The Naughty Nine: Where Danger and Passion Collide

by Nina Bruhns

  Sophie stayed in the doorway as she measured up the situation with a neutral look on her face. “Bing is coming up in a minute. He’s parking the car. He just got off shift at the police station.”

  Keith turned to Wendy fully, his back to Sophie, pure hate flashing onto his face. He grabbed the custody papers from the kitchen island, crumpled them into his pocket. “A boy needs his father,” he whispered, his voice full of warning. Then he turned to go. “Need to drop my car off for detailing. You girls have fun.” Smiling again.

  Sophie closed the door behind him and turned the dead bolt. “Sorry I’m late.”

  She was a head shorter than Wendy, wrapped in a stylish black wool coat, her cheeks pink from the cold. After her pretty serious health issues for the past couple of years, it was nice to see some healthy color on her.

  Her wild red curls bounced around her face as she moved forward. She dropped her purse on the kitchen island. “Are you okay?”

  Wendy smiled, fighting against her sharp disappointment. She’d failed to get Keith to sign over custody once again. She filled her lungs and pushed the despair aside.

  “I’m glad you’re here.” She glanced at the windows. “I wish the rain would stop already. I thought we could take Justin for a walk when he wakes up from his nap. Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.” Keep talking. Maybe Sophie didn’t notice anything. “How was traffic?”

  She’d never told anyone Keith had turned abusive—not her friends, and not her parents who lived in Florida and already worried endlessly about her.

  Keith Kline was somebody in Wilmington. He held memberships in all the right business clubs. His company gave a ton of money to charity, including the Police Association. The police wouldn’t help her. And the people who loved her would get hurt if she dragged them into her screwed-up relationship. Sophie couldn’t find out. Nobody could.

  Wendy walked over to the smaller bedroom, pushed the door open a few inches, and peeked in. Since Justin was sleeping peacefully, she went back to the kitchen. “Out like a light. Want something to drink?”

  She was the one who’d picked Keith. He was in her life because of her bad judgment. She had a child with him. She had to figure out how to deal with that. Handling Keith was her responsibility and nobody else’s.

  Sophie watched her. “I didn’t realize Keith was coming over today. How are things with him?”

  “Okay.” Keith would kill her if he found out that she talked about him behind his back. She grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge. “Is Bing really coming?”

  “No. Do you mind? I thought—” Sophie shrugged out of her coat, folded it over the back of the sofa, then walked over to the table with a tentative look in her eyes.

  She wore dove-gray slacks with a white top, her style flawless. She had a good eye for color and design. Could have worked in the fashion industry. Not that she’d ever been interested in that kind of thing. Sophie’s passion ran to computers. She had her own web design business. She was smart and strong, everything Wendy wanted to be.

  “How was your checkup this morning?”

  Sophie flashed a brilliant smile. “Passed with flying colors. The ticker keeps on ticking.”

  Wendy set the bottles on the table, then moved to pick up the chairs so they could sit and chat while Justin finished his nap.

  Sophie helped, caressing a translucent acrylic dining chair that had the sleek lines of a sports car. “These look fantastic. I have serious furniture envy.”

  “Scored them from Mia.” An interior designer who often worked on the same sets as Wendy. “Castoffs of some millionaire client.” They were modern design, pieces of art that Wendy could never have afforded otherwise. Her table didn’t match, a minor detail. Someday.

  “Hey, the pictures are new too.” Sophie moved toward the living room, where new photos hung on the wall.

  The photographs caught Justin in the early morning light, sitting in front of the window, dust particles floating in the air, sparkling like diamond powder in the sunlight. The images had a surreal, magical feeling, the perfect symbolism for the magic of childhood. The morning she’d taken those pictures was one of the few times when everything had come together perfectly.

  “You have serious talent.” Sophie kept looking. “If you ever quit modeling, you could be a professional photographer.”

  “That’s the dream.” To be living somewhere far away from Keith, having a successful business so she didn’t have to worry about the future and money. To be strong and independent. She felt light years from that this morning.

