Paco and DeShawn pushed to their feet, swearing after the dog and calling him back, staring wide-eyed at Joe.
“What the hell?” DeShawn bumped fists with him. “We thought you was dead, bro.”
Joe put on a miserable expression. “Freaking concussion. Got my face busted. I had to go to the hospital, then just laid low, whacked out on painkillers.” He shrugged. “My phone’s on the bottom of the river. What’s up here?”
Paco and Will came to clap him on the back. They escorted him in. He made sure the dog went inside with them.
“Going to war,” Paco said, grinning, once they were inside.
Ramos Gomez and six others were in the sixties kitchen in the back, sorting ammo on the scarred, yellow Formica kitchen table.
Ramos was as badass as they came, would shoot a guy for looking at him the wrong way. Joe had studied his file, did some of his own research too, before he’d gone undercover. And he’d been collecting every snippet of information he could find on the gang leader since.
Ramos Gomez had been born to a drug-addict single mother. He had other brothers and sisters, but they were taken from the home by Social Services. By the time he was six, he was buying his mother drugs on the street. By the time he was eight, stealing their daily food was his responsibility. He killed his first man when he was ten, his mother’s dealer who’d come to their house to harass her for money, then proceeded to rape her.
They had one semi-good year after that, at the end of which she gave birth to another child, Jesus. She overdosed the day she got home from the hospital with the baby. That was when Ramos and Jesus, a crack baby no one ever gave much of a chance for making it, came here to live with their aunt.
The brothers stuck around with the aunt, even after she had to go into a wheelchair, even after her mind gave out to Alzheimer’s. She wasn’t much trouble. She spent her time watching TV upstairs. She was happy as long as she was fed three times a day. She didn’t interfere with any of the business going on downstairs.
Ramos loved three things: the gang, his aunt, and his brother Jesus. He was the only person who called the kid by his given name. Everyone else called him Lil’ Gomez.
“Hey.” Joe stepped forward, keeping his eyes on Ramos.
A cheer rose when the crew around the table spotted Joe. They all got up to punch him in the shoulder or whack him on the back.
“Yo, bro.”
“Back from the dead, man?”
Ramos stayed in his seat, watching him.
Joe said, “Fucking Hummer pushed us right off the bridge.”
Ramos’s face tightened. “We gonna take care of that.” His eyes narrowed to slits as he looked Joe over. “Where you been, bro?”
“Got a concussion when the car crashed into the river. I thought my head was gonna fall off.” He shrugged. “Wasn’t sure who pushed us over. I thought I’d better lay low for a couple of days.”
Ramos swore. “Word on the street is J.T.’s guy did it.”
“Where’s Lil’ Gomez?” Joe made a show of looking around. “Last I saw him, he was hanging on to a log.”
“He couldn’t swim,” Ramos said darkly. “Those fuckers killed my brother.”
Joe swore his own blue streak. “When are we gonna hit them? I want to be there, man.”
He didn’t normally join the gang when they did business, but he had a perfect excuse this time. He’d been personally affected.
“You got those guns you promised?”
Joe grimaced. “Can’t get them out of Trenton. Maybe in a day or two. I’m trying, man. The cops are watching my cousin.”
Ramos cracked his knuckles. “I sent a couple of boys to check out the situation at J.T.’s place. I’ll let you know when we’re ready. No bastard that goes against me’s gonna live long enough to regret it.” His hard gaze held Joe’s.
Joe made sure he didn’t look away. “You let me know what you want me to do and when. I’m ready, bro.”
Ramos watched him closely. “I’ll call you.”
“Got a new number.” He rattled it off. “My phone sank in the stupid river.”
Ramos waited a second or two before saying, “It’s good that you made it out.”
Joe caught something in the guy’s gaze, beyond grief, beyond murderous anger for his enemies, that he couldn’t put his finger on.
