Chapter Four
Gabe leaned against the wall outside the room where Jo had just gone in to view the lineup. He hated this. The standing around with his thumbs up his ass. Before she’d entered the room, she’d had that weird look on her face again, the un-Jo look of pinched lips and tight jaw and none of it—not one effing thing—resembled her usual smart-mouthed, determined, and confident demeanor.
Gotta fix this.
His phone buzzed and he drew it from his pocket. His mother. Wasn’t this perfect? Chatting with mom while Jo potentially ID’d a killer. Jesus H. Christ. Ten feet from where he stood a door led to the back parking lot. Being the closest exit, he headed that way. “Hey, Ma. Everything okay?”
“Hi, honey,” she said. “I wanted to tell you I put your clean shirts in your closet.”
Um, okay. Wasn’t this a pisser? His mother calling him in LA to tell him she’d done his laundry. Mom guilt-speak for she missed him. Living in the third-floor apartment above his parents had its perks. The most important being he was always close if something happened or his dad needed help. Then there was the constant stream of home-cooked meals in his fridge so he had a meal when he got home and—case in point—his shirts being not only clean but ironed.
Maybe he could skip her letting herself into his apartment when he and Jo were in the shower together, but that was pretty much the only disadvantage. And the main reason he spent so much time at Jo’s rather than the reverse.
“Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”
He pushed through the door to the cement stoop and propped his hip on the handrail, glancing back to make sure Jo hadn’t come out yet. The afternoon sun blazed and he squinted against it despite the baseball cap he’d reclaimed from Jo. He unhooked his sunglasses from the neck of his shirt and slid them on.
From the street, Gabe heard the loud roar of an engine. One that didn’t sound like a car. Suddenly, with this biker mess, he’d gone on hyper-alert for motorcycles. A second engine revved, joining the racket for a few seconds and then—bam—nothing. Silence. What the hell? He glanced back through the doors. Still no Jo. And now he was insanely curious about those bike engines. If they’d been passing, the noise would have faded, a gradual decrease rather than an instant kill. He hopped down the back steps and strode to the edge of the building toward the street.
“How’s the vacation?” Mom wanted to know.
Vacation. Ha. “It’s good. Haven’t seen much yet, but the weather is great. You and Dad should come out here.”
“As if I’d get your father to fly.”
True. The old man hated planes. The fear of being trapped inside with no way to get out at thirty-five thousand feet made him twitchy. “Right. Sorry. Did you get my text with the hotel info?”
“I did. Thank you.”
“How about Joanna?” Mom asked. “Does she like LA?”
Joanna. Someone referring to Jo by her full name always hit him weird. It didn’t fit. An interesting thing considering it was her given name, but still, she’d always been Jo to him and to those who knew her well. He’d mentioned it to his mom a few times before their joint dinners, something they did every couple of weeks so his folks could get to know Jo—didn’t that trip the Gabe-is-serious-about-this-one radar—but Mom was a tough nut and always fell back to Joanna. Jo didn’t mind and he didn’t have the patience to keep on her so they let it go. Eventually she’d get it.
“I think she’s ready to come home,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine. I don’t think I like you being so far away though.”
She let out a long sigh and Gabe whipped out his imaginary rusty knife, slicing it across his neck. Jesus. If the massive wave of guilt that had just broken on him didn’t kill him, the imaginary blood spurting from his jugular would definitely do it. He stopped at the edge of the building and swung his head in both directions. And, hello, assholes. On the corner to his left, two men sat on motorcycles, seemingly shooting the shit. What were the chances of that in front of the PD?
He’d see about that by wandering their way. Just a guy taking a walk while on the phone.
“What are you doing today?” he asked his mother.
“Your father and I are going to the movies.”
“Good. Have dinner out while you’re at it.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should cook.”
And maybe I should stab myself in the eye with that rusty knife that didn’t get the job done the first time. He had Jo inside looking at a lineup, his mother moaning at him, and a bunch of bikers giving him that amped-up, itchy feeling that only happened when busting in on stoned crackheads who were as predictable as a hormonal woman.
He got to the corner where the bikers, total scumbags with their greasy beards and dirty jeans, sat in a fucking no-parking zone. In front of the police department. Total ball breakers. The bigger guy—bigger as in thick around the middle—wore his stringy, dark hair under a bandanna and his beard might have been a year overdue for a trim. His buddy, the younger one, appeared to be about thirty and much leaner. This one wore a sleeveless T-shirt under his leather vest and obviously spent time in the gym. Okay. So one in shape, the other he’d drop like a stone.
