A Lick Of Heat: H.E.A.T. Book Four

by Claire, Nicola

  “Because I want him to know I can take what’s his and he can do fuck all about it.”

  I stopped breathing. He’d said that exact same thing back in the gym when he’d gone off his rocker.

  Like he was off his rocker now.

  “Jesus,” I whispered and Cawfield launched himself at me.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “To Catch A Thief, You Must First Think Like A Thief, Correct?”

  The next sixty seconds were the longest in my life and also the craziest. And that was saying something. Ava moved. I mean, one second she was seated, the next she had Cawfield in a choke hold. She said something in Latin. But he kept fighting her, trying to reach me. She said something else, also in Latin. When that didn’t get the reaction she expected, she tried another sentence. And then another and another, until finally, she hit on one that seemed to do the trick.

  Cawfield simply sucked in a breath of air and went limp in her arms.

  “Fuck,” Charlie muttered, the first time she’d spoken since we’d walked in here. I looked over and noticed the lawyer was out cold, too.

  “Did he faint?” I asked.

  She looked at me as if I were an idiot. Ah, not faint, then. She’d incapacitated him so he wouldn’t see or hear what Ava was doing.

  I looked back at the scariest woman I had ever met in my life and said nothing. Ava slowly lifted her head from gazing at Cawfield contemplatively and looked me in the eye.

  “He has been through PSYOPS training similar to ours,” she declared. “He is not aware of what he’s doing or saying when provoked by you.”

  I shook my head. “Cawfield and I have been at each other’s throats for years. This…” I indicated the room, him, everything that had just happened. “This is totally different.”

  “Yes. There is a trigger.”

  “What’s the trigger?”

  “It’s… complicated,” she hedged.

  “I’m somewhat intelligent; I’m sure I’ll keep up.”

  She scowled at me; it seemed the most natural expression I’d seen so far. I still didn’t trust it. “It’s a combination of things. You calling him some derogatory name in conjunction with a certain topic of conversation.”

  I stared at her.

  “Any topic that includes being attracted to you,” Charlie explained, “and you shutting him down with disdainful and disparaging language.”

  “Weston can do that?”

  Ava stood up and dusted herself off. “He can do a lot of things.”

  I rubbed my temples. “So, if Cawfield is the manipulated pattern puzzle piece, that means Jones is being blackmailed like Hennessey.”

  “Why do you assume there is only one pattern?” Ava asked.

  “Because it’s what he’s done before. He’s a creature of habit.”

  “Oh, no, Detective. Weston, as you call him, is not a creature of habit. He’s a creature of deception. He’ll do whatever he needs to do to make you think what he wants you to think and then he’ll use it against you.”

  “That complicates things,” I muttered. “But he’s used this pattern for years.”

  “Time is irrelevant; success is all that matters.”

  “Carole Michaels came into his life a year ago. His pattern of behaviour had been well established by then,” I argued.

  “The pattern he allows the world at large to see may well have been,” Ava said calmly. “But those parts of the puzzle he keeps hidden are the key.”

  “And what are they?” I asked.

  She sat back in the chair at the table, ignoring the snoring men out cold on the floor at her feet. Charlie was leaning against a wall again, propping it up and saying nothing.

  “You say Carole Michaels is the reason behind his revenge on her brother,” Ava said. “That this revenge is what motivates Weston and that’s why he has targeted you to get at Damon Michaels.”

  I nodded. It hadn’t been a question, but I felt like she expected an acknowledgement of her assessment. I wasn’t surprised that she could sum up the situation in a couple of sentences, though. This woman was scary.

  “What if it is not?” Ava said succinctly.

  “Then we’re screwed,” I admitted. “Because I’ve got nothing.”

  Ava looked at Charlie, who after a silent communication of sorts had been completed, nodded her head.

  “Five years ago,” Ava said quietly, “Weston was ostracised from our department for an experiment that went wrong. He’d always been a loose cannon. He had sideline interests that although did not run counter to our directives could have caused us problems.”

