by Marla Monroe
Chapter Twenty
Jack and Freak rode up behind Reaper and Slick into the gravel drive of the house they’d been to before. This time, there were three or four more men outside walking around. Jack could see the bulges of their guns beneath their jackets. Freak was carrying, too. He wasn’t going in this unarmed. Once the cops showed up, there was no telling what would happen. Freak told him to give himself up and lie on the floor with his hands on his head and his legs spread. It was the best way not to get shot.
They walked into the house, through the kitchen, and into the back room once again. This time there were almost twice as many men in attendance as before. Jack didn’t have a good feeling about it. Someone was going to get hurt.
“You made a good drop last time. I’m impressed. I think we can do business on a regular basis,” the leader said.
Reaper smiled and nodded. “Good. This is Jack and Freak. They’re going to be handling this end of the business for me. You good with that?”
“Yeah, as long as you’re vouching for them. I’ll hold you responsible for any problems.”
“There won’t be. They do what I say,” Reaper told him.
“Okay, the next run is for next week. I’ll meet with you two Wednesday same time and place next week to go over the particulars,” he said.
“What about the money?” Reaper asked.
“Got it for you right here.” He opened a duffle bag to show them stacks of twenties.
Reaper grabbed a couple of them and flipped through them then put them back.
“Looks good to me,” Reaper said and held his hand out for the money.
The other man hefted the bag and tossed it at him. He caught it at the same time that someone yelled, “Police.”
The entire place went crazy with guns firing and people cursing. Jack went down on the floor with his hands behind his head. Someone fell on him. He looked over and recognized Freak. He’d been shot. Jack rolled over and looked for the bullet wound and then, finding it, applied pressure. All around him, people continued to yell and curse. Finally, someone pointed a gun at him and told him to eat dirt.
“I’ll do it when you get someone to hold pressure on this wound. He’s going to die if someone doesn’t help him,” he yelled.
The man spoke into a mouthpiece, and someone ran up and took over holding pressure. Jack immediately resumed the position with his hands behind his head and his legs spread. Someone frisked him then applied ties to his hands behind his back. They pulled him up and he could see paramedics working on Freak. He hoped he made it. He hoped he would see him again, too.
They loaded him in the back of a police car with Reaper and Slick, the three highest-ranking men in The Devil’s gang. Reaper was cursing, and Slick was telling everyone and anyone who walked past that he wanted to talk to someone about a deal. Jack ignored both of them and hoped that Nina was okay. Freak had said he told them to watch out for her. He only hoped they had. He didn’t want her processed like a criminal and spending even a moment in jail. She was innocent in all of it. He wasn’t so innocent. Even if he had walked away three years earlier, he wasn’t innocent.
* * * *
Nina knew better than to go outside the hotel room. She’d packed all her things and was ready to run if the need came up. There were several bikes with keys in them if she was brave enough to try to ride one. She had one picked out that was smaller than the others. She thought she might be able to handle it. She’d been watching Jack with his and thought she had the directions down.
She really didn’t think he was going to come back. She had a bad feeling. Either he was going to get killed and leave her that way or he was going to leave her another way. The lovemaking had been too sweet the night before. “I love you.” She had to have misunderstood him. Or, she had made it up in her head, needing to hear it.
Someone knocked on her door. She looked through the peep hole. It was Crystal. She debated on letting her in and then decided it would be okay. She opened the door, and the other woman smiled and walked in.
“I wanted to check on your arm. It may need another bandage,” she said.
“Thanks, but I think it’s fine. Maybe tonight if you don’t mind coming to check on me later,” Nina told her.
“No problem. Are you okay other than that? You seemed sort of out of it last night. I was worried about you.”
“Thanks, I’m fine. I was just a little upset over what had happened. I don’t do well around blood,” she told her.
“Well, if you want to talk. I’m here,” Crystal said.
She opened the door to leave, and someone rushed in with a gun and yelled at them to get on the ground. Nina heard shouting and ear-splintering pops up and down the hotel. She got on the floor and followed the directions of the police. She sighed and smiled. Eventually someone would listen to her when she told them she’d been kidnapped.
They strapped some kind of plastic tie around her wrists and pulled it tight. She would have bruises from it, she thought but wasn’t upset. She was getting out of this. Jack had been right. Maybe this is what he’d arranged. Maybe he planned for them to come while he was gone, and that was what it had all been about. How had he managed it, though? Someone had been with them all the time, if not Freak then one of the others.
It didn’t matter. It was all going to be over soon. She waited in the back of the police cruiser along with Crystal and one other woman. Crystal was crying. Nina just looked out the side window as they rounded up all the men and stuck them in a van of sorts. Someone was on the ground, not moving. She didn’t know who it was but wished it were either Slick or Reaper even though she knew they were gone with Jack and Freak.
