Crash & Burn

by Abigail Roux

  “Positive. Look up police reports for the last week. And grab me a map or something from the glove compartment.”

  Liam dug around and found a plastic folding map in one of the door panels. He set it on Nick’s knee, then brought out his laptop and began typing. Nick watched the two shadows in the police vehicle, going over in his head how he would explain their presence if they were approached. Getting lost would be a viable excuse, because as soon as he started bickering with Liam as if they’d been stuck in the car for hours going the wrong way—something Liam was singularly good at—it would sell the story.

  “Okay, here we go,” Liam finally said, and Nick realized he’d been holding his breath as he waited. “They responded to a robbery at this address two nights ago.”

  “Robbery? Why the hell are they still sitting here, then?”

  “No clue.” Liam snapped his laptop shut. “This might fuck both operations right up the arse if security has been heightened. How the hell are we going to get into that house right under their noses? We don’t have time for this shit; we have to be back to Baltimore by sundown.”

  “You got my shield on you?” Nick asked.

  Liam didn’t ask questions as he rummaged in the bags in the backseat. He handed Nick his badge.

  Nick slid it onto his belt where it belonged. “Okay, I want you to walk right up to the front door and stand there watching me like you’re impatient, okay?”

  Liam nodded and popped the handle on his door, lurching out of the car and slamming the door without even offering a smart-ass comment. Nick got out and strolled toward the police sedan, one hand in his pocket so it pushed his jacket back and displayed his badge. He could only hope the shape and make of the Boston shield was similar to that of Great Falls. He had no idea what theirs looked like.

  When he got closer to the two cops, he took his hand out of his pocket and waved, covering the blatant Boston PD written on his badge with his jacket.

  The driver rolled his window down as Nick slowed. “Can we help you, Detective?”

  “Detective Sullivan, how you doing?” Nick bent so he was at eye level with both men. The two men looked at each other, then back at Nick.

  “New in town, Detective?” the driver asked.

  “First week here,” Nick said with a wide grin. “Moved down from Boston Robbery/Homicide. New everything, still getting lost at every turn.”

  Both cops gave him knowing smiles. The passenger, though, turned his head to watch Liam, who had stomped up the walkway to the Burns residence and was observing Nick with his hands on his hips. He had a badge on his belt, though Nick had no idea where he’d gotten it. Nick looked over at him and sighed.

  “Still . . . working out the kinks on the partner too.”

  That got more genuine laughs from both men, and Nick breathed a little easier.

  “We got tossed this one this morning, I saw you sitting here, wanted to come touch base, make sure we’re not stepping on any toes. This your case?”

  The driver groaned and rubbed his eyes. “There’s nothing here to investigate, sir. Owner’s a widow. Husband was some big shit in the FBI, got himself killed last year. We’re babysitting, here. Sergeant’s orders. Round the clock ’til the lady feels safe.”

  “Understood. We won’t be long. I’ll see what I can do about some coffee, huh?”

  “You got my vote, Detective,” the driver said, grinning.

  Nick pounded his fist on the roof of their car, giving them both a wink before he sauntered away.

  “What the hell, mate?” Liam said under his breath as soon as Nick came close.

  Nick shrugged. “You said it yourself, we couldn’t sneak past them.”

  “Brazen idiot.” There was a hint of pride in Liam’s voice as he spoke, though. “Are they legit?”

  “I think so, yeah. Just the department looking after the widow of a high-profile politician.” Nick eyed Liam up and down, then pushed his coat aside to get a look at his badge. It was plastic. “Junior firefighter?”

  “No one ever looks at a badge, come on,” Liam huffed, then knocked on the door.

  When a woman answered, peering around the slit in the door, Nick held up his badge and then slid it back on his belt, keeping the words covered with his gloved fingers. “Mrs. Burns? Laura Burns?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Detective Black, and this is my partner, Detective Decker. Do you have a few minutes, ma’am?”

  “Of course. This is about the robbery?”

