Greg was an exceptional officer, an exceptional son and brother and the best friend that I ever had. I think it’s important to ask ourselves where cops like him come from. I have to say that although he is certainly testing our faith on a day like today...the same God that brought us here, brought him to us. We can’t change the plans that God had for this incredible man, but we can thank him for sharing him with us, if only for a short time. I thank you all for listening, for being here today...and I thank God for the two years I had with my best friend.”
Paige wiped the tears once again from her face. She knew her brother was tough. She knew he was brave, and she knew he was an incredible human being. But, it was good to hear that other people knew it as well. The pain of losing him was still the most intense pain she’d ever felt, but somehow it felt better to know that she and her mother wouldn’t be the only ones mourning him.
As she had that thought and they were setting up for the 21 bells, she saw a familiar face standing back under a tree. It was her former step-father, Jackson Paine. He was standing with two young men. The two men looked very much alike. They both had dark hair and light colored eyes. She couldn’t see the color of them from where she sat, but they were quite a contrast to the dark wavy hair on their heads and the facial hair that one of them sported. They were both big guys, dressed in expensive suits but looking like linebackers. The ripple of their jackets hinted at a rock hard body underneath. Their features were different enough that it was obvious they weren’t twins, but alike enough that they had to be brothers. She wandered for a second who they were, but decided that they were probably Jackson’s bodyguards. Jackson Paine never went anywhere unaccompanied. When she was a girl, she used to think it was just because he was such an important businessman. Greg was the one that had at fourteen, discovered the truth: Jackson Paine was one of the most powerful drug lords that New York had ever known. That discovery caused a rift in Greg and their mother’s relationship. Crystal didn’t believe him and Greg suspected that it was because she just didn’t want to.
Paige’s attention was drawn back to the funeral by the sound of the bag pipes. After that was the final radio call...it was a hero’s funeral, and in spite of the way her brother had died, Paige firmly believed that he deserved it. Her mother clutched the American flag she was given tightly to her chest as if it were a life raft and Paige found herself slightly envious because she could feel herself being dragged under. As the service dragged on, it became harder and harder to breathe. When Taps were finally played, her mind once again drifted back.
Chapter 3
Paige was three days from finishing the school year. She couldn’t wait for the small reprieve that summer vacation would offer her before starting her internship in August. It was May and the sounds and colors of spring were everywhere. Normally that would have made her happy, but there was one thing holding her back...Greg. His texts over the past few months had been sketchy at best and each time she tried to go see him, he would tell her that he was working overtime and that although he missed her, they’d have to postpone it. That day as she left school, thinking about what she needed to take care of before it closed for the summer, she got a text.
She pulled out her phone and looked at it. It was from Greg and it said, “Paige, I need your help. Call me. I need to talk.”
She stopped where she was and called him right away. The phone rang a few times and went to voicemail. After the tone she said, “Greg it’s me. Call me back. I’m worried.”
She kept the phone in her hand as she got on the bus and all the way home. Her brother didn’t call or text her back. When she stepped off the bus a few blocks from home she texted him again. “Greg, you’re really worrying me. Please call...or at least text to let me know you’re okay.”
He didn’t call or text. The next two days Paige called and text him at least twenty times. He never responded. She was crawling out of her skin and on the verge of skipping her last final and driving to New York when she finally received a text. It was a cryptic one and it didn’t make any sense to her. It said, “Make sure you check my apartment. I have something hidden there that is very important.”
She text back right away, “What does that mean? When am I going to check your apartment?” He didn’t answer her and she didn’t hear back from him at all that night. She went to bed that night resolved to drive to New York in the morning and find out what the hell was going on.
The next morning she got up at six a.m., showered, dressed and she was headed down the hall towards the kitchen to get some coffee. She heard her mother up already. Before she made it to the kitchen, the doorbell rang. Her mother came out of the kitchen and they nearly ran into each other.
“Who in the world is here so early?” her mother asked as she headed for the front door. Paige saw her stand on her toes and look out the peep hole and when she came back down to her feet, her face was as white as a sheet.
“Mom? What is it?”
Her mother looked frozen, like she couldn’t speak and she was visibly trembling. Paige walked over and tried to look out. Her mother nudged her back. “Mom! What is wrong with you?”
Paige gently moved her out of the way and pulled open the door. Standing on their front steps were the two men you least want to see when your brother is a cop. One was an N.Y.P.D. officer in a uniform with a lot of brass and the other was her father’s partner Joe.
“No!” Paige backed away from the door.
“Paige.”
“No! Go away!” Paige was screaming at them. She ran to her room and grabbed her phone. She called her brother. It went straight to voicemail. She could hear the men talking in the living room and then she could hear her mother’s sobs. She called him again and again and again. Several minutes later, Joe was in her doorway.
“Paige, I’m so sorry honey. Is there anything I can do?”
“Where’s my brother? Do not tell me that he’s dead! Where is he? Is he sick? In the hospital? Do not tell me that he’s dead!”
“I’m so sorry...”
