Benediction: Diversion Book 9

by Eden Winters

  Bo dialed, hitting the speaker button on his phone. Straight to voicemail. Again. “This isn’t like her,” he grumbled. “Especially not with knowing how worried you are.”

  Looking over wouldn’t accomplish anything but ramp up more worry, the anguish on Bo’s face feeding Lucky’s own fears. White-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, he teased a few more RPMs out of his Camaro.

  In a daze he caught bits and pieces of Bo’s conversation on the phone. “Yes. Please pick Ty up from school, okay? Your name’s on the list. No. I can’t talk now. I know you will, but we need someone to get Ty. We’re on our way there now. When was the last time you heard from her?”

  Probably killed Rett to do pickup duty instead of charging to the house. Charlotte was her friend.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” Lucky chanted. If the community gate didn’t open, this time he’d follow through with his threat to plow right through.

  The gate stood open. “Almost there!” he shouted. His tense muscles would likely hurt later from staying so tight. The neighbors might complain about him breaking speed limits, but screw them. He needed to get home.

  A white van sat in the driveway.

  The front door stood open, listing to one side.

  Lucky slammed on brakes, wedging the Camaro against the back of the van. The van wasn’t going anywhere. He threw open the door, and Bo scrambled out behind him.

  A woman’s scream made his blood run cold. But not a scream of anguish, pain, or fear.

  His sister was pissed.

  He ran toward the house, gun in hand, shocking the hell out of the neighbor strolling outside in his bathrobe. The man disappeared back into his house and slammed the door.

  Lucky took one side of the doorway, Bo the other. Armed and ready.

  “Don’t touch me, you motherfucker!”

  The next scream didn’t come from Charlotte. Lucky charged in, Bo on his heels. “Freeze!”

  Charlotte took advantage of the distraction to follow through on a homerun hit with a baseball bat. The guy hemming her into a corner screamed and crumbled.

  Lucky took him the rest of the way to the floor.

  Bo fell to his knees beside a second body lying by the sliding glass doors. Charlotte took out two attackers? With a baseball bat? Daaaaammmmnnnn.

  “Moose!” Charlotte dropped the bat and ran to the hallway. A white lump lay in the floor. “Those assholes cut him.” Moose whined, tried to lift his head, and fell back to the floor.

  Brakes screamed outside. Lucky looked up, expecting uniforms.

  Jimmy Salters ran through the door, heading straight for Charlotte. What the hell?

  Kneeling beside the battered dog, Charlotte reached up. Salters reached down. Then she became a sobbing, blubbering mess in his arms.

  Lucky cuffed the asshole who’d tried to hurt his sister. His instincts screamed at him to push Salters out of the way and keep his sister safe. The guy in his grasp struggling and cussing made anything else less important.

  “The bitch hit me with a bat,” the guy whined.

  “That’s my sister, you douchbag. You came into my house and attacked my sister. Do you have any idea who she is?” Motherfucker came after a woman who lived with two drug agents, for fuck’s sake.

  “No, man, no. This dude just told us to come get her.”

  “I don’t think she wanted to come. We’ll be talking about him later, but you picked the worst house in the world to break into.” Lucky would be happy to show him the depths of his bad life choices. Repeatedly. With his fists.

  Charlotte filled them in between sobs. “I was getting Ty’s laundry. They kicked the door down. My gun’s in my apartment. All I had was the bat. Moose… Moose tried to help. They knifed him.” Charlotte let go of Salters with one hand to pull the dog’s head into her lap. “Oh, poor Moosie.”

  Salters sank down beside her, wrapping a protective arm around her back and probing around the wound with the other. “Shh… it’s gonna be okay. It’s only a flesh wound. Got any gauze? Tape?”

  Lucky’s brain caught up. Salters. Charlotte. Charlotte’s “craft club” events she dressed to the nines for. Salters hadn’t asked about her lately.

  Hadn’t needed to.

  Charlotte pulled away, scrubbing at her face with her hands, and darted down the hall to the bathroom. She returned with an old towel and the supplies Salters requested.

  Oh, right. Nurse. He’d know what to do.

  In the background, Bo called for an ambulance, then pocketed his phone.

