Run to You

by Lynne King

  “If you aren’t going to shut him up, then I’ll do it for you.”

  “No,” Reid shouted, stopping Jack from being pistol-whipped. “No more marks.”

  The gorilla lowered his hand, the gun now removed from Jack’s nape. In Reid’s gloved hand though there was still a gun pointing straight at him. It was the one Sonny took off him. They were going to shoot him with his own weapon. He watched as Liz was pushed forward and made to stand next to him. For a moment their gaze met and it was like a deluge of emotions fighting for recognition—fear, regret, sorrow, love. He now knew what it meant to be hopelessly in love and to know this feeling would be forever with him even if there could be no future for them. It wasn’t a curse but a feeling he would take to the grave. What was the saying, it was better to have loved however brief than to never love at all, and now he knew how true that was.

  The sad smile that appeared on her lips made him tear away his gaze and turn back to Reid. As he did so he caught sight of a shadow pass by the window.

  “Can a condemned man have a last request?”

  Reid smiled. “I can’t promise it can be granted.”

  “A cigarette.”

  “I thought you quit.” Reid reached into his pocket and took out his packet of cigarettes. Removing a cigarette and lighting it involved his gun hand, which meant Jack was no longer in the gun sights.

  Rapid gunfire coming from the hallway threw the next few seconds into chaos. Jack grabbed Liz and threw her under the desk at the same time as the door burst open. He felt the searing pain rip through his left shoulder as his body swung back and dived onto the gorilla, his hand clasped around the wrist of the gun hand, aiming it away from him as both fell back to the floor.

  “Give it up, Reid, before I splatter what’s left of you over these walls,” yelled Detective Stone.

  The adrenaline coursing through Jack’s veins overrode all pain as he tried to overpower, his elbow ramming into the throat of his assailant, his other hand still holding the gun hand away from him. Stone stepped forward and placed his foot onto the gun hand, freeing Jack and giving him the advantage as his fist hammered into the gorilla’s face, putting an end to all resistance. Jack staggered to his feet and took in the scene, his glance immediately falling on the huddled-up figure of Liz under the desk. Going to her, he leaned forward and helped her out.

  “You okay?” It was a stupid question but he didn’t know what else to say. She nodded, her arms encasing her body while her eyes kept focused on the floor.

  Turning to Danny, he allowed a brief smile. “Am I glad to see you.” Bending down, he snatched up the 9 mm that had earlier been pressed into his nape. The other henchman who had been behind Liz and nearest to the door was lying lifeless on the floor with a hole in his chest. Stone had taken him out as he burst through the door and then fired a shot at Reid who now stood by the far wall, blood pouring from his upper arm. His gaze was fixed on the barrel of the automatic in Detective’s Stone’s hand that was pointing in his direction.

  “You come alone?” questioned Jack.

  “Sure did. There weren’t no other suckers up for saving your ass so it was left to the only friend and partner you have, this damn ass.” Stone kept his attention on Reid as Jack went over and picked up his own gun and placed it back in its holster.

  “What happened to all the heavies outside? This place was swarming with them earlier.” Jack was staring into the face of Reid.

  “They cleared out earlier leaving just the one to take out, which unfortunately announced my arrival. What shall we do with him?”

  Jack’s fist went back and then forward, cracking into Reid’s jawline, the force sending him crashing to the floor. He might have carried on hammering his hatred and anger out, but her cry stopped him as he felt the soft touch of her fingers upon his arm.

  “Jack, please no more violence. Haven’t you had and seen enough.”

  His gaze met hers and the violence within melted and all he wanted was to take her in his arms and never let go.

  “You’re bleeding. You’ve been shot, Jack. You need help.” He looked down at the fresh blood running down his arm and onto her fingers.

  “I’ll live and this isn’t over yet.”

  “It is for me, Jack.” Her fingers came away from his arm and she walked over to Detective Stone.

