Force of Nature

by Suzanne Brockmann

  For now, anyway.

  Jules covered Peeler with his own body as a new rain of bullets pinged the ground around them.

  He grabbed the radio that Peggy had dropped. “Cover me,” he ordered whoever was listening on the other end. “I need some weapons with real range aiming for those windows. Keep it going while I pull the chief to the shed.”

  He didn’t wait for confirmation—he pitched the radio over to Peggy and grabbed Peeler beneath his massive arms.

  Jules may have been small of stature, but he was strong. He dug in his heels and dragged, but sweet Jesus, why couldn’t the chief have taken a trip or two to the salad bar over the past few years instead of relentlessly supersizing the cheese fries?

  But then Peggy was there, helping him, and together they pulled the chief all the way to that shed, where a medical team was already standing by.

  “You hit?” one of the medics, a woman with her hair swept back into a tight ponytail, asked him.

  Jules shook his head no. Miraculously, he wasn’t. “Peg, you okay?”

  She was already barking orders into the radio, calling in the SWAT team. If she was bleeding, she wasn’t letting it slow her down.

  “Man, you got balls,” the other medic said. “And a shitload of luck. You know, Channel 4 news got it all on camera. You’re going to be a hero. People ’round here love Chief Peeler, and you saved his life.”

  Great. Jules was going to have to call Laronda—the boss’s assistant—and get her on top of smothering that merde cream pie as quickly as possible. Last thing he needed was his face on the evening news.

  But it wasn’t until later, until after the SWAT team sang and the dust had settled around the body bags being carried out of the newly secured house, that Jules was finally able to reintroduce himself to his cell phone. And even then, he had to pocket it, when Peggy Ryan approached him.

  Peggy Ryan—who hated him. Who probably wouldn’t give a hoot if his name and likeness were plastered all over the national news.

  In fact, she would use it as reason number 4,367 why he should quit.

  It was then, as she was heading toward him, wearing her official business face, that Jules realized that by saving Morgan Peeler, he’d been saving Peggy Ryan.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” she told him, trying to wipe the ground-in dirt from her starched white blouse. Her helmet-hair was messed up, too, but her eyes were just as they’d always been. Cold and distant. “Between us, I mean. I still don’t think you belong in the Bureau.”

  “Gosh,” Jules said, unable to keep his temper under check. Not that he’d expected a total change of heart, but was a simple “Good job” too much to ask? Or how about “Thank you”? “In that case, I guess I just should have let Chief Peeler die.” He shook his head in disgust. “Believe it or not, ma’am, I didn’t help him because I thought you would approve. I did it because someone had to help Peeler. Until I went out there, you didn’t seem to be concerned with much more than saving your own ass.”

  She flushed. “How dare you!”

  Okay, so maybe that was a little harsh. Things had happened fast, and she had been pinned down. But he was sick of her crap, of her refusing to admit—even now—that he was an important player on their team. He’d tried winning her over with humor, but that hadn’t worked. He’d hoped that today’s heroics would at least gain him her grudging respect, but now he finally had to admit it. She was never going to accept him.

  “I don’t give a shit whether or not you think I belong here,” he told her quietly. “The only two opinions I care about are mine, and the boss’s. And we both think I’m doing fine. If you don’t want to work with me, lady, you’re going to have to put in for the transfer. Because I’m not going anywhere.”

  She wasn’t listening. She never did. “If you think—”

  Jules cut her off, got even farther up in her face. “I saved your soul today. You were team leader. You gave the order. If Peeler had died, you’d have had to live with that forever. That must really gall you, huh, Peg? The gay guy rescued you. That must really grate.”

  She spun on her heels—or heel, rather. One of them had broken off in the brouhaha. As Jules watched, she stalked away.

  “You’re welcome,” he called after her, but she didn’t even so much as look back.

  “Whoa. I didn’t expect to see you today.” Steven was manning the front desk at the police station. “I mean, welcome back.”

  “Thanks.” Ric was still moving gingerly, his left arm in a sling. For a pair of wounds that weren’t particularly life threatening, they sure hurt like a bitch. The stitches in his side pulled with every step he took.

