Up in Smoke (Firehouse Three, #4)

by Sidney Bristol

  “Martha, that’s your mother, isn’t it?” Alice held up a candid shot of his mom.

  No...

  She was on a cruise. She was safe from all of this.

  Only... She wasn’t.

  The photo was of her standing at a tiki bar decked out with Christmas wreaths. She was wearing that new, crazy neon floral outfit she’d bought for this trip. Said it made her smile wearing it, that she couldn’t possibly be sad when she had it on. She’d even bought one for her friend. The newly widowed one.

  “No.” His voice was more a growl. He said it again, “No.”

  “Oh, I think I’m right.” Alice crossed to perch on the desk. “Here’s the thing, Chaz, you can’t play me. Your little...girlfriend, friend, whatever she is to you...she’s what I want. You tell me where to find her and Martha here gets to sip piña coladas by the pool come Christmas morning. You keep doing this silent act, well, she’s not going to have such a great holiday. The choice is yours.”

  That was his Mom.

  The one person he had left in this world.

  Besides Payton.

  She was family, too.

  How did he choose?

  If he told them the truth, that Payton was a fed, they’d kill her and many others.

  If he didn’t tell them, then his mother would die to protect the child she’d taken as her own to raise.

  How did he choose between the two most important people left in his life?

  He couldn’t.

  Alice detested this part. Watching people be tortured. It was such an uncouth part of the business. Why couldn’t they all be civilized and deal? Why did people force her hand to this?

  Ugh. She used to make Payton do this part while she got a manicure.

  Damn Payton.

  Mikel stepped back.

  Chaz’s head lolled forward, blood dripping out the side of his mouth, down his forehead from a deep gash.

  He was stubborn.

  A lot like Payton.

  The mother card was the right one to play. Sadly, Alice was bluffing. The people they had nearby weren’t willing to kidnap an American. Not for what Alice could pay on the spot. Instead, she’d had Brent hack the cameras at the resort near where Martha Fairchild’s boat was docked. There were a few images, but she was out of Alice’s reach. A fact she wouldn’t admit to.

  Damn, but the look on his face, she’d been certain he was about to give Payton up.

  The bitch must have something on him. Some deep, dark secret he had to keep hidden more than protecting his mother dearest.

  Where was she?

  Payton didn’t have a heart to speak of. This man was likely a dead end. A waste of time and resources. Still, Alice needed to play the card as hard as she could.

  Time blurred together.

  The only constant was—pain.

  Chaz could see out of one eye. He was pretty sure he had a cracked rib. Other than that, the wounds were all superficial, or he was too numb to tell.

  His only saving grace seemed to be that the guy, Mikel, was as tired of this as Chaz was, and hadn’t discovered his bad knee.

  “Where is she?” Mikel jerked Chaz’s head back by the hair.

  Chaz hissed in pain. Something in his shoulder was messed up.

  “Do you really want to let your Mom die for some bitch?”

  That was the kicker. Chaz couldn’t let them hurt Mom, but he couldn’t give them Payton either. If he could...what? Buy the DEA or the cops time to find him? Right now, he was a hell of a lot more concerned with keeping Mikel focused on beating the shit out of his chest and face. At least there were bones there to protect his organs. Once Mikel wised up and started working lower...

  “I don’t know where she is,” Chaz roared in the guy’s face. “But I know where she was. She might be there now for all I know.”

  “Where?” Mikel let go of Chaz’s hair.

  “A place.” He leaned forward, sucking down lungfuls of air. It burned. His throat was raw. “It’s out, east of Richardson.”

  “What’s the address?”

  Chaz recited the address to Reid’s lot. It was a couple acres of land he rented out to people needing to run cattle, otherwise he grew hay on it every other year. Besides a couple animal shelters and a barn, there wasn’t anything—or anyone—out there. It was the only place Chaz could think to send them on a wild goose chase where no one would get hurt.

  “You’re doing your mom a favor.” Mikel backed up, phone in hand.

  At best, Chaz figured he’d just bought himself a few hours. This time of day, it’d take them maybe an hour to make it out there, a little while to drive around chasing their tails and then back again. Maybe two hours? Three, if there was traffic?

  The door closed behind Mikel, leaving Chaz in semi-darkness.

  He leaned forward, his weight on the zip ties and rope securing his wrists.

  They hadn’t stripped him out of his turn-out pants or belt. There was a knife at his hip, he just needed a little more give to be able to reach it...

  “We have to make contact. Open some form of channel to talk to Alice.” Payton was ready to drive a pencil through Webb’s eyeball.

  He sipped his coffee.

  Six hours.

  The sun would set soon.

  Chaz was still nowhere to be seen.

  They had no leads.

  No ransom.

  Nothing.

  Not a peep.

  Which meant Chaz wasn’t saying anything. He’d know to contact Tate or the DEA office. The agents who’d been at the house had given him their contact info.

  Alice had no way to contact Payton directly. She’d disconnected her phone and her email accounts were frozen. The only way Alice could reach her was if Chaz told her the truth.

  “No,” Webb said.

  “Use me as bait. That’s what you’ve wanted to do, right?”

