by L. A. Witt
Darren shifted uneasily. “Is he panicking?”
“Not yet. But I don’t know what his next move is. I don’t even know if he’ll know it until he makes it.” The fear in Gary’s eyes made my skin crawl. My theory about an unhinged lunatic was closer to accurate than I’d hoped, and that only made the inevitable outcome seem more grim. We needed more from him, and in my mind, I was already choking the man to within an inch of his life before Darren calmly spoke.
“Where are the kids now?”
I exhaled through my nose, thankful he was taking the lead. One of us had to have a cooler head, and it sure as shit wasn’t me right now.
Gary swallowed. “They’re at a house out in East Aspenwood. That suburban development south of town. It’s . . .” His eyes lost focus. “Thirty-one Jenner Way.”
My heart sped up. A location. God, please, let them still be there.
Then cold dread settled itself in my churning gut, and before I could stop myself, I asked, “Are they all right?”
He shot me another wary look, and for two very, very long seconds I was completely certain I was about to hear the worst possible answer. But then he nodded. “Yeah. They’re shook up, but . . . yeah. They’re okay.”
Darren turned to me. How do you want to play this?
Fuck. We needed more information, but every minute we waited was another minute my kids were in danger.
“He’s coming with us.” I nodded toward Gary. “We don’t have time to fuck around, and we need all the information we can get from him.”
Gary swallowed, but nodded. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll tell you anything you want.”
“I’ll get the captain,” Darren said. “We can assemble a team and—”
“Wait,” Gary said. “If he sees SWAT or something, he’ll . . .” I didn’t think it was possible, but he turned even whiter.
“He took it too far.”
My stomach flipped again. “He’ll what?”
Gary pushed out a long breath, then looked me right in the eye. “Look, our dad was roughed up in the rec yard recently. Guards just stood back and let it happen, and when it was over, no one said anything. Once Howie heard about that, he fucking lost it.” His eyes flicked from me to Darren to me again. “I don’t know what he’s planning to do. Or if he’s planning anything beyond making Detective Ruffner suffer as much as possible for making our father suffer.” He gulped. “All I know is, he’s got your kids and he’s gone off the fucking rails, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Shit,” Darren breathed, scrubbing a hand over his face.
Gary wasn’t finished. “But he also knows how cops work. If he’s got half the force descending on him and he realizes there’s no way out, suicide by cop is not below him. Every time we’ve visited our dad, he’s told me on the way out that he’d take a bullet before he went to prison.” His Adam’s apple jumped. “And at this point, I can’t promise he won’t take the kids with him.”
Ice water slithered through my veins. That was one mental image that could knock me off my feet and fuck my ability to focus. I wasn’t normally a praying man, but today wasn’t a normal day.
Darren, despite his own gauntlet of distractions, stayed focused. “Why this house?”
Gary moistened his lips, staring down at his hands. “It belonged to another cop. Detective Worley.”
I remembered the name. Another dirty son of a bitch currently taking up space in prison.
“His wife couldn’t keep up with the mortgage after he was convicted,” Gary continued. “The bank foreclosed it. It’s abandoned at the moment. Going up for auction next month.” He exhaled. “After you guys figured out where the farmhouse was, we had to move them someplace else, so we went there.”
“And he’s there now,” I said. “With the kids.”
“I’m . . . I’m not sure where he is. He wasn’t answering his phone, and . . .” Gary shook his head. “But the kids are there. I went there before I came here. They’re—”
“Then why the fuck did you leave them there?” I snapped.
Gary flinched, but managed to meet my gaze, and he sounded almost childlike as he said, “Because Howie’s far enough off the rails that if he thinks I took your kids back to you, it would be my kids cuffed in that basement next.”
My throat squeezed around what little breath I could still draw. He was a father himself, and he’d gone through with this fucked-up plan? But no matter how terrified and furious I was, I couldn’t question his decision to protect his own kids. Given the choice—the horrifying, inhumane choice—I’d have protected my own too.