  The younger man stood up uncertainly. “Should you really be back so soon?”

  The doctor had told him to take some time before returning to work. But he’d meant work work. “I’m just going to file some reports,” Ric said. “Nothing strenuous. What are you doing back there, anyway?” Steven’s usual shift was in the morning.

  He rolled his eyes. “Too many losing hands of poker.”

  “Don’t play with Camp or Lora, man. Didn’t I tell you that? What, have you got their shifts up front from now until Halloween?”

  “Christmas,” Steve said morosely. “You know, Ric, you don’t look so good.”

  “I’m fine,” Ric said, heading down the hall. “I just need some coffee.”

  The phone rang, and Steve had to pick it up, ending their conversation. “First precinct. Hey. Yeah, he’s here…”

  Ric ducked into the coffee room—where Bobby Donofrio and Johnny Olson were having an early lunch.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Bobby D said through his cheeseburger. “Look who’s up and around. I thought you weren’t going to be discharged from the hospital until tomorrow.”

  Johnny came over to help him with the coffeepot. “Sure you don’t want to take another day?”

  “I wanted to get that report done,” Ric said as Johnny poured the steaming coffee into a mug. “Thanks. I’m sure the family would appreciate the closure.”

  “A tough guy, huh? Well, rest easy, the case is closed. The perp was the victim’s cousin,” Donofrio reported, leaning back in his chair. “The other cousin—a younger kid—came forward. Apparently there was an argument over some guy—or guys—that the sister was screwing—you saw her, there was probably a list as long as my arm. The victim wouldn’t give up the info, there was a tussle, and the gun went off accidentally. Yeah, like anyone whose head isn’t up their ass would believe that.”

  “Ballistic report matched,” Johnny told Ric. “The perp’s nine-millimeter was also the murder weapon. No question.”

  “Everything’s neat and tidy. So we—lucky bastards—don’t have to dick around with a trial.” Donofrio tossed his McDonald’s bag into the garbage, leaving a streak of ketchup on the table. “The surviving cousin’s a juvie. He’s confessed to being an accessory—they’ve already put him into the system. The perp’s dead—you took care of that. Very nicely, I might add.”

  “I did?” Ric said. Coming in today was definitely a mistake, because now his head was starting to hurt almost as badly as his arm and his side.

  “Dude.” Donofrio gave him a big smile that was almost as disconcerting as his use of the word dude. “I may have shut out the lights a little more quickly, but your shot to the perp’s groin…It was perfect. Crushed the artery. He was already dead when I hit him—he just didn’t know it yet.”

  Ric had shot to wound. Only to wound. He’d aimed for the kid’s leg, not…

  “Hey, Martell,” Johnny said, turning to the door. “Long time, no see. How’s the legal world treating you?”

  “Well enough.” Martell Griffin’s basso profundo was unmistakable. Ric looked over and saw his friend leaning in the doorway, dressed like the lawyer he now was, in a dark suit and power tie. The look he shot Ric was full of reproach. “You should be home, in bed,” he scolded.

  But Donofrio wasn’t finished. “So congratulations, Alv
arado,” the heavy-set detective continued. “I’ve got to let you claim the kill.”

  Claim the kill…? Was he serious?

  Across the room, Martell straightened up. “This probably isn’t a conversation Ric should be having while he’s on pain meds,” he pointed out.

  “It’s a big one, too.” Bobby D just kept on going, grinning that shit-eating grin. Neat and tidy…Mother of God. “The year’s tenth.”

  He said it like it was some kind of honor, some kind of badge for them all to wear with pride—their having reached double digits in the number of perpetrators who hadn’t survived an altercation with Sarasota’s finest.

  “Ricky, man, come on. Let me drive you home,” Martell said.

  “I don’t want it,” Ric told Donofrio.

  “No, no, you don’t comprend-ay,” Donofrio said. “The kid was nineteen and there’s no question that he was armed and dangerous. It’s already been cleared by internal affairs. It’s yours, Detective, and it’s squeaky-clean. That’s not something to throw away.”