  “Not until we’ve analyzed the phone data.” He gestured at the laptop they’d set up for backing up the data on Alice’s phone. It was massive.

  “So, what? We’re going to let a good man die?”

  “We’re looking for him.”

  “I can have him back in less than twelve hours, if you use me as bait.”

  “No. You’re too valuable to the case. He is one man. We are not risking what we’ve spent years putting together.” Webb stood. “Everyone—go home. We have a man hunt to coordinate and a lot of work to do tomorrow.”

  “Webb—a word in your office?” One of the other agents waited patiently near the door, papers in hand.

  Payton stood back, glaring daggers at Webb’s back.

  The only thing he cared about was closing cases. The cost of human lives didn’t matter to him one bit so long as he got what he wanted.

  He could make these calls because he was distant. He didn’t know Chaz. This whole thing was a case to him. But this was Payton’s life. And Webb had always treated her as if she were disposable. If he had enough physical evidence to put Alice and her people away, he wouldn’t give two shits about using her. But until they finished decrypting the phone all they had was her.

  She stood in the middle of the War Room, ready to set fire to it all.

  Chaz was...he was so much more important than all of this.

  People bought and sold drugs every day. It was the reality of the world they lived in. That wasn’t going to change. Yes, what she did made the world a little safer. They took bad people off the streets, they made them answer to the wrongs they’d committed, but where was the justice in this? Making Chaz pay the price for her was...she couldn’t let that happen.

  She couldn’t.

  Payton’s gaze slid sideways. To the laptop.

  The phone was run down, just about dead, sitting on the table while the laptop ran a first run decryption program on the downloaded information.

  Webb didn’t need the physical phone anymore.

  He had the evidence that’d been on it.

  Payton inhaled a deep breath and shru
gged into her coat. She flipped her hair out from under the lapel and strode around the table they’d been sitting at. As she passed by the smaller one with the laptop, she pocketed Alice’s phone.

  Yes, this was wrong.

  Yes, she could lose her job.

  Yes, it was a federal crime.

  But this was Chaz’s life on the line.

  Alice didn’t care about red tape and procedure. She cared about results. And she wouldn’t hesitate to kill Chaz if he proved to not be useful.

  Payton stepped out of the War Room and glanced at Webb’s office. She shouldn’t. It was the guilt eating at her.

  He was bent over the desk, talking to the dark-haired agent. She’d never remembered his name, not that he’d really spoken to her.

  “Hey, Payton?”

  She glanced at Tate. His face was creased with worry and empathy.

  “Hey. How’s Abby doing?”

  “Worried. Ready?”

  Payton nodded and followed him to the elevator.

  Neither spoke on their way down to the parking garage. She climbed into his SUV and sat staring straight ahead, numb.

  Alice would hurt Chaz.

  Had probably already begun hurting him.

  And Payton was powerless to stop it. Unless she broke the rules.

  “If you tell me anything, I have to report it, you understand?” Tate said slowly.

  “Yes.”

  “All right then. So. Not saying anything. But...sometimes we have to make tough choices. They aren’t always the right ones. Sometimes the right one for you is the wrong one for everyone else.”

  Payton struggled to breathe around the lump in her throat.

  She was going to cry.

  Tate cranked the engine and the SUV roared to life.

  “You want to know why I’m on taxi duty?” He eased the vehicle out of the garage.

  “Why?” Payton’s voice was more of a whisper.

  He proceeded to tell her a story about a little girl, danger and the hard choices that landed him in hot water. Everyone came out almost okay in the end. What mattered was that the little girl went to a family who would love and care for her, and Tate got to keep his job, though he was on very strict probation for quite a while.

  In the end, Tate pulled into the garage at her safe house.

  “You have my number memorized?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  “Good. It’s my job to protect you, so if you run into anything, give me a call.” Tate handed over a burner phone.

  “Thank you, Tate. I don’t even know your first name.”

  He groaned.

  “Winston. My first name is Winston, but everyone calls me Tate.”

  “Ouch. I can see why. Thanks, Tate.”

  She opened the door and let herself into the house.

  Procedure would dictate Tate should ensure the house was clear before he left, but they were beyond that now. They both knew she wanted to be found.

  She disarmed the alarm system, then went in search of a charging cable in the desk drawers.

  It was time to pay an old friend a little visit.

  Alice sat forward.

  That message.

  It was new.

  She jabbed the mouse button on the laptop, holding her breath as she skimmed the lines of Payton’s email.

  The bitch was singing.

  Alice grinned and eased back in her chair.

  “Looks like Payton really likes you.” Alice ran the long string of pearls through her fingers.

  The man tied to the chair groaned. She had to give it to him, he’d held out for quite a while before turning over on Payton’s possible location. Mikel wasn’t much of a torture master, but he had worked the fireman over pretty well. She hated how long it was taking just to check out the spot, but that was Payton. Going to great lengths to be difficult.

  Wait...

  She peered at the footer of the email.

  That...came from her phone...

  Her blood ran cold. Her stomach clenched. Her vision narrowed to that small line of text.

  It couldn’t be...

  Alice’s new phone rang, Mikel’s name scrolling across the screen.

