Committed

by Sidney Bristol

  “I got it. Thanks, man.”

  There was always hope. Without it, what was the point of going on?

  Emilio paced the living room.

  This was not good. Not good at all.

  The house was silent and dark, just the way he liked it. The girl had learned her lesson. She wasn’t making a peep in the closet. Which was good. He needed to think.

  The bodies he’d left hadn’t sent the message he wanted them to, and now he didn’t just have the DEA on his case, he had small-time crooks wanting to make a name for themselves.

  Emilio wouldn’t be the feather in their cap, but he didn’t have the resources to stay hidden for long.

  His shoes clicked on the tiles Valentina had picked out, a constant reminder of everything he’d lost. He could rebuild. Find another supplier, another wife.

  He needed more money, though. His emergency fund was swiftly drying up, and his accounts were frozen, thanks to the fucking feds.

  The girl.

  She had to have cash, or a debit card. Something.

  Where had he left her purse?

  He had to go outside to enter the garage. Her things were tossed on the ground, the contents of her purse spilled out. But there was a clutch-like wallet in the mix. He opened it and flipped through what she had. A few small bills—and debit cards.

  The cards were even in their little sleeves, and written on the outside were four digits in a looping, graceful script.

  “Stupid cunt.” He snorted.

  Everyone knew you weren’t supposed to do that, and yet here was his prize.

  Emilio pocketed the card, took a deep breath, and got in his latest acquisition, a blue Honda with heated and cooled seats. He’d need to lose the car after this, which was a shame. It was a nice ride.

  He didn’t want to leave the house for long. The girl, Poppy, was spirited and smart. If he wasn’t careful, she’d try to get away again. It had been fun to let her think she might escape once, but twice was too much. He was caught between a rock and a hard place. He couldn’t go to the banks close to the house. The feds would be monitoring her accounts, and the moment he used them it would give away his position. It was a stupid move.

  He’d have to take a chance and leave her.

  Emilio drove for half an hour, the windows down, humming to the music. There was something calming about driving with no specific destination in mind. If he hadn’t fallen in with a gang at a young age he might have become a truck driver. The moving around and the constant change of scenery would have given him a large pool of potential victims. It wouldn’t have been a bad life, but it wasn’t the one he’d chosen.

  No, he liked the power and the money, and he wanted it back.

  The clock was already into the early morning hours before he found a bank far enough away that he wanted to stop at.

  The street was empty, lined with businesses with their windows darkened, the occasional neon sign left on through the night. There wasn’t another car on the street, just Emilio.

  He dumped the car in an alley before walking a block to the ATM. He walked up to the machine and used the mirrorlike glass to smooth back his close-cropped hair. Let the good agents suck on that.

  The machine accepted his card and the pin number cleared. Her bank account had a decent five figures, enough to give him some change to work off for a few weeks. He clicked the withdraw button, and the screen went black.

  “What the—?”

  Fuck.

  He turned his back and strode away. There was only one explanation for that: The feds had her accounts locked down. Her bank might be closed to him, but he still had an ace to play. He still had her, and she was better than any debit card.

  Emilio pulled out a phone he’d stolen and dialed the special agent’s phone.

  “Hello?” a gruff voice said over the line.

  “One ring. You must have been waiting on me.” Emilio could hear the man’s teeth grinding over the phone.

  “What do you want?” Damien spat out.

  “My money.”

  “And what do I get?”

  “Time, Agent. Your girl gets more time to live.” And he got more time to toy with her.

  “When and where?”

  This might actually work out after all. But the man had to know he wouldn’t ever see his precious “sweetness” with all her parts intact again. And he knew what to send the agent first.

  He’d pay. They’d all pay.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “You’re just giving him the briefcase and getting Poppy. That’s all you’re doing.” Gio dusted off Damien’s shoulders in case there was any lint sticking to him. His clothes were a little worse for wear. He hadn’t been home to change; he’d just haunted the office since this nightmare began. With the noise of seagulls and cars in the background, they waited by the beach to approach the location.

  He glanced at the silver case. Would Emilio stop to count the money? If he did, he’d get past the real money on top of each bundle to the paper they’d sliced and stacked to fill out the case.

  Damien’s only hope was that Emilio came ready to trade Poppy. If not, he might as well be signing her death warrant.

  “Is your comm in?”

  “Yeah. I can hear Cooper in my ear.” Damien ignored his director. It was the only way to get through this ordeal.

  Damien’s phone rang. He quickly dug it out of his pocket, expecting it to be Emilio.

  Carney’s name flashed across the screen.

  “Hey, man. Not a good time,” Damien said.

  “It’s important,” Carney replied, determination in his voice.

  “What’s up?”

  “Sidon wants to talk to you. Here.”

  There was some rustling on the line before a younger, thug-like voice said, “Hello?”

  “Sidon, what do you want?” Damien had no time for these juvenile games.

  “I want to make a deal,” the kid replied.

  There wasn’t time for this. None at all. “For what?”

  “I want my juvie record cleared. I got something you want to know.” Convenient time for the kid to turn over a new leaf.

  “Talk to Carney about it,” Damien replied. His mind wasn’t on the conversation. Not by a long shot.

