by L. A. Witt
And this time, the call disconnected.
“Are you going?” Darren asked.
“Yeah.” My voice sounded as hollow as I felt. “What choice do I have?”
“Maybe . . . not getting yourself killed?”
Exhaling, I glared out the windshield. “I don’t know what else to do. The only way I have any shot at getting Emily and Casey away from him—”
“Andreas.” He touched my hand. “It’s not going to do them any good if you walk into a set of crosshairs.”
I swallowed, and made myself face him. My voice was thick as I whispered, “What else can I do?”
He didn’t have an answer.
The silence lingered for a long moment before I finally spoke again. “Look, from what his brother told us, there’s a chance Blaine’s as desperate for this to be over as we are. Since he hasn’t offered us any kind of endgame or made any demands, I have to assume that’s where he’s at right now. I’m out of cards and out of ideas. Unless you have any suggestions, I’m meeting him tonight.”
Darren studied me. Then he pushed out a breath and gave my hand a hard squeeze. “Just be careful, all right? I want your kids back, but I want you to come home too.”
The address turned out to be an abandoned parking lot a few miles out of town. I wasn’t even sure what had been here before. Maybe a gas station or a restaurant that had been demolished. All that was left now was blacktop, the stripes faded and every crack filled with weeds and grass.
I didn’t like the idea of coming alone, but even Darren hadn’t tried to talk me out of it. Whatever Blaine’s initial plan, I was inclined to believe his brother was right—he was in over his head. Like a terrorist holding hostages in a surrounded building, the best way to end this was to negotiate with him.
Five minutes after I arrived, a car pulled in, a small white light glowing on top of it. A taxi.
As I got out of my car, Blaine stepped out of the cab, and a second later, it was gone. He was covering his bases, wasn’t he? Making sure I couldn’t put out a message to be on the lookout for his car. God knew what creative plan he’d dreamed up to leave and slip under my radar when this was over.
We faced each other, and there was something eerie about him in the stark white beams of my headlights. Like I could actually see both the bright-eyed perfect cop and the man who’d kidnapped my kids. His T-shirt, leather jacket, and jeans were as squared away as his uniforms always were, his hair arranged like he’d actually taken the time to put himself together. That was . . . more than a little disturbing.
“You want to negotiate.” Blaine folded his arms and studied me. “What are you offering?”
No telling me to put my weapons on the ground. No patting me down. Of course not—he knew I wouldn’t fire on him. As much as I wanted to splatter his brains all over this pavement, we both knew I wouldn’t. Not when he was the only one who knew where my kids were.
I swallowed. “What do you want?”
He smiled. “Come on, Ruffner. You’re gonna have to make an offer.”
“Yeah, and it would help if I knew what you wanted first. Don’t make this like Christmas shopping for my ex-wife.”
That got a laugh out of him that made my skin prickle. “Fair enough.” The humor vanished, and his eyes looked black in the low light. “You’ve got a list of names.”
“The people on your letter?”
He nodded, still staring intently at me. “What I want is immunity for me and an unconditional pardon for my dad.” Eyes narrowing, he said, “So. Counteroffer.”
I’d suspected as much. If he was driven by what he perceived as an injustice I’d committed against his father and dozens of other cops, then it was no surprise this was where he wanted to start. I swallowed. “I’ll trade your father for my kids.”
Blaine’s teeth snapped together. “What? You don’t have the power to do that.”
I laughed dryly. “I didn’t just put away cops, you know. The mayor went down. Judges too. You don’t think I’ve got dirt on the governor?”
He watched me, his expression blank as he probably tried to decide if I was bluffing. “So why is she still in office?”
“She’s still useful.” I gave the most flippant shrug I could muster. “Always good to keep a few high-ranking politicians in your pocket. You know, for those times when you need someone with more power than you.”