  “Will you take me in. I wish to make a statement regarding my involvement in the bank heist and being a witness to the killing of Shaun O’Riley and Gandini.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Sonny Valachi was in his New Jersey apartment when he got the call.

  “You’re done for, my friend. Mahonney’s none too happy you wasted his cousin’s boy. That wasn’t the deal. If you know what’s good for you, get your ass out of New York—a different continent would be better.”

  “Liam! Slow down. What’s happened?”

  “You’re too hot. Mahonney wants all ties cut. You’ve no friends, Sonny. I think you know my meaning.” The line went dead.

  Lorraine Johnson wandered out from the bedroom wearing nothing but a man’s shirt hanging loosely from her shoulders. Going over to the glass tabletop, she gathered up her packet of cigarettes and lighter.

  “What’s wrong, babe?” She lit the cigarette.

  Sonny grabbed the nearest object, an antique Japanese vase and threw it against the wall. “Get dressed. Now.”

  Startled, Lorraine stared back for a moment. “Sonny, what’s going on? It’s nearly midnight.”

  The look that he threw back made her hurry into the bedroom.

  Ten minutes later the two of them emerged from the car park elevator, both laden with suitcases. Throwing the suitcases into the trunk of the Land Rover, Sonny got into the driver side while Lorraine climbed into the passenger seat and placed the seat belt on.

  “What about the deposit box. I told you that number you gave me checked out and now you have the right key.”

  “It will have to wait. It’s not like it’s going anywhere. Now shut it, Lorraine, I need to think.”

  He turned the key in the ignition. The explosion ripped through the car parking lot.

  In a car parked across the street opposite the entrance to the apartment block, the man behind the wheel spoke into his cell phone.

  “Yeah, it’s done.” Liam started up his engine and slowly drove off as sirens sounded in the distance.

  Despite his protests to the contrary, the bullet Jack had taken to the shoulder needed urgent hospital treatment. The loss of blood meant he couldn’t put up much of a resistance when Danny forced him into the ambulance alongside Reid. The police officers accompanying the ambulance were told both men were to be under armed guard, one as a felon, the other for his own protection. Jack’s last glimpse of Liz was as she accompanied two plainclothes men, who had Feds written all over their appearance and in their manner, to their unmarked car.

  The operation to remove the bullet was successful and a full recovery was expected. That was the good news delivered to him as he slowly came round in the private room off the recovery ward. He must have drifted straight off again because when he woke, it was daylight and Detective Danny Stone was standing at the end of his bed.

  “You look like shit.”

  “I feel it, so what’s new.”

  Jack tried to raise himself in order to reach over to the water jug.

  “Here, let me.” Danny rushed over and taking hold of the water jug, poured some into a plastic beaker and handed it to him.

  He should have felt grateful. Instead he felt damn useless lying there and snatched the cup from Danny’s hand. “Thanks,” he muttered.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Taking several swigs brought instant relief to his parched throat. His shoulder hurt like hell, which meant the pain relief was wearing off, but nothing he couldn’t handle. “Get me my clothes and I’m out of here.”

  Danny shook his head in disbelief. “Are you crazy? Did you not hear the doc or did you simply not listen.
Two days at least, bed rest and then you’re on sick leave until the doc decides different.”

  “I’m on permanent leave. Didn’t the captain tell you I’ve resigned?” Jack threw the covers off him and went to sit up. He had a slight problem since he was still attached to tubes and a monitor registering his heartbeat. “Get a nurse before I rip this stuff off myself.”

  Stepping forward, Stone placed a large restraining hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Listen, Valachi and his accomplice Lorraine Johnson bought a one-way ticket last night. They were blown to bits moments before we got to his place in New Jersey to bring him in. No proof, of course, but the consensus is Mahonney, was behind it.”

