Vice (Tortured Heroes Book 1)

by Jayne Blue

  “Right. Come on. I’ll follow you to the ER. Hope you weren’t planning on entering any beauty contests this week.”

  Mitch flipped me off as he climbed behind the wheel of his car.

  He took four stitches through his bottom lip. I got a pamphlet on concussion warning signs but I waved off any further treatment than a Band-Aid for the small cut above my eye. Between that, my purple shiner, and Mitch’s train wreck of a face we drew stares. By the time they finished him up we had an hour before we met with Stan.

  “Come on.” I tugged on Mitch’s sleeve. He leaned over the nurse’s station desk trying to get digits from a cute blonde. “You’re not doing yourself any favors with that mug, Gates. Try again later when you look less criminally inclined.”

  He shot her a wink and grabbed his jacket. “Can’t blame a guy for trying. I was hoping to salvage something good out of our night on the town.”

  “Right. Where are we meeting again?”

  “Place called Mickey Lou’s out on Butcher Road. Another greasy spoon but they’ve got a back room. Stan didn’t want to traipse everyone through the station downtown.”

  “Good call.” I pulled out my phone. Three missed calls from Devin and a text.

  “Where the hell are you? We need to talk.”

  “Girl trouble?” Mitch asked as he slid into the passenger seat.

  I gripped the steering wheel and put my phone on the dashboard. “Sort of. I had a date for breakfast.”

  “How much is that going to cost you?”

  “Hopefully not much.” I hoped I was right. I texted her back and told her something came up. Jesus. Add that to my list of things she could hold against me. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into Devin’s arms and hold her close. She didn’t deserve my lies or any of this. Soon, baby, I thought. Soon. I’d find a way to make all of this right.

  Mickey Lou’s was a ten-minute drive. The ibuprofen they gave me at urgent care started to wane leaving me with a screaming headache. Black coffee was likely the best I could get for the time being.

  When Gates and I walked in, Stan and the others had already arrived. The waitress showed us to the back room. My gut clenched. Stan sat surrounded by four agents in suits. Bulls in a china shop. This had the makings of a seriously fucked-up situation. None of them looked happy to see us.

  Stan didn’t get up. He pointed to the two empty seats at the opposite end of the table. “Introduce yourselves,” he said. “I can’t be expected to remember this many names on this little caffeine.”

  The agent beside him smiled. Young. Clean cut with a mop of blond hair and deep-set gray eyes. He reached across the table and shook my hand. “I’m Special Agent Cutler. Call me Tim. This is Agent Reese, Thompkins, and Dillinger.”

  Reese, Thompkins, and Dillinger all leaned across the table to shake our hands. Reese took notes on his laptop, looking up only briefly to make eye contact. The blue glare of his computer screen reflected in his wire-framed glasses. Thompkins was about my age and looked former military with his straight posture and buzz cut. Dillinger looked close to Stan’s age. Sixty maybe, portly, with bits of egg still stuck to his maroon tie. I decided not to point it out.

  I let Gates take the lead filling them in on what we learned last night. He stuck to the facts and what he heard on my wire. We made the drop. Floyd Bowles distributed for Marsh at The Dive. Then the worst part. I’d been made.

  I expected Stan to swear. Or at least show some sign of disappointment at the news. Instead, he sat expressionless while Reese tapped away on his laptop and Agent Cutler—Tim—furrowed his brow and leaned back in his chair.

  “You think this could be one of your people?” Cutler asked Stan.

  Stan shrugged and dropped his spoon on the table with a clang. He took a sip of coffee and wrinkled his nose at the taste of it. It didn’t stop him from gulping down the rest of it. “I’ve kept this to a pretty tight circle. Only Mitch knows as much as I do.”

  All eyes turned to Mitch Gates. He took it in stride, not so much as a squirm or a flicker in his eyes. My gut told me he was clean. But I’d also gotten bashed in the head pretty hard so my sensor might be off. That said, he had every opportunity to fuck me over last night. And he’d gotten off worse than I did. Still, that could have been planned as well.

  “You know, this could lead to a greater opportunity,” Thompkins said. “Stan, think about it. It’s beyond the scope of our investigation, but in this position, Jase could help you ferret out some of the corruption in your own department.”

