by Kylie Brant
Howard pondered that for a moment. "When you asked Quentin if the shooting investigation had turned up any connection to LeFrenz, he said it hadn't."
"Yeah." That was troublesome. But then again, Cade hadn't been convinced by either of the names Quentin had mentioned, either. He looked at his superior. "So I guess there'd be no reason to share this conversation with the task force."
His chair squeaked as the lieutenant leaned back in it. "It's just supposition at this point."
"Exactly what I was thinking." But his thoughts belied his bland tone. A great deal of police work stemmed from gut instinct. And that instinct was screaming at him now.
"Maybe a conversation with LeFrenz would shed some light on the I.A. investigation into Brian, too."
"Maybe." Cade's voice was noncommittal. He still remembered the glee in the man's tone when he'd addressed Shae in the hospital. Maybe his partner was as dirty as everyone's saying. He wouldn't trust that scumbag to tell him the truth about Brian, even assuming he knew anything about him. He wouldn't trust LA., either. The only way to find out what really happened leading up to the man's death was to ferret out the facts for himself. It was the least he could do for the man who'd been like another brother to him. The man who'd died, leaving Cade with three holes in his chest and a helluva lot of questions.
As if reading his mind, the lieutenant asked, "What are you planning to do next about LA.?"
"Our meeting this morning was cut short, so they'll want to do a follow-up." The plan that was already forming in his mind had knots twisting in his stomach. "I could maybe reach out to Morrison. He's not as big a jerk as Torley. See if he'll meet me more informally and go from there." The man would be suspicious of the offer, but he'd meet him. Cade was sure of that. And maybe one-on-one he stood a better chance of learning what I.A. had on Brian.
"Keep me posted."
Cade nodded and they both headed toward the door. When they reached it, though, Howard said, "Don't forget about taking Birtch out with you today."
He didn't turn around. He couldn't. There was no mistaking the reason behind the lieutenant's reminder. No denying the need for it.
Turning the knob, he went out to the squad room, tossed a look at Josh, who was sitting at his desk. "Well, come on, Birtch. I would have thought you could have had the car warmed up by now, at least."
With undisguised eagerness, Josh jumped to his feet and grabbed his coat. "Want me to drive?"
There was a hitch in Cade's stride. Brian had always driven, not because there was any truth to his assertion that he was better at it, but because Cade had the sharper eyes when it came to watching the streets for their quarry. In the next instant, however, he'd recovered. Snagging the leather jacket off the back of his desk chair, he asked, "Got your permit yet?"
"Funny."
The two of them walked out of the squad room, the way he and Brian had done thousands of times. The way they never would again. "What the hell." Cade tossed the younger man the keys, feeling as if he was throwing away a bit of his past. "Knock yourself out."
He waited until Birtch had pulled out of the parking lot, raising his gaze skyward when the man cut off a taxi. While the cab's horn blared after them, he looked at the slip of paper in his hand. "Head over to Tenth and Algiers. The call to Shae came from a pay phone outside a Quik-Mart there."
Birtch angled the car over a lane to prepare to take the next exit. "There's not going to be much chance of people hanging around in that neighborhood at that time of night," he observed. "At least not the type to want to talk to us."
"Maybe someone inside saw something," Cade said with more optimism than he was feeling. The neighborhood they were heading for had a high crime rate, with a corresponding low incidence of cooperation with the police. "Those Quik-Marts are open twenty-four hours, right?"
"Yeah."
"So maybe we'll catch a break." Cade needed to believe that. It was past time they had some luck on this case. He didn't think for a moment that LeFrenz would be content with only one phone call before trying to meet up with Shae. He'd call again. And again. Stretch out the anticipation, the game. Because that was how the creep would see it. A game of intimidation in which he set the rules. While his prey got more and more panicked. Wondering where he was. When he would strike.
