The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  42

  Detective Matt Burke

  Burke sat at the kitchen table, sipping his coffee while doing his best not to look at the stack of overdue reminders piled up across from him. Christmas was right around the corner, and he knew, more than anything, his daughter wanted a new laptop to take with her to State the next year.

  A flash of milky white eyes, staring up from the bottom of a sump pit, danced through his head, and Burke squinted his own. Another problem he had to deal with. Should’ve just investigated the slaughterhouse by himself, because by that point, Corley would undoubtedly be suspicious.

  I’ll tell him I didn’t see it on the first sweep. A lame excuse, but all he had, unless he decided to up and let a body rot in a sump pit without reporting it. If that were his daughter, he’d turn psychotic over a cop not reporting it.

  Katy plopped into the chair beside him, her coffee sloshing over the side of her cup. “Ouch! Dammit!” She licked the fallen drops off her hand, before slurping her drink.

  Not the most refined young lady he’d ever met, but his daughter's other traits easily made up for her lack of grace. It chapped his ass, sometimes, to think she could look so much like her mom, with her long, pin-straight locks of red hair and those deep-cut blue eyes, and still be the most beautiful girl on the planet.

  “Do you ever smile?” A tip of her head captured Burke’s attention and he looked up. “I swear, I think I was ten, the last time I saw you smile.” Reaching across, she poked at his cheeks, lifting them into a smile, to which he eventually surrendered. “It’s like old age is wearing down the muscles in your cheeks.”

  He chuckled and set his hand atop of hers, her moist skin beneath his palm reminding him she’d just licked it. “Only you could make this old geezer laugh, kiddo.”

  The smile on her face withered. “Daddy? Are you going to be okay when I go away next year?”

  Not even tightening his brows could erase the incredulous look that must’ve been plastered to his face. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

  She shrugged and took another sip of coffee, keeping her gaze cast away. “I don’t know, I just worry about you, sometimes. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you up there.”

  “Have the time of your life? Make memories you won’t forget? C’mon, we talked about this.”

  “I know, but … you’ll be in this house. By yourself.”

  “What?” Hands splayed, Burke motioned to himself. “You think I can’t get a date with all this goin’ on?”

  “I wish you would!” she said on a laugh. “Jesus, it’d make me feel better.” Resting her chin against her palm, she glanced toward the bills and back. “Daddy, maybe you should consider a smaller place. Like an apartment, or something. You could move to a nicer part of the city, and—”

  “Katy, I’m not moving you out of the house you were born in.” He shook his head. “I got some things coming up. I’ll work it out. Might even be able to get ya that laptop you’ve been wanting.”

  Her shoulders slumped, and she slid her hands underneath the table, where they likely fidgeted, something she always did when about to tell him something he didn’t want to hear. “You’ve been a great dad. You’ve always worked so hard to give me the best things. But I don’t need you to put yourself in a bad place for me. I don’t need a fancy laptop, or the car, or … even this house. You’re my home.” Thank goodness she kept her gaze cast from his, or she’d have seen the split second of tears in his eyes. “Whether you live here, or in an apartment, or in a cardboard box on the streets, you’ve always been home.” Her lashes fluttered like she’d tried to hold back tears, too. “If something happens to you while I’m away, I don’t know what I’ll do. You’re all I have left.”

  His mind played out the scenario of protecting a bunch of untrustworthy thugs who’d put a bullet in him without thinking twice. Just didn’t seem right. Yeah, Corley could be a major pain in his ass, but if something ever happened to him, all the boys at the station would see to it that Katy was looked after, just like he’d done with Willis’s boy.

  The men he’d offered to protect, though—they wouldn’t give a damn about her, and in reality, he was putting her more at risk by taking the job.

  He’d have to back out. If he had to bust his ass the right way and struggle a little bit along the way, so be it. Nothing was more important than Katy. No quick buck was worth the danger to her.

  Choking back the tears itching to fall, Burke cleared his throat and cupped his daughter’s face. “In a thousand lifetimes, I’ll have never deserved you, kid.”