  “I didn’t sign on to rat out cops,” I said. “Even dirty ones.”

  Stan put a hand up to placate me. “Let’s just stick to the matter at hand, gentlemen. We have enough to arrest Floyd Bowles. This is still my jurisdiction. If I need your help, Cutler, I’ll ask for it. For now, we’ve got this shit handled.”

  “You do not have this shit handled. Floyd Bowles isn’t going to be enough and you know it. Plus, we’ve known about him for weeks.”

  “You what?” Stan and I said it together. He put his hand up again and turned toward Cutler.

  “And just how the ever-loving fuck did you put that together?”

  “We’ve had The Dive wired.”

  “Mother fuckers,” Stan said. My blood started to sizzle. These dipshits put me at risk last night when they could have just shared information.

  “Well then why the hell are we even here?” Gates said. “Jesus Christ. Reddick and I could have gotten killed last night.”

  “And that’s your own fault. You boys are running a rinky-dink operation down here. It’s too big for you. You can’t control your own department, Stan. Don’t even try to pretend you can. We can help you.”

  “So help!” Stan shouted, then lowered his voice when one of the waitresses poked her head around the corner. “You had an agenda when you walked in. Mind sharing it?”

  A look passed among all the agents, then Cutler sat back in his chair and adjusted his tie. “We need you to flip the niece.”

  I clenched my fists at my side. I was still processing the news the feds had Devin’s bar wired. I could only imagine what was on their feed. Were they watching when I spent the night with her in the basement? They wouldn’t have been able to see anything but they sure would have gotten an earful. Cutler at least had the decency to look embarrassed when I locked eyes with him.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said. “And you know she has nothing to fucking do with any of this. Devin is not part of this.”

  “She’s close to her uncle. She has access. He’s been cooking her books for months. We need her.”

  “No way,” I said. “She doesn’t know anything. And you know she doesn’t. Too fucking dangerous. Her uncle has deliberately kept her in the dark. You try to involve her, you put her at risk.”

  “Stan,” Cutler said. “Back me up on this.”

  I stared murder at Stan. He threw his hands up. “No fucking way. Jase is right.”

  “You’re too close to this,” Cutler said. “You have feelings for her. They are clouding your judgment. And we’re not asking for anything that would put her at risk. Just her cooperation.”

  “Which she doesn’t have to give. She’s not a suspect. She’s not involved.”

  Thompkins leaned forward. “She is whether she likes it or not. Marsh is using that bar to funnel product. And he’s using it to launder money. She’s knee deep in Uncle Cy’s shit whether she knows it or not. At best that place is subject to forfeiture. If she cooperates, maybe we can help her avoid that.”

  Son of a bitch. No matter what, this shit would ruin Devin’s life. The only shot I had was to at least keep her out of it. She’d hate me for it. Maybe blame me for losing the bar, but if I could make it so she didn’t have to be involved, it might not matter. She’d be safe.

  “What if she won’t help you?” I needed them to lay all their cards on the table.

  Cutler leaned down and opened his briefcase. He lobbed a manila file across the table. The gr
im expression on his face told me nothing good would come out of me looking at that file’s contents.

  “What the hell? You planning on blackmailing her?”

  Cutler shook his head. A look passed between him and Stan that made my heart lurch. “You told him?” Cutler asked Stan. Stan shook his head no.

  “Well somebody better fucking tell me right now.”

  Cutler nodded and tapped his finger on the file. “We had him. Cyrus Marsh. We were this close to going to the grand jury.”

  “I’ve heard all of this before,” I said. “Then your case fell apart. What makes you think this one will go any different?”

  “It fell apart because we lost our star witness, Jase.”

  He flipped the file open. I’d seen the photograph on top before. This copy was glossier, blown up to an 8 X 10. Devin and her sister Mandy standing in front of Niagara Falls. It was the same picture Devin kept on her desk. She said it was the only one she owned where Mandy was smiling.

  Cutler flipped the photograph over. The one beneath it sucked the air right out of the room. Mandy Marsh’s lifeless body. Opaque eyes, once warm brown like Devin’s, stared blankly at the sky. A small caliber bullet hole marked the center of her forehead. She died staring her murderer right in the face. This was an execution.

