Her Husband’s Partner

by Jeanie London

  Her hands were cold, delicate, fitting in his so neatly, silky skin against skin. He squeezed slightly to reassure her.

  “Riley,” he said, a whisper between them.

  She finally met his gaze, and Scott saw so much in her eyes, in her expression. She was rattled. And relieved to see him. That got a reaction deep in his gut, and he tried not to notice how smooth her skin was against his, telling himself she’d have been glad to see any familiar face right now.

  But it was his face she stared into, his hands she clung to, and rationalizing her response didn’t stop his pulse from lurching expectantly, didn’t stop him from hanging on to her as if magnetized.

  And for a stunning few heartbeats the world seemed to disappear, just completely vanish, leaving nothing but him and Riley connected by a touch and a glance.

  “Damned hoods freaked when they saw the roadblock.” Jason’s voice shattered the moment like a gunshot. “Riley had to make a quick exit.”

  Their gazes broke away to find Jason staring uncomfortably at the remains of the wooden blockade that littered the street.

  Riley slid her hands from his as a paramedic reappeared from inside the vehicle.

  “Ma’am, I need to—”

  “We’re done,” she said, clearly bristling. “I’m good.”

  Jason cast an annoyed look at Scott that translated into Will you deal with her? I’ve got my hands full.

  Scott glanced between the expectant paramedic and Agent Mannis, and managed to squelch his own annoyance at Jason’s lack of concern. This was Riley, not some random pain-in-the-ass reporter. Then again, Scott wouldn’t want to be in Jason’s shoes right now. Bust going balls-up on the DEA’s time. No wonder Hazard Creek’s normally imperturbable police chief looked perturbed.

  Deciding to cut the guy some slack, Scott inclined his head in another silent communication. Got her.

  Jason nodded, looking relieved as he escorted the DEA agent away from the ambulance to where the HCPD was mirandizing a group of kids handcuffed against two cruisers.

  Scott shifted back, and Riley popped to her feet as if detonated. “I need to go home.”

  She still didn’t sound like herself, and Scott raked another gaze over her tight expression. He couldn’t miss her agitation or pallor.

  “No problem, Riley. Let me wrap things up with these guys.” He turned to the paramedic. “Where are we? Did you get everything you need from her?”

  The guy seemed to understand that Scott was asking whether or not his resistant patient was in shock. “Vitals are good. Cleaned up the surface scratches. She has some bruising.”

  Not so bad considering she’d outrun a car full of panicked drug dealers. Scott glanced back to where the HCPD were loading the last of the young hoods into separate cruisers. Scott didn’t recognize any of them. That at least was good.

  He spotted a brightly colored tote bag sitting inside the ambulance. “This yours?”

  She nodded.

  Grabbing the bag, he placed a hand on her uninjured elbow, steering her away from the ambulance and toward their cars.

  “Did you get your story?” He needed to get her talking.

  “The little there was.”

  “I’ll bet this wasn’t the outcome Jason was looking for.”

  She nodded, then reached for her bag. He handed it over, frowning as she plunged a hand inside and fumbled around. He heard the rattle of keys.

  If Riley thought she’d be driving herself home, she’d need to rethink her plan. He didn’t care what the paramedic said.

  “Come on, ride back to town with me,” he said.

  She stopped short and glanced up at him with a frown. “I have to pick up the kids at Rosie and Joe’s.”

  “No problem. I’ll take you.”

  “My van.”

  “I’ll make the trip back to pick it up with Kevin.”

  She shook her head and inhaled deeply, visibly steeling herself. “Thank you, Scott, but no. I’m fine.”

  He didn’t believe her. She knew he didn’t but wasn’t backing down. Had she always been so stubborn? He looked into her clear blue eyes, sparkly eyes that couldn’t hide how rattled she was no matter what she said. How would Mike have handled his willful wife?

  “How about if I follow you back?” Scott suggested a compromise. “Just to make sure you get there okay. My day will be shot if I’m worried about you making it home in one piece.”