Slowly, his eyebrows climbed, taking my pulse with it. Blaine wasn’t stupid, but he had to know my reputation. There were still plenty of people in the city who believed I was an even dirtier cop than everyone I’d taken down. Combined. If he’d obsessed over me enough to go to the lengths he had to get revenge, then he’d probably heard the rumors that I hadn’t taken down the narcotics ring because they were breaking the law, but because they were impeding on my turf.
“So,” I said, “do we have a deal?”
He swallowed, but then his nerves vanished and he lifted his chin. “How do I know the pardon won’t be fake?”
“What good would that do me?” I showed my palms. “All I want is my kids, Blaine. I couldn’t give two shits who’s sitting in prison and who’s not.”
He grinned. “Then you won’t mind pulling the other cops while you’re at it.”
My poker face nearly faltered, but I held it. “Which ones?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “If you’ve got the power to get my dad out, then why stop there?”
I shook my head. “If I do that, the public will notice, and—”
“Not my problem.”
“Actually, it is. If you want your father to walk, you don’t want a massive public outcry when the governor pardons that many people after she very publicly supported their conviction.” I paused, thinking fast. “I can get you your father and two more. Then you can use their pardons as leverage to get everyone else’s convictions overturned.”
His lips quirked, and he shifted his weight. My heart was racing now, my stomach somersaulting with panic every time I offered a card. As it was, I was going to be in a world of hurt when the captain caught wind of this. Darren and I had discussed the idea of broaching the subject with Hamilton before I met with Blaine, but we’d agreed this was an extreme form of Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
“You really have two choices here, Blaine.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You give me back my kids in exchange for your father and two cops off the list. Or . . .” I inclined my head. “If you won’t agree to that, or if anything happens to my kids besides them being returned safely to me, I will use my connections to make sure your father’s life behind bars is a level of hell you can’t begin to imagine.”
It was a dangerous gambit, but the slight upward flick of his eyebrows told me I’d hit the nerve I’d been aiming for. Underneath the bluster and the crazy, there was a son who desperately wanted to help his father. A son and a cop who didn’t want to be responsible for his father’s increased suffering in prison. Blaine wasn’t some terrorist willing to go down as a martyr in the name of a cause; beneath the surface, he was a kid who knew he was in way over his head and facing off against a cop who was quite possibly dirtier than he’d realized.
“All right,” Blaine said sharply. “My father and two others off the list.”
Relief wanted to sweep through me, but I didn’t dare let it. Not until this was all over and my kids were safe. Anything could still go to shit at any moment.
“I have one condition,” he said.
I nodded.
“Same as tonight—you come alone, or you don’t like the results.”
I gave another nod.
He eyed me warily. “And what guarantee do I have that no one will be waiting to intercept me after we make the exchange?”
“You were smart enough to come here in a cab, and I’m assuming you’re smart enough to wait until I leave to call the next one.” I shrugged. “And I’m sure you’ve got people left on the inside who will radio you if there’
s an alert or a roadblock.”
He worked his jaw. Yeah, he still had people on the inside. Just like I’d figured.
“So,” I said. “When and where? This will take some time to—”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waved a hand. “You’ll meet me at the old Cranston plant south of town. The place where they used to bottle up gases. You know it?”
“I know it.”
“Good. I’ll call you with a time, and you’ll bring my dad and the other two cops.” He grinned, looking downright maniacal in the high beams. “I’ll even let you pick because I’m feeling charitable. They all come with unconditional releases, and they come with you and no one else. Then you get your kids back.”
With no other options, I nodded and extended my hand. “All right. We have a deal.”
He shook my hand, his grin broadening. I didn’t trust him any farther than I could throw him, but this was all I had.
Now I just had to explain the plan to Captain Hamilton.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Captain Hamilton bellowed, rattling the windows of his office.
