Road Kill; Puppet Master; Cross Wired

by Jan Coffey

  “I think you know him.” The accent was distinct.

  Luke nodded. A collector for the local Gambino Family before Bratva had absorbed their operation.

  “I was expecting that you would already have my list.” Bratva gestured to his man, who lowered the frantically squirming victim several feet closer to the water. “You know this is what happens to people who don’t give me results.”

  The dorsal fin broke the surface and Luke realized what was in the tank. A shark was circling and cutting through the spreading cloud of blood that was dripping from the suspended victim. It was like a bad movie.

  Except this was really happening.

  “I’m on this, sir,” Luke blurted out. “I’ve been following every lead.”

  “But are you committed to finding it, Detective?”

  “You know I am. I brought you Watkins’s badge from her locker, didn’t I? I wanted you to know that I’m turning over every rock.” He felt sweat beginning to run down his back. “And the files from her apartment. The ones that she’d been putting together about your operations.”

  “I don’t care what you have already done,” Bratva said calmly. “I only care what you have failed to do. And there are consequences for failing me, Detective.”

  Without taking his eyes off of Luke, the crime boss gestured again to his man.

  The victim was not even completely submerged in the tank before the shark began to hit him. Luke watched in horror as the thrashing predator ripped pieces from the body.

  “Are you committed, Detective?” Bratva asked.

  “I am. I’m committed.” Luke fought back a wave of nausea. “I’ll find that list, sir. I won’t sleep until—”

  “Death happens to everyone. We both know that.” Bratva moved to the table and picked up a plastic bag that sat on top with the knives and other tools. “What happens to us in the process of dying might bother us, but the end result is the same.”

  “I get the message, sir. I’ll find—”

  “Yes, I know you will.” He reached into the plastic bag and pulled out a small, royal blue shirt. Holding it up, he turned it so that the number on the back was visible.

  It took a moment for Luke to realize what it was, but then the blood drained from his body.

  It was his daughter’s soccer shirt.

  “Nothing and no one is beyond my reach, so do not think of betraying me.”

  Bratva tossed him the shirt.

  “In two days, I’ll be feeding my fish again. You have two days to bring me that list.”

  CHAPTER 37

  The meeting with Jake wasn’t a total waste of time. Still, the problem was that New Haven PD had too many new faces. He could provide no concrete leads about who might be on Bratva’s payroll these days. Still, Gavin walked away with a list of the personnel changes in the department since he’d retired and that was more than John Trevor had been willing to share.

  Back at his apartment, Gavin turned on the lights. He was relieved the place didn’t look too bad. He came back to Lacey. “Let me give you the twenty-five cent tour.”

  She was standing by the door, her purse and a small bag of overnight things she’d packed at Terri’s apartment hanging from one shoulder. She’d decided to leave the two suitcases in his car.

  “Coat closet on the right.”

  She dropped her things onto the floor and hurried out of her coat. He hung it for her. She was nervous, on edge. He understood how emotional the day had been for her.

  At the restaurant while he’d been talking with Jake at the bar, she’d sat in a booth drinking coffee. She’d never been out of his sight. Afterward, she hadn’t wanted to stay for dinner so they’d stopped at a sandwich place, ordering takeout before coming here.

  “Bedroom on the right, bathroom behind it,” he said, taking her into the first doorway.

  As she glanced around, he tried to see it as she would. Dark blanket, no bedspread. Basic furniture. Very different from the feminine bedroom he had seen out in Westbury.

  “You can sleep here.”

  “No,” she responded. “I’m not going to take your bedroom.”

  He took the overnight bag from her and tossed it onto the bed. “Too late. The bed is yours.”

  While she was recovering from her surprise, he went down the hall and motioned to a second, smaller bedroom.

  “I use this one as an office. But the sofa doubles as a bed and it has its own bathroom through that door. With all my work stuff here, you’ll be better off in the other bedroom.”

  He continued on into a large open space. “Kitchen, dining area, living room, and the balcony’s out there. The view of Long Island Sound is great; you just have to look past the highway.” He opened the shades.

  “You weren’t kidding,” she said, dropping her purse onto a chair and walking toward the double glass doors. A dozen shades of red streaked through the rapidly darkening sky, bleeding their colors into the blue gray waters to the south. “This is beautiful.”

  He opened the sliding door. Nineteen floors up, the shore breeze enveloped them as they stepped onto the balcony. Lacey moved to the railing, looking, lifting her face to the sky.

  Gavin watched as the wind danced through her hair, freeing some of the curls from the ponytail and molding the shirt against her body. His gaze swept over her, admiring the pebbled tips of her breasts, the curves in her jeans. She seemed lost to the world for a few moments as she stood there.

  “What a spot.” She smiled at him.

  She was too beautiful. He had to do something, say something, to get his mind off the single track it was traveling on.

  “Food…sandwiches. What do you want to drink?”

  “Coffee?”

  “Not a good idea. You’ve probably had, what, twenty cups today?”

  He backed into the apartment, and she followed, closing the balcony doors behind her.

  “How long has it been since you had a good night’s sleep?”

  “Sleep is way overrated.”

