Bad Boy's Touch (Firemen in Love Book 3)

by Starling,Amy

  If this was my one chance to get back to Maddie, I was gonna take it.

  The lobby area was miraculously empty. Crazed men and some women, people who had no business being roaming the streets, were for some reason taking anything that wasn't nailed down.

  A lady almost knocked me over as she ran away with an entire computer, her eyes wide and bloodshot, her breathing raspy.

  “See anything worth taking?” Charlie peeked over the counter. “Wonder where they put our coke. That cost me over twenty G's and I'd like to recoup some of that investment.”

  “Cost you? Are you serious?” I nudged him toward the door. “Forget that. I don't ever want to see it again. If I get out of this mess alive, I'm done with all of it. Drugs, girls, fighting – oof!”

  Somebody ran into my back and almost knocked the wind out of me. I was about to cuss him out when I realized who it was.

  “James Ventura,” I cried. “They still had you locked up in here?”

  “Yeah, but not anymore. I'm getting outta here and running far, far away to South America. They'll never catch me.”

  “Man, you might not even have anything to worry about. We're trying to get the police chief arrested for all the shit he's pulled.”

  “Oh.” He brightened. “In that case, I'd be happy to help.”

  The three of us emerged from the building to prisoners running in every direction. They made a fine distraction as Charlie and I figured out our next move.

  “I gotta find Madison.”

  “Well, you ain't going in there,” he said, gesturing to the main building where she worked.

  There was also the problem of no ride. Charlie, though, knew how to fix that quick. He found a parked cop car and tried the door.

  “Lucky they didn't find my lockpick.” He pulled it out of his shoe and popped the door open fast. “Get in, y'all.”

  “What do you think you're going to do?”

  He smirked and sank into the driver's seat. “You pick up all kinds of fun tricks when you're trying to survive the streets.”

  With ease, he found a couple of wires under the steering wheel and brought the ends together. There were a few sparks, then the car roared to life as if possessed.

  “Get us out of here,” James wailed. “I want to see Melody. I miss her so much.”

  “Melody!” I sat upright in my seat. “I bet Harvey was planning on blowing up her house. That's what the bomb was for. He's terrified she'll testify, that his game will be over, so he'd go that far to stop her.”

  “Whaaat?”

  The cruiser's radio came alive, and an officer spoke through it. “Approaching the West Bay Apartments now. Ready to acquire and disarm explosive device.”

  “That's her,” James cried. “They're talking about Melody.”

  “Would you calm down?” Charlie shoved him away from the radio. “There's no detonator. The bomb shouldn't go off without it.”

  “What do you mean, shouldn't?”

  While they argued, I got this feeling in my gut. If Victor sent some guys to get that bomb, it wasn't for any good reason. More likely, he planned to use it for his own gain, as always.

  Madison wasn't the sort of girl who'd hide or rest on her laurels in this case. Even now, she'd defend justice until the end. That's how I knew exactly where she was.

  “Hit the gas, Charlie,” I said. “Get to that address. Madison's there.”

  He stared at me like I'd grown a tail. “How do you know that?”

  I had no answer for him. He shrugged, floored it, and left that den of corruption behind us in a cloud of red dust.

  Chapter 25 - Madison

  Melody's apartment was all the way west, near the freeway, in a rundown part of town. It was quite a lifestyle change from what she had been used to living with Freddy.

  “You just ran a stop sign,” Jenna announced. “That's three in five minutes. Impressive.”

  “Stop playing law-breaker bingo and help me find this place.” I peered down the darkened streets. “Don't see any cops here yet, so maybe we beat them.”

  Funny. I didn't see myself as one of “them” anymore.

  “There's the apartments.”

  Jenna pointed to an old brick building that looked like it had been a factory once. I shuddered to think what would happen in the bomb went off in there.

  Had Harvey no conscience? No, he'd totally snapped. He was so desperate for revenge, and to protect himself, that he no longer cared who he hurt.

