by Anne Calhoun
The gang unit worked out of here because the highest volume of gang violence flowed through this precinct. They had a small conference room to use as a war room, laptops crowded on the oval table, whiteboards covered with assignments, filing cabinets containing older records. Conn walked up to the war room, opened the door, and took half a step inside.
Everyone looked up. He caught Kenny’s eye. “Got a minute?”
Kenny’s face betrayed no hint of knowledge at why Conn would be coming to visit him, other than the standard visit from a cop in trouble to his mentor. Kenny finished issuing orders to two undercover officers about the day’s buy-and-busts, then met Conn at the door. They ended up in the same vacant, slightly more upscale conference room where he’d met with Hawthorn, then Cady and Chris, a couple of weeks earlier.
Was it really only such a short time ago? He was so different. Everything in his world had changed.
“What’s up?” Kenny asked.
Conn tossed the file on the table. The picture of Jordy’s most gruesome bruises and swollen eye slid halfway out of the manila folder. “How did I do?”
“With what?”
“Fastest time? Slowest time? Somewhere in the middle?”
Kenny cracked a grin. “You always did have to know where you stood.”
“I’m fucking serious, Kenny.” Conn thumped his finger on the folder. “You set me up to take the fall for this.”
Conn shook his head. Kenny picked up the folder, shuffled the picture back inside. “It was a little test. Just to see whose bed you got into.”
Beating another human being wasn’t a “little test.” “What, like being jumped into a gang? Except you beat the shit out of someone else, blame me, and then leave me twisting in wind? What the fuck, Kenny?”
“You weren’t supposed to be shuffled off on some private security detail,” Kenny said, waving his hand. “I was going to get in touch with you on shift one night. Explain everything. Then you disappeared.”
Lightning fast, Conn said, “Why didn’t you come out to Maud’s?”
“Who the fuck knows where she lives?” Kenny said indignantly, like Conn purposefully kept Cady’s address a secret from him. “I drove past her mother’s place a couple of times but your car was never there. Tried to burrow into the paperwork trail on her house, and got nowhere, thanks to Caleb fucking Webber. Every year he wins the pool for Most Hated Lawyer. I couldn’t get it out of Eve, because she’d tell Dorchester and then he’d tell Hawthorn. I gave up. I figured you’d either figure it out and come to me, or you’d get desperate and come to me to solve your problem. Which I would have done.”
Conn’s brain, already whirring away at a high gear, shifted into overdrive. It wasn’t Kenny. But if it wasn’t Kenny threatening Cady, that meant he had to watch the recordings from the cameras. The ones he’d installed behind Cady’s back.
“It’s a big risk,” Conn said. “What if the media got hold of that?”
Kenny just arched an eyebrow at Conn. It took him a minute. He was getting better at this thinking-rather-than-reacting thing. “Jordy was in on it. That’s why this is still on the down-low. You paid him to take the beating.”
“Promoted him,” Kenny corrected, smiling. He was watching Conn closely, studying his reactions.
Conn’s stomach heaved, but he maintained his impassive face, folded his arms across his chest. The move made him look bigger than he was, and more belligerent. “I’m listening.”
“A group of us who feel we’ve been comprehensively screwed by the latest bargaining agreements with the city started a side business of our own. Consider us a little family within a family. We’re still doing good work for the city and her fine citizens, but we’re also looking after our own brothers. And sisters,” he added conscientiously. “Gotta be politically correct.”
Something dinged at the back of Conn’s mind, but he let it go. “With Lyle Jenkins gone, you’re taking over the Strykers territory.”
“This started long before Jenkins showed up.” Kenny’s voice was low, even, and made all the hairs stand up on the back of Conn’s neck. “Originally it was just protection money. They got tipped off when raids were happening, where the heat was coming, who needed to get out of town for a while. Enough to keep them one step ahead of us.”
Who was “us” and who was “them”? In Conn’s mind, Kenny stepped over the line the day he took a penny from a drug dealer. “Why me? Why now?”
