Blood and Fire

by McKenna, Shannon

  Fuck. Fear stabbed, deep and fast. Oh no, no, oh Jesus, no . . .

  He came at the medical suite door like a bullet, slamming a flying kick into it with all his strength. The lock held. He tried the next door. Same thing. The next was unlocked. He thundered through the interconnected rooms to the one where the nurse had taken Lily.

  The smhit him first. Jamison’s whiskey-soaked coat, lying discarded on the floor. A name tag with a fluorescent nylon strap beside it. A wad of gauze, no doubt soaked with some knock-out drug. A young woman in her underwear, crumpled on the floor. Not Lily. The nurse. A torrent of filth in Ukrainian was coming out of his mouth as he lunged to touch her carotid artery. She had a pulse, thank God.

  The old ladies. The male nurse. Of course. What a fucking idiot.

  He burst out. Zia Rosa, Rachel, and the doctor stared at him, wide-eyed. As if he’d gone crazy.

  “Your nurse was attacked. The receptionist, too,” he yelled to them as he sprinted away. “They got Lily! Call the cops!”

  He rounded the corner. The trio had been moving at a slug’s pace, so maybe they were still . . . no. Not in the corridor, nor the waiting area, nor the drive-up. He thudded out into the parking lot as a black Mercedes sedan accelerated toward the exit. A clean-shaven Jamison in scrubs was driving. The crone in the hat sat in the passenger’s seat.

  No Lily. Unconscious in the backseat or in the trunk.

  He ran faster, squinting for the license plate, but somebody had obscured it with spattered mud. He started to close the gap as they paused to merge with traffic. He drew his gun but hesitated to shoot on the run at a moving target with Lily in the back or the trunk.

  The tire. He slowed, aimed . . . and the car slewed through a huge mud puddle. Icy water splattered into his face as he pulled the trigger. The shot zinged against the back of the car. It surged ahead unchecked. He wiped mud out of his eyes.

  Jesus, no. Please don’t let that bullet have perforated the trunk. Please don’t let that bullet be lodged inside of Lily. Please.

  He pounded after the Mercedes, shoving the nightmare thought away. They had a straight stretch now, no lights, no turns. The gap lengthened. He couldn’t catch up, but he kept chasing, like a stubborn dog. Failure was unacceptable. Same old clusterfuck. Goddamn him for getting involved. He knew this would happen. It always did. He worked alone, he stayed alone, he kept it simple so he could avoid this scenario.

  This clawing, frantic feeling he got when he let people down.

  The front window came down. The fake nurse stuck out her hand, fluttered her fingers at him, a taunting little wave. Buh-bye!

  They hung the curve and were gone.

  “I’ll kill the bastard.” Bruno jittered on the car seat, fists clenched. Trying to breathe, trying not to vomit. “I’ll rip his limbs off.”

  “It’s not his fault.” Kev’s tone had the flatness of one who had repeated the same phrase many times. “He’s not the one who needs killing.”

  “What the fuck was he thinking?” The words exploded out of him. “Letting the drunk guy within fifty feet of her? Letting someone drag her into a locked room? Was he on drugs?”

  Connor spoke up, hesitant. “I can see it,” he said. “They were good. The place was understaffed. Conditions were perfect. Taking out the receptionist and nurse while the doctor was busy with Tam. The woman established herself multiple times as the nurse, fabricated a legitimate job—Christ, they’d have fooled me. Give Aaro a break, man.”

  “No!” Bruno yelled. “I can’t! I will not swallow this!”

  “Nobody’s asking you to, Bru,” Kev said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  He stared out the window at the raindrops against the glass, jittering his leg while the next outburst built. “How the hell did they know?” he demanded. “About Tam’s bleeding? That was random! Impossible to predict! How could they have known about the choice of Rosaline Creek? They could have gone to the Urgent Care in Craigsville, or Dawson Falls—they’re all more or less the same distance! But those fuckers were in exactly the right place, lying in wait! How?”

  Con rubbed eyes that were deeply shadowed with exhaustion. “They have tracers planted somewhere? A bug?”

  “In Tam’s house?” Kev let out a sharp laugh. “No way.”

