Cold Snap

by Allison Brennan

  She shook her head and then started crying. “I didn’t know. How could I not have known?”

  He hugged her tightly and closed his eyes. “This isn’t your fault. Sometimes, people aren’t who we think they are.”

  “But you knew. You knew the moment you saw him.”

  He looked at her and smiled. “Maybe that coma I was in made me psychic.” He was trying to make her feel better, but it wasn’t working.

  “Or maybe I’m just a bad judge of character.”

  “No.” He tilted her chin up. “Grayson fooled a lot of people. Not just you. I like that you see the good in everyone.”

  “Where was the good in him?”

  “He helped some kids get off the streets. Tutoring them, getting them jobs—”

  “While selling girls and drugs. No, nothing is going to make me think anything Clark did was good. He would have killed me. How did you do that?”

  “You did it, too. You knew what I wanted you to do.”

  “But how did you know someone was behind us? That he was right there, that he could get him like that?”

  “Trust.”

  “But how?” She was still confused and scared, and while Patrick had faced these situations before, this was a first for Elle.

  And hopefully the last.

  “How did you trust Kami? Why did you help her? Because you knew, in your gut, that you could. The man in the truck is my brother Jack. I trusted he’d know the exact moment to act. He would have killed Clark if that’s what it took to save you.”

  “So much death. So much—” She stopped. “What about Lee?”

  Kyle Tucker heard her, and approached. “Ma’am, we’re already on our way to apprehend him. He attempted to flee the country, and they’re detaining him at SFO right now. He won’t be going anywhere.”

  Patrick asked, “What about Soldare?”

  “She’s my business. I have her right-hand prick Jonny, I will find her.”

  He walked away. Patrick had no doubt he’d nail Soldare.

  Patrick said to Elle, “You need to give a statement, then I’ll take you home.”

  CHAPTER 15

  It was dark by the time the feds were done with Patrick and Elle, and Patrick could bring Elle to the hospital to visit Kami. They hugged and cried and Patrick let them catch up.

  He stepped out into the hall to call Jack.

  “Everything good?” Jack said.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t brought her back to her apartment.”

  “Take her to a hotel.”

  “I need to be there when she sees it. Have the police cleared out?”

  “Tucker said his people already wrapped up. But it’s a mess.”

  “Maybe a hotel is better,” he said, indecisive.

  “I’m driving down to San Diego in the morning. I was going to leave at dawn, but Megan’s flight doesn’t get in until later in the evening, so I’m in no rush. You’re welcome to join me.”

  “Do you think Ma would forgive me if I stayed here until this situation is cleaned up? I don’t feel right just leaving Elle like this.”

  Jack laughed. “You’re the golden child, Patrick. Ma would forgive you forgetting to call on her birthday. I’ll tell her.”

  “I’ll call her to explain.”

  “That’s why you’re the golden child. Love you, bro.”

  “Back at ya.”

  He hung up and considered why he planned to stay with Elle. He loved his family, and missed them, but last night with Elle there was something different in him. He felt almost like his old self, before he lost two years of his life. Elle was so tactile and vibrant in everything she did. The passion that filled her job and her friendships filled her soul and spread to everything around her, including him. He craved it. He needed it. He couldn’t go back to being the Patrick he’d been before his coma, but he could be better than he was today. He needed to let the anger and frustration go.

  Dwight walked down the corridor to where Patrick waited, his expression more than a little worried. “You said she was fine.”

  “She is. She wanted to see Kami.”

  “Oh, right. That’s why I’m here.” He held up an envelope. “I need Elle to sign some papers for Kami. She might not need to testify at all on Wednesday. Lee will be arraigned tomorrow, and my office assures me he won’t be given bail, especially since he was apprehended while attempting to flee the country. And then he’s going to federal court where he’s going to be arraigned on separate charges. My boss and ICE will fight over who gets to prosecute.”

  “The feds will win.”

  “On this, yes. But they have more on him than we do. You think Kami is going to be able to testify later?”

  “She’s a tough kid, and smart. She’ll hold her own.”

  “How’s Ashley?”

  “Out of surgery. Her parents are flying in from Colorado, should be here soon. Kami asked me to check on her, so I’ll do that while you talk to Elle.”

  As he started to walk away, Dwight said, “Patrick? Elle can be difficult. Don’t let it stop you.”

  Dwight disappeared into Kami’s room before Patrick could respond.

  * * *

  Patrick had explained to Elle on the drive from the hospital what had happened in her apartment, and she thought she was primed for what she would face.

  But nothing he could have said would have truly prepared her for the destruction of her home.

  She walked up the short staircase to the main room and stared.

  There were bullet holes in her walls and kitchen cabinets. Her couch was overturned, the stuffing spilling out. More bullets? She walked to her windows. Shattered. Someone had boarded them up, but they hadn’t removed her carpet, which was stained. Dark red.

  Blood.

  Someone had died here.

  Three people had died here. Three people died in her apartment. Shot to death.

  “Pack a bag, I’m taking you to a hotel,” Patrick said.

