Better When He's Brave

by Jay Crownover

  “Deputy Chief Marshal Otis Packard. I heard through the grapevine you have one of my witnesses in protective custody with no intention of turning her back over to us.”

  I snorted. “The situation is a lot more complicated than that.”

  He nodded and narrowed his eyes. “Tell me about it. Out of the four witnesses that we either placed or had plans to move while we were waiting for the Novak case to go before a judge, she’s the only one left breathing. Hartman went down first, Ernie Diaz, the club owner, went missing last week, and Benny Truman didn’t even make it out of the joint. Hartman was buried so deep in a shithole town in West Texas there was no way anyone should’ve been able to find him and Ernie was so scared of retribution that he quit talking to anyone without credentials, so we know he had to have been popped by someone on the inside.”

  I made a noise low in my throat. “You knew someone was offing the witnesses from your case and you just left her out there unprotected?”

  “She took off when we were starting to put it all together. She was quicker than we were. We were planning to go in and get her right after the info on Hartman came in, only she was gone, and so was the marshal in charge of her case.”

  “You had a fox guarding your henhouse from the get-go.”

  The other cop considered me thoughtfully for a second and then nodded solemnly. “It looks that way.”

  “You’re looking at Roark for the rest of the murders, right?” ”

  His jaw started to tick furiously. “We put it together. Too late. Conner has a stellar reputation in our division. He was a marine, and when he got out of the service he worked for Border Patrol. He was always our go-to guy until all this stuff broke loose with Novak. We didn’t realize the correlation until it was too late. A few years ago he started taking a real interest in what was going on here in the Point, started asking to be assigned to cases that were here. When you got the feds involved to take down Novak, he was the first one that wanted in on the action.”

  No one wanted to get involved with the Point. We were a lost cause down here in the gutter. All the warning bells that had been jangling that Roark’s motivations were more involved than showing Race and Nassir he didn’t appreciate them taking over Novak’s business started to ring loud and clear in my ears. “Don’t you have to be an American citizen to be in the marshals? Roark’s Irish.”

  “His mom is Irish. Conner has dual citizenship.”

  “What about his dad? What’s the story there?” I knew from firsthand experience with my brother just how important the influence of a father could be. It might be a good place to start digging.

  “Not sure. He always said his old man was a soldier from Colorado that had a brief fling with his mom. The guy got Conner every summer, but who knows if it’s the truth or not. Turns out Conner is an exceptional liar. Now that we’ve done some digging, it looks like while he was a member of Border Patrol after he left the military he was helping Novak and several of his associates move guns and drugs across the border. Conner’s been dirty a really long time and I feel like a fool for personally assigning him to this case.”

  I frowned and asked him if he could give me the man in Colorado’s name. The older man scribbled a quick note on a loose piece of paper on my desk and shoved it toward me. “Why would a decorated agent suddenly start helping a known criminal move illegal stuff across the border? Money? Did Novak threaten him?”

  The older man shook his head. “I don’t know. We need to find Conner to ask him that.”

  I wasn’t patient enough for that. I was missing something key, something that would possibly give me the upper hand in dealing with Roark and help me find him. I needed to figure out what it was.

  “He burned down the Pit. He beat the crap out of one of the working girls that’s been around these parts a long time. On top of murder, he’s taking revenge on the people of the Point by hitting them where it hurts the most. Reeve figured out that he was involved with Hartman’s murder, and ran.”

  “Why did she run to you? The evidence seems to point to her and Conner being awfully chummy. Just one more rule that bastard broke.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. She trusts me. She knows I’m not a dirty cop and that all I want to do is stop him before anyone else gets hurt. He killed a girl just to leave Reeve a message and he had another one shoot up a strip club last night. This guy is effectively bringing the Point to its knees and he’s doing it without being seen. He’s like a puff of smoke and just as toxic.”

  “He’s good.” Begrudging respect colored the older man’s voice.

  “Too good.” I ran my hands over my hair and looked at the empty coffee mug sitting on the edge of my desk. I needed to eat. I needed to sleep. I needed to get laid, and more than all of that I needed get my head on straight. “So why exactly are you here?”

