“Hey, babe,” he said.
“I…” Sniffle. Hiccup.
His heart flew into his throat. His wife was crying.
Luke looked over at Kathy, who was hugging herself as if cold, and he switched on the van’s heater. It had to be over eighty degrees in the van. He knew her cold stemmed from her nerves, but sometimes heat helped.
“You okay?” he asked.
She moved closer to the door as if determined to ignore him.
Not that he blamed her. She’d asked for the truth. She deserved the truth, didn’t she? But if there was one thing he’d gotten good at these past few years, it was keeping secrets. Then again, in a few weeks he’d be out from under all this, free from the secrets and back to…what? He still hadn’t decided if he was returning to work for the FBI. He didn’t know what he wanted. Surprisingly, these past few years working with his hands hadn’t been nearly as bad as he’d envisioned. And damn if the money hadn’t been pretty good, too.
He imagined his dad saying, “See. I told you so, son.” Luke had chosen plumbing as his WitSec profession because it was what he knew. He’d put himself through school with it. Plumbing was what his dad had done.
Luke had spent a lot of time thinking about his dad the last few years, wishing the old man was still around to see him carrying on the line of work. His dad had wanted that. “You can take over my business when I retire,” he’d said. But Luke wanted no part of it. While he hated the fact, he’d looked down on his old man because of the manual labor—shit work, as he’d so often referred to it. It simply wasn’t cool to spend your life unstopping other people’s johns. He’d thought he wanted excitement: chasing bad guys, dodging bullets. After today, snaking a drain didn’t look so mundane. It sounded pretty damn good.
From the corner of his vision, he saw Kathy tremble again. Would hearing the truth help? Then again, what would it hurt?
“I was working in Lorenzo’s accountant’s office,” he said, and watched her turn to look at him. “But I was really working undercover. I work for the FBI on a special task force of the DEA.”
Her expression grew pinched. “You’re a cop?”
He heard accusation in her tone.
“I’m a federal agent.”
“Same thing.” She shivered, as if another wave of cold hit her.
“Not really.” He paused and then cranked up the heater. “I was undercover for almost a year before I finally found something that could take Lorenzo down. I had a lineup of people willing to testify, but one by one they…became unavailable.”
“They backed out?” she asked.
More like backed off a cliff or the face of the earth. One had been unfortunate enough to run into an ice pick. “Something like that.”
She took several deep breaths, as if trying to fight panic. He’d been there a few times himself. His first shooting as an agent hadn’t been easy. Then there was the night he stood in the emergency room and was told his sister and her entire family were gone.
He glanced at Kathy and found her staring, as if waiting for him to finish. “It became clear that someone on the inside was involved. The agency didn’t know who to trust. I was the only witness they had left. They wanted to dig deeper and try to find out where the leak was coming from. It was supposed to be for nine months, but things kept getting postponed.”
She closed her eyes. “You couldn’t have just been a criminal, huh?”
He remembered her saying something about not trusting the police. “You don’t like cops?”
She opened her eyes. “Let’s just say they don’t fall into my ‘favorite-people’ category.”
“Why?”
She blinked several times, almost as if fighting tears. “Because I’ve found most of them to be self-serving, macho-minded, ignorant sons of bitches who think a badge makes them better than everyone else.”
“Ouch!” He cut his gaze to the rearview mirror and relaxed when there wasn’t a car behind them. “Kind of harsh, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Maybe.” She leaned back in the seat. “Normally I keep my opinion to myself, but today I’ve lost some of my normal tact.” She swallowed, and her bottom lip quivered until she caught it with her teeth. He watched her shiver again as she whispered, “Sorry, nothing personal.”
“But didn’t you say that your friends’ husbands are cops? Lacy Kelly and that blonde who’s a writer?”
“Yeah. What can I say? I guess my friends have no taste.” It sounded as if she was trying to tease, trying to hide some real emotion. He looked over and saw a drop of sweat running down her brow. She leaned her head back. Her eyes closed and then jerked back open.
