Protect

by LK Shaw

  Hesitantly, I entered the room and caught sight of a good-looking older man in a sharp, expensive looking pinstripe business suit sitting behind a desk, talking on the phone. He had short dark hair with flecks of gray, black eyes, dark prominent brows, a strong jawline, and protruding cheekbones. He gestured for me to have a seat in the lone chair against the opposing wall.

  My eyes scanned the bare room. Besides the man’s desk and chair and the chair I was currently in, no other furnishings graced the room. The walls were bare. The room was clearly meant to be intimidating in its utilitarian simplicity.

  “I expect we won’t have any more problems,” he spoke into the phone, a distinct warning evident in his tone, before ending the call without warning.

  His dark, soulless eyes scanned me from head to toe, and I forced myself not to shudder while the fear poured through me. At that exact moment, it hit me: this man killed Emmett. I had no idea how I knew, but I did. In front of me sat his murderer. My mind raced back to that single phone call, and there wasn’t a shadow of doubt that, whoever this person was, he would kill me too if I didn’t give him what he wanted.

  “Ms. Marsh. Emmett spoke so highly of you that it’s nice to finally meet you.” His conciliatory manner terrified me more than rage would have.

  “I wish I could say the same.” Inwardly, I cringed at my words. Sarcasm was a built-in defense mechanism I clearly didn’t know how to shut off.

  A burst of laughter came from the still unidentified man seated so deceptively casual in his chair. “Ballsy. I like it. Be warned, though. I only tolerate so much insolence, so I’d be cautious with the rest of my words, if I were you. Now then, I’m sure you’re wondering who I am and why I’ve so graciously requested your presence here today.” He didn’t wait for a response before he went on. “My name is Francis O’Reilly.”

  He paused as though I should recognize his name. When he didn’t get the response he so clearly desired, he scowled, but continued. “You see, your friend Emmett owed me money. A lot of money. And since he’s no longer available to pay up, I’m forced to go to the next best place. You.”

  Chapter 13

  After Katie stormed out, I continued lying there, battling with myself over whether or not I should go after her. After a few minutes, I figured it would be best to leave her alone. I didn’t know what else to say to her anyway. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about her, because I did. Far more than I should. It was as though I was subconsciously sabotaging what could be a great thing, because I knew she was too good for me. My life was out of control, and she deserved more. She deserved to have to the best of everything, even if that meant having it with someone other than me.

  Katie was amazing. She was kind, generous, and when she loved, she loved with everything. I could tell by how she spoke of Jackson. She was risking her life trying to bring his killer to justice. She loved him that much. What I wouldn't give to be loved like that. If only I weren't so stupid as to push her away. Even if it was for her own good.

  After lying there for thirty minutes, I jumped in the shower to give her more time to cool off. I took my time getting ready, but finally, I knew it was time to face her. I needed to hurry up and solve this case before I made her hate me even more. As I stepped out of my room, I thought I’d hear her moving around, but a thick silence filled the air.

  “Katie?” I called out. I turned back to knock on her door in case she’d fallen back asleep. When she didn’t answer, I quietly opened it and peeked in. Her bed was unmade and empty. Taking stock of each room, I continued to come up empty. Katie was gone. Son of a bitch. Where would she have gone at this time of the morning? It was barely past dawn. Quickly, I threw on some shoes and headed outside. I hadn’t even made it a block when Mrs. Beatty, one of the members of the Neighborhood Watch, who was practically pulling her dog behind her as she rushed somewhere, stopped me.

  “Detective Webber, thank goodness you’re here. I just saw some woman dragged off in a van. I was about to call the police. You have to do something.”

  “Shit. What did the woman look like? I need you to tell me everything you saw.”

  “The woman was a petite brunette with long hair. Extremely pretty. There were two men, big and bulky. I watch TV; I know hired thugs when I see them. One of the men threw a sack over the woman’s head and shoved her in the back of a white van while the other man jumped in the driver’s seat.”