  Con shrugged. “So? What else could it be?”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Bruno said again, though the words were empty, they did not release any of the tension. He rocked forward, folding over that stone hard lump.

  “Bad as Aaro feels, he just might beat you to it,” Davy murmured.

  Bruno looked at him, and Davy glanced swiftly away. “Don’t try to make me feel sorry for that incompetent fuck,” he said harshly. “He’d better not. I want that satisfaction for myself. If nothing else.”

  Heavy silence. There was nothing anyone could say to this catastrophe. No comfort, no help possible.

  They passed signs for an exit off the freeway, and Connor leaned forward. “Get off at the next exit,” he said, looking at Bruno. “There’ll be a car rental on the strip. Head east in this car. Just for God’s sake don’t get stopped in it. With the firepower packed in here, they’d take you for a domestic terrorist, and you have enough problems.” He turned to Kev. “Assuming you didn’t rent this car in your own name.”

  “Hell, no,” Kev said. “With all the stuff going down? I knew we were going to need an invisible car.”

  “Wait a minute.” Bruno looked around at the four men. “How am I just supposed to drive away from this? I have to follow Lily!”

  The others wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  “Follow her where, Bru?” Kev said. “You’ve got nothing else to do. Rosaline Creek is crawling with cops. They’ll do their job without your help. And you’re a wanted man. Remember? That little detail?”

  “We’ll follow every lead that we can from here,” Davy offered.

  “But what could they be doing to her? I can’t . . . I don’t have time to road-trip across the damn country! While they hold Lily captive!”

  “You can’t fly,” Con said. “You’d never make it onto a commercial flight. Unless you have a good disguise and a fake passport. Do you?”

  Kev’s brothers looked at him hopefully. “Vaffanculo,” Bruno muttered, disgusted. “Of course not. I don’t play paranoid games with myself like you McCloud boys. I can’t just drive away from Lily!”

  “You’re not,” Kev argued. “You’re driving toward the only clue in the whole fucking world that we have. You’re going where it all started. If you don’t get a lead there, you’re not going to find one anywhere.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk. You’re warming my cockles again.”

  “You get more than encouragement,” Kev said. “I’m going, too.”

  “Me, too,” Sean said. “Wouldn’t miss this freak show for anything.”

  “Right. Bruno stared at them. “Real smart for a guy on the lam to bring along six foot four, blond identical twins, one of whom has distinctive scars on his face. Might as well paint you both neon pink.”

  Kev and Sean glanced at each other. “If there are three of us, we can go faster,” Kev said. “We can’t go over the speed limit. If you get stopped, you’re meat. You’ll need someone to spell you.”

  “No, I don’t. You think I’ll sleep while those assholes have Lily? I’m never sleeping again. It’s a piss-poor idea. You’re not doing it.”

  “We’ll be discreet,” Sean said.

  “Yeah? How? Wearing an old-lady mask? Rolling an oxygen tank?”

  Sean pulled onto the exit ramp and entered a strip mall. The streetlights lit up hazy halos in the soggy gloom.

  “There’s a Hertz by that drugstore,” Davy said. “Stop there.”

  “Don’t speed,” Connor lectured. “Keep your cell on you at all times. It’s tagged, of course, so we’ll be tracking you.”

  The men got out. Davy leaned forward, tapping Kev’s window, which he rolled down. Gusts of chilly air dropped the temperature
in the car. He gazed sternly at them. “Don’t get killed,” he commanded.

  “Nope,” Sean said cheerfully.

  The two men turned and walked away together through the rain. Shoulder to shoulder in that classic, stoic McCloud way of theirs. Kev had the vibe, too. The macho cowboy, riding off into the sunset.

  Bruno stared after them, wondering if he ought to stage another raving freak-out to get rid of these clowns. Problem was, part of him was relieved to have the company. It was the same part that felt guilty.

  “You’re kidding, right?” he said, on principle. “I’m going alone.”

  “With exactly what pile of untraceable cash?” Kev asked. “You can’t use your bank account or your credit cards, remember? I’ve got money socked away in accounts that aren’t under my own name.”

  Bruno looked at Sean. “Your wife is going to kill you,” he said.

