by Kylie Brant
Marker stared blankly at the ruined TV, not seeing it. Yeah, he’d been the brains. David had been the weapons expert. If it had been David using a car bomb, or with the rifle, there would be three dead cops right now.
And if it had been Adam lying in a shallow grave up in the hills instead of his brother, his death would already be avenged. That certainty haunted him. Kept him awake nights cursing a god he’d never believed in. David wouldn’t have let Gee prevent him from doing what was right. What was just. He wouldn’t have run and hidden.
And neither would Adam. “No,” he said hoarsely.
“They’ll be easier targets later, once all this dies down. When the cops go back to their dreary lives, let their guard down again, it’ll be like picking off ducks in a row.”
“I said no. We do this my way. And you’ll do what you’re told because we both know what you stand to lose.” Tension stretched like a thrumming wire between them. “But you’re right about one thing. I need to plan. The next attempt has to be fatal. And you’re going to help make that happen….”
* * *
The quiet rhythmic beeping filtered through Jolie’s subconscious. Awareness returned sluggishly. Comprehension was slower to follow. She felt heavy. Weighted down. It was a struggle to shrug off the heavy blanket of unconsciousness that even now was sucking her back into oblivion.
Fighting the feeling, she concentrated on the sounds around her. The beeping. A hissing noise. A slight rattling.
Other sensations registered. She was in a bed. Voices sounded in the distance, jumbled and muted. There was a faint smell of antiseptic.
A hospital.
Wincing, she tried to open her eyes. She hated hospitals. When she found out who was responsible for putting her here, she’d tear a strip off them. Struggling to sit upright, she closed her eyes again when they refused to focus. She wasn’t staying here. The only time she’d stayed overnight in the hospital was when she’d had…
“Sammy.” The word escaped in a whimper as her head started a vicious clamoring that had her gritting her teeth, grabbing the side rail for support.
“For God’s sakes, lie down.”
Her eyes popped open at the brusque tone. Three Dace Reckers swam in her vision. She blinked and only two remained, both wavering at the edges until they melded into one. He loomed over her bedside, close. Too close. She obeyed his command only to shut out his image.
With her head resting against the pillow again, his appearance registered belatedly. He looked like he’d been in a fight. She frowned. He hadn’t been a brawler while they’d been together, but maybe he’d developed a bad habit in the time since. He had a black eye, and there was a nasty scratch along his jawline.
Her gaze traveled over him. He was dressed in a short-sleeved navy T-shirt and jeans. A long ugly scrape marred his forearm and his palm had a large square patch of gauze over it.
“What happened to you?”
He eyed her carefully. “Don’t you remember?”
Jolie searched her memory banks, came up blank. “I…I remember you coming to my apartment this morning.”
“That was yesterday.”
Yesterday. What the hell had happened? She closed her eyes, reaching for elusive snippets of memory. What had he been doing at her place? Something about a meeting. Her cell. The car.
Fragments of memory swirled in a mental jumble. She waited for the pieces to settle. She recalled walking to the parking lot with him. The stupid driver who had parked practically on top of her car. Her irritation, and then Dace shoving her, forcing her to flee.
Her eyes popped open. “Car bomb?”
He nodded, his expression grim. “Maybe it was because of Ava getting shot, but that car parked practically on top of yours gave me an itchy feeling.”
“Lucky for me,” she said faintly.
“Yeah. Lucky.”
She wondered at the bleakness in his tone, but then her attention splintered. Scowling, she demanded, “How come I’m in a hospital bed and you aren’t?”
A slight smirk settled on his lips. “I don’t like hospitals.”
“Neither do I.” She struggled to a sitting position again, ignoring his protest, and fumbled for the button to raise the head of the bed. “Get the doctor. I’m leaving.”
He made no motion to obey. “You’re not going anywhere. You hit your head and when you came to you were putting up such a fight they had to restrain you in order to check you over.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like doctors either.” She shrugged, winced when the action brought pain. She must have bruised more than her head. Looking herself over critically, she found no bandages on her arms, except for a piece of tape keeping an IV in place. She moved her legs under the sheet testingly. There was a chorus of aches, but apparently nothing broken. She was fine.
Jolie said as much, but her words did nothing to ease the concern from Dace’s expression. “The feds are outside. Been haunting this place since they heard the news. They’re wanting to talk to you.”
“I don’t know why. You probably told them everything I could.”
“I did.”
“Well, then, what’s—”
The door pushed open and Special Agents Dawson and Truman appeared. “We heard voices.” Dawson’s gaze was assessing as it raked over Jolie. “Detective Conrad. How are you feeling?”
“Fine.” She was starting to feel like a parrot. Surreptitiously she tugged the sheet higher over her thin cotton hospital gown, hating the sense of vulnerability that came from her position.
Both agents surprised her by pulling up chairs close to the bed and sitting down. “You’re very fortunate.” Dawson’s glance took in Dace, too. “Both of you. The bomb squad examined the explosive that blew the car. It was remote detonated, just like the ones found at the bank site. Trigger device, which means…”
“…that the trigger man had to be in the vicinity,” Jolie finished softly. Her arms prickled at the thought of someone watching her as she approached the car. Waiting for her to draw close enough to kill. Swallowing hard, she forced her tone to remain steady. “Cell-phone triggers are a lot more common these days.”