  “Did you get a plate number?”

  She appeared affronted that I even had the gall to ask her that. “Of course I got it.”

  I memorized the license number she gave me, thanked her, and ran back to the house. Fuck the department. I needed Blacklight Securities and Josie Bishop’s hacking skills. Going through the proper channels would take far too long. I needed to find Katie now.

  Dialing Black’s number, I grabbed my car keys off the counter. Just as I dove into the driver’s seat, I heard the click of someone picking up.

  I didn’t even give him time to speak. “They took Katie.”

  I threw the car in reverse, and tires squealed as I backed out of the garage and peeled away from the house to head downtown.

  “How long ago?” Black’s tone was all business.

  “Within the last twenty minutes. We had a fight, and while I was in the shower, she must have decided to go for a walk to cool off. Goddamn it. I didn’t think O’Reilly would find her this soon. One of the neighbors saw it happen. I need you to run this plate number on a white van, and have Josie check the traffic cams for anything.”

  I rattled off the license number as I headed toward town. I knew a few of O’Reilly’s hangouts, and I didn’t have time to waste. My gut told me if I found O’Reilly, I’d find Katie.

  “I’ll call you when I have something.” With that pronouncement, he hung up. Black never wasted words.

  What would normally take me close to forty minutes, only took me twenty as I pulled in front of a pawnshop on Mercy Street. One of O’Reilly’s lackey fences worked there, and it was the best place I could think of to start. I reached under the car seat and pulled out my Ruger SR22. I stuck it inside the waistband of my pants at the small of my back.

  The bell jingled as I opened the door. I didn’t wait for anyone to come greet me, making my way around the counter and pushing aside the cheap ass curtain that separated the back room from the front.

  I pulled out my gun as I stepped down the short hallway that opened up into the small storage room. I took quick stock of the place, noting the door against the opposite wall. I noticed a second door, but based on the lay out of the building, I knew that one was an exit to the outside. I had just reached for the handle when the door opened from the inside. Not giving Jonesy a chance to react, I slammed the door all the way open and barged in, gun lowered to my side, my eyes scanning the room for any immediate threats.

  “What the hell, man? You can’t be in here.” Jonesy was a squirrely little bastard. He was short, thin, and wiry. His dirty blond hair was shoulder length and stringy, and his gold tooth gleamed when he spoke.

  Not caring how many laws I was breaking, I grabbed him by the shirt and shoved my gun in his face.

  “Where’s O’Reilly?”

  His eyes widened, and he threw up his arms in surrender.

  “Yo, man, you don’t need the gun.”

  When I saw Jonesy was the only occupant of the room, I pushed him around and slammed him face-first into the large wooden table, covered in pawned items and several piles of money, behind him. My gun went to the back of his head. I had no intention of shooting him, but he didn’t know that. Jonesy was all about self-preservation, and I knew it wouldn’t take much for him to start talking.

  “Whoa, hey, now, you don’t need to be so rough. I’ll tell you whatever it is you need to know. C’mon, man, put the gun away.” His arms were splayed out above his head, and his hands shook in a placating motion.

  Needing to show him how serious I was, I shoved the muzzle a little deeper into his neck.
“Don’t make me ask you again. Where. Is. O’Reilly?”

  “Okay, okay, the last I heard he was down in the warehouse district. That’s all I know, I swear.”

  The ringing of my phone sounded overly loud in my ears. Keeping my gun trained on Jonesy, I reached for the device and swiped the screen.

  “Tell me what you got.”

  “She’s on Division Street. About three blocks down from Eden. I’ll meet you there in ten.”

  He hung up, and I pocketed my phone and moved away from the cowering man sprawled out in front of me.

  “If you warn him I’m coming, I’ll be back for you. Don’t fuck with me, Jonesy.”

