by Amber Malloy
“I probably should mention I popped Franco a few yards back.” He hitched his thumb in the direction he believed Franco’s body laid. “But first, we get Lane.”
He shook his head. Jax ignored him and headed toward the parked FBI cars farther down the trail to force Army to get a move on.
“Fine,” he grumbled and followed alongside. “Let’s put off the career promoting arrests and go save the dame instead.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Entertaining chaos circled around him. Frantic to leave, Julian stalked the party for his star-struck wife. He’d lost her somewhere near the ice sculpture and those circus performers. Dispatch had radioed that his car was ready minutes before he lost communication with Franco.
Julian caught sight of Nina’s black and white dress trailing behind her. She made her way outside with some diplomat from one of those backwater countries. Nina giggled at the old man’s advances, forcing anger to spike in his stomach. Julian wasn’t sure, but he recognized her predatory leer. It changed her face from girl next door to vixen.
Soon, she would touch the diplomat’s arm and give him a nice eyeful of her cleavage. On the hunt for a new lover.
“Let’s go.” He snatched her away from her potential conquest.
“You’re hurting me,” she moaned, more in pleasure than pain.
“We have to leave.”
“But U2 is supposed to perform, and the guy from the television show, America’s Next Top Voice, Adam Covine,” she slurred.
Julian pushed through the guests and entertainment with Nina. He didn’t release his grip on her arm in fear it would be another thirty minutes until he found her again.
His phone vibrated in his coat jacket. A bad sign.
“Captain,” he barked.
Through the glass doors, he could see several federal agents swarming the front. Julian sought out a different exit while he worked on all of the routes in his head. Near the Ferris wheel, the crowd was heavy. If he crossed to the lakefront and grabbed a taxi, he would be home free.
“Franco’s down, Captain, and it’s not looking good. Jax Thornbird is in FBI custody, and they would like a word with you. Give me your location, sir. I’ll have a car come around.”
Julian hung up the phone.
Sweat beaded along his hairline. It slipped down his face and into his eyes. He began to panic.
“What is going on?” his wife hissed by his side.
None of this was his fault. The mayor forced him to turn a blind eye to those homeless men who went missing. The old drunk had promised not many would be used, but he’d lied.
An immoral plan that worked for a while had ended up crumbling under the weight of greed. There were only a handful of homeless who could be used for the organ transfer. Many were too mangled and ravaged from hard living on the street. Drafted into the mayor’s scheme, Franco and Mortiz had to find younger, cleaner donors Gang bangers, repeat offenders, but not kids from the heartland.
“Where the hell are we going?” Nina roared and snatched her arm away from his.
Thankful the music and the crowd made too much ruckus to hear her, Julian lunged for his wife. Nina jumped out of his reach.
“It’s all coming apart, isn’t it?” she wailed. Tears spilled down her sweet face. “All we worked for, all we’ve accomplished?”
“No, luvy.” He tried to comfort her. “I’ve got this under control.” He held out his hand, summoning her to take it. He had no time for her theatrics. If they hurried, they could make it home, grab their money stash, and be on their way out of the state.
From what he could tell, he had minutes to spare. More agents entered the building from the east. We can still slip out if she would just cooperate.
“No, no, no,” Nina said. “I told you to do it but make sure it couldn’t be traced back. I told you.”
“I was wrong, and you may punish me later, but for now, we have to go,” he begged. Julian searched her eyes but could ascertain nothing. No love, no hate; his wonderful young bride had closed herself off from him. A fate worse than prison. She suddenly embraced him into a warm hug.
“I’m sorry.” Nina kissed his lips. She pulled back from his body with his service pistol in hand. “You should have been a good boy and listened to Mama,” she said before she squeezed off three rounds into his body.
Darkness swam around the edges of his mind. Ambition is bigger than even the smallest of people.
***
Lane pushed the driver’s cap farther down onto her head as she waited for Parker to step into the limo.
“Circle Dustin’s block for ten minutes,” he ordered his chauffeur. “After we pick him up, take us to O’Hare. Are you listening, moron? Drive.”
She put the car in gear and drove farther down the driveway. Lane steered the car away from the party’s guests and pier workers before she stopped and shifted into park.
“What the hell? You idiot! I said take me to—”
She turned around to give her ex-husband a cool, hard look before flipping the cap onto the seat next to her. “How’s it going, Parker? Not too good, huh?”
She wrinkled her nose in disgust. The healthy color of his Adonis skin turned an ashen gray.
“Long time no see, Langley,” he said with a smirk. “Are you done playing cops and robbers with that ass-hat Jackson? I hear he’s in a lot of trouble with the law, which is funny when you think about it. Thornbird was always a boy scout.”
“Can’t say the same about you.”
“Ah, hon, are you still sore I dumped you?” he taunted. “It’s a shame you can’t move on.”
Simmering anger began to wane. The driving burn that had gotten her through each new obstacle since she had found out the truth about Parker dissipated quickly. Face-to-face with the monster, revenge didn’t seem important anymore.