“No! Don’t be sorry! Tell me he’s been shot or stabbed or even ran over...but he’s still breathing!”
“Paige, maybe you should sit down...”
“No! I don’t want to sit down. I want my brother! I want Greg!” She tried to push past him but Joe was a big man. He grabbed her and wrapped her up in his arms. She pushed and fought against him until she finally collapsed into his massive chest in a torrent of tears. Paige had no recollection of time passing during all of that. At some point he let her go and helped her sit down on her bed. He told her that Greg was found dead on the floor in the living room of his apartment by his partner. “He was murdered?”
“No...at least that’s not what they’re thinking. He had a needle in his arm...heroin...”
“No! My brother was not a junkie!”
“Paige, no one is saying that he was. He lived a very dangerous and stressful life...”
“No. I won’t believe it. They need to test that syringe for fingerprints...”
“They will, but they did find other track marks...this wasn’t the first time your brother used.”
Paige wanted to continue to deny it...but Greg’s behavior had been strange since that last time she saw him...the time she asked him herself if he was using something.
The rest of that morning was a blur in her memory. She vaguely remembered throwing Joe and the police captain out of the house. Then she and her mother held each other and cried for hours. When her mother finally passed out, Paige wandered the house like a ghost, every so often collapsing back into big heaving sobs. She had no idea how to accept this. It all felt like a really bad dream. That was almost a week ago...and the night mares only got worse.
Chapter 4
She watched now as they lowered her brother’s casket into the ground. There were no words for what she was feeling.
She glanced back over where her step-father stood in the distance. He was the biggest reason Greg decided to d
o what he did and fight to get the drugs off the streets of New York. She knew that it wasn’t his fault Greg was dead, but the hate she felt for him seethed nonetheless. She asked one of the honor guards to take her mother to the car that was waiting for them and headed towards Jackson and his men. She was about halfway there when Tommy stopped her.
“Paige, we need to talk.”
“Okay...”
Tommy grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away from the crowd. Then he looked over his shoulder and on either side of both of them before he finally said, “Greg didn’t overdose.”
Paige was still stunned from being dragged around. She thought maybe she misunderstood him. “What?”
“He didn’t overdose. Greg wasn’t a drug addict.”
“They found him with a syringe in his arm...heroin in his system...”
“He was murdered, Paige. It was made to look like an O.D. I know Greg and he wouldn’t have ever put that shit in his body.”
“I’d like to believe that Tommy, but the last time I saw him, he seemed really strung out.”
“He was a mess there at the end. We both were...but not on drugs. We thought they had made him as a cop....what you thought was strung out was anxiety. He wasn’t sleeping...that alone can make you psychotic. He barely ate...he couldn’t concentrate on much of anything other than looking over his shoulder twice as much as before. Every day he knew he was one day closer to his last.”
“Shit! What was he into Tommy?”
“We were both undercover. I was working in a shop where the drugs were trafficked through. Greg was way on the inside of Kramer’s organization...”
“Who is Kramer?”
“He’s your old step-father’s side kick, second largest in the city. They’ve worked out an arrangement....Kramer didn’t have a choice. Paine is twice as powerful as Kramer ever thought about being. Kramer was the smaller fish, but still a big one if you know what I mean. That was where Greg and I were going to begin before working our way up to Paine.”
“So this Kramer killed him?”
“Not himself. Kramer doesn’t do his own dirty work. He has a son named Caine. The last time I talked to Greg, he had a meeting with him. I told him to call me before he went...he didn’t. I think he knew it was a set-up and he didn’t want to risk my life. I’ll ask myself the rest of my days what might have happened if I’d gone with him. I may have been able to save him...”
“So this Caine killed him?”
Tommy looked around again like a paranoid schizophrenic. He looked like he was on drugs himself, he was so jumpy. “All I know for sure is that Greg never came out of that meeting alive. I firmly believe that he was murdered...by Caine Kramer or one of them in the family.”
“Shit! I got a text from him a couple of days before I found out he died. It said he had something hidden in his apartment. You’re right. He knew...Damn him for going in there knowing that!”
Paige felt the tears sting her eyes again. Greg was too brave and noble for his own good. She knew he didn’t overdose but the word ‘murdered’ cut her like a knife. The anger suddenly turned from a slow burn into a raging inferno in her chest. “Thank you, Tommy...for everything,” she said.
“I wish I could have saved him.”
Paige hugged him and said, “Me too, but you know my brother, if he’d made up his mind to do something, no one could have changed it.” Tommy nodded.
Paige squeezed his hand and started to head back over to where Jackson was. But he was gone. She looked around but didn’t see them anywhere, so she went back over to where Tommy stood. He was talking to another officer so she waited until they were done. Tommy’s paranoia had rubbed off on her a bit. She took his arm and led him away from everyone else, to a little path that ran through the cemetery. As they walked she asked him, “Tommy, did you tell the chief yet what you just told me about Greg being murdered?”
“No.”
