Naked Truth

by Jamie K. Schmidt

  “Shoot him,” Vadim ordered as Drake tried to wiggle out of his grip. “Shoot everyone, or I swear I’m going to kill you first once I’m free.”

  While this was going on, Pam was inching back toward the house. She’d barely gotten a foot on the step when Mark grabbed her.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

  Pam just reacted. She kicked out, catching him below the knee. His pistol fired harmlessly into the ground. His grip lessened, and he howled as his leg collapsed underneath him. Running over to where Drake and Vadim were wrestling for control, Pam swung back and kicked Vadim viciously in the head.

  “Let him go, rooster,” she cursed at him, swinging her foot back for another kick.

  Drake tore free from Vadim’s hold as Vadim grabbed her ankle and pulled. Pam fell hard on her backside. Drake’s pistol was out and under Vadim’s chin.

  “Make a move,” Drake snarled.

  “Get off him,” Mark said. He was down on his side, holding his knee. But his other hand had his service revolver pointed at Drake.

  Drake looked over at Pam. “Get out of here.”

  “I’ll shoot her first.”

  Pam sprang to her feet and took off. Mark cursed and fired. Pam felt like a giant hand pushed her, and the pain from the bullet entering her side took her down. Drake whirled and shot his partner. Vadim launched up, spilling Drake backward. Pam tried to get up, but the pain was like a white-hot fire, and she was starting to get dizzy. Vadim had his own pistol leveled at Drake, and the two of them stared down the barrels of each other’s guns.

  “I’m going to throw up,” she said.

  “That won’t work this time, shluha. I’m going to kill him,” he said to her.

  “You’ll die too,” Drake promised him. “You turn that gun on her, and I will blow your head off. I killed my own partner. Do you think I’d do any less for you?”

  “You can save him, Pavla,” Vadim said. “All you have to do is tell me where the storage unit is. I don’t believe only your brother knows it. I don’t believe it’s in the Prix Fixe units. Mark told me it’s a setup. All I’ll find there are cops.”

  “Andrej doesn’t want you to kill me.” Pam eased up to her knees, and a cry of pain tore out of her.

  “Pam,” Drake called.

  “Just a graze. I think,” she murmured faintly.

  “Andrej is a vet. I told that story to keep the pigs grunting in another pen while you and I finished our business. If Dmitry is a traitor, he dies. If he is letting the FBI run around in circles, I’ll just hurt him a bit.”

  “I’m not an idiot,” Pam said. “You’re going to kill us all, given half a chance.” She rose to her feet and whimpered as tears gushed from her eyes.

  “You’re going to kick me again?” Vadim said.

  “I’m going to get Mark’s gun and shoot you.”

  He barked a laugh out.

  Drake cursed. “Get the hell out of here.”

  Pam staggered toward them. “Two against one, Vadim. Drake has you in his sights. The minute you aim for me, you’re dead.”

  “And the minute you get the pistol, I’m dead, is that so? I sense a great Russian tragedy. Everyone is going to die. However, I think I’m the better shot. You’re going to watch me kill your lover, and then I’m going to make you tell me where Nikolai hid the artifacts.”

  “Provided you survive Drake shooting you first. Tell me, Vadim, wouldn’t you rather get up and walk away? Come after me another time?”

  “I’m not going to allow that,” Drake barked.

  “Shut up,” she told him. All his attention was on Vadim, so he couldn’t see the look in her eye. She had backed him when he was Ralphie and they were trying to get her old boss to stand down. Why wouldn’t he do the same for her? “You’ve got until I get to Mark’s gun to get up and walk out of here.” With blood soaking into her jeans and down to pool around her socks, Pam didn’t think she was going to make it back to Mark’s body. Each step was agony, and she had to pause to breathe through her pain after every one.

  “I want Nikolai’s paintings, the medals, everything. I wish I’d never met you.” Vadim’s eyes also never left Drake. His gun never wavered as he sat up and slowly got to his feet. Drake mirrored his actions, both moving so slowly, it looked like they were underwater.

