Chapter Eighteen
Rick was furious with himself. He’d lectured himself about staying away from Sin. He should have known that going to her apartment was a bad idea, especially when he was already feeling a migraine headache building in his temples.
Damn her. Damn her for getting under his skin and staying there. Not that it was her fault. He’d gone willingly. He’d let her care for him when the migraine hit. He’d even asked her to stay beside him in the bed. Of course, he hadn’t expected the headache to go away, since he was without his medication.
But for some reason the headache had faded on its own. When Rick had woken and seen Sin lying there next to him, he’d felt as though he was home. Making love with her in the pallid glow of predawn was the most sensual, erotic thing he’d ever done. And the stupidest.
He’d left her that curt note because he didn’t trust himself to write anything more. He couldn’t let himself think about her or how good they were together. The two of them would never work. He was too screwed up, too set in his ways. He just hoped he could let her down easy. He’d never had a case he couldn’t crack, a tail he couldn’t spot or a woman he couldn’t get with a few well-chosen compliments, or blow off with an insult or two. And he had never broken his own code of honor. He’d never slept with a woman while on an undercover assignment. Until now.
But he’d never met anyone like her. He knew what the difference was, or at least one of the differences. Technically, to her he wasn’t undercover. She did not think he was someone he was not. She knew him, knew who he really was, knew just about all there was to know about him. So what was his problem?
Okay, that was an easy question. His problem with her was that she’d betrayed him. In this case, she’d been the deceptive one and he’d been the innocent. He almost laughed at the notion of him being the innocent in any situation.
“What’s so funny?” Nina asked, looking up from the computer screen.
“Nothing, why?” he responded. Her order popped up. He started mixing it.
“You were smiling. I’d have thought you might be more upset after your little lover’s spat with Sin.”
He frowned. “We’re not lovers.”
Nina harrumphed. “Please. The two of you crackle when you’re within a few feet of each other. So don’t tell me you haven’t—” She made an unmistakable gesture. “I saw her outside after y’all talked. She looked awful. I heard she could have died from that drug, so how come you made her cry?”
He shrugged.
“Nice,” Nina responded sarcastically. “That’s what a girl likes to hear.”
She picked up her tray and walked to the front, then turned around. “Hey, Rick,” she called, gesturing toward the windows. “There she is now. About to get into a car.”
Rick looked. Sin was standing next to a black town car. Her back was stiff and her head was down. Rick recognized one of Beau’s security men standing with her. He opened the rear door for her.
What the hell? Why was Sin getting into one of Beau’s cars? There was no good answer to that. “I’ll be right back,” he said, then jumped the bar and headed out the front door. By the time he got out there, a security guy was folding himself into the other side of the rear seat. There were two cabs behind the town car, waiting to get by. One of the cabbies blew his horn.
Rick pushed through the front doors in time to see the vanity plate on the back of the car.
He ran to the cab that had been honking and jumped inside. He was already dialing his phone, calling Police Dispatch. “I’m a detective,” he said to the cabbie. “Can you keep up with that town car that just cut you off?”
“Yes, sir!” the cabbie replied and peeled away from the curb.
“This is Detective Rick Easterling,” he said when the dispatcher answered. He kept it official for the police radio, even though he recognized her voice. Her name was Mo, for Maureen, Green. She was a single mom with a toddler. “Trace a vanity plate for me. It’s ABEAU36. It just left Beauregard’s. Can you GPS it?” He knew that the department had tracers on some of Beau’s cars. He prayed that this was one of them. The cabbie was doing his best to keep up with the town car, but it had over a block’s head start.
“I’ve got it,” Mo said. He could hear her typing on the keyboard. “Currently heading west on Tulane Avenue.”
“West on Tulane,” he said aloud for the cabbie as he put the phone on speaker. “Can you track it, Mo?” he asked.
“Just a moment, please.” He heard other dispatchers in the background and heard Mo taking calls and requests from other officers. “Rick, I can patch your phone in so you can see the car’s route.” Rick heard his phone ping. “Got it. Easterling out.” He called out street names to the cabbie as the blue arrow on his screen moved and turned. Looking through the windshield, he saw that they were gaining on the car. “Good job,” he said. “Take Veterans Boulevard. Hang back enough that he doesn’t spot us.”
When the town car slowed down, Rick cursed. He knew where they were going. He didn’t know why, but the answer couldn’t be good. “Hold back,” he said to the cabbie. “They’re stopping at Grossman’s Cocktail Bar. Stop here, and thanks.”
He paid the driver and gave him a large tip, then headed on foot toward Grossman’s. He approached the large white-pillared building with caution. He didn’t know a lot about the club, but he knew that the bar and the dance floor were downstairs and that there were offices and storage rooms upstairs. A quick search for its website told him that the club didn’t open for business until seven o’clock.
