Sidney dropped the transmission into drive and sped away. “Do you know how many laws you’ve broken?”
“Let’s see …” He counted on his fingers. “Breaking and entering, and kidnapping. Two.”
“Two to start with.”
Rod Brown groaned.
Smoke socked him in the jaw. Whap! “And battery.”
“You’re an idiot!”
“Look,” Smoke said, “the way I see it, he’s a criminal.”
“So are you.”
“No—aw, let’s not get into that. That said, guys like him don’t operate within the rules you hold so dear. They break them. And we aren’t going to get anywhere following the FBI playbook.” Smoke huffed. “Guys like this laugh at those tactics. If you want to get this done, then we need to fight fire with fire.”
“We need to not break the law.”
“Then you shouldn’t have come along, Agent Shaw. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason they hired me to do this: I can get my hands dirty. You can’t.” He shoved Rod’s sagging body over toward the window. “Let me out, and you walk away from this.”
“No.” In the rearview mirror, she saw Smoke banging his head against his headrest.
I’m in charge, not you.
“So what’s the next step in your brilliant plan? Are we going to beat the whereabouts of AV out of him?” she asked.
“Something like that, but my methods of intimidation are a bit more subtle.”
“Waterboarding?”
Smoke laughed. “Sure. Why not? Let’s swing by Walmart and pick up some bottled water and towels.”
Sidney drove the car down into a marina along the Potomac and parked in the shadows where a stretch of highway passed over. She turned and faced Smoke. “Next time, let’s put him in the trunk.”
“Next time, huh?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Sure. Say, where are your flex cuffs?”
She popped open the glove box and handed him two pairs.
Smoke fastened Rod’s arms behind his back and bound his ankles. He rummaged through Sidney’s gym bag.
“Hey!” She snatched a pair of her panties from his hand. “Do you mind?”
“No,” Smoke said. He found a sweatshirt and covered Rod’s head. “There. I think we’re ready to go now.” He handed over her gym bag. “All set. Time to wake him up.” He put his finger to his lips. “Let me do the talking.”
“Fine. Just don’t get carried away.” Interrogations. She’d conducted plenty. Let’s see how you handle this.
“Great, now turn the heater up.”
She did.
Smoke nodded. “And cover your ears.”
“Why?”
Smoke pinched Rod’s inner thigh.
The big man bucked in his seat and let out an ear-splitting howl.
Sidney covered her ears.
Smoke grabbed Rod by his neck and squeezed. “Quiet, Rod, and we’ll make this quick.”
“Who-who are you?” Rod stammered. “What’s going on?”
“I just have a few questions.” Smoke changed his voice to something, rougher, darker. “Tell me what I need to know, and I’ll let you go.”
“Screw you! Do you know who I am?”
“You’re Rod Brown. Another one of AV’s disposable buttholes.”
“Huh? What did you call me? A disposable—”
Smoke punched his face through the sweatshirt. “Shut up!”
“But—”
Punch!
“I don’t like your accent. Where are you from, Rod? Pennsylvania? Jersey?”
“Baltimore.”
Punch!
“I thought I told you to keep quiet. And I hate Baltimore.” Smoke winked at Sidney. “Now, simple question. Where can I find AV?”
Rod remained still and silent. The rising heat was fogging up the windows. Sidney fanned her neck.
“I asked you a question, Rod.”
Rod said nothing.
“Oh, I see. Now you’re going to be quiet.”
Punch.
“Listen, moron,” Rod said. “You can punch me all you want, but I don’t know any AV.”
“Sure, sure you don’t. And I’m Mary Poppins.”
“You sound like her to me, you frigging putz!” Rod thrashed at his bonds. “Now let me out of these things, you idiot, and I won’t have to frigging kill you!”
Smoke reached under the sweatshirt, hooked his fingers into Rod’s nose, and lifted him up out of his seat. It was one of Sidney’s favorite pressure points. A simple restraining technique. Impressive.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!”
“Do you know who AV is, or don’t you?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“Are you going to sit still?”
