The Sullivan Gray Series Box Set

by H. P. Bayne

  “He won’t tell us about the woman you mentioned. Says he can’t discuss clients. I’d say he’s obstructing an investigation.”

  Dez smirked. “You going to go to the chief and tell him Lachlan Fields is obstructing an investigation? He’s the chief’s golf buddy, never mind the fact he’s the victim here.”

  “All true,” Forbes said. “But you’re neither of those things. If there’s anything you haven’t shared, you’re in it deep when I find out.”

  The threat didn’t have too many teeth for Dez, a man whose home and work lives were already in tatters. At this point, a criminal obstruction charge would be nothing but gravy. “Whatever. Hang tight. I’ll see what he wants.”

  Dez was surprised Lachlan had been placed in a private room on the surgical ward rather than ICU, particularly given the number of machines and tubes connected to him.

  He looked small and pale, eyes closed, head and shoulders resting on a pair of stacked pillows, a chest tube running from one side of him with more tubes pumping fresh air into his nostrils. Machines beeped and hissed as they monitored things like blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen levels and who knew what else. Dez was reminded the only thing he hated more than morgues was hospitals.

  He returned his attention to Lachlan’s face, was startled to find the eyes open and fixed on him.

  “You’re obviously Desmond Braddock.” Lachlan’s voice was soft, weak. Nothing like the booming, confident pitch Dez had heard in the hallways around KRPD headquarters during the few years he’d had occasion to encounter the older man.

  “Why ‘obviously’?”

  Lachlan gave a small smile. Even in his condition, it managed to look snide. “The size of you. Your hair. The fact you’re the spitting image of your father. And, of course, the fact I’ve met you before.”

  “Only the one time,” Dez said. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember.”

  “Never forget a face. Your dad, by the way. Good man. Was sorry when he passed.”

  Dez nodded. “Thanks. Me too.”

  “They tell me you saved my life.”

  “I found you, if that counts.”

  “I don’t remember much, but I have some vague recollection of seeing you there. Looked so much like Flynn, figured I was in good hands. You’re wondering why I wanted to see you.”

  Dez didn’t say anything, didn’t need to. He gave Lachlan a moment, watching as the man tried to shift and ended up grimacing with a groan.

  “You need something?” Dez asked.

  “They got me on the good stuff now,” Lachlan said. “Couple days from now, not sure how happy I’ll be.”

  That didn’t really answer Dez’s question, but he figured if anyone was capable of making a stink if he wanted something, it was Lachlan. So he gave the man the time to finish his careful adjusting.

  “So about why you’re here,” Lachlan said once he’d achieved whatever passed for comfort in his condition. “There are things that can’t be said to certain people.”

  Dez looked back, ensured the door was closed. Lachlan was already speaking far too quietly to be overheard, so Dez did his part and kept his voice down as well. “Police, you mean.”

  “You catch on quick, kid.” The sarcasm was clear, but then everyone knew that was Lachlan’s natural tone.

  “Raynor’s coming at me with obstruction threats.”

  “Raynor’s a horse’s ass,” Lachlan said. “Wouldn’t talk to that little turd if someone brought out the thumbscrews.”

  Dez grinned.

  “Not alone in my opinion,” Lachlan observed. “Anyway, like to see them come at me for obstruction. Would be fun.”

  “I have a feeling they’re more likely to come after me than you.”

  “Leave them to me,” Lachlan said. Then he was back to business. “You came to my office with a woman. Who?”

  “Lucienne Dule.”

  “And you didn’t share that with police.”

  “No. I told them I only knew her first name. I wasn’t sure how much you’d share and I didn’t want to look completely obstructionist. But I didn’t think I should be giving her up either.”

  Lachlan nodded, the corners of his mouth turning up. “Good man. Where is she? Is she safe?”

  “For the time being, anyway. She’s at—”

  Lachlan cut him off quickly. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” He held up his left arm by way of explanation. “Morphine drip. God knows what’ll come out of my mouth next. For that matter, we should make this quick. I’m liable to fall asleep in the middle of a sentence.”