As he got closer, he saw two men standing outside the entrance to the club. They looked familiar, but it was possible that security guards everywhere in New Orleans, not just at Beauregard’s, were essentially FBI Agent or Secret Service Agent clones. Their dark suits, pockets heavy on one side, paired with their occasional unconscious touching of their fingers to their ears were classic.
Once he was close enough to make out their faces, he recognized the one who’d put Sin into the car. What the hell? Were Beau and T-Gross working together?
Knowing the guards were armed, Rick circled round the back of the building, where a tall fence separated the manicured grounds of the club from the untended overgrown vacant lot on the other side. He surveyed the area, but there were very few buildings nearby with windows that opened in that direction. He was relatively well hidden as long as he was careful.
He sneaked up to the fence and parted the tall grass so he could see the back of the building. There was a guard on this side, too. What the hell was going on in there that required armed guards both inside and outside?
He couldn’t see inside from his vantage point, so he sneaked around to get a better view of what was going on inside. If he couldn’t see from behind the fence, he’d have to come up with another plan, because one way or another, he would find Sin.
Once he finally got into place and settled just to the right of center, so his line of sight was not obscured by the fountain on the back terrace, he was able to see inside the large, uncovered casement windows and French doors. He didn’t have binoculars, so he had to make do with his naked eye.
From what he could see, the room beyond the windows was large, with pale wood or tile floors, white walls and very sparsely furnished. It could be the dance room. The shapes and shadows indicated that there could be a staircase, probably spiral, toward the back.
But as soon as his eyes focused on the occupants of the room, panic churned in his stomach and a surge of adrenaline hit his chest with the impact of a bullet. He saw Sin’s red skirt. In the pale neutrals of the room, that skirt stood out like a beacon. She was sitting in a chair, and from his vantage point, it looked as though her hands were tied behind her back. He saw the bulk and the pale face of T-Gros Grossman, who also appeared to be tied up. Grossman struggled and Rick watched as a man stalked over to him and stuffed a gag into his mouth and taped it with duct tape.
Rick had to get closer. He surveyed the grounds. About twelve feet inside the fence to the west was a large outbuilding, probably for mowers, blowers and other tools and supplies for maintaining the grounds. He wouldn’t be able to see Sin and T-Gros from there but it was the only way he could see that would put him inside the fence without being seen. From what he could tell, nobody was guarding that side. He noticed a decorative fence that hid it from view.
He centered himself behind the outbuilding and climbed over the fence, praying that if one of the guards came around the corner he’d be out of their line of sight. To his surprise and delight, the outbuilding had a window that faced the fence—and it was open. Using the flashlight app on his phone, he climbed in the window, careful not to knock anything over. The inside was as neat as a pin. Tools were hung on a pegboard along with electric and gas trimmers and blowers. A large riding mower sat near a garage-style door on one end of the building. A wheelbarrow filled with potting soil occupied the middle of the freshly swept concrete floor.
A coverall hung at one side of the door on a hanger, with a pair of safety goggles on a peg beside it. Looked like the groundskeeper was obsessive about cleanliness. Rick held up the coverall. It was large and also clean. Its pants legs and sleeves looked as though they’d been folded up right out of the dryer, to fit a shorter man. Quickly, Rick put it on and rolled down the sleeves and legs. Then he hung the goggles around his neck, ready to put on. With any luck, if one of the guards saw him they’d think he was a groundskeeper.
He opened the front door of the building, glanced around then stepped out, holding a clean, freshly sharpened spade. The west-facing side of the building had no windows or doors on the ground level. A narrow wrought-iron balcony ran along the second floor. It would be an easy four-foot jump from the roof of the outbuilding. Was it a good idea? Who knew? It was his only choice.
Ducking back inside the building, he looked for something smaller than a spade that he could use as a weapon. The two best choices were a ball-peen hammer or a long-bladed Phillips-head screwdriver. He chose the screwdriver. Easier to conceal and easier to use. He could stab, rather than wasting time or energy swinging his arm.
Before he left the building again, he called dispatch. “Detective Rick Easterling, requesting backup.” He gave them the address and told them to approach silently and with caution. “At least three armed guards outside the building. At least two inside with innocent civilians.”
“Understood, Detective. Is this a hostage situation?” the dispatcher asked.
“Yes. The civilians are there against their will. Both are bound. At least one is gagged.”
“Are you inside?”
“Not yet.”
“Detective, do not go in alone. Wait for backup. Repeat, wait for backup. Do you read?”
“I read. Easterling out.” I read, but I don’t agree.