  Without another word, I ran out to the car and raced toward Eden, a BDSM club I knew Black frequented with his wife. I’d been there a time or two when I was investigating abuse allegations Black had brought to me.

  I’d just pulled into the parking lot across from Eden when Black arrived. He raised the back door of the SUV and, after pulling up the floorboard, grabbed several firearms and a wicked looking knife he stuffed down into his boot.

  “Lead the way.”

  We jogged down the street until we reached the warehouse Black indicated. There were windows along each wall of the building, but none of them at eye level.

  “Josie, I need you to see if you can get a look inside the warehouse. Hack into any security system O’Reilly has. I need eyes in there.”

  When I turned to Black, I finally noticed the Bluetooth receiver in his ear. Until we could see what was happening inside, we couldn’t risk storming in there and endangering Katie. It was killing me not knowing if she was hurt, or even still alive. One thing I did know: O’Reilly was dead if he’d harmed her in any way.

  Chapter 14

  “Me?” I asked, slack-jawed. “But I don’t have any money.”

  Shit. I was definitely a dead woman if this guy, O’Reilly, thought he was going to get money out of me. Especially if it was the kind of money you killed someone over. Which was something I needed confirmed.

  “Were you the one who killed Emmett? I mean, if he owed you the kind of money you’re saying he owed you, then why kill him? You’d never collect it with him dead.”

  He smiled in a way that made the hairs stand on the back of my neck. I shivered despite the heat in the building.

  “I’d wondered if you saw me. I caught a glimpse of you when you dove behind the dumpster, but I wasn’t sure how much you’d seen. Here’s the thing about your friend Emmett.” He sneered the name. “He refused to pay me what he owed me. He was also going to rat me out to the Feds about some things he had no business discussing. Things that could have cost me a lot more money.”

  “That still has nothing to do with me. I told you; I don’t have any money.”

  O’Reilly laughed, a sinister sound that curdled the contents of my stomach. It was a menacing and terrifying noise, because he clearly knew something I didn’t.

  “Jackson didn’t tell you, did he?” His words confirmed my thoughts. “Sweetheart, you have a lot of money. In fact, you’re an extremely rich woman. You see, Emmett had a life insurance policy worth over a million dollars. And you are his sole beneficiary. So, Jackson’s debt now becomes yours. With interest.”

  “How do you know how much his life insurance policy was for? Or that he left it to me? I’m sure that’s not something he would just tell you.”

  “It pays to know people, Ms. Marsh. It also pays to discover everything I can about my investments. I invested in La Scala when it first opened. It was going to be the next Rao’s of New York. Each year, Jackson began to slowly lose money. He borrowed money from me to put back in the restaurant, but soon, he wasn’t able to pay me back. The losses have grown, and within the next two months, the restaurant was about to go belly up. Oh, dear,” O’Reilly mocked, “you didn’t know that either? What a shame.”

  I sat in mystified horror at what O’Reilly was telling me. I thought back to the ledgers and everything made sense. The unexplained withdrawals with no known destination. The books showing a profit when, in fact, the restaurant was about to be shut down. But, why hadn’t Emmett told me? How could he have done this to me? No, I shook off that thought. Emmett loved me and would never intentionally do anything to hurt me. He must not have known that O’Reilly would seek me out. If he was trying to put O’Reilly away, then he was trying to protect me. Something he’d been doing since I was six years old.

  I continued in stunned silence as I processed everything. I was furious with Emmett even though it didn’t do me any good. He was dead. All because of this greedy bastard in front of me. I knew Emmett had done what he thought best, and there was no way that he’d had any idea that O’Reilly would come after me. If there was one thing I had to believe, it was that. Emmett loved me too much to put a target on my back.

  “Fine. The money is yours; I don’t need it. Take it all.”

  O’Reilly seemed surprised by this. He must have expected more of a fight. And maybe I should fight harder, but now that I’d found Daniel, I had something to live for. Giving up the money was nothing if it would get this guy to leave me alone. I still wanted him to pay for Emmett’s death, but I had to survive to do that. If that meant handing over whatever money I needed to, I’d do it. I’d find some other way to get justice served.

