One Wrong Step (Borderline Book 2)

by Laura Griffin

  “McAllister! Shit, I’m dying here! We were supposed to go to press ten minutes ago.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. They wouldn’t tell me her status at reception, so I had to sneak upstairs and sweet-talk one of the nurses. Sounds like Kate’s stabilized but headed to surgery.”

  “Stable condition. Got it.” John heard keys clacking as Pete typed this new information into the computer. “Damn. What type of surgery?”

  “Something with the bones in her arm. Bullet tore everything up, apparently.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yeah,” John agreed. But having been at the scene, he knew things could have turned out much worse.

  “Wozniak just arrived,” Pete said. “He wants IDs on the civilians involved and a quote from one of the FBI guys.”

  Great. It was bad enough McAllister had to call in this story at all, but if he included names, he could kiss away any chances of ever talking to Celie again. Forget about getting back in her bed, he’d be history.

  Unless, of course, she was pregnant with his kid. Under that scenario, they’d be permanently intertwined for the rest of their lives. How fucked up was that? What was even more fucked up was that John was starting to believe that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Three days ago, he’d been so angry at her he could hardly see straight, and now here he was, worried about pissing her off.

  “No can do, man,” John told Pete. “One of the civilians is a minor, so we can’t ID him. Other one wants us to protect her identity so this drug cartel doesn’t come after her. I’ve got a request from the FBI to keep her name out of print.”

  The last part was a lie, but John felt no compunction about telling it. If Rowe had known John was writing a story about this, he most likely would have declined to identify the civilians involved.

  Not that John didn’t already know their names, but still.

  “I don’t think that’s gonna cut it with Wozniak, man. Wait, here he comes now….”

  John heard shuffling as the phone was passed to Wozniak, John’s direct boss, who also happened to be higher up in the Herald food chain than the night editor.

  “What’s this caca you’re feeding us, McAllister? We were supposed to go to press almost an hour ago, and we’ve held off for this ?”

  “I was just giving Pete an update on the gunshot victim. Kate Kepler.” He threw the reminder in there as a distraction. “She’s going into surgery right now, but it looks like her condition is stable. As for the identities, like I told Pete—”

  “Fine. No names, but I at least need ages and occupations.”

  John searched his memory banks. “The kid involved is an eleven-year-old boy, middle school student, resident of Austin. The woman is thirty-one. Also lives here in town.”

  “This is that friend of yours, right? Where’s she work?”

  “She’s a social worker.” John would have said student, but in a college town, that would just make for a bigger headline.

  John watched as a familiar Buick rolled past the ambulance bay and slid into a handicapped space beside James Kepler’s Tesla.

  “Great,” Wozniak sneered. “Nothing like specificity in a news article. I just love throwing all this vague shit up on A-one. Above the fold, no less. You don’t even have the name of the arrestee in here, McAllister. Do you realize that?”

  Rowe climbed out of the car, and John glanced at his watch. It was 2:44. If they held this story even five minutes longer, they probably would delay the trucks that made deliveries to newsstands all over downtown. As it was, the story wasn’t even appearing in the suburban edition of the Herald. That edition had gone out right on schedule.

  Which was fine with John. The less exposure this story got, the better, as far as he was concerned.

  Wozniak was still yammering in his ear.

  “Hey, give me one minute, and I’ll get a quote from the FBI,” John interjected. “Two minutes, max.”

  Silence. “Have you listened to a damn thing I’ve said, McAllister? Time is money ! Shel is gonna have my head on a platter!”

  “I have an agent standing right here waiting to be interviewed.”

  John waved his hand and caught Rowe’s attention just before he went through the emergency room doors. He hesitated a moment, casting a glance into the ER, then walked over.

  “I’ll call you right back,” John told his boss.

  He clicked off and met Rowe beneath the narrow overhang, where they’d at least be out of the rain. Not that it mattered. Like Rowe, John was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that were already soaked through. Unlike Rowe, though, John had bought his T-shirt off a vagrant near the hospital for ten bucks, so it had the added benefit of smelling like week-old garbage.