  Charlotte ran her hands over the motionless dog while Salters put his nurse’s training to use. “Oh, Moose, baby, I’m so sorry.”

  “He had a knife?” Salters asked. “Where?”

  She pointed. A bloody knife lay on the floor, nearly hidden by the couch.

  “Are you sure you’re not hurt?” Salters set about examining her.

  “No. Just Moose.” She held up blood-stained hands. “This is all Moose’s blood.” She narrowed her eyes at the man Lucky’d cuffed and yanked off the floor. “And the asshole’s.” A whine brought her attention back to the dog. “Poor baby Moose,” she crooned. “Cat Lucky got in a few licks too.”

  Rett Johnson charged through the door, gun first. She focused first on Lucky and the struggling motherfucker who’d soon regret getting up this morning. Then on to Bo and asshole number two. Then to Charlotte. Her eyes widened a bit when her gaze landed on Salters, but she quickly schooled her face into agent-neutral.

  “Where’s Ty?” Bo shouted.

  “I took him to the Smiths. What can I do?” The man without sense enough to leave Charlotte alone paled while taking in Loretta Johnson, in all her six-foot-plus tattooed glory.

  Sirens ripped through the conversation. Two cars pulled up out front. The sirens died. ‘Bout time.

  “Loretta,” Salters barked, “get Charlotte to urgent care. Make sure she and the baby are all right.”

  Charlotte waved him off. “I’m fine—”

  “Please go. I’ll worry more if you don’t.” Salters brushed a strand of her hair from her face and planted a kiss on her forehead.

  “What about Moose?” She stroked Moose’s side.

  “I could stitch him, but I think I need to take him to the vet, just to be on the safe side.”

  More sirens, and paramedics joined the fray, one heading for the unconscious man wearing Bo’s cuffs and the other, at Lucky’s pointing, rushed to Charlotte.

  Atlanta’s finest spilled through the door. Lucky handed the thug over and raced to his sister. “Charlotte, girl, you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She gave a watery laugh. “But you should see the other guy.”

  To Salters, he murmured, “We are so gonna talk later.”

  Pandemonium followed. Questions, statements, Charlotte, leaving with Rett.

  Lucky wrapped towels around the bleeding dog and helped get him into Salters’ car.

  At last, the cops left with one future prison resident, the paramedics with the other, since they couldn’t talk Charlotte into going to the hospital in an ambulance. Two officers checked out the van.

  Bo and Lucky stood in their shambles of a living room. Front door kicked in. Blood on the rugs.

  Andro’s rocking chair lay overturned. Lucky hoped it tripped one of the bastards. The coffee table lay in broken pieces on the floor, as did the small table by the door where everyone in the house put their keys.

  A rip in the back of the couch looked to be made by a knife, which explained Cat Lucky’s involvement. How dare they attack the cat’s favorite perch? The reclining chair lay on its side, springs and wood on display, as well as exposed cat and dog toys, an ink pen, and one of Charlotte’s hair scrunchies.

  As one Bo and Lucky sank onto the couch.

  Forget cleaning up. Lucky’s adrenaline crash left him exhausted and numb.

  Bo grasped Lucky’s hand. It had finally happened, Lucky’s worst nightmare. The shit of his life slopped over onto his family.

&n
bsp; The two men who’d broken in were no more than paid brutes, doing another’s bidding for money. No, they didn’t know what the man paying them looked like. No, they didn’t know how to reach him.

  While cleaning up the mess, Lucky found a cell phone under the couch, with a recent text: “Are you scared yet? You should be.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Another precinct. God, Lucky hated police stations. They all looked the same, sounded the same, and struck fear in his heart that he’d find himself in a cell.

  He sat in an observation room roughly the size of the interrogation area, watching the camera feeds on a TV screen while he waited for the show to start. In the old days he would’ve stood behind a one-way glass. The lowlife getting interrogated might never know how grateful he should be to have a solid wall separating them.

  Lucky might never give up his laptop for a dinky little tablet like Bo carried, but sometimes technology paid off in ways he appreciated. The more distance between him and the shit-for-brains who’d tried to kidnap his sister, the better. Glass might not be enough of a deterrent to him beating his way into the interrogation room and giving the guy incentive to spill his guts.

