, eyes fixated on the Fitz logo on top of the tower across from the hospital. His head snapped back to me, his eyes wide. “This has to be something big.”

  “Can you find out what it is? Off the record. Wherever you plug that thing in, it’s got to be somewhere BSI can’t know about.”

  Ed nodded once. “I can do that.”
/>
  I pushed the hand containing the hard drive down. “In the meantime, don’t let anyone know you have it.”

  “I can do that, too.”

  I waited for him to put the hard drive in his pocket before we started down the street again.

  ~

  Hospital air smells like formaldehyde and disinfectant. It’s painfully dry. After spending only a few minutes on the other side of the double doors of the emergency department, the lining of my nose and mouth were on fire. The heavy chemical clean scent in the air was like acid.

  The lady at the desk, a nurse with a dimple in her chin, shook her head as she typed something into her computer a third time. “I’m sorry, Officer. There’s no one here matching that description.”

  “They took him from the scene in a squad. He has to be here. Try again.”

  “I’ve already looked three times—”

  I slammed my hand down on the desk, making her jump. “I said try again! Where else would he be if he’s not here? That squad wouldn’t take him anywhere but here!” I pinched the bridge of my nose and let out a sigh. Maybe if I tried the description again. “The patient is male, mid to late forties with auburn hair. Gunshot wound to the upper chest.”

  “Is there a problem here?”

  I looked up and met eyes with a hospital security officer, his hand resting on the weapon in his belt. I pushed away from the desk and was just about to explain the situation to him again when I caught sight of the breaking news on the television screen. It showed a scene on Highway 83 north of Paint Rock near an old, closed-down gas station known locally as Four Corners Concho. The abandoned building was ablaze with helicopters swirling overhead. But that wasn’t the interesting part. An ambulance sat overturned in front of the building. One of the rear doors sat, charred black, propped up against a telephone pole several yards away.

  I stepped past the security officer for a closer look at the letters crawling across the bottom of the screen. Crash at Four Corners claims two lives.

  I exchanged glances with Ed before turning back to the lady at the desk. “I think I found your missing squad.”