“Wow!” she said with more moxie than she had ever shown in their short-lived relationship. “You really are delusional. The way I remember it, I left you because you’re broke”—she pointed toward his crotch—“down there.” With those few words, she swiped the smile straight off of his face.
“You bitch,” he growled. “Maybe if you weren’t so fat I could get it up.”
“Tsk, tsk, Parker. No blaming my weight considering you clearly have a jones for the pre-pubescent set. I hear you don’t even like tits.”
“Who told you that? Thornbird? And you’re dumb enough to believe him.” He clapped with rich boy malice before he sat back in his seat. “Here, I believed you reached the pinnacle of your stupidity when you asked for a divorce. Who would have guessed you’d only get dumber?”
Parker Lockland was beautiful and rich; too bad he only had two good attributes. With no soul in his eyes, bad intentions were written all over his freshly exfoliated face.
For months she had tried to please him, even jumped through hoops to impress him, and for what…love? Lane realized she had succumbed to the worst emotion, loneliness. It made one do the craziest things for the mere possibility of escaping it.
Jax, however, was everything Parker lacked—rugged, sexy, and best of all, kind. “Yeah, Parker, I must admit I am silly and ridiculous. I married you.”
“Maybe it could have worked, but you’re such a cow.”
“Bearing in mind my competition, I never stood a chance.” She laughed. “I have curves, and apparently you don’t like those,” she replied, hitting the nerve she had searched for.
Parker made a lunge for her. Instead of flinching back in terror, she raised the gun she had hidden.
“Shooting you would be my pleasure,” she warned him with her finger on the trigger and ready to fire. “Sit back.” After a moment, her ex relented. Since Parker wasn’t used to being treated in such a shoddy manner, the rush in her degradation of him exhilarated her.
“Look, I’m not here to rehash old memories about our failed relationship. But what made you think you could get away with my murder?”
“I didn’t want to kil
l you.” His face turned into a frown. She doubted it was born out of guilt. “Dustin messed up with….” He snapped his fingers. “What’s the skank’s name?”
“Tara?”
“Yeah, Tara. Granddaddy always told him don’t fuck the help, but Dustin never did listen. She started blackmailing him.” He shrugged. “Shit got out of hand then, wham, here’s me on the Internet cleaning up his mess, looking for you.” Parker reached into his pocket, and Lane raised the gun higher.
“Stogie.” He brought out a fat Cuban.
Everything about the man is illegal. He took out a lighter to stoke the cigar.
“Your bone structure matched hers to a tee. Betting I could get you to lose weight or at the least lap band”—he puffed on his stogie as if he were sharing some old family tale—“a few months in the gym to tone you up, take a few pictures, then we would have the perfect double for Tara Penske’s corpse. Only after you killed yourself, of course.”
“Except you got greedy.”
“How so?”
“Before I left, I found an insurance policy for me. Two birds, one stone, huh, Parker?”
He blew out a thick cloud from his cigar and chuckled. It turned in to a deep, belly-menacing laugh, filling the car with his hate. Smoke poured out of his mouth while his straight, white-capped teeth mocked her. “You know what the funny thing is?”
Lane quirked her eyebrow, already bored.
“I bribed a judge. Technically, we’re still not divorced, which means story time is over, sweet pea.” Parker flooded her eyes with a thick hit of smoke. He made a quick play for the gun, burning her with the stogie.
Lane howled in pain and hit the horn before she yanked her body back and fired a round from her pistol into the car.
“Bitch!” he howled in pain.
Wherever the bullet had hit, it wasn’t good enough to kill the fight in him. Parker struck out and slugged her in the face. Instant pain forced her to lose her grip and drop her weapon. “I should have killed you when we first got married.”
Stunned by the pain from the blow he’d dealt to her chin, she groped for the gun. “Freak!”
With one hand he gripped her by the throat, choking her while he raced her to find the gun. Despite the immeasurable ache, she remembered what Maxie had told her and poked him in the eye.
“I hate so many things about you.” Parker rushed her again. Lane bumped the metal piece with the tips of her fingers. “It had nothing to do with your looks or financial status. It was your pious arrogance!” The more he spoke on the attributes he couldn’t tolerate, the tighter he squeezed her neck. “You might be easy on the eyes, but you could stand to lose some weight.” She struggled for air against his fist. “You had a few bucks from that shithole coffee shop. Pennies at the most, but you were happy. What the hell is wrong with you?”
She gasped, her field of vision growing smaller.
“You should have been happy I picked your sloppy ass up and made you a Lockland, but it didn’t seem good enough.” He pulled the weapon up to her face. “A nobody like you? What could possibly make you think you even deserved me?”
With no fight left, she felt resigned to her fate. The barrel singed her forehead.
“I wish I could say I’m going to miss you,” he taunted.
A loud pop resounded in her ears, shattering the windshield. Glass rained down on them, and the strong hold Parker had on her neck loosened. It allowed her the ability to breathe. She gobbled up the fresh air while she pushed herself back against the steering wheel and farther from Parker’s limp body. Outside, Jax stood feet away from the car, his gun at the ready.
“Are you okay?” he shouted through the shattered window.