But LeFrenz didn't know Shae at all if he thought his tactics would be successful. The knowledge brought Cade a measure of satisfaction. Whether through sheer determination or old-fashioned stubbornness, Shae wasn't about to cave in to his manipulations. Cade had bumped up against her resolve often enough to be certain of that.
"So is she good-looking?"
Cade grabbed for the door handle as Birtch narrowly missed sideswiping a car. "Who?"
"That doctor. O'Riley."
He sent an irritated glance at the man beside him. "What difference does that make?"
Birtch shrugged. "I was just wondering. You've been doing a lot of the legwork on this case, and so you must have talked to her a few times." He paused for a moment as he slammed on the brakes to avoid running into the car in front of him. "Besides, you called her Shae."
There was sweat beading his brow. Cade resisted the urge to wipe it away. It'd be a hell of a note if he'd survived three slugs to the chest, only to die on the New Orleans city streets with a kamikaze detective at the wheel. "I did not," he denied.
"Yeah, you did."
Cade thought back through the last couple of death-defying near misses to his earlier words. Had he? He'd been thinking of her as Shae for some time now, but he was surprised, and not a little displeased, to hear that his professional guard had slipped. He'd be no good to her if his judgment was clouded.
"So is she?" At Cade's blank look, Birtch repeated, "The O'Riley chick. Is she good-looking?"
"Chick?" Cade slouched further down in the seat and surreptitiously checked the security of his seat belt. "What are you, seventeen?"
"Nope." The other man turned the corner without bothering to slow down. If Cade's seat belt hadn't been tight enough to cut him in two, he'd have been thrown against the door. "I'm twenty-seven."
How the hell could someone only five years younger than he was manage to make him feel so ancient? "So you're old enough to have had a couple years' driving experience. What a relief."
Josh tossed him a grin. "Don't like my driving?"
"Only slightly less than your questions."
"Hey, I was just making conversation. You know. Establishing rapport. Breaking the ice."
Cade's eyes slid shut, partially in self-defense. He figured it would be better if he couldn't see the near misses. "I like ice. Leave it the hell alone."
An injured silence followed, one that didn't last nearly long enough. "Okay, no problem." Josh started whistling tunelessly in a manner only slightly less annoying than his chatter had been. But Cade found it infinitely preferable to fielding his questions about Shae.
It'd be useless to pretend, to himself at least, that Shae O'Riley was just part of a job. He shifted uncomfortably.
He wasn't quite sure when she'd started becoming more. Certainly before he'd taken her in his arms and the taste of her had nearly torched his control. And sometime after he'd talked his way into her apartment and found himself oddly reluctant to leave.
The timing, he reflected, was lousy. He had a case to work. A vow to keep to his partner's widow. One to keep to himself. But just as strong now was the need to keep Shae safe. It was useless to question it. But he couldn't deny the fact that it complicated everything.
"This it?" Josh's voice interrupted Cade's thoughts.
He opened his eyes. Birtch had been right about the neighborhood. The Quik-Mart stood like a shiny brave soldier amidst a field of walking wounded. Nearby buildings were boarded up, with others sporting bars over the windows and doors. They got out of the car and Cade turned, located the public telephone a few yards away on the corner. The glass was broken out of it, and it was little more than a shell, but miraculously the
phone was intact. The one LeFrenz had used to terrorize Shae.
Jaw clenched, he joined Birtch and approached the Quik-Mart. A sign on the door announced that the place had less than fifty dollars in the cash register at all times. It was obviously no deterrent. Cade knew junkies who'd knock a place over for a fourth of that.
Cade pushed the door open and approached the clerk at the front desk. Flashing his shield, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a picture of LeFrenz. "Excuse me, ma'am." The frizzy-haired older woman behind the counter eyed them suspiciously. "Were you working here last night?"
"Nope. I don't do night hours. I told that worthless manager it ain't safe around here at night for women alone." She crossed her arms as if to protect her virtue.