  A purple-gloved hand hovered near her chin, holding the edge of a black body bag away from her face. Oh God. She looked enough like Devin to make me retch. I reached for the water in front of me and poured some down my throat with trembling hands.

  “We had her in witness protection,” Cutler said. “For almost a year. Two days before her scheduled testimony she disappeared out of her hotel room. Her uncle did this to her, Jase. You want to know how he found her?”

  No. I didn’t want to know any of this. She looked too much like Devin. She could be Devin.

  “After we dumped her phone, we figured out she’d been texting and emailing her sister.”

  “Jesus. You think Devin ratted her out to their uncle?”

  “No,” Cutler said. “At least, I have no reason to think she did anything knowingly. The uncle had access to her computer at the bar. Chances are he had someone pull her emails. But there’s a good chance Devin led her uncle straight to her.”

  It would kill Devin to know this. I wanted to protect her from all of it, but my ability to do it grew smaller and smaller. This would land on her. It would destroy her.

  “She needs to know,” Stan said. “She’s not safe with her uncle. She needs to be made aware of how dangerous a guy he is. And as much as I fucking hate to admit it, these assholes are right, Jase. We probably have enough to send Floyd Bowles away for a long time. But we don’t have enough to pull Cyrus Marsh. The girl’s got to help. She doesn’t have a choice and neither do we.”

  “Make her understand,” Cutler said. “Can you do that?”

  I raised my head and stared at him. I hated this. Every single bit of it.

  “It’ll be better coming from you,” Cutler said. “And you’ve done great work so far. Let us help you finish it.”

  “You’re planning on putting the screws to her with or without me, aren’t you?”

  Cutler nodded. “This meeting was a show of good faith, Jase. But yes. Either Devin Marsh helps us, or there’s a good chance she’s going down with her uncle. Whether she knows it or not, her fingerprints are all over this. Her uncle set it up that way. Help us. Help her.”

  “So, worst-case scenario, Uncle Cy figures out Devin’s following in her sister’s footsteps. Then I suppose you’ve got a matching body bag all picked out for her. Or if she’s lucky, she gets a prison cell right next to him for something she had no real part in. And if she’s really lucky, she just loses her bar and everything she’s worked for.”

  No one said a word. They didn’t have to. Everything I just said was true. God help us both.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Devin

  Jase finally came to me just after noon. When I opened my apartment door, my heart sank to my knees. He stood before me broken and battered. One eye was swollen shut and the light gone out of the other. I wanted to go to him. I wanted to throttle him. I’d spent the day imagining all the terrible things that Cy’s investigator had found out about him.

  “What the hell happened to you?” I finally asked.

  “Would you believe me if I told you I walked into a door?”

  “No.” I hesitated. A moment passed between us. We both had things to say to each other and no matter what, there’d be no going back to the way things were just twenty-four hours ago. Except I knew that twenty-four hours ago he’d told me lies. Now it was time for the truth, no matter what that brought with it.

  “So,” I said. “We need to talk. Is that my line or yours?”

  He smiled, wincing past pain as the muscles of his face tightened. “Come on in. Let me get you some ice for that.”

  “Thanks.” He brushed past me and sat on the couch. I stood in the doorway for a moment. Again, I had the sense of crossing an invisible threshold. He’d come in one way, he would leave another. I knew instinctively one of us would end up with a broken heart. That too was a lie. It would be me. I never had any doubt. I closed the door, crossed to the kitchen, and opened the freezer.

  When I came back out, Jase stretched out on the couch with his feet resting on my coffee table. He was weary and tired. Whatever happened seemed to drain the life out of him. But he came here anyway. That gave me a glimmer of hope. He could have just done what every other person who held my heart does. He could leave me. I knew that the secret he kept might make me want him to. But I didn’t think that would make it hurt any less.

  “Out of ice. Can I interest you in a bag of California vegetable medley?”

  He gave me a thumbs-up as I sank onto the cushion next to him. He sucked air through his teeth as I gently placed the frozen bag over the purplest part of his bruised temple.

  “You going to tell me I should get a look at the other guy?”