  He thought he was the hero, but he was no better than those who had a hand in his son's death.

  “Her unit is five hundred one, so I guess that means the top floor,” I said as I stopped beside a parking meter. It demanded to be fed a quarter, but I ignored it and jogged to the entrance.

  Several teenagers, all of whom appeared to be smoking and drinking cheap beer, eyed me up and down. I was suddenly glad I brought the Charger and not my cruiser. Gangsters like these seemed the type to shoot cops on sight.

  “Hey, sweetie,” one called to Jenna, slurring his words. “Come back here. Nice ass.”

  I whipped around and flashed my badge. Stupid, maybe, but nobody talked about her that way.

  “Keep talking, and you'll find yourselves spending the night in a cozy cell,” I growled. “Pretty sure it's illegal for kids to be getting drunk – and what's that you're smoking, huh? Doesn't smell like tobacco to me.”

  They panicked and fled down the alley, dropping their bottles and blunts as they went. Jenna beamed.

  “You're like a superhero, Mad.”

  “I sure don't feel like one.” I put the badge away. “Let's get up there. We're running on borrowed time, and so are Brett and Charlie.”

  The lobby was darkened and empty. A lone man, who looked pretty homeless to me, lay asleep on the first-floor landing. Since this building had no elevator, we were forced to jump over him on our way up.

  “Why is Melody living in this dump?” Jenna wondered. “Freddy was like, a billionaire.”

  “Yeah, and now his mansion is in ashes and he's nowhere to be found. He knows what happened, of course, and he's staying well clear of the city until all this blows over.”

  “So he just leaves his girlfriend broke and out on the streets? What a dick.”

  “He's a murderous drug lord.” My foot nearly fell through a rotted stair board. “Yeah, I'd say he's kind of a dick.”

  We reached floor five at last. Jenna watched the road through a window while I knocked on the right door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Officer Madison with the police department,” I said. “Open up. It's urgent.”

  She hurried to undo several chains and a couple of deadbolt locks, then opened the door a crack and peeked out.

  “Oh, it's you again. Uh, how can I help you, officer?”

  “I need to come in. I've reason to believe there's a bomb in your apartment.”

  She paled and stumbled back. “W-what?”

  Jenna and I made our way inside. She'd recently moved in; there were boxes stacked in the corners yet to be unpacked. That bomb could be in any of them, and we hadn't time to search them all.

  “What are those?”

  She frowned. “Just a few things I had in storage. I lost all the rest of my stuff in the fire, y'know. Now, what's this about a bomb?”

  “Did you let anyone in here today? Notice anything suspicious or different?”

  “No, nobody. I've been here all day long, and didn't see...” She gasped. “Wait a minute. There was something strange.”

  She took a box off the kitchen counter and brought it to me. Inside, underneath all the bubble-wrap packaging, was a laptop.

  “A mailman delivered this a couple of hours ago. It came with this letter from James.” She produced a folded piece of paper with a typed note on it. “He said he got it for me to replace the one I lost in the fire.”

  “But James is in jail,” Jenna said softly. “How could he have sent you this?”

  She bi
t her lip. “Never really thought about it. I'm sorry; ever since that fire my head's been a mess. Nothing makes sense anymore.”

  I carefully picked up the laptop. It seemed totally normal: no ticking, no foul odors. Then again, what was I looking for anyway? I had no experience with this sort of thing.

  “Well, Mad? You think that's it?” Jenna peered over my shoulder. “We gotta get out of here before –”

  A cacophony of squealing tires stopped her mid-sentence. We rushed to the window just as three police cruisers pulled up and six officers piled out.

  “Oh, no. Now what?”

  “I don't understand,” Melody said. “I thought they were with you?”

  One man kicked open the building's front door, and they all filed inside. They'd be up here in a minute, and we were trapped.

  “Lock that door,” I ordered Melody.

  She did, but even I wondered what good it would do. Jenna paced in circles, nibbling on her nails.

  “We're stuck,” she wailed. “They're gonna get the bomb, and God knows what they'll do to us.”