  Jack lay back down. “Yeah, why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “Sonny Valachi was after taking over his uncle’s businesses, knowing his days were numbered, and at the same time pairing up with Mahonney in order to keep the Albanians out of the construction territory. Better the devil you know! Mahonney provided O’Riley, a.k.a. Connor, to enable Valachi to get his hands on all his uncle’s offshore accounts and financially cripple him after the Feds had taken their share.

  Jack stared up at the white ceiling. “Jesus, he wasn’t the only one who screwed up. What about Liz?”

  “The Feds have no need for her anymore, seeing all the perps involved in the bank heist and subsequent murders are dead. As far as the DA is concerned, she is cut loose. From what I’ve been witness to, this one has achieved something no other, and certainly not Christina, has ever managed to do.”

  “What’s that?” Jack knew the answer as Danny said it.

  “Get under your skin. You’re into this one pretty heavy.”

  That was an understatement. He couldn’t get her out of his thoughts and his mind was unmade up over whether she was a curse or a blessing.

  “Where is she now?”

  “Back at her place. Her passport has been retained so she’s not free to leave the country as yet, but I don’t think she’ll be stopping for long. They can’t deport her but with no work and what she’s been through of late, it’s only a matter of days. Do you want me to take her a message? She’s been asking about you.”

  Jack closed his eyes for a moment. What could he tell her, that she had conquered what many women had tried to but failed, his armor plated defense against falling in love. It didn’t mean he could promise her a happy ever after future, far from it. He was a cop and a selfish one at that. He ignored his partner’s question and asked one of his own.

  “What about Reid?”

  Stone hesitated. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Go on,” said Jack slowly.

  “He’s cutting some kind of deal in which he’ll still do some time but segregated, and in return he’s singing like a canary providing information on Gandini’s dealings to the Feds. They’ve also recovered a substantial haul believed stolen from the bank heist and it’s only a matter of time before what this whole sorry mess was all about is located. Offshore account numbers and everything one would need to have financial security for life or a long prison sentence if the IRS were to see it.”

  Jack knew why the commissioner was in agreement on this. At the moment it made good news, the Feds working alongside the NY Police Department. The bank heist solved and the mob involvement brought to light and justice served. However, a New York police detective on the take would take over front-page headlines and cause a lot of damage to public confidence. He was too tired and emotionally drained to feel angry, bitter, yes, and if he ever got his hands on Reid again, he couldn’t guarantee of falling short of killing him.

  “Look, you need to rest and I definitely could do with getting my head down. I’ll call back on you later and fill you in with some more. Oh! I nearly forgot to give you this.” Removing the gold shield from his inside pocket, he placed it on the bedside cabinet. “Captain said you must have mislaid it, but he’ll overlook the misdemeanor this time.”

  He paused in the doorway. “You never answered. Do you want me to take a message?”

  Jack shook his head. She was better off forgetting him now and beginning her life again somewhere fresh and untarnished by the past events.

  Since the police car dropped her off, Liz had flopped down on her bed and had been lying back staring up at the ceiling ever since. She felt emotionally and physically drained after countless hours of relentless questioning and yet she couldn’t sleep. All she could think about was Jack. At least his partner had sought her out at the station and delivered the news that the bullet had been removed successfully and Jack was going to be okay. She had tried to get the uniformed officer assigned to take her home to go via the hospital, but he had informed her she wouldn’t be allowed to see Detective Willis, not at four in the morning.

  Now as sunlight streaked across the bedroom floor and a new day dawned, she felt lost and more alone now than she had ever felt before. He had come after her. She had felt the intensity of what they had in his kiss and remembered the look in his eyes when they were on the point of death. Now the threat to her life had been removed and she was no longer part of his case or his responsibility, where did they go from here? He had admitted he wasn’t one for commitment.

  When her cell phone rang, Liz snatched it up, hoping to hear Jack’s voice. It was her sister ringing from England.

  “Have you been reading your e-mails? I must have sent you half a dozen and so has your lawyer.”