  “Nope. Not a scratch on him. Sucker punch.”

  “So you’re slipping. Not good, Jase Randall. Not good.” Jase stiffened, then let out a breath as he settled back on the couch.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I let out a bitter laugh. “Well, you haven’t done anything yet, have you? Though, I haven’t been a bartender for this long without picking up on a few nonverbal cues now and then. So, you wanna do me the courtesy of letting me go first?”

  He turned to look at me, raising his good eyebrow. Then he leaned back again and repositioned the bag. I moved away from him, raising my knees to my chin I sat on the other end of the couch.

  “Devin …” I put a hand up to silence him.

  “Me first. Remember?” He nodded and his whole body sagged into the couch. My heart lurched as I realized this would be much harder and much worse than I thought.

  “You’ve been lying to me, haven’t you?” I said, my voice sounding flatter, and more distant.

  “Yes.” The floor seemed to drop out from under me. Like that feeling you get when you’ve crested the top hill of a roller coaster, just before your guts get sucked out. Just like that, there was really no way to prepare for the drop.

  “So what is it? Felony record? Rapist? Ex-girlfriend with a restraining order? Are you married?”

  He laughed. That low, wicked sound that even now heated my blood. “You know, except for the rapist part, all of the rest of those would be a hell of a lot easier to explain.”

  “Don’t. Fuck. Jase. Don’t. Don’t make jokes. I can’t stand it. Just be honest with me. I think I can handle anything right now but lies.”

  “Fine,” he said, turning to me. “Then let me start out with what’s true. Because when you hear the rest of it, you might not want to hear that part.”

  I swallowed hard. Here came the drop.

  “I love you,” he said.

  My breath went out of me. I rested my chin on my knees and hugged my shins. I became two peop
le at once. The rational, educated part of me knew exactly what I was doing. I tried to curl in on myself. It was a defensive gesture. I tried to make myself small. Everyone who loved me hurt me in some way. Those words came with a price. One I wasn’t sure I’d be willing to pay this time. But then there was the other part of me that wanted to leap across the couch and kiss Jase’s pain away and with it, my own.

  I couldn’t say it back. I couldn’t even let myself feel it.

  “Everything that’s happened between us since that night in the cellar has been real, Devin. You may try and tell yourself it wasn’t. But it was. I swear to God.”

  “Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t swear on anything. Don’t make me any promises, Jase, except for the one you just did. You promised me the truth.”

  He nodded and swallowed hard. “Okay. God, I don’t know where to start.”

  I looked over his shoulder and out the window. The giant steeple of Rosary Cathedral filled my window frame. That seemed fitting. My apartment had become Jase’s confessional. I just prayed he could do what he said and give me the answers I needed.

  “Why don’t you start with your name. You reacted a minute ago when I said it.”

  Shaking his head, Jase closed his eyes. “Jase Reddick. Not Randall. The jobs I listed on that application for you weren’t real. Up until about a year ago, I was a cop, Devin. With the Lincolnshire, Ohio PD.”

  I cocked my head to the side. It was the last thing I expected him to tell me. “That’s all? That’s what this is all about? You were a cop?”

  Jase stood up. He didn’t seem able to contain himself and started pacing behind the couch. “I am a cop. It’s not something you can quit. Even when they try and take it away from you. And that’s what happened. God. It’s complicated.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Make it simple, Jase. Tell me why my uncle thinks you’re bad for the bar? Tell me why he wants me to fire you?”

  Jase stopped pacing and color drained from his face. He gripped the back of the couch and let out a breath. “I got caught up in some things back in Lincolnshire. Most of it was trumped-up bullshit. I know you have no reason to take anything I say on faith, but I promised you the truth. This is it. I told you I had a twin brother. I do. His name’s Colt. He’s the president of the Great Wolves Motorcycle Club down there. That’s caused me no end of grief because people assume things about the club that aren’t true anymore. But my association with the club made me a target. A scapegoat. I’m no angel. I bent some rules for Colt. But I swear, anything I did was to help bring down someone far worse or protect someone innocent. Anyway, it caught up with me and I lost my job. They accused me of being dirty. I’m not. But it didn’t matter. I lost my badge anyway.”