Petrovich smiled, clearly amused by Gracie. “You sound like a lawyer. Are you his lawyer?”
“If I were, I’d tear you a new asshole, friend.”
He laughed, but there was a little uncertainty in it. He handed over the warrant and waited while Gracie took a good, long look at it. She reluctantly handed it back.
“Why didn’t you have the Springfield police pick him up? Isn’t that routine?”
“They apparently have a hard on for him, too. We didn’t want to take the chance that they’d keep him for their case.”
“You think your case is more important?”
“We think our case is more public. If Springfield screwed up and let him go, he’d be in the wind, and we’d never find him. We wanted him in custody before it hit the news.”
Durango stood, moving around the desk with his wrists held out. “Then take me.”
“Durango,” Gracie said, a little bit of fear in her voice.
“They’re going to do it one way or the other. Might as well cooperate.”
“That’s the spirit, Durango.”
Petrovich took a great deal of pleasure in slapping the cuffs on his wrists. He twisted them hard behind his back and inflicted as much pain as he could. Petrovich had taken it personally when Durango was acquitted in Sarah’s murder trial. Like Durango had gone free just to piss Petrovich off.
“It’s over now, pal,” Petrovich said near his ear. “I know you killed that pretty fiancée of yours, and I know you killed those girls here. And I’m going to be the detective who’s finally going to make sure you fucking pay.”
It was over. He’d waited too long, and now it was over.
He could only hope that he’d be dead before too long, that they’d put him in a cell with the brother of some drug dealer he sent up. He could only hope.
“I’ll get you out, Durango,” Gracie called to him.
“Don’t waste your time,” Petrovich said for the both of them.
He could only hope that Gracie would be safe now. It was his only consolation.
Book 5
Chapter 1
Springfield, Illinois
Mastiff Security Headquarters
“What the hell is this?”
Durango spun around, unaware of Gracie’s presence until he saw her standing over the desk, his written confession in her hands.
“What are you doing here?”
She was the last person he wanted to see right now. A bottle of pills in one hand and a pistol in the other, her beautiful face was the last thing he’d anticipated imagining in his final moments, not live and in person.
“I came to drop off some files.” She shook the piece of paper. “What is this?”
“It’s what’s going to end this insanity.”
“A confession? You’re going to confess to the strangler’s crimes?”
“Do I have any other choice?”
“You’ll go to prison, Durango.”
He lifted his hands to let her see what he was holding. “No one’s going to put me in jail. A cop in a state prison?” He shook his head. “I’d rather die at my own hand than some gangbanger’s.”
Her eyes widened, shock and fear so palpable on her face that he could almost feel it rushing toward him.
“You can’t do that!”
“It’s the only way to stop it, Gracie.” He set the gun carefully on the desk and brushed a hand over his face, suddenly so exhausted he couldn’t be bothered to take a breath. “Hell, the cops are on their way right now to arrest me for Detective Hyde. I can’t—”
“Then let me get you out of here!”
“What are you going to do? Take me to your apartment? What then? What do you do when the cops come knocking?”
“I’m not who you think I am, Durango. I can protect you.”
“How?”
She dropped the confession and slipped her glasses off her nose, dragging her fingers through her hair to comb it off her forehead. Her face changed, not just her expression, but everything about it. Her eyes were darker, her mouth tighter, her jaw rigid. “It’s complicated, but the short story is—”
“Durango Masters?”
Durango dropped his revolver and the bottle of pills into a bottom drawer of his desk, his only thought was that he’d waited too long to make a decision. If he’d done this when he first got the call, when he was first tipped off that the cops were coming, he’d be gone already. Damn survival instincts! He couldn’t go to jail . . . He just couldn’t!
If this were some movie, he’d have a filling in the back of his teeth that was filled with cyanide. But this wasn’t some movie, was it?
“Who are you? What do you want?” Gracie demanded, turning cautiously, her fingers reaching carefully for the confession. “You can’t just march in here like you own the damn place!”
“Who are you?” a disembodied voice asked. Durango stood, slipping the confession between her fingers as he did, a sense of dread settling in his chest as he realized he recognized the intruder’s voice.
If he was right, things were about to take a very interesting turn.
“Detective Petrovich?”
The man smiled almost as though he was pleased that Durango remembered him. But how could he forget? This was the man who’d ruined Durango’s career—and life—when he arrested him for the murder of his fiancée five years ago.
“I told you we’d meet again.”
“What the hell are you doing here? Springfield is a little out of your jurisdiction.”
“That might be, but when a suspect travels out of the area, we’re allowed to track him down. You do remember that little detail from your years as a detective, don’t you?”
“What are you talking about?” Gracie wanted to know even as she balled up the confession and slipped it into a pocket of her bulky skirt.
“The body of Felicity Meeks was discovered in her condo less than five hours ago. And the only fingerprints in the place other than hers were yours, Mr. Masters.”