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  Elle walked over to where the little Christmas tree she’d bought from a street vendor was crushed and broken on the floor. She picked it up. The small glass bulbs she’d hung—all cheap, nothing of value—were shattered on the floor. She put the tree on the table. It fell over. Tears burned behind her eyes.

  “Elle,” Patrick said from behind her, his hands on her shoulders, “please. This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

  “I would have seen it sometime,” she said.

  “But not tonight. Not tomorrow.”

  “How can you be so casual about this?”

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  She shrugged off his hands and walked away. She couldn’t breathe. The whole day, from the moment Clark had held the gun on her until now, was surreal. The screaming girls, the gunfire, the tension in the big rig where she was certain she was going to die—it didn’t feel real.

  But it was. It was real and this was the proof. The blood on the floor. The violence that she saw with her own eyes.

  “You killed a man. Here!” She pointed to the bloodstains. And then she saw more. So much blood. She had been blind, but she wished she didn’t know. She wished she could be a Pollyanna, but she’d never be able to unsee this.

  Patrick’s jaw clenched and he looked as hard and unfeeling as he had in the truck when he confronted Clark. She really didn’t know him. She thought she did, but he wasn’t the fun-loving high school baseball player she’d had a crush on.

  “I had to,” he said. “I don’t take it lightly, but I had no alternative. They would have killed both Jack and me to get to Kami.”

  He sounded so calm. How could he be calm? How could he talk about murder so matter-of-factly? Didn’t he care?

  “Oh, God, she saw this?” Elle’s emotions were spilling over, and the more she felt, the more steadfast Patrick became. She didn’t know this man.

  “I secured her in the bathroom upstairs.” Patrick
reached out for her, and she flinched.

  “Elle, let’s go someplace else. You don’t need to be here. I’ll hire someone to clean it up. I shouldn’t have brought you back.” Jack was right, it was too soon.

  “You can’t clean it up. I can’t forget what happened. I’ll always see this blood.”

  Patrick took her hand. “You’ve been through hell. Give yourself time.”

  “Is that what you say to yourself? Give yourself time? How many men have you killed?”

  Patrick stepped back. “I was a cop, Gabrielle,” he said, his voice colder than she’d ever heard it. “I never killed except to protect another human being. I’m not going to apologize.”

  She shook her head. “Of course not.” Oh, God, she’d hurt him. She hadn’t meant to say that. Her head was about to explode, she wanted to run away. She’d never been so overwhelmed in her life.

  “I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understand you. I don’t understand what you do, or why Clark nearly killed me, or why three men died in my living room!”

  She was getting hysterical, and she didn’t want to be. She didn’t want to sound ungrateful, because she was grateful. She just wanted to forget everything that had happened.

  She took a deep breath. “Kami can’t come back here with the place like this,” she said quietly.

  “I’ll stay and help clean up.”

  She shook her head. “Go back to your family.”

  The buzzer rang on the door. She jumped, and hated that she was scared. Would she ever feel safe again?

  Patrick had his gun in hand, at his side, and walked to the door. Was this how her life would be from now on?

  She didn’t know if she could live like this.

  Patrick was talking to someone at the door. She kept picturing Patrick with the gun pointed at Clark. Pointed at her, because she was there in the truck, too. The risks he took to save her. Why would he do that? He could have died. She could have died.

  Elle felt so confused she wanted to scream.

  But she didn’t see how it could have happened any differently.

  This was a world unfamiliar to her. She’d seen violence, but always the aftermath. Stories from street kids who’d seen too much, too young. The court system. She’d never lived through it, not like this. She was so scared she couldn’t think.

  She sat on the floor and put her head in her hands.

  “Elle?”

  She looked up. Dwight was standing there.

  “Where’s Patrick?”

  “He said he had to go. Come to my place.”

  “Patrick left?”

  Why would he have walked out? What had she said to him? She could hardly remember. But she’d hurt him somehow. She wished she could take it back.

  “You’ve been through hell. Patrick says you’re in shock and he’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Shock?” What did Patrick know? Did he think that she’d just get over this, like she had dead men in her apartment every day?

  She squeezed her eyes shut. He’d saved her life. She’d never faced her own mortality like she had today.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  Dwight extended his hand to her. She grabbed it, a life line, and he pulled her up.

  “I like him,” Dwight said, “but you always try to change people, Elle. You can’t change him, like you couldn’t change me. You either have to accept him for who he is, or walk away.”

  She slowly walked upstairs and stood in her bedroom crying. Feeling like she had just lost something she hadn’t realized she had.

  CHAPTER 16

  Patrick sat in the hotel bar and nursed his beer. He’d already had a couple of tequila shots and was feeling the effect, but he considered having a couple more. He wasn’t much of a drinker, so the hard liquor hit him hard.

  Jack walked up and sat on the stool next to him and ordered another round. The bartender brought two shots of tequila and two more beers. They downed the shots together and slammed the glasses on the counter.

  “Elle didn’t take it well,” Patrick said a few minutes later.

  “Did you think she would?”

  “I never should have brought her back to her place.”

  “I won’t say I told you so.”

  “Shut up.”

  Jack remained silent.

