Accelerate

by Tracy Wolff

  I know there will be—I can sense it and so can Jace. But whether or not he can get to it before I’m supposed to go “steal that BMW” is another question altogether. All of which means I’m in a crappy mood when I walk through the doors of Hotwired at three o’clock, my arms full of food I’ve just picked up for my crew’s lunch. We’re all working this thing, all using whatever contacts we’ve got to dig up info and the least I can do is feed them. I’m returning from checking out Jordan’s apartment and I am pissed—I found two cameras in her place and I feel like I’m going to explode. Especially since I had to leave them there to keep Anderson from being suspicious. That’s assuming he hasn’t already seen Gabe and me poking around her apartment…

  It makes me furious, makes me feel like shit. I’m the one who dragged her into this mess, I’m the one who put her in danger, and if something happens to her I’m going blow up Anderson and his whole fucking world.

  Which means, of course, that I blow my friends’ and family’s worlds to hell right along with it.

  I’ve spent most of my life trying to protect the people I care about and it seems all I do is fuck things up worse.

  I’ve pretty much ruined Jordan’s life.

  Joe is a walking disaster and if I’m not to blame for that, I don’t know who is.

  And now I’ve dragged my crew into something that’s pretty much guaranteed to fuck their lives up, too.

  I couldn’t have handled this worse if I fucking tried.

  To make matters worse, the second I step into bay three, I know something’s wrong. Or should I say, even more wrong than usual. Everyone’s huddled together at the end of the bay—even Lena—and they all turn to stare at me. At first I’m not sure what else could have gone wrong enough to put that look on their faces, but then it registers that Gabe is standing in the middle of the group. And that Jordan is nowhere around.

  “Where the fuck is she?” I demand, dropping the food on the table next to Jace’s station as I stalk across the garage. I swear to God if he doesn’t have a good fucking explanation for this I’m going to beat the shit out of him. He’s one of my best friends and I’d walk off a cliff for him, but Jordan is…Jordan. He had one job today—keep her safe—and if he failed at it…if he failed at it, I don’t know what I’ll do.

  Payton steps between us, hand held out placatingly as she says, “She’s fine. There’s nothing else he could have done, Nic.”

  “Before I decide if I agree with that or not, why doesn’t somebody tell me what he has done. And where the fuck my woman is.”

  “She’s at the police station on Broadway,” Gabe says, looking and sounding miserable. “A cop came into the diner a while ago and insisted she go with him.”

  “And you let her go?” I demand as every worst-case scenario I can think of shoots through my head at the same time.

  “What the hell was he supposed to do?” Payton asks me. “The guy had a badge from internal affairs and wasn’t taking no for an answer. If she didn’t go, he was going to arrest her and it was going to be twice as hard to get her out of there.”

  “I trailed them to the station on Broadway and I was texting with her the whole way,” Gabe assures me. “We’re texting with her still and so far she’s doing fine. He’s got her waiting in an interrogation room.”

  “Waiting for what?” I demand as ice skitters down my back.

  “That we don’t know. But she says she’s doing okay so far, made me promise not to let you freak out.”

  “Yeah, well, that ship has fucking sailed, hasn’t it?”

  “Abso-fucking-lutely,” Jace agrees looking grim. He’s turned away from his computers for what feels like the first time in two days, though the screens continue to work in the background.

  “Who is this guy? Do we know if he’s legit or if he’s working for Anderson? Do we know if she’s safe?”

  “His name’s Chris Jacobs,” Gabe tells me. “Jace is running him through channels right now, trying to figure out who he is.”

  “He’s already hacked into the SDPD database. Shouldn’t it be a simple matter of pulling up his name, matching it to a badge number, and checking to see if it’s on the list from the car?”

  “It should be that easy,” Jace says. “But there’s a problem—according to SDPD records, no one named Chris Jacobs has ever worked for them, in any capacity.”