“More bullets?” he asked.
“Something like that,” she muttered, and leaned against the door.
It was best to keep her talking, to get her thinking about something besides the bullets. “So…you don’t like your friends’ husbands?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, you didn’t. You even said that you trusted them earlier. But then you insulted all cops.” He purposely put some accusation in his tone, knowing a fire in her belly might help.
She looked over at him. “The truth is that they seem to be decent guys. But frankly, I think they’re the exception to the rule.” Her teeth chattered.
“Whose rule? Your rule? Like the ‘categories’ you judge law officers by? The category that says we’re all alike?” He put even more edge in his tone.
“I…didn’t say that.” She sat up a little straighter, and her mouth tightened.
That’s right. Get mad at me, it will make you feel better. “So what you’re really saying is that I’m not a decent guy because I’m a federal agent.”
“I didn’t say that either.”
“You implied it,” he said.
“I didn’t imply it.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t, because what kind of guy you are falls into the ‘I don’t know and don’t care’…er, category.” She stopped hugging herself. The shift in emotions was working.
He shrugged. “You’ve got a lot of categories.”
“You…you’re impossible! You threw my phone out the window. How did I miss this side of you?”
He almost laughed but held it back. “I told you, I suspected they might be tracking it. But you wouldn’t listen.”
“Couldn’t you have just cut it off?”
“If it had GPS, it could be tracked even without being turned on,” he said. “I couldn’t chance that. You’re just going to have to get over it.”
“Get over it? Are you always so pigheaded?”
“Pigheaded? Is that a slam against me being in law enforcement?”
Her hazel eyes squinted. She pulled her hair to one side and twisted it into a rope. “Take it any way you want,” she said.
She stared out the window as if shutting him out. Out wasn’t good. Out would take her back to the bullets.
“Are you always so difficult?” he asked. “Of course you are. You’re a redhead. Hot tempered, difficult and—”
“Stop!” Her mouth fell open. “I can’t believe you’d judge people by stereotypes. You’re infuriating! I can’t believe I didn’t see this side of you.”
“But most cops are self-serving, macho-minded, ignorant sons of bitches, who think a badge makes them better than everyone else, huh?”
She sat for several seconds as if letting his words fall into place. “You worked really hard to make that point, didn’t you?” she asked, sounding more rational than before.
He grinned—he couldn’t help it. “I like making points. Plus, you’re fun to mess with.” And she was.
“Well, shucks! I’m glad I’m entertaining you,” she replied.
“Me too,” he said, and the idea of what might have happened earlier at his place when Lorenzo’s goons had showed up had his gut clenching.
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I know. But at least you’re not shaking anymore.”<
br />
She studied him, her mouth a tight bow. “So you purposely set out to annoy me so I’d forget about…about everything.”
“Did it work?” His gaze slipped to the side mirror.
She paused, then inhaled. “Yes.”
He turned down the heater. “If I did it purposely, would it make me come off less like a self-serving, macho-minded, ignorant son of a bitch who carries a badge?”
She bit down on her lip. He didn’t think she was going to answer. But then she did. “Maybe a little.”
He laughed. “Then that’s what I was doing.”
Again, he realized how much he liked her. She had been the one bright spot in his life these last few years. Then he let himself entertain ideas for when he got his life and name back. When he decided what he really wanted to do with the rest of his life, maybe he could knock on her door and see if they had a real chance at starting something.
The sound of a car engine entered Luke’s awareness. His gaze shot to the side mirror. A black Ford truck pulled into the left lane and moved up beside him—in the lane for opposite traffic. Luke grabbed his gun.
But then he spotted the driver. It was just a teenager eager to pass, ready to get somewhere faster than he needed. But the accompanying shot of adrenaline made Luke realize that he shouldn’t be thinking about the future until he knew for sure he could get himself and Kathy through the day. He really needed to get to a phone. He needed to talk to Calvin and get some reinforcements. And before he could do any of that without calling attention to himself, he needed to find a shirt.
