“That kind of thing happen much up here?”
“Happens everywhere.” Jerry pulled into the parking lot next to a low metal building. A chain link fence separated the parking lot from a row of metal hangars where they housed the planes. The sign said it was a private airport, which glorified the single sad strip. “We get quite a few private pilots up here. Hunters and fisherman, mostly. A few trail guides.”
“That should make things quiet this time of year. When’s hunting season end?”
“End of the year for big game.”
A sliver of doubt slid into Mick’s suspicious brain. “Why plow the runway?” Why keep the airfield open at all?
“We get a few businessmen from the city who like to fly up for the weekend. They pay good money to keep the airfield open year round.”
The wedge of doubt pried wide open. “Derek and crew work out here year round?”
“Yep.”
“By themselves?”
“There are a few other people around. Airfield manager. A couple mechanics.” Jerry rammed the car in park. “What are you getting at?”
“They don’t seem the type.” Mick was a suspicious bastard by nature, and this little airfield was ripe for abuse. “You gonna have a problem with me chatting with Derek when you’re done?”
“By chat you mean?”
The sheriff was a lawman, but he was still a man. Mick gambled that the good sheriff would understand where he was coming from. “You said yourself you didn’t like your woman in danger. Same goes. I only need a minute.”
Jerry turned off the engine and opened the door. “If I don’t see it, it didn’t happen.”
“Good. Because I’m not leaving until I school Derek on my laws. No one messes with me or mine. Period.”
Chapter Eleven
A blast of hot air hit Mick when he followed Jerry into the airfield office. To the left was a roped-off area that looked like it served as a private club. Too small to be considered a bar. To the right was a high counter behind which were several computer screens that looked like weather and radar. The man behind the counter wore a polo shirt and khakis. He waved at Jerry but kept talking on the radio.
“Be advised, airfield closing at zero-eleven-hundred due to weather. I repeat, airfield closing at zero-eleven-hundred.” After a few nods, the man cocked his headset to the side. “Sheriff, what can I do for you?”
“Jake?”
“Hangar one.”
Jerry nodded and led the way to a side exit that put them on the enclosed side of the building. The wind blew wicked cold as they walked between the buildings. Peg was right about the coat. Now he was wishing for a hat and gloves. Wind chill had to be in the negative numbers. By the time they hit the nearest hangar, his ears burned with cold.
Inside, three of the four idiots were sitting around a card table playing poker. Rough job. Mick tucked his hands into the pockets of the jacket. Derek was noticeably absent. The guy with the headset had probably called to warn them. Mick hung back when the sheriff had a quiet talk with Jake. He glanced around looking for the little weasel who’d slashed his tires. Two small planes filled the center of the hangar and on the other side of the building was a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. Mick took it under advisement, decided the DO NOT ENTER sign didn’t apply to him. Derek couldn’t hide.
The sheriff did his duty, then turned and walked out of the building, giving Mick the time to do what he had to do. He stepped toward the back when the door opened and a tall man wearing a mechanics jumper stepped through. His dark, greasy hair was pulled back in a band, and his jumper was half unzipped to show a dirty T-shirt. His neck tattoo wasn’t distinguishable at this distance, but Mick didn’t need an up close and personal. The man had a spider web tattoo, a reminder that he’d done time.
The tattoo was as good as an ID. Mick dug through his brain for a name. Wayne. He was the low-level dealer who had attacked Vicki back at the club. The piece of shit was supposed to be cooling his jets in jail for a possessions charge. If Wayne was an airplane mechanic, Mick was a freaking brain surgeon. He spun on his boots, hitting the door before the man had a chance to recognize him. He pulled out his phone, dialing as he walked to the airfield office. The wind had picked up, blowing a light dusting of snow that zapped cold straight to his bones.
Dez answered with a terse, “What?”
“We got trouble.”
