Unstoppable (The Untouchable Series)

by Skaggs, Cindy

  “Get out,” Dez ordered from the other side of the shower curtain.

  “Gladly.” He closed the door behind him, but her voice followed. “What happened at the meet?”

  They’d split up earlier in the morning. Blake’s girlfriend Vicki had stayed at the club with a bodyguard. Dez had gone for the kid while Blake and Mick had gone to meet Sully, the lowlife scum who poured more drugs onto the street than Pfizer. “The meet was a distraction.” Same shit had happened before. Sully sat his ass under surveillance—great alibi—while one goon attacked Vicki and her bodyguard. Pretty much simultaneously to the ambush on Dez. “Vicki and Eddie are on the way to the hospital. Both shot, unconscious, and according to Blake, bloody as fuck.”

  He’d never heard his friend more worried.

  “They okay?”

  The sound of clothes sliding over flesh distracted Mick for a minute. He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t wanted Dez Harper with an untamable need, but she was a cop and he wasn’t even close. So he ignored the attraction as best he could. Now that he’d seen her in the flesh, it would be hard to put that shit out of his head.

  Dez stepped out wearing green scrubs that draped her body, hiding her figure. But now he knew the sweetness underneath. He glanced up her body, took in the way the scrubs slid over her chest and skimmed her narrow waist. Shit. He was toast.

  “Well, are Eddie and Vicki okay?” She combed her hair and waited for an answer.

  “Unknown.” Giving himself a mental shake, he glanced away from her tempting body. “Both in surgery. As far as I know, Vicki took a bullet to the back. What kind of coward shoots a woman in the back? Eddie took one in the thigh. Both bloody, both out cold.”

  “Bastard isn’t stupid,” Dez said, referring to Patrick Sullivan. The tips of her hair left damp patches on the shoulders of the scrubs. “He hit us hard. It was dumb luck I made it out of the house and the kid was at a sleepover.”

  She stepped back into the bathroom, tossed her clothes in the garbage, and then tied it all in the plastic liner. Took it and her dress shoes with her as she stepped back into the room. Always a cop, she wouldn’t leave evidence behind. Dez was all business, her look focused, and her clothes hanging on strong shoulders. The desire he’d kept leashed pushed free of their restraints. He stepped closer; drawn to put his arms on her, confirm she was still alive. Safe for now, but a knock halted him in his tracks.

  Diane peeked her head inside. “The boys are awake. I need to—” She scrunched her eyes closed. “He should hear it from a friend. From a mom.” She glanced back in the room. “Give me a few minutes?”

  “Sure,” Dez answered.

  “Need shoes?” she asked Dez, pointing to the black shoes in her hand.

  “You mind?”

  Diane shook her head. “I’ve got an old pair of running shoes, they might be a bit big for you, but they’ll work better than dress shoes.”

  Dez took them from her. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. The boys are eating, so I’ll tell Nate after. Can you give me fifteen minutes?”

  Mick and Dez shared a look. Could they afford fifteen minutes? Things had been flying fast and hard, but so far, it looked like no one else knew where the boy was. They’d take the risk. Dez nodded and Diane left, closing the door behind her.

  Fifteen minutes would give them time to call Blake and figure out a plan. They were on the run now. Until they figured out who told Sully the kid’s location, they couldn’t trust anyone on the task force. “I sent Agent Stiles a text after the ambush. We have to assume the task force knows I survived.”

  “Sullivan’s men failed to acquire the boy, but they won’t stop,” Mick said. Nathan was Sully’s biological son. The man had a litter of pretty daughters, but no sons. Now that he knew about Nathan, he wouldn’t stop until he found him and claimed him as his heir.

  Where could they go that was safe? And how were they going to nail Sully for his sins when they were on the run? Sully wouldn’t stop coming. The kid wasn’t safe until Sully was dead or in prison. Mick didn’t have to like it. That was a fact. The weight of responsibility twisted him up inside, because none of their options were good for Nathan, but doing nothing was worse. “Maybe we can use the kid as bait.”

  Dez turned on him. “He’s a child. Since when do you throw an innocent under the bus?”