  Ric didn’t even realize he was moving. One second he was standing there, and the next he had Bobby Donofrio up against the wall, his right arm pressed hard against the son of a bitch’s throat. “But the dead kids—Francisco and Jorge Flores,” Ric heard himself snarl as the prick struggled to get free. He held him even tighter. “Them you can throw away. Who the fuck cares—they’re just two more Hispanics who won’t grow up and go to jail, clog the system, right?”

  “Ricky, hey. Hey, hey. You’re choking him, man.”

  It was true. Bobby D’s face was turning even more red than usual.

  And Martell was right behind him. “Ric, come on, brother. This isn’t you. Let him go.”

  Ric exhaled hard. And stepped back.

  Donofrio sucked in a breath and then shoved him hard, pushing him into the lunch table, knocking over chairs. “I’ll kill you, you fuck!”

  Ow. Ric felt his stitches rip as he rolled away, avoiding a full body slam from big boy Bob.

  Johnny had run to get the lieutenant, and she exploded into the room, clapping her hands together as if they were misbehaving lapdogs. “Stop this. Right this minute!”

  “He fucking jumped me,” Bobby D shouted, letting Johnny help him up and hold him back, “out of the fucking blue!”

  “Lieutenant,” Martell said smoothly as Ric pulled himself to his feet. “Ric shouldn’t even be here. He’s on pain meds and his judgment is a little—”

  “I’m not on pain meds,” Ric said.

  Martell shot him an exasperated look. “So much for our defense strategy.”

  “I’m not going to lie,” Ric told his friend.

  “I would never ask you to lie.” Martell was offended. “Although, I suspect that if you took a blood test, we’d find—”

  Donofrio chimed in again: “The cholo fucking jumped me!”

  Martell got big. “Oh, that’s nice! You gonna nigger me now, dude?”

  “You!” The lieutenant pointed at Ric and Martell. “Out in the hall. You, Donofrio. Do yourself a huge favor and be silent!”

  Martell pulled Ric out of the coffee room. “Ah, man—you’re bleeding.”

  “Yeah, my stitches were…whoa.” The entire side of his T-shirt was soaked with blood. That wasn’t good. Still it was going to have to wait. He had to talk to the lieutenant. “I’m done here,” Ric told his friend.

  “I’ll say.” Martell was looking for something to wipe his hands on, so Ric offered him the clean side of his shirt. “We need to get you back to the hospital and—”

  “No, Martell, I’m done here. Like, done forever.”

  “You know, it’s possible we can argue extenuating circumstances. How long have I known you? Ten years? And how many times have I ever seen you lose it like that? I can probably count ’em on my thumbs, so—”

  “No,” Ric interrupted again. “I mean I’m done. I’m done.” Claim the kill… Jesus God.

  Martell finally got it. “Wow. This is…new.”

  Ric shook his head. “No, actually, it’s not. It’s been coming for a while.”

  Martell laughed his exasperation. “Did you, like, tell me and I missed it? Studying for the bar exam—I know I was pretty self-absorbed, but…”

  “No,” Ric said. “I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone. It’s just…” He shook his head. How do you bring up a topic like that? Hey, man. Wanna beer? Your softball team’s looking good this year. And oh, by the way, I’m feeling more and more dissatisfied with my life and I don’t know why. On the surface, everything looks perfect, but I’m thinking about shaking things up. Quitting the job that I supposedly love…

  The lieutenant emerged from the coffee room, closing the door tightly behind her, looking none too pleased. “Alvarado, what is wrong with you? Get out of here. I don’t want to see you for a full week. And when you do come back, you better be ready to apologize to Bob. That’s the only way you’ll be able to…What’s this?”

  Ric held out his sidearm and badge.

  She took it. Shook her head. “I’m not suspending you.”

  “He’s done,” Martell told her, and took Ric back to the hospital.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  A YEAR LATER

  “I’m going in.”

  Ric laughed out loud, which was probably not the best thing to do, given the circumstances. “No, you’re not.”

