“I’m a federal officer. You’re not going to be charged for this.”
“And I’m just supposed to believe you? Take your word for it?”
“What? You don’t believe me?” He looked surprised.
“I…believe you’re a cop.”
“Federal agent,” he corrected.
“Same thing,” she snapped. “My problem is that I’m just not sure I won’t have to pay the consequences.” Face it, anyone with a black mark on her record didn’t do well on a second go-round. That was part of the reason Kathy went out of her way to avoid even getting a parking ticket.
“Look,” she said. “They might give you a get-out-of-jail-free card, but I’m not a certified badge-carrying cop.” And, yes, she said cop again just to annoy him.
“We’re wasting time arguing about this.” He closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath about women.
“What did you say?” she asked.
He opened his eyes. “You won’t go to jail, Kathy. Okay?” He ran another hand over his face. Then he looked back at the side mirror, a scowl firmly etched into his bruised features. She held her breath as he reached for the gun. His eyes never left the mirror. Then, she heard a car whiz past on the other side of eighteen wheeler.
She let go of a heartfelt sigh and took a moment to remember what she’d been about to say. “I’ve got a kid. I can’t go to jail.”
“Fine,” he grumbled, and his annoyance was clear. He tucked the gun in the back of his jeans and just sat there staring out the window. Then he jerked his arms up. “So you’d rather just drive around in a van with your freaking name printed in pink, in huge goddamn letters, that sure as hell is going to be remembered by anyone who sees it. You’d rather let a couple of known murderers find us and let them finish us off, huh?” He hit the steering wheel with a hand. “Tell me, did you bring your toilet tank lid with you? Because frankly I’m not sure I can take them on by myself. And I don’t have time to sit here and argue with you. I’ve got to get a shirt. Get us a different ride. Then find a phone and get us some help.”
His words bounced around in her head, and he dropped back on the seat and closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “I shouldn’t have exploded like that.” He passed a hand over his face. “I just need you to do what I say.”
But Kathy Callahan didn’t just do what people said. She always used logic and weighed her options before making a decision. Some people would say she was too commonsensical, Sue and Lacy among them. But Kathy had learned from experience that letting your emotions rule could get you in trouble. It had been emotions that got her that little black mark with the law in Alabama. And her decision to marry Tom…again driven by emotions. So logically, with her emotion set aside, she looked at her options: she could help him and possibly face being arrested for a second time, or not help him and possibly face being killed.
She reached for her door handle and looked at him over her shoulder. “What size shirt are we looking for?”
Joey starred into the barrel of Donald’s Glock. “I offer you an aspirin and you threaten to kill me. Now, why does that feel wrong?”
Donald let go of the safety, letting Joey know he meant business. It wasn’t the first time Joey had stared into a gun barrel, but he’d decided a long time ago he didn’t like it. And he’d expressed his dislike by sending that idiot to the hospital. He pressed his foot harder on the gas. His toe throbbed but he ignored it. “You shoot me, I swear the last thing I’ll do is flip this car over. I’ll bet you won’t make it this time.”
Donald blinked. His gaze shot to the speedometer.
“Put the fucking gun away,” Joey said.
Donald’s hand wavered. Joey knew the man had no problem killing him. While Joey hadn’t witnessed the act, he’d heard it was Donald who’d put the bullet in Freddy’s head. However, Donald wasn’t totally stupid. And shooting Joey while he was doing eighty and behind the wheel would be damn stupid.
“You best watch your back, kid.” Donald’s weapon lowered, and he reached up and pressed two fingers to his brow. “I swear to God if Lorenzo ever wants you dead—and he might when he hears it’s your fault Hunter got away—I’ll volunteer for the job.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Joey considered pulling his own gun and making sure Donald didn’t get a chance, but unlike Donald, Joey had never offed anyone. It had been one of the questions Lorenzo asked him during the interview. Joey hadn’t lied either. “No, sir. Killing isn’t my thing. But I’ve broken my share of noses, put a few guys in the hospital when I worked the nightclub. One bozo stayed in the hospital for over a week when I caught him beating one of our waitresses.” He wasn’t proud of what he’d done, but he’d never minded a good fight, never backed down. However, the idea of killing someone didn’t appeal to him either.