  I was usually good at thinking on my feet. This time, I saw no way out. Their footsteps thundered on the steps, closer and closer.

  “Maybe we can hide. You got an attic or anything?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  I clutched the laptop under my arm. Somehow, the battery panel fell off and a weird object dropped to the floor with it.

  It was a white cube of something resembling putty. Wires wrapped around that and connected directly to the laptop's innards. I had no idea what I was looking at, but it wasn't normal, for sure.

  “That's got to be it,” Jenna howled. “The bomb!”

  Someone pounded on the door so loudly, all three of us jumped.

  “This is the police. Open this door immediately or we will use force if you don't comply.”

  “Find a way to hold them off,” I whispered to Melody.

  She was confused, but nodded. “Uh... Just a minute, officer. I've only just gotten out of the shower.”

  Jenna and I canvased the apartment while the cop continued to knock, growing more and more impatient by the second. I searched the ceiling, hoping for a crawl space like the one Twinkles had. No such luck.

  “Ma'am, you have one minute to open the door.”

  “H-hold on, I'm getting dressed.”

  I was about to start panicking – but then something hit the window. When I whirled around to look, I almost had a heart attack. Brett was staring back at me!

  “What are you doing here?” I pulled open the window. “You got arrested.”

  “No time for that now,” he said, reaching for my hand. “C'mon. I'll get you out of here. Charlie and James are waiting in the car.”

  Melody got very excited. “My James? You have him? I have to see him.”

  I gently stopped her from jumping out the window. “You have to stay here. If you don't, they'll wonder where you disappeared to when they break the door down.”

  Jenna nodded. “They're not stupid. They'll figure out how you escaped – which means they could track James down too.”

  “Ma'am?” More furious pounding. “This is your last warning. There may be an explosive device in that room. Open the door.”

  I peeked out the window. Brett was standing on a narrow fire escape, barely wide enough for a small child. The metal was rusted; rungs of the ladder were missing in places.

  I'd take that over getting arrested any day.

  Brett began his descent to the lower levels. I held the laptop tightly and climbed down after him, with Jenna close behind. Good timing, too. The cops were trying to kick the door down now.

  “What should I do?” Melody squealed.

  “Go along with them,” I said. “Let them search the place. They'll leave when they don't find anything.”

  “And James...”

  “He'll be fine. Promise.”

  I surveyed the parking lot below us as we climbed down. My car was parked on the front side, where the main entrance was, but the cop cars were blocking that route.

  When I spotted a cruiser idling in the parking lot, my stomach sank.

  “Oh, no. There's another one waiting for us.”

  “Uh, not exactly.” Brett chuckled in his guilty way. “That's our ride.”

  “You stole a cop car?!”

  “What else was I supposed to do? They took everything from us before throwing us in the cell. Then Harvey showed up, killed the power, started some big fire, and all the inmates escaped. It was a madhouse. We had to get out of there.” He kissed my hand. “I had to get back to you. Nothing else mattered.”

  My heart pounded, and it wasn't just from the adrenaline of running from the cops – for the second time since I'd gotten involved with him.

  Soon as this mess was over, I'd give him another chance. Stupid, perhaps, but it felt right.

  “Harvey... Why would he do that?”

  “Didn't your boss fire him?” Jenna suggested. “He was super pissed. Maybe he did it as revenge.”

  “He was mad, so he sets the jail on fire and allows a pack of criminals out into the streets. Well, I hope Victor realizes what a nightmare he's created. This is all his fault.”

  The next rung crumbled as I put my weight on it. It vanished from beneath my foot, nearly sending me plummeting ten feet down.

  “Whoa, there,” Brett cried, offering me his shoulder to stand on. “Whatever you do, don't fall to your death.”

  “Yeah, I'm kinda trying not to.”

  Finally, we reached solid ground. Charlie was in the driver's seat. He poked his head out and waved.