  Sophie turned with a smile, but then her eyes grew somber as she caught Wendy’s mood. She stepped closer. “You know you can tell me anything, right? That’s what friends are for.”

  “Sure.” Wendy twisted the top off her water bottle. Sophie didn’t deserve Keith’s nastiness dumped on her. With her health issues, stress was the last thing she needed. “Everything’s fine.”

  Sophie glanced at her legs. “Then why is your knee bleeding?”

  Wendy looked down, past the hem of her new wool skirt where bright red drops beaded on her skin. Unlike high-fashion shoots, department-store flyer jobs let models keep the clothes—a perk her small budget appreciated.

  She grabbed a napkin, dabbed where her skin had split on her right knee. No big deal. She could definitely cover that with makeup for work.

  She tried to stretch her face into a smile. “I slipped.”

  She struggled to put on the public-Wendy persona, the mask that showed her in control of her life and happy. She’d been modeling since she was sixteen; she could act. She’d become good at hiding her scared, weak core even from those close to her. Except, the nonchalant laugh she was working on never formed on her lips.

  Sophie waited, practically radiating patience, love, and support. She wouldn’t push. She never did.

  The mood shifted between them.

  Tears gathered in Wendy’s eyes for some stupid reason. She dashed them away. She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t a crier. Crying never solved anything. Tears usually made Keith angrier.

  Sophie came over and put her arms around her, held her. The comfort felt so incredibly good, especially after Keith flying off the handle, after being scared to death for the last twenty minutes. Wendy drew a deep, shuddering breath.

  “I didn’t really slip,” she whispered.

  “I know,” Sophie whispered back, holding her tightly. “We’re going to figure out what to do about this.”

  Deathblow: Chapter Two

  Joe woke with a screaming headache to the sound of someone trying to break down his front door. He grabbed his jeans from the floor and dragged them on, then shrugged into a wrinkled T-shirt. Socks. He found a pair. He didn’t think the Brant Street Gang knew he lived in Broslin, but he shoved his gun into the back of his jeans as he drummed down the stairs.

  Not how he’d planned his morning. He’d meant to sleep until noon, then spend the rest of his day in a nice, warm station, catching up with paperwork. The chill of the river still sat in his bones. He punched the heat up another degree as he strode by the thermostat.

  He yanked the door open, ready to send away whoever had come to see him, then swallowed the words when he came face-to-face with his boss. “Captain Bing.”

  The captain wore his uniform, probably heading into work. He was maybe an inch shorter than Joe, solidly built. He might have been fifteen years Joe’s senior, but he could still whip serious ass. He expected his men to keep in shape, and he didn’t ask anything of them that he wasn’t willing to do himself. He put in his time at the station’s small gym.

  The man’s gaze hesitated on the four-inch cut on Joe’s left cheek, courtesy of the log that had slapped him in the face on the river. With twenty-some stitches sticking out, the wound looked like a giant red caterpillar was crawling across Joe’s face.

  “Well, that’ll disappoint the ladies.” But then the captain grunted. “Never mind. With you, they’ll probably
like it, think it’s all manly.” He peered behind Joe. “Anyone naked in there?”

  Joe stepped aside. “I’m having an off morning.”

  Captain Bing was the only person he couldn’t send away, especially since the man was holding a tall cup of coffee. He had a Main Street Diner paper bag in his other hand, which likely held a slice of pie. For coffee and some of Eileen’s famous strawberry pie, Joe would have let the devil in.

  “How’s the concussion?” the captain asked.

  “Fine.”

  “You didn’t answer your phone.”

  “I was trying to sleep in. Any news on Lil’ Gomez?”

  “The kid hasn’t been found, as far as Chief Gleason knows.” Bing followed him to the kitchen and sat. He looked around before his gaze returned to Joe. “You’re not supposed to sleep with a concussion.”

  Joe reached for the coffee. Reporting in after he’d been released from the emergency room toward dawn had clearly been a mistake. He’d managed to recover on the riverbank enough to drag himself to the nearest road and flag down a car. And because there were still plenty of good people left in this world, instead of running him over, the driver had taken him to the hospital.