Or it hadn’t before. When he’d thought Donald might find the pregnant blonde hiding in the closet, Joey hadn’t questioned whether he’d be able to put a bullet in Donald. He would have done it. Odd, how he felt he could kill for a stranger but when his own sorry ass was threatened, he wasn’t sure. Was that because his life didn’t seem worth killing for?
Donald’s cell phone rang. Joey’s shoulders tightened. Had the blonde already reported the incident to the police? Had someone working for Lorenzo already gotten word? Holding the wheel with one hand, he tucked his other into his shirt and curled his fingers around the grip of his pistol. Maybe his life was worth killing for, after all.
Chapter Nine
Kathy watched Luke jump up into the back of the unmanned Goodwill trailer. He reached down and pulled her up. The feel of his hand in hers sent a jolt up her arm ending right at her heart, the kind of jolt that bordered on pain but felt good at the same time. As soon as her feet got planted, she pulled her hand away. He studied her, and she wondered if he’d felt the jolt as well.
She took a deep breath, and the heat in the tin box hit her first, but the heat wasn’t near as bad as what came next. “Oh my!” Immediately she slapped her hand over her nose. “What’s that smell?”
“Don’t know. Let’s just find me something to wear.” Luke grabbed an enormous garbage bag and started rummaging through the clothes inside.
Kathy looked around at the stacks of bags and boxes of clothes. Wanting to get out as soon as possible, she found a bag and started sifting through it with one hand. She still had her nose pinched when she found a box of clothes that included several men’s suits.
“Hey, these might work,” she said, her voice funny with her nostrils pinched.
Luke looked up, and that’s when she heard it: a whimper or a cry. Luke heard it, too, because he jerked upright, tucked her behind him and aimed his gun at a stack of dark green garbage bags. If the smell was any indication, they honestly contained garbage.
The noise sounded again. Kathy stood frozen, her hand pressed against Luke’s warm back, listening. Luke’s shoulders relaxed; his gun lowered. Motioning for her to stay, he took a few steps and pushed bags aside. The whimpering began full force. That’s when Kathy saw the carrier.
“Poor cat!” she said.
Luke knelt down. “It’s not a cat.”
Kathy moved closer. She dropped her hand from her nose, but the hideous smell had her breathing through her mouth. She squatted beside Luke and saw the tan puppy surrounded by his own excrement. The poor thing couldn’t have been more than a few months old. With its mashed-in face and bug eyes, it looked part pug and part…something else equally ugly. But cute ugly.
Can I have a dog? Can I please? Tommy’s constant pleas rang in her ears. She’d made up her mind that when he got home they’d go puppy shopping. Hey, her ex offered her son Europe, so she had to do something to one up him.
She moved a little closer and saw that the puppy looked hot and thirsty. “Poor thing!” She reached to open the cage.
“Don’t,” Luke said.
She cut her gaze at him. “Why?”
He shook his head. “We can’t bring that dog with us.”
“We can’t leave it here. It’ll die. Look at it. It might be half dead now. We don’t know how long it’s been here like this. No water. No food.” She opened the cage and the puppy inched forward. “Come here, baby. It’s okay. I won’t hurt you, I promise.”
She lifted the puppy and held it up and out, as far from her nose as possible. The little guy stuck out his long pink tongue and tried to reach her face. “Oh, look at you,” she said in a voice she reserved for babies.
“Put that thing back,” Luke insisted. “It’s covered in shit.” He opened the cage door and motioned. “Now.”
She shot him a cold glare. “It won’t be covered in shit if you’ll help me find something to wipe him off with.”
“Kathy, we have hit men after us. We can’t take this dog!”
“You would leave a puppy here to die? You could do that?”