  “Yes, ma’am, may we come in?” Liam asked. He had assumed an accent and was giving Nick a sideways glare.

  She pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and nodded, stepping to the side to usher them through the entry into a massive foyer. Nick stopped just inside, glancing around. There was a massive picture of Richard Burns, his wife, and two cocker spaniels above a table near the stairs. Nick stared at it, at the eyes of the man he’d killed, trying to find an ounce of regret in him.

  He couldn’t manage it.

  The click of the door brought his attention back to Laura, and the sound of those cocker spaniels yapping somewhere in the house had his hair standing on end. He put on the professional, sympathetic smile he’d perfected over his years on the job. “Can you tell us what happened?”

  Nick thought he heard her sniff, but she kept a stoic expression. “I was out of town, but the neighbor saw the lights of a flashlight through the window and called the police.”

  “What was stolen?” Liam asked.

  “Nothing. The patrolmen came before they could get into it.”

  Liam raised an eyebrow. “Into . . . what?”

  “The safe. I’ll show you.” She turned and gestured for them to follow, leading them into the formal dining room, where the hardwood floors had been ripped up and a safe in the floor had been exposed.

  Nick and Liam circled the safe. The floors had been pulled up with a tool, but underneath were hinges where a section was supposed to lift with ease. If the robbers had known the safe was under there, why hadn’t they known how to open the door to it? He realized that if the burglars had been interrupted and hadn’t gotten into the safe, the patrolmen stationed outside made sense.

  “Standard B rating, polyethylene casing, drill-resistant hardplate,” Liam murmured. “Combination lock plus digital keypad. Wouldn’t take long to get past those bolts.” Nick stared at him until Liam met his eyes. He blinked a couple times and then looked at Burns’s widow as if he was just realizing what he’d said. “Not long for a trained thief, of course.”

  She smiled politely, but her frown returned when she examined the safe.

  “Ma’am, what was kept in this safe?” Nick asked.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t even know it was there.”

  “Pardon?”

  “My late husband worked for the FBI. He . . . must have had it installed to protect something from work, because he never mentioned it. We have a safe in the master bedroom upstairs for valuables, so I don’t know why he needed another.”

  “I see. Who, besides your husband, might have known he had this safe?”

  She shook her head, playing with a tiny gold charm around her neck. “He wasn’t very close to many people. His oldest friend was a man he was in the Marines with. Earl Grady. And he never spoke about work when he came home. The only name I ever heard him say more than in passing was a man named Jack Tanner. He went through the academy with Richard. He came to dinner now and then.”

  Nick made a show of writing the names in a little notebook he’d taken from his pocket, but his mind was whirring. He gave Liam a glance and nodded before turning his attention back to her. “And you’re sure nothing else was taken?”

  “Positive. I had just gone over the entire house, categorizing everything for the estate after my husband’s death. Richard’s office is still just as he left it. I . . . I haven’t been able to move anything. I would know if anything was out of place.”

  Nick fought the urge to turn a
way from her. He had taken this woman’s husband, and now he was standing in her home, pretending to be someone who intended to help. Still, he couldn’t manage more than passing guilt. Don’t marry a monster, and you won’t be as likely to become a widow.

  “I see,” he finally said.

  “We’re almost out of your hair, ma’am, but would you mind too terribly if we troubled you for coffee to bring our boys outside?” Liam asked after a few awkward seconds of silence.

  “Oh! Yes, I meant to bring them something warm earlier. I could make a pot.”

  “That would be very nice, thank you.” Nick forced a smile. “I’ll help, if you don’t mind. I have a few more questions.”

  She led him through the nearest door into the kitchen, and Nick asked a few more standard questions as he held mugs and pods of different coffee flavors for her. He raised his voice when she started toward the dining room again, and was relieved to find Liam pacing near the bay window at the front of the house, his hands clasped behind his back, instead of snooping.