  She held his gaze for another moment, and her expression eased up. “Fine. I promised the kids I’d get them before dinner. We’re having tacos.”

  He wasn’t sure why she was sharing the menu and considered this another good reason why she shouldn’t get behind the wheel. He was about to have another go at persuading her to let him play chauffeur when Jason showed up.

  “You okay?” he asked Riley, earning back a few points in Scott’s book. The guy wasn’t always a jerk. Nice to know.

  “Yes.” She lifted up on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to Jason’s cheek. “Sorry things didn’t work out as you’d hoped.”

  Jason flashed the smile that folks on both sides of the Hudson River were familiar with, a smile as fake as if it had been carved on a Halloween pumpkin. “Just remember we go way back when you write your article. I really don’t want to see my face all over the front page associated with this mess.”

  Riley gave a weak smile while depressing her key fob. She reached for the handle as the lock on the van door clicked, but Jason got it first, making her wait.

  “How’d you hear about the bust, anyway?” he asked.

  “Max. He didn’t share his source.”

  Jason frowned, but Scott was frowning even harder by now. He’d thought the guy would be too busy with the feds, who were swarming the HCPD cruisers almost ready to leave the scene, to be playing twenty questions with Riley.

  Jason glanced Scott’s way, then pulled open the door. Riley slipped inside.

  “Sorry we had to meet up again like this, Riley,” Jason said, leaning on the open door. “Welcome back.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Jason blinked hard, then he eased shut the door before asking through the open window, “Are you all right to drive back?”

  “I’m following her,” Scott said. “Pull over if you need to stop, Riley. And don’t lose me in that hot rod, okay?”

  She rolled her eyes. Scott headed toward his car, not really good with letting her drive but unsure what the hell else he could do. Short of handcuffing her, anyway.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JASON KENNEY BACKED AWAY from the van while Riley cranked the engine. He came to a dead stop as a roar of sound blasted from the stereo. Riley jerked back in her seat, and for a stunned instant Jason froze as raw rap music rocked the suburban quiet.

  A string of words that had no business pouring from any young mother’s minivan.

  Words from the streets.

  Riley slammed her palm against the steering wheel to shut down the noise.

  “Too much convenience isn’t always a good thing,” she said wearily while popping out a CD from the stereo. She tossed it onto the passenger seat with a muttered, “That kid.”

  Jason didn’t ask what she was talking about. He didn’t need to know. He only needed to know why she had that CD.

  And did Scott know?

  Casting a quick glance at the unmarked cruiser, Jason found Scott inside the car with the door shut.

  Was this some sort of setup? What else could it be?

  “Take care, Jason,” Riley said, and he stepped away from the door automatically to allow her to pull out.

  The gleam of red taillights flashed as Scott followed her, and Jason remained immobilized by indecision. About the only thing he knew right now was that he had no time to figure out what to do and how it would to come back to bite him in the ass. And it would. That much he knew. Lately everything he did circled around like a damned concrete boomerang ready to smash him in the face.

  He could feel Barry’s gaze bu
rning a hole through him from across the street. The DEA agent from hell wanted answers. Jason stubbornly decided to let him wait and buy himself a few extra seconds to think.

  He couldn’t be mistaken. No. He hadn’t heard much of the poison blasting from Riley’s van before she’d stopped the show, but he’d recognized what he’d heard.

  Veteranos got it down. Ace cool in the game. The Busters hooked up. For a piece of curb service.

  The lyrics of that pounding rap beat were a language all their own. The language of the streets. And Jason was well versed in what those lyrics meant.

  Cops had backed up veteran gang members during a drug delivery, protecting the criminals and their cut of the action from drugs that would be sold on the streets.

  Jason couldn’t be sure without listening to the complete track but guessed the lyrics would provide details about the specific crime. And specific cops.

  HCPD.

  In a perfect world, the idea of any law-enforcement officer getting into bed with the hoods would have made him see red.