  Gavin looked at her, searching for some hidden suggestion in her response. He wanted to say sleep wasn’t the only option, but he kept the comment to himself as she walked to the bookcase.

  He went around the high counter and into the kitchen, taking plates out, arranging the sandwiches. He grabbed a beer for himself.

  “What makes you think I’d be able to sleep in a strange bed the first night, anyway?” She studied the line of framed photos on his bookcase. Suddenly, she looked up, blushing. “Do you mind that I’m being a busybody?”

  He did actually, but he didn’t say anything. He rarely had visitors, but it had been a conscious decision to have family pictures all over the apartment. He wanted to have those reminders all around him. He didn’t want to forget.

  “Your parents?”

  “Yeah.”

  He grabbed napkins and silverware, bringing the plates out to the dining table.

  “You look like your mother.”

  He did look like her. So did Elsie. He went back to the kitchen, searching in the fridge for something non-alcoholic to pour for her. “Ice tea, water, or cranberry juice?”

  “Water, thanks,” she told him, still consumed by the photos. “What a strikingly beautiful young woman. She has to be your sister.”

  Even though he knew it was coming, the sharp stab still hurt him. He filled a tall glass with water and brought it with his beer to the table.

  She’d have questions. And then more questions. She was Terri’s sister so she wouldn’t give up. In the past, people he worked with or socialized with would back off after a polite inquiry. Terri had had to keep digging until she had answers. Families mattered, she’d always said.

  “Where is she now?” Lacey asked.

  He decided to cut this short. Grabbing his beer, he took a long swig and walked over to her. More than a dozen pictures sat among the stacks of books. The collection covered Elsie’s life. The oldest photo had him holding his new baby sister in the hospital.
r />   “My mother died of breast cancer twenty years ago this past June. My father is retired. Lives in Florida.” He gestured to a picture of the four of them, taken at his high school graduation. His sister was wearing his cap and holding Gavin’s diploma. “My sister Elsie. Died when she was fifteen. The women don’t seem to fare too well in my family. Dinner is served.”

  He walked back to the table. Absolute silence filled the room for a few moments. She finally joined him, taking the seat across the way from him. He waited for the questions to come, but she seemed lost in her own thoughts as she played with the food. The silence stretched.

  Gavin had to remind himself that she was her own person. Lacey and her sister had shared a troubled childhood, but they’d traveled different routes since then. He reached across and tapped her glass with the bottle. She looked up.

  “I’m sorry I was a grouch just now.”

  “You weren’t. I’m fascinated by family pictures. I love seeing a perfect moment captured. Happy lives.” She glanced over at the bookcase. “People can’t help but smile when someone is taking a photo. They almost always show the best of themselves. I think that was why I was drawn to doing what I’m doing right now.” Her green eyes met his. “And you’ve seen me in action. I don’t do well when strangers ask me about my family.”

  “But you’re not a stranger,” he told her.

  “Really? Not counting the funeral, we only met three days ago.”

  “I’ve been hearing about you for ten years,” he admitted. “I feel like I’ve known you for at least that long. Terri always had stories—especially about when you were really young.”

  “What kind of stories?”

  “About you taking your first steps and walking straight to her. And how you were a late talker, and the first word you spoke was her name. You called her Teddy. About how, when you were little, you always cried on the first day of the school year because you couldn’t go with her.”

  “She spoiled me rotten. She was everything to me.”

  “She also talked about how she felt when she arrived at the hospital in Cleveland and found you unconscious and busted up after your alleged stumble down the stairs.”

  Lacey’s chin dropped to her chest. He tried to lighten the mood. “Whenever your sister was talking her way through a decision, she would always say, ‘Now, what would Lacey do?’”

  “Will you excuse me?” Lacey asked, standing up. “I’m really tired.”

  Not waiting for an answer, she took her food into the kitchen, grabbed her purse, and disappeared in the bedroom.

  He knew she was crying. “You really have a gift with women, MacFadyen,” he muttered to himself, finishing his beer.

  CHAPTER 38

  Benita Gomez got the news that Michael Phoenix had attempted suicide, and a couple of phone calls later she knew where they’d taken him.

  It was mid-afternoon when she arrived at UConn Medical Center. Benita thought about how timing was everything in her business. And Michael’s timing couldn’t have been better. His suicide, whether he lived or died, would add so much dramatic punch to the articles.

  Phoenix had always provided an enigmatic element to this story. He was the brain behind the premeditated murder of Stephanie Green. He was the one who’d cut her throat. The others had been happy to turn on him to avoid the death penalty and he’d ended up with the longest sentence. From all the photos Benita had collected from the time of the murder, Michael was the James Dean of the sleepy town. Incredibly handsome, cool, smart, and dangerous, he was the kind of bad boy that drew teenage girls like proverbial moths to the flame. One of those girls had been Stephanie Green, but another had been Denise Geller.

  Denise hadn’t been at the lake that night, so she had avoided the glare of the ensuing investigation. But she had never dropped out of the picture entirely. And when Benita found out that she continued to visit Phoenix every week after all these years, she put Denise on the list of people to talk to. The faithful, long-suffering girl still carrying the torch.