  Besides, multiple camera feeds gave more of a complete picture of what went on in the room.

  The observation room smelled of dust, stale air, and old French fries. Bits of conversation rose and fell out in the hallway. He should’ve closed the door.

  Bo strode into the room, ever-present tablet computer in hand, sank into the next chair, and nudged Lucky with his elbow. “Are you okay?”

  Not a hug, not a kiss. Close enough. He’d take any contact at this point. “As okay as I’m going to be.” Lucky held up his phone. “The doctor said Charlotte is going to be fine.” No need mentioning that he’d also called Johnson to make sure his sister wasn’t lying to make him feel better. “He did tell her to rest. Johnson took her over to the Smiths’. Mrs. Boss will make sure she does.”

  Lucille Smith. Small, yet fierce.

  The boss’s wife loved to make a fuss over people. She’d make sure Char followed the doctor’s orders.

  “I tried to find someone to take care of the front door, and left a message for a monitored security company.” Who’d have thought they’d need more security?

  Bo glanced at the video monitors and back at Lucky. “Any word on Moose?”

  Moose. Who’d been knifed trying to save Charlotte. “Salters texted. He’s had stitches, and the vet wants to keep him for observation.” Lucky’s glance at the monitor turned into a stare. Shouldn’t they be starting already? He needed to get home, see about his family.

  “If you stare any harder at the TV, it’s going to shatter,” Bo commented.

  “Good. Then maybe they’ll let me in there and kick that sumbitch’s ass.” Of course, Charlotte had done a fine job of that all on her own.

  “Not our case. Now be good. They didn’t have to let us observe, you know. Walter called in some favors.”

  Lucky grunted, all the answer he’d give.

  The guy in the hospital hadn’t woken up yet. Never, ever, mess with a redneck mama with a baseball bat. Worse than a grizzly bear.

  “Oh, look. It’s starting.” Bo nudged Lucky again.

  The guy entering the monitored room in the company of a uniformed officer appeared smaller and skinnier than Lucky remembered. Same ridiculous haircut, same bruised cheek. You go, Charlotte.

  The suspect—guilty as all hell—sat, or rather, slouched, knees spread wide, bouncing one leg.

  A woman entered the room, dressed in a suit, hair pulled into a severe bun. In her hand she clutched a tablet similar to Bo’s. Lucky got the don’t mess with me vibes from the way she carried herself, head high, shoulders back, exuding confidence. Cut from the same cloth as Charlotte, no doubt.

  Her demeanor softened when she took a seat across from the kid. She might’ve been Lucky’s age, maybe a little older, with a few grays blending into her light brown hair. “I’m Detective Barfield.” She pretended to consult her tablet, though she’d never have entered the room without first knowing details. “You’re Jeffrey Marks? Can I call you Jeffrey?”

  “Jeff,” the kid corrected, still in a belligerent slouch.

  “Hi, Jeff.” The detective’s neutral expression gave away nothing of her mood. Professional, through and through. At least, Walter said so. “Do you live in Atlanta?”

  “Yeah. On Ashwood.” The leg stopped mid-bounce and his shoulders relaxed.

  Ashwood. Not the best of neighborhoods.

  “Do you live alone?” Detective Barfield’s easy manner made the question more conversation than part of the interrogation.

  “Nah. With my grandma and uncle.” The guy looked up now, showing his face. Good, the detective was slowly drawing him out.

  “Are you in school or do you work full time?”

  As frustrating as the questions were, the answers allowed a chance to observe the guy’s reaction to telling the truth, to help distinguish between normal behavior and how he acted while lying, establishing a baseline.

  SNB undercover training taught how to look for body language tells. No one ever figured out Lucky’s or Bo’s lies in class. Bo, because he plunged so deeply into character and could rationalize a lie as truth, and Lucky because he’d had one hell of a lot of practice over the years.

  The guy ran his finger over his lower lip. “I quit school. I do construction some.”

  Meaning no real job. Or rather, nothing legal.

  “Can you tell me why you’re here today?” The detective matched her tone to the previous questions. No danger here, folks.