Gary cleared his throat. “You need to find Howie first. Get him in cuffs, then save the kids. Otherwise . . .”
I shuddered.
He wasn’t done, though. “Listen, when I realized your daughter was hurt—like really hurt—I told him this had to stop. I mean, I barely talked him into dropping her off at the ER, and—” His head snapped toward me. “Is she okay?” It was weird, seeing genuine concern in the eyes of a man who’d arranged to have my children kidnapped.
“She’s fine,” I said through my teeth. “And for your sake, you’d better hope the other two are too.”
“They are.” He brought his cuffed hands up so he could scratch his forehead. “They’re . . . they’re fine.”
“Why the hesitation?” Darren demanded.
Gary exhaled. “They’re scared, all right? My brother, he’s been . . .” He winced. “It’s like he forgets these are kids. Even the older one is still a kid, you know?”
“Yes, I know,” I growled.
“But Howie . . . he tells them every chance he gets that their father is an inept cop, or that he just doesn’t care, or else he’d have saved them by now. It’s, uh . . . taking its toll.”
I had to fight hard to keep from vomiting. As if I didn’t have enough guilt over being the farthest thing from Father of the Year. Dear God, if something happened to them and they left this earth believing I didn’t care enough to find them . . .
I swallowed the bile scorching the back of my throat.
“Anyway. Your daughter. When she was hurt, that was when I realized how cold Howie has turned. He didn’t care if she hemorrhaged because that would just make Detective Ruffner suffer more.”
I bristled, grinding my teeth.
Gary met my gaze, but quickly dropped his. “He was perfectly happy to let her die until I convinced him that if she did, we were going to prison for murder.” He gulped again. “I don’t know if he’ll kill them. Problem is, I also can’t say for sure that he won’t. Absolute best-case scenario? He uses the kids as human shields when the cops close in.”
More bile rose in my throat. Darren and I exchanged glances. With a subtle head tilt, he suggested we step outside.
“We’ll be right back,” I said, and followed Darren into the hallway.
As soon as we were out of the room, Darren turned to face me. He cupped my face and looked me in the eye. “Are you sure you can handle this?”
I nodded. By all rights, I should’ve been taken off this case from the start, but the captain probably knew as well as Darren did that it wouldn’t do any good. Hell, leaving me on the case kept me more or less playing by the department’s rules. Cut me off, and I’d do things my way.
Holding Darren’s gaze, I whispered, “I have to.”
“I know.” He pressed a light kiss to my lips. “But if you need to tap out, either because it’s too much or—” he gestured at my leg “—I’ve got this. You know I do.”
And I hate myself for every second I’m depending on you when you’re supposed to be grieving.
But all I could say was, “I know. And thanks.”
Something like a smile flickered across his lips, but then his eyes darted toward the interrogation room door. “I don’t know what our options are here. We could send him in to flush out Blaine, but all it would take is someone in the precinct tipping off Blaine that we’ve been talking to him.”
&nb
sp; I didn’t even want to think about how many more dirty cops might be in Blaine’s pocket on this. How many of them had been involved in—and compromising—this search. “I think our best bet is going in on our own.”
“Andreas.” Darren shook his head. “You heard Gary. Blaine gets a whiff of cops, and God knows what might happen.”
“Then we don’t let him get a whiff. He’ll be expecting us to do this according to Hoyle.”
His eyebrows rose slowly. “What do you have in mind?”
“He’s probably watching for surveillance. Any uniforms show up at the door or start canvassing neighbors, he’ll be paying attention to them. But if we can create some kind of diversion and get him to the front door, he’ll be distracted while we’re letting ourselves into the basement from the back.”
His eyes flicked toward my cast. “‘We.’”
I scowled. “Okay, I don’t know how much I can do. But stay with me. Blaine is still a cop. How many cops do you know who can ignore a domestic that’s about to turn violent?”