“Yes! Ow! Yes!”
Smoke released him.
“Good, Baltimore Rod. Now we’re getting somewhere. So tell me—you’re one of his crew—where is he?”
“Look,” Rod said, huffing for breath, “Let me do both of us a favor. Whatever you have with AV, drop it. If you pursue it, then you’re dead already.”
“So you know where he is?”
“All I know is when and where I’m supposed to be. He may or may not be there. Listen, whoever you are, I don’t care.” Rod’s voice started to break. He balled up a little. “Don’t cross AV. Don’t make me cross AV. It’s worse than death, what he does to people who cross him. Worse than death.”
An uncanny chill raced down Sidney’s spine. She glanced at Smoke. One of his brows was cocked over his eye. He mouthed some words to her. “What do you make of that?”
She shrugged.
He held a finger up, reached into his pocket and handed her a smartphone. He nodded to Rod.
Sidney turned it on. It needed a passcode. Great. She thought about it as Smoke went back to work.
“When’s your next meeting with AV?”
“Two days.”
“Oh, that was pretty quick. I think you’re lying, Baltimore Rod.” Smoke lightly touched his fingers on Rod’s leg.
“Eek! What was that?”
“A spider. Well, a tarantula to be exact.” He tickled Rod’s leg again.
Rod screamed. “Get it off me! Please! Get it off me!”
“What’s the matter, Rod? Are you scared of a little, er, well, a big bug with eight hairy legs?” He barely touched the hair on Rod’s leg again.
“Ah!” The big man bucked and twitched. “Stop it! I meet him tomorrow. Late afternoon! Stop it!”
“Where?”
Rod fell silent.
“My spider is a biter, Rod.”
“Please, man, please. You don’t want to do this. If I tell you, AV will figure it out. AV knows everything. No one can get close to him, no matter how hard they try. Trust me, man. Trust me!” He sobbed. “It’s a death wish.”
Sidney had seen plenty of men under duress before, but she hadn’t expected this. Given enough pressure, loyal foot soldiers rolled on their bosses all the time. This was different. Rod had fear. Real, earnest fear.
Hmmm…She decided to try a passcode on Rod’s phone. Let’s see how dumb you are. She typed in his building and room number. 1211. She got access. Yes! She showed Smoke. His brows lifted. She began sifting through Rod’s emails, contacts, texts, and interesting applications. It was sparse. Great. A burner.
“Where are you meeting tomorrow?” Smoke said.
“Aw geez, don’t make me, please.”
“I’m going to leave you in here with Mister Tarantula. Leave him on your face. How does that sound, Rod?” Smoke tickled his leg.
“Ah! No! No!”
“Ah, yes, yes,” Smoke said.
“It’s Drake. A club called Drake. He meets us there. Oh man. Oh man, I can’t believe I told you.” He balled up and started to rock. “I’m a dead man. You’re a dead man. All loose ends must go.”
CHAPTER 15
Smoke put Rod in a sleeper hold and silenced the man’s hysteria. “Sorry,” he said, “that
was getting old.”
“Agreed.” Sidney tossed the phone back to Smoke. “So what’s the plan now? Are you going to tuck him back in bed?”
“We could drug him.”
“I don’t have any drugs. Do you?”
“I was thinking we could buy some.”
“Dumb idea. I guess you didn’t think things through.” Sidney fastened her belt and put the car in drive. In two minutes they were back on the highway.
This is a mess. A total mess.
“You did good,” Smoke said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You did good. You have good instincts. Going after Baltimore Rod was a good call. He is stupid, and he was easy to break.”
“I think some luck should be factored in there, seeing as he was home. What if he hadn’t been?”
“Well, he was though, wasn’t he?”
Sidney fought off a yawn.
“Tired?”
She ignored him. Exhausted was more like it. It had been an unexpectedly emotional day, and she hadn’t handled it well. I need to get better at this.
“I think we should follow your suggestion and tuck Baltimore Rod back in bed.”
Sidney caught Smoke’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Why is that?”