  Sean let out a mirthless chuckle. “She’s the one who decided to go on a road trip with Eamon in the middle of this mess.”

  “That’s how you’ll justify this? She’s going to kick your ass, man.”

  “Leave my wife out of this,” Sean said. “Mouthy punk.”

  “I thought we’d established that I’ve moved beyond punkdom,” Bruno retorted. “I’ve graduated to total asshole. Now I’m going for my advanced degree in raving shithead. So why don’t you all just fuck off?”

  Kev gave him a long look. “No. Give it up.”

  “Just let me do what I can do, all right? Nobody else has to die!”

  “She’s not dead,” Kev said.

  “You don’t know that.” Bruno’s voice shook.

  Kev’s eyes did not waver. “She’s not dead,” he repeated. “If they wanted her dead, they could have plugged her with a sniper rifle and saved themselves all kinds of trouble. All that elaborate playacting? That means she’s alive.”

  Bruno didn’t dare reply. “You still shouldn’t come with me.”

  “I have to,” Kev said. “I can’t let you go alone. Don’t have it in me.”

  “And I just can’t miss anything this bizarre,” Sean added. “It’s tontertaining. I can’t resist. You couldn’t pay me to stay away.”

  Bruno stared into Sean’s eyes, straight through the guy’s mask. “I’m in your debt already. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

  Sean’s smile was crooked. “Don’t tell me you still have that bug up your ass? After all we’ve been through?”

  Bruno shook his head. “Not if you don’t.”

  “Settled, then. Let’s get going. We’ve got a job of work to do.”

  Petrie was starving, stiff, bored out of his mind. He’d freely chosen police work as a career, having had many options, and the only time he ever regretted doing so was during stakeouts.

  But Rosa Ranieri would come out of that house eventually. He’d found a perfect side street with a view of Connor McCloud’s front door, framed through the branches of a tree. No one had made him so far, and that was lucky, considering he was watching McClouds.

  He wasn’t worried about losing her. The GPS app on her smartphone nailed her to within a few yards. He’d called a friend of his who worked in the security office of her cell provider last week, promising to follow up on the paperwork asap, so he’d been watching her for days now. Thank God she reliably turned on her phone, unlike the other people in her family. Not that she ever answered his calls. Still pissed at him for the scare he’d given her. Didn’t really blame her.

  He’d put in hours yesterday in the DA’s office arranging for a subpoena, so now it was legal and official, and everyone could breathe easy. And his ass was covered in terms of admissibility of evidence.

  From Cray’s Cove to Rosaline Creek and now back to Connor McCloud’s house in Seattle. Rosa Ranieri got around. But suburban Seattle was a much better bet for arranging a chance meeting than Steele’s cliffside fortress in Cray’s Cove, so as soon as the woman returned there, he’d put things in motion, asked for some days off. Hadn’t said anything to his supervisor about acting in furtherance of a case, though. Jake would have insisted on him hooking up with local detectives before moving an inch, and Petrie wanted to be able to jump in any direction, fast.

  He’d get his ass kicked for this later, almost certainly. Wouldn’t be the first time. He never had been great at following the rules. Just ask his dad.

  It was a sunny day, Connor McCloud and his wife Erin were out at their places of employment, and Margot McCloud, Davy McCloud’s wife, had left her two kids at her sister-in-law’s house as well. The older kids inside would be agitating to be taken to the playground. He hoped that, anyway, having already spent half a day waiting for a chance to have a word with Rosa Ranieri. The McClouds had circled in. He didn’t blame them.

  Bruno Ranieri had dropped off the face of the earth. Lily Parr as well. And bodies were piling up. Families, rather. Petrie needed some answers. He was going to go crazy. This whole thing made his flesh creep.

  Movement at the front door. He whipped up the binocs. Rosa Ranieri was the first out the door, her broad back first, dressed in a crimson wool coat. She wrestled a baby carriage onto the porch. The littlest daughter of Davy McCloud must be in it. Two older children spilled out, a blond boy, about five, a redheaded girl, about four.

  Then he saw her. The dark-haired girl. She stepped out with a toddler in her arms, in a black wool coat that showed off shapely legs, little black half boots. She put the child down on wobbly legs, helped Rosa maneuvr the carriage down the porch steps.