A wave of dizziness washed over Durango, forcing him to fall back into his office chair. Felicity was dead? When? Why? He would have asked how, but he suspected he knew.
The strangler had followed him to Chicago.
“This isn’t possible!”
“It is possible. And we have a warrant to prove it.”
“Can I see the warrant?” Gracie asked, that confident, person in charge voice coming out of her pretty little mouth again. “When was it issued? Was it issued by a sitting judge or some buddy of the department?”
Petrovich smiled, clearly amused by Gracie. “You sound like a lawyer. Are you his lawyer?”
“If I were, I’d tear you a new asshole, friend.”
He laughed, but there was a little uncertainty in it. He handed over the warrant and waited while Gracie took a good, long look at it. She reluctantly handed it back.
“Why didn’t you have the Springfield police pick him up? Isn’t that routine?”
“They apparently have a hard on for him, too. We didn’t want to take the chance that they’d keep him for their case.”
“You think your case is more important?”
“We think our case is more public. It’s not every day a television producer gets herself murdered in the Windy City. If Springfield screwed up and let him go, he’d be gone, and we’d never find him. We wanted him in custody before it hit the news.”
Durango stood, moving around the desk with his wrists held out. “Then take me.”
“Durango,” Gracie said, a little bit of fear in her voice.
“They’re going to do it one way or the other. Might as well cooperate.”
“That’s the spirit, Durango.”
Petrovich took a great deal of pleasure in slapping the cuffs on his wrists. He twisted them hard behind his back and inflicted as much pain as he could. Petrovich had taken it personally when Durango was acquitted in Sarah’s murder trial. Like Durango had gone free just to piss Petrovich off.
Durango hung his head, forced to agree. He’d seen the evidence in Kyle, Hyde, and his assistant’s murders. Even if he had an alibi for most of them, he would have suspected his own involvement if he were on the other side. He knew he would never be able to fight this in court. Not again. It was too late.
His DNA was all over Hyde. And he was with her just moments before she was murdered. He was partners with Kyle, and their relationship had been tumultuous to those witnessing it, though it had never been tumultuous to them. It was just their personalities.
He was connected to his little assistant who’d died, the first assistant he’d ever managed to keep for more than a few hours.
And then Felicity. She was the producer of a reality show that was filming in Chicago up until two weeks ago. His brother, Billy, was also a producer, more on the financial side than the production side. They’d come to him for help when someone began sabotaging the show. He found the culprit with the help of one of his operatives and fixed the situation for her. He’d gone to her place and had a drink when it was all done, probably the source of his fingerprints.
He hadn’t been in Chicago last night, but he didn’t have an alibi. He’d been home alone all night.
That was Gracie’s fault. If not for her, he would have been out, trolling for some pretty woman he could drink with and engage in a hot, one-night sort of thing. But Gracie had gotten under his skin, and he couldn’t look at another woman without thinking of her.
Not that it mattered anymore. He was going to prison, where he’d die. He could only hope that he’d be dead before too long, that they’d put him in a cell with the bother of some drug dealer he sent up. He could only hope.
“I’ll get you out, Durango,” Gracie called to him as Petrovich marched him out of the office.
One saving grace was that it was late. There was no one around to watch his march of shame.
“Don’t waste your time,” Petrovich said. “We won’t get back to Chicago until late. He won’t be arraigned till tomorrow afternoon.”
He was probably right about that, too.
Durango closed his eyes as they stood in the elevator, the numbers slowly trickling downward. The cuffs locking his hands behind his back were too tight, cutting the circulation from his hands. His fingers were already tingling. The feel of them was familiar, but that sense of familiarity brought back with it a darkness that made his chest hurt, that stuck him under a cloud of despair. The only thought that brought him some form of peace was the idea that, without him in her life, Gracie was more than likely safe.
That almost made it all worth it.
If he went to jail in the strangler’s place, Gracie and any other woman who had passed through his life and caught the killer’s attention would now be safe. The strangler would be a fool to kill again after Durango’s arrest. It would waste all the time he’d put into setting Durango up.
He’d been right. His final thoughts tonight would be about Gracie, just not his last thoughts in the throes of death.
Chapter 2
Chicago, Illinois
Cook County Lockup
It was after two o’clock in the morning when they finally arrived in Chicago. Durango sat in the back of Petrovich’s unmarked sedan, his hands gone numb long ago, his forehead against the glass like a child eagerly looking forward to a family trip to the big city. But, instead of excitement, he looked out on the landscape, shrouded in darkness, with a sense of doom.
His past played out in his mind like one of his father’s movies. He’d never liked going to the movies because he’d grown up on movie sets. He knew all the secrets behind the dramatic violence in action films, the monsters in horror films. What was the point when he couldn’t be fooled by the same imagery the people in the audience with him were so easily impressed by.
But his memories . . . There was a movie he could get lost in.
“Why Dallas? Why not the same school I’m going to?”
“Because it’s as far from here as I can get right now.”