“I need someone out on the streets.”
Conn thought fast. Needing someone on the streets meant one of the recently promoted sergeants was working for Kenny, too. “Doing what, exactly?”
“Lift up your shirt.” Kenny’s face didn’t change.
“You think I’m wearing a wire?”
“I didn’t last this long without taking some precautions.”
He already knew what Kenny would want. The average raid crime scene contained three things: money, drugs, and illegal weapons. With the exception of the guns, it was easy enough to skim a little off the top before anyone else showed up, and even those could be managed if you got creative. It was the oldest story in the dirty cop’s book. Without changing expressions, Conn lifted his shirt and turned in a circle. Kenny was too old school. Conn could just as easily be recording the conversation on his cell phone. But he hadn’t thought that fast. Getting out his phone now would only tip Kenny off.
“It’s going to vary. Keep an ear on dispatch. You’re already usually first on a scene. You’ll get some warning. Try not to be in the middle of a call when something’s supposed to go down.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“A share. A bigger share as the business grows. We’ve attracted some outside interest from Chicago.”
“Chicago.” That meant the mob or a bigger gang.
Kenny shrugged. Just an average day for the average criminal hiding in plain sight. “Everyone needs a mentor. Or a training officer. You in or out?”
Saying yes would cost him the only job he ever wanted, with the only family he truly believed would last forever. Saying no would put Cady in more danger than she was. “Hell yes, I’m in.”
* * *
He walked into the precinct a cop suspected of an assault and walked out knowing his days as a cop were numbered. If he went to Hawthorn, he’d be fucked. Kenny would make sure every cop knew he was a snitch, which shortened his life expectancy considerably. How long until he stopped getting backup, or until some other East Side banger was framed for his murder?
Cady was white-knuckling the wheel, peering through the windshield at him as he walked across the impound lot, scaled the chain-link fence, and dropped to the ground a few cars down from her position. He opened the driver’s door, barely waiting as she clambered across the console and into the passenger seat. He had the car in first and moving before he shut the door.
“What happened?”
He didn’t know how to respond. His guts were in knots. “Nothing.”
Cady put her hand on his arm. “Conn,” she said quietly. “Tell me.”
They drove back to her house through SoMa, Christmas lights twinkling, bell ringers on the corners, a quartet in Victorian costume singing carols while development volunteers passed out cider and gingerbread. When they were back on the highway, he spoke.
“It wasn’t him messing with you. I thought it might be.”
“You thought a cop was targeting me to put pressure on you?” She spoke carefully, as if trying to make sense of the tangled web of paranoia her life had become.
“It was possible. But it’s not him.”
Which left him only one option: watch the videos.
They pulled into her garage. “Keep the car running and the garage door open until I tell you it’s clear.”
She waited in the car while he checked the house. It was empty, the scent of the Christmas tree lingering in the air. He’d powered up his laptop while he cleared the house. A file was waiting in the cloud storage folder. He ble
w out a hard breath. What a mess. If he’d looked at this first, he would have known who was threatening Cady. But he’d tried to save his relationship with her, and in the end, cost himself his career with the LPD.
Now he would lose both Cady and the department.
He walked back into the dark garage and opened the passenger door. “I need to show you something.”
She followed him into the living room, shedding her coat, scarf, and his hat, stuffing it in her coat pocket as she walked. “You’re scaring me.”
Conn got out his laptop and opened the lid. The screen flickered to life. He called up the video streaming from the cameras. Cady watched over his shoulder. “That’s my front door.” She pointed at the second view. “That’s my deck. You put cameras on my house.”
“I did.” He’d always owned up to what he’d done, even when it cost him.
“I asked you not to do that.”
“I did it anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because it was the surest way to keep you safe.” He found the date in question when her notebook disappeared, scrolled back through the video on the front door, saw light sweep the garage doors in the lower corner of the screen, heard a car door slam. After that, nothing. He switched to the rear angle.
