Heat (Tortured Heroes Book 2)

by Jayne Blue

  We had a meeting scheduled with the task force at ten. That gave me an hour to deal with the other business I had on my mind. Going a little faster down the city streets than I should have, I pulled into Ken Bardwell’s office parking lot. I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. I pressed my forehead against my fist and got out of the car.

  Ken was waiting for me in the lobby, his receptionist gone.

  “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”

  Ken smiled and waved me into his inner office. “You said it was an emergency. Come on in and have a seat.”

  I didn’t know how to do this. Since I left Stella’s side, I was so keyed up I couldn’t stop moving. Ken gestured for me to take the seat facing the door, but I needed to pace. My heartbeat thundered, not knowing how to start.

  “Mitch?” Ken said. He gave up waiting for me to sit down and took a seat himself. “You wanna tell me what’s got you jumping out of your skin or should I start guessing?”

  “I don’t know.” Now that I was here, this was starting to feel like a bad idea. It’s just, ever since I’d lost control with Stella, I felt, well, out of control. Like I didn’t trust my own thoughts. I needed my head sharp if I was going to protect her and end the threat against her once and for all.

  “Mitch!”

  I let out a hard breath and turned to him. “I’ve done something I can’t take back. And the thing is … fuck … I don’t know what the thing is. I just know that it’s got me feeling unmoored somehow.”

  “Okay. Well, help me out. What did you do?”

  “Stella.” I blurted it. On the way over here I’d come up with a thousand ways to tell this story. Ways that might minimize what it was. No big deal. Physical. Except it wasn’t. The earth had shifted on its axis for me and I damn well didn’t know how to deal with it.

  “You did Stella?”

  He meant it as a joke, I guess. And I’d kind of walked right into it. But when I turned and Ken saw the expression on my face, he knew he’d hit on it. His face fell for an instant, then he quickly recovered.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  I tried to explain it. My words failed me. There was no way to get through this that didn’t make me sound like I’d taken advantage of her. So I told him about the shooting at her house. Ken whistled low.

  “She’s okay?”

  I nodded. “Physically. Yeah. Thank God. Her neighbor might not make it. It’s bad, Ken.”

  He asked questions about the investigation. The right ones. Things that put me at ease again and grateful that I wasn’t dealing with someone who’d need me to walk him through my shorthand. It occurred to me halfway through that was probably part of his therapist training. He focused my attention away from the emotional bombshell I’d just set off in my life, at least for a few minutes.

  “So,” he finally said. “Tell me how you feel, Mitch. About Stella.”

  I’d stopped pacing but still couldn’t sit down. I gripped the chair back tight. “What do you want me to say, it’s Stella. She’s …” I had no words for it.

  “Everything,” Ken answered for me.

  I nodded slowly. That was exactly it. She was everything.

  “How bad is this?” I asked.

  Ken smiled. “You tell me.”

  “It could ruin everything. It’s Stella. Jesus, Ken. She was Brian’s fiancé. This goes against everything I believe in. I swore on my life to him that I’d take care of her if anything ever happened to him. You know how it goes.”

  “No. You tell me, Mitch. How does it go?”

  “He was like my brother. You don’t fuck your brother’s wife, Ken. No matter what.”

  “Well, they weren’t married. He’s not your brother. And Brian’s gone. What does Stella have to say about all of that?”

  I started pacing again. “She doesn’t know what to think. And it’s not on her. It’s on me.”

  “You mean you forced her?” Ken wasn’t serious, but I froze again. He put a hand up and tried again. “What I mean to say is, she obviously wanted it too.”

  “That’s not the point. It was my job to protect her. Not the other way around. I could have stopped it.”

  “Is that what you wanted?”

  “What? No. Jesus. Stop answering me with questions. You know how much I hate that.”

  “Okay. But I’ve got to ask another one. Sorry, I’ve got to fill a quota, remember?” He gave me a smartass grin. I shot him a scowl then finally sat in the chair across from him.