Deep down, Ramos had to blame Joe for surviving when his brother hadn’t, for not saving the kid. But with the war coming, Ramos needed every gun he could command. If he was going to make something out of his brother’s death, he was going do it once he took care of J.T.
Better watch my back with that one. Joe had no intention of dying in South Philly. He’d promised Marie he would see to it that he brought Phil’s murderer to justice. And he’d promised himself to keep Wendy and her son safe.
Deathblow: Chapter Nine
Joe hung with the crew for a while, thinking more about what Wendy was doing than he would have liked. When it didn’t look like he was going to get any more information out of Ramos, he took off. He went home, put on the uniform, then reported for duty. He could still work what was left of the second shift.
Robin was sitting behind the reception desk, covered in pink, angel earrings dangling, pixie haircut styled with some kind of gel that made her sparkle.
“How is it going?” He stopped by her to check through the stack of pink message slips.
“Love the job.” The smile widened. “A lot more interesting than post office work. Plus I don’t have to fight traffic.”
She’d been a mail carrier in Broslin for twenty years, then retired to help her sister battle cancer in Upstate New York. That successfully completed, she’d come back and taken a part-time job at the PD.
She stood, ready to leave for the day, but then she reached back to reposition the In bins. Leila usually worked a full first shift, then Robin, as a part-timer, carried half of the second shift. It gave the station front-desk coverage for most of the day. At night, the officers on duty fielded calls themselves.
“This whole desk is so severe.” She sighed. “Very regimented. That’s not good for creativity. We need to bring some color and fun in here. Leila has been so stressed out lately. Have you noticed? She has such a beautiful future waiting for her. If only she could open up and take it. I think she needs her chakras aligned.”
Joe coughed, choking on his own saliva as he set down the last message slip—none for him. “Yeah. Hey, do me a favor and don’t mention that to her right now. Maybe next week.”
He strode up to the captain’s office, and the captain waved him in. Joe made his report to Chief Gleason from there, with the captain listening in.
“Any chance I could take some time to drive into Wilmington?” Joe asked after the call ended. “I’d like to check on something.”
The captain raised a thick eyebrow. “Anything to do with Wendy?”
Joe nodded.
“Go ahead. Things are pretty quiet around here.”
So he drove to Wilmington and went straight to the jail that held Keith Kline, asked to have a word with him. The officer on duty, a matronly black woman with strict eyes and short orange hair, took in his Broslin badge. “It’s pretty late for a visit. You don’t have jurisdiction here.”
“It’s regarding a harassment case that took place in my town. Hate mail. It’s related to the vandalism charge. I need to ask him a couple of questions.”
“Let me check.” She made a call, probably to the arresting officer, and must have gotten the right answer, because after she hung up, she said, “All right, I’ll take you back.”
Joe followed her to an interview room and waited inside the cramped place, nothing but a stainless steel table and two chairs on top of the stained cement floor, the white walls scuffed and splattered with all kinds of bodily fluids.
An older officer brought in Keith Kline, nodded to Joe, then left, closing the door behind him.
Kline wore an orange jumpsuit and white sneakers without l
aces. He might have had his hands in cuffs, but the look he shot to Joe was pure superiority. He was roughly the same height as Joe, built like a linebacker. Blond hair, cold blue eyes, an arrogant set to his jaw. The bastard probably weighed twice as much as Wendy.
Joe pointed to the empty chair. “Mr. Kline. I’m Officer Kessler. I’m here to ask you a couple of questions.
Keith’s square jaw twitched as his chin came up. “I demand to be released immediately. You have no idea who I am. I’m suing this entire department. Your incompetence is criminal.”
“I’m here to talk about Wendy Belle.”
“I already told the other officers. I didn’t touch her apartment. She is my girlfriend. She’s the mother of my child, for heaven’s sake. Why would I want to harm her?”
“Why indeed?” Joe waited a couple of seconds before saying, “I’m here about the package you sent her in the mail.”