Darren blinked. “Not . . . not many. But they’re not usually harboring kidnapped kids at the same time.”
“It’s worth a try. Staging a car accident or having someone show up asking to use the phone is too obvious. But the neighborhood where he’s hiding is a shithole. One of those places that got hit hard during the last couple of recessions. A lot of abandoned houses and a lot of squatters. Lot of people moving in and out, so he probably doesn’t know the neighbors. Not well enough to be suspicious if people at a party start having a fight that spills out into the road.” I paused, scenarios running through my head a few dozen at a time. “We don’t want to put civilians in the middle of it, but if his neighbors or some squatters are having a house party, and a couple of people Blaine’s never seen before come out screaming . . .”
“You think he’d come out and break up a couple of drunks?”
“Yes.” I gnawed the inside of my cheek. “Especially if some part of him knows he’s fucking up, it’s entirely possible that in his mind, going out and breaking up a fight—particularly if it means rescuing a woman who’s about to be roughed up—would redeem him. Not make him a good cop, but cement the fact that he’s been a good cop all along.”
“Yeah, I follow,” Darren said. “And . . . the guests would be undercover cops?”
I nodded.
“That’s . . .” Darren’s eyes lost focus for a moment, and then he smiled a little. “That’s actually brilliant. Except, how do we make sure the couple involved in the domestic aren’t cops Blaine would recognize?”
“Shit . . .”
Darren straightened. “Doesn’t Internal Affairs owe us a few favors?”
“They do, yeah.”
“Think Thibedeau might loan us a couple of his guys?”
“Only one way to find out.”
It wasn’t funny. Or, well, it was without context, but within the bounds of the situation, it wasn’t really all that funny. Still, I couldn’t quite keep the edges of my mouth from curling up as I watched Paula and Thibedeau hash out the details of the party in record time in the conference room, with him pushing back the whole way.
“Of course I want to help,” he repeated, “but if you’re looking for cops who know how to convincingly throw a party, you shouldn’t be looking at my department.”
“For Christ’s sake, it’s not hard!” She raised a hand and ticked off the necessary elements. “Music, booze, plenty of warm bodies, and one pair who knows how to fake a good fight. Done.”
“Our yearly departmental dinner takes place in an ornamental teahouse, Paula. The last time Curtis hosted a Super Bowl party, we ended up spending more time watching a rerun of the Westminster dog show than we did football. These aren’t party people!”
Paula raised an eyebrow. “Well, that answers a question I never wanted to ask about how you spend your free time, but you’re missing the point, Mark.”
“Which is?”
“That you’re the only ones who can do this. Unless you want us to waste more time begging for officers from other precincts, who would undoubtedly give us a load of crap just because they could before getting their asses in gear—” the glance she threw my way wasn’t accusatory, but it was definitely knowing “—then we need you guys to buck up and get moving. Officer Garland has already gotten us access to one of the neighbors’ houses. You have twenty minutes to make you and your people look like they don’t dream about forensic accounting, because that’s when we’ve got to move. Capiche?”
Thibedeau sighed. “Fine. I’ve got a dirty T-shirt and a pair of shorts in my gym bag downstairs—will those suffice?”
“I’m sure they’ll be perfect.” She shooed him out of the room, then turned to me. “He’s wound tighter than Big Ben. I don’t know how Erin gets along with the guy as well as she does.”
I half smiled. “She’s a people person, she could get along with almost anybody.”
“I guess so. Where’s your partner?”
“Talking to his exes.” Not quite both of them at once, but he’d been on the phone with Lisa when Marcy had walked into the precinct, yet again, asking for another update. Like Andreas wouldn’t have contacted her with anything new. I’d left the ladies to him and gone to sit in on Paula’s beautiful smackdown, and now I had nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs and wait for the operation to get underway. “I figure you and I should be the ones to go in after the kids. Andreas isn’t quite up for that level of athleticism, and they’ll recognize me.” At least, I hoped they would. I’d only met Casey once, and Emily was probably seriously upset.