A shape moved out of the shadows on the house’s north side, wearing a dark coat, a cap, dark clothes. Conn registered jeans, boots, and gloves. The light was too dim to make out much more than a pale face, heading purposefully under the deck until reaching the doors into the walkout basement, where Cady’s studio was. A quick glance back toward the woods, then another to the south side, which framed the face perfectly in the moonlight falling on the yard.
Emily.
Cady’s breathing went shallow. Her hand covered her mouth as she watched Emily slide a key into the lock and open the door. Conn sped up the playback, compressing several minutes to just a few seconds, slowing back to real time when Emily appeared again. Cady’s notebook was in her hand.
Of all the people he suspected, Emily’s name wasn’t even on the list, but in hindsight, he saw everything he’d missed. None of the attacks were personal, not because the attacker was a diabolical evil genius intent on destroying Cady’s peace of mind, but because Emily didn’t really want to hurt her. The signs of a stealth attacker weren’t anything more than ease of access, using the key Cady kept in Patty’s house.
Cady’s face looked like every abandoned house he’d ever seen—empty, forlorn, like it was about to collapse from the inside. She stared at the frozen frame of her sister, the person she loved more than anyone else in the world, leaving with her notebook. Emily had reached in to dig a knife into Cady when she was at her most fragile.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She looked at him, her shoulders tense, her jaw set, fury seething in her eyes. “Sorry?” she repeated. “You’re sorry?”
She snatched up the car keys from the coffee table. “Where are you going?”
“Home.” She stopped. Rubbed her forehead with her thumb. The single word was so drenched in meaning and confusion, making him ache inside. She couldn’t, or wouldn’t, look at him, just stood in the doorway. He could see her entire body trembling with rage. All she’d wanted was to come home, relax, rejuvenate, find her footing in the world again. Instead, in the space of one afternoon, he’d cost her what she valued most: relationships.
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
“No. Just … no.” She gripped her keys, her knuckles turning white from the strain. “We were wrong. There’s no real threat. Just my sister. It’s not a police thing. It’s a family thing.”
He’d known the hit was coming. The hit always came, but it hurt this time, more than it had ever hurt in his life. He nodded, closed the laptop, and watched her walk out of his life.
Conn stood inside by the big tree he’d cut down, the scent of pine and sap strong in his nostrils, and listened to the silence left in Cady’s absence. He tried to tell himself it didn’t matter. He’d done his job. But it had cost him everything. His career.
His chance with Cady.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The gates to Whispering Pines were barely open when Cady jammed the shifter into first and floored it. The tachometer leapt around the dial, the engine revving before she downshifted and pulled out onto the highway.
Twin streams of fury seared down her throat, into her stomach. Conn, who should have known better, installed security cameras on her property without her knowledge or permission. His high-handedness enraged her, but it was nothing compared to the hell she was about to rain on Emily’s head.
Her sister was home, using the two days the school provided seniors to study for finals. Cady braked to a halt outside her mother’s house, slammed the car door hard enough to rock the frame on the axles, and stormed up the walk. Her hands were shaking too much to get the key in the lock, so she banged on the door with her fist.
Emily opened the door, a lollipop in one hand. “Cady! What are you doing here?” She peered over Cady’s head. “Where’s your big lug of a shadow?”
She was going to brazen this out? No. Hell, no. “Give me my notebook.”
The words flew out like a slap, freezing Emily’s face midquestion. For a minute she thought about lying; Cady could see the deception cross her face, then crumple under the weight of Cady’s fuming thundercloud of anger.
“I can—”
“Don’t even.” Cady pushed past Emily, into the house. The television was paused in the middle of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer rerun. “Don’t you even start with me. Get me my notebook, and my bracelet. Now.”