Durango threw a handful of shirts into his suitcase and looked over at Billy. The same age as Durango, Billy should have been packing, too. But he was more of the son the great Jackson Chamberlain had always wanted. He planned on going to community college right here in Los Angeles while working at the studio as a director’s assistant—basically a glorified errand boy—learning the ropes at the feet of one of Hollywood’s hottest producers. Just the idea of it made Durango sick to his stomach. He wanted nothing to do with that world.
“I don’t want to be stuck in his shadow for the rest of my life, Billy. I can’t stand the idea of working in Hollywood, let alone living the same life that he lives. Can you imagine, me, dating starlets and telling people like Steven Spielberg and Sam Mendes what to do?” Durango threw another handful of clothing toward the suitcase. “I can’t do that. I need to get out of here, find something I want. Do you understand?”
“Sure. You hate your dad, and you want to run away.”
“It’s not just that. I mean . . .” Durango stopped packing for a moment, facing his stepbrother with his arms crossed over his chest. “I feel like I’ve lived under this dark cloud since the night my mom died. She didn’t want this life, and I think some of that spilled over onto me, you know? She denied who she was, denied her family until it was too late. I don’t want to do that. I want to embrace who I am, who she wanted me to be. And I don’t think this is it.”
“But what about me?”
Durango walked over and clapped Billy on the shoulder. “You’re a survivor, Billy. Do you remember when you first came here?”
Billy nodded, his expression darkly grave. “You hated me on sight.”
“I hated the fact that my father came home married for the seventh time. I hated that he brought a perfect son with him who felt like a replacement for me because I wouldn’t cooperate with him.”
“That’s not how it was.”
“That’s how it felt to a ten-year-old who’d been left alone with a nanny and housekeeper for nearly six months.”
“But we became friends.”
“Only because you chased those bullies off me. Remember?”
Billy nodded. “You would have stood up to them eventually.”
“I did stand up to them. But it didn’t have the same effect as you marching up to them and throwing a punch before you’d even uttered a single word. They never bothered me again after that.”
“You are my brother. I wanted to protect you.”
“And you did. Because you’re strong, Billy. You’re a damn survivor.” Durango clapped his shoulder again before turning back to his packing. “You’ll always be a survivor.”
“What if having a brother was what made me a survivor.”
“We’re still brothers. We’ll just have a few miles between us, that’s all. You can come visit whenever. You might actually like it there.” Durango threw a pair of socks at him. “Cowgirls can be a lot of fun, brother . . .”
Dallas was only the setting. The true story was the independence, the freedom, Durango found in his new life. He no longer had to dress properly each time he left the house, conscious of the paparazzi that followed his father like he was a rock star. He no longer attended a private school where the threat of expulsion and, worse, embarrassment to his father, hung over his head. No one knew him in Dallas. He attended a large community college, lost in a sea of humanity, the adoption of his mother’s maiden name—also adopted—making him anonymous. It was like breaking free of shackles he hadn’t even realized had grown heavy and painful.
And that’s where he discovered criminal justice and fell in love with the logic and structure of it. That’s where he found his calling.
“Wake up, asshole. We’re here.”
Durango sat up a little straighter, his eyes moving wearily over the familiar facade of the county lock up. He’d been here innumerable times, dropping off his own prisoners. But he’d also been a prisoner here.
It was well after midnight. The staff was down to the bare bones, just those necessary to process and care for the inmates. Petrovich didn’t say a word as he marched him down the brightly lit corridor. The light burned Durango’s eyes after three hours in near pitch darkness. He held his head down, for this reason, trying to protect them from the worst of it. He could hear a few chuckles, some murmurs around him, knew that he’d been recognized. He knew he should care, but he really didn’t.
It was almost a relief that he’d been arrested, and things were finally beginning to progress through a predictable series of events. It was better than sitting alone in his condo, waiting for the inevitable hammer to fall.
Petrovich shoved him down onto a bench and handed paperwork over to the guard behind the main desk.
“Durango Masters.” The guard whistled. “You finally did it, huh, Petrovich?”
“Damn right. I told you he’d fuck up, and that I’d be there to catch him.”
“You did.”
The guard looked through the paperwork and stamped it, nodding to Petrovich. “We got him. I’ll let you know when they set the arraignment.”
“Thanks, Jay.”
Petrovich came over and sat beside Durango. “You know, this profession has taken a lot of hits over the years, people losing confidence in public servants. No one respects a cop anymore. And when respect gets lost, cops get killed.” He leaned forward slightly, his hands pressed to the top of his knees. “Cops like you . . . You’re the reason why civilians are losing confidence in us. You’re the reason cops get killed just doing their job.”
Petrovich sat back, leaning into Durango. “I hope they put you in a cell with some kid fucked up on PCP. I hope you find yourself face-to-face with some bastard you put away. I hope they take care of you the way I’d love to do myself. I hope, by this time next year, I’m attending your fucking funeral!”
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