Paula nodded. “He can stay out back in the getaway car.” Being suburbia, there were no alleys there, only fences separating one house’s yard from the next, but there were gates, and the road behind the house Blaine was holed up in connected not to another string of houses, but to a city park. No one would wonder why a car was parked there. “We can make this work. Thibedeau can monitor things from inside the neighbor’s house, let us know when to move. You and I get the kids out, Andreas gets them to safety, and then we bring the hammer down on Blaine.”
“Sounds good.” It was about time something did.
“We can finally— Hey!” She scowled at the door to the conference room, which was slightly ajar. “Who is that?” She marched over and jerked it open, looking around with a glare. “Shit.”
“What?”
“Probably nothing, just . . . someone was hanging around out here, I saw their eyes. It might be someone in the know, might not be, but the sooner we move on this, the better. The last thing we need is someone to tip-off Blaine.” She shook her head. “I’m going to go hurry Thibedeau up.”
“He’s probably in the men’s locker room, changing.”
“Then I’ll just have to stand outside the door and shout encouragement,” she said with a smile, and left.
For the moment, I was alone. I should get up. I should go find Andreas, make sure he was handling Marcy okay and that he knew the timetable. I should confer with Officer Garland about the house, check the street maps around there again, get my equipment together. There was a lot I should be doing, but I felt frozen. Almost without thinking, I pulled out my phone and dialed a familiar number.
“Darren? What’s going on?”
“Hey, Vic.” I ran a hand over the back of my neck. “How’s Mom?”
“She’s doing okay. Got a couple of friends over, and she napped for a while. Could be worse. How are you?”
“We got a break in the case. The suspect’s older brother turned himself in; we’re getting ready for a raid.”
Vic hmmed. “Sounds tricky. You stay safe out there, kid, and keep your partner safe. But as glad as I am that your case is going well, I wasn’t asking about it. I was asking about you.”
My eyes prickled, and I shut them while I tried to figure out what to say. “I’m— I mean, you know. It’s not good. None of this is.”
“Yeah, I know. You holding it t
ogether?”
I bit my lip. “I have to.”
Vic sighed. “I know why you feel like that, Darren. But you’ve gotta be honest with yourself, okay? Get help when you need it. That’s why you called me, isn’t it?”
Damn Vic and his thirty years as a cop. There was no keeping a secret around him. “This case is fucking me up. Not just because of Andreas and the kids.” They were the worst part, by far, but . . . “The guy behind this is a cop.” I couldn’t give away too many details, but Vic would read between the lines. “His dad was a cop too, but he’s in prison now. I don’t think he knows what’s going on. It makes me wonder, what the hell would he think of what his kid is doing? Would he be appalled? Would he be pleased? How could he raise someone who turned out so fucking . . .” Did Blaine seriously believe his father would appreciate what he was doing in his name? Or were way more people seriously screwed up than I gave them credit for?
Vic sighed heavily. “You know, if I could have fixed things for your brother, I would have.” He sounded pained. “I’d have given my right arm to give him some hope when he needed it, but it wasn’t meant to be. And that’s the sad truth for any parent. No matter what we do to or for our kids, heap our fuckups onto them or give them every opportunity in the world, in the end we can’t live their lives for them. Whatever you do with yourself, good or bad, that’s on you. It doesn’t matter what this cop’s dad would say about what he’s doing, because it’s indefensible either way. I like to think the man would be horrified, but if not? Fuck ’im.”
I smiled weakly. “You ever wish you hadn’t saddled yourself with us?”
“You mean, do I wish I’d stayed a grumpy, lonely, workaholic cop with nothing to look forward to except TV dinners and splurging on the occasional bottle of Scotch? Are you kiddin’ me?”
“Dumb question, I guess.”
“Damn straight. Now get back to work.”