  “Okay, so what’s going on?”

  “Ideally, we’d have this chat elsewhere. But it looks like I’ll be staying awhile. Listen, I’ve done some digging into her past, searching for her son. I think I found him. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “Sully.”

  “She filled you in.”

  “As much as she could, yeah.”

  “He was more or less raised by your parents.”

  “Yeah, he came to us when he was seven. He never knew anything about his birth parents. No one did, really.”

  “Doorstep drop. I know. He mean anything to you? You care about him?”

  Dez suspected there was a test here he needed to pass. “He’s my brother. I love him.”

  “He’s not blood.”

  “In every way that counts, he’s my family. How’d you piece it together anyway, connecting Sully to Lucienne?”

  Lachlan scrutinized Dez before answering. Test passed. “I got ahold of the police file and Lucienne gave me the rest. I put two and two together.”

  “You have the police file?”

  “Somewhere safe. I suspect that’s what the masked man who attacked me was after.”

  That was a relief, Dez supposed. As usual, his poker face was way off.

  “You suspected it was Lucienne who tried to do me in.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Dez said. “The way I figured things, she had to have been with me when you were attacked. But I wasn’t sure, I guess. Truth is, I don’t know much about her. I’ve only just met her.”

  Lachlan blinked up at him twice, then started to close his eyes.

  Dez leaned in and grasped the man’s arm. “Lachlan. Hey, Lachlan.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Stay with me another minute here, okay? It’s important.”

  “What’s important?”

  “You were telling me about Lucienne, the file. Is there a way I can look at it?”

  “File … f … right. File. 1232 Landon Drive. 5901.”

  “You said 1232.”

  “5901. Got it? … Number 63.”

  “What’s 63?”

  “Just remember. Number 63.”

  Dez pulled out his phone to tap the numbers into his notes app, but Lachlan slapped his hand.

  “Damn it, what?” Dez complained.

  “Not where anyone will see. Write it down and burn it. Or better yet, remember. 1232, 5901, 63. That order.”

  Dez blinked his way through the numbers, committing them to memory—mainly because he was no longer in the habit of carrying a notepad and pen with him now that his policing days were over.

  “Got it?” Lachlan asked.

  “Yeah. Got it. Do I need a key?”

  “Shit. My house, 1852 Cockburn. Degas.”

  “What?”

  “Degas. Dear God, kid, don’t you know anything?”

  “The artist?”

  “Bingo. Door code’s 89179. Alarm is 9012. And go alone. No one else can know about this, any of it. Not yet.”

  “So why are you trusting me with this? It can’t all be about me saving your life or who my dad was.”

  Lachlan drifted again, requiring another slight shake of the arm to bring him back around.

  “Lachlan …. Why me?”

  “You’ll know what to do with it, and you’ll do it quietly. Anyone else—even Lucienne—and people will get hurt. Sullivan’s alive, Desmond. You nee
d to keep him that way. He’s the key.”

  “The key to what? … Lachlan?”

  But Lachlan was out again and, this time, no amount of prodding or shaking helped.

  Dez stared down at the man for what could have been one minute or five, trying to make sense of what he’d been told. He thought back to what Sully had said last night, hinting there were people looking for him who might not be connected to Lockwood. Lachlan knew Sully was alive; did he have any way of knowing he had been kidnapped? Would he have a theory, someplace else to start looking, someone to question?

  But Lachlan wasn’t budging from his drug-induced sleep and Dez knew he should count himself lucky he’d gotten as much lucid conversation out of him as he had.

  With time ticking and a new path to follow, Dez decided he should track this lead rather than wait to see whether Lachlan would wake up. All he had to do was get past Forbes and hope to hell police weren’t holding Lachlan’s home as a scene.

  Dez took a moment—Lachlan be damned—to punch the string of numbers into his phone’s notes app. He was okay with numbers, but nowhere near that good.

  Forbes was waiting just the other side of the door, a spider waiting to spring. “What did he have to say?”

  “Not a whole lot that made sense,” Dez said. “The guy’s in and out constantly and, when he is in, he’s still out. We just had a whole conversation about his shoes.”