All she could do was shake her head since her throat burned in the worst way. He opened the door from the inside and moved Parker’s body.
“Is he dead?” she croaked.
He kept his eyes steady on hers while he checked Parker’s pulse. “Nope, still alive. I just winged him. The big baby must have passed out.”
Everything had happened too quickly for her to comprehend. She reached out for him, but the arriving paramedics had other plans. They pulled her from the driver’s seat, and another team took Parker from the car. Somewhere far away in her head, she silently wished him dead.
“Let them check you, sweetie,” Jax said.
Three loud gunshots echoed out into the crisp night air.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Shots fired inside of Navy Pier made all hell break loose. Farther down from the valet station, guests from his Jax’s brother’s party poured out of the building and ran in different directions.
“Hold it, Thornbird. Chicago Police Department is swarming this place, and you’re still a degenerate cop killer.” Army yanked him back by his shoulder before he could get too close to the action.
“My family—”
“They’re all good. We got them out of here after the call about Mortiz came in. We didn’t want to take any chances.”
“Who got shot?”
“Your captain. It looks like his wife pulled the trigger.”
“His wife?” Jax pushed his hair back, unsure what to think anymore.
“On top of being a corrupt, corpse-stealing city official, he was also a wife abuser, according to her.”
“But she’s a psychologist—”
“Yeah, I smell bullshit, too. What are we gonna do?” Army asked. “Thankfully, the paramedics were already on the scene, so he might make it, which is great news for me. Hey, I want you to meet someone.” A hipster kid walked up to them. “This is my cousin, Trevor. He works for the Tribune.”
He shook the reporter’s hand. It dawned on him this must have been the kid who talked him up to the governor that night in the bar.
“I would love an exclusive when you get the time,” the reporter said.
“Sure,” he told him, having never been receptive to the press in the past. “I got a feeling I owe you.”
“Give us a second, will you, Trev?” Army pushed him away. He waited for his cousin to be out of earshot before he started talking again. “Your friend Sherman is awake.”
“No shit,” he said, happy for some good news.
“Yeah, he fingered Franco for his shooting. Once we use it against him, along with the evidence you got from the vic’s car, the big ol’ house of corrupt politicians will come tumbling down,” the fed said. “Where are you going?”
Tired and worn out by the whole damn mess, he wanted to check on Lane. But from the look on the FBI agent’s face, it wouldn’t be in his immediate future.
He hitched his thumb toward the paramedic’s truck she’d been loaded into.
“No can do, lover boy.” Army shook his head. “You’re both witnesses for the Federal Government. We’re going to have to debrief you two separately.”
“At least let me tell her good-bye?” he asked, trying to take a step in the direction of the ambulance. Army blocked his way.
“This is the biggest case of my career, and I appreciate that you brought it to me, but we’re going to go by the book from here on out. They found those security guards from your family’s law firm. One of them died en route to the hospital. This whole thing is a big mess, and everything has to be handled just right.”
“I’m a better runner than you,” he said, eager to see her before the EMTs could shut the door.
“And I will have no problem shooting you. Come on, Thornbird. Just this once, play by the damn rules.”
Officially at a standoff, neither one of them wanted to budge.
For the past few weeks, Lane had been by his side day and night. It was probably just the adrenaline pumping through his veins, but he wanted to see her. A few days without her wouldn’t kill him, he tried to convince himself.
“Lane!” He called out, hoping to see her one last time before he was sucked into the custody of the feds.
“You’re making this weird,” Army mumbled.
“That’s b
ecause you’re heartless.” He allowed Army to lead him to his car, determined to not let a couple of days without her depress him.
Chapter Thirty
Effervescent snowflakes pelted Ava’s windshield. Traffic on the Dan Ryan crawled. Nervous jitters wreaked havoc in Lane’s stomach at even the suggestion of a whole new adventure.
For the past three weeks, she’d been briefed, debriefed, and put on hold from leaving the country. The day before, the FBI cleared her for travel. She hadn’t seen or talked to Jax once.
Maybe their relationship was a fluke. She had wondered plenty of times. In the place of a one-night stand, she’d invented a three-week one instead.
“Have you seen today’s paper?” Ava asked.
She admired how she slid the Lexus SUV onto the off-ramp with amazing control. Slick streets, wet from snow, had already caused several cars to pull to the side of the expressway. She wouldn’t be surprised if O’Hare had cancelled all flights.
“No,” she told Ava. Days ago, she had finally hit her wall. She’d refused to look at any more of the gruesome details of her ex-husband’s case. She took a sip of her Starbucks Caramel Macchiato and tried to think of something other than the weather.
“Did you remember your rain poncho and hairdryer?” Ava asked. Flying in bad weather always freaked her out.
Ever since Lane had gotten back to reality, Ava had tried to lift her spirits, but she couldn’t kick the funk she found herself in. “Don’t worry about the weather. It’s going to blow over in an hour.”
“Yeah,” she told her. She’d been packed and ready to go for her trip to Italy for more than a week. Since the Italians had the best coffee in the world, she’d decided to spoil herself with a crash course in beans. She’d spent enough time pining over Jax.