…
Dez ran Nate through a series of safety protocols, just in case. Peg had a fire evacuation ladder in the linen closet, a portable one made of metal chains and bars. Dez moved it to Nate’s room and locked it into place on the sill. Made sure he knew how to egress the building. He said his parents made him do fire drills at home, so he knew how to escape the house in case of a fire. Or other emergency.
She didn’t want a contingency plan, but her gut was screaming. Wind whistled through the old windows. A shiver shook her upper body. She’d closed all the drapes and blinds, but the shrill howl was still loud enough to fray her already stretched nerves. Mick’s cryptic phone call made her want to pack Nate in the truck and head out of town, but Mick had to change out the tires. They were stuck, so Nate needed to understand the safety precautions.
“Did your parents talk to you about code words?”
Nate nodded, his blue eyes solemn. “If someone comes to pick me up from school, they have to say the code word.”
“Right.” Dez nodded, thankful his parents had been cautious. “We’ll use the same word. What is it?”
“Banana.”
“Okay, good. If someone comes to the door and says I sent them—” which meant something bad had happened to her and Mick. “They have to say banana.”
“If they don’t?”
“Don’t open the door. If they try to get in, run upstairs, lock the bedroom door, and climb out the window. Once you’re out, don’t stay out in the open. Head to the sheriff’s.” She gave him walking directions to the sheriff’s house, made him repeat them twice. She didn’t know a lot about kids his age—kids any age—so she wasn’t sure how much was too much information.
Peg had packed an overnight bag, joking about a snow day. While the sheriff would be busy with accidents and the like during a winter blizzard, Peg seemed to know the drill. She’d wait out the storm at Jerry’s since he had a generator. One less worry, and having her at the sheriff’s house was a good backup if anything bad went down here.
“If I use the code word Diane, no matter who is here, you do the same exact thing. Get out. Got me?”
“Did the people who hurt my parents find us?” His voice squeaked at the mention of his parents. His face flushed red.
“No, we’re good. This is all standard safety practice.” Liar, liar.
“Then can I go?” He pointed upstairs.
Was the kid spending too much time by himself? “Did you eat lunch with Peg?”
He nodded.
“Okay, but let me know if you need anything.” She was lost on how to entertain him, how to keep his mind off his grief.
Heck, she didn’t know how to entertain herself. She made a lap around the house, checking the window locks and turning on all the outside lights. It was light outside still, but when night hit, she wanted to be able to see anyone approaching the house. A pounding rattled the front of the house, sending her heart into convulsions. Her hands shook when she pulled her twenty-two from the ankle holster, but she shoved the nerves down. Focused on the job. She peered out the peephole and saw Mick on the front porch.
She kept her gun out as she ushered him in. An arctic wind howled through with him, drawing goose bumps to her flesh. He had zipped the coat up, pulled the hood on, and was wrapped up like Nanook of the North. It had to be well below freezing for Mick to bundle up. She holstered her weapon as he unwound the layers.
“Highway is closed. Sheriff got the call as I finished up the new tires.” His big fingers, red with cold, fumbled with the zipper.
She yanked the zipper for him, felt the
sting of cold metal. “Is it that bad?”
“Visibility less than a quarter mile, and there’s the last stretch into town that’s high plateau. Apparently the wind whips through and causes drifts the size of a house. Nobody’s getting in or out of town.”
“We’re stuck.”
“If you want to look at the downside.”
“Is there an upside?”
He stripped out of the coat and moved to the kitchen sink to run lukewarm water to thaw his fingers. “No one’s getting in.”
“Sully? Is that a possibility?”
Wiping his hands on a towel, he turned to face her. “You remember Wayne from the Southside?”
An uneasy feeling tightened her nerves. When they were working undercover at the nightclub, an assortment of drug dealers wandered in and out. Wayne was one of them. The ex-con was a nasty piece of work, the kind to enjoy sadistic games. He’d wanted to play those games with Blake’s girlfriend the first day she’d walked into the club. “We put him on ice,” Dez said.
“He thawed.”
“That’s impossible.”