  “In Wellington,” I said.

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  We knew Weston could be linked to certain crimes in Wellington before he moved to Auckland. And we could also place him in Auckland as far back as four years ago when Gregg Arnold Mansfield was accused of abducting Lisa Devon. Had he moved here when things went bad for him in Spookville?

  “How are abduction and murder not counter to your directives?” I asked.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Then uncomplicate it for me,” I demanded.

  “You do not have the clearance, so don’t ask me that again.”

  I scowled at her.

  She smiled sweetly.

  “In any case,” she went on, “it was a severe blow to the Department.” I thought perhaps the D in Department had been a capital letter. “Without him, certain PSYOPS agents were left without adequate supervision. Those outside the immediate control of our director started to fracture. It soon became obvious which agents had received the standard PSYOPS training and which had received Weston’s experimental efforts.”

  “He experimented on his own people?” I asked, disgusted.

  “Indeed,” Ava said in agreement and with equal disgust. “One of those people was a man we had investigating underground activities in Auckland City. He went rogue.”

  I stared at her, starting to see a bigger picture. But surely, that picture wasn’t right.

  “Who was he?” I said, my words whisper quiet.

  Ava looked at me without an ounce of shame and said, “You knew him as Declan King.”

  Son of a bitch.

  I turned away and started pacing.

  “King was on the scene here in Auckland for years,” I told her.

  “Yes.”

  “You placed him here?”

  “Our director did.”

  “He was a criminal mastermind. A drug lord.”

  “Yes.”

  “He was responsible for the deaths of dozens of people over those years.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” I shouted at her. “What possible purpose would a criminal drug runner serve being in your stable?”

  She cocked her head at me. “To catch a thief, you must first think like a thief, correct?”

  “King didn’t catch anyone! He was the kingpin. The boss. No one was bigger than him to catch; you fucking freaks!”

  “But how much smaller fish did he fry because he was in charge?”

  “Pushing drugs in our city!”

  I was almost screaming. Loud enough that someone heard the ruckus out in the bullpen. The lock on the door disengaged, and Pierce looked into the room.

  “Everything all right in here?” His eyes scanned the space, landing first on Cawfield, then the lawyer, and then me.

  Finally, he took in Charlie and Ava. He slipped into the room and shut the door at his back.

  “Did I miss the party?” he asked.

  “Ryan, darling,” Ava said all sweetness and light. “Where have you been?” She pouted at him as if she were put-out by his absence.

  Pierce purposely ignored her and looked at me. “Lara?”

  My first name, not my surname or my rank. He wanted to know if I was OK. If me, the person not the detective, was OK.

  I wasn’t. Cawfield had been mind fucked. Jones might have been too, but at the very least had been blackmailed. And suddenly th
e expensive treatments for his wife’s cancer made sense.

  Carl was dead, and Weston had created Declan King and let him loose in our city.

  And now… now the bastard had stepped into Declan’s shoes. An easy transition when he’d been the one to create the drug lord in the first place and knew every little thing about his business. I couldn’t quite believe that King had been a spook puppet, but Ava had no reason to lie to me. She could have simply said nothing. And Charlie hadn’t batted an eyelid, so I had to assume she agreed with every word out of the lethally sweet spy’s mouth.

  Nick Anscombe trusted Charlie Downes, and I strangely trusted Nick.

  Which meant everything revealed here had an element of the truth to it.

  Fuck.

  “This just got big enough to drown in, Sarge,” I said.

  He studied me and then pulled out a chair, completely ignoring Cawfield at his feet.

  “Tell me,” he said, sitting down.

  I went over everything that had happened and everything that I had deduced. Ava added a word here or there; Charlie remained mute. In the end, Pierce was scrubbing a hand over his goatee and muttering choice swearwords, and Cawfield was stirring, starting to wake up to this clusterfuck.

  I disliked Joe Cawfield. I could even truthfully say I hated him. But the man was not wholly responsible for his actions in the past which made it all the more awkward. Sure, whatever Weston had done had only been recent, which meant Cawfield had been a dick a lot longer than the mind manipulation had made him into a mega dick. But still. Things had been said, had been attempted physically, and I would have to work with him.