  “What?”

  “What do you want from me?”

  I reared back. “What do you mean, what do I want from you? Advice, man. Tell me what to do.”

  “You don’t want advice. You want permission.”

  “Fine. Yes. Whatever. Give me permission. Tell me I haven’t made the biggest mistake of my life and fucked everything up for good.”

  Ken sighed. “Look, I can’t do any of that and you know it. What I can do is look at this objectively. You’re my patient. Not Stella. And you’re on the brink, man. I say that to you as a professional psychologist, and as a career homicide detective. I’ve seen this before. Hell, I’ve been this before.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning, you’re hanging on by a very thin thread and you know it. This is a dangerous time for you. A critical time. And last week you made a breakthrough. You’re on the road to finally forgiving yourself for what you perceive as your role in Brian’s death. Then, the first chance you get, you find another way to start feeling guilty where he’s concerned.”

  “You think I fucked Stella to punish myself?”

  Ken shook his head. “I wouldn’t put it that way. No. And is that what you did?”

  “Come on, man, this is me. Don’t get flowery with me.”

  “And you know what I mean. Was it fucking or was it something else? I know the difference. Do you?”

  I wanted to toss the damn chair across the room. I suppose that urge was exactly what landed me in Ken’s office in the first place.

  “I know I wanted her.” The words flew out of my mouth. A fair amount of rage came with it. I tore my hands through my hair. “I wanted her more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand to see her hurting. I couldn’t stand not touching her. And she said … she said something about wishing she’d never come back to town. I don’t know. It made me desperate. I didn’t want to think about her not being here. I don’t think I could live like that again.”

  “Live like what?”

  I clamped my mouth shut. I couldn’t breathe. My heart rose into my throat. My palms sweat and my collar felt tight. The lights seemed to fade in and out. Even sitting, I got dizzy and the room started to sway.

  “Mitch?”

  I put a hand up. I needed air. I needed to punch something.

  “Breathe,” he said. Ken went to a small square refrigerator behind his desk and pulled out a water bottle. “Drink this.” He handed it to me. I couldn’t stop my hands from trembling when I took it from him.

  I squeezed the thing so hard I’m surprised it didn’t explode in my hand. With shaky fingers I unscrewed the cap and gulped down cool, fresh water. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

  “Feel better?” he asked.

  I nodded. “A little. What the fuck was that?”

  Ken sat back in his chair and crossed one leg over his knee. “I’d say that was the beginnings of a full-blown panic attack, my friend. You get those often?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Well, good. That’s something.”

  “What do I do? How do I stop myself from feeling like this?”

  Ken’s smile infuriated me. “Mitch, you gotta slow down.”

  “I can’t afford to. Not with this new task force and what’s going on with Stella. I have to see it through. She needs me.”

  “I get that. And I’m not going to sit here and blow smoke up your ass by telling you I wouldn�
�t do the same thing. If someone I loved were in the crosshairs of something like that, I’d move heaven and earth to protect them.”

  I squeezed the cap on the water bottle and rested it on my knee. “Exactly.”

  “But you’re at a crossroads. I’ve seen this a million times and have been on the other end of it. There’s no medium button with you, Mitch. You’re either numb to the world or you’re on fire. And right now, you’ve been on fire for weeks. If it doesn’t kill you, it’s going to destroy you. You’re going to make a career-ending mistake like you did with Judge Pierce or worse.”

  I curled my fists against my knees and stared straight ahead. “I know the job, Ken. This doesn’t affect the work. This never affects the work.”

  He cocked his head. “Everything affects the work.”

  “You telling me I’m a liability? Fuck you.”

  “No, I’m telling you everyone has a breaking point. And you’re perilously close to yours.”

  I shook my head. I ran a hand across my forehead; it came away damp. God, I was soaked.