“And yet he’s hanging at the airfield with your buddy Derek. I went up with the sheriff and saw him firsthand. Got out before Wayne saw me.”
The ex-con at the airfield was too close to their investigation. “He works for Sully.”
“That’s a fair guess.”
“And he’s up here?”
Mick nodded. Her legs dropped from under her, and Dez grabbed a kitchen chair; took a seat. “We need to talk to Blake.”
They set up a video conference call on the computer and pulled Blake away from Vicki’s hospital room. “You look like shit,” Mick said by way of a greeting.
Blake flipped him the bird. Agitated fingers roughed up his normally wavy hair, and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “What’s up? I figured you two could stay out of trouble for a few days. Go skiing or something.”
“I think we’ve got a line on one of Sully’s trafficking routes.”
Blake leaned forward, closer to the camera. “Say again.”
Mick laid it out for him. How Wayne was out of police custody and hanging with druggie Derek at an airfield ripe for corruption. One of Sully’s stooges showing up in the local area was no coincidence. “There’s no direct link to Patrick Sullivan, but if we dig, we will find one.”
“Keep your head down until we figure this out. Sully’s MIA here since they pulled surveillance off him. I don’t want you to stick your neck out when you don’t have backup.”
“Destiny is my backup.” Mick laid a hand on her shoulder and it burned. They’d never been touchy feely, so the weight of his hand felt like a scarlet letter on her shoulder. One Blake definitely noticed.
He looked between them before shaking his head and muttering something like I don’t want to know. “Look, lay low for another day or two. Agent Stiles thinks he’s found a link between one of the WITSEC agents and Sully. The guy who disappeared from the car isn’t squeaky clean. If we can shore up that link, we might not need more.”
Dez leaned forward, dislodging Mick’s hand. “What about the local dealers?” With Blake’s cover blown, the rats would start jumping ship. “I don’t want them to walk while Stiles has his head buried in the computer.”
“I already thought of that.” Blake rubbed the dark scruff on his jaw. “We’ve got enough evidence to get arrest warrants for at least a half dozen low-level dealers. I’m walking the paperwork to the locals when we hang up.”
That action was crossing a line. Technically, he was still a city cop, but he was on loan to the FBI task force. While his police captain would appreciate the bust, Stiles would consider interdepartmental sharing a breach of trust. “Watch your back,” she said to Blake.
A hard look passed between Blake and Mick. The two men shared a hatred of drugs most people would never understand. It wasn’t a job to them. If getting a half dozen dealers off the street meant Blake took a career hit, he’d do it to protect the street kids and users. “I always do.”
“How’s Vicki?” Dez asked. She hadn’t liked Vicki from the moment she’d walked into the club. The daughter of a mobster, she brought trouble to their door, but she’d risked her life to hide Nate, the half-brother she’d sent to safety when he was born. She’d been shot trying to protect Nate’s location. That kind of sacrifice meant something in Dez’s book.
“She’s stable.” Blake leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. A deep sadness darkened his green eyes. “According to the nurse, Victoria woke up earlier, but I was typing reports and getting everything ready for the arrest warrants. I get the feeling she isn’t aware I’m there.”
“Hang in there,” Dez said. Blake had never been torn up about a woman like this. He was like Mick in that way. Neither man had time for a relationship while fighting a war on Patrick Sullivan. She’d joined the cause, and none of them had ever considered what it was costing them.
Blake shook his head. “I can’t close my eyes without seeing her lying in a pool of blood. I failed her.”
“Get over yourself, bro.” Mick tapped the screen as if reaching out to his best friend. “Your woman will be fine.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Blake rubbed the heel of his hands over his eyes. “You guys keep a low profile. I’ll call when they’re executing the arrest warrants. I’ll make sure there’s one for Wayne, which should send him running rather than messing with you.”
They disconnected the video conversation and sat in silence, listening to the blizzard blow through. Mick rubbed a hand absently up her spine, sending tingles that had nothing to do with the cold. The man had magic hands. What they’d done to her last night was the stuff of fantasies. Her muscles still ached from all-night monkey sex. Her body heated against Mick’s hand so she stepped away. It was midday, Nate was awake upstairs, and they were keeping an eye out for trouble.