"He still tries to schedule me once in a while. I don't know how many times I gotta tell him, I'm not taking them kind of chances for six bucks an hour. It ain't worth it. You wouldn't believe the kind of weirdos we get in here in the middle of the night. Why, I heard tell of one time there was this guy who—"
"You know, ma'am, I think you're wise to stay away from this area at night." Cade interrupted the woman's monologue with a smile. "Would you happen to know who did work, though? The midnight shift?"
When the woman shook her head, Cade slid the picture across the counter. "How about this guy? Ever see him in here before?"
She leaned over to put her face close to the photo. Studying it for a moment, she said definitively, "Nope."
"You're sure?" Birtch said.
The woman glared at him. "I said no, didn't I? I ain't blind. Besides, a guy that looks like that, no one's gonna remember him, anyway. Too normal. You should ask me about some of the weirdos that come in here. Why, just yesterday there was this guy—"
"Do you have the manager's number?" Cade asked, sweeping the interior of the store with his gaze, lingering on the security cameras mounted near the ceiling around the store.
"Yes." She rattled it off from memory.
"Get him on the phone." Throwing a look at Birtch, Cade said, "I want him down here in fifteen minutes with the name and address of whoever worked here last night." The other detective nodded and reached for his cell phone. Cade moved away to look at each of the cameras in turn, his gaze tracing the path each lens would capture. With a quick surge of disappointment, he realized that none of them would have a range beyond the interior of the store.
He went to the front and out the door, hoping that a place with as many holdups as this one had would have cameras outside, as well as in. Looking up to the roof overhang, he noted the narrow openings near the top, indicating cameras secreted inside. Measuring the distance between the storefront and the phone booth, a grim smile settled on his face. Maybe one of those outside cameras had caught LeFrenz's late night appearance less than twelve hours before. And if they had any luck at all, it'd yield even more—like a companion they could I.D., or a car that could be traced.
Propping a shoulder against the window, he waited impatiently for the store manager. And for what he fervently hoped would be a break on this case.
* * *
Chapter 9
« ^ »
When the buzzer announced a visitor out in front of her apartment, Shae gave serious thought to not answering it. She'd just stretched out on the couch, her favorite blues band filtering through the stereo speakers, a sweet white wine poured and just within reach. After the workers from the security company had left, she'd showered, thrown on some comfortable clothes and looked forward to an evening of, if not inner peace, at least quiet.
The buzzer sounded again. Heaving a sigh, she picked up her wineglass and crossing to the intercom mounted next to the door right above the shiny new alarm keypad, she pressed the button. "Yes?"
"It's Cade."
The sound of his voice sent an immediate suffusion of heat spreading beneath her skin. The reaction was involuntary, and as such, completely unwelcome. Her hand hesitated, hovering above the intercom button that would allow him entry. It had been a long day already, and she wasn't up to a verbal wrestling match with the persistent detective. Given the craziness in the E.R. today, coupled with dealing with the workers in her apartment when she got off work, she'd successfully kept thoughts of LeFrenz and his late-night call at bay. Something told her that would change as soon as Cade stepped foot in her apartment.
Putting the glass to her lips, she sipped, refusing to consider the action as fortification. Resolutely she buzzed him in. She'd never been a coward. Never been one to take the easy way out. Regardless of how distasteful thoughts of LeFrenz were, she was anxious to know what further actions the police were taking. What actions, if any, she needed to take herself.
When she pulled the door open to admit Cade, her brows arched. "Please tell me that's not your porn collection."
One corner of his mouth quirked up. "Smart-ass." He walked by her and set the box of videotapes on her counter. "Didn't want to leave these in the car in case some punk went by and decided a few movies were worth the risk of breaking in."
"More likely they'd go after your car stereo in the trunk."
"Which can be replaced. These couldn't be."
"What are they?" She moved to stand beside him, gazing into the box curiously.
"We got the trace back on the call LeFrenz made to you last night."
