All Kinds of Tied Down (16 page)

Safe on the opposite sidewalk, I stumbled forward, my vision blurring for a moment. I was losing too much blood too fast and had to make a change.

“Follow me,” I barked at her after catching sight of a man standing in the doorway of an automotive repair shop.

Charging over to him, Nina staying right with me, I yelled for help.

People always surprised me. Instead of turning tail, running inside and rolling the big bay doors down from the ceiling, he waved at us to hurry. When we got close, he stepped aside so I could run past him, Nina right behind me.

I lost my balance, fell to my knees but twisted sideways, shoving Nina behind me, shielding her between my body and a parked car, my back plastered to her front. I heard her gasp.

“I need to see how bad you’re hit,” she ordered. “Take this off so I can check.”

“Not until I’ve assessed all threats.”

“Yeah, okay,” she said, her breath catching, “but maybe you could hold the gun with one hand and let me take off the coat and then change hands?”

“What?” I was having trouble following her among the dizziness, darkening vision, and sharp, throbbing pain. I really needed to remain conscious.

“Just—let me.”

It was difficult to maintain my focus as she reached around my chest, unzipped my jacket, and pulled at me roughly, divesting me of my ruined piece of outerwear.

“Oh God,” she moaned, her face scrunching up. “You’re really bleeding. This T-shirt is soaked and—I thought this vest was supposed to fucking do something!”

It did, just not everything. It wasn’t body armor.

“Move your arm. I need to check and see if it came out the other side.”

I ended up transferring the gun between hands as she’d suggested.

“Oh Jesus,” she cried, which gave me an even better idea of the amount of fluid she was looking at. “Miro, your collarbone is—and your shoulder, I—you’re losing too much blood!”

The man and five other mechanics crowded in around us even as I held my gun on them.

“It’s okay,” the man who let us in soothed, lifting his hands, turning his head right and then left, jerking it up both times, clearly signaling to the men. The others stepped back before he took a step forward. “You running from the cops?”

“Yes,” Nina cried, her bottom lip quivering. “And they shot him! Twice!”

“Yeah, I see,” he murmured before he reached behind him, pulled a shop towel from his back pocket, and wadded it up. “I’m gonna throw it over to your girl, okay? Don’t shoot me.”

“He’s not going to shoot you!” Nina shouted, her voice rising fast. “He’s a US marshal, for crissakes! He’s trying to save my life!”

He startled as I felt a throb run through my chest, making me shudder with the effort it took to hold the gun up. I was starting to worry that I was going to pass out and wouldn’t be able to protect Nina. If it were only my shoulder, I wouldn’t have worried. The bullet had gone in the back of my right shoulder and exited from the front. The through and through was good, the blood running down my bicep to the crook of my elbow to my forearm was not so great, but still probably not life threatening. The one in my chest was another story. I wasn’t sure about the damage there and it was unnerving. If I was going to die, I wanted to talk to Ian first.

“You’re a marshal?”

Shit. Had to focus. “Yeah,” I said, leaning sideways so he could see the badge on my belt.

“Lemme come to you, marshal.”

I lowered the gun because I was quickly losing the ability to hold it up.

He moved fast, rushing forward and shoving the towel against my shoulder, near my throat.

“Fuck.”

“Lado!” he bellowed. “Bring me clean towels from the back and call 911!”

“No,” I said, turning my head to look at Nina but not able to catch her eye when she was in motion. She had gotten up and moved around in front of me, took her suit jacket off, and wadded it up so she could push it against the other hole in my shoulder. “Nina, get my phone and call my boss.”

“How do I know who—”

“It says boss,” I said, having trouble focusing before I met the gaze of the man who took over for her, now holding both his towel and the ruined suit jacket to both sides of my shoulder.

“This looks more glamorous in the movies,” he informed me, smiling gently.

“Right?” I coughed, chuckling.

“I’m sorry, man, I thought maybe you’d kidnapped her or the two of you were running from the cops.”