  “What the fuck does that even mean?” I demand as adrenaline roars through me. I turn dead eyes on Gabe. “You let her go with a fake cop?”

  “He didn’t look fake,” Gabe insists. “That’s the thing. He smelled like cop to me.”

  “Plus, he took her to the station,” Lena tells me soothingly. “If he wasn’t a cop, there’s no way she’d be sitting in interrogation right now.”

  “Unless Anderson put her there.”

  “Why would he do that?” Heath demands. “Why the fuck would he drag proof of his crimes right through the center of the SDPD central?”

  It’s a good question and the only thing keeping me from losing my shit completely right now. But it’s not enough. Who the fuck knows why Anderson does anything. Maybe he figures if she thinks she’s being arrested, she’ll actually talk. Or maybe he wants to make her disappear into the system for a few days, until all the shit on the street goes down.

  Or maybe he wants to make her disappear forever and this is just the first fucking step. Until I have more information, I won’t have a fucking clue which one of those things it is—and knowing that is more than enough to drive me insane.

  “Dig harder,” I tell Jace as I pull out my phone to text Jordan. “Find out who this bastard is.”

  “Believe me, I’m trying. If he’s undercover, he’s under deep because the guy’s a fucking ghost. And if he’s not, if Chris Jacobs is just an identity Anderson came up with to run this game, he did a damn fine job putting it together. I’ve spent the last half an hour looking for a stitch to pull to unravel the whole thing and nothing’s giving. Even the picture Gabe managed to take isn’t yielding anything.”

  “There’s a picture?” I bend down to get a closer look at Jace’s computer screen. “Pull it up. I want to see what this bastard looks like.”

  He nods, striking a few keys. Within seconds, a photo of a guy in a bad suit pops up. He’s got dark hair and blue eyes and looks like a million other people on the street. Except there’s something about him that feels familiar, that feels like I might have seen him somewhere before. I just can’t put my finger on where that might have been and it makes me nervous. Very, very nervous.

  “Everybody here has seen this picture?” I demand, looking around.

  My crew all nods.

  “And nothing pops for any of you?”

  “Nothing,” Payton says, looking totally disgusted. “He could be anybody.”

  She’s right. He could be standing next to me on the street and I probably wouldn’t recognize the bastard. That’s how generic looking he is. If he is undercover, no wonder he’s so fucking good at it.

  I hope he’s undercover, hope he’s a decent cop trying to do the same thing I’m doing—take down Anderson and his band of fucking bastards. But if he’s not…if he’s not, then Jordan is in serious danger.

  Just the thought makes my blood boil, makes me feel like I’m going to jump right out of my skin. I’ve spent my whole adult life looking for someone I can call mine—just mine—and now that I’ve found her, the idea that some crooked ass cop trying to save his own skin might take her away? It makes me want to rip him apart with my bare fucking hands. Makes me want to rip them all apart.

  I know it’s only been a couple days, know that it’s crazy how much she means to me already—especially considering everything I don’t know about her. But none of that matters. Not when it’s like my soul recognized her the moment we met. And not when she’s already worked her way so deeply inside of me that I don’t think I could ever get her out, even if I wanted to.

  I wait impatiently for Jordan to answer my
text. I know Gabe’s been in contact with her, know he says she’s okay. But until I hear from her myself, I’m not going to believe it.

  Fuck, who am I kidding? I’m not going to believe it until I’ve got her back in my arms, and my bed, where she belongs.

  “Can’t you make this thing go any faster?” I demand, staring at Jace’s computer. He’s got the thing running some kind of complicated algorithm and the only thing keeping me from picking up the damn useless piece of shit and hurtling it against the wall is the knowledge that doing so will only slow things down. Though at this point I can’t see how much slower they can get.

  My phone dings with a text message and my knees go weak with relief when I see that it’s from Jordan.

  JB: I’m fine! stop worrying.

  Yeah, like that’s going to happen.