  But this wasn’t a perfect world, and the cops perpetrating illegal acts weren’t always corrupt. Sometimes they were simply following orders. Bad orders, maybe, but orders nevertheless.

  Homemade CDs like the one Riley had came from gangs who circulated them on the streets to boast of their exploits. A gang friendly with local law had a built-in safeguard against other gangs that might want to intrude on their operations.

  Those CDs were also insurance policies. Bad cops might be in on the street action, but when push came to shove, they also had the power. Gang members didn’t trust cops—particularly ones who betrayed the law they’d sworn to uphold—when those same cops could send them before a judge. Gangs understood loyalty. Sometimes Jason thought that was all they understood.

  So what was Riley doing with that CD on the day she’d turned up at a bogus bust?

  Jason was sure Scott hadn’t heard, and that might be Jason’s only decent luck lately. Scott would have known what was on that CD. He worked knee-deep in gangs. Hell, he even dealt with them for fun with that volunteer group Chief Levering had started when Jason had been with the PPD.

  Or was this whole thing a setup? Had Scott given the CD to Riley? Had she played it to get a reaction from Jason? Did they suspect what was going down in Hazard Creek?

  No, Jason decided. That was paranoia, plain and simple. How could they have possibly known he’d show up at Riley’s van?

  Then again, they shouldn’t have known about this bust. But Scott had only arrived after Riley had gotten hurt, and Jason seriously doubted Riley would have put herself in harm’s way for any reason. Not after what had happened to Mike.

  But someone had spilled something to the Mid-Hudson Herald and Riley had that CD…

  Damn it. This situation was a mess.

  “How did they know about this hit?” Barry Mannis aka Agent Asshole asked from a distance, barreling across the street like an out-of-control semi, which was what the DEA agent looked like. Short. Thick. Muscular build making up for what he lacked in height. Fast, though, as if he rolled along on eighteen wheels.

  Agent Asshole couldn’t wait for answers, so Jason was out of time. He shrugged. “Editor at the paper got an anonymous tip and sent a reporter.”

  “You know her.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Not really. I worked with her husband back in my PPD days. Haven’t seen her in years.”

  “What about the cop with her? He PPD, too?”

  Jason nodded.

  “Let me get this straight. Not only do we have the media showing up at what was supposed to be a surprise hit, but now we’ve got Poughkeepsie’s department involved, too.”

  What was Jason supposed to say? He’d cast his vote that this was a stupid move. Insane. Agent Asshole hadn’t wanted to hear it. Not when he was getting pushed around by DEA brass and needed to look as if he was doing some honest work around here.

  Pumping drugs into the area wasn’t honest work.

  But Agent Asshole didn’t care who he risked. Why should he? It wasn’t his team that would look stupid when they came up empty.

  Jason took a step forward, forcing the DEA agent to sink back on his heels to maintain eye contact. And though he couldn’t see the man’s eyes through the polarized aviator shades, the reminder of how short he was would irritate the hell out of him. Jason knew Agent Asshole always stood at a distance because he didn’t like looking up to anyone.

  Petty, maybe, but it was all Jason had right now.

  So he stared down at the thickset man, absolute loathing burning through him like battery acid. How had he ever thought this man might be a useful contact? How had he missed that nothing in life, especially appointments to high-profile commissions, would ever come free?

  “So who tipped off the media? One of yours?” Mannis held his ground and looked pissed about it.

  “Not one of mine,” Jason retorted. “You’re the one who set up the bust, then tipped off the hoods. My men aren’t in the loop. I told you that. Not one of them.”

  That was the only thing that let Jason look in the mirror at night. He might have gotten sucked in with the wrong bunch of high-powered pricks, but he wouldn’t implicate his men. If anything went wrong—and with his luck it was only a matter of time—then his men could honestly stand before Internal Affairs and say they weren’t involved.