  43

  Lucy

  I lay in bed, curled up next to Jase, flipping through pictures on my camera. He’d wanted to see the video of the woman’s body again, but I'd had to look away while he watched it. A little over a month had somehow slipped past since that night, but the sounds of my shaky breaths in the clip had been enough to send me back into that place, crouched beneath the boiler and scared shitless.

  “Who’s this?” he asked, drawing my attention back to the camera.

  “Craig. One of my best friends.”

  “You two ever fuck?”

  A burst of laughter, tinged with a bit of disgust, flew from my chest. “Absolutely not. You’d probably have an easier time getting him into bed. Not that I ever tried.”

  “And this?”

  He flipped to Jolana, with her tits half hanging out of a plunging V-neck dress and high black hair, dressed as Elvira for Halloween.

  “Jolana. Viktor’s girlfriend. We met on campus a few years back.”

  “She ever talk about him? Seventh Circle?”

  I shook my head. “I had no idea he was involved until I saw the tattoo on him. Is he the one who …” Killed your family?

  “No. Wasn’t him, I guess.” Disappointment clung to his words. Still staring toward her picture, he asked, “What’s her story?”

  “She’s a med student.”

  “She doesn’t look like a med student to me.”

  His comment stirred a chuckle in my throat, and I looked up at him. “What? You can’t picture her as a hot doctor someday, leaning into you with those tits as she cups your balls and makes you cough?”

  “Damn … you put it that way.”

  I playfully punched his arm, and he set the camera down and dove for my neck, nipping at my throat as his hands wandered between my thighs.

  “You’re the only one who can cup my balls, baby.”

  Smiling, I kissed him.

  “Why are all your shots taken on the ground?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You take some sick shots, but they’re all at ground level. What’s the point of breaking into buildings, if you’re not going to check out the top floors? You miss out on the best shots of the city.”

  Part of me bristled at his words, while another part wanted to scroll through the images again to see if it was as obvious as he made it out to be. I shrugged, sliding back from him as my walls shot up around me again. “Just how I shoot.”

  Gripping my elbow, he stopped my sneaking away. “Come on. Let’s do something crazy.” He crawled out of the bed, giving a nice view of his naked ass, before it disappeared into his jeans as he tugged them over his hips.

  Something crazy to Jase undoubtedly meant something entirely different to me, but I couldn’t back out or risk proving I was too scared for a guy like him. “Like what?”

  He didn’t answer, but nabbed my camera, his mask, and keys from the table beside the window, and tossed me my jeans and black T-shirt.

  Full of confusion, I slid the jeans over my hips and tugged the Tee over my head, catching the hunger in his eyes as my breasts disappeared behind the fabric. Even more curious when he tossed my scarf back to me, I followed him out of the bedroom.

  “It’s a surprise,” he said. No smile. No frown. No indication at all if it was a good surprise, or a bad one.

  Still, I followed him, down the stairs to the car, where I l
et him open the passenger door. As I climbed inside, he rounded the vehicle and fell into the driver’s seat.

  “Is this to blindfold me?” I held up my scarf, tipping my head to get his attention.

  He didn’t bother to look my way, but those dimples betrayed his smile. “Or tie you up with.”

  “You’re taking me somewhere to tie me up?” I dropped the scarf into my lap. “Is there something wrong with the bed?”

  Snickering, he pulled the car out of the parking lot and turned onto Washington Boulevard.

  Dusk loomed overhead, giving the streets an orange-pink glow. We zoomed along, the buildings passing in a blur, until we hit Woodward, past Campus Martius Park. He turned on John R and parked on the side street across from one of the tallest buildings in the area—The Metropolitan. It’d been abandoned for years, but stood majestic as ever with its neo-gothic architecture, wedged between two large buildings that flanked it on either side, in what had been dubbed the Skyscraper Graveyard of the city.

  “The Metro?”

  “Ever been inside?” He reached over me to the glove compartment and pulled two flashlights, handing one of them to me.

  “No. Not yet.”

  He lifted his chin as we exited the vehicle. “C’mon. The alley will be swarming with rats soon.”

  “Swarming?” I gulped and upped my pace.