Glancing over at Kathy, he saw that she seemed to have gotten past her shock…for now. While it brought him some relief, he knew damn well that this was the smallest of feats he had to accomplish. Getting her out of this alive, away from Lorenzo’s reach, was going to be the hardest.
Another car pulled off a side street and fell into place behind him. His gut tight, he waited to see if the driver was one of Lorenzo’s men.
Chapter Eight
Somehow Joey convinced Donald he’d knocked the phone off the receiver himself, so now they stood in the second trailer, which was set up as a florist shop. Thankfully, an unmanned florist shop. Joey stood in the middle of a room that smelled like different kinds of flowers and studied his partner, wishing he could convince the man to leave. But if he acted too eager, Donald might suspect something.
Trying to not put his weight on his toe, Joey leaned to one side and watched the older man pace the room. His head had started bleeding again, and Joey noticed he’d swayed on his feet several times. Add the fact that the man had puked earlier, and Joey figured Donald probably had a concussion or something.
Joey touched the lump on his own head. Hell, maybe he had a concussion, too. That would explain why he’d risked his life to save the blonde. But he didn’t regret it. Hurting a pregnant woman was just plain wrong.
“Motherfucker!” Donald yelled, and turned over a table that held a vase of fresh yellow flowers. Glass shattered, and the water from the vase splattered the wood floor and Joey’s pant legs. Tearing up the place didn’t make sense, but as long it wasn’t the blonde in the other trailer being torn, Joey couldn’t care less. He cast a glance out the window and prayed the woman wouldn’t pull a stupid stunt and try to run until she made sure their car was gone.
Donald’s phone rang. Joey turned from the window and listened. “Got it,” Donald said. “I’m on it!” He hung up and started out the door. “We got them. Come on.”
“I’m five minutes away, baby,” Jason said into the phone as he whipped around a curve so sharp he smelled rubber. He held the phone to his ear with one hand and drove with the other. Somehow he’d managed to get his gun out, and it waited in his lap. If they laid one finger on his wife, he was going to kill them. “Talk to me, Sue.”
He heard her sniffle. “He had a gun. He said the other guy would kill me.”
“Four minutes,” he said, and pushed his foot on the gas pedal as hard as he could. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?” Rage bubbled up inside him.
“I don’t think so.” She sniffled. “I was just so scared.”
Which meant his child was scared. At the last doctor visit, the doc had said everything Sue felt, the baby felt.
“How many do you think there were?”
“Two. All I saw were two.”
That was good. Because he could take on two. He could take two with his bare hands if he had to.
“Are they still in the florist shop?” he asked, acid pumping through his stomach. “Is their car still there?” He didn’t have time to consider who they were or why they were at Kathy’s. All that mattered was getting to Sue and keeping her safe. He considered hanging up and calling for backup, but he knew the Hoke’s Bluff police response time would be at least ten minutes. Their response was even worse than Piper’s and Houston’s. And hanging up on Sue didn’t feel right.
She inhaled shakily. “Car’s still there. Maybe I should try to get to my car and leave?”
He envisioned her getting shot while running. His grip on the wheel tightened. “No! Just stay right there. If you see them coming, drop the phone and go hide. I’ll be there in three minutes, baby. Three minutes.”
Then he heard her yelp. The sound of the phone being dropped echoed in his ears and panic shot to his heart.
“We’ve got them?” Joey asked.
Donald nodded.
Joey’s thoughts shot to the image of the little boy with his mother, and his stomach muscles tightened. He didn’t think Corky and Pablo could have gotten a rental and caught up with Hunter and the redhead that fast. “Who has them?”
“No.” Donald scowled and swiped at the blood seeping down his brow. “We got a location. Let’s go before they get away.”
As they made their way back to the car, Joey kept one eye on the first trailer. He could have sworn he saw the curtain flutter, and he hoped like hell Donald didn’t see.