  It was a guaranteed route to Sully. The kid was the one thing the asshole wanted. “Why are you busting my balls? You were ready to leave Vicki to the wolves,” Mick reminded her. “Same thing. The ends justify the means.”

  “Not. Even. Close.” Dez’s voice ended on a hiss. “You even think about using Nathan as bait and I’ll nail your ass to the wall.”

  Her voice was just a little off, not as hard and fast as usual. “You been drinking Dr. Diane’s tequila?”

  “A shot. Two,” she admitted. “You try getting stitches without a local.”

  “Been there, done that. Now, since we can’t use the kid…” He left it hanging to see how she reacted.

  “We can’t. We won’t.”

  “Then we call Blake. Come up with a plan.” Together the three of them would figure out how to take Sully down.

  Chapter Four

  The boy didn’t look a thing like Tommy. That was Mick’s first thought when they walked into the kitchen. The kid was sobbing into Diane’s chest, her arms wrapped around his slight shoulders. Nathan was short for his age where Mick’s brother Tommy had been tall. From the back, Nathan’s dark hair was cut short. Tommy had been blond like Mick. His heart flexed like a sore muscle. He didn’t want to make the comparisons but couldn’t seem to stop himself once he laid eyes on the kid. The boys were the same age, because Tommy didn’t age. A gangbanger working for Sully had gunned him down on the street. Collateral damage in a drug war Blake’s brother Craig had started.

  Mick and Blake had been sixteen, cocky little shits who thought they owned the world, until they watched the bloodbath occur from three doors down. They couldn’t stop it, not then, but they’d vowed revenge. The man responsible would pay. In the years since, they’d taken out dozens of weak links in the chain leading to Patrick Sullivan. The deal that had failed earlier that morning was supposed to finally take the bastard down. Mick wanted to get his hands around Sully and watch him die slowly, but the threat to Vicki followed by the ambush on Dez trumped revenge. Not by much. If it had been anyone but Dez, Mick would have stayed behind, waited for the surveillance team to leave before he took Sully out, but he couldn’t. Not when Dez was in danger. He’d lost his chance. Now, his only link to Sully was the kid.

  “Nate, sweetie.” Diane combed long fingernails through the boy’s dark hair. “The detectives are here. They’ll keep you safe.”

  The boy turned his red-rimmed gaze around and nailed Mick with solemn intelligence. “Why didn’t you keep my parents safe?”

  Fuck. Mick’s heart convulsed. The boy’s eyes were bright blue beacons fringed in thick lashes. The gaze staring up at him could have been Tommy’s. The similarity nearly dropped him to his knees. He was breathless. Speechless. A weight settled on Mick’s shoulders. Everything they’d planned went to hell when he took one look at the boy’s sad, brave face.

  Dez squatted down to his level. “Nathan, we didn’t know your parents were in danger. We know you are. Mick and I will protect you.”

  With our lives, Mick vowed silently. He would damn sure stop anything bad from finding this kid with Tommy’s eyes. To make up for the brother he had failed to save.

  Dez took the boy in hand and led him to the sofa in the other room. Mick coughed to clear his throat and motioned Diane out of earshot. “You have any clothes for Nathan? Anything—I don’t know, something…”

  Diane’s sad smile didn’t brighten her face. “You mean like a warm fuzzy?”

  “A what?”

  “Something that makes him feel secure, like a blanket or stuffed animal.”

  “Isn’t he too old for that?”

  “Y
ou’re never too old for a warm fuzzy, especially when—” Her voice tightened. “I’ll put a few things together.”

  She climbed the stairs, seeming older than when she’d first answered the door. In the ER, she’d likely had to tell families that a loved one was dead, but this was personal. Her friend dead. Her son’s best friend an orphan. While Dez talked to Nathan and Diane packed, Mick texted Blake.

  Plan’s changed. Switch phones. Will contact when able.

  Whether Dez knew it or not, they were going deep. They would toss Dez’s clothes and their phones—she’d compromised the current one when she texted Stiles—at the dump on the way out of town. They all had a backup set, just in case. The contingency seemed vital now. They couldn’t be traced. They couldn’t let the world rain down on the boy’s shoulders.