He checked his watch, then hoisted himself up to the ledge of the window on the back of the building. The balcony had two sets of French doors. One almost directly in front of him and one on the other end of the building. He doubted they were unlocked, but he’d known how to pick the locks on a set of French doors since Johnny taught him when he was nine. The only thing that worried him was whether the upstairs was being guarded. He shrugged. The only way to know was to do it.
He climbed onto the roof and crawled across it. Standing, he jumped across to the balcony and put his back against the wall beside the second-floor French doors. He listened. Nothing. It was getting late in the afternoon and the sky was cloudy, so there was no glare on the glass. He took a quick glance inside. The room appeared to be a large bedroom converted into a conference room. A long, polished table sat in the center of the room, surrounded by comfortable-looking meeting chairs. To his relief, it was empty.
The handles on the doors were original and very nice, but they hadn’t been manufactured to keep out a second-story man. Rick had the doors unlocked within seconds. With his right hand holding the screwdriver in the coverall pocket, he slipped out of the room and onto a landing with a wide, winding staircase leading to the ground floor.
He could hear voices. Ready in case there was a guard upstairs, he paused to listen.
“—said shut up!” a man said.
“Gag her,” snapped a second man.
“That’s right,” Sin said defiantly. Rick heard the anger and fear in her voice. “Go ahead, but it’s not going to do you any good. I’ve got backup coming.”
“I said shut up. Hand me that other rag,” the first man said.
Rick heard fabric tearing.
“You’re Beau’s men, aren’t you?” Sin asked. “He must be desperate, hiring punks like you to do his dirty work for him.” Then, she started to scream. “Aahh! No! Help! Hellllp!”
Almost immediately, her voice was muffled. “Mmhnn! Mmhnn!”
While Rick was listening to their words, he’d been assessing the sounds, trying to figure out where each one of them was standing, based on their voices and what he’d seen through the windows. Sin was probably directly underneath him on the floor below. T-Gros was across from her, about fifteen feet to Rick’s left. What he couldn’t know for sure was where the two guards were. They were moving around.
The staircase was curved, so at the bottom, he’d be facing the large window in the back. Sin would be to his left and T-Gros to his right. He probably wouldn’t get a chance to take both of the men down, unless he could throw one of them into the other one. But he could try.
He checked the time again. It had been six minutes since he’d called for backup. He had to count on them getting there before the men could take him down. That was his only chance. Below him, Sin was still making as much noise as she could, even though she’d been gagged. Rick smiled grimly. If her goal was to distract and piss off the men, it sounded like she was doing an excellent job of it. He started for the stairs.
“Shut up, you bitch! Hey, where’s the dope?” the first man said, sounding irritated.
“Right here. There’s still half a syringe-full.”
The words sent Rick’s heart slamming against his chest. It was the bad dope. Those were Beau’s men, so it was Beau who’d put it out on the streets. Beau who had killed Johnny, Carlos, and had almost killed Sin.
“Well bring it over here. I’m ready to shut this one up for good.”
“Listen, Wayne, you gonna kill her? I mean, she’s a cop.”
Sin rocked back and forth, bringing the front legs, then the back legs, then the front legs again, slamming down onto the tiled floor. At the same time, she was doing her best to yell.
The man called Wayne cursed. “Whadda you suggest? You wanna take her shopping?”
“Naw, I just think it’ll go better for us if we don’t kill her.”
“Go better? Go better? You planning on getting caught? Because I’m not. It’s great that she’s a cop. Look at that coward T-Gros sitting over there pissing his pants. Nobody’s going to believe a word he says. It’ll be his prints on the syringe. They’ll find a dead cop in his restaurant. There’s already traces of bad dope in here, and every place he owns.”
For the first time, Rick heard T-Gros’s voice. He was gagged too, but not as tightly as Sin. His words were muffled but Rick caught most of what he was saying. “Please, no. Don’t do this. Call Beau. I’ll do anything. Call him. Call him.”
“Shut up, asshole. Now, gimme that syringe!”
Rick bolted down the stairs, roaring at the top of his lungs and brandishing the screwdriver. He spotted the second man, the one who’d just handed the syringe to Wayne, and he leapt at him from barely below the halfway point of the stairs. The man, startled, didn’t have time to get out of Rick’s way.
Rick took him down and stabbed him in the stomach with the screwdriver.
Wayne had turned and was rushing toward Rick with the syringe in his hand. He got to Rick before Rick could get the screwdriver out of the first man’s stomach. Rick felt the sting of the needle going into his back, through the coverall and his shirt. He yelled and whirled, bucking Wayne off, and went for him with his screwdriver. But Wayne had let go of the syringe and was reaching for his gun.