  He blinked open blurry eyes and stared up at Pierce and Charlie, who were on that side of the room; closest to him.

  “Fuck, my head hurts,” he muttered. He spotted his lawyer. And then he spotted me. “You,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

  What part of his behaviour was inherent and what part was the PSYOPS lie?

  I didn’t have it in me to set him off again, so I didn’t answer. Instead, I looked at Charlie and asked, “Can it be reversed?”

  “No,” she said. “But as we’ve discussed, it can be broken.”

  “He doesn’t care enough about anyone to let them come between his programming and reality,” I told her.

  She shrugged. That was all I was getting it seemed.

  “Robbie could do it,” Pierce said.

  “Come on, Sarge,” I countered. “Cawfield puts up with Simpson; he doesn’t love him.”

  “What the fuck, Keen?” Cawfield spat.

  “Don’t let your prejudice blind you, Detective,” Pierce offered quietly. “They’ve been partners for years.”

  “It could work,” Ava said.

  Cawfield pushed to his feet swaying. “Will someone tell me what the fuck’s going on?”

  “Why were you on Ponsonby Road outside that halfway house?” Pierce asked, instead of answering him.

  “Am I to be interrogated again, Sarge? My lawyer seems under the weather; I’d like to request a rain check.”

  “Joe, Weston got to you. You’ve been fucked with. In the head.” Cawfield stared at Pierce as if he was mad. “Every piece of evidence you’ve ever gathered will be in question. Every crook you put away. Every case you closed. You could even drag Robbie down with you.”

  On shaking legs, Cawfield took a step toward the table and then practically fell into a seat.

  “But…” he managed. I almost felt sorry for the dick.

  Shit. I did feel sorry for the dick.

  Dammit.

  “The halfway house?” Pierce pressed.

  Cawfield licked his lips; probably because his throat was dry. There was no water in here, and I wasn’t about to move. If I moved, I might set the trigger off, and we’d have Crazy Cawfield again. The spook had said it was a combination of words and attraction that did it, but I couldn’t help feeling simply looking at me would lay the foundation for Round Three-Hundred-and-Whatever we were currently up to on last count.

  “I found something,” he said. “When I checked the CCTV footage for the past forty-eight hours at Angelo’s before it blew up.” I tried not to flinch at the mention of my old Italian friend. “He had an argument with a guy. Twice. Both times right after Keen had been in the restaurant eating with Michaels.”

  No one looked at me, least of all Cawfield, which was just as well, because I could feel myself paling, shaking. Just slightly. But enough.

  “The angle wasn’t perfect; the guy knew that, I think. But he was the right height for Weston, so I dug deeper into the booking system at the restaurant and discovered he’d booked in for a meal two hours after Keen did. Both times. The phone number he’d used was for the halfway house. I was there to see if my hunch was correct.”

  “You were tracking Weston, and you didn’t tell me?” Pierce asked. “Tell the detective inspector?”

  “I couldn’t be certain and I…” He did look at me then and immediately glanced away. “I wanted to be the one to catch him.”

  “Jesus Christ, Joe. That’s not how we work in CIB, and you know it.”

  “Dammit, Sarge! She closes all the best ones.” He pointed an angry finger at me, not meeting my eyes. “She’s up for sergeant, isn’t she? I saw the application on her desk. The recommendation you’d attached to it. You didn’t attach a recommendation to mine, did you? I couldn’t let her get there before me. I couldn’t!”

  Silence filled the room up and threatened to suffocate us.

  I didn’t want to empathise with the dick, but I couldn’t help it. Cawfield had felt threatened by me from the start. The daughter of a cop. The granddaughter of a cop. My father holds a senior supervisory position in the South of Auckland. Cawfield saw me in CIB and him in charge of South Auckland Police and put two and two together to come up with ‘privileged.’