  It dings again.

  JB: Right now I’m alone in an interrogation room with a bunch of cops right outside. Couldn’t be safer.

  Her naiveté would amuse me if I wasn’t so terrified that it might get her killed. She might be surrounded by cops, but can she trust any of them? Or are they working for Anderson? And even if there are some cops she can trust—a thought that’s fucking impossible to me—how is she going to be able to tell the difference?

  I text her back.

  NM: Hang in there. I’m working on a plan to get you out of there. Don’t trust anyone.

  She texts back immediately.

  JB: And I thought I had trust issues.

  NM: You do have trust issues. I just have worse ones.

  JB: Well, don’t we make a great pair ;-)

  NM: You’re not taking this seriously enough. This guy could be trying to kill you.

  JB: I’m taking it plenty seriously. But there’s not much I can do until you come up with that plan, so stop texting me and get to work.

  NM: I’m on it. Don’t say anything to Jacobs or anyone else until you hear from one of us.

  JB: I’ll try.

  It’s not quite what I want to hear, but it’ll do for now. Especially since I’ve finally got some idea of what to do to keep her safe.

  “Get back in the SDPD database,” I bark at Jace. “Start pulling up pictures of all the cops on Anderson’s list and send them to Jordan. She’s spent more time with this Jacobs guy. Maybe she’ll recognize him in one of the photos. And if not, then she’ll at least have some idea which cops around her are dirty and which ones aren’t.”

  Jace stares at me, mouth open, for several seconds. “That’s actually a damn good idea,” he tells me.

  The look I shoot him is unimpressed. “I do have them on occasion.” Then I turn to Gabe and Heath. “Get back down to the police station. Don’t go inside yet, but at least be there so that if something happens, you’re there.”

  “What are you going to be doing?” Lena asks me, looking wary and worried all at the same time.

  “I’m going to go kick at a few rocks until I find the one Anderson is hiding under. And then I’m going to make sure he and those motherfuckers he’s working with never get a chance to hurt Jordan or the rest of you ever again.”

  Chapter 23

  Jordan

  I hate police stations.

  I mean, I really hate police stations.

  Being inside them makes my skin crawl and my heart beat way too fast and this one is no exception. Hell, it might be the worst one yet considering I’m not here as a victim this time, but as someone who might be considered a suspect.

  Not that I know exactly what I am doing here. It’s not like that Detective Jacobs guy has been exactly forthcoming since he escorted me out of the diner in front of Doreen and everyone else. I can’t help wondering what she’s thinking right now, if she’s worried about me or if she thinks I’m actually a criminal.

  I don’t know which is worse.

  The air kicks on and I wrap my arms around myself in a futile effort to keep warm. I don’t get why these places are always too cold or too hot. Maybe it’s because they want to keep the bad guys off balance and uncomfortable, but don’t the cops feel uncomfortable, too? I’m not sure it’s such a well-thought-out idea.

  I really, really hate police stations.

  For the most part I do a really good job of outrunning the memories, of holding them at bay so I can live a relatively normal life. But sitting here staring at these walls, a cup of bad cop coffee in front of me, brings all the memories flooding back. And being stuck here makes it impossible to shove them away, impossible to escape them.

  Waking up the way I did.

  Scrambling to find clothes, to find help.

  Hours spent in a hospital trying to tell my story to someone who would believe me. Hours spent in a police station trying to find someone who actually wanted to help me.

  It’s been three years but it all feels like yesterday. It all feels like it just happened—and like it could happen again.

  But I’m not that girl anymore, I tell myself fiercely. I’m not that college sophomore who trusted too easily and thought the world was actually a bright, shiny place. No, I know the monsters now. I recognize them. And for the most part I know how to stay the hell away from them.

  It’s only when something like this happens, when I’m forced to confront a past I’d rather forget, that all that shit comes back and makes me feel stupid, terrified, worthless, lonely.