The two of them scuffled. Rick dropped the screwdriver and grabbed Wayne’s hands. He could feel the cold metal of the gun against his skin, but he couldn’t grasp it. Wayne was large and strong, and as an afterthought, Rick noticed that he had a bandage on his nose. It was Wayne’s nose that Sin had broken.
“Bastard,” Rick grunted. “You killed Carlos and tried to kill Sin. So Beau paid for your bail?”
Wayne was doing better at grabbing the gun they both were fighting for. One of Wayne’s hands was wrapped around the gun’s barrel. The other was wrapped around Rick’s right wrist. Rick only had one second to make his best decision. He let go of the gun and shoved his knuckles right up Wayne’s nose.
Wayne screamed.
The gun went off. Twice.
*
Lusinda couldn’t take it anymore. She’d been waiting for days. At least that’s how it felt. She looked at the clock on the wall of the interrogation room of the Bureau of Public Integrity. It couldn’t be right. She must have been here longer than three hours. She checked it against her phone. Same time. She stood and stepped over to the window that looked out on the street and watched the headlights passing by.
If O’Reilly didn’t hurry up, she was going to go out into the squad room and make a scene. Of course, it would do no good. It was late and O’Reilly was the only one here besides her. The others had gone a long time ago, after over two hours of interrogation. She’d told them everything she knew, including that Jack Adams was Rick’s half-brother.
Now O’Reilly was waiting for word from the hospital about Rick, and in the meantime he was working on the mountains of paperwork that had to be completed about the incident.
But Lusinda didn’t care about the paperwork. She didn’t care how much trouble she was in. All she cared about was Rick. She had never seen anything as frightening as watching Rick and Wayne struggling for the gun. When the gun went off, the explosion had reverberated through her entire body. She’d screamed against the duct tape covering her mouth.
Both men had frozen. For an endless stretch of time, they’d stood there, locked together in a gruesome, doomed dance. Then she’d seen the blood dripping between them and screamed again.
Her muffled effort had been drowned out by the shriek of sirens she hadn’t noticed until that instant. Then a voice amplified by a bullhorn ordered the guards to drop their weapons. Seconds later, a swarm of SWAT team officers broke in through the front door and Rick and Wayne fell to the floor.
Things quickly became a blur of activity. Her hands and feet were cut loose and someone peeled the tape off her mouth. She started screaming, Rick! He’s been shot! Help him! and ran toward the two men, but the officer who had peeled the tape off her mouth had grabbed her. He, with help from a second black-clad person, got her out of the building and turned her over to EMTs who put her in an ambulance and gave her a tablet to swallow with a bottle of water. By the time another two ambulances had roared away, sirens blasting, Lusinda had become much calmer and O’Reilly was there.
She’d been a fairly good girl, once the tranquilizer had kicked in. She’d refused to be taken to the hospital to be checked out, and had demanded to be taken to Rick. Nobody listened to her though. So she’d endured the examination at the Emergency Room and had agreed to go with O’Reilly back to the BPI offices to be interrogated and debriefed if he took her to the hospital immediately after, to see Rick.
Now it was three hours later, she was still waiting and the tranq the EMTs had given her was long gone from her system. Even so, she’d kept her cool for the most part, until now.
She stomped over to the door and flung it open. “O’Reilly!” she shouted.
He appeared right in front of her.
She jumped, surprised. “Where did—never mind. I need to go to the hospital, now!”
“Okay,” O’Reilly said. He ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “In just a few minutes. Let’s sit down.”
She eyed him, suspiciously. “Why? What’s wrong?” She grabbed his arm. “Is it Rick?”
“Lusinda, come sit.” He stepped around her and pulled out a chair. Still watching him, looking for anything in his pleasantly handsome face that would tell her what was going on, she sat.
“Okay. What?”
O’Reilly sighed. “I’ve got an update from the hospital. You know, of course, that Rick was shot.” He held up a hand. “The first bullet nicked the right lower lobe of his lung and lodged against a rib. Rick must have managed to turn the gun because the second shot went through the other man’s liver.”
“Why are we sitting here instead of headed to the hospital?”
“They’re taking Rick into surgery right now. He’ll be in Recovery and probably Intensive Care tonight. You should go home and—”
“No!” Lusinda stood up. “Take me to the hospital.”
“Officer Johnston.”
She heard the tone in his voice. She sat back down. “Yes, sir,” she said, doing her best to stop the tears of frustration that were threatening to fall.
“Lusinda, there’s nothing you can do for him. You know that he’s in the best hands.”
She stared at him. “I can be there for him.”
“You need to get some sleep. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Sir? Please?”
“Lusinda—” Deputy Chief O’Reilly looked at her for a long moment. “Do you have any idea how big a mess this is?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” she said meekly.
“Good. I hope so. Come on.”