  “Did you bring the ten thousand dollars?” she asked.

  “It’s in the car,” he said.

  “Leave the bag in the yard when you leave. I’ll call your cell phone in ten minutes with the location.”

  “Why should I believe you?” Vadim was inching away from Drake, heading down the driveway.

  “Trust has to start somewhere.”

  “I’ll call you in five minutes after I leave. Not ten. And if I sense a cop, I’m going to put a bounty on your pretty head.”

  “Deal,” she said.

  “I hate you.”

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  Vadim continued backing away

  “Get in the damn house,” Drake said, moving so his body was cutting off Vadim’s angle of shot on her.

  “Not going that fast,” she whispered, but managed to get her hands on the railing to the steps.

  When Vadim slipped out of sight, Drake lifted her bodily up the stairs. Pam shrieked and passed out just as Drake slammed the door behind them.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “She’s going to be all right,” the doctor told Drake, who had two uniforms guarding her door.

  “No visitors but me,” he told them as he walked into Pam’s hospital room.

  “She’s lost a lot of blood, but the bullet didn’t do any permanent damage where it grazed her. She’s very lucky.”

  Drake couldn’t speak. He flinched as he relived the sound of the bullet and saw her crumple in his mind’s eye. “She’s very brave.” His voice was hoarse with emotion.

  “She should be coming around in a few hours. She’s on pain medication. She’s going to be very sore, but there’s no reason why she can’t leave as soon as she feels up to it.”

  I can think of a few reasons. He forced the words out. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  He eased into the chair next to the bed and held her cool, limp hand. Tears stung his eyes when he looked at her still face.

  “This ends now,” he told her. He had already lost his godfather. His best friend was no longer speaking to him. Although he couldn’t really blame Andrej. He had sicced the FBI on him on the word of a murderer. And to top it all off, he’d killed his partner in self-defense. Drake still couldn’t believe Mark had shot Pam and was really working for the Russian mob.

  The irony was almost painful. Mark had become an inside man for the vor, which could have been the road Drake went down all those years ago. Luckily for him, it was all in the FBI’s hands right now. But it didn’t ease the sting of grief he felt for the man he’d killed. How had he not known his partner was on the take?

  Internal Affairs was going to have a field day with him when he got back from his administrative leave. Not to mention the department’s shrink.

  But the only shrink he was interested in was hooked up to an IV, lying in a hospital bed because he hadn’t kept her safe. Drake kissed Pam’s hand and laid it back on the bed. He put his head into his hands and allowed himself one big sob before pulling himself back together.

  She was alive. It could have been so much worse.

  True to his word, when Pam didn’t answer his phone call five minutes later, Vadim called out a bounty on her. The news on the street was twenty thousand dollars for her, dead or alive.

  A commotion outside had Drake pulling his pistol and moving to the door. He opened it a crack and saw an older couple arguing with the two uniforms.

  “That’s our daughter in there,” the woman said, looking up as Drake stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him. She paled when she saw the pistol in his hand, even though he held it pointing at the floor.

  Drake looked at them both.
Their children did bear a slight resemblance to them, but Drake wasn’t taking any chances. Her old man had sold her out for money before. It wasn’t going to happen again on his watch.

  “Who are you?” he said in Russian, remembering Pam had said her father was fluent.

  The couple looked at each other, and the man straightened up and responded in Russian, “I am Grigori Morozov. This is my wife, Laura Krupin.”

  Drake switched back to English. “Your daughter has a twenty-thousand-dollar bounty on her head. That would pay a lot of gambling debts, wouldn’t it?”

  Grigori’s face reddened, and his hands clenched in anger. He took a step toward Drake but stopped himself when the two officers guarding the door tensed.

  “How dare you?” Laura asked, fighting tears.

  “Past evidence,” Drake said.

  “I wouldn’t have called them if he still had ties to any organized crime,” Dmitry said, coming out of the elevator.