At the police station she was sequestered in a small room by herself after having given someone her statement. They’d made her go over it time and again until she’d finally sworn at them. Then they’d escorted her to this room and told someone would be with her shortly. Someone gave her a glass of water, but she was locked in the room. Finally, after at least an hour, someone came in the room and asked her for her name.
“Nina Scott,” she told him.
“Do you know a Jack Montgomery?” he asked.
“Yes, he’s my next-door neighbor.”
“Did he kidnap you and make you ride with the gang called ‘The Devils?’”
“No, he came to rescue me, but they took both of us.”
“You could have left anytime you wanted to, right?” the man asked.
“No, they threatened him with hurting me and me with hurting him. They said if I got away they would hunt me down and—and do things to me.”
“What sort of things?” the man asked.
“I don’t know. I just know I was scared.” She shivered and hugged herself.
“What happened to your arm?” he asked.
“We were at a club, and someone started a fight, and I got hit with a bottle.”
“Ma’am.” He slid a piece of paper across the table to her. “This is an affidavit that Jack Montgomery kidnapped you. Sign this and you can go home.” He clicked a pen and handed it to her.
She shook her head. “I’m not signing that. He didn’t kidnap me.”
There was a knock at the door and another man came in, bent over and whispered into the first man’s ear. He looked at her then nodded at the other man and sighed.
“I’m going to let you go now. You should see a doctor about your arm. I have your original statement. If we need anything, will you be at the address on your paperwork?”
“Yes. I will.”
“We might need your testimony to put some of these guys away. Will you be willing to testify?”
“Against anyone but Jack and Freak,” she said.
The man laughed and shook his head. “You’re free to go.”
He opened the door for her, and standing outside was Charlotte, looking like she was lost. When they saw each other, they both burst into tears and hugged each other.
“I was scared I’d never see
you again,” Charlotte was saying.
“Me, too,” Nina said. She noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She turned to look, and there was Reaper staring straight at her.
If Reaper was there, then Jack was, too. And Freak. She grabbed Charlotte and held her still for a moment. “I need to ask the officer something. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
Nina ran back to the little room and looked around for one of the men who’d been in her room. She couldn’t find them. She grabbed the first man who walked by in a T-shirt that said ATF.
“Please can you tell me if Jack Montgomery or Freak is here?”
“Freak is at the hospital. I don’t know if he made it or not. Jack is being processed. You can’t see him.”
“What hospital is Freak at?” she asked.
“Are you family?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then I can’t tell you.” The man walked off, leaving her wondering how to find either one of the men.
She finally returned to where she left Charlotte to find the woman flirting with one of the officers. Nina smiled. Nothing had changed while she was gone—except maybe her.
She let Charlotte drive her to a clinic to get her arm checked out and a check-up in general. They cleaned her wound but couldn’t stitch it as it had been too long, so they applied butterflies and dressed it again, putting her on a strong antibiotic. They suggested she see a psychiatrist for post-traumatic stress in case she started to have flashbacks or whatever else they had said. She smiled and nodded.
As soon as they were checked out, she asked Charlotte to take her home.
“Don’t you want to come stay with me for a few days until you’ve gotten back in the swing of things?”
“Thanks, Charlotte. I really appreciate it, but I need to go home. I need my own things around me.”
“Then how about I come stay with you for a few days?” she asked.
“Thanks, but I’m fine. I need to get back to my usual routine. I’ve got to see about my job—if I still have one.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Jack made sure everything was taken care of before he came after you.”
“What do you mean?” Nina asked, looking over at her friend.
Two hours later, Charlotte pulled into Nina’s drive and turned to look at her.
“It’s a long story.”
“I guess you better come in for coffee. Do you still have a key to my house? Mine is in my backpack and I don’t know where that ended up,” Nina told her.
“Got it right here.” She handed the key to Nina.
Nina unlocked the house and stepped inside. Everything looked the same. She was different, but everything else was the same. She started the coffee and sat at the bar with Charlotte.
“See, as soon as Jack found out you had been taken, he made arrangements with the police somehow to get you out, but he had to help them first. Something about drugs and guns and needing information on the gang that had you.”
“So you knew what was going on?” she asked.
“Some of it, but not all of it. He only told me enough to keep me from causing problems by going to the police and reporting you missing.”
“Jack knew all this time that he was getting me out, and he didn’t tell me how or when. He just kept telling me to trust him.” Nina closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She was furious with him. He’d planned everything and didn’t tell her any of it. He let her be scared of Reaper and Freak and Slick, knowing she was going to be okay. The bastard deserved to go to jail. She should have signed that paper after all, she thought.
“Nina? Are you okay?” Charlotte asked.
“Yeah, just pissed that he let me think I was in danger.”
“Oh, you were in danger all right. So was Jack. The police weren’t going to be helping at all. They wanted him to get you out and then testify against them.”
“Then why did they come to the hotel, and how did they know I was there?”