“Why do you think? You suggested it.”
“You first.”
“Aw, can you just be forthcoming for once and let me be the devil’s advocate for a change?”
“All right, Mister Smoke, let me share my thoughts. You’re an idiot! All you had to do was verify that Rod was in there. We could have tailed him. Bugged him. Done something vastly more subtle.”
“That might have taken days. Maybe weeks.”
“And after a few days we could have improvised,” she said.
“I improvised early. Now we know where AV will be.”
“Might be. And that’s assuming Rod isn’t lying.”
“He’s not.”
“Why, because you pretended to put a spider on his leg?”
“You have to admit, it was pretty effective, one of my better ones.” He leaned forward. “It’s called entomophobia. People that are raised in the city are twice as likely to get big heebie-jeebies as folks in the country. It pays off for me most times.”
“Luck.”
“Fate,” he said.
“Well, I think the mentioning of AV shook him,” she said, hitting the car’s blinker and switching lanes. “And to your point, I think that gives us an advantage. He won’t tell AV. That would be bad for him too. You can just put him back in his apartment. He’s so scared of AV that I’m betting he’d rather hide his secret than go on the run. It at least gives him a pleading chance.”
Smoke eased into his seat. “My thoughts exactly, Agent Shaw. Well done.”
“Shut up.”
***
It was 12:42 am when they got back to the FBI house. Baltimore Rod was back in his condo asleep—with the help of some Sominex Smoke had forced down his throat.
“He’ll sleep like a baby,” Smoke said. “He might even forget the whole thing.”
I’d like to forget this whole thing.
Sidney sat on the basement couch while Smoke started up the gas fireplace in the corner. The warm light was soothing. Too soothing. She yawned again.
“If you’re going to stay over,” Smoke said, taking a place on the recliner, “you might as well catch some z’s.”
Sidney sat up and toggled through her phone. She’d downloaded all of Baltimore Rod’s information from his burner before she returned it. There were a few nuggets that were useful. Times. Locations. A month’s worth of data. It was a stroke of luck that he hadn’t pitched it by now. She covered her mouth and yawned.
I need sleep. I need to be sharp tomorrow.
She was heading into a twenty-four-hour day, and it had been a while. At least a year. She’d gotten used to six hours of sleep during the week—eight on the weekends. In the Air Force, when she was law enforcement, there had been days that lasted forty-eight to seventy-two hours. There were long stake-outs with the FBI, but they weren’t so bad.
I’ve gotten soft.
She rubbed her blurry eyes and took a glance at Smoke. He sat rubbing the grizzle on his chin, with the fire’s flame reflecting in his dark eyes.
Well, look at Mister Bright-eyed and Bushy-tailed.
“This reminds me of my grandmother’s place,” he said. “She had a basement I’d stay in whenever Mom and Dad took trips out of town.” He started to rock a little in the recliner. “It was so easy to start a fire with a gas line built in. I’d play with the flames all night. Huddle in front of the TV and play Nintendo. And Nanny, she fed us hot chocolate with ice cream.”
Sidney rose up off the sofa. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“You’re leaving? Why?”
“Because you’re ruining my image of the Navy SEALs.”
“Because I like Nintendo?”
“No, because I don’t want to know what your favorite ice cream is.”
“It’s—”
“See you tomorrow,” she said, heading up the steps.
“What time?”
“Morning time.” She stopped at the upper stoop. “And don’t you go anywhere until I return.”
She made it outside through the rain and into her car, thinking about the long drive home. If the house had a few beds, she probably would have stayed. FBI idiots. They could have rented a furnished house at least. She backed out of the drive and roared down the street. The good-looking image of Smoke sitting in the recliner was branded in her mind. Hot chocolate and ice cream. She shook her head in self-defense. Don’t warm up to him.
CHAPTER 16
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Sidney pushed her face out of her pillow and checked the clock on the nightstand. 5:34 a.m. Not even four hours’ sleep. With a groan, she sat up. Her eyelids were heavy. She rubbed her neck, stretched out her arms, and yawned.