  “I’m here because Novak’s case is in the garbage. Everyone that had any information we could use is gone. Benny was on the verge of giving us the entire portfolio of suppliers and distributors if we promised him immunity and a brand-new life in sunny Orlando, but like I said, someone got to him before we could make that happen. We need to stop Roark. He’s dangerous, and not just because he’s skilled and unbalanced, but because he has the training to do serious damage. You already know that the folks keeping this place afloat are a target, but so are you and the girl. Conner isn’t going to take being double-crossed lightly.”

  “Already figured that out for myself.” I pointed to the word on the door that said DETECTIVE. “Kind of my job.”

  “Well, the girl’s deal is done. We don’t need her to testify anymore.”

  “So what? You’re just planning on throwing her to the wolves and letting her try and fight Roark on her own?”

  “No. I think you and I probably have the same idea in mind, son. You know Conner is going to come after her and so do we. We thought we could find him, save the department some embarrassment; turns out he’s using our own tricks against us. We want the same thing here, you and I, King. We want Conner brought in.”

  I grunted. “That was the plan, I’m just not sure how to do it and keep the girl alive in the process. I’m not as eager to dangle her out there like meat and just hope I’m faster on the trigger than Roark is. There has to be a better plan.”

  “You know you can’t afford to lose when it’s time to face off with him, and as an incentive you might want to remember that if the girl isn’t any use to us, her plea bargain goes away and she’s looking at murder-for-hire charges not to mention being an accessory to the abduction for the Pryce girl. We want him brought in; dead or alive is up to you.”

  I swore and pushed away from my desk. The other man rose to his feet as well, but I still towered over him.

  “You left her for dead, and now you would toss her in prison if she’s not willing to risk her neck for you? Fuck that.”

  “She broke the law.”

  “I understand that, but she agreed to testify against Novak’s crew, and when she realized what Roark was up to, she brought that information and that evidence forward. She should still be considered a protected witness.”

  “She is. As long as she’s useful. Make her useful, Detective. Do what I’m assuming you already have been doing—flaunt her, and show her off. Get Conner to show his hand. You won’t be out there alone anymore. We’ll put eyes on you and the girl so if he makes a move you have backup. Here’s my card. I want to be apprised of any developments in the Roark case. If I was twenty years younger and hadn’t been riding a desk for longer than I care to admit, I would handle the fieldwork on this case myself. You remind me a lot of myself, King. I know you will do what needs to be done to take care of business. Like I said, we want the same thing.”

  I growled at him as he turned to open my office door. I wanted to launch myself over the desk and throttle him. “I wouldn’t blackmail a victim to get my own way.”

  “It’s not blackmail. You’re already hanging the girl out there as bait. You
know Roark is going to charge at her like a hungry shark reacting to blood in the water. I just gave you a friendly reminder of what exactly is at stake should emotion start to interfere with what needs to get done.”

  “You make it sound like she’s expendable.” Reeve was driving me crazy, and while I didn’t agree with most of the choices she had made that led her to where she was now, she was still a person. She was still a young woman that deserved a shot at righting some of her wrongs. She was trying to help, and trying to do the right thing, and that needed to be acknowledged.

  The older cop gave me a hard look. “We are all expendable. We only matter as long as we’re doing something to change the world around us, hopefully for the better, but far too often the folks that matter are changing our world for the worse. Good luck, Detective King. You’re going to need it.”

  I watched him wind his way through the chaos of the precinct house and felt my hands clench tightly at my sides. I didn’t need luck. I needed a shot. One shot and I was going to bring Conner in and shut him down. I was starting to really resent that the only way to do that was by asking Reeve to offer up her elegant and lovely neck on the chopping block. It didn’t seem right even if she kept saying she knew she was doing the right thing, that she was atoning for past sins. If Roark ended up better at this game than I was, paying with her life seemed like an awfully steep price when all she had done was take an abuser and killer off the streets. Using one bad man to rid the world of another bad man suddenly didn’t seem like an unforgivable crime. I still struggled with the way she had used Dovie and how her actions had led to what was really one of the worst nights of my life. But everyone used everyone else in the Point so the penance waiting for her shouldn’t be any harsher than what was waiting for any of the rest of us.