  “Darren,” his mother gasped, whirling to face him. She put a trembling hand on her mouth when she took in his appearance. He was still dressed like a vor thug. This time, Drake noticed he was wearing a dangling cross earring to top off the tattooed Goth look.

  His father wouldn’t look at him.

  “You’re not allowed in either, Dmitry,” Drake said.

  “We’re her family,” Laura said, whirling back to confront Drake. “You have no right to keep us from her.”

  “Where were you before she was shot?” he asked.

  Laura looked down. “We’ve made mistakes.” Then she looked up at him with the spark of fire in her eyes that reminded him of Pam. “But it is not your place to judge us.”

  “No,” Drake said kindly. “It’s my place to protect her from the very bad men trying to kill her.”

  “I can vouch for them,” Dmitry said. “You owe me.”

  Drake narrowed his eyes at him. That was playing dirty.

  “You shouldn’t have to,” Grigori said, looking at his son for the first time.

  “No,” he said. “I shouldn’t.”

  The two played stare down for a few moments, and Grigori was the first to look away.

  “This is against my better judgment,” Drake said. “Keep the visit short.” He turned to the uniform. “They don’t get in again without me, got that?”

  “Yes, sir,” the guard said.

  Drake opened the door and gestured for Pam’s family to go in. He brought up the rear and closed the door behind them.

  “Oh,” Laura said and sat at her daughter’s side.

  Grigori stood at the foot of her bed and studied her.

  “She’s sleeping,” Drake told them. “The doctor said she should be up and around in a few days. The bullet missed hitting anything vital.”

  Dmitry walked over to her window and peeked out of the blinds. Drake knew he was looking for a sniper or a way to come into her room. But Drake was well ahead of him. There wasn’t a sweet spot for a gunman to set up across the way, and only Spider-Man could get up the wall. Dmitry must have come to the same conclusion, because he nodded and pulled the shades over the blinds.

  “Any news on Vadim?” Drake asked.

  Dmitry shook his head. “He’s not going to trust either one of us again. So there’s no sense in setting up an ambush. I was sorry to hear about your partner.”

  “Me too.” Drake sighed. “But at least he didn’t get anyone killed—aside from himself.” Drake pushed the guilt into a compartment in his mind. He would deal with it when he had the luxury to.

  “Agent Cole is arranging another safe house until we catch Vadim.”

  Drake’s gut clenched. He put on a neutral face and nodded, but there was no way in hell they were going to put Pam in another safe house. There were too many leaks. The one man he had trusted his back to for the last five years had turned out to be literally and figuratively in bed with the Russian mob. The only one he trusted with Pam’s safety was himself.

  “Drake?”

  Drake strode toward the bed, where the soft voice had cried out.

  “I’m here,” he said, barely restraining himself from body checking his future mother-in-law into the wall.

  “We’re all here, dear,” her mother said, holding on to her hand.

  “Oh.” Pam’s eyes fluttered open. She took in the room and all four of them crowding around her bedside. “I’m all right. It just hurts.”

  “Press the button for the nurse, and she can give you some more pain medication.”

  Pam slowly shook her head, wincing. “No, I don’t like how fuzzy I feel.”

  Laura pushed the button for her. “You’re supposed to feel like that. You’ve been shot.”

  “What are you guys doing here?” Pam asked her mother.

  “Darren called us.”

  “He did?” Pam looked at her brother, who shrugged.

  “My cover’s blown sky-high. I’m taking a leave of absence from the Bureau.”

  “What Bureau?” Laura asked.

  “Darren’s an FBI agent,” Pam said.

  Laura’s face went slack, and she gaped at her son, shaking her head, as if to clear it.

  “The FBI doesn’t hire ex-cons,” Grigori said.

  “No, they don’t,” Dmitry shot back.

  “You’re under twenty-four-hour guard,” Drake spoke into the awkward silence. “No one comes in or out without my authority.”

  “Did Vadim call?”

  “Don’t worry about that now,” Drake said.

  “Did he?” Her voice was a little stronger.

  “Yeah, he called.”

  “I passed out, didn’t I?”