  “He isn’t wearing any.”

  “My point exactly. Look, if it’s any help, he started to tell me something. Said it was a man who jumped him, but he said he was wearing a mask. Then he went off on a tangent about shoelaces, and that was it.”

  Dez glanced at Eva, but averted his gaze quickly. She was watching him quietly with arms crossed, a position she took only when feeling defensive, annoyed or sensed bullshit. Dez guessed, this time, it came down to Door Number Three.

  “So you’ve basically got nothing, you’re telling me,” Forbes said.

  “Basically. But I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know when he wakes up again. I think there’s something else he was trying to say.”

  “If I find out you’re bullshitting me, Braddock ….”

  “Oh, one more thing. He really doesn’t like you very much, Forbes. I think the term he used was ‘little turd.’ ”

  “Asshole.”

  “Him or me?”

  “Dez,” Eva warned, drawing his name out in a tone he knew meant business.

  “Take your pick,” Forbes said.

  “You don’t have to antagonize him, you know,” Eva said once they’d walked away, heading to the hospital exit.

  “I get precious few pleasures out of life anymore,” Dez said. “Don’t rob me of that.”

  “So now that it’s just us, what did Lachlan want? And don’t feed me the same line you laid on Forbes. We both know that’s a load of bull.”

  Dez didn’t answer right away, trying to determine the lesser of two evils: lie to his wife and face her wrath or break his promise to Lachlan and share info the P.I. believed could place Sully’s life at risk.

  Of course, Dez had already told Eva Sully was alive. And the fact remained he couldn’t lie to her. It was a skill he’d never even tried to master. He’d never wanted to be that guy anyway, the kind who could lie to the people he loved.

  But there were still too many unknowns, too many unanswered questions. Too much that could go wrong. And Dez wasn’t sure he was willing to take some of the risks.

  “I can’t tell you that, Eva. He said I have to keep it between him and me, for Sully’s sake.”

  “So he believes Sully’s alive too?”

  Damn. “No one can know that, okay? Please.”

  Eva took Dez’s arm and pulled him—or pulled at him until he followed—partway down a quiet hallway where no one would overhear, her words hushed but urgent.

  “So Sully’s really alive?”

  “What, I tell you that and I’m full of shit, but Lachlan says it and it’s gospel?”

  Eva had the good grace to look sheepish for a moment. But only for a moment. “You also have a really lousy history the past couple years, Dez. I don’t know what to believe anymore where you’re concerned.”

  Dez took a small step forward, a move that easily would have sent an opponent backward. He hadn’t intended that in her case, and she wasn’t one to back down anyway. It was why he’d fallen in love with her. “I may be a lot of things, Eva, but I have never lied to you.”

  She stared back up into his eyes, and he felt as much as saw the intensity of her gaze as she watched him, waiting for the break that might suggest he was being anything less than honest. An angry heat flared there, one that had Dez fighting the urge to kiss her right in the hallway of the hospital. They had the best sex when she was pissed at him about something, and it all started with that look she was giving him right now.

  Naturally, she saw that too. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Dez.”

  “What?”

  “You know what.”

  “So you don’t want to?”

  “What I want more right now is to know what the hell is going on.”

  Dez took a moment to revel in the “more” before moving on. She was right as usual, of course. Now wasn’t the time. “I can’t tell you much, mainly because I don’t know much. I’m trying to find Sully, but I’m not making much progress. It’s possible Lachlan’s got some info I can use, but he was out before I could question him further. He gave me some numbers for stuff, at least one of which is an address. I need to get into his house for a key. Do you know if his place is under any sort of watch?”

  “Not that I know of. I’m pretty sure investigators tossed it earlier, looking for any files or additional info he might not have at the office, but I don’t know anything more about that.”

  “Can you drop me off at home so I can get my SUV?”

  “You’re heading to Lachlan’s now?”

  “I have to. If something Lachlan got his hands on holds the key to all this, I have to find it, get the ball rolling. I’ve got to find Sully.”

  “Okay, fine. But you’re not doing this alone.”