His gaze went to the puppy and she could swear she saw an ounce of compassion in his eyes, and then he looked away. She heard him spout a few four-letter words before he faced her again. All compassion had left his expression. “To save our lives, yes. I would let that puppy die.”
“Then you just go on without me. Because I will not leave this poor animal here to starve or die a slow miserable death.” She bit down on her lip, knowing she was halfway back to being unreasonable, but…“Please. Besides, our lives aren’t exactly in jeopardy at this moment.”
“She’s fine. The baby’s fine,” the doctor repeated.
The tension gripping Detective Jason Dodd’s chest since he’d gotten the panicked call from his pregnant wife lightened. “You sure?”
“Positive.” The doctor sent him a comforting smile.
Sue had kept reassuring him on the drive to the hospita that she was fine, but seeing his pregnant wife in tears had lit a fire in his belly. And not the good kind either. All he could think about was getting away from Kathy’s trailer where someone had threatened to kill Sue, taking her to the hospital to get every little inch of her checked out.
“Can we see the baby on one of those sonograms things again? Just to make sure.”
The doctor frowned. “The baby’s heartbeat is fine.”
“Jason!”
Jason swung around and saw his partner and friend Detective Chase Kelly hurrying down the hall. “What the hell happened?” his friend asked. “Is Sue okay?”
Taking a deep breath and fighting the lump that suddenly lodged in his throat, he remembered leaving a half-assed message on Chase’s cell phone. “She’s fine,” he managed to say.
“The baby?” Chase’s face paled.
Jason knew his friend could relate, because Chase and his wife were on the baby path as well. Their babies were only a couple of weeks apart. And they had already talked about how great it was that their kids would grow up together, play in the mud together and become friends. “The baby’s fine, too.”
The empathy left his friend’s face. “What the heck happened? You scared the shit out of me!”
“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight when I called.” Jason took a deep breath. “I don’t know what’s going on. But Sue went over to Kathy’s. Supposedly there was some kind of altercation out by your house between that plumber who has a hard-on for Kathy and some other guys. Kathy left your place to—”
“I know about that,” Chase said. “Lacy called and told me. She said Kathy was going to try to find Stan—the plumber.”
“Well, Sue went to check on Kathy, but she wasn’t home. Sue’s cell phone was out of battery so she went inside Kathy’s to use her phone to try to reach Kathy’s cell. While she was there someone broke in…” Jason chest tightened, and he trailed off.
“Shit!” Chase said. “Did you call this in?”
“Not yet. When Sue phoned, I was only a few minutes away. I knew I could get to her faster than a dispatch…” He hesitated.
“So, what happened?” Chase asked.
“Sue said there were two guys. One of them forced her into a closet and told her not to scream because”—Jason’s voice shook—“he said the other guy would kill her.”
Chase’s eyes widened. “Christ! But she’s okay? Not hurt?”
“She’s fine. Swears all the guy did was grab her and stop her from screaming. The doctor assures me she’s fine.”
“Were they robbing Kathy?”
“I…” He tried to remember what condition Kathy’s place had been in. “It didn’t appear that way. But I didn’t…I didn’t spend time looking around. The fuckers had left. I grabbed Sue and rushed her here.”
“Okay…I’ll report it and go check out Kathy’s.”
Jason looked toward the curtain concealing his wife and motioned Chase to step away. He lowered his voice. “Sue’s been trying to call Kathy every five minutes. She’s not answering.”
Chase’s eyes widened. “You don’t think this was random? Shit! You think the fight by my house has something to do with it?”
“I don’t know, but I’d feel a hell of a lot better if we knew where Kathy was.”
Chase took out his phone. “Why don’t I call the plumber and see what he knows?” He dialed directory assistance and got Bradley’s number, then said, “Let’s hope Kathy’s there and they’re…busy. That girl has gotta get laid sooner or later.” He half smiled.
Jason glanced back at the curtain between him and his wife, torn between hearing what Chase found out and returning to check on her.