  “Any word on Kate?” Rowe wanted to know.

  John gave him a quick update and concealed his curiosity as the FBI agent actually appeared shaken by the news that Kate was in surgery. Rowe stared through the hospital doors for a moment, then glanced back at John with gray eyes that looked like ice chips.

  “You shouldn’t have told her about the meeting,” he said.

  John felt a prick of guilt. “We needed to get hold of you, and Cecelia didn’t have your number. How was I supposed to know Kate would show up?”

  Rowe’s expression darkened. They both knew that was bullshit. Of course Kate would show up—she was a reporter.

  John hated blame games. Bottom line, if Kate hadn’t jumped in, Celie and Enrique might be dead. John was sorry Kate was hurt, but he wasn’t sorry she’d been there.

  “Look,” he said, “I need a quote for the paper tomorrow. Anything to say about the man you guys arrested? You know his name or his position in the Saledo organization?”

  “We haven’t identified him yet.”

  John watched Rowe, trying to mask his surprise. He’d expected a simple “No comment,” or maybe even a “No comment, asshole.” John decided to press him.

  “Okay, what about the rumors floating around that the two missing suspects ditched their Avalanche at a Chevron on I-35 and carjacked a green sedan?”

  Rowe’s brows knitted together. “We’ve got a BOLO for a dark green Mercury Cougar with Texas plates. I don’t know the tags, but I’ll get them for you as soon as I can.”

  John eyed him suspiciously. This was way more cooperation than he’d been expecting. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “Yeah.” Rowe glanced at the ER doors. “Somewhere in your story, you need to mention that federal agents confiscated two hundred thousand in cash. Don’t leave that out.”

  John frowned. “What’s the deal with the money?”

  “Just put it in there, up near the top if you can. It’s important for the safety of everyone involved that the message gets out that the money was confiscated.”

  “You mean for Saledo? He knows it was confiscated. His guys were right there—” John halted, realization dawning. “Unless those weren’t Saledo’s guys? They’re part of some other organization?”

  Rowe’s stony expression was his answer.

  “Son of a bitch ! You knew this all along, didn’t you? You set Celie up!” John stepped forward and jabbed a finger at Rowe’s chest. “She risked her life for you guys, and now she’s still on Saledo’s shit list! How’s she supposed to hide from him now?”

  “She doesn’t have to hide,” Rowe said calmly. “If Saledo believes the money was confiscated by federal agents, he won’t come looking for it.”

  “You’re an asshole, you know that? That woman trusted you.” At John’s urging, Celie had trusted him. He never should have talked her into going to the feds for help. “You used an innocent woman just to get an arrest.”

  “She’s not innocent,” Rowe retorted. “No one forced her to steal two hundred thousand dollars. And it looks to me like you’re using her, too. Or am I wrong about that?”

  John’s phone buzzed, and he checked the number. Wozniak. Fuck.

  Rowe stepped back and nodded toward John’s phone. “That�
��s probably your editor. Pass that along about the money, like I said. You guys do your jobs, and let us worry about ours.”

  The sun was just rising over the apartment complexes of east Austin when Celie left the Bluebonnet House for the last time.

  Miraculously, she didn’t cry.

  She was too busy worrying about the Ramos children, whose mother had pulled another disappearing act. When Celie and an APD officer had taken Enrique home, they’d found four-year-old Britanny by herself in the apartment. Her mom had “gone out” for the evening, apparently oblivious to the fact that her son hadn’t made it home from school.

  It was a miserable end to a miserable ordeal, and the only upside Celie could see was that Enrique hadn’t been injured.

  He’d told police that after being picked up on the way home from school, he’d spent the next several hours in a cheap motel room with his abductors eating pizza and watching ESPN. Celie hoped the paramedic who’d checked him out hadn’t missed anything. Some kinds of abuse didn’t leave marks.