  I’d worked damn hard to get into CIB on my own. I never traded on my father’s name or position. And he sure as shit wouldn’t have helped me either. Success is yours for the taking, Lara-Marie. But it means nothing if it is not you taking it.

  I deserved my position in the boys’ club. Cawfield screwed his own career path all by himself. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t place some of the blame on me.

  Pierce let out a prolonged sigh.

  “OK,” he said. “OK. Weston used the halfway house as a base and hadn’t intended to lead us there.”

  “But Trevor did,” I said, suddenly seeing things much more clearly. “He produced that business card out of nowhere at Pitt Street Fire Station.”

  Pierce nodded slowly in agreement. He desperately wanted to believe Trevor was helping us too. That we hadn’t completely lost another of our colleagues to this madman. And it also backed up what Cawfield had uncovered.

  “No trap,” Pierce concluded, “but Weston would know his base was compromised if he was watching. And I’m inclined to think he was watching very carefully. So, he scrambles. Moves. Flips out.”

  “He is not the flipping out type,” Ava announced. “But I can see where you’re going with this.” She didn’t elaborate.

  “Things pick up speed,” I offered, ignoring the spook. “He escalates to killing Carl.”

  “Which was out of the ordinary for him, wouldn’t you say?” Pierce asked the spook.

  She sat still and silent and then slowly inclined her head in agreement.

  “I am surprised,” she said. “But I cannot argue your logic.”

  “Something rattled him,” Pierce concluded. “On top of the halfway house being outed.”

  “Keen going to Myers’ house?” Cawfield suggested.

  “And her realising that the trench coat and fedora hat she’d been seeing everywhere wasn’t Carl,” Pierce concluded.

  “So, why keep Carl any longer?” Cawfield said. “He’d served his purpose.”

  “And killing him would get to Keen,” Pierce finished for him.

  I said nothing; just let the words wash over me. Most of this I’d
determined on my whiteboard in Meeting Room C. The dots were connecting, but where was Weston? What was Jones doing? Did it involve Stretch and Carole?

  Time was running out.

  “Jones left in a hurry,” I said. “As soon as he knew I’d been reinstated.”

  “To report to Weston,” Pierce said.

  “Did he take his police-issued sedan?” I asked.

  Pierce and Cawfield stared at me.

  “He wouldn’t be that stupid,” Pierce said.

  “Unless he wants us to follow him,” I offered.

  “The PSYOPS training may be fracturing,” Ava agreed.

  “But who’s the person helping him fracture it?” Pierce demanded, then looked at me.

  Who was Trevor connected to enough to crack the brainwashing?

  It wasn’t me; I shook my head. Then stiffened. “Anyone seen his wife lately?”

  “Shit,” Pierce said, pulling out his cellphone. “Sir,” he said into it when it was finally answered. “We need to check up on Mary Jones. Is she even still alive?”

  I closed my eyes. Cawfield swore softly.

  I wasn’t happy Joe was in on this brainstorming session, but there was no denying the guy was actually a decent cop. He’d spotted Weston at Angelo’s. He’d traced him to the halfway house. He’d tried - albeit alone - to catch him even when he’d been manipulated by the PSYOPS jerk.

  I didn’t have to like it, but I could understand why he was still in CIB. He might not be sergeant material, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t good at beating the detective feet.

  But not being able to pin the traitor pin on him was leaving me feeling antsy. I’d silently called him every name under the sun in the past and some of them out loud to Pierce and Hart and Damon. I felt a little ashamed about that.

  Then I caught Joe’s eyes. He swept his gaze over my body lasciviously.

  No. Not ashamed anymore. Dickhead.

  We waited with bated breath while Inspector Hart followed up on Jones’ wife; something that was better done coming from the head of CIB. Pierce issued orders to someone outside the interview room, but his words were muffled, and I was feeling way too antsy to pay attention to them.

  Would we find him in time?

  There was no talk of letting Cawfield out, even though he was now helping us. He was still under Weston’s influence, and Pierce was not taking any chances. So he stayed hidden away as if a dirty secret.