Trouble had followed them. How was anyone’s guess. Pure dumb luck? Had the sheriff run a background check and ended up alerting the wrong people? Who was the leak? These questions haunted her. She moved to stand near the window, keeping watch. She wouldn’t sleep much until she knew Patrick Sullivan was in prison or dead.
Chapter Twelve
Tension and inactivity ruled the day as the blizzard blew through. Nate had eaten and gone to bed, but neither Mick nor Dez felt safe enough to sleep. Instead, they kept watch from the floor of Peg’s dark bedroom, because her room looked out the front.
“Hey, Mick?” Dez’s voice broke the silence. They hadn’t spoken in nearly an hour as they watched snow blow across the front-facing window in sheets of white. They kept the lights out so no one could see inside. Mick’s truck gradually disappeared in a drift of snow at least a foot thick. No one had driven past all evening. The lights in the house across the street were dim. “Mick,” she repeated.
He grunted as if to say what.
“When we finally nail Sully, what will you do?”
“Haven’t thought about it. There’s always been a bigger fish down the line.”
Sully wasn’t necessarily the biggest fish, but he was the fish that directly caused Tommy’s death. They’d told her about Tommy when she joined the team. Said she needed to know what she was getting into, because they’d do anything to put Sully away. Finally nailing him would fulfill Blake and Mick’s vow. The idea of Mick moving on once the job was finished hurt. It shouldn’t. They had a friends-with-benefits situation, that was all, but she couldn’t deny the clutch in her chest at the mere thought of Mick leaving their tight group.
She had expected the morning after to be awkward. Worried it would change their dynamic, but they had the same easy friendship. With added heat, and that was good. Great, actually, if she didn’t think about the next step. About Mick moving on.
Mick shifted his position on the hard floor. “What about you?”
“Depends. The task force is a mess right now, but if they stay intact, I’ll probably go undercover agai
n. If not, I’ll head back to Narcotics Division.”
“I don’t like the idea of you going undercover alone.”
She snorted. Every time she went out, she went alone. No one had ever known she was on an operation, outside of Blake and Mick. Peg was Dez’s only family, and Dez had kept her in the dark. Alone made the risk-taking easier. She wouldn’t leave any grieving relatives behind.
“I wasn’t joking,” Mick said, his tone injured.
“I don’t have to go undercover alone. Who says our triad has to end once Sully goes to jail?”
“I’m not a cop, Dez.”
“Hasn’t stopped you yet.” The hopeful tone exposed a raw nerve. Blake and Mick and Dez were a team. In a wishing world, they could go on, doing what they did, locking up bad guys, and taking their fun and their passion where they could find it. It wasn’t a bad life. The men were her best friends. Hell, they were her only friends. The picture of life without them stung her eyes. Thankful for the darkness, she cleared her throat. “Do you really think there’s a link between Sully and Derek?”
“Are you having a hard time accepting that your old boyfriend is a dirtbag?”
“No.” Knowing Derek was a druggie made letting go easier. He’d fallen from grace, and she’d risen in stature, both as a result of their own behavior. For years, she’d been shamed by her past, but seeing Derek helped her realize she’d made the right choices. “But you took a few leaps in logic to get from Sully to Derek. Southside Wayne showing up here could be a coincidence.”
“You and I are different.” Mick stood to stretch his long legs. He shifted back and forth on his heels as if waking sleeping limbs. “You’re a cop. I’m not. You need evidence. I don’t. Sully’s involved. This is our chance to nail him.” The voice of authority rang in Mick’s tone. If he doubted a single solitary subject, he never let it show.
“You make it sound easy.”
“It can be. Should be. I texted Blake earlier asking him to run a search, see if Sully or any of his businesses own a plane.”
Unstoppable (The Untouchable Series) Page 11