The man’s eyes barely flickered. “What package?”
“The one with the bloody wig.”
Keith’s superior air switched to a slightly overplayed look of concern. “Is someone harassing her?” He sank into the empty chair at last. “Listen, you have to let me out. I need to be with her to protect her.”
Anyone with less experience with abuse and abusers would have bought the performance. Joe didn’t. He kept his expression neutral as he pushed on. “You haven’t sent Miss Belle a package recently?”
“Why would I send a package? If I want to give her something, I just take it over to her. I see her all the time.”
“When was the last time you were in her apartment?”
“I stopped by the day before yesterday.”
“And not since?”
He shook his head with what looked like sincere regret. “My job is fairly demanding. I don’t get to spend time with the family as much as I’d like.” He offered a flat smile. “I suppose people who provide for their loved ones often have that problem. I’m sure you understand, Officer.”
Joe flashed him a dispassionate look. If Keith thought they were going to bond over work schedules, he had another think coming.
“I’m sorry for my impatience.” Keith was trying on a more sympathetic role. “I understand that when women are harassed, more often than not, it’s by the men in their lives. But that’s not the case here. I love Wendy and my son. I would do anything for them. Me being locked up just makes them that much less safe. I need to be with my family. I want to see my lawyer.”
Joe stood. “I’ll pass that on, on my way out.”
He’d come to get the measure of the man, and he got it—cold, calculating, a manipulator. For now, Joe was done with the bastard.
He drove back to Broslin, passing by the Football Academy on Route 52. They’d asked him to coach, even if only part-time, had offered him an insane amount of money. Of course, they charged their athletes’ parents an insane amount of money for the training. The Academy touted close “connections” with several major universities. He’d turned them down. Police work kept him pretty busy, and he wasn’t overly excited about kids whose strategy to get into college football was to have their parents buy them a spot on the team.
He was more interested in kids like Lil’ Gomez who had real talent but didn’t stand a chance in hell. The boy’s death still sat heavily on his conscience. Trouble with inner city schools was that sports programs were often cut—no money for equipment, no access to facilities. Which meant, no team, no brotherhood, no promise of a better future, no place to hang out after school but some street corner, eventually joining—just to belong somewhere—whatever gang controlled those streets.
Joe thought about that as he drove. He knew a couple of guys who played for the Eagles. They trained a lot, but didn’t train twenty-four seven. If they could be talked into giving some field time to a nonprofit….
He made a couple of calls, received a couple of promises for callbacks. He had a semicoherent plan for a free inner city football school, staffed by volunteers, by the time he reached Broslin.
He drove by Sophie’s place.
With all the trees and bushes up front, the house looked like a fairy cottage in the woods. Wendy and Justin were probably sleeping, the upstairs windows dark. Only the downstairs hallway light was on, and the light on the front porch.
She’d left the lights on for him.
The gesture caught him off guard. He’d never had anyone leaving the lights on for him before. Well, duh, he lived alone. And he wasn’t scared of the dark. Yet, the stupid light, the thought that someone was waiting for him, made him feel good, made him think, for a moment, about what life would be like with a partner.
The captain had that now, and Jack too.
He kept driving. He wasn’t the settling-down type. This wasn’t for him. At the end of the street, he turned right, toward the station. He’d been missing too much work lately. He wanted to finish off the second shift, then maybe work some of the third.
* * *
Despite the damage, Wendy was having the best morning in a long time. She didn’t have to worry that Keith would show up unexpectedly. Safe. She could get used to the feeling.
With Justin’s help, she dropped the last bag of garbage down the disposal chute at the end of her hallway. “Thanks, buddy. Race!” She lurched forward.
“I win! I win! I win!” Justin yelled as he raced ahead of her. He reached the door first, grinning from ear to little ear.
“You won! Good job, buddy.” She opened the door for him.
“Big mess,” he said once they were back inside, the door locked and dead-bolted behind them.