  Celie walked past the gated playground, where she’d spent so many hours with the children she loved, past the basketball court and the half-finished rec room. Her feet moved over the sections of new sidewalk where, less than a month ago, she’d helped Kimmy Taylor and Brittany Ramos flatten out their tiny hands and press them into damp concrete.

  Her gaze skimmed over their childish signatures, the marks they’d gleefully left there for posterity, and Celie regretted not pressing her own print into the cold, wet slab.

  Had she left a mark on this place at all?

  She was fairly sure that she had, but she couldn’t kid herself into believing it was a good one. The mistakes of her past had caught up to her, and her very presence here had endangered the life of an innocent child. That, more than anything else she’d done, would be her undeniable legacy to the Bluebonnet House. It overshadowed Easter cupcakes and algebra tutoring and countless games of Hi Ho! Cheery-O played with kids around the kitchen table.

  Coming here had been a mistake.

  Celie’s flip-flops snapped against the pavement now as she walked down the sidewalk. After checking Brittany and Enrique into the shelter for the night, and after a tense conversation in Chantal’s office, Celie had relinquished her Bluebonnet House ID badge, trading it with Chantal for a pair of cheap rubber sandals that probably wouldn’t even make the trip home.

  A block away from the shelter, Dax was waiting in his white Toyota Prius, just like she’d asked him to. When he spotted her in the mirror, he leaned over and pushed open her door from the inside. Celie slid into the passenger seat.

  “Thanks for coming.” She gave Dax a wobbly smile. “I’m sorry I got you out of bed. I owe you one, big time.”

  “No problem,” Dax said. “On my way out the door, I got a phone call from John McAllister.”

  “He called you ?”

  “He was looking for you. It was about your Volvo? He said to tell you he left it in the visitors’ lot and gave the keys to the security guy, Terrance.”

  “Oh.” Celie rubbed the bridge of her nose, wishing there was something she could do to ward off the migraine she felt coming on. Up until this moment, she hadn’t realized she’d been picturing herself crawling into bed next to McAllister. In the back of her mind, she’d been hoping he could help her forget about the whole awful night they’d just endured.

  Which was ridiculous, she realized now. He may have plucked her out of Town Lake, but he was still angry over the way she’d lied to him. The rift between them still existed. Otherwise, he would have come to get her himself. Or he would have stayed and waited for her at The Overlook. He knew darn well Dax would have buzzed him upstairs.

  “So,” Dax said. “Looks like you spent the night in a swamp.”

  Celie glanced down at her clothes. She was still wearing the mud-smeared shirt McAllister had given her. It had a red scuba flag on the front, which had kept her from looking like a contestant in a wet T-shirt contest while she’d talked to the cops.

  She flipped down the passenger mirror and cringed when she saw her face. “Yikes.”

  “Johnny’s a ‘yikes,’ too,” Dax said. “After he called, I looked out my window and saw him picking up his Jeep. I’m guessing he participated in last night’s mud-wrestling extravaganza?”

  Celie took a deep breath and spilled the whole story, starting with Robert’s stash of money and ending with the past two hours at the Bluebonnet House. Celie had made Toaster Strudels for the Ramos children in the kitchen while Chantal argued about their fate with a rep from Child Protective Services. After much discussion—which, unfortunately, Enrique and Brittany had overheard—it was agreed that the kids would stay at the Bluebonnet House until April Ramos could be located. If and when the police tracked the young mother down, CPS would make alternative arrangements for the children.

  Translation: foster care. Until a responsible relative could be called in or until April got her act together enough to convince a judge she was a capable parent. According to the CPS caseworker, this wasn’t the first time her kids had been left overnight without supervision.

  After the caseworker left, Chantal had called Celie into her office and launched into a tirade that began with the words, “It saddens me to do this, but…”

  “Wow,” Dax said now. “Bitch of a night, huh?”

  “You could say that.”