  He gave them a charming smile, taking two of the mugs from Nick. She’d made them both coffee as well, and Nick wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

  She smiled sadly. “Keep the mugs. Please. My late husband was the only one who used them.”

  They both murmured thanks, and she showed them out. Nick carried two mugs over to the men who were stuck watching the home, making good on his promise from earlier.

  “Don’t guess it’s Irish coffee, is it, Detective?” one of them asked.

  Nick clucked his tongue. “Maybe next time.”

  Liam picked him up, giving the cops a cheeky little salute as Nick slid into the car. They drove the opposite way they had come, making sure their stolen license plate wouldn’t be noticed as the two cops sipped from the steaming mugs.

  “Did you get into it?” Nick asked.

  Liam handed him his mug. “Of course. What do I look like, an amateur?”

  Nick gave him a dubious glance as he rolled down his window, the cold wind whipping at them and stirring the papers in the backseat. He tossed the coffee, mug and all, out the window, then rolled it back up.

  “I would have taken that,” Liam told him.

  “Shut up. What was in the safe?”

  “A book.” Liam dug into his pocket and pulled out an SD memory card. “And this was in a cutout inside the pages.”

  Nick took the card and frowned at it, turning it over between his fingers. “Pictures?”

  “Looks like.”

  Nick grunted. “Better be some super fucking state secrets on this thing.”

  Liam smirked. “Bigfoot or bust, right mate?”

  Nick sighed and slid the SD card into his front pocket. “What book was it?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You said there was a book in there. What book?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I thought you weren’t an amateur. Why the fuck would you leave something like that behind?”

  “What the fuck does it matter what book it was?”

  Nick slammed his fist against the top of the car. “Everything with Burns mattered!”

  “Well, I’m sorry. It was too fucking big to fit in my cleavage, mate. Deal with it.”

  Nick rolled his eyes.

  “We can go back and tell her you dropped your mug and need more nummies,” Liam said, his voice wavering with laughter.

  “Just . . . drive.” Nick fished his phone out of his pocket. He sent a prearranged text to let Ty and Owen know they’d made it in and out without issue. He didn’t even have a chance to put the phone back in his pocket before it was ringing in his hand. It was a burner phone, so he had none of his ringtones or photos, but he knew it was Ty. “Hey,” he answered.

  “You got in?” Ty asked.

  “Yeah, we—”

  “We need help here.”

  “Where?”

  Ty rattled off the address.

  “You okay?”

  “We’ll see,” Ty said, and the call ended.

  Nick scowled at the phone, and Liam gave him a low whistle. “Holds a grudge, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah, we’ll just remind him about you shooting him and we’ll be fine.”

  Liam smacked the steering wheel. “He shot me first!”

  Nick snorted before he could stop himself. “Just drive.”

  It took Liam and Nick longer to find them than Ty had anticipated. He’d forgotten that neither man was all that familiar with DC.

  He and Kelly were sitting at a sidewalk table, eating chips and waiting for the others. They weren’t exactly being inconspicuous, considering it was just above freezing out, but Ty was beyond caring if they looked suspicious. It wasn’t like they were actually doing anything wrong. Yet.

  “You’d be okay if he did that to you?” Ty asked as Kelly sipped his tea. “Said something he knew would hurt you just so you wouldn’t look too close at the bad things?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.” Kelly leaned toward him. “I’m not okay that he did it to you, either, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  Ty eyed him warily, then watched two women walk by, all bundled up and struggling with their scarves in the wind.

  “You know the soft spots, where to aim that it will hurt the most,” Kelly said. “So does he. But you know deep down that you’ve never said anything to Nick without your best intentions behind it. And I’m sure the same can be said of him.”

  Ty chewed on the inside of his cheek, not able to look at his companion again as he thought back on all the rows he and Nick’d had over the years. They had indeed said some awful things to each other. When you’d known someone since you were a teenager, you were bound to hurt each other. “You hurt the ones you love, is that what you’re saying?”

  Kelly shrugged and sat back. “If it makes my point, yeah.”

