“Good,” Cate said, and stood once again. She put his sandwich together and shoved it into his insulated lunch bag along with his fruit and snacks.
“Okay. We’re ready. I’ll take you to school, and then I have an early-morning appointment for a walk-through on a house.”
Danny put on his jacket and fumbled with the zipper. “Mom, I was thinking. We should invite Trent to dinner. You could make my favorite spaghetti. You haven’t made that in a long time.”
Cate had picked up her keys and purse, then froze. “Dinner? With Trent?”
“Sure. To thank him for helping us.”
“You like him that much? I hardly ever invite a man to dinner with us.”
Danny zipped his jacket and flipped the hood to cover his head. Then he grabbed his lunch bag. “Yeah. I noticed that.”
Cate didn’t know whether to laugh or keep a straight face. Danny was noticing all manner of things about their lifestyle that she’d never had the time or reason to explore.
Besides the fact that she needed to start paying attention to the details of her life, she also needed to staunch his blooming admiration for Trent.
Clearly, Trent was not the man for her. Keeping Danny away from him was impossible as long as the spotlight of the Indian Lake Police was shining on her and her son. Trent was a focal point in their life right now. But he wouldn’t always be.
Trent and Brad apparently had some kind of genetic disposition for risk-taking. Adrenaline junkies, both of them, she thought. The only difference was that Trent chose the side of the law. Brad chose evil.
Light and dark. Good and evil. The battle was as old as humankind. It would never stop.
It wouldn’t stop for her.
Unless she ended it.
“I don’t think dinner with Trent would be a good idea.”
“Why not?” Danny asked, crestfallen.
“Sweetheart,” she said, putting her hand on his cheek, “Trent is just doing his job. He has to be nice to us because he’s protecting us. Sometimes it seems like he’s closer to us than other people, but the thing is, all the people in this town rely on him and the other policemen to take care of them. So, it’s not that he doesn’t like us. I’m sure he does. It’s that we aren’t special to him.”
“Uh-uh.” Danny shook his head so vigorously his hood fell back. “He is so my friend. I can tell.” He tapped his forefinger to his heart, the way he always did to show her that he believed deeply in something or someone.
Danny’s feelings had crossed into new territory for Cate. Not only had she felt drawn to Trent, but Danny had been experiencing emotions of his own. She knew she might be able to stash her feelings away in some mental file, but Danny was a child. Children didn’t know how to turn feelings off and on.
But then, did she? Really?
Even more importantly, what if Danny was right? What if Trent truly was their friend? But nothing more. Nothing romantic. Children felt things more immediately than adults, and sometimes more intensely. At least Danny did. He wasn’t the kind of self-centered child who was oblivious to others or the world around him. Danny was aware. Oftentimes, he was more aware than she was.
She was the only person who could put strings on a dinner invitation to Trent. For Danny, she would do it. For him she’d do anything.
“Okay.” She smiled. “I’ll send him a text today after my showing.”
Danny scrambled over to the kitchen chair where she’d put her purse. He pulled out her phone. “Here. Call him. Tell him it’s spaghetti!” Danny grinned widely.
“Fine.” She took the phone and hit Trent’s number. It rang three times and then went to voice mail.
“Hi, Trent. It’s Cate. Danny is here with me, and he wants to know if you’d like to come to dinner. Spaghetti. His favorite. Call me when you get a chance. Thanks.” She hung up.
Danny grabbed the phone and looked at the screen. “I forgot how early it is. Maybe he’s in the shower.” He stared at the phone.
“Yes, well, in the meantime, I have to get you to school, young man.”
“Mom,” Danny groaned, rolled his eyes and shoved his hood back into place. He trudged with slumped shoulders to the door.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CLANK. CLINK. ZWOOP. Clink. Shunk. Trent successfully ejected the magazine from his Smith & Wesson M&P 45 semiautomatic pistol. He then racked the chamber to extract the remaining bullet. He disassembled the gun. Carefully he laid the bottom piece on the work cloth he’d smoothed out on his desk in his home office. He cleaned the gun methodically.
Holding the newly cleaned gun by the grip, he carefully put it back together. He tried the trigger. No resistance. No hitch to any of his movements with the slide or the trigger.
He shoved a full magazine of bullets into the gun. Racked it.
“Ready,” he said to himself as he laid the gun on the battered desk.
The desk had been with him as long as he could remember. He’d learned his multiplication tables at it. He’d built model airplanes and plastic army tanks. He’d repaired his Star Wars toys and Transformers on this desk. It still bore a clump or two of glue from those days. Reminders that he’d had a childhood. That there had been a life for him before he’d gone to the Middle East.
Before it had all happened to him.
He looked out his apartment window. The trees were bare now. It was raining. Midnight and the town was dark. Silent. Much like his apartment. There was no music playing. No television station blaring the weather or the latest news.
Thanksgiving was approaching, and he supposed he should call his mother again. He tried to call her once a week—mostly so that she knew he was still alive.