Dawson and Truman exchanged a look. Dace’s expression grew cloudier. Dawson said, “The explosives at the bank site weren’t triggered by cell phones either. I suspect the subjects knew we’d take out the cell-phone grid to prevent outside communication with the guy inside. We have reason to believe you were targeted by one of the bank robber’s accomplices. The day Carter got shot we discovered the identities of the responding SWAT squad and affiliated personnel were posted on a Web site inciting violence against law enforcement officials.”
The news had Jolie feeling weaker than she had since she’d recovered consciousness. “Killcop.com?” Her gaze swung to Dace, and she saw her answer in his expression. “We’re on Killcop?”
“We’ve already successfully pursued an injunction and got the information pulled,” Dawson said quickly. “But these sites are pervasive. Shut one down and three more spring up to take its place. They take on a life of their own.”
She knew that was true. The site advocating a stop to snitching had incited nothing less than a cultural revolution in some inner-city neighborhoods, making police work there doubly difficult. When no one was willing to tell what they saw, violent criminals walked.
And when police were identified to all, retaliation was violent and increasingly frequent.
“You suspected Ava’s shooting was connected,” she said to Dace. That morning—yesterday?—she’d scoffed at his suspicion, but it had saved both of their lives.
“I had a hunch,” he explained tersely when both agents looked at him. “Which turned out to be lucky as hell, since you left us in the dark about the link.”
Truman spoke for the first time. “Ballistics matched the slugs taken from Carter with bullets from outside the bank. And now of course with the similarities in the explosives we can verify our suppositions.”
“Glad t
o know that us nearly getting blown to hell and back could help you guys out,” Dace retorted.
Truman’s bulldog jaw tightened, but Dawson said smoothly, “I understand your concern. The meeting that took place yesterday morning was to alert everyone to be doubly careful. Unfortunately, the warning came too late for you two.”
Jolie shook her head. The logic of their reasoning still escaped her. “This doesn’t make sense. The HT got away with nearly a million dollars. There’s a massive manhunt for them. Why wouldn’t they have headed out of state?”
“This is one theory,” Dawson said, smoothing the crease of his immaculate trousers. “It is possible that the HT died from his injuries. He lost a lot of blood at the scene. And an intern from a nearby hospital disappeared while on his break the same day as the bank robbery—he could have been grabbed to treat the HT. If the HT died, his death could be the motivation for the accomplices to seek revenge.”
The headache Jolie had awakened with intensified. It felt as if a dozen demented gnomes were jackhammering in her temples. For the first time she thought of Trixie. A ball of nerves clutched in her stomach. What was the woman doing without Jolie there to keep her in line? Did she even know what had occurred?
She slid a glance at Dace. No way was she going to broach the subject while he was in the room. “Was there damage to the condominium complex across from my parking lot?”
“Some blown windows,” Truman answered. “Most of the vehicles nearby were destroyed.”
The news allayed some of her unease. But she still needed out of here. The longer she left Trixie unattended the less likely it was she’d have an apartment to return to.
Determinedly, she stabbed a finger at the call button on the side of the bed. When a disembodied voice answered, presumably from the nurse’s station, Jolie said, “Get a doctor in here. I’m leaving within the hour, with or without a release.”
Dawson frowned. “I don’t think that’s—”
“The hell you are.” Dace’s voice overrode the agent’s. “You’ll wait until they give you the okay. You aren’t going to do anyone any good running around with a head injury.”
“An hour. Then I’m out of here.” To the agents she said, “So what was the official recommendation at the debriefing we missed? Wear Kevlar and take bikes to work?” She managed, barely, to keep her sarcasm in check.
Dawson spoke. “We’ve conferred with your superiors. Naturally, they’re concerned about their squad members walking around as possible targets.”
Dace made a rude sound and Jolie sent him a warning look. “Naturally.”
“I believe the personnel involved have been instructed to be extra cautious, both on the job and off it.”
“Chief of Police Sanders is suggesting everyone consider taking any leave they have accumulated,” Dace added. “Advice that you should follow.”
His words brought a pang. He’d made no bones about his desire to see the end of her since they’d been partnered up. But what he was suggesting was impossible.
Trixie’s doctor was here. And for whatever reason, the woman refused to leave the area. Jolie had tried everything to convince her to come live with her in LA, before eventually giving up and moving back here. If she was going to stick it out with the woman, it had to be in Metro City.
“Actually…” The slight hesitation in Agent Dawson’s voice had her interest sharpening. He leaned forward, his expression urgent. “Special Agent Fenholt believes it might be helpful if one of your squad maintained some sort of visibility. With our protection, of course.”
“No.”
Jolie threw a glare at Dace, before flicking a glance at Truman. He was watching her impassively. Returning her attention to Dawson, she said warily, “Let me guess. You want to draw the accomplice out.”