  Ty was silent, watching passersby as if he could just push the pain to the back burner for a while. He desperately wanted to sit down and talk to Zane about this. His mind was a mess of confused emotions, and Zane was the only thought that seemed to keep him calm right now.

  It wasn’t long before two familiar figures were making their way toward the table, both men bundled against the cold. Ty had to tamp down on a flare of absolute rage as he watched them come closer. How the hell had he found himself working with Liam Bell again? The man had tried to kill him the last time Ty had trusted him, and now here he was, telling Ty to trust him one more time.

  Nick and Liam sat at the table, winded from their walk in the cold. There was an outdoor heater nearby, and Liam turned toward it and put his hands out like it was a campfire. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.

  Nick seemed less bothered by the cold, but then Ty had been in Boston in the winter. He was pretty sure Antarctica was warmer.

  “What’d you find?” he demanded.

  Nick reached into his overcoat, fumbling at the pocket beneath the lapel for a few seconds before cursing and yanking his gloves off with his teeth. He kept digging for whatever he had in there.

  “SD card,” Liam told them as he watched Nick struggle. “Jesus Christ, man, do you need help?”

  “Don’t touch me,” Nick grumbled. He finally pulled the tiny card out and held it between two trembling fingers, handing it to Ty without another word.

  Ty scowled as he turned it over. “This is it? You broke into Burns’s house and this is all you took from his files?”

  Both men shook their heads. Liam’s teeth were chattering as he spoke. “We didn’t need to burglarize it. Someone did that for us.”

  Ty and Kelly exchanged a confused glance as Liam continued to explain what they’d seen at Burns’s residence.

  “What book was it?” Ty asked when Liam was finished.

  Liam flopped his hands against the table.

  “Told you,” Nick muttered under his breath.

  “I don’t fucking know, okay!” Liam practically shouted. “It was a book. A big book. Get over it.”


  Nick slid his glove back on and hunched against the cold, leaning closer to Ty. “What’s our play?”

  Ty glanced up at the Federal Building, not a block away from where they sat. “I gave Nancy a call; she was Burns’s assistant. She said they’ve moved all of his files to the archives.”

  “Can she get us access?” Nick asked.

  Ty shook his head, sighing. His breath froze in the air and billowed in front of him. “She retired when he died. Hell, her information might be out of date at this point. We’re going in blind.”

  “Forgive me for questioning your judgment,” Liam said after a second of thought, “but why are we needed here? I’m kind of a big deal on the most wanted lists at the moment, if I hadn’t made that clear.”

  “That’s why you’re here,” Ty said with a smirk. “You need to get your face near the Bureau’s cameras, get the facial recognition to kick in.”

  “You want to use me as a decoy?” Liam had the nerve to sound offended.

  “Consider it the Grady version of switching a bullet,” Ty snarled.

  Liam huffed, turning to Nick as if Nick might stand up for him. Nick shrugged and shook his head.

  “Fine!” Liam cried, and he crossed his arms and slumped in his chair. “But I get O’Flaherty as a getaway driver.”

  “Fair enough. We’ll meet you back in Baltimore if you make it,” Ty said, and then pushed his chair back to stand. Liam sat grumbling, but Nick was watching Ty with a look that could only be described as an abandoned puppy.

  Ty turned and stalked off. He had a job to do.

  It was almost dark when Zane slipped his key into the lock. He’d stayed late at the office, waiting for most of his staff to clear out so he could gain access to a computer that wouldn’t leave a trail back to him. The upside to being the boss was not having to answer awkward questions about being where he wasn’t supposed to be. The downside to being the boss was that when he stayed late, everyone else did as well.

  He pushed into the dark row house and immediately tensed. Someone was there. He could feel it in the back of his mind, a sixth sense developed from too many years undercover.

  His motions only halted for a second, and then he was moving normally again, closing the door behind him and tossing his satchel aside like he always did. He shrugged out of his overcoat, his hand on the gun under his arm.