  Jason had a responsibility to the good, loyal men serving Hazard Creek. He wasn’t going to drag them down until he could figure out some way to make this nightmare go away.

  Until then he had no choice but to play the game.

  “You better hope like hell you’re right, Kenney,” Mannis finally said, and Jason could almost see the agent’s eyes narrowing behind the dark lenses. “I don’t want to call in an anonymous tip of my own. Got some shots from Atlantic City that would make a much better story than what happened here today. That streaming video of you with those pretty cholas would make you really popular on YouTube. You’d be a cyber-celebrity.”

  The blood drained from Jason’s head and, for one blind instant, all he could see was himself surrounded by a bunch of naked young women. Prostitutes, most likely. Jason couldn’t be sure. He’d been so stoned on ecstasy at the time he’d thought he’d stepped into a friggin’ wet dream.

  He shut his eyes against the sight, against the vision of what that night would look like immortalized on video and playing in a courtroom, and in that moment, he would have given his reputation, his job and every man on his squad to unload his service weapon in Agent Asshole’s face.

  But until Mannis wound up the victim of a public service murder—and he most definitely would if there was a God—Jason had to deal with damage control. At least until he could figure out how to safeguard the incriminating evidence he’d unwittingly given this man to use against him.

  “I’ll find what went down,” he said flatly.

  “Get on it,” Mannis said. “I don’t want trouble right now.”

  No damn doubt. Jason hadn’t been trusted with all the details of the seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar shipment coming into their area, but he knew the operation had been in the works too long to screw up at the finish line.

  “Keep me informed,” Mannis repeated when some of his agents emerged from the abandoned cookhouse.

  Jason collected himself as he headed back to the crime scene, snapping at Hank Llewellyn as he passed. “Get those blockades out of the street.”

  His department would look stupid enough without his office being flooded with complaints about trashing the neighborhood.

  The HCPD would certainly get real estate in the news. Some talking head would tell the world about how the Narcotics Commission had let a drug manufacturing ring slip through its fingers. Then the governor would be calling for an explanation.

  Jason didn’t know how this day could have turned into any more of a nightmare than it already had. But he had figured out one thing—he wasn’t sharing the bit about
the CD. Nothing else was getting out of his control if he could help it.

  He didn’t know what the hell was going on with Riley and Scott, but he was going to find out. Riley had gotten that CD somewhere. Its contents would tell him exactly what he was up against. If Scott and the PPD were involved…

  CHAPTER SIX

  ABOUT THE SAME TIME Riley had taken the phone call from Max, drug dealers had been clearing out their operation in an older residential neighborhood and driving away. She might have even passed them on the Taconic Parkway in her rush to Hazard Creek.

  All that scrambling around to catch the action, stressing the kids out as she hurried them out the door… For what?

  Mommy died. Mommy died like Daddy.

  Her eyes fluttered shut as she endured yet another blast of anxiety so physical it rushed through her like a cold wave.

  Maybe she needed a new career. She’d come home to start a new life. Her life. She could be a teacher. Journalism or maybe English. Better yet, she could work in an elementary school. Then she and the kids could be together in the same place all day, have the same schedules. A career where she wouldn’t get in the way of law-enforcement officers doing their jobs and drug dealers doing theirs…

  Riley couldn’t shake the memory of scrambling to get away from that out-of-control car. The details had etched themselves in her head. Always too many details.

  The scooter carelessly discarded on the front porch as if a child had dropped it without a thought.

  The baskets hanging from the gables, filled to overflowing with cheery summer blooms.

  The violent ruts in the carefully tended grass where car tires had dredged deep into the dirt.

  That drug operation had been hidden in a neighborhood where folks reared families and moms walked the streets with strollers and kids riding scooters.

  How did such a dichotomy exist in one place? Families living alongside drug dealers? Such a wholesome environment coexisting with a destructive one?

  Riley felt the same incomprehension she’d faced with the reality that her husband, such a vital and loving man, could be there one day and be gone forever the next.