Emily whirled and ran for her bedroom. Cady heard her dresser drawer open and close. Then Emily returned, tugging the black, spiral-bound notebook and the bracelet from a tattered tote bag bearing the public library’s logo. She all but shoved them at Cady, like they would burn her hands if she held them too long. Cady snatched them, slid the bracelet onto her wrist, then riffled through the pages, afraid Emily’s insanity had extended to damaging them. But the journal was intact, untouched. Even the waxed paper she’d put over her watercolor pages was in place.
Cady closed the notebook and clutched it to her chest. “What about my website? Did you do that, too?”
Tears trickled down Emily’s cheeks. She nodded.
“How?”
“A couple of guys in my programming class were messing around with DDoS attacks. They helped me set it up.”
“Tell them to call it off. Now. Bryan’s closing in on them, and if he finds them, he’ll show no mercy.”
Emily’s laptop, the top-of-the-line MacBook Cady bought for her birthday because Em needed it for her design work, was open on the coffee table. She sat down, swiping at her cheeks as she opened iMessage and typed out a fast message. “Okay, they’re shutting it down.”
Clutching her notebook and bracelet to her chest, Cady scrolled down to Bryan’s name in her texts. I figured out who’s behind the DDoS attacks. They’ll stop.
Three dots appeared immediately, then WTF? Who?
I’ll explain later.
She powered down her phone, shoved it in her back pocket, and stared at Emily. Was this how Conn felt all the time, this sick, seething betrayal by the people who were supposed to love you the most, protect you, keep you safe, that left him angry, powerless? For a soaring, heady moment she let the tumult roil inside her, the rage, the frustration, the fear that nearly derailed her professional life. It coursed under her skin until every nerve ending was lit up.
Then a detail registered. Emily’s Hello Kitty flannel pajama bottoms, faded and pilled, way too short for her, even before she rolled them at the waist and turned them into capris. She’d bought those pajamas for Emily five years ago, before she made it and Hello Kitty was a treat, not a fashion icon to study, back when Emily was just beginning to transition from tween to teen.
Her sister. No longer a little girl, not yet a woman, but always, always family. Crying like he
r heart was broken.
Cady stalked into the kitchen and snagged the box of tissues from the little desk where her mother paid bills and organized her calendar. Back in the family room, she tossed the box on the sofa. “I’m so mad at you right now.”
Emily plucked tissues from the box, buried her face in them, and sobbed.
“I had something. For a new song. I had something.” Words, as always, failed her when trying to describe the ineffable creative process. “I went into my studio to work, to start playing with it, using a melody I’d written down months ago, and my notebook wasn’t there! What the hell, Emily?”
Emily’s tear-streaked face lifted from the soggy tissues. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be me! I’m just Queen Maud’s little sister, stuck in Lancaster while you go off and tour the world and pose on the red carpet and date famous guys. You don’t know what it’s like to be a nobody!”
“Emily, what the hell are you talking about? I do know what that’s like,” Cady said, bewildered. “You know I do. You were there when I was a nobody!”
“But we were nobodies together!” Emily wailed. “Now you’re famous and I’m just a stupid high school kid who can’t even get followers on Instagram. Every time Ella Bergstrom gets chosen for another fashion show or gets another profile, she tells me how great she’s doing all on her own, without her famous big sister’s help. Why don’t you go to premieres with Maud? Why isn’t Maud wearing your designs? I’m a failure. I’m not going to get into Parsons.”
Forget about maintaining equanimity in the face of a rival’s greater success; Cady would have cheerfully splashed bleach all over Ella Bergstrom’s workshop. “But why did you steal Nana’s bracelet, and my notebook?”
Emily blew her nose. “Because I thought if you got frightened, you’d move home again.”
“Oh, Em,” Cady said.
More sobs. “You’re leaving again, so soon!”
Notebook still clutched protectively to her chest, Cady sat down on the wingback recliner and watched Emily’s shoulders shudder like her heart was breaking. Cady raised her voice a little. “Emily, that’s crazy. There’s no room for me here. You need that space in my old room to work on your portfolio. You had to know that. You’ve been acting weird ever since the concert. What’s really going on?”