He’d told her that he was working a case that wouldn’t allow him to leave Indian Lake for the holidays. At least Thanksgiving. He’d have to wait to see about Christmas.
“What kind of case?” his mother had asked him.
“Never you mind. You know I don’t discuss my cases with you.” He’d chuckled, but halfheartedly.
“Dangerous case. That’s what you’re not telling me. That’s why you can’t come home for Thanksgiving. I hate not seeing you,” she’d said with enough weight to her words that he knew her disappointment had gone deep.
“I’m sorry, Mom. It can’t be helped. I can’t promise anything, but if this case breaks—and I have good reason to think it will—I’ll be home for a three-day, no make it a four-day weekend once it’s over. I promise. I’ll put up your tree. Take it down, whatever you want.”
“A hug,” she said in a way that threatened to rip his heart out. “You know, I could take early retirement and move to Indian Lake, and then I could see you all the time.”
Trent bit his lower lip. The stinging truth was that he didn’t want his mother within fifty miles of him. If she saw him more regularly, she’d know. She’d see he was still suffering from flashbacks.
Trent didn’t want anything to interfere with his hopefully imminent apprehension of Le Grande and his nest of rattlesnakes. He wanted them all; every last one of them.
Trent had placated his mother with half promises of shopping in Chicago. Dinner at Gino’s for a supersize pizza, knowing that she probably hadn’t eaten well since he last saw her. She hung too much of her future on Trent.
Just like Cate.
Trent looked down at his gun.
All of his bulletproof body armor, tactical vests and lightweight ripstop fabric slacks hadn’t protected his heart from falling for Cate.
Oh, he’d dodged her texts and managed to stay out of her line of sight when he checked on his men who tailed her. He’d declined her dinner invitation, even though he knew Danny would be deeply disappointed. He hated that. He liked that kid. Too much.
In some ways, if it was possible, he’d felt he couldn�
�t be any more emotionally invested in Danny if he were his own son. If Cate was five seconds late picking Danny up from school, it terrified Trent. She didn’t know that Trent never let her or Danny out of his line of sight every single afternoon. He watched them from between houses, behind cars, from the side of the church, wherever he thought she might not be looking.
But look she did.
He’d caught her always glancing around as she walked Danny from the doors of the school to her car. Each week, she’d traded rental cars, just as Trent advised. He was grateful she hadn’t fought him on that issue. But every day he wondered if she was looking around for him—or Le Grande.
Was it fear that twisted her head and caused her eyes to scan the playground? Or was she hoping to see him?
He had to leave her alone. Leave her behind. It was too dangerous.
Dangerous because if he slipped up—if he faltered in any way—his error could cost her life. Or Danny’s.
If anything happened to Danny, Cate would always blame him. He’d never get close to her.
And he wanted to be close to her.
He swiped his face with his hand and was surprised to find cold sweat on his palm. Dang, he had it bad.
He pushed the chair away from the desk and went to the kitchen. He opened his small and very-used refrigerator and took out a beer. He popped the top and drank from the bottle. It was icy cold as it rushed down his throat. He hadn’t felt all that parched a minute ago, but then he was getting used to Cate thoughts that too often wiped his senses clean.
He put down the beer. The only thing he really wanted to put his mouth against was Cate’s lips. But it was past midnight.
Just then his phone pinged. He plunged across the room to the coffee table and grabbed it.
Trent read the text from Richard Schmitz.
You need to come to Chicago. I’ve cleared it with your chief.
Trent tapped his phone to call. If Richard had news about Le Grande, Trent wanted to hear it now. Not in the morning.
“Schmitz,” Richard bellowed.
Trent could hear sirens, someone barking orders in the background. “What’s going on?”
“Can you drive here? Now?”
“Now?” Trent looked at his watch. Then he dropped his arm. He went to the desk and picked up his gun. “It’s Le Grande, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I’ll text you the address where we are.”
“We?”
“I’ve got Homicide here. And an eyewitness.”
“I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
“Turn on your lights. This is official business,” Richard said, and hung up.
Trent grabbed his tactical vest, keys, cash and a car charging cord for his cell phone.
Le Grande had killed someone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
FIFTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, Trent knelt and looked at the bloody face of the man Le Grande had murdered.
Flashing police car lights pierced the night as news teams filmed the scene. A young female newscaster was describing the scene to her camera operator. Her photogenic youth and beauty seemed surreal against the dilapidated projects behind her. Behind a strip of yellow plastic tape stood a handful of residents, their breath creating fog and the only warmth in the bitter November night.
The first-response teams had finished their jobs and hopped into their trucks. Sirens pealed through the air.
The pandemonium around Trent faded into the distance as he focused.
Richard stood behind him, talking to his forensic team members, both of whom were packing up their gear.
Though Trent’s mind absorbed their conversation, cataloguing details and pertinent information, he was more interested in Richard’s homicide team and the facts they’d gathered in the ninety-seven minutes since the nameless victim had been shot.
The medical examiner’s forensic pathologist had issued cause of death as a homicide. He’d handed the onsite certificate to Richard so that he could continue his investigation.
