by Jami Alden
“You can’t—”
“Of course I can. Look at it like this: You either have money, your regular cut—I even up commission on next delivery, it’s that valuable. Or you can have dead wife and people wondering what you do to get her killed by Russian gangster.”
Sean sure as hell hoped Krista was listening carefully, or better yet, that Ibarra was taping this, because Sean was too blown away by the surreal scene to take it all in.
“It was never my intention to cancel the shipment,” Maxwell bit out.
“Good, then we are on same page,” Karev said with a cold smile. “In the meantime, you get the cops off my ass. They are watching me like hawks.”
Maxwell shook his head. “You got yourself into that mess when you did the Salvatores. I told you it was a bad move. I did my part when I got the evidence dismissed.”
Beside him, Krista stifled a gasp.
“The cops have to look like they’re at least doing something,” Maxwell continued, “or the whole charade falls apart.”
Karev shrugged. “I’m not asking for opinion. Cops are cramping my style, and I don’t want to have to kill any for sniffing in my business. Makes complications. So you have power to get them to back off. Use it.”
Maxwell gave a begrudging nod, his expression like that of a dog who knows he’s been beaten by the alpha but wants nothing more than to tear out a throat or two.
Karev left, and sure enough, as soon as the door slammed behind him Maxwell turned on his wife. “You fucking idiot! What the fuck are you thinking, getting in the middle of this?”
To her credit, Margaret Grayson-Maxwell was no shrinking violet. “I’m the idiot? What about you, getting in bed with that, that ghoul!” She gave her head a violent shake. The hair didn’t budge.
“You sure as hell weren’t complaining when the money rolled in fast enough to cover up the fact that Carl’s father drained you dry.”
“You have to admit,” Carl chimed in, “the events of the past few months have left us exposed.”
“I told you he would only bring trouble. You should have left him to rot after he murdered that whore,” Margaret hissed. Through the haze of his mounting anxiety, Sean realized she was talking about Nate. “I always told you he was a bad seed and helping him was going to cost us.”
What was the connection with Nate? It had to be more than financial.
“Shut up.” David put his hands to his head as though he was trying to keep it from blowing apart. “Everything is under control, as long as we’re careful and don’t attract too much attention—”
“Under control?” Margaret raged. “Despite all of your influence, you haven’t even been able to eliminate the two people who could annihilate everything we’ve worked for!”
Krista felt like a grenade had gone off in her brain. She was right. It hadn’t ended with Nate, not by a long shot. Karev, David and Margaret Maxwell, even Margaret’s son Carl were in on it too.
Not just guilty by association, accidentally involved in some questionable financial transactions or even knowingly involved in something more white collar like money laundering. No, they were absolutely ass deep in all of it, their hands stained as darkly with blood as Nate’s had been.
And the blood they were gunning for now was theirs. How many times had she chatted with them over cocktails at some party she’d been forced to attend for work? Hell, she’d even shared her father’s dinner table with the Maxwells a time or two, back when she was in law school and her father had some harebrained idea about hooking her up with Carl.
And now that man was trying to kill her, to kill Sean. A tremor shook through her at the realization of how powerful their enemies truly were.
“We need to stay calm,” Carl stated, his tone soothing as he looked anxiously between David, whose face had gone past florid to purple with rage, and his mother, whose normally patrician, camera-ready features were twisted beyond recognition.
“That’s what you said when he died! You said we had nothing to worry about! But she found something, goddamn it—he left too many loose ends. They’re alive. They’re looking. They’re a threat. And if even a whisper of the truth comes out, if you think for a second you’re going to take me down with you—”
Maxwell moved so fast, grabbing Margaret around the throat and pinning her to the wall, Krista jerked and stifled a cry. Sean squeezed her hand in warning. She squeezed back, hanging on for dear life as she wondered if David Maxwell was going to murder his wife right before her eyes.
Horrible gagging sounds erupted from Margaret’s throat as she struggled, her feet kicking and her nails clawing at her husband’s hands. Carl leaped at his stepfather and tried to pull his arm off, but Maxwell threw him off like he was a pesky gnat.
Carl fell back and fumbled under his coat.
“No you don’t,” the bodyguard said. A click echoed through the room as he released the safety from the gun in his hand, now pointed at Carl’s face.
No question where the thug’s loyalties were.
David seemed oblivious as he screamed at his wife. “You will not interfere in any way, you understand? And if anyone is stupid enough to ask questions, you will keep your mouth shut about everything.” He let her go and she dropped to the floor, gasping for air, and then he whirled on Carl. “Get her the hell home and make sure she stays there.”
Though he was still glaring daggers at the bodyguard, Carl nodded. “How do you want me to follow up with Karev?”
“Meet with him tomorrow as planned and work out the details as usual. But I want extra security, at every level.” He turned to the bodyguard. “I want the systems in all facilities upgraded, and I’ll need men watching the trucking lot and this building until next week. And for fuck’s sake, find Slater and Flynn. We know they’re back in the city. I don’t care what you have to do, take care of them.” To Carl he said, “Get Karev to send some of his men. Make it sound like we need his help. It will make him feel better.”