Crawling into the driver’s seat, he bumped his foot on the gas pedal and let out another curse that would have had his mom grabbing the toilet brush. A minute later he was back on the highway. A Mustang came blazing past them in the oncoming lane, driving like a bat out of hell. Joey jerked the car closer to the curb.
“How did we get the lead on them?” he asked Donald.
“Cell phone,” the other man answered. His eyes were closed, as if he was almost asleep.
“Who gave us that?”
Donald jerked upright, shook his head. “Does it matter?”
It might. “I guess not. Just wondering if we have anyone here to help us get the job done.”
“We don’t need anyone.” Donald leaned his head back again and closed his eyes.
“Who is this Hunter guy, anyway?” Joey had worked for Lorenzo for about eight months—eight months too long. And he’d only heard rumors about this Hunter character. Rumors said his testimony could bring down Lorenzo’s operation. Joey figured the guy was either an idiot or had a death wish. Everyone knew Lorenzo wouldn’t let someone take him down.
“He’s someone your boss wants to feed to the worms,” Donald growled. “That’s all that matters. Boss wants it? We do it. Damn, my head hurts like a fucker.”
“Is it true that he’s a cop?”
“Why all the questions?” Donald muttered. “Just shut the hell up.” He dropped his head into his palm.
Joey didn’t doubt Donald’s head hurt; the man’s scalp was gaping open at his hairline, and who knew what was going on inside. “There’s some aspirin in my bag in the back,” he offered, not sure why he cared. Hadn’t he told the man to wear a seat belt? Even now, after the wreck, Donald didn’t buckle up.
The guy jerked his hand from his face. “Aspirin? You fucking offer me an aspirin? You realize that if I don’t catch Hunter, my ass is as good as dead?”
“I thought Pablo and Corky were supposed to do this.” It was something Joey was depending on.
“But I was running it. It was my
job!” Donald’s face turned red. “I wouldn’t be in this fix if you hadn’t wrecked the fucking car.” He pulled out his gun and pointed it at Joey’s face. “I should shoot your ass.”
Joey looked at the barrel and said, “Not unless you want to have another wreck. And since you still aren’t wearing a seat belt, I’d suggest you put the gun away.”
When the van pulled off the road and drove across a graveled patch of grass, Kathy sat up. “This is where you’re going clothes shopping?” she asked, realizing that after her fight with Luke she almost felt normal. Almost.
“It’s not the mall, but it’ll do in a pinch,” he said. For the last few minutes he’d grown quiet, as if worried. And, okay, she’d admit it, they had a lot to worry about; but his lapse into silence concerned her.
She stared at the parked eighteen wheeler, its trailer set up as a Goodwill donation site that he’d parked behind. She’d dropped a few bags off at Goodwill centers like this. Only thing was, they didn’t sell merchandise here.
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “Oh, this is priceless. You’re going to steal from Goodwill?”
“Borrow,” he said. But while his tone was playful, there wasn’t a hint of humor in his expression.
She remembered something he’d said about parking her van and getting a new car. “Borrow? Like you plan to ‘borrow’ a new car?”
He didn’t deny it. Holy mother of pearls, he was actually planning on stealing a car! Cop or not, that was against the law. And…and she was with him. Which meant she would be an accessory to car theft. That was a real crime. A go-to-prison crime.
He reached for the door and glanced at her over his shoulder. “You’d best come with me.”
“With you? Oh, hell no! I refuse to be a part of this. I refuse to become a criminal. Nope.” She shook her head. She’d had a small taste of jail life, and it just didn’t suit her. “Do I look like the type of woman who would do well in prison? I saw what it did to Martha Stewart. I’m not going there.”
He let out a puff of air. Well, he could just be annoyed. He could stay annoyed. He could live in his own little annoyed world until it snowed in Hell for all she cared. Because, frankly, he was annoying the hell out of her, too. And yes, part of it was because he wasn’t wearing a shirt, but that was beside the point. The point he needed to consider was that Kathy Callahan wasn’t a thief. Not like her daddy. Nope.
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