  But Annie only narrowed her eyes at his amusement instead of delivering a smack to the side of his head.

  Which, he realized, was something she hadn’t done to him since she was thirteen. Still, he could tell that she was tempted.

  “Look,” he tried reason. “I said you could ride along. There’s an unspoken understanding there that you’ll stay in the car.” Of course, they were both already out of the car, standing in this suckhole of a parking lot on the crap side of Sarasota.

  At least they were standing in the shade.

  Annie, too, tried reason. But hers was laced with attitude. “You can’t go in. And unless Hutch is on his way over…”

  Damn, but he hated when she called him Starsky, even by omission like that. But this time he clenched his teeth and kept his mouth shut. This was definitely not the time or place to get into The Argument, which went something like: “Oh, that’s right, Ric, you don’t have a Hutch. You don’t want one, don’t need one, even though I’m standing right here, volunteering for the job. No, you prefer to believe—despite years of police work that proved otherwise—that you don’t need any backup whatsoever. You’d prefer to end up lying in an alley again, with the shit kicked out of you. You’d prefer to pee blood. Again.”

  Annie’s second day of work as his new office assistant at Alvarado Private Investigations hadn’t been a particularly good day for Ric.

  Her third day, however, had included his successful apprehension and delivery to the FBI of the shitkicker’s brother, who was wanted in four states for a variety of violent crimes. Ric had received a twenty-thousand-dollar reward for his diligent, but not particularly brilliant detective work. Twenty thousand. After adding up the time he’d put in, plus expenses, it worked out to just over four hundred dollars an hour, which was sweet. Well, sweet, with the exception of those particularly nasty twenty minutes during which he’d allowed himself to get stomped in order to gain possession of the kicker’s cell phone—which subsequently revealed the location of his even nastier older brother’s girlfriend. And again, it wasn’t Ric’s skill as a detective, but rather the fact that Nasty the elder had just broken the woman’s nose, that had worked to Ric’s advantage. For a slim five percent share of the reward, plus a truckload of revenge, she’d eagerly divulged the wanted man’s whereabouts.

  Still, four hundred dollars an hour, however he’d earned it, wasn’t something to sneeze at. And the fact that he’d finally worked a lucrative case that didn’t involve bored, wealthy suburbanites cheating on each other was another reason to cheer.

  Yet it was the getting-b
eaten-up-and-peeing-blood part that Annie brought up over and over again.

  Along with the fact that she had been sorely misled by her own asshole-of-a-brother-Bruce—her name for him, not his—to believe that Ric needed an assistant rather than a receptionist. Annie had taken this position, she’d told him, not merely because she needed a job where she could bring along her separation-anxiety-suffering little rat-dog, but because she didn’t want to sit behind a desk all day. Yet all Ric wanted her to do was sit in his office behind a desk, take phone calls, and create—again, her words—stupid office forms.

  Of course, the most recent stupid office form Annie had created—in under ten minutes—was an exceptionally well-organized client interview sheet. It was precisely what he’d needed—possibly with the exception of those two little boxes, one that said yes, one that said no, next to the words This client wants to do me.

  He’d used her interview sheet with his current client, an extremely well-put-together older woman named Lillian Lavelle, who’d come to his office just this morning.

  As Ric now watched, Annie got ready to go inside of Screech’s, the so-called gentleman’s club where a young dancer named Brenda Quinn had last been employed. They had been hired—he had been hired—to find Brenda, who was Ms. Lavelle’s recently deceased daughter’s former roommate. Ms. Lavelle apparently had a photo album that she wanted to give to the young woman.

  The entire case was proving to be slightly more difficult than he’d first imagined. He’d taken it just this morning, expecting to be filing it in the “case closed” drawer long before noon.

  It was now sunset, pink and orange clouds streaking the western sky, as a cooling breeze blew in off the Gulf of Mexico.

  As Ric watched, Annie took off her jacket, tossed it in the back of her car, and ran her fingers through her light brown curls.

  “Maybe he won’t recognize me,” Ric said as she fished in her shoulder bag for something.