“Yeah, but you have big, strong muscles.” She marched forward, swinging her arms. “Can we clean this up? Yes, we can!”
“Yes, we can! Yes, we can!” Justin echoed her as he marched behind her.
Now that the broken things had been carried out, they just had to straighten up the rest. She flipped the ripped couch cushion over. That would have to do for now. Later, while Justin napped, she would sew up the gap. With the cushion flipped upside down, nobody would know.
She gathered the couch pillows, then picked up the toys Keith had dumped from the toy chests. The ones he’d stomped on, she’d already discarded, but there were plenty of toy cars and balls and rubber cartoon characters left.
Justin settled in next to a pile of wooden blocks, scanning the living room. “Did a dinosaur sitted on it?”
Wendy bit back a smile. “I think he did.”
“Where is he?”
“He got grounded. He’s not coming back.” She didn’t want Justin to worry.
Not that he looked worried. He looked disappointed that he missed a dinosaur nesting in their living room. He set aside that disappointment pretty quickly, though, and began throwing his wooden blocks into his blue, car-shaped toy bin, helping to clean. The set had been a gift from Joe that morning to keep Justin busy while Wendy worked.
Joe had come back to Sophie’s place an hour or so before dawn. Wendy had woken up when he’d checked in on them before going to bed. He’d stopped in the bedroom door and watched them for a minute, a tender, protective moment Wendy didn’t know what to do with, so she’d pretended to be sleeping.
In the morning, she’d tried to be as silent as possible, a tough task with Justin. But Joe wasn’t angry at being awakened. He insisted on following her back to her apartment and helping her with whatever she needed to do that morning.
He’d even gone to Wilmington PD with her to file the restraining order. Then he came back to the apartment with her, carried the larger pieces of broken furniture to the Dumpster behind the building before he left, telling her to call him if she needed help with anything else.
“Where’s Joe?” Justin asked, finished with his blocks.
“He’s at work.”
“Is he coming back?”
“I don’t know.” He hadn’t said. She wouldn’t have minded if he did.
Broslin’s favorite son wasn’t as superficial as s
he’d thought. He played with her son and treated her with respect. But even if deep down she knew he was nothing like Keith, she still had trouble trusting him. He was a lot stronger than she, and she was wary of that, wary of the moment when a man might turn his strength against her.
Even his kindness and protectiveness freaked her out a little. Keith had started out kind and protective.
Yet she had to find a way to trust Joe enough to tell him what she needed to tell him. Just the thought of that conversation made her feel like the walls were closing in on her.
She drew a deep breath. She was safe from Keith for the moment, back in her own apartment. She was not going to waste a perfectly good day by obsessing over Joe.
She picked up Justin and swung him around, drinking up the sound of his giggles. They both deserved a break. “Hey, do you want to go to the park?”
“Park!” Justin clapped his little hands with glee. “Doggies!”
So Wendy bundled him up in his red jacket and picked up her camera. She locked the apartment behind her, and they went down the stairs, hopping from step to step like a pair of grasshoppers.
“Cookie!” Justin demanded as soon as they reached the bottom landing.
“You can have your cookie when you’re in your car seat.”
She’d learned that trick from one of the makeup artists she’d worked with in the past, an experienced mother of three. Give the kid a treat each time he goes into the car seat, then he’ll associate it with good and cooperate instead of fighting it all the way.
Wendy’s second-hand Prius was parked by the curb. She strapped her son in, then handed him a small plastic bag of animal crackers from her pocket.
Sunday morning traffic was light. She pushed the button on the CD player and sang along with Justin about pillow-chewing puppies.
She was going around the steep curve of the on-ramp to Route 202 when her brakes gave out. She tapped the brakes again.
Nothing.
“Nonononono.” She couldn’t take the curve going as fast as she was going. She stomped on the brake pedal with both feet, yanking the steering wheel. “Justin!”
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