  Darkness closed in quickly, and in spite of all the construction barrels and barricades, the workers had already gone home for the night. We crossed the street and slipped down an alley between the buildings, where broken out windows gave access to the first floor.

  Hoisting me up, Jase pushed against the soles of my shoes, until I reached the window frame and climbed inside, careful to avoid the sharp tines of glass sticking up. My boots hit the gravely floor, and before I could turn, he’d already jumped the wall and had begun climbing inside.

  Dust kicked up as his boots hit the concrete, and he put his finger to his mouth.

  “You cut yourself?” I twisted around to check it out, but he shook his head.

  “Just a scratch.” He leaned forward, kissing me before I had the chance to see his finger. “C’mon. Fire escapes are tied up outside. Gotta go one flight up.”

  His words rumbled against my lips, full of energy and excitement. I could almost feel the beat of adrenaline pumping through him. Admittedly, I was both excited and scared shitless at what he had planned. From what I’d come to know of Warhawk and his Vigilante crew, they did some scary stuff. Stuff I couldn’t even look at because it turned my stomach.

  I followed behind, as he led me up the staircase one flight to the second floor. “Why not just take the inside stairs?”

  Crossing over debris, rotted wood and tipped furniture, we stopped at a window. He opened it and climbed out onto the fire escape, smiling back at me. “The outside ones are more fun.”

  I clambered out through the window behind him, pausing as he stood with one hand on the ladder, and he gave a nudge of his head, urging me up the stairs.

  An upward glance showed multiple stories up, and I began my ascent with a foot on the rickety step. At the click of the camera, I glanced over my shoulder and found the lens aimed at my ass as Jase took shots of me from below.

  “You’re taking pictures of my ass? With my camera?”

  “Someday, you’ll look back on these and appreciate what a fine-looking ass you had.”

  “Had?” I continued my climb. “I’ll have you know, I work hard for this ass, and I intend to keep working hard for it.”

  “And I’ll keep working hard for a piece of it.” He reached up and bit my cheek, the pinch of pain forcing a yelp out of me, and I hustled up the remaining steps until I'd reached the landing of the second flight.

  Eight stories up, and the air grew thinner. That or my nerves had begun to clamp around my chest, as I peered down at the dark alley below.

  Oh, Jesus, don’t look, don’t look.

  “Through the window,” Jase said behind me. “Should be broken out.”

  It was, thank God, and I climbed inside, turning in time to take the camera from him.

  He slid the mask over his face. “I got a good angle for you.”

  Lifting my camera, I aimed only a second before he swung himself over the edge of the railing. My heart leaped into my throat, as he dangled from the edge of the escape, eight stories up from the bottom.

  “Jase!” A rush of panic shot through my veins, and I damn near fell out the window trying to reach for him on reflex. Nausea bubbled in my stomach when I was forced to look down. “Are you fucking insane?”

  “Take your shot, Sparrow.”

  Hands trembling, I could hardly stomach the view, as I climbed back out onto the landing and angled the camera downward. Vomit burned my throat, and yet, I clicked away.

  One of his hands let go, and my stomach lurched again, as he single-handedly hung from the iron bars of the landing.

  “Enough of this. I’m not taking anymore. You’re crazy.” I stepped back through the window into the building.

  He finally hoisted himself up, climbing back over the railing, until he was safely on the landing again.

  As he climbed in behind me, I gave a sharp punch to his chest. “You damn near gave me a heart attack!”

  “What scared you more?” His hand skated around my waist, and he wedged his masked face against my throat, breathing hard. “Me falling? Or knowing you’d never do it yourself?”

  “I’m afraid of heights. Thanks.” I spun around to walk away and felt a grip to my arm that had me squirming against his clutch. By some miracle, I managed to break from his iron grasp and ran across the room to the stairs.

  Jase trailed behind me, still wearing the mask, which only lit my blood with excitement as he chased me up the stairs. Rounding each floor, I giggled, a tickle of exhilaration keeping me going, and my anger from before dissipated.

  Reaching the top floor, I burst through the doors and came to a halt on the roof. Taking in how the edge of the city, over the top of the railing, faded into miles of blackness beyond, I took a few steps backward.