  He peered through the binocs, zeroing in on her face. Big, shadowy, wide-set eyes. High, sharp cheekbones. A thick, swirly mane of dark hair hanging down. She scooped the child up again, kissed her, smiling. She was a stunner. If she were eight inches taller, she could supermodel. She was tiny, though. Five-two, max. Maybe less.

  This waif was no McCloud wife. None of whom were anything to sneeze at in terms of feminine good looks, of course. He’d spied all four of them, trooping in and out of the house over the last two days, and had been duly impressed. But this one was too young.

  Four little kids. One newborn, one toddling, and two bigger ones raising hell, that was too many for one old lady to watch outdoors; he had nephews and nieces and could say that with authority. So this chick was probably a local high school girl, paid to help Rosa babysit.

  Which made him a slavering, oinking perv.

  He got out of the car, irritated at himself. He started toward them, keeping an eye on the two women’s progress as they herded the kids across the street. Once in the playground, the boy kicked a ball into the trees and ran after it. His redheaded sister or cousin followed, and the bombshell went running after, yelling for them to slow down.

  Petrie took his time as he strolled into the park. The bombshell ran like a gazelle, hair flying like a banner, gleaming in the sunshine. Reddish highlights glinting in it. Pay attention, dick for brains. He focused his mind and headed toward the park bench Rosa Ranieri inhabited, jiggling the stroller with her foot, the toddler on her knee.

  “Excuse me? Ms. Ranieri?” he called.

  She glanced over. Instant, eye-slitted suspicion. She clutched the baby protectively to her bosom. The other hand dug into the huge purse that lay on the bench beside her. “Who wants to know?”

  “I’m Detective Sam Petrie,” he said. “Portland Police Bureau.”

  Her eyes opened wide, magnified behind her lenses. “You’re that son of a bitch who practically gave me a heart attack last week? You have the nerve to come here? I should shoot your ass dead right now!”

  He stared at her hand. “Tell me you’re bluffing, Ms. Ranieri. You don’t carry a loaded gun in your purse while you supervise toddlers.”

  She pulled her hand out. “Nah,” she admitted. “Bimbi get into everything. What you doin’ here? You’re an asshole. You ain’t welcome.”

  “I have something to show you,” he told her. “May I sit down?”

  “No!” she yelled. “What part of ‘yo
u’re an asshole’ and ‘you ain’t welcome’ do you not understand, sweet cheeks?”

  Sweet cheeks? He choked back a laugh, kept his face poker stiff. “I really need to ask you a couple of questions,” he said.

  “And I really need for you to piss off!”

  “I swear. It’s nothing that would harm your nephew.”

  She harrumphed. “Yeah? I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “Of course you will,” he said. “But how can you judge if you don’t hear the questions? You could even warn Bruno of the direction my investigation is taking. I understand that. It would be aiding and abetting, of course, but a person’s gotta do what a person’s gotta do.”

  Her dark gaze was sharp. “Don’t you get tricky with me.”

  “Nope,” he said. “Just the facts. So may I sit down?”

  “No,” she snapped. “Don’t get near the babies. Ask what you want, and then piss off.”

  He pulled the manila envelope out of his coat. “I imagine the McClouds have told you about the results of those genetic tests?”

  She made a scoffing noise. “I figured you was gonna want to talk about that. Believe me, it ain’t possible. I know it for a fact.”

  He waved the envelope. “I want you to look at these pictures. But they might not be easy to look at. The people in them are dead.”

  “I’m seventy-six, baby-face. I been looking at dead folk years since you was suckin’ on your mamma’s tit. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-nine,” he told her.

  “Hah!” She cackled. “A baby! I helped lay out my cousin Torruccio when I was thirteen! He got plugged by bandits who was stealing his sheep. And when my Zio Rosario got thrown down a well, we didn’t find him for six weeks, and when we finally pulled him out—”

  “That’s OK, you don’t have to tell me,” he said hastily. “I can imagine it just fine.”

  “He was messin’ with somebody’s wife,” she said. “Pig.”

  They gazed at each other. He flapped the envelope against his hand, letting her curiosity build. “So,” he said. “Can I show you these?”