“Why not? They’re thinking my brother was a junkie. Even though they gave him a hero’s funeral, I’d rather they knew the truth. Besides, I want the people who did this to pay for it.”
“You don’t understand, Paige. These guys are responsible for countless murders in the city every year...sometimes on a weekly basis. They don’t leave evidence, they don’t leave trails. These guys are not thugs...they’re not gang-bangers...they have more money than God and that money can buy anything.”
“So you’re telling me they’ll never be charged with my brother’s murder? They just get away with it?”
“That and a lot more; Paige, the Kramer’s and the Paine’s use their money as well as intimidation to control everything in the city. There are more cops on their payroll than there are criminals. I have a pretty good suspicion that the chief is one of them. Every time a cop gets close to having enough to put one of these guys away...they end up like Greg.”
“What about you then, you were his partner.”
“I’ve already put in for a leave of absence. I told them I needed it because of the trauma of losing my partner and best friend. That’s part of it of course...but the main reason is that I need to get out of here before I’m next. Greg and I uncovered a lot of evidence that could go a long way towards bringing down both of these empires. But I don’t know who to take it to and if I take it to the wrong guy...someone on the payroll, I end up dead.”
Paige was in shock. She couldn’t believe what Tommy was telling her. The NYPD was on her stepfather’s payroll? She wasn’t surprised about anything she heard about her stepfather, but the fucking NYPD? She knew Jackson was a drug lord, ever since she was a teenager and Greg found out what he really did for a living. At first, because he was so good to her and Paige really liked him, she’d tried to romanticize the whole thing in her head. He was bringing the drugs in, but he didn’t make people buy them and use them. Greg filled her in then on other things he’d found out. At fourteen years old, he’d already had detective skills that he must have been born with. He told her that Jackson Paine might not make people buy and use the drugs, but he encouraged it, strongly. He had his large distribution groups at the top that worked all the way down to putting people on the streets near schools and parks and had them give the stuff away to kids...the younger the better. Once the kid was hooked, they would sell their grandmother to get a taste. He also told her that their stepfather had no qualms about killing anyone who got in his way and that included their families. Over time, with each new thing Greg told her about Jackson, she grew to hate him as much as Greg did. They both grew to resent their mother who for whatever reason refused to believe Jackson was the bad guy.
“Tommy, before you take off, I need you to do me a favor.”
“Sure, if I can.”
“I need you to get me a new I.D.”
Tommy looked suspicious and said, “Why would you need new I.D Paige?”
“I’m going to New York. I’m going to find out who killed my brother and make sure the son of a bitch pays for what he has done.”
“No Paige. No fucking way.”
“I’m going to do it with or without your help.”
“I don’t think you have any idea what you’re getting into here.”
“Look at where we are, Tommy! I’m at my brother’s fucking funeral! These people killed my brother and they are not going to get away with it.” Her voice was pressured and she felt on the verge of tears again...this time from frustration. She took a deep breath and said, “Now, you can help me or not, it’s up to you. If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow, I’ll start figuring out how to do this myself. I think you know I’m capable of that.” Paige took another shaky breath and turned to head towards the car her mother was waiting in.
“Paige.”
She turned back towards Tommy and he said, “Don’t do anything stupid. I’m in town for a couple more days. I’ll come by tomorrow around noon.”
“Thank you, Tommy.”
“Yeah...sure, if you turn up dead we’ll see if you’re still thanking me.
Chapter 5
Damien Paine stood towards the back of the crowd of mourners with his father and his brother and let his mind wonder about things as the service progressed. He hadn’t seen Crystal yet. He often looked at the one photo his father still had of her in his office and tried to see similarities between her and his mother. They were polar opposites in the looks department. Where Crystal was petite with dark hair, Damien’s mother had been tall with light brown hair. Her eyes were blue where Crystals were hazel...but Damien knew his father well enough by now to know that as attractive as both women were, his father hadn’t picked either of them for their looks. He had been looking for a wife, not a lover. Jackson Paine had different standards for the women in his life. Damien had come to figure out that his father was of the mind that there were two types of women...those you marry and those you pay for sex. He so firmly believed that he was unable to understand why Crystal objected to him satisfying his needs with another woman. He definitely wasn’t going to apologize for it. Damien got the impression that his father actually thought that someday Crystal would realize her mistake and come crawling back. She never did.
Damien and Alex’s mother hadn’t left him because of infidelity, or at least she never mentioned it. She’d left him because at the age of twenty-nine when his father died, Jackson took the helm of the family business. Damien’s mother told him she refused to live that life and raise her son’s that way. The boys were both toddlers at the time. She told her sons when they were much older that Jackson told her she could leave and leave his sons with him. Instead, she pretended that she would stay in New York...setting herself and the boys up in an apartment near Jackson’s home. She waited patiently for the divorce to become final and then she withdrew the money she’d saved since the first day she realized what her husband’s family business really was, she took the boys to California and never looked back. Jackson told Damien he looked for them but never found them.
House of Paine - (A Romantic Suspense - Book 1) Page 2