“Is this Stan Bradley?” Chase asked, and Jason saw his partner’s brows pinch together as if confused.
“Danny? What the hell? Is that you?” Chase asked.
“Danny who?” Jason asked. The only Danny he and Chase knew was his cop buddy who’d just gone to work for the Hoke’s Bluff PD.
“It’s me. Chase. Chase Kelly, the guy you played poker with last Friday. What the hell is going on?” Chase paused. “You’re kidding!”
“What?” Jason asked.
“Damn!” Chase said.
“What’s going on?” Jason repeated.
Chase held up his hand. “Is anyone hurt? No bodies?” His gaze cut toward Jason, and he ran a hand through his hair: a sure sign that the news wasn’t good. “Yeah,” he said into the phone. “I was looking for Kathy Callahan. There’s a chance she was with Stan. I’ll be right there and explain.” He closed his phone.
“What the hell is going on?” Jason asked.
Chase looked up. “Hoke’s Bluff police are at the plumber’s. No one’s there, but his house has been shot to Hell and back.” Chase let out a frustrated breath. “They found over a kilo of cocaine. It appears like some kind of drug deal gone bad.”
“Drugs? The plumber?” Jason said. “Ah, shit. Kathy—what about Kathy?” He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“She’s not there.” Chase frowned. “But Danny said there was blood. Lots of blood.”
Jason looked back at the curtain. His chest ached thinking about Kathy, and panic slammed against his ribs when he realized that the people responsible for that blood were probably the same ones who had been with Sue. “So those men at Kathy’s trailer were drug dealers? God damn,” he muttered.
“We’re not sure they’re connected,” Chase said—but neither of them believed in coincidences.
Jason made a fist and gripped it again. “What the hell were they looking for?”
“I don’t know.” Chase pocketed his phone. “The boys at Hoke’s Bluff are going to want to talk to Sue as soon as she’s able.”
That piece of info had all sorts of bells and alarms going off in Jason’s brain. His wife could possibly identify the people behind all the chaos and blood—people like drug dealers who didn’t mind killing. People who wouldn’t care his wife was pregnant.
He shook his head. “No!” He took two steps and then swung back around. “I don’t want Sue involved in this until I know what the hell is going on.”
“But she saw—”
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Jason’s mind raced. “I’ll say I saw them. I’ll find out everything Sue knows that might help this case and I’ll give it to them. Sue’s not getting involved.”
“But Jason—” Chase started.
“Damn it, Chase, she’s pregnant. Stop thinking like a cop and start thinking like a husband and father!”
The fight left his friend’s expression. “Let me go find out what they know. Don’t say anything until I call you.” Chase turned to go.
Wait,” Jason said, and leaned in. “What are we telling our wives about Kathy?”
Shit, Luke thought. The damn dog was covered in it. He and Kathy absolutely could not take the thing with them, and somehow he had to make her understand that. So far, she hadn’t been totally unreasonable—oh, hell, who was he kidding? She’d pointed his own gun at him! The idea of just tossing her over his shoulder and dragging her out of the Goodwill trailer kicking and screaming began to appeal. He could do it, too. Yup, he had choices—and none of them involved taking the damn dog.
“Look at him,” she cooed. The expression on her face, all soft and vulnerable, turned him inside out. It was how she looked at Tommy, and it always took Luke back to his own mom, the few memories he’d kept from his childhood.
Oh, hell no, he thought when he felt himself mentally taking a U-turn about the dog.
“We can’t leave him!” Kathy cut a gaze toward Luke, wearing the same expression as when she’d pulled the gun on him.
Luke cursed under his breath. His gaze flew around the trailer, which was filled with other people’s hand-me-downs. In the corner, someone had left a bottle of water. Reaching back into the bag he’d just dug through, he found the plastic bag of hotel soaps and shampoos that he’d seen earlier. “Bring the dog over there.” He pointed to an empty spot in the trailer, jumped up, snatched a T-shirt from a pile of discarded clothes and went for the water.
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