  “No, I need to talk to you.”

  “Fine, what?”

  “I want my juvie record cleared first. My mamma’s going to kill me if I don’t do something.”

  “Well you should have thought about that before you decided to deal to your classmates.”

  “Man, I had no choice. This dog made me.”

  Sidon’s mother couldn’t make him walk the straight and narrow. Damien had serious doubts it was all that hard to get him to make the wrong choices.

  “It’s about Emilio Molina.”

  Damien froze. “What did you say?”

  “Emilio Molina.”

  “What do you know?” They needed every tip. Even from a juvenile delinquent like Sidon.

  “I want my juvie record cleared.”

  “God, you’re a broken record. Look, how about this? If you don’t tell me what you know, I’ll charge you with aiding and abetting a federal criminal and then you can share a cell with Emilio when I bag his ass. So you tell me, what do you want to do, Sidon? You want to play an adult’s game, I’ll treat your ass like an adult.”

  The kid’s voice rose in pitch. “Man, man, man, I ain’t trying to aid no one. I’m trying to help you.”

  Damien clenched his free hand into a fist. “Then tell me what you know.”

  “Fine. Fine. I was hanging with my boys and I saw Emilio lurking around my school. I know he’s a bad dog, but he’s also on a bunch of people’s hit list, so I followed his car. Looked to me like he was following Miss, ah, Miss Library.”

  Damien closed his eyes. Hours ago this might have helped, but not anymore. “Give the phone back to Carney.”

  “What about my record?” Sidon whined.

  “Give the phone
back to Carney.”

  The line rustled again.

  “Hey,” Carney said.

  “I’m about to meet with Emilio. Take that kid and do what you can. I might want to wring his neck later, though.”

  “I’ll handle Sidon. Be safe,” Carney replied.

  Damien ended the call, squeezing the phone so hard his knuckles popped. Gio watched him, her arms crossed over her chest. The morning breeze rustled her curls, but her face was unmoved.

  “High school kid knew Emilio was following Poppy and never told us.”

  “Don’t worry about that right now. Do you want anything to eat? I have the food your mom dropped off in the car.” Gio continued to hover. She’d been strong through this, but the strain was starting to crack even her.

  Lots of cases were tough, but nothing could prepare you for becoming the case. There weren’t a lot of rules and regulations for what to do when an agent’s loved ones became the target.

  “No. I’m going.” He stepped past her and headed toward the street.

  He crossed North Shore Drive on foot, practically a suicide mission even using the crosswalk, and entered Millennium Park. Two weeks ago he’d had one of the best dates of his life here with Poppy. Now he hoped to save her.

  Damien reached up and turned the volume on his comm down as far as it would go. He didn’t need their voices telling him what to do.

  Emilio had said to meet him in the shadow of the Bean, a large, metallic sculpture shaped like its namesake. People flocked from all around to stare at its curved surface and see their altered reflection. Even at this early hour, it would be a busy place. They had agents and officers all over the park, but there was still no way they could have eyes on every approach or exit.

  Damien strode along with the rest of the foot traffic, another man in a suit on his way someplace important.

  Was Poppy alive? What had Emilio done to her? The toxic circle of thoughts swirled around in his head, but he silenced them out of necessity. He needed a clear head to go into this situation.

  As he neared the Bean, he began scanning the crowds, looking for blond hair. He caught a glimpse of gold, but she was too short, and another was too tall.

  “Looking for me, friend?” a voice said behind him.

  Damien turned and came face-to-face with the ghost he’d spent so long chasing. “Emilio.”

  There was no blond woman with him.

  Emilio stared at him. There was no soul in those eyes, no light. Just a bone-deep evil that resonated, making Damien’s skin crawl. And Poppy had been alone with this creep.

  “Where is she?” Damien asked.

  “Safe.” Emilio’s smile was not reassuring.

  “How we doing this? I get her, you get the money.” They began strolling away from the Bean, toward less-traveled paths.

  Emilio clasped his hands behind him. He wore gloves and carried a folded newspaper, like many businessmen. “No, Agent, it doesn’t work that way. You give me the money and she gets to keep breathing.”

  “Not without something to show me she’s alive,” Damien replied. Alive and well, he prayed.

  Emilio pulled out a cell phone and clicked the screen before offering it to Damien. “Taken a few hours ago.”

  Poppy stared back at him with one eye. The other was swollen almost shut, the skin purple and puffy. Damien’s vision hazed red. He could kill this man, right now. But then he might never find her.

  “You killed my wife. Did you know that?” Emilio said.

  Damien’s blood went cold. He knew he’d shot Valentina, but she hadn’t died of the shots. She’d died of blood loss. If the shootout had been shorter, they’d have saved her, but Emilio’s escape meant they lost those precious seconds. Still the blood was on Damien’s hands.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Now, Agent, give me the money, which I will remind you, buys your girlfriend more time. I walk out of here.” Emilio turned to stare at him again. “No one follows me. And we’ll be in touch.”

  If he said no, she died.

  If he said yes, she still might die, but he’d get some more time.

  He knew that if his comm was turned up, Cooper would be telling him, No. Don’t hand off the cash. But it wasn’t his girlfriend.