  Dax reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a small prescription bottle. Her migraine meds. He handed her the container.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “Something in your voice told me you might be needing this. I got it from your medicine cabinet.” He passed her a bottle of mineral water.

  Celie was speechless. Dax was, quite possibly, the kindest man she’d ever met. Didn’t it figure they’d never have a shot at being a couple?

  “Thanks,” she managed. She would not cry. She hated bawling in front of other people. It was the worst way to dump all your problems into somebody’s lap.

  Dax stopped at an intersection, and Celie could feel him looking at her. She popped open the bottle and took one of the pills. As she replaced the cap, she noticed her doctor’s name on the label and thought about McAllister’s snooping. A little nosing through her bathroom, and he had discovered all her secrets: she took fertility drugs; she suffered migraines. She used acne cream and heartburn tablets. She hadn’t experienced night terrors in years, but she kept prescription sleeping pills on hand for emergencies.

  McAllister had pried open a door into her private life, and he obviously hadn’t liked what he’d seen. Who could blame him? His reaction didn’t really surprise her, but it did make her angry. He’d snooped through her stuff and then used everything he’d learned as a reason to dump her. She’d been stupid to think she could trust him. Digging up dirt on people was one of his special talents, and no one was off-limits.

  Dax battled the morning traffic across central Austin. Thankfully, he didn’t fill the silence with annoying platitudes. He sipped quietly from a mug of coffee and left Celie to herself.

  After finishing the bottle of water, she leaned her head back. If she was lucky, the pill might stall the migraine for a little while. Most likely, she’d still spend the better part of her day in a silent bedroom with the blinds sealed shut. Celie closed her eyes and tried to do yoga breathing.

  Dax turned down the stereo. “Celie?”

  “What?” She opened her eyes and glanced at him. Just as she’d expected, he looked worried.

  “There’s something you need to see.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  She almost laughed at that. What could he possibly show her that could make this morning worse than it already was? She took a deep breath. “What is it?”

  Dax reached into the backseat and scooped a newspaper off the floorboard. He handed it to her. A cold sense of foreboding settled over her as she unfolded the paper and read the headline.

  �
��Drug wars rage in Austin.” Beneath the headline was a photograph of the Lamar Street Bridge swarming with emergency personnel. In the background of the picture, among all the ambulances and squad cars, a blonde woman stood beside what looked like a gray Volvo. Her back was to the camera, but any enterprising reporter could probably track down the license plate and figure out who owned the car.

  Celie shook her head. She’d known this was a possibility last night, which was why she’d stayed away from the media. Or so she’d thought. “Well, at least my face didn’t make the front page.”

  Dax shot her a disbelieving look.

  “What?”

  “That’s it?” he asked. “I only skimmed the first few paragraphs, but I thought you’d be much more upset.”

  Celie glanced beneath the picture and started to read. Before she got halfway through the column, her gaze jerked back to the byline.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “He didn’t.”

  CHAPTER

  18

  Rowe trained his gaze on the hospital entrance, looking for a young brunette with her arm in a sling. Kate was scheduled to be discharged at 10:00 a.m. today, and James Kepler’s silver Tesla Roadster in the pickup driveway indicated this was still the plan.

  But it was 10:45, and still no Kate.

  Rowe settled lower in the Buick’s front seat and adjusted his baseball cap. If anyone he knew saw him out here like this, he’d be forced to say he was here checking up on a witness, which—as excuses went—was pretty damn weak. In reality, Rowe had no official business here whatsoever. Yet here he was, checking up on a witness, the witness he’d failed to protect, the witness who was, at this very moment, being transferred to a rehab hospital so she could recover from the gunshot that had wreaked havoc with her right arm. According to Kate’s doctors—whom Rowe had interviewed under the flimsy pretense of tying up investigative loose ends—Kate might never recover the full use of that arm, and she certainly would have nasty scars on it for the rest of her life. On the upside, given Kate’s young age and otherwise excellent health, her doctor thought her stint in rehab might be as short as a few months.