  But I’m not, I remind myself fiercely as I fiddle with my phone in an effort to distract myself. I’m none of those things, not anymore. I’m not stupid, I’m not worthless, and I won’t let myself be terrified. Won’t let myself give in to the fear that’s churning in my belly like a whirlpool.

  As for being lonely—how can I be when I’ve got Nic and all his friends rallying around me? Texting me, sending me reassurances, doing whatever they can to keep me sane and safe even though they don’t know just how hard this is on me. That counts for something.

  It counts for a hell of a lot, actually. Especially when I haven’t had anyone to truly rely on, anyone I could truly trust, for way too long.

  My phone buzzes with another text, and I glance down, expecting it to be another warning from Nic. But this time it’s from Jace. He gives me a brief explanation of his plan to help figure out if I can trust Jacobs or not and attaches three photographs to the text. None of them look like the man who brought me in here, nor do they look like any of the cops I can see through the two-way glass that lines one wall of the interrogation room.

  I send him back a nope, then wait for more pictures to come through. I don’t have access to Wi-Fi—something in the building must cut it off because my phone can’t connect no matter how hard I try—so we’re stuck texting. And since he can only text a few pictures at a time, I figure this is going to be a really long process…

  We’re on pictures nine through twelve when Jacobs—or whatever his name is—comes back into the room. He’s carrying a folder and another cup of the abysmally bad coffee and he looks about as thrilled to be here as I am. The only difference is, he holds all the power in this equation and the expression on his face says he knows it.

  Great. I just love cops like this. They’re my favorite people in the whole fucking world.

  Not.

  He takes a seat directly across from me just as my phone beeps again. Ignoring him—and the raised eyebrows he sends my way—I pick up my phone and check out the newest batch of photos from Jace. A quick look in the bullpen, and at Jacobs’s face, and I’m sending back a one-word answer.

  No.

  Jacobs makes a show of opening the folder and rustling the papers inside of it. But I’m pretty sure he doesn’t need to be looking at them, that he has everything in that file memorized already. I don’t know what makes me think that, but there’s just something about him that seems a lot sharper than he’s letting on. He may be acting like an ass—and a not very smart one at that—but the look in his eyes is sharp. Determined. Predatory, even. This guy is out for blood.

  The thought makes me even more wary
and I didn’t think that was possible.

  He doesn’t say anything at first and neither do I. He just stares at me and I stare back, refusing to blink. Refusing to back down. I don’t know what he’s going to say, don’t know what—if anything—he’s going to accuse me of, but there’s no way I’m giving him an ounce more power over me than the situation already demands.

  He breaks first, looking down at the file and shuffling a few more papers around. I like to think that means I have the upper hand, but I’m not sure it wasn’t a calculated move on his part. Just like everything else he’s done since he walked into the diner.

  “Do you know why you’re here?” he asks me after several more seconds pass.

  “Should I know?”

  “It seems odd to me that you haven’t asked what this is about. That’s what most innocent people do.”

  I don’t miss his subtle emphasis on the word innocent, any more than I miss the fact that he’s trying to push me into dropping my guard and saying something. But Nic’s and Jace’s and Gabe’s warnings are all fresh in my head. Don’t say anything. Don’t give him any more information than you have to. Don’t do his job for him.

  “You haven’t exactly been around to ask,” I counter. “Besides, I figured if there was a problem, you’d tell me about it.” I’m proud of how tough I sound, how my voice doesn’t waver at all as I continue to look him straight in the eye.

  “So ask me now.”

  I tilt my head to the side, consider him. Stall for time as my phone buzzes again. Under his watchful gaze, I open the phone and glance at the content of Jace’s latest message. Still no. I type in my response and then put the phone upside down on the table between us.

  “No, thank you,” I say.

  He doesn’t seem to know what to do with me, like I totally don’t fit the expectations he had of me.

  “You want to tell me what that’s all about then?” He nods at my phone.