“I don’t see what choice we have, sir,” I said. “I’m not suggesting we actually pardon them. We can use—”
“No. Absolutely not.” The captain shook his head. “I’m sorry, Andreas. I want to get your kids back as much as anyone, but if we cave in to that kind of blackmail, we’re going to start seeing a hell of a lot more of this shit. And I can’t promise your kids won’t be targeted a second time.”
I gripped the handles on my crutches, trying not to lash out at my boss.
“We have to do something, though.” Darren was leaning against Hamilton’s office door, arms folded loosely across his chest. “At this point, we have zero idea where Blaine is keeping them, and there’s no telling when or if we’ll figure it out. This is the only shot we have.”
My stomach lurched, but I was getting used to that feeling.
“Besides, if you’d listen to what we’re saying, we’re not suggesting actual pardons, here.” Darren absently ran his knuckles along the edge of his jaw. “Some of these cops were well and truly dirty, but I think some were just desperate. Otherwise good cops who got tangled up in something they shouldn’t have.” He finally lifted his gaze to me, then Hamilton. “All we need is for Blaine’s father and two of the other cops to agree to help in exchange for some time off their sentences.”
Hamilton’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Help . . . how?”
“Andreas takes them to the meeting place. They make the exchange. And once the kids are back with Andreas, the inmates cuff Blaine.”
Hamilton was quiet like he was chewing on the idea. “That might actually work. Especially since some of these guys are probably itching for a way to redeem themselves.” He scowled, and he still didn’t seem quite convinced. “But what about Blaine’s father? If we let him in on this, there’s a damn good chance he might side with his son. If we don’t let him in, he’s potentially caught in a crossfire.”
Darren shifted his weight, and his lips tightened. “Fuck.”
“I say we tell him,” I said.
They both turned to me.
“If we don’t, the others are liable to say something on the way to the meeting anyway. He’s been a cop long enough to know how dangerous it is for a hostage exchange to go south, and he’s not going to want his son to get killed.” I paused. “It might not even be a bad idea to tell him there’s a sniper trained on Blaine. Given the choice between watching his son die or go to jail, he probably won’t blow it.”
“It’s still a gamble,” Hamilton said. “As it is, you’ll be the only one on the ground and you can barely walk. If there’s some kind of nonverbal thing going between father and son—some signal for Blaine to shoot you—there’s no guarantee you’ll see it.” He gestured at my fucked-up ankle. “And you sure as hell won’t be able to move fast enough to get away.”
“I don’t think there are a lot of guarantees at all right now,” I said. “Except that if I don’t hand off someone to Blaine, my kids are . . .” I couldn’t even say it. “There’s going to be a certain amount of risk no matter what. Sending in two cops like Darren suggested, and not keeping Blaine’s father in the dark? That seems like the closest thing to a safe bet we’re ever going to find.”
Hamilton’s brow pinched, and he was silent for a long, long time. Finally, he sighed. “All right. I’ll get on the horn with the warden and see what I can do about getting some fake pardons written up. You two get down to the prison and find us a couple of inmates who want to shave some time off their sentences.”
I nodded as adrenaline surged through me. This was a risk, but it was something. Better than sitting back and hoping for a miracle.
“How much negotiating power do we have?” Darren asked. “Some of these guys are in for ten-plus years.”
Hamilton’s eyes flicked back and forth between us. “You get two men to agree to our terms, and I’ll get a judge to sign off on theirs.” He pointed at the door. “Go make it happen.”
We had twenty-four hours.
Blaine had called this morning with his deadline, and despite Andreas growling that we needed more time, the asshole had put his foot down. So now we had twenty-four hours to choose dirty cops who would be likeliest to back us up in the field, to inform Rory Folsom of what his son was doing and convince him to back us up, and to figure out something—anything—that could increase Andreas’s odds of surviving the upcoming confrontation. Any scenario including hostages carried extra levels of risk with it, and with Blaine as off the rails as he already was, there were no guarantees moving forward. Hell, he’d shot his partner in cold blood. Officer May was in the ICU, his chances wavering at fifty-fifty. Who was to say that Blaine wouldn’t just get Andreas in his sights and gun him down before we could even make an exchange?