  “She had to see it with someone,” Patrick said, trying to convince himself he’d done the right thing, even though he knew he hadn’t. “If she’d walked in there alone—that would have been worse.”

  Jack drained his tequila and poured another.

  “I’ve gone over the last twenty-four hours in my head and can’t see where I would have changed anything,” Patrick said. “Other than keeping a much better eye on Elle this morning so she couldn’t sneak out.”

  “You’re a good cop, PK.”

  “I’m not a cop.”

  “Being a cop is like being a soldier. Once a soldier, always a soldier. Shit happens. We’re the people who clean it up. She’ll either see it, or she won’t. She’s stubborn, but she’s smart.”

  “We lead two different lives. And never the twain shall meet.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “She has this idealized view of the world. Even after this weekend, she doesn’t see the bad. Except—when she walked into her apartment, I think it slapped her in the face. I tried everything I could, but I was getting so angry, I shut down. When her ex showed up, I let him take over.” He sighed and sipped his beer. “I’ve been angry for a long time.”

  “I know.”

  Patrick glanced at him. “How?”

  “Do you remember when I came to visit you in the hospital, when you woke up from the coma? You woke up as if it were the next day. All the pain and rage was still there. I knew it the minute I saw you. I don’t think anyone else wanted to see it. And it won’t go away overnight.”

  “It’s been seven years.”

  “Five years for you. And you still haven’t forgiven her.”

  “Forgiven who?”

  “Lucy.”

  Patrick shook his head. “There was nothing to forgive.”

  “You blamed her.”

  “Shut the fuck up. I love Lucy. I never thought any of it was her fault.”

  “Not consciously, but she made a bad choice. And shit happened. And she feels it, because she knows you feel it.”

  “I’ve never—God, Jack, don’t.” Patrick loved Lucy more than anyone. His sister was all that made him whole. “She visited me. Read to me. I heard her voice all the time, in my head, when I was half dead.”

  Jack poured two more tequilas. “I shouldn’t pretend I’m Dillon. I’m not good with this shrink shit.”

  “I don’t need a shrink.”

  “You need to forgive yourself for all the shit that went down seven years ago. Your guilt for blaming Lucy, for being angry, for losing part of yourself. Let it go. That anger you have, Elle feels it, too. She might tell you that she has a problem with you taking down those men, but it had to happen. We saved lives today. What she felt was your anger that she went off on her own and put herself in danger. Yes, it was a dumb-ass move, but she did it for the right reasons. What she felt was your anger when all she wanted was justification for three dead bodies in her living room.”

  “I don’t blame her,” Patrick said. But maybe … maybe he did. He expected her to understand the situation that resulted in the violence at her apartment. He expected her to see the truth, but he hadn’t known how to explain. He hadn’t fought for her, forced her to see the truth.

  But he wasn’t a forcing kind of guy. It was there … or it wasn’t. He didn’t like emotional, personal confrontation.

  Yeah, he could see how she might think he blamed her for putting herself in danger. He’d shut down because that’s what he did so he wouldn’t lose his temper. But maybe all she needed was to be held. A human connection. A reminder of hope.

  “I’ll talk to her tomorrow. What time are you leaving?”

&nb
sp; “Whenever you’re ready, bro. But you know, Ma won’t mind if you’re a day late.”

  “Right—the first Christmas we’ve all been together in nearly twenty years. She’ll never talk to me again.”

  “She’ll talk to you—like I said, you’re the golden child.”

  “Maybe I can talk Elle into coming with us.”

  “Maybe you can,” Jack said. He grabbed the bottle of tequila off the bar and motioned to the bartender. “Put it on my tab.” Then he left.

  Patrick called Lucy. It was three in the morning in Denver, but he had to talk to her.

  She answered on the first ring. “Patrick?”

  “You’re awake?”

  “We’ve had some excitement here,” she said. “I heard you did, too. We’ll swap stories when we get home.”

  Patrick was relieved to hear her voice.

  “I’m really going to miss you when you leave D.C.,” he said. In that moment all the anger, all the guilt, all the past blame, evaporated. She was getting on with her life, an agent with the FBI, in love with his best friend. He was so proud of her. Maybe, at one point, he had blamed Lucy for everything that happened seven years ago, but more than that, he blamed himself for not protecting her. Blamed himself for the feelings of anger he couldn’t control. But now it was gone.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked quietly.

  “Nothing.”

  She didn’t say anything. That’s what Lucy did. She waited. Patiently.

  “Luce, I love you.”

  “I know. I love you, too.”

  “And—well, I’m going to miss you.”

  “Have you been drinking?”

  He laughed. “I don’t hold my alcohol as well as Jack.”

  “No, you don’t. And for what it’s worth? I’m going to miss you the most. Visit. Often.”

  “I’ll see you in San Diego. I might be a little late.”

  “We all are.”

  * * *

  The phone rang and woke Patrick up. His head ached. Jack was in the shower. It was eight in the morning—he must have gone out hard after two brutal days. And too much tequila.

  “Kincaid,” he grunted into the phone.

  “Patrick? It’s Carina.”