Trent stood. “Who is he?”
“We have no idea. Personal effects turned up two knives, five bucks and a packet of cocaine.”
“Was he illegal?” Trent frowned.
“According to our informant, he’s Colombian and had only been here a week.” Richard nodded as the medical examiner’s team brought over a black plastic body bag.
Without pause or reverence, they shoved the body into the bag, loaded it on a gurney and rolled it into the van.
Trent glanced at the spray-painted outline of the sprawled body on the frost-killed grass. “And now he’s dead.” Odd that this guy’s death affected him. Trent had never been squeamish. He had the kind of psyche that compartmentalized the job from reality. But this murder victim was a thread that connected him to Le Grande, and that connection, in turn, brought Trent back to Cate.
He chewed the inside of his cheek, not breaking skin, like he always did when ruminating a case. “What about the eyewitness?”
Richard tipped his head and said, “I’ve got him in my car. Hank got him coffee and a sandwich. He’s given us quite a statement.”
Trent felt his neck hairs stand at attention. “How’s that?”
“He was with Le Grande when he shot the guy.”
“So, he’s an accessory?”
Richard’s mouth curled up on one side. “He wants witness protection. And for what he’s telling us, we’ll give it to him.”
“And you’re taking him downtown?”
“Not yet. You’re here unofficially, but before the guys in Organized Crime Bureau get hold of him, I thought you might want to talk to him.” Richard was nearly as tall as he was, and when he took a step closer and scoured Trent with his intense scrutiny, Trent held his breath.
“Continue.”
“You and I are in this together. No one in the Bureau of Detectives knows about your scheme to lure Le Grande to Indian Lake. I could be reprimanded for not disclosing my part in it. But, if it works, we’ll get citations. Honestly, I think it’s going to work.”
Trent licked his dry lips and swallowed hard. Obviously, Richard was aware of the danger Trent had put Cate and Danny in, but until this moment, Trent hadn’t known he’d also put Richard at risk.
“I wanted you to see this guy, but I can’t actually let you talk to him. Let me do the talking. You just feed me the questions. If word of your involvement got back to my chief...”
“I got it.” Trent put his hand on Richard’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze. “I’ve got your back.”
“Let’s do this.”
They walked to Richard’s unmarked Camaro. Two uniformed officers stood close to the hood. They were young and no doubt fresh out of the academy, given the way their gazes kept sweeping the scene. They nodded to Richard, but barely looked at Trent. They didn’t appear to register the fact that Richard was accompanied by a civilian. Trent carried his badge as he always did. He practically slept with the thing. Now, however, he wished he hadn’t brought it because his presence could cause trouble for his friend.
Hopefully, Trent’s plan would be executed without glitches. He’d planned carefully. He’d stick to the plan.
Trent watched through the rear window of the car as Miguel answered Richard’s questions.
Richard leaned down and looked at the thin, dark-haired man sitting in the back seat of his car. “You’re Miguel, right?”
“Sí.” Miguel looked at his hands, which nervously slid up and down his thighs, so much that Trent thought the guy would wipe the indigo from his jeans.
“I need to ask you a few more questions,” Richard said.
“No. No more. I tell you everythin’,” he mumbled.
“Oh, there will be lots of questions if you want witness protection.�
�
“Wyoming. I want to go to Wyoming.”
“You want a lot, Miguel.” Richard’s face was implacable. “But if you answer all my questions, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Okay.” Miguel continued to rub his jeans.
“So you were the wheelman for Le Grande, is that right?” Richard asked.
“I drive. Only drive. Not kill.”
“I get that. Okay. So, why do you think Le Grande killed this guy? He’s from Colombia, yes?”
“Yes. Medellín in the coffee region. He told me he hates coffee.”
“Why’s that?” Richard asked.
“No money. Money is in cocaine.”
“Yeah. Go on.”
Miguel inhaled deeply, and his words came out in Spanish at first. He stopped himself and started over. “Javier, that his name. He brought excellent cocaine. But when he sold on the streets, he take half the money for himself. He think Le Grande stupid. Javier think all Americans fat and stupid.
“Le Grande—he is loco. He screaming and hitting me because Javier steal the money. Le Grande say, ‘I’ll teach all you rats I’m the boss. I rule your life!’”
Miguel stopped, his voice hitched. Slapping his hand over his mouth, he closed his eyes. “He kill Javier to show us.”
“Show you what?”
“That he the boss. He the king. He say, ‘I am king in Chicago.’ But I always think—” Miguel tapped his temple “—that he not.”
Trent tapped on the roof of the car with his finger to get Richard’s attention. Richard straightened and looked at him.
“Ask him if he knows about Indian Lake? The bust? The money?”
Richard nodded and leaned into the car once again. “So, Miguel. We know that Le Grande disappears from Chicago from time to time. Do you know where he goes?”
“Sí. Indiana. He has plans there, he say.”
Trent was nearly out of his skin. He swiped his face and tried to remain patient.
“Tell me about these plans, Miguel,” Richard said.
“He found a place where he can meet his partner.”
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