  Lucky found himself comparing her to other interrogators he’d encountered—from both sides of the glass.

  The leg went back to bouncing. “It’s all a mistake. This guy, he told us the woman wouldn’t give us any trouble.” Suspects never said anything as straight-forward as “attempted kidnapping.” No, they always launched in to how this wasn’t their fault and laid blame on someone else.

  Too bad he’d broken into the house of two guys with badges. “The van belongs to the kid’s grandmother, who thought he’d been at a job he’d lost two weeks ago,” Lucky supplied. “The jerkoff currently occupying a hospital bed owned a red Tercel. Those are the vehicles caught on Chastain’s cameras.”

  “He’s not the killer,” Bo stated casually. “There were pawnable valuables in Chastain’s house, jewelry, and two hundred bucks in his wallet. This guy wouldn’t have left them there.”

  “No. He wouldn’t.” Money hadn’t been the motivator for Chastain’s killing.

  “Who is this man, and how do you know him?” Barfield proved why Lucky would never make a good detective. Instead of keeping his voice calm, he’d have the guy up against the wall, pleading for his life.

  Shoulda beaten the shit out of him while he’d had the chance.

  The guy shrugged, head down, elbows on the table. “I don’t know him that good.”

  Truth.

  “Do you have his number? Can you call him?” The detective carried on a casual conversation, nothing in her voice to agitate the suspect.

  The kid shot from his chair. “I’m telling you, I don’t know who he is or how to contact him. He got my number somehow and called me, wanted me to do a job.”

  The kid turned twenty-one two weeks ago, according to his record, and hadn’t yet learned the phrase, “I want my lawyer.” The better for Lucky’s goals.

  Bo held his tablet out toward Lucky. “Since turning eighteen, he’s had two shoplifting offenses, one breaking and entering, one arrest for destruction of property, simple possession of marijuana, and has a bit of a reputation as bad news overall. He’s also got a handful of unpaid parking tickets. They found stolen goods in his van. Cellphones, women’s jewelry, a coin collection. Nothing traceable to Chastain. Like I said, if he’d been in the house, he’d have taken more than a life.”

  Bo found the information with the touch of a finger. Wouldn’t be hard for som
eone with Landry’s background to access files and pick a willing felon.

  Back in the interrogation room, the detective paid the outburst no mind, keeping calm and measuring her words. Like Walter in “favorite uncle” mode. “What did he want you to do, Jeff?”

  The bluster went out of the kid and he slouched back down onto the chair. “He said his woman was pregnant with his baby and left him for some other dude. He wanted her back.” He answered quickly enough to at least hint at the truth. The twitch in his jaw spoke of his nervousness. Occasionally, he glanced at the corner camera, or licked his lips. “We were just s’posed to get her, then he’d call and tell us where to go. He said he’d pay us three-hundred bucks.”

  Three hundred measly bucks. Was that the price Landry put on Charlotte’s, and the baby’s, lives?

  Bo wrapped warm fingers around Lucky’s wrist. “Down, boy. You’re growling. I’m mad too, but don’t let your anger distract you. You might miss something important.”

  Onscreen the detective tapped on her tablet, but raised her eyes to meet the suspect’s. “Did it matter that she didn’t want to go?”

  Jeff stayed quiet and studied the tabletop. The leg he’d been bouncing earlier picked up speed. “If she were my woman, I’d want her back.”

  The detective moved on. “How was he supposed to pay you?”

  “Bitcoin.”

  Internet currency. Pretty near untraceable. Bo patted Lucky’s thigh. “We’ll find him. I don’t care how hard he tried to cover his tracks. Whoever was behind this is not going to get away.”

  Whoever is behind this. Another reason Walter tagged Bo for his replacement. No matter how pissed off he got, he still kept his head. Didn’t jump to conclusions.

  In a good cop, bad cop situation with Bo, Lucky would always be the bad one.

  “Why did he call you? Have you done this sort of thing before?” The detective folded her hands over her iPad or whatever, now resting on the table.

  The guy didn’t answer. Give Lucky a few minutes and Charlotte’s bat and he’d get some truth.

  The detective let the question drop and moved on. “It was a male voice? You’re certain?”