“Mom, just eat out.”
One of the bikers snickered and Gabe shifted his gaze right where the two men eyeballed him.
The bigger one smacked his buddy on the arm. “We got us a mama’s boy here.”
And, holy fuck, these guys were going to give him a reason to go apeshit. Don’t do it. Still, he wasn’t gonna run from them either. Casually, he flipped the guy off as he turned the corner, his stride the easy stroll it had been three seconds ago. He shot a look over his shoulder, making sure the assholes were still on their bikes.
“Gabe?” his mom said. “Did you hear me?”
He headed for the far end of the block. And…shit. Straight ahead on the opposite corner sat two more bikers and his blood pressure went to double-red zone. Adrenaline poured into his body, a massive rush that made his head pound and his vision blurr. And yet, everything slowed, the cars moving past him, the bus whooshing, all of it blurry and muffled. Control it. He breathed in, held it for five seconds and let it out again.
“Ma, I need to call you back.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. I’m in the middle of something. Call you back.”
Before she could argue, he committed the deadly sin of hanging up on his mother. But these bikers being here while Jo was inside viewing a lineup could not be a coincidence.
He continued to the far end of the block where the bikers gave him the hard stare but kept their traps shut. At least they were smarter than their counterparts on the other end.
Once he turned the corner, having made it all the way around the building, he hauled ass back inside where Palermo had claimed his spot across from where Jo had gone in to view the lineup. Still in there.
Palermo lifted his chin in Gabe’s direction. “Where’d you go?”
“Houston,” he said, “we have a problem.”
Palermo straightened up. Instant warrior mode. “What?”
“We got bikers on both sides of the front entrance.”
“Get the fuck outta here.”
Gabe jerked his thumb toward the front entrance. “They’re parked right on the corners. Two of ’em are in the no parking zone.”
“Son of a bitch. They know she’s in here.”
“Which means either you have a leak in this building or those assholes know one of their buddies is in a lineup and they want a look at the witness. Someone in that lineup is guilty of something.”
“Son of a bitch,” Palermo repeated. “They’re trying to scare her.”
“Yeah. Trying to spook her before she gets to the stand. And fuck that.”
“Where’d you park?”
“Out front.”
“They’ll see her leave.”
He whipped his baseball cap and glasses off. “My ass they will. You got a transport van here? We slap some cuffs on her, tuck her hair under the baseball cap and sneak her out the back. If we’re lucky, they won’t see her. If they do, she’ll look like a prisoner being transported.”
Hands on hips, Palermo tilted his head to the ceiling. “Hang on.”
He marched off, leaving Gabe standing in the hallway wondering how the fuck he’d get Jo out of here without the bikers spotting her.
Two minutes later, Palermo stuck his head around the corner again and waved Gabe over. From the looks of him, he’d worked out the transport van.
“We got this,” he said. “One of our female detectives worked a prostitution sting a few weeks back.”
What this had to do with anything, Gabe couldn’t figure. “And?”
“She’s got her getup in her locker. Wig and all.”
What the? He held his hands up. “Whoa. You’re gonna dress Jo up as a prostitute?”
She’d go ballistic. Beyond ballistic. Not so much the disguise because, hell, she did that at home all the damned time, but the prostitution thing. No good. Gabe let out a frustrated laugh. “No way.”
“You got a better idea? We need to hide that blond hair and your cap won’t do it. I know she’ll hate it—”
Gabe straightened up. How well did this guy think he knew her? Can’t think about that now. Fucking idiot.
“—but it could work. To make it look good, we put her in cuffs, load her in the van and shuttle her out. We’ll get a couple of guys to go outside and bust balls with the bikers. While they’re busy you get in your car, follow the van a ways and then grab Jo. Even if they see her out back, she’ll be a redhead dressed like a street walker.”
Gabe propped one hand on the wall, leaned into it and considered the plan. With the front entrance basically shot, they’d have to take her out the back. Without the disguise, the bikers, from their position on that corner, would see a blonde and Gabe’s guess was the guy Jo saw yesterday, if he was behind this whole thing, probably told his buddies to look for a blonde. He bumped his fist against the wall. Goddamn.
“You’re right,” he said.
Palermo held his hand to his ear. “I’m right? I know that had to hurt.”
Fucker. “Dude, you have no idea. Let’s roll.”