“That wasn’t the police. It was the ATF, you know, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms,” Charlotte said.
“Then they probably do think Jack was part of all of it,” Nina said.
“Yeah, I tried telling everyone that he wasn’t with them, that he had a deal with the police, but no one would listen to me. I was just glad they let you go.”
“I need to talk to someone and let them know he’s not a part of it.”
Nina dug in her pocket for the card they’d given her if she thought of anything to add to her statement. She would call and make sure they knew that Jack had been working for the police.
Thirty minutes later, she hung up the phone after talking to no less than five different people. They didn’t know where Jack was. He’d been released and was fine when he left, other than that, they didn’t know anything. No, they still wouldn’t release what hospital Freak was in. Nina slammed the phone down and ran a hand through her hair.
“Who is this Freak guy, and why are you checking on him?” Charlotte asked.
“He was one of the gang, but he was nice to me when the others wanted to hurt me. He made sure I was okay during one of the fights that we ended up in. Oh, God, Charlotte, it was terrible.”
Nina realized she didn’t want to go over any of it for a long time. She’d had to recount it over and over to the police, and she just wanted to forget all about it for now. All that bothered her now was that Jack had been released and hadn’t tried to contact her or make sure she’d been taken care of. And where was he?
She finally talked Charlotte into leaving, and she took a long, hot shower followed by a relaxing bath before going to bed. It had been a long day that she still couldn’t quite process.
* * * *
Jack paced the surgery waiting room along with several ATF detectives. Freak—no, Baxter Cooley—had been in surgery for nearly four hours and still no word. The bullet wound to his upper chest had nicked a lung and taken out an artery. He’d lost a lot of blood, and they weren’t giving him great odds of making it.
After another hour and a half, the surgeon came out to talk to them. He looked grim, and at first, Jack thought he was going to tell them they’d lost Baxter.
“Okay, he’s made it through surgery, so his odds have gone up some, but not a lot. He still has to make it through the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.” The surgeon held up his hands when the detectives started asking questions.
“Hold on and let me finish, then I’ll answer your questions. He has a punctured lung that we repaired. He lost a lot of blood from the artery he lost. It wasn’t a major artery so he can live without it, and we got the bleeding stopped. There was some damage internally where the bullet ricocheted off a rib. We think we got all of it repaired, but time will tell. His odds right now are up to fifty-fifty.” He swallowed and sighed. “Okay, what did you want to know?”
He fielded their questions for another fifteen minutes then waved them off and returned to the surgery suite. He’d told them Baxter would be in ICU in the next thirty to forty-five minutes and the nurse would come out and let two people in for five minutes. Then they could rotate through during visiting hours.
Jack knew he wouldn’t be able to go back with the first wave so he decided to head home and get some rest. He checked his watch. Damn, it was two a.m. He’d get home around four. He was expected back at the station by eight a.m. He’d do better to grab a hotel room for the rest of the night. Then he could get at least a few hours sleep before he had to be anywhere.
His thoughts turned to Nina and wondered how she was coping with being home. He wanted to call her, but he wasn’t going to wake her up. He would call her in the morning before he went to the precinct. Jack hoped she was doing all right. He had made sure she wasn’t processed and had gotten to go home before he’d gone to the hospital to see about Baxter. She would be pissed with him for not seeing about her, but they hadn’t wanted Reaper to know he wasn’t going to jail, not until after the trial. Charlott
e would have been there to pick her up so she had a way to go home. It had been one of the first things he had done once they got it straight that he was working with the ATF. He told them she was innocent and called Charlotte to come pick her up.
Jack checked his bike out of impound with the forms they had given him then found a cheap hotel for the night. All he needed was a clean bed and bathroom. He was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the bed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Nina woke up at six the next morning for some odd reason. She was wide awake, though she’d only had about five hours of sleep. She checked her cell phone, but there were no messages other than one from Charlotte telling her to call her at work when she woke up. Where was Jack?
After dressing and a breakfast of dried toast that Nina had to choke down, she decided to go into work and talk to her boss to see where she was with her job. Charlotte had assured her he’d taken care of it, but she needed to hear it herself and arrange for the next two days off to get back into the real world before she went back to work on Monday.
She met with her boss first thing that morning, and he assured her that her job was still there waiting on her. She could take the rest of the week off and have the next week as well if she wanted. She found out that no one had been told about what she was doing, only that she was in the middle of an important investigation as a witness and wouldn’t be at work for a few weeks. Her boss didn’t ask any questions, for which she was grateful. She didn’t want anyone to know where she’d been.
Charlotte met her in the break room and hugged her all over again as if she hadn’t just seen her the night before.
“I’m so glad you’re home. I’ve missed you and been so worried. Jack swore me to secrecy. I wasn’t supposed to have any contact with the police while you were gone. I was so afraid you would get hurt or even killed and I’d never know.”