“We are,” I said, laughing and groaning at the same time.

“Hurts, huh?”

“Yeah.”

The phone was suddenly against my ear, Nina pressing it there gently.

“Hello?”

“Where the hell are you, Jones?” Kage growled angrily.

I looked up at the man keeping me from bleeding to death. “Where am I?”

“You’re close to Ogden and Maple at Chaney and Sons Restoration.”

“Okay,” I said, letting my head drop forward. “You hear that?”

“Yeah, but Brookfield is like the auto shop capital of the world, I need a landmark.”

“Landmark?” I asked.

“The Flower Pot Garden Center is next door.”

“Boss?” I asked, because talking was fast becoming a real chore.

“I heard him. We’ll be right there. Where are the detectives who were chasing you?”

“I dunno. God willing, not outside preparing to come in, guns blazing.”

“That’s not funny, Jones.”

“I—” The sirens sent a ripple of fear through me instead of inspiring the relief they normally did. “You hear that?”

“Yeah. That’s me.”

I nearly passed out. “Okay. I’ll wait here and bleed, ’kay?”

“Just don’t die. I haven’t lost anybody yet today, let’s not start with you.”

“Yessir,” I said and hung up just as my phone rang. “It’s gonna be okay,” I swore to the kind Samaritan and Nina. “I promise.”

“What?” Kohn asked from the other end of the line.

“Oh thank God, hey, buddy,” I winced.

“Now I’m your buddy? Since when?”

“Where the fuck are you?”

“I’m in a shed in a civilian home on Vernon Avenue.”

“You okay?”

“I got scraped up going out the window, but I’ll live. I really don’t want to shoot the raccoon that’s in here with me, but if it charges, I’m gonna. I mean, it could have rabies.”

I winced because it hurt to laugh. “Please shut up. Call your boss now, he’s almost to me.”

“I did already,” he said quickly. “You sound weird. What’s wrong?”

“Shot.”

Silence.

“Eli?”

“Don’t fuckin’ call me Eli, you’re not gonna die.”

“Okay,” I said even as my vision started going darker around the edges.

“I’ll see you in a minute,” he rasped, and I heard the words “federal marshal” on his end before the line went dead. He was safe, I was relieved.

“Oh shit, Miro, sit up,” Nina commanded even as I slouched to the cold concrete floor. “The ground is gonna suck out all your warmth. You gotta sit up and lean on me.”

But there was no way. I wanted to rest. Nina was safe because of me, and Kohn was safe because he was in a potting shed or a tool shed being hunted by a rabid woodland creature. The very idea made me chuckle.

“Jesus, Miro, you’re so cold.”

But I wasn’t anything anymore.

“Federal marshals!”

I made a noise of relief as there was the sound of gunfire close by, like
right
outside. Several shots followed by two more. It was important to warn Nina, to get her down, but when I tried to speak there was nothing.

“Jones,” I heard Kage say in his guttural growl at the same time I got a big hand on my chest. Amazing the amount of warmth in my boss’s palm, I could only imagine what being wrapped in his arms would be like. “Don’t die.”

Lord, I really was out of it. I liked my boss, but I was only carrying a big blazing torch for one man. And Jesus, this would piss him off when he found out.

“Boss?” I managed to choke out.

“Don’t talk, Jones,” he snarled, and then I heard him yell. “In here!”

“Kohn’s in a shed.”

“He was. Dorsey and Ryan picked him up.”

“Tell Ian I—”

“You can talk to Doyle your damn self. Hold on and shut the fuck
up.”

I was going to argue, but I passed out instead.

I
WOKE
up with one IV tube feeding me, one pumping me full of antibiotics, one keeping me hydrated, and the last one keeping me comfortable. That same morning, the drugs and the catheter went bye-bye. I was glad to be rid of both. I had never been a fan of being incapacitated or drugged up and fuzzy. I like being 100 percent in control at all times. I had too many bad memories of being at someone else’s mercy.