  “This girl,” he said. “Stella. Perfect example. You care about her. She obviously cares about you too. Deeply. It could mean something. It could be something. I don’t know. But you couldn’t even approach that in moderation. You’re with her alone for five minutes, and well …”

  I shook my head. He was right. The bastard. I hated him just then. “It was more than five minutes.” I meant it as a joke. It didn’t fly.

  “Mitch, you’re asking all the wrong questions. You think you want permission or advice. But that’s not really why you came here. That’s not why you dragged me out of bed on my day off.”

  I looked up. A weight settled over my shoulders, dragging me down so that I could barely move.

  “What’s the answer, Ken? Huh? Yoga? Xanax? Whatever it is. Tell me and I’ll do it. Just help me.”

  “Help you what, Mitch?”

  “Help me stop feeling like I’m drowning all the time.”

  He put a hand on my knee. His eyes swam with dark knowledge. He knew where I was. He’d told me a thousand times he’d been there himself. I hated him a little for it even though I knew how much it mattered.

  “Let go,” he said. “That’s the answer, Mitch. It’s not easy. But it’s the secret. You can’t save Brian. You can’t save the world. You can really only work on one little corner at a time and more often than not even that’s too fucked up. You do the best you can, then you let it go. The rest is up to the prosecutor or the judge or whatever higher power you believe in.”

  “How did you do it? How did you learn to let go?”

  Ken sighed. “I was on my third divorce before I figured that out and it’s a daily process. There’s no one answer. There’s no easy button.”

  I flipped him off. Ken’s deep laughter vibrated through the room.

  “Take a minute,” he said. “Take a step back. Work your case, yes. It’s important. But if you keep heading in this direction, it’s going to end badly. You’re not an alcoholic, but you’ve got an addiction that’s just as toxic. You’re addicted to the job, Mitch.”

  “That’s horseshit and you of all people should know it.”

  He wouldn’t give it up. “Mitch? How much vacation time do you have saved up? When’s the last time you took any?”

  I clenched my jaw and looked straight ahead. Ken reached back and grabbed a file off his desk. “That was a rhetorical question, buddy,” he said, flipping open the file.

  “Don’t,” I said, my voice sounding strange to my ears, dipped in acid.

  “You got about sixteen weeks, my friend. That’s got to be a department record. You know, if I wanted to, I could bench you. That’s one of the perks of my job. I can recommend some R & R and you’d have no choice but to take it.”

  “Don’t, you son of a bitch. I told you. This thing with Stella …”

  He put up a hand. “Save it. I said I could if I wanted to. Believe me, I’d be doing you a favor even if you hated me for it. For now though, let’s step things up to twice a week appointments, okay? And maybe a promise that you take one day off in the next week. Just one. Also, don’t knock yoga. It helps.”

  He stood up and took a step toward me. He put a firm hand on my shoulder. It felt paternal. I bristled against it, then took a deep breath.

  “You are a son of a bitch, you know that?”

  Ken laughed. “I do, Mitch, I really fucking do.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mitch

  By mid-morning, the task force assembled in the conference room outside my office. I’d sent three texts to Stella that she hadn’t returned. I would have been out of my mind crazy from it, but Lori Walling had checked in at the top of the hour to tell me everything was under control. Stella was still at the hospital. I didn’t have time to get more information about her neighbor’s condition before Agent Caulkins and Stan entered the room. Detective Chapman followed Stan in. Stan called earlier and said he wanted to bring him in for the day because we were all fairly certain the incident at Stella’s house was at least loosely connected.

  “Please tell me you have good news,” I asked. Chapman and Caulkins looked at each other then back at me. “From either of you,” I clarified.

  Chapman sat down first and reached across the table to grab the carafe of crappy coffee Stan kept on hand. “Not much,” he said. “One of the neighbors remembers seeing a dark-colored sedan passing through the neighborhood about ten minutes before the shooting. She says she saw it go down the street three times and she got a partial plate. So far nothing’s turned up and she has no idea whether that vehicle was involved in the shooting. Everyone heard the shots, but nobody looked out the window until afterward. Still waiting to talk more to the son, the one who threw Stella out of the way.”