  I took the piece of scrap paper with the name of the man in Colorado the agent had left with me and poked around on the Internet until I thought I found someone that fit the description. It took a little more clicking and two calls to the wrong number before I connected with a man named Alby Jones. He sounded like he smoked twenty packs a day and seemed totally disinterested when I explained that I was a detective looking for information on a possible murder suspect. He was going to hang up on me until I mentioned that I knew he had been in the service; it was the key to opening up the communication door.

  He went on and on about his various tours of duty. Regaled me with his heroics and tales of war. I listened patiently because as long as he kept talking I could guide him where I wanted him to go.

  I asked if he had ever been married or if he had any kids, and he just snorted, which led to a round of coughing that lasted five minutes. He told me he had been screwed over by a woman once and since then had never trusted the fairer sex again. He explained that he had met a beautiful Irish lass while he was stationed in Turkey. She pursued him, seduced him, and then used him and his status with the military to gain access to weapons she would never have been able to get her hands on otherwise. She used his name and rank to smuggle guns across secure borders, betraying him and ruining his career along the way. He called her a terrorist and then finally, after what felt like hours, mentioned the kid.

  A few years after he had been kicked out of the army and sent home disgraced and shamed, the woman contacted him to let him know that he had a son. She wanted money and she wanted his name so that her baby boy could have dual citizenship. The disgraced soldier agreed because despite how she had screwed him, he still loved the beautiful Irish gal and thought raising their son right was the way to win her heart.

  Only the boy showed up and the man knew from the start something was wrong with him. He tried to love him, tried to show him guidance, but every summer they spent together the boy seemed to be worse. The man wanted to blame the mother; after all, she was a killer and a terrible person in her own right, but the boy seemed rotten to his very core. He was wild. He was disrespectful. He was cruel to animals and the staff that kept the man’s ranch running. He was explosively violent, but what really worried the man was how effortlessly the boy could turn it on and off. He told me when the boy joined the military he thought maybe he would finally turn it around.

  Only to his dismay he saw that arming an already unstable young man and teaching him how to kill just made him more violent and dangerous. He told me that his last contact with the man he had always thought was his son was about four years ago. The boy had come home for the holidays right after getting out of the marines and switching to the Border Patrol. The man was looking forward to reconnecting with his son, but what happened had scarred him forever and ripped them apart instead.

  According to the man, the boy went missing not long after Christmas dinner. No one thought much about it until they noticed one of the young women who helped take care of the house was also gone. Sure, it could just be two young lovers escaping for a quiet moment alone, but the man knew better, so he went to find his troubled son.

  The boy had the girl pinned down in the barn, a knife to her neck and seconds away from ruining her for life. The man pulled the boy off the girl, they struggled, and the man ended up getting a knife to the gut for his troubles.

  “I knew you were too weak and pathetic to be my father,” the boy said as he stood over the man scoffing. With that, the son kicked him in the ribs and disappeared out of the man’s life forever, leaving the poor bastard that had raised him to bleed out where he lay. Only the man was a fighter and had survived the destruction both the mother and son had leveled at him. He was all too happy to tell me all about it.

  While he talked my skin pulled tight across my body and I felt a tick start to work in my jaw. All those pieces that had been missing started to land in my lap and I suddenly couldn’t see anything but a familiar black gaze dancing in front of my eyes. I cleared my throat and asked the man if he had any idea who the kid’s real dad was and the man replied, “Someone just as twisted, brutal, and messed up as he was.”

  I thanked the man for his time, sat back in my chair, and kicked my desk hard enough that it moved two inches across the floor.

  “Son of a bitch!” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of the connection sooner. Just like Novak had tried to sink his claws into Bax in order to groom him into his own vision, he had done the exact same thing with his other illegitimate spawn out there in the world.