  Please...

  “Did you find her?” Alice asked, digging her nails into the top of the desk.

  “There’s just a bunch of cows and shit out here. No one for miles.” Mikel’s tone was pissed.

  No...

  Alice sucked down a deep breath. She had to be calm. She could not show fear or even the slightest bit of emotion. If she did, Mikel and the rest would turn on her.

  “Well, that’s too bad.” She sighed. “Head back. I’ve had a development here.”

  Alice hung up before her nerves betrayed her.

  The firemen lifted his head. One eye was swollen and purple.

  “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” Alice could kill him, but Payton’s willingness to trade herself for this man meant he had value. She needed him alive for future use.

  The real question now was, how had Payton managed to get past the security on her phone? What the hell?

  Alice had been assured that breaking it would be impossible. That any attempt would result in the complete destruction of the device.

  What. The. Hell?

  Alice sucked down a breath and turned her back on the captive.

  Payton had broken into her phone. Somehow. Some way. The bitch would pay.

  Alice read the email again.

  Short. Sweet. To the point.

  Payton and the phone for Chaz.

  Except, if the phone wasn’t secure, if anyone could hack it, then her information was useless. The reason the phone was so valuable was that she held all the cards. If it became public knowledge she wasn’t as infallible as people believed...her life was forfeit. And if anyone could break the encryption, Alice’s daughter’s life was over, too.

  She needed the phone back.

  Alice gripped the pearls and counted to ten.

  Panicking led to mistakes. She hadn’t gotten to be the biggest cold-hearted bitch of the world by making rash decisions.

  She had to do this the right way.

  Which meant...not tonight. And not tomorrow.

  Yes, it was a power play.

  Let Payton stew, thinking she had the key, the answer to all her problems.

  Alice would trade the fireman for Payton and the phone, and then she’d make sure to get Martha. What better way to ensure Alice got everything she wanted for Christmas?

  17.

  It took Payton a full eighteen hours to make contact. Between Alice’s reliance on her phone and going to ground, it was a lot more difficult to get word to Payton’s former boss than she’d expected.

  Webb was breathing down her neck, and rightfully so.

  The phone had been checked into evidence and disappeared.

  Payton had made a brief appearance at the office before claiming she had a physical evaluation that she had to have done before Christmas now that she was out of the field. She did, but honestly, what did it matter? She was about to put her life into Alice’s hands.

  She strode up the walk to the cute little brick house at the end of the street.

  The Winters’ rental house sat at the end of two streets, off the road a little more than the neighbors’.

  Payton didn’t know who else to ask for help. She’d always worked alone, save for Webb. Tate was turning a blind eye. She knew he was going to get in trouble for this, no matter how much she tried to keep her deception contained. The only people she could think of were from Chaz’s world.

  She knocked on the door and waited.

  No answer.

  She knocked again.

  “Coming,” someone yelled inside.

  Payton glanced over her shoulder, the skin between her shoulder blades itching. Likely it was just paranoia, but who really knew?

  The door opened. Abby stood there in jeans and a hoodie, her red hair pulled up and bright purple gla
sses perched on her nose.

  “Uh—hi,” Abby said.

  “Hi. Got a second?”

  “Sure.” Abby stepped back. “Aren’t you supposed to be locked up or something?”

  “Yeah, I am, so you can report this if you’d like.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Abby crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Because if you do, they’ll probably put me under house arrest, if not throw me in jail, and then Chaz will die.”

  Abby flinched.

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call this in. Or even tell Tate I was here.” Payton pulled an envelope out of her back pocket. “I’m going to get Chaz back...but I have to do something. I can’t tell you all the particulars. I...have a favor to ask. And I know I have no right to, but—please?”

  “What is it?”

  “When you see Chaz next, give this to him?” Payton handed the envelope over.

  It was from the same box as her last letter. The contents were different. This time she wasn’t saying, goodbye and thanks for the memories. She was saying, goodbye and have a nice life.

  “What are you doing?” Abby asked slowly, turning the envelope over in her hand.

  “You—”

  “I know what the fuck you said. Now tell me the truth. I had to watch a guy hold a gun to the head of a guy I love like a brother and you want to tell me nothing?”

  “I’ve made a deal.” Payton stared into Abby’s eyes. Part of her hoped that when Chaz recovered, that he fell into the arms of Abby, or someone like her. Someone strong and good. Someone totally unlike herself. “Me for Chaz.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. Sometime around three.”

  “In the morning?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is this the only way?”

  “It’s...complicated.”

  “He’s not going to let you go, you know?”

  “He doesn’t really get a vote.”

  “I’ll give him the letter, but this is bullshit.”

  “It’s the best I can do.”

  Abby sighed and shook her head, muttering something under her breath.

  Payton dropped the keys to the rental into the cup holder and sat back to wait.

  She stared up at all those stars twinkling down on her.

  It was easy to imagine being home. Younger. Warm, summer nights spent lying out on the trampoline, staring up at the sky. Those were the moments that had built the foundation for this disaster. If she’d never gone out there that night, if she’d never bridged the gap between Chaz and her, would they be here now? Could it be that simple?