  Mick would make sure of it.

  …

  Dez woke with a start, her body straightening from a slouch against the cold window in the passenger seat. The morning from hell and the mad rush out of town had allowed her to bury her emotions. Just the way she liked it. There was a reason she worked undercover. During an operation, she was in the zone. She could pretend anything or be anyone, except herself. There was no better place to hide. The drive had given her too much time to reflect. It was a miracle she was alive, and she’d had to grip the edges of the vinyl seat to keep from shaking apart when the reality hit her. If it had been Blake in the truck with her, she might have cried a few tears or cursed Sully, but she never wanted to be weak with Mick. Never wanted to feel needy. Hell, maybe she didn’t want to feel feminine, because it would bring to mind the attraction she’d never acted on. Sleep had been a blessing.

  Night had fallen while she slept, and she couldn’t see beyond the headlights. They were on a highway, the adjacent fields covered in white. They’d already cleared the mountain pass and were on the last long stretch where the wind sandblasted snow against the side of the truck. The press of winter was an outside force pushing them sideways. Dez’s stomach lurched.

  “What’s with the posts?” Mick asked, pointing out the wooden posts sticking up every twelve feet along the edge of the road. The big-ass poles were taller than a semi and looked like the trunk of a long-dead tree.

  Just looking at them made her stomach drop. Right now, the headlights peered over the edge of the ridge into nothing. They were literally driving in the clouds. “The three-foot metal posts they use on the highway aren’t tall enough. We’re above timberline so there’s nothing to stop the snow. It creates massive drifts that bury the highway midwinter. These poles mark the edge of the road for the snow plows so they don’t fall off a cliff.”

  “No shit,” Mick said in awe.

  “No shit.” Dez wanted to vomit. She really wished she had slept through this section of highway. Her ears popped, giving further proof to their extreme elevation. As far as plans went, this one sucked. Mick hadn’t said why, he just said they needed to change safe houses, and she trusted him enough to give him what he asked. If his gut said they needed to alter their course, so be it. Except this new direction was sending her into a collision with the past, somewhere she didn’t want to go, with or without Mick.

  There was a reason she’d left home. A reason she’d become a cop. A reason she’d changed her name and never mentioned her family.

  She stretched, her body sore from the day, from the drive, from the sad truth of life. No deity rewarded goodness or protected innocence. Sometimes assholes like Sully got away with pure evil, as he’d been doing for decades. She looked into the back seat of the pickup. The extended cab was a narrow space, but big enough for the kid. Nathan was crashed out, his head falling against the rear window, his mouth wide open. Her gaze shifted to Mick in the driver’s seat. He was a big man, in body and spirit, and his presence took up most of the front seat, leaving her feeling dwarfed and overwhelmed. The day had left her raw and unprotected.

  “Need a break?” she asked. “Want me to drive for a while?”

  “I got it.”

  They drove for several miles in silence. The space closed in on her. A text from Blake said Eddie and Vicki made it through surgery, but that was all. She flipped through radio stations, but nothing played this time of night, this far in the middle of nowhere. Another good reason to turn around, even as she knew Mick wouldn’t turn back now. He had the address in his GPS and his mind on the next hurdle. Dez’s stomach gurgled with tension and hunger.

  Mick looked over but didn’t say anything.

  “Geez, Mick, quit talking so much. You’ll wake the kid.”

  He glanced back. “He’d sleep through a war.”

  The way he said it was the voice of authority. Well, Mick always spoke with authority. When he spoke. He was a silent mountain of a man, and he was giving her too much time to think. “You got a family hidden somewhere? Wife and kids?”

  “No, just my mom, Blake, and me.” He slanted a glance in her direction. “And before you ask, no, we can’t go hang with my mother. She raised Blake from the time he was sixteen. If Sully knows about Blake’s brother and mother biting it, then you can damn sure bet he knows about my mother. We can’t risk taking this to her doorstep. For her sake and ours.”

  Fine. It wasn’t like she’d asked, although the thought had crossed his mind. “Aunts, uncles, cousins three times removed?”

  “Too late to turn back now, Harper. Man up.”