  And with this suicide attempt, the people closest to Phoenix would be called to the hospital. Denise had to be here.

  As Benita stepped out of the elevator on the prisoner’s floor, she spotted two police officers. Down the hall beyond them, a woman was haranguing a nurse about Michael’s condition. She was crying and angry and apparently inconsolable.

  And Benita recognized her immediately.

  CHAPTER 39

  The hot water pounded her skull. The shower steam filled the room. But the chill was slow to drain out of Lacey’s body. The past was fused to her like a second skin, enveloping her with sadness.

  She and her sister didn’t have memories of their childhood, they had nightmares. Their mother had taken beatings when their father was drunk. She’d taken more when he was sober. She’d taken them when he’d left the service and couldn’t find a job. She’d taken more because he felt like it. She’d taken the beatings so her daughters wouldn’t have to.

  That had only lasted so long.

  When she was in high school, Terri had tried to kill him with his own shotgun, but she’d missed. Right after that, she’d been sent to live with their grandfather in Connecticut. She’d gone, but had never forgotten about Lacey. The ties had always been there.

  To hear the stories from Gavin made her realize once again how much she missed Terri. Everything she’d been able to repress for the past five weeks was coming to the surface today. Her shield was gone. She was exposed, and Lacey felt for the first time that she’d really started to grieve.

  Surprisingly, she didn’t feel vulnerable having Gavin witness it. He let her be. He respected her need for privacy. She was lucky to have met him. In addition to everything that he was doing for her, he brought Terri’s memories back to life.

  When it came to family, he, too, was alone. He, too, was hurting. She saw it in the guarded expression he pulled over his face like a mask. She understood and respected him for the way he dealt with it.

  Stepping out of the shower, Lacey was surrounded by his scent. The shampoo she’d used. The smell of his aftershave on the counter. She breathed in and felt a craving take hold deep in her body. She was so attracted to him that it was terrifying.

  But she was not running away. Instead, she was staying here, of her own free will, under his roof. Open to whatever the next step might be.

  The pair of flannel pajama pants and t-shirt she’d taken from Terri’s dresser were hanging behind the door. She pulled them on. Wiping the steam off the mirror, she looked at the pallid woman looking back at her. The shower had helped put some color back into her face, but she still looked washed out.

  She peeked inside the bathroom cabinet for moisturizers. There were none. But seeing a box of condoms brought a blush to her cheeks. Towel drying her hair, she let the curls hang loose and stepped out of the bathroom.

  Lacey had remembered to grab Terri’s charger out of the apartment. Now she plugged her sister’s phone into the wall next to the bed. There was a faint sound of music drifting into the room. She looked at the bedside clock. It was only a couple of minutes past eight. Her stomach growled. She thought of the sandwich she’d left in the kitchen.

  She left the bedroom. The music was coming out of the adjoining room. The door was open.

  Gavin was working at the desk, going between his laptop and a PC, taking notes. The music blared from an iPod.

  His hair was wet. He’d taken a shower, too. He was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. His feet were bare.

  “You have a great shower.”

  He swiveled the chair around, and his gaze caressed her face, her loose curly hair, before traveling slowly down her body, pausing at certain points, making her skin tingle and come to life.

  “Feel better?” he asked.

  She nodded, feeling his scrutiny deep in her belly. More than anything else, she wanted to go to him, to wrap herself around him. She wanted to pick up where they’d left off this afternoon in Terri’s apart
ment.

  But, instead, she tried to lighten the mood to save herself the embarrassment of doing the unthinkable.

  “I’m sorry I’m such a horrible house guest. I left the table after all your hard work preparing that delicious dinner.”

  “It took hours.”

  “Did you save my sandwich?”

  “No, I tossed it out.”

  “Why?”

  “Fish. I’m allergic to it.”

  “Really?” she asked, seeing the devilish look in his dark eyes.

  “Absolutely.”

  “I know you’re obsessed with feeding me, so there must be something in that kitchen.”

  He stood up. “Yeah. There must be something.”

  She hurried ahead of him and found her plate covered up on the counter. She picked it up and turned around when he followed her in. “You saved it. Thank you.”

  He looked much more appetizing than what was on the plate. Still, she lifted the cover and took a bite of the tuna wrap, savoring the taste. She was hungrier than she’d thought.

  He leaned forward and brought her hand up to his mouth, taking a bite.

  “Didn’t you say you’re allergic to fish?”

  “What can I say? Some things are worth dying for.”

  He wasn’t talking about sharing food. This was foreplay and she knew it. He smelled great. Looked great. Her fingers itched to touch the contours of his neck, the hard muscles so well defined under the form-fitting t-shirt. She was so out of her league.

  Lacey took another bite of the sandwich and offered him one, too. The way his dark lashes lowered, his eyes watching her mouth, made her insides turn to liquid heat. She was excited. More than anything else, she wanted his hands on her.

  “Can I make coffee?” she asked before taking another bite.

  “Sure you can handle it?” He leaned down, tasting a piece of tuna that had overflowed from the wrap onto her finger.

  The heat of his mouth burned her. She had to put the plate down on the counter for fear of dropping it. The only barrier gone, she was cornered by the cabinets and his body.