Everything inside her stilled. To give herself something to do, she took another drink, then found she couldn't force the wine around the boulder that had lodged in her throat. "And?"
"It came from a phone booth just outside a convenience store. I've got another detective going over the recordings from the interior CCTV. There may be a chance we could identify a customer last night who saw him as they entered or exited the store."
It was easy enough to read what he wasn't saying. "You mean, the clerk in the store didn't see anything," she said flatly.
Cade's gaze was steady. "No."
"And these?" She gestured to the carton of tapes with her free hand.
"The store hasn't completely switched over to closed circuit yet. Their exterior security is still done by video cameras. The help is none too organized when it comes to changing the tapes. I'm hoping one of these caught him on video around the store last night."
A chill prickled down her spine, along with a healthy dose of frustration. "How is that going to help us? Seeing him make the call isn't going to get us any closer to him." A dart of something all too close to helplessness threatened to lodge in her chest. With effort, she shoved it away. Helplessness was typical of a victim, and although LeFrenz's interest in her had made her a target, she'd be damned if she'd be a victim. But there was little in this situation she had control over. And she despised that circumstance most of all.
As if following her train of thought, Cade said, "We've got a dozen officers working on this case, following a lot of different leads. There's nothing for you to worry about."
"That's easy for you to say." Jerkily she turned and went back to the table where she'd left the wine bottle. Picking it up, she filled her glass again. "You're not the one having her life turned upside down on the off chance this slimeball decides to call again."
"About that…"
Although her back was to him, something in his voice alerted her. Suspiciously she looked over her shoulder, silently commanding him to continue.
"We're ready this time. When he calls again, we'll have his location nailed in a matter of minutes."
She stilled, comprehension flashing through her mind, before whirling around to accuse, "You tapped my phone?"
"Not exactly."
"Then what? Exactly?" Old memories stirred, igniting her temper. The thought of having some faceless, nameless policemen listening in on every conversation, poring over every number that contacted hers was as distasteful as it was infuriating. The feeling of defenseless indignation had been all too familiar during her childhood. Having to stand silently by while a couple of policemen, enacting a warrant, tore the house apar
t looking for her father. Watching as they carelessly dug through her things, a girl's secret treasures, clothes and underthings tossed aside in a quick and thorough search for anything that would lead them to Ryan's whereabouts.
The memory alone had her free hand clenching into a fist. "I don't want this. Not any of it." How had she managed to get dragged into all this? How could someone who'd gone to the trouble she had to avoid complications in her life be catapulted into such a mess of someone else's making?
His voice became low and soothing, like a smooth heated stroke over bare skin. "We have to do this to protect you. I want to make sure we pick up LeFrenz before he gets any braver than a phone call."
Stubbornly she resisted the persuasiveness in his tone. "I never consented to this."
"You don't have to. We didn't tap your line—that would take a warrant, and it isn't necessary, anyway. All we did was put a trap-and-trace device on your line so we have a record of the incoming calls. Given the level of cooperation the phone company has promised us, that will allow us to get a quick fix on his location next time." He considered her with eyes that saw too much. "Were you afraid your dad might call? Because we're not interested in him."
"No." She could feel her face flame, the curse of a natural redhead. Ryan could take care of himself. She'd never fallen into the trap of trying to protect him. Even as a child she'd recognized that her family was in need of protection from him, emotionally at any rate. She lifted a shoulder, the movement oddly jerky. "I just don't relish having my privacy violated this way." She could understand the need even while she hated the reality of it. Despised feeling like every ounce of autonomy she'd achieved was slipping away, a fraction at a time.
"Maybe there's someone else you're trying to spare, then."
Startled, she glanced at Cade and was fascinated to see that his eyes had gone hard and almost as cold as his tone. He shrugged, the nonchalant gesture at odds with his flinty expression. "Last time I was here someone called you. Someone you were making plans to visit."