  “No, has something happened?” Liz held her breath waiting for her sister’s response. Surely it was over. The FBI has assured her of that. They had even told her the detective who was going to kill her and Jack had provided them with evidence of her forced involvement, thus clearing her name.

  “Yes, something has happened and for once it’s great news. The repossession order on your house has been overturned. It’s been proven that dirt-bag, Simon, re-mortgaged forging your signature and you had no knowledge.”

  “I’m not completely destitute. I have a house if nothing else.”

  “Liz, are you okay?”

  She wanted to burst into tears and tell her sister everything, but where would she begin and how would she end it? “Yes, I’m fine. A little tired, that’s all.” She went on to ask about her niece and make small chat, but she wasn’t really listening, and when her sister asked again if she was okay because she definitely didn’t sound it, Liz couldn’t hold back any longer. “No, not really. In fact it hasn’t worked out here and I’m thinking of coming back to the UK.”

  “Is your employer okay with that, transferring back, I mean.”

  Now she had gone and done it. How could she explain that the chances of her being offered her old job back in the bank were zero, that though she wasn’t going to be put on trial, she was no longer employable. She couldn’t even face Michael and Eve again, deciding to put it all in a letter with the hope that one day they might understand.

  “I’m thinking of going back to my art studies.” The words came out as a way of covering up the truth, that there would be no job waiting for her. Yet the idea didn’t sound that crazy.

  “That is so good to hear. Not the part of it not working out for you in New York, but that finally you are returning to what truly made you happy. I know Mum and Dad’s death was the reason you gave up, but I could never understand the reason why.”

  Liz didn’t know the answer either. Maybe it was because she wanted things simple, full-time employment, a man like Simon who never expected too much from her. In truth she wanted to be detached from anything that could bring her too much joy for fear of it being snatched away.

  She was still lying across the bed with her cell phone to her ear when her gaze fell upon the corner of her sketch pad protruding out from under the chair cushion. “Sis, I’ve got to go. Someone’s at the door. We’ll speak later.”

  After a few more words, she dropped the cell phone on the bed and went over to the chair. Removing the sketch pad, she flicked it open to where the pencil drawing of Jack was. Stretche
d out naked upon the bed, she had captured every memorable curve and structure from his rock solid thighs to his soft rounded butt to the dip in his back widening to powerful broad shoulders. She could almost feel the different textures of his skin as she relived those precious minutes when she had sketched from memory barely glancing up from her sketch pad. Tousled tawny hair hid his facial features but it was obvious from his relaxed posture that pleasures of both mind and body had left him satiated.

  Tearing the page out, she retrieved a pencil and an envelope and proceeded to write on the back of the sketch.

  The incriminating evidence is yours to do with as you please. As the artist, it can never be destroyed because it lives within me. As the subject you are the only one who can answer if it is real or not. That what we felt belongs to the past and tomorrow is not ours to have. All I know is that what I felt is forever because for one brief moment I lived and loved far more than I have ever done or ever will.

  Elizabeth

  Placing it folded into the envelope, Liz put “to Detective Jack Willis” on the front and marked it private, followed by the precinct details printed on the back of the card Jack had given her and which she still kept in her purse. She posted it that day.

  For the next two days, Liz was picked up by a police car and taken to headquarters to be questioned for several hours and write statements, going over everything until she felt like a recording. She wasn’t under arrest and turned down legal representation. The news about Lorraine’s murder was another sad occurrence and though their friendship had been one long lie, she couldn’t help feeling sorry that her young life had ended in such a way. As for Benjamin Johnson, he looked a broken man when she had passed him in the corridor. He had lost everything, his wife, his career, and most of all his self-respect. He wasn’t under arrest, but like her had been tricked and deceived, his only crime being he told his wife everything. Sonny Valachi sought out Lorraine in the same way as Shaun targeted her. With Lorraine, though, she was foolish enough to fall in love. Not once did she set eyes upon Jack and still there was no sign of her passport being returned.