  Damien handed over the briefcase. It didn’t buy him any peace of mind. Emilio exchanged it for the newspaper, saluted him, and began walking away.

  What was he now? The trash man?

  Damien turned the volume up. “Suspect is headed southwest out of the park. Do we have a visual?”

  “Visual on the suspect,” Archer replied.

  “Fuck.” Cooper’s voice was a drone in Damien’s ear. “Moana, I said don’t give it to him.”

  Damien glanced down at the newspaper.

  Gold threads stuck out one end.

  He opened it, and his heart stopped.

  Poppy’s golden hair was bundled together with a twist tie, the kind you find on a bag of bread. He touched the silken strands and his jaw moved without sound.

  Rapunzel, Rapunzel …

  A door banged in the house. Emilio had to be back. It had been silent for so long, Poppy had finally relaxed, as much as she could. Her face and neck throbbed in counterpoint to each other, while various parts of her anatomy ached and stung. Everything was starting to blur together, but the one constant was this room and the chair she’d been taped to.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Emilio yelled.

  She cringed and held perfectly still. She tried to push the pain away, but she hurt so bad. There were a hundred times in her past she’d pushed through the pain during play, but this was different. It was a constant, bone-deep pain. There was nothing she could do to make the nightmare stop.

  Don’t give up.

  Damien would come for her. Wouldn’t he? She had to hope. If she gave up, she would be accepting her fate as another of Emilio’s victims. She had to hold on to the idea that she could get away.

  I never told Damien I love him.

  Footsteps stomped toward her prison. She squeezed her eyes shut, tracking the progress of her jailer through the house.

  I’m right here with you.

  She was going stark raving mad, but the sound of Damien’s voice in her head helped calm her. She inhaled more calmly and squeezed her hands into fists.

  The door jerked open, casting a pool of light around her. She had to blink several times before she could make out Emilio’s figure leaning through the door.

  His face was an ugly shade of red, his features twisted with rage. Her heart stopped in her chest. What had happened?

  “Guess what, sweetness. He didn’t pay up, so you have to.” He flicked his knife open and took a step toward her.

  Poppy tried to open her mouth to scream, but her lungs seized and her heart felt as if it exploded inside her chest.

  Damien had failed her.

  The search for Emilio at the park was being called off. The man had faded into the crowd and escaped without so much as a foot chase. It should not have been so easy for him to get away. Even the tracker in the briefcase hadn’t helped. They’d found the case, paper, and tracker in a recycling bin at the edge of the park.

  “Tell me something good,” Damien said into the phone.

  “I’ve got something, but it’s not much,” Yamamoto replied.

  “We don’t have anything and he didn’t bring her to trade for the cash.” Damien placed his hand against his head and paced the length of his car. He shouldn’t tell Yamamoto that much. He wasn’t part of the DEA case, but fuck it. He was at his wit’s end here.

  “Valentina Molina paid cash for a house inspection several years ago. The property is not listed as belonging to her or Emilio, but the name listed with the records turns up nothing. It’s a junk social-security number.” Yamamoto rattled the information off as calmly as if he were delivering the weather or baseball scores. Damien didn’t know how the man had come by it, but he was grateful.

  “Address?”

  “Emailing it
to you now, along with the records.”

  “Thanks, I’ll keep your name out of it.”

  He hung up and activated his email app. Waiting for the messages to load was agony, but there it was.

  “Cooper,” Damien called. He quickly headed toward the heart of the staging area they’d set up for this operation. “Cooper.”

  “What?” Cooper turned from the two police offers he was speaking to, brow furrowed. Shit. It was the chief of police, Sean Helms, and a shorter man Damien knew only as Officer Lewis, who did the PR pieces on the news.

  “I’ve got a potential lead. A house Emilio’s wife Valentina purchased under an alias.” He waved his phone. It was an improvement on what Yamamoto had told him, but he needed to get Cooper to move on it.

  “Do you have an address?” Helms asked.

  Cooper slashed his hand through the air. “Where did you get this from? I have an agent in the hospital and now a hostage because of you, and I’m tired of your shit.”

  “This is a real lead.” Damien clenched his hand around the phone. He and Matías had done good work together. So what if it hadn’t been their primary case? It was still an open DEA investigation. Everyone wanted Emilio taken down. They’d just followed through on it.

  “We can send a patrol by, check it out,” Lewis suggested.

  “Here’s the address.” Damien displayed the information on the screen and handed it to the officer, ignoring Cooper’s glares.

  “Forward that to me,” Helms said, pulling out his phone.

  Cooper was more than ready to stand in front of the camera, smile, and talk about the hard work their department did. When it came down to getting dirty, the man was useless. Damien typed in the chief of police’s email address and hit Send.

  The two officers moved off, their heads bent together as they radioed the request in. Helms was studying his phone, hopefully scrolling through Yamamoto’s information.

  Damien glanced at Cooper, who glared at him, fuming.

  “You’re done after this, Moana.” Cooper jabbed his finger at him. “I’ll have your badge over this.” He turned and stalked toward his car, snapping at Gio, as she made her way toward Damien.