  He took a long swallow. “I’ll be in for my shift tonight.”

  The captain fixed him with a hard look as he pushed the paper bag across the table. “I don’t think so.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me. I can slap a bandage on my face.”

  Bing shook his head. Scanned the cut again. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”

  “I volunteered.” He’d stepped forward, thinking if he did well with the undercover assignment, he would make detective. He’d played competitive sports once—as a wide receiver. Pushing to get to the next level was an ingrained habit. “Anybody called the hospitals to look for the kid?”

  The captain folded his hands on the table. “They don’t have anyone matching his description.”

  Neither of them said what they were both thinking: Lil’ Gomez was likely dead.

  Joe tightened his jaw. He was a cop, dammit. He should have been able to save the boy. He’d been thinking about that the whole time he’d been at the emergency room, then in the cab on the way home, then in bed while he’d stared at the ceiling for most of what was left of the night.

  “I know this is difficult.” The captain’s tone turned sober. “We feel responsible for the people we protect. It’s hard to lose someone. You never forget any of them, especially your first.” He stared at his hands. “Mine was a car accident. She died after I arrived at the scene. I started CPR. Couldn’t bring her back. Twenty-seven years old, young mother of two. Her name was Jillian Lin.”

  Silence stretched between them.

  “I shouldn’t have left the kid alone in the river,” Joe said after a while, his head pounding.

  “You couldn’t have saved him. You were both cuffed. It’s a miracle that you lived.” Bing paused as he watched Joe. “I’m the one who got you involved.” The tone of his voice said he wasn’t happy about it.

  The Philadelphia chief of police needed someone to infiltrate Ramos Gomez’s gang. Chief Gleason had reason to believe that Ramos had an inside man at the Philadelphia PD, so the chief wanted an undercover guy from the outside. He’d attended Police Academy with Captain Bing, so he called up his old friend for help.

  When the opportunity had been brought to Joe, he’d jumped on it. He liked action as much as the next guy, and most action at the department went to the detectives: Harper, Chase, and Jack. This was his chance.

  Bing cleared his throat. “Chief Gleason wants a full briefing. I gave him the basics, but he wants you to call in.”

  “Now is good.” Joe patted his pocket for his cell. Bit back a curse. “My phone’s in the river.”

  Bing pulled his own and dialed, set his cell phone on speaker, and slid it to the middle of the oak farm table between them.

  “Morning. I’m with Officer Kessler,” he said when the other end picked up. “He’s been resting.”

  “Officer Kessler. I heard you had a rough night.” Gleason’s voice boomed through the phone. He was half-black, half-Hawaiian, built like a linebacker. Straight as an arrow that one, and the city was better for it. “How are you, Officer?”

  “I’m fine, sir. I lost Lil’ Gomez. I’m sorry.”

  “Let me worry about that. I have the officers’ report on my desk about the accident, but I’d rather hear it from you. Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

  Joe gulped some coffee, thought back to where his ill-fated night had begun. “Lil’ Gomez wanted to pick up a car. I went with him. It’s not easy to get him away from his brother. Figured I could get some information out of him about the dirty cop on Ramos’s payroll.”

  He leaned forward, toward the phone so Gleason could hear him better. “The kid found a nice BMW. Barely popped the lock when Philadelphia PD showed up. We were in a dead-end alley, no chance of running.”

  He cleared his throat. “Officer Tropper was driving after they picked us up. Officer Washington rode shotgun. So they start questioning us, name, address, the usual. And when Lil’ Gomez said his name, Officer Tropper looked at him in the rearview mirror, asked him if he was Ramos Gomez’s little brother. The kid says yes.”

  That had been when things had gotten interesting.

  “Tropper asked the kid how old he was. Kid says, fifteen. Then Tropper said he was going to let us off with a warning. Before he could pull over, the Hummer showed up behind us. Twentyniners bandana in the window. Tropper couldn’t let us out in front of the rival gang, without guns, without a ride. He kept going, waiting for the Hummer to turn off on a side street. It didn’t. Once we were on the bridge, the Hummer rammed us.”