Cold sweat broke out across my forehead. I pushed my chair back from the conference table and rubbed my hands over my eyes, the words on the file I’d been going over scrambled by the image of Andreas taking a bullet to the head. Jesus Christ. I thought I was going to lose my lunch, not that I could remember eating one. Marcy had brought in sandwiches, again, and I was sure I’d choked one down, but . . .
Andreas grabbed my shoulder. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I just . . . give me a minute, I’ll be right back.”
“Take as long as you need.”
The fucked-up thing was, I could tell that he meant it. If it turned out I needed half an hour, the rest of the day—fuck, the rest of the night too—he’d understand. I could see it in his eyes, so exhausted, their light as sallow as his skin and yet, somehow, still compassionate. He would give me time he’d never give himself without a second thought. It made my heart feel like it was slowly being ripped out of my chest, the fruitless urge to make him feel better, to assure him that things were going to work out. I nodded again, needing air, needing space, and got up from the table. Paula and Officer Garland didn’t even look up, too engaged in their search for the right candidates to help with our sting. Which was what I should be doing, but . . .
I took the elevator down, stumbled out into the parking garage, and sat on the first step of the concrete staircase that I could have used to get down here but didn’t trust my legs to right now. I took a few deep breaths of the slightly ashy air, grimaced, then realized I was sitting right next to the building’s smoking zone. And Schneidmiller was there too, looking at me like I was fouling the atmosphere worse than his cigarette. Great. Time to move.
I pushed back to my feet, but Schneidmiller was already stubbing out his cigarette and creeping into my space. “So, you’re pickin’ through the list of guys you helped put away, huh?”
“Can’t hide anything from you,” I deadpanned. “This is why you’re such a great detective. I’ve got to—”
“You should go with Barry Gronkowski.”
I frowned. “Who is—” But wait, no, I was remembering the file now. Gronkowski was
a cop on the periphery of the mess with Trent and the mayor, a man whose biggest flaw had been turning the other way and letting things happen rather than actively facilitating them. He’d been given one of the lightest sentences, only five years. “That doesn’t make sense. He’ll be out in under a decade, why would he want to risk his life to help us take down Blaine?”
“He’s got a teenage daughter with cystic fibrosis.”
I shrugged, uncomprehending.
Schneidmiller sighed. “Her lungs don’t work, okay? She’s already had one transplant but her body rejected it; she’s been in and out of the hospital for months. The wife is overwhelmed, doing what she can between having to work and taking care of their kid, but it’s tough. There’s no telling how long she’s gonna last. Trust me, Barry would do anything to get a reduced sentence if it means spending more time with his daughter before she goes.”
“How do you know this?”
“I go over to their house once a week to help out. Ross takes another day. We’ve known Barry since the academy.” Schneidmiller closed the distance between us. “Actions have consequences, Corliss. These are the ripples from what you and your partner did. You got a kid who might kick off any day wishing she could see her dad, you got a freak like Blaine taking it out on Ruffner’s own children . . . What do you think of your handiwork now, huh? Still worth it?”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure half of the time anymore, but no way would I admit that here. “Nobody put a gun to Gronkowksi’s head and made him go along with it. He chose to break the law, to abuse his authority, to stand by and watch while people did drug deals that led to God knows how many ripples of their own. So yeah. It sucks, but it’s worth it.”
Schneidmiller nodded reluctantly. “Maybe so.”
“Thanks for the advice.” I headed back toward the elevator, and this time he let me leave.
It was officially a cold day in Hell if I was actually listening to Schneidmiller. On the other hand, we needed people with a strong reason to want to work with us and evidence that they weren’t completely morally bankrupt, and this guy seemed to have that. I walked back into the conference room with a little more energy and pushed files out of the way until I found his. “This guy.”