Carl took Margaret by the arm and started toward the door. As soon as it closed behind them, Maxwell turned to the bodyguard. “Go get her.”
Her?
“You shouldn’t be here alone. I’ll call one of the others—”
A sweep of his arm knocked the magazines and coasters from the low coffee table to the floor. “Has everyone suddenly gone deaf? Why the fuck is no one listening to me tonight? I have perfect, fucking control of the situation.”
The bodyguard didn’t say anything, his expression carefully blank.
“What I need right now is a goddamn moment to myself, and for you to get the girl over here.”
The man shrugged. “Half hour.”
“Twenty minutes,” Maxwell bit out.
Krista thought Maxwell was out of control before, but as soon as the muscle left, he really let loose. Screaming, throwing furniture, kicking in the doors of the kitchen cabinets. Like all the years of pretending to be the perfect high-society husband had finally taken their toll.
“What the fuck is going on in there?” Ibarra whispered in her ear so suddenly it made her jump, kicking Sean in the process. Must have been something sensitive, because he couldn’t quite stifle the strangled grunt.
It had to have been impossible for him to hear over his own screaming, but Maxwell paused, his laser blue gaze locking on the opening of the vent.
They both froze, not even daring to breathe as Maxwell stared at the vent for several long seconds.
Then he shrugged, muttered something to himself as he went over to a cabinet and pulled out a half-empty bottle of what looked from here like scotch. He removed the stopper and didn’t even bother with a glass as he drained the bottle in several deep gulps.
He wiped his mouth and coughed a little. The bottle dropped from his hand with a hollow thunk and rolled from side to side on the hardwood floor.
Maxwell walked out of view, but they could hear him thumping up the stairs to the master suite. Footsteps sounded over their heads. If Krista punched
through the floor she’d be able to grab Maxwell’s ankle.
A squeal, followed by the metallic roar of water rushing through the pipes around them.
“That’s our cue,” Sean said through clenched teeth. “Are we clear on the outside?” he asked Ibarra.
“For now.”
“Let’s go.”
David Maxwell splashed water on his face and willed his hands to stop shaking, though the rage still pulsed hot and fierce through his blood.
Control. He had to maintain his control. When you lost control, that’s when you fucked up, as shown by his nephew before him.
David shook his head and stared at himself in the mirror, bloodshot blue eyes, his blunt features heavily lined. Nate had aged him a fucking century in the last four years.
He should have pulled some strings, made sure Nate stayed on active duty for a few more years. Kept him overseas, out of his hair, more likely to get killed on one of the missions that had taken him to the most dangerous parts of the world.
It had been a hell of a lot less stressful, keeping Nate at a distance, confident he was getting the fix for the bloodlust that ran through his veins in dark, faraway corners of the globe where a whore who turned up dead didn’t raise an eyebrow on either side.
And lucrative, too, when Nate and his buddy Jimmy had used their missions as a cover to direct Maxwell’s men to hidden caches of weapons, drugs, people…whatever treasures that particular armpit they were operating in had concealed. All for the taking if you just knew the right strings to pull.
But Nate had wanted to come back home, and so had Jimmy. Like an idiot, Maxwell had given in, half afraid of what Nate might do if he didn’t get his way.
Idiot. He should have known then, listened to that first tremor of unease, gotten rid of Nate at the first inkling that he might not be one hundred percent under his control. But he’d never forgiven himself for abandoning his sister on his way to a better life.
It was shortly after he’d conned his way into Margaret’s bed that he’d gotten the news of his sister’s murder at the hands of her boyfriend, and the tragic death of his niece—her death from heat stroke in the trunk of a car as she hid from the boyfriend’s abuse on a scorching summer afternoon.
The only survivor was his nephew, Nate, who had lived because he’d killed the boyfriend in self defense. Apparently there was still feeling in his dark, twisted lump of a heart, because it had ached at the last memory David had of Nate. At seven, he’d been a remarkably handsome—not just cute—kid, with his thick wheat-colored hair and clear blue eyes. He was already almost frighteningly intelligent, reading and doing math far beyond his grade level. Absolutely devoted to his younger sister.
He’d been the son David always thought he wanted.
Unfortunately—at least, he’d thought so then—he was never able to claim Nate publicly. But he’d been able to protect him, support him, and steer his baser needs into more productive directions.
As Margaret, and now Carl, was now eager to tell him at every turn, it had been the biggest mistake of his life. Far from being able to control Nate, David had realized after many years that he was being manipulated. He was the one bending over backward to clean up Nate’s messes and keep him out of trouble.
And at the end, they were so deeply entwined, David was afraid that any trouble Nate got into was bound to suck David down with him.
When it came out that Nate was the Seattle Slasher and was killed by that cop, it could have been the end of it. Nate was dead, and no one ever had to know about David’s failed attempt to channel his nephew’s sick impulses into something more productive.
But too many traces, too many ties were left, just waiting to be revealed.
Damn it, if only Nate hadn’t gone after Sean Flynn, no one would even give a shit. But take a war hero, wrongfully accuse him of murder, and put him on death row, and people—especially compulsive do-gooders like his sister Megan and that goddamn Krista Slater—got damn anxious about making things right.