  “The ambulance got there in no time. You were never in any danger.” He would never tell her the absolute terror that had washed over him as he waited for the paramedics to arrive. It was the longest fifteen minutes of his life, watching her bleed, her face as pale as a corpse. He shook himself out of it.

  “Was he mad?” she asked.

  “He’ll get over it.”

  Everyone looked up when the door opened. The male nurse started at seeing so many people in the room. “I’m here to give Miss Krupin her pain medication.”

  He carried a small paper container of pills and a water bottle.

  “Pam, I’m glad you’re awake. I’ve got to make myself scarce. I’m too much of a target like this,” Dmitry said.

  “But we just got here,” Laura protested.

  He gave her a tight smile.

  “You know how to reach me,” Pam said with a half wave. “Stay clear of Vadim.”

  “You too,” he said. He didn’t quite brush by his father, but he didn’t acknowledge him on the way out either.

  Drake and Laura moved aside to let the nurse get close to Pam.

  “I really don’t want them,” she said.

  “They will help you relax and heal,” the man said, pouring four pills into her hand.

  “What are these?” Pam asked, looking at them. “These aren’t pain pills.”

  Dmitry whirled back from the door.

  “Just take them, dear,” the nurse said, backing away. He bounced off Dmitry and turned to find Drake, who jammed his pistol into the nurse’s ribs.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” the nurse asked shakily.

  “I’m a doctor. I know what pain medication is supposed to look like. Tell me what these pills are,” Pam said.

  “Answer her,” Dmitry said, snapping a handcuff on the nurse.

  “This is outrageous. It’s Demerol. For the pain. Just like she asked.”

  Pam put the pills on the table and brushed off her hands. “Standard procedure would be to put the Demerol in my IV drip.” She indicated the needle in the back of her hand. “But even still, Demerol is a little round white pill. What’s in the capsules?”

  Dmitry finished snapping the other handcuff on him while Drake read the nurse his Miranda rights and the nurse stammered out that he understood them.

  “We’ll find out when we s
end it to the lab, anyway,” Dmitry said when Drake was done. “Cooperation right now will go very well for you.”

  “I don’t understand,” Laura said. “Why are you arresting the nurse?”

  “Because he’s trying to poison me, Mom,” Pam said. “How much did Vadim pay you to slip me bad pills?”

  The nurse looked down. “It’s a twenty-thousand-dollar bounty.”

  “Oh.” Pam sank back to her pillow.

  “Let’s go,” Dmitry said, pulling the nurse out of the room. “So much for your secure room,” he said to Drake.

  “Wait.” Drake held up a finger. “What was in the pills?” he asked the nurse in a deceptively mild voice.

  “Ketamine,” the nurse said.

  “It’s like PCP,” Dmitry filled in.

  “Not exactly,” Pam said. “Horse tranquilizers. It’s a muscle relaxant.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to kill you,” the nurse said quickly. “He said it was going to knock you for a loop. Allow you to answer questions more willingly.”

  “This dose is too high for someone in my condition,” she said. “I would have slipped into a coma.”

  “Who’s he?” Drake said.

  “I don’t know who,” the nurse whispered. “The bald Russian guy. He told me it was an easy twenty grand. No one would get hurt. I was just going to give her the happy pills, and he was going to come in here and ask her some questions.”

  “That’s it,” Drake said. “We’re leaving. Pam, are you well enough to travel?”

  “That’s ridiculous. She’s been shot. She just came out of surgery. She can’t hop up and walk away,” Laura said.

  Drake looked at her assessingly. He could see where Pam got her assertiveness from, and in a certain light, they could pass for each other. He began to get an idea.

  “How was Vadim supposed to get through two armed guards?” Drake asked the nurse.

  “I don’t know. I figured he’d pretend to be a relative or a doctor.”

  “How were you going to get paid?” Dmitry asked.

  “He was going to put the money in my car.”

  “I’ll follow up on that,” Dmitry said to Drake.

  “I thought you were taking some time off?”