It was two days later. Once I was awake, the inquest guys showed up: the federal ones, the Chicago PD ones, my boss, his boss, and the boss of the four detectives who tried to kill me and Kohn and Nina Tolliver. The chief of police was there as well, and the state’s attorney, his assistant, and a stenographer. It was a lot of people, but my room was big.

Apparently they had already questioned Kohn and Nina and had been waiting for me to wake up and corroborate everyone else’s stories.

“How did you know you were in trouble?” the federal investigator asked.

“As soon as Nina Tolliver said that Kohn and I were the only marshals she’d seen, I knew there was a problem.” I glanced at my boss. “Are Sharpe and White dead?”

Quick shake of his head even as the muscles in his jaw clenched.

“No?”

“White’s in a coma two doors down from you, and Sharpe went home yesterday.”

“What’s the prognosis on White?”

“He simply needs to wake up,” he assured me.

I nodded, and the investigator was going to speak again but I asked my boss another question. “Are Cassel and Rybin dead?”

“No. Both are in federal custody. You wounded Cassel, and we caught Rybin at the airport trying to flee the country.”

“And Koons and Wallace? Are they dead?”

“Yes,” he said flatly.

“And they shouldn’t be,” their boss snapped. “They were shot in—”

“They were told to drop their weapons and get on the ground,” Kage informed the man icily. “They returned fire.”

“We only have your man’s word for that,” he argued.

“Yes,” he agreed, and I was glad that I was not on the other end of the hostility in the stare. “Becker and Ching are highly decorated marshals, and they’ve been cleared by both my department and yours.”

“Yes,” the investigator admitted before settling his attention back on me. “Now, Marshal, what happened after you and Mrs. Tolliver left the house?”

I went through the whole thing piece by piece for them, leaving nothing out, including the kindness of the auto-body shop owner, Kohn calling me from the shed, and how I heard several shots fired and then return fire.

“That had to be those two dirty cops firing on Kowalski and Ching,” I finished.

“We don’t know that they were dirty,” their captain chimed in again.

“True,” I said frankly. “Maybe Tolliver had someone in their families kidnapped. Maybe they were coerced.”

He opened his mouth to rebut.

“Unless you’ve already checked their financials and there’s money moving around in there,” I reasoned. “And if so, then dirty is the appropriate modifier, sir.”

“It is,” Kage said dryly, his tone frosty. “The history of deposits shows years of bribes. Your department is riddled with corruption—as usual.”

“Are you forgetting that you yourself were a police detective, Marshal Kage?”

“No,” he replied, his voice full of gravel. “I had a dirty partner myself, but my captain knew, as well as IAD. Seems that you had no clue what the hell was going on in your own goddamn house.”

He was not a word mincer, my boss, and when the arguments erupted, I really wasn’t surprised. The reality was, however, that my boss’s boss, Tom Kenwood, was the man with the most clout in the room, and when the chief deputy spoke, everyone shut up.

Kenwood crossed the room to stand at my bedside. “You did well, Jones. Rest and return to us as soon as you’re able. You saved a high-profile witness with comprehensive records detailing the Corza family’s illegal activities. Without your heroic actions that day, we would have been back to square one in our case and two children would have been missing their mother. Your actions are a credit to the service, as well as to your supervisor and team.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Kenwood lifted his head and met the gaze of the chief of police. “We are launching a formal federal inquiry into these two men and the entire department,” he announced. “The attorney general is informing the mayor this morning and a special investigator will be appointed.”

No one said a word.

He turned to Kage. “I want to see White and talk to his wife, and then Sharpe.”

“Yessir.”

Everyone cleared out except Kage. I noticed Chief Deputy Kenwood waiting for him in the hall. Leaning over, he put a hand on my unhurt shoulder. “When you’re up to it, you need to call Doyle’s father. Something about a wolf?”

I smiled. “Yessir.”

“I’ll talk to you in a week, Jones.”

“Not before? I could die of boredom.”