  “This was your idea, wasn't it?” Jenna asked him. “Damn it, you're gonna get in trouble again. You can't just go around jacking cop cars like it's some video game.”

  “Trouble?” He laughed. “Trouble follows me everywhere I go. Might as well stop fighting it and embrace it.”

  James sat in the passenger's seat. He gaped at me as we piled into the back.

  “Where's Melody? I thought you would be bringing her with you.”

  “We couldn't do that. We needed her to stay and play dumb while the cops search her place.”

  “But the bomb... She could be in danger.”

  I held up the laptop. “I think she'll be just fine. Now the question is, what to do with this thing?”

  Nobody knew, but that question could be pondered later – after we'd gotten someplace safe. Charlie floored it and got us away from the apartments with a couple of U-turns and a bit of driving the wrong direction down a one-way street.

  Jenna kept peeking out the windows to see if any cops were following us. They weren't, but I'd left my car there, which made me nervous. I prayed none of them recognized it.

  “Now what?” Charlie asked.

  “Well, I made a deal with Victor. The contents of the safe in exchange for your freedom. Obviously, there's going to be a change of plans.”

  “Wait a sec.” James stared at me. “You have the safe from Freddy's place?”

  Brett cleared his throat. “About that... We kinda used twenty grand of the money to buy coke so we could plant it on Harvey.”

  I wasn't sure whether to be angry at Brett or impressed with his ingenuity.

  “That wasn't the plan,” I muttered. “We were just going to do recon work tonight. Let Harvey know Charlie was back in town. See his reaction, then go from there.”

  “I know, but –”

  “You went ahead and did this without telling me.”

  “Because I knew you'd say no. Maddie, you gotta understand something. You can't catch a guy like Harvey or Victor by playing it safe. You have to take risks.”

  “But you didn't talk to me about it first.” Don't cry. Not now. “You want to be in a relationship with me? I can't be with a man who doesn't respect me enough to make important decisions together.”

  Tension hung heavily in the car. Jenna squirmed and stared out the window. Charlie whistled some annoying tune
.

  “This is a little bit different than discussing where to go for dinner or whether to buy a new TV,” he protested. “Harvey is a psychopath. If he's not stopped, someone is going to die. It could be your brother or Jenna. Could be you.”

  He was right, of course, but that didn't make it stop hurting any.

  “You promised me you wouldn't spend that money,” I said quietly. “Not a dollar of it. Said you wanted me to trust you.”

  He hung his head. “I'm sorry, but we were running out of time. I... I wanted to help so badly, Maddie. For your sake. For your family's. I didn't want to see that asshole start one more fire. He burned down your house. Destroyed your childhood. He had to pay for what he's done.”

  My usual protest would have been to let the legal system take care of it. With what little faith I had left in it shattered, I couldn't bring myself to say the words anymore.

  “Don't be too harsh on him,” Charlie interrupted. “Buying the drugs was my plan. I'm the one who went to the dealer and paid.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but Brett's the one who gave you the cash.”

  Neither man had anything to say back.

  I knew he tried to do something good. His motivations were honorable ones. But did he really have no choice except to betray my trust?

  “If you still have the safe, I'd like my money back, please,” James said flatly. “What's left of it.”

  “You're in no position to make demands from me, Mr. Ventura. You seem to forget I'm still a cop, and I'm fairly sure you've broken a handful of laws tonight.”

  He muttered something. “Just drop me off at my apartment. I'm desperate to speak with Melody.”

  Brett raised his eyebrow. “You think it's safe to go there? We just escaped from a jail cell; that'll likely be the first place they look for you.”

  “I'm just going to gather my things and go get Melody. I'm taking her away from this hellhole of a city.” He stared at the sky. “Maybe she'll finally be ready to leave Freddy and start a new life with me.”

  “I'd run halfway across the world if I were you,” Jenna piped in. “Once Freddy figures out you stole his girl and his money, well...”

  “You can't take Melody away yet.” I kicked his seat. “We need her testimony. Don't you want to see the man punished who hurt her?”