  Jase stalked toward me and lifted the mask to the top of his head, camera aimed at me as he took shot after shot.

  I raised my hand to block my face, losing sight of how close he’d gotten, but he knocked it out of the way, forcing me back against the ornate concrete wall behind me.

  His thumb traced the edge of my jaw. “Don’t hide that beautiful face.”

  “I hate my scar.” I instinctively rubbed the raised skin on my forehead and glanced up to see his face had turned serious.

  Strapping the camera over his head, he leaned in, his palm sliding across my nape, and kissed the edge of my eye. “Don’t ever be ashamed of your scars.” His lips covered mine in a kiss so tender and sweet, he stole my breath as he cupped my face.

  From my coat pocket, he slid out the black scarf, and I recoiled as he lifted it toward me. “Trust me,” he said, as he tied it over my eyes.

  My body trembled in pitch blackness, and the tug at my wrist incited a wave of panic that had me tugging back. “No! I can’t.”

  “That’s what your head wants you to believe, Lucy. That you can’t. Just try. How can you appreciate life, if you’ve never walked the edge and looked down?”

  My God, his words rang true. I’d grown to loathe everything about my life. Aside from scaling a few fences into abandoned buildings, I’d never really taken a risk.

  Biting my lip, I contemplated the alternative—going home and missing the opportunity to see the world from a different angle, through a different lens.

  I reached out my hand and allowed him to guide me forward.

  When we came to a stop, he lifted the blindfold, and paralyzed by the view, I let out a gasp.

  At the edge of the building, the lights of Washington Boulevard made for a yellow-tinged backdrop against the dark sky, like an art-deco painting, and in the distance, Book Tower set the landmark, standing tall and proud agai
nst the surrounding buildings.

  With Jase beside me, I looked out over the city, lit with an energy and life that blanketed the destruction in a warm glow.

  “What made you get into photography?” he asked.

  “At first, it was just a way of keeping my mind occupied. Then my friend, Craig, the guy who runs the Muckraker, had me shoot for some article he wrote up about the Packard Plant. I was scared, at first, walking through those dark parts of the building and the really rundown spots, but I was so fascinated at the same time. Photography forced me to see the beautiful parts of destruction.” I glanced to the side. “You?”

  “Once, when I was maybe seven years old, my grandmother gave me a camera for my birthday. Nothin’ fancy. Just an old camera with a zoom lens. I took pictures of everything. Bugs, trees. I pretty much shot anything that got in my way.” He chuckled, resting his elbows on the ledge of the building. “So, this one day, I’m out, trying to get a shot of a bird that’d landed on the fence in our backyard. My mom came out of the house and knelt beside me.” His jaw shifted as he stared off. “She showed me some tricks. Some angles. I later found out she was actually a damn good photographer.” He stood upright, palms flat on the ledge. “I’ve been photographing this city ever since.”

  “Which is your favorite building?”

  “Broderick. It’s where I go when shit doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Why Broderick in particular?” I asked.

  “It’s the one I almost jumped.” He didn’t look at me, kept his eyes cast toward the skyline. “I was sitting at the top of Broderick Tower with my brother about six years back. Both of us had been drinking, fucking high as the birds and crazy. He asked me if I wanted to jump. Just forget all the bad shit and take a leap.” His gaze fell to the camera, where he toyed with the lens. “See, Reed, he had some bad shit go down in his life. Real bad. I did, too, but Reed was just … lost. So there we sat, at the edge of the Tower, laughing about who’d hit first.” The corner of his lips kicked up to a half smile. “Reed was a skinny bastard, but I told him he was so full of shit all the time, he’d probably hit the pavement before I did. It was when I was sitting there, staring down at Woodward Avenue and all those people, buzzing below like they had somewhere to be, I decided I still wanted to be a part of that.” At my quiet nod, he continued, “Broderick is a reminder that I almost breached the edge, but didn’t. I changed my mind.” He stared off for a moment, as if lost in thought, before his lips stretched with a smile and he glanced down at me. “I remembered what you said to me that day. You told me all I had to do was change my mind, and I could change my fate. So I did.”