  Roark had to be Novak’s son, and of course the criminal mastermind hadn’t had a thing to do with him until he was old enough to be useful. When Roark joined the Border Patrol, Novak swooped in and got his hands on his already tainted offspring. He had done the same with Bax, ignoring my brother until his skill at stealing cars proved useful. It all clicked into place and it made my heart start to pound.

  Roark wasn’t trying to exact some kind of righteous vengeance because Race and Nassir were taking over Novak’s business; he was paying them back for killing his father. The father—it was now obvious—that he shared with my younger brother. Bax was undoubtedly going to be in Roark’s crosshairs since he most definitely had a hand in ending Novak’s life. It all had dread settling heavily in my stomach I needed to call my brother ASAP and warn him to watch his back. Just as I was getting ready to dial Bax’s number I saw his face light up the screen of my phone. I knew he was going to be pissed about the situation with Reeve, but I needed him on my side and I needed him to know just how careful he would have to be considering he was one of Roark’s targets.

  “Hey.”

  “So you’re alive. I was starting to wonder.”

  I rolled my eyes at his tone and could practically see him squinting through the cigarette smoke as I heard him exhale.

  “Shit’s been crazy.”

  “I heard. Nassir was more than happy to tell me all about the shootout at the club and the fact you disappeared with that bitch into the back for an unspecified amount of time. I know you put her up at Race’s, but I didn’t know you were sleeping with the enemy.”

  I grunted at him as I crossed the parking lot.
“Meet me at the diner by the station. I need to eat and I’ll fill you in. I have a lot of stuff I need to talk to you about.”

  “You’re done avoiding me?” I could just imagine the way the black star he had tattooed by his eye was twitching in aggravation.

  “Listen, I just got you to trust me after everything that went down five years ago. I don’t want this girl and what I have to do with her to mess that up. I didn’t know how to make you understand that right now she is important and not have you mess with it. Besides, we have much bigger problems on our hands than where I’m sticking my dick.”

  “She almost got my girl killed.”

  I sighed because I could still hear how much that tore him up in his voice. “I understand that, Shane. I really do, but sometimes we have to do things we don’t like and don’t agree with because the end game is bigger than us and our own. Do you get me?”

  I heard him exhale again and then a flood of really nasty words hit my ears. “I’ll be at the diner in ten. Order me a burger.”

  Relief hit me hard that he was at least willing to hear me out. Bax and I hadn’t exactly been close growing up, but now that we were adults and both in the trenches, albeit on opposite sides, I really felt like we needed each other. I loved my brother and it had taken watching him almost blow his brains out right in front of me to realize how empty my life had been while he was gone. I needed a reason beyond right and wrong to keep up the fight. I needed Bax to remind me that sometimes the bad guys weren’t bad because they wanted to be; they were that way because they didn’t have any other choice. Bax hadn’t had a fair shot from the get-go. Not with our mom being a drunk and his dad being a sadistic killer. Not to mention that I had bailed on him when he needed me the most. It was a miracle the kid had as much humanity in him as he did. It was my job to give my brother options, to remind him that he mattered even if we disagreed, and I would do it until they put me in the ground.

  The diner was packed with fellow cops and the only spot available was near the door. It was too exposed and I didn’t want to sit there, but my stomach was growling, so I relented and slid into the booth. The waitress hurried over and I ordered the burgers and coffee. The tension that was sitting in my neck was so tight that pain shot up the back of my head in agonizing waves when I reached for the steaming mug she held out to me. The only time that I had felt any measure of peace, felt any kind of relaxation or mindless oblivion, was when Reeve had done exactly what she had threatened to do and taken care of me. I wasn’t the kind of guy that got naked and down and dirty in a strip-club bathroom, but it was the only time in recent memory I had been able to let go of everything else I hauled around all the time. There was no Bax. There was no Point. There was no Roark. There was no job that was slowly wearing me down and turning me into a hollow shell of a man. There was just a beautiful woman with dark blue eyes that had everything that made my life and dick hard inside of them and the amazing things she was doing to me. I shouldn’t want her, but I did, and the level that want was growing to was really starting to get bigger than me and any reservations I might have had.