  “Sadly, that’s not going to cut it, Ms. Marsh.”

  My spine stiffened. I hated the way he said my name. It was condescending and patronizing.

  “What do you mean? You just said Emmett left me over a million dollars. I’m handing it to you on a silver platter. You’re getting your money. What else could you possibly want from me?”

  O’Reilly rose from behind the desk and, like a snake, slithered his way over to my side. He propped one butt cheek on the corner of the desk and rested one forearm across his knee as he stared at me. I knew I wasn’t going to like what he had to say next.

  “Here’s the thing, Ms. Marsh. I can’t leave any loose strings untied. And you, my dear, are a loose string. As is your Detective Webber. You now know things that could cause me some serious problems. I don’t deal well with problems. You see, I’m a fixer. If I see something I don’t like, I fix it. Or rather, I have some of my associates fix it. You met them earlier today. Tony and Ricco. The first problem I plan on getting fixed is that boyfriend of yours. Do you know that I dislike cops immensely?”

  He didn’t wait for a response to the clearly rhetorical question. “Once I get my money, I’ll be taking care of both you and your detective. Tidying things up and all. No hard feelings, you know.”

  Terror had taken residence inside me during his speech. The money didn’t matter. Not in the end anyway. I could give him twice as much money and he was still going to kill me. And Daniel. This was all my fault. If I hadn’t been so selfish as to want more than he could give me, we wouldn’t be in this mess. No, I couldn’t be satisfied with what he’d offered. I always had to have more. Now we were both going to pay. Oh, Daniel. I’m so sorry I never got to tell you I love you.

  Chapter 15

  My anxiety was through the roof while I waited for Josie to contact Connor. I needed to be in there. Even though we couldn’t have been sitting here longer than ten minutes, time had slowed to a crawl, and it felt like hours. Sweat trickled down my back, and my trigger finger itched. I had no desire to kill anyone, but I would do what needed to be done to protect Katie. When I didn’t think I could take it any longer, Connor spoke again.

  “Talk to me, Josie.”

  I couldn’t hear what was being said on her end, but Connor’s replies were “yes” and “got it”.

  He looked at me and gestured toward the building. “There are three men, O’Reilly and two of his henchmen, and your woman inside. The men are hanging out in the main warehouse, and Katie and O’Reilly are in an interior office. There isn’t any sound inside, so Josie can’t hear what’s being said, but based on the expression on your girlfriend’s face, things aren’t looking good.
O’Reilly doesn’t have a visible weapon, but the other two are packing. We’re going to have to wait for them to leave.”

  “Goddamn it, Black, I can’t just sit here and do nothing. What if it was Bridget in there?”

  “Do you want to get her killed? Because that’s what’s going to happen if you go busting in there without a plan. I get it, Webber. I do. But you’re too close to this. You’re thinking with your emotions and not your brain right now. You know I’m right. We have to sit tight.”

  “Fuck.” I knew he was right, but it didn’t make me happy. At least we had eyes inside, and if it looked like things were going south, I was going in no matter what. Someone must have been looking out for me, because suddenly Connor straightened to attention.

  “There’s movement inside. Josie says it looks like they’re leaving. O’Reilly just put Katie in the backseat of a Caddy, and got in next to her.”

  A metallic screech reverberated in my ear, and I jumped back as the large garage door to our right started opening. We quickly moved out of sight as the black car began pulling out. We watched as Tweedle Dee moved the car forward far enough for Tweedle Dum to close and lock the warehouse door behind him. Then, he hopped into the passenger seat and the car took off down the road.

  “Josie, don’t lose that car.” Black’s command was stern. I knew that she’d hacked into the traffic cams and would track the car from Blacklight Securities. Once the car was out of sight, Black and I took off at a run back to our cars.