If that’s you, Jack, I’m going to kill you.
Rubbing her eyes, she checked her text messages. There weren’t any.
“Great. Phantom buzzing in my sleep now.”
She toggled through her features. There was a red update on the tracking app. “What’s this?”
She opened it up. Smoke’s beacon had moved. It was no longer sitting safely at Benson Park Estates. It was on the move. Miles away. Sidney jumped to her feet.
“Sonuvabitch!”
She stubbed her toe on her bed post.
“Dammit!”
She limped to her closet, grabbed a pair of jeans and a pullover shirt, and slipped them on. She holstered up and tied on her shoes. Inside of two minutes she was squealing out of her parking spot and then back on the road.
She tied her hair back in a ponytail, then rubbed her puffy eyes. It wasn’t raining, but the window was frosted up. She rubbed it with her hand and turned up the heater.
“Piece of crap car.”
She shivered and checked the beacon. Smoke was moving. West. Toward Annapolis. She laid on the gas.
I’ll intercept him in the Interceptor. She laughed. It was a long-standing joke that cops and agents made about the old cars. Then I’ll kill him.
Hankering for coffee and listening to the moan in her stomach, she plowed down the road. She was angry. Jack. Cyrus. Smoke. They all made her mad. Each was unreliable. Unpredictable. She didn’t like it. But she didn’t mind the excitement that came with it.
I’ll show ‘em.
She eased back in her seat and turned on some talk radio. The aggravating conversations were certain to keep her alert. Awake. Promises and failures. A chronic rinse-and-repeat cycle of wasted taxpayer dollars.
Clear your mind, Sid. Focus.
There were a lot of things to take in. Change was one of them. She didn’t like change. She liked routine. She liked a plan.
“Some things you just can’t plan for,” her father often said. “Always assume everything is out of your control, aside f
rom yourself.”
She hated it when he said that, right along with the smile that came with it. It made her feel like she was doing something wrong. She did things right. She saw to it others did things right as well.
Cruising down the road, she regained her focus. She’d been off her game.
Too much time behind the desk.
She had yelled and cussed. It showed a lack of self-control.
No more of that. You’re a pro, Sid. Be a pro. No surprises. No letdowns.
She unholstered her Glock, ran her fingers over the barrel, and stuffed it back in the holster.
I need to get to the range.
She felt jumpy. Edgy.
I don’t like feeling this way.
The frost on the windows cleared, revealing the moon’s bright glow. An eerie haze hung in the sky, concealing parts of it. Up ahead, a pack of animals darted across the highway. She squinted.
“What the heck?”
The dogs were big dark silhouettes padding across the concrete and vanishing over the guard rail and into the woods. A chill went through her.
Those were wolves.
She shook her head. Maybe coyotes. No, coyotes aren’t that big. She slowed the car down and eased onto the berm. No. Get after Smoke, Sid. No time to fool around. She laid the gas back on and zoomed up the road. Those were wolves, though. I know it. Ted’s words came to mind. Extraordinary caution.
Cruising at ninety, she closed in on Smoke’s beacon, which had come to a stop off somewhere south of the John Hanson Highway. She took the machine up to ninety-five before slowing for the next exit, then followed the beacon down the greenway beyond the condos and plaza to a lonely stretch of road miles from the nearest highway.
What on earth is he doing out here?
That’s when another thought crossed her mind. What if it wasn’t him at all? What if one of his crew was leading her on a wild goose chase? It had been at least twenty minutes since his beacon stopped moving.
Erase your doubt. Follow your leads.
The beacon led her down a grave stretch of road that ended in a grove of tall trees. A gravel parking lot greeted her, accompanied by a lone warehouse lit up with neon signs. One sign read Chester’s in bright orange and green flames. There were a few motorcycles and muscle cars on the scene. Beer cans and broken glass littered the parking lot.
The Supernatural Bounty Hunter Files Collector's Set: Books 1-10: Urban Fantasy Shifter Series Page 7