  I nodded. “She doesn’t think you’ll get much out of him.”

  Chapman nodded. “Maybe not, but he seemed sharp. Your girl doing okay?”

  I stiffened at the characterization. Stan put a hand up and smiled. “Stella’s good,” he answered for me. “Thank God.”

  “What about you?” I looked at Caulkins.

  He gave me a grim nod then sat back hard in his seat. “We’ve had a break. That’s why I wanted to meet. I mean, even before I knew about this incident at Stella Terry’s house. Actually, it came quicker than I would have expected. There’s a clerk down in records at the State Police office in Royal Oak whose story didn’t quite hold up. Our investigator found some of her answers evasive. He pressed her and she cracked a little. She gave us a name. There’s a detective down there she says has made some requests of her pertaining to some of the clearance checks they’ve done recently that seemed a little odd.”

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “Nothing overt. Just having her run repeats on some stuff claiming there was a foul-up with some of the software. It could be something, it could be nothing. But what concerns me is one of the clearance checks he wanted repeated was Stella Terry’s.”

  “Shit, Caulkins, that sounds like something. You have a name for this detective?”

  Caulkins nodded. “Larry Edwards. He transferred in from a post in New Mexico a few months ago. That’s the other thing I thought you’d find interesting.”

  I sure as hell did. Some of Stella’s bogus drug charges were initiated by a New Mexico court. This shit seemed more than coincidental.

  “We need to bring this guy in,” I said. “Like yesterday.”

  Stan scratched his chin. “We have to play this smart, Mitch. You of all people should know that. We spook him, we might not get a chance to see what’s really going on. He’s going to start cleaning up after himself, if this is in fact our guy. Plus, the clerk? The one who named him? There’s a relationship there. That’s why she was so reluctant to talk to us. We’re holding her for more questions but we’re going to have to kick her in the next twenty-four hours.”

  “Terrific,” I said. “And you and I both know exactly what’s goin
g to happen the second you do. She’s gonna tip this guy off and we’re nowhere. Tell me something else good? Where are we on probable cause for a search of this asshole’s house?”

  Caulkins shook his head. “We’ve got a possibly disgruntled or star-struck records clerk. We’ve got a suspicion that the security breach is originating from that post.”

  “So we sit on our asses? Bullshit.”

  “No,” Stan said. “Caulkins has an idea. I’m asking you to sit tight and let him set it up.”

  “What?”

  “A routine audit at the State Police,” Caulkins said. “Nothing flashy. Nothing that’ll send up a red flag. But if we’re very lucky, we might be able to tie some of the loose ends together and have enough to get a warrant together.”

  “Fine, but we can’t hold off too long on this. I need to get access to this guy’s phone, his home computer, the works. I need to find out who the hell these people are that are after Stella.”

  “We know,” Caulkins said. “And that’s a separate issue.”

  “Like hell it is!” Chapman and I said it in unison.

  “Look,” Chapman put a hand on my arm to still me. “I don’t have to explain to you why time is of the essence on this. Last night? That was a professional. And it was too damn close a call. I’m sure Stan and Mitch explained to you who the intended target was. Stella Terry is a special case. So whatever you need to do to speed things along, you need to do it. Even if it means we bend a few rules to let Mitch get in there and have access to Edwards’s hard drive. We need to connect the dots however we can.”

  Caulkins put up his hand. “I get it, guys. Okay? I get it. But we tip this guy off or run into this half-cocked, we lose the best chance we have to shut this operation down. Edwards is important, but he isn’t the big fish here. Let’s not lose sight of that.”

  White rage filled my vision again. It took everything in me not to reach across the table and grab Caulkins by the throat. I didn’t care about the big picture at that moment. I cared about Stella and Stella only. Stan saw the look on my face and narrowed his eyes at me.