And the hell of it was, once he got over his anger at Nate for taking matters into his own hands and killing Evangeline Gordon, Maxwell had been on board with taking Sean down in the process. Nate had convinced him that Sean was on the verge of discovering the truth about the scouting work Nate and Jimmy had been doing on some of those far-flung missions.
He didn’t have to die, but he had to be taken out of action, and why not kill two birds with one stone? Evangeline, whom Nate claimed was about to start spilling about the prostitution ring and exactly whom the girls were servicing was silenced. Sean was locked up, too busy worrying about his next appeal to make any more trouble for them.
But come to find out Sean was in no position to make trouble and never had been. After Sean was tried, convicted, and locked up, Jimmy Caparulo revealed that Sean had no idea about the deals Jimmy and Nate had done for him. He knew nothing of the weapons and drugs that had ended up in his network instead of the hands of the U.S. Army.
Of course, not until after Sean was tried and convicted, but better late than never.
No, Sean, big sap, was honest and ethical to the marrow of his bones, and believed his closest friends were too.
So trusting, he’d stumbled right into the trap Nate had laid for all of them.
Based on what they’d found, Nate had been poised to blow Maxwell’s entire operation wide open while he rode off into the sunset with Megan Flynn. He’d been killed before he could execute his plan, but that didn’t stop the little leaks from creeping out like so much toxic waste.
And of course there was the huge leak, in the form of Talia Vega, who had somehow managed to make it out of Nate’s dungeon alive.
There was a time when David would have done anything to protect her from the sick needs of his nephew. Now, when David wasn’t fantasizing about killing her himself, he had fantasies of conjuring Nate back to life for the sole purpose of hunting her down and killing her in the manner she deserved.
Three months and not a word from her, as it should be. She knew goddamn well what would happen to her—not to mention her sister—if she tried to expose them. For anything to happen, she’d have to talk to the police, and, well, they would talk to him.
One peep, and she’d be his. He hoped she was keeping that in mind as she cowered in whatever corner she’d scurried off to.
He paced the length of the bedroom and checked his watch. He still had fifteen minutes, at least.
The floorboards creaked under his feet and he took a step back, bouncing as he tried to locate the faulty board.
Nothing.
A chill crept up over his neck as he remembered the muffled thump a few minutes ago. In that instant, he’d chalked it up to the blood roaring in his head as he gave vent to his anger.
No, it wasn’t possible. No one knew this place, and anyone who did was deep enough in the shit with him not to make any trouble.
Talia. Her face swam in his brain. Her knowing dark eyes, the glow of adoration long since replaced with disdain. Red full lips and their faint curve of revulsion.
She knew.
But how could they have found her when no one—not his contacts in the SPD, not the FBI, not even the fucking Canadian Mounted Police who’d been discreetly hunting for her ever since he’d been alerted by border control she’d crossed over—had picked up a single whiff of her trail.
He flew down the stairs as though compelled by an invisible hand on his back. He unlocked his office and switched on the light. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead and every hair on his body stood on end.
He did a slow circle around the office. The computer was off. The cabinets that lined the wall behind it were closed and locked. As far as he could tell, the notes and papers on his desk were in the same disarray as he’d left them. He had a sudden, fervent wish that he was one of those meticulous types that kept everything exactly in its place, making it obvious when anything was even a millimeter out of order.
Now he kicked himself for growing
too soft, too accustomed to having others clean up his messes to keep his own shit straight.
He shook his head. There was no way they could know about this place, the deal set to go down on Tuesday.
He went back out to the bar and took another slug of scotch. Felt the warmth seep into his tissues and let it overtake him. Sank into the cozy confidence the liquor always provided.
He took the bottle upstairs with him, kicked off his shoes, and stretched out on the bed to wait. So what if she told anyway? What good would it do? Like anyone would believe her.
And if Slater took it in her head to come sniffing around, if she suspected what he was really up to, what was the worst that could happen? The investigation would be killed faster than she would. They were cut off, working without a net, and living like fugitives. With the police on high alert and his and Karev’s men ordered to kill on sight, the chances of them finding anything, much less talking, were slim to none. And no matter what they uncovered, Maxwell had his hooks so deep in this town, no way an ex-con and a rogue prosecutor could pose a risk.
There might be a brief public scandal before the story died in the papers. Not enough to bring them down, but probably enough to kill Margaret’s political aspirations.
His smile morphed into a sneer. That might not be a bad thing—his bitch of a wife was getting a little too loose in the saddle for his liking, and he was starting to question how she might wield her power once she got it.
So what if Slater and Flynn were back in the city?
Still, he knew the gut-churning sense that everything could blow apart at any second wouldn’t disappear until he got the news that both Slater and Flynn were dead.
Chapter 18
Krista held her breath as she watched Sean twist his shoulders to squeeze through the vent. After Margaret, Carl, and Maxwell’s thug left, Krista and Sean had made slow, careful progress across the length of the crawl space, aiming for the vent cover that opened to the outside of the building.