  “I can’t tell anyone else. No one can know he’s alive.”

  “Well, I’m not anyone else. I love Sully too. If he really is alive, and he needs help, I’m in this. He’s family. And then there’s the whole problem of you. If you think I’m letting you walk into something dangerous with no backup, you’re out of your mind.”

  Dez couldn’t stop the grin, was pleased when he saw her fighting her own responding smile. Unlike him, she was more or less successful. “I’m not alone, you know,” he said. “I’ve got Pax, and he’s pretty decent backup from what I can tell.”

  “I’m thinking I’d rather know you’ve got a set of human eyes keeping a lookout. No offence to Pax. Anyway, hard to say. Dog his size, he’s probably smashed through the window of my car and is running wild in the streets, eating people.”

  Dez’s smile faded as he considered this further. As much as he loved the idea of having Eva at his side on this, he also knew things could get risky fast. The last thing he wanted was a situation that endangered both Kayleigh’s parents in one go. “Evie, I appreciate what you’re saying, but—”

  “But nothing. Don’t you worm around this, trying to protect me. I’m a cop, remember? I put myself in harm’s way all the time, and you knew that when we met in training. Don’t get all Big Man on me. I can handle myself.”

  “I know you can. It’s just ….” He wanted to say it was because he loved her so much, because he’d lost so many people—at least twice due to his failure—and because he couldn’t think of a worse fate, save one, than losing her.

  But, as usual, he didn’t have to.

  She laid a hand on his chest, forcing him to meet her eye. It almost broke him, the emotion far too close to the surface. Her words proved the tipping point, had him swallowing against the lump in his throat and wiping at the tear that slipped free.


  “I’m not going anywhere, Dez.”

  17

  Lachlan lived in a comfortable house in the city’s North Bank neighbourhood, set far enough back from the river to make it affordable.

  Dez recalled something about Lachlan having divorced during his career, but he’d been savvy enough to ensure a prenuptial was in place that meant he didn’t lose his shirt in the proceedings. After all, there was very little doubt any split involving Lachlan was no one’s fault but his own.

  Having found the address, Dez was relieved to see no police units set up outside. To be safe, he asked Eva to take a quick drive down the back alley to check for patrol cars.

  “Happy now?” she asked.

  “I’ve got you going far enough off track here,” he said. “Last thing I want is to make you an accomplice in breaking into a held scene.”

  Eva returned to the front of the house, parking next to a large tree Pax took to watering as soon as he emerged from the vehicle.

  “Are you sure he should be coming in?” Eva asked. “Lachlan doesn’t strike me as a pets kinda guy.”

  “That makes it even better then, doesn’t it?”

  “You know, he’s not that bad,” Eva said as the three of them walked up a set of stairs to the home’s wraparound veranda.

  “If you’re comparing to Raynor, I guess you’d be right.”

  Dez stopped at the front door, keying in 89179. Thankfully, Lachlan seemed to have a head for numbers, the code holding true despite the morphine stupor. Once inside, an audible beeping drew Dez to a backlit alarm box, which took Lachlan’s provided four-digit code.

  “So what are we looking for?” Eva asked as Dez searched for a light switch.

  “Degas, he said.”

  Eva peered at Dez out of the corner of her eye. “The artist? Are you sure he wasn’t completely stoned when he said it?”

  “I’m not sure of anything.” Dez located a light switch and got his first good look inside. “Except we’re screwed.”

  “What?”

  Dez looked down at Eva. “You didn’t by chance take an art history class at some point you never told me about, did you?”

  Eva’s eyes grew large as she took in what Dez had observed. Lachlan’s house was like an art gallery, paintings taking up space on virtually every available wall surface. Some looked to be prints, while others, even to Dez’s untrained eye, were clearly originals. And Lachlan had a broad taste in art, his collection ranging from realistic-looking portraits to surreal abstracts. Added to the problem were the sculptures, which sat on tables, shelves and mantles wherever space allowed. Dez remembered hearing DaVinci and his contemporaries had mastered both paintings and sculpture. Hopefully, Degas wasn’t quite so well-rounded.