“He’s a threat.” Dawson’s tone, the somber expression on his coffee-colored face were persuasive. “Not only to the banks and unsuspecting customers, but to every member on your response unit. Right now he’s focused on revenge, and that could keep him in the area long enough for us to nail him.”
“You are out of your freakin’ mind.” Dace surged to his feet, fists knotted. “You want to use her as bait? Dangle her out there and wait for this lunatic to try again?”
“He hasn’t made an attempt against a man yet,” Truman put in. “Maybe because he sees the female officers as more vulnerable, maybe because Carter and Conrad were two of the members most closely involved with the HT, he went after them first.”
She swallowed. Most closely involved. You could say that. Ava Carter had probably killed the man and Jolie had been the one talking to him a great deal of the time prior to that. Did this accomplice blame her for not preventing the outcome? Or was the chief right, and every member of the squad was at risk?
“She’s not going to be your sacrificial lamb,” Dace said flatly. “Think of something else.”
Her attention fractured. He’d always had this take-charge mentality, she recalled, and they’d gone a round or two over it in the past. His protectiveness had annoyed and touched her by turn, but mostly it had baffled her. For someone used to making her own way and looking out for herself, it had been difficult to adjust to taking someone else’s feelings into consideration.
But that was when their situation had given him some say in her decisions. That time was long over.
“Carter is recovering nicely,” Dawson pressed. “We made the proposition to her, but unfortunately she has a son depending on her.”
And you have no one.
The unspoken words hung in the air, little shards of jagged glass that could slice at her heart if she let them. Reaching for the cloak of professionalism, she shoved aside emotion and concentrated on the matter at hand.
They didn’t know about Trixie, of course. How could they? She’d only reentered her life—Jolie had only allowed her into her life—a few weeks ago. And her prognosis was dismal. In just a few weeks or months hospice would take over much of Jolie’s obligation.
The three dead cops had probably had families. Wives. Children. Not to mention the bank’s security guard. Until the subjects were stopped, more casualties would pile up.
This time, one of those casualties had almost been a two-year-old boy.
“You can’t seriously be considering this.” Dace’s voice was low. Controlled. But she could hear the fury just below the surface. “They’re playing you. Using your dedication to the job to justify putting yourself in danger.”
She gave him a distracted glance. He could be persuasive. Hadn’t he once convinced her to set aside every shred of common sense, every well-defined defense to take a chance on a family of sorts? Maybe those skills were what made him so successful as a negotiator. But he wouldn’t be allowed to undermine her judgment again.
“I’d like to talk to the agents alone.”
His eyes widened fractionally. “I know what you’re thinking. Better than anyone else could. Don’t do this, Jolie. It would be for all the wrong reasons.”
“You heard her, Recker.” There was an unmistakably smug sound to Truman’s voice. “She wants you out of here.”
But he didn’t budge. Stubbornness had been another of his unswerving traits. His gaze never left hers, and there was a moment, just an instant, when the intensity in his green eyes nearly undid her determination.
So she forced herself to look away. Strove for a steel in her words that she was far from feeling. “It’s my decision. I’ll make it alone.”
Silence hung in the air, brittle with fragility. The moment stretched, the quiet underscoring the rattle of the blinds as the air-conditioning unit turned on, the hiss and beep of the IV machine.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Dace moved away from the bed. Crossed the room. Went out the door. And somehow the sight of him walking away brought an all-too-familiar hollowness to her chest.
“You’re making the right choice here, Jolie. SAC Fenholt thinks this could be our best chance to catch this guy.�
��
With effort, she forced her gaze away from the closed door and to Special Agent Dawson’s earnest expression. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet. I have a few conditions that need to be met.” With a sense of grim satisfaction she noted the wariness that crossed the agent’s face. “First I run this by Chief Sanders. See where he stands on it.”
“I can assure you, the chief has been fully apprised of our suggestion.”
“You’ll excuse me if I want to hear his take myself,” she said dryly.
“Okay.” With success in sight, Dawson was all agreeableness. “You’ll talk to Sanders. Let me tell you what SAC Fenholt has planned—”
“That’s not all. I’m caring for my—” it was still hard to say the word “—mother, who’s terminally ill. She can’t stay in the condominium. He knows where I live, and it will be easy enough to find out about her, too. He might try to strike at me through her.”
The two agents exchanged a look. “We didn’t know about her,” Truman muttered.
If this wasn’t so damn hard, she might have enjoyed his chagrin. “I’ll only agree if she’s protected, too. Someone has to take her to her doctor’s appointments…”
Their expressions grew pained.
“…and she really can’t be left alone. She doesn’t need nursing care yet, but she does have to be watched. Carefully.” What Trixie would make of all this, Jolie didn’t want to consider. Again she was struck with a compulsion to get out of there and find out for herself.
“All right.” Dawson’s tone was clipped, not nearly as smooth as it had been earlier. “Anything else?”
“That will be plenty,” she said dryly. Once they met Trixie, she was certain they’d agree.
“All right. We’ll get started on the arrangements. Now let me tell you what we have in mind.”
The door pushed open. The doctor, and about time. “Later. We’ll talk details after I speak to the chief.”