  He only used her last name to piss her off. “Screw you, idiot.” She fell back to insults, because his words bit too close to the bone. “I’m not a man.”

  “I’ve noticed.” His lips quirked into a quick smile, a flash of teeth in the dark. “Now that I’ve seen you naked, there’s no denying you’ve got the right equipment.”

  Her face heated. Sometimes, being naked in front of a man was part of the job, but she’d been careful to keep that separate from her work with Mick. From her friendship with the man who made her want… Just want.

  “Nice package you’re hiding behind those scrubs.”

  “Expect payback,” she warned.

  “Bring it.” A full-bodied laugh shook his shoulders. “Anytime you want to join me in the shower, I’m ready, willing, and able.”

  No doubt. The man was built. She’d seen him work out, sans shirt. He’d earned every cut muscle with hard work and laser focus, but she hadn’t let herself drive down that particular road. Didn’t let things get personal. He was her partner’s best friend, an asset in the war against assholes like Patrick Sullivan, and off limits in a very real sense. If she went for it, a relationship or a one-night stand—and screwed it up—she’d lose her partners, because Mick and Blake had been friends since birth. Blake would give his life for her, but he wouldn’t choose her over Mick. And she couldn’t live without the work they did. It kept her sane. Or maybe it just kept her too busy to think. Besides, Mick lived in a gray world, no loyalty, no cause. He protected Blake’s ass, and hers by extension, but he wasn’t someone she could get involved with, no matter how hot. So she focused on the case, on putting one foot in front of the other, day after day.

  “Now who won’t shut up?” Mick taunted as the silence stretched.

  “I could use a stop. Stretch, get a little coffee.”

  “No point now. Twenty-eight miles left.”

  Her heart jumped and skipped as they headed down the road. Fate had a hand in their race across the state, in a path that intersected her past with her currently effed up life. “Stop at the fast food place on the way into town.” She glanced at the clock. “They’ll still be open.” She could take a moment to pull herself together. Comb her hair; splash some water on her face.

  Delay, delay, delay, her inner bitch taunted.

  “Sure.” Mick didn’t say anything else until they pulled into the restaurant parking lot. “I’ll wait out here with the kid. Get me a Coke?”

  She nodded and tucked her wallet into the voluminous pockets in the front of the scrubs. Checked the gun and holster she’d donned against h
er skin, under the scrubs. She didn’t feel safe going anywhere unarmed.

  “Got enough cash?”

  “Yes,” she muttered, nailing him with a glare. He wasn’t offering to buy so much as reminding her not to use a credit card. “Who’s the cop here?”

  “Not me, sweetheart, but—”

  “I’m not an idiot.” Cold air whipped into the cabin when she opened the door. She quashed the impulse to slam it closed behind her. She didn’t want to wake Nathan, so she stuck out her tongue at Mick like a twelve-year-old, which made her feel marginally better. The bathrooms were clean and empty, which gave her time to pull her shit together, put on her game face, and prepare to confront her past. Only absolute necessity would force her back to this town.

  When she came back to the truck, against the bitter wind, she was carrying burgers for her and Mick and popcorn chicken for Nathan. Cokes all around. Should she have gotten him a kid’s meal? She wasn’t sure when kids were too cool for little toys with their food. As a mother, she’d be an absolute failure. Not a doubt in her mind.

  The scent of food stirred Nathan, who scrubbed sleep from his face. He was belted into the middle seat, his knobby knees poking against the front console. Dez passed back the chicken and a small coke. “I’m not supposed to eat in the car,” he said, his voice small. The fear and the loss lived in his quiet tone and uncertain demeanor.

  Jesus, she couldn’t even offer him a sit-down dinner. The failure took another chunk out of her self-esteem. “Probably for the best not to be seen in public.”

  He nodded, but moisture filled his eyes. “That’s cool.”

  But it wasn’t. The boy deserved more than the universe was giving him right now. They ate in silence, with Mick tossing down two burgers to her one. She was used to his appetite and had ordered accordingly. When they finished, he gathered their trash and tossed it in the nearest dumpster. He walked a circle around the parking lot, stretching his long legs.