  Goose bumps puckered on his skin at the thought of the freezing river.

  “Tropper is dirty,” the chief said, sounding tired.

  Joe nodded. “Yeah. I think he’s the one.”

  “Did you see who drove the Hummer?”

  “One of Racker’s enforcers, according to Lil’ Gomez. He didn’t mention the guy’s name.” J.T. Racker was the Twentyniners’ leader.

  “Why would the Twentyniners hit a police cruiser?”

  “The BMW was in their territory,” Joe said. “J.T.’s guy could have seen us, wanted to teach us a lesson, police car or not. Could have been all drugged up, not thinking. Felt like a big boy in that Hummer.”

  More silence followed.

  “Or,” Chief Gleason said after a minute, “maybe he knew Officer Tropper was on the Brant Street Gang’s payroll. The guy saw a chance to take him out along with Lil’ Gomez, a double blow to Ramos.”

  “Could be.”

  “What did you think of Officer Washington?”

  Joe closed his eyes for a second and went through the events from the arrest to the crash into the river. “He looked surprised when Officer Tropper said he was going to let us off. When the car went under, Officer Tropper panicked and left us in the back. Officer Washington let us out. If it wasn’t for him, we would have drowned.”

  Lil’ Gomez drowned anyway, most likely. Somebody would have seen him by now if he’d made it out of the water. Joe rolled his neck to ease the roaring headache at his temple. He compartmentalized that pain and answered every one of the chief’s questions until the man ran out and they hung up.

  “I appreciate your help.” Captain Bing put his phone away. “I wish the op ended differently.”

  Joe nodded as his stomach growled. He reached for the paper bag with the pie at last.

  The stitches in his face itched. He’d have a couple of scars, while Lil’ Gomez got a watery grave. The kid had trusted him. He’d held on to the log because Joe had told him he would be all right.

  The strawberry pie tasted like ashes in his mouth, so he set it down and leaned back in his seat.

  When the captain’s radio went off, Joe only half listened.

  “One eighty-seven at the Medical Center,” the dispatcher
said. “Suite 1025. Repeat, that’s a one eighty-seven.”

  Homicide. That had Joe sitting up and paying attention.

  The captain grabbed his radio, already running for the door. “I’m on my way.”

  Suite 1025. Joe jumped up, stepped into his sneakers by the door and grabbed his coat, then followed Bing to his car. “That’s Phil. Philip Brogevich. We went to school together.”

  The captain gave a reluctant nod as he jumped behind the wheel. Joe slid into the passenger seat.

  “Isn’t he the shrink?” Bing flipped the siren on as he pulled away from the curb.

  “Yeah. His wife had a baby. He wanted to be closer to home so he moved his practice back to Broslin from West Chester.”

  Bing’s family had been in Broslin for as long as Joe’s. They knew most people in town, a double-edged blade. They knew who the troublemakers were, but then again, the troublemakers knew them and played the Dude, we were on the same baseball team. You gonna arrest me for a little drunk driving? card. Or the Our mothers go to the same church card. Or, You dated my sister in high school, man. Which came up a lot for Joe, actually.

  Bing had to shout to be heard over the siren. “Does he keep drugs on the premises?”

  “Don’t know.”

  The captain glanced at the clock on the dashboard.

  Joe followed his gaze. Twenty minutes after eight in the morning. “Could be someone broke in overnight for some pills and OD’d.”

  The victim didn’t have to be Phil. But a knot formed in Joe’s stomach anyway.

  “We grabbed a couple of beers the other night at Finnegan’s to celebrate his daughter’s birth.” A three-week-old baby girl, Isabella, a miracle after a number of grueling IVF tries. Phil had a hundred baby pictures on his smartphone. “His wife’s a shrink too. Currently not practicing.”

  Cars pulled out of their way, giving them a clean shot at the road. They reached the Broslin Medical Center in ten minutes, an old strip mall that had been converted into various doctors’ offices two years ago when the owner decided to give the property a face-lift. The new setup drew a better clientele than the tattoo parlor and the pawnshop had. The previously empty spaces were filling up too, only three remaining empty.