Beneath the Silk (2 page)

No, she would be no match for men who had been carrying guns in their back pockets since age fourteen, Jackson thought. Joe Cool and Nine-lives Lucky had the market on street survival. And the boys Milo Tandi had run with had no conscience.

There were plenty of reasons why Jackson should tell Clide to get someone else to pull his daughter’s butt out of the fryer. But his boss was right—he would have an advantage over someone who didn’t know the
boys.
He knew who was who, and where to dig. And he knew something else, too. He knew this was a golden opportunity, a chance to set things right with Hank Mallory—if that was at all possible.

“Bottom line, Ward, you’re Sunni’s best shot. Her only shot, the way I see it. Now, how much more stroking is it going to take for you to hop on that plane? Do you want me on my knees? If that’ll make the difference, then I’ll—”

“I can be there before supper.”

His words had Clide sighing deeply. “All right, fine. Good.”

“When did Sunni call?” Jackson asked, suddenly anxious to get out of the oven and into his favorite leather jacket. Chicago in October… Yeah, he could handle that.

“She didn’t call, which doesn’t make sense. I learned all of this last night from Detective Williams. Three hours later—after imagining the worst—I ended up in here. Sunni’s mother is in Europe with her sister. I don’t want Ellen to know about this. If we’re lucky, she won’t have to until it’s all over. She’ll be gone for four weeks.”

Four weeks?
“That doesn’t give me much time, Chief.”

“You have a knack for raising hell, Ward. And I’ve seen you when you get obsessed with a case. So get obsessed and raise some hell. This time you have my permission and my blessing.”

“About Mac—”

“Take him with you. You know what they say about two heads.”

Jackson could see all sorts of problems taking his partner to Chicago with him. But he was sure Clide wouldn’t be interested in hearing a single one. “How do I handle Sunni?”

“Think of her as a member of your family, Ward. Your favorite cousin, or better yet, the sister you never had. The old cliché, guard her with your life, works for me. If it don’t for you, imagine there’s a crazy police chief holding a gun to the back of your head ready to blow it off the minute you screw up.”

After all that, Jackson said, “That’s not what I meant, Chief. Do I tell her why I’m in town? Or am I undercover?”

“Undercover would speed things up. But Sunni’s safety takes priority, so it’ll be your call. Sunni’s no killer, Ward. Take my baby girl out of that ugly picture Williams painted me last night and I’ll give you whatever it is you want. A raise. A promotion. A new partner… You name it and it’s yours.”

* * *

The idea of how to get close to Sunni Blais and still stay undercover for a couple of days came to Jackson on the airplane. Now, two hours after arriving at O’Hare, he stood inside the Wilchard Apartment Building across the alley from the Crown Plaza with half the battle won—old man Ferguson was still alive and the Wilchard’s landlord owed him a favor.

“Never figured I’d see you again, Jackson.”

Thinking much the same thing—Crammer Ferguson was at least ninety—Jackson stuck out his hand. “You get a face-lift, old man? You look twenty years younger than the last time I saw you.”

“Still a smart-ass. Some things never change.” Grinning, Crammer shot his bony hand across the counter and pumped Jackson’s eagerly. “Ain’t seen you in… Hell, how long’s it been?”

“A good three years.” Jackson caught Crammer eyeing Mac. He decided to forgo the introduction for now. “You got an apartment on the fourth floor that faces the alley. Is it vacant?”

“They’re all vacant up there. Got pipe trouble and them damn plumbers are as independent as the no-good bankers and crooked lawyers in this city. What you want a place for? Your mama finally disown you?” Crammer’s grin exposed six teeth evenly divided between his top and bottom jaw.

“We don’t want to impose on Ma.”

The
we
word sent Crammer’s aging eyes back to Mac for a second time. “Who’s that?”

“My partner.”

“You got a dog for a partner?” Crammer’s surprise shot his sparse white eyebrows into his wrinkled forehead. Looking back at Mac, he asked, “What happened to his ear? Looks like somebody chewed it half off.”

Jackson had wondered that same thing. It had prompted him to dig up the reports surrounding Mac’s five-year service to the NOPD. “A burglar,” he explained, “and you’re right, the guy bit a chunk out.”

“God! A burglar bit your dog?”

“He’s not my dog. He’s my partner.”

Crammer must have caught the irritation in Jackson’s voice, and his eyebrows creased. “He lives with you, right?”

“That’s right.”

“And you feed him?”

“Don’t have a choice.”

“A year ago a tomcat started hanging around. A fella asked me, is he your cat? I said no, he ain’t. He said, but be lives here, right? I said, no, he’s a free agent. He comes and goes. He asked what I fed him. I said, I don’t feed free agents. I already told you, I don’t own no cat.” His point made, Crammer asked, “So, what happened after the burglar bit
your
dog?”

“Mac bit him back. The guy’s missing his left ear. With two counts of burglary, and an aggravated assault charge as a prior, he sued the department.”

“Bet the son of a bitch won, too.”

“He did.”

“Hell, them fool judges got no better sense than the crooked lawyers and lazy plumbers.” With that, Crammer went back to studying Mac.

It was something that happened often—Mac drawing stares. One night, with time on his hands, Jackson had counted forty-three scars while the K-9 slept sprawled across his bed.

“He ain’t ugly mean like he looks, is he?”

“Only when it’s called for.”

“Well behaved otherwise?”

“Damn near perfect.” Jackson recited the lie stone sober. He wasn’t going to mention Mac’s flaws. Everybody had flaws, he silently mused, but Mac’s chronic problems of late had been the reason why he’d been put on the top of the
List.

Jackson hadn’t even known the
List
existed, or what it meant, until after he’d accepted Mac as his partner. But within two days he had decided that a K-9 partner,
with problems,
wasn’t for him. The next day he’d driven back to the pound, only to learn that dogs no longer of value to the department were destroyed—and since Mac topped the
List,
the only thing that stood between him and a lethal injection was Jackson.

He’d walked out of the pound minutes later and climbed back into the cruiser. He’d sat a minute, eyeing the new hole Mac had chewed in the seat while he’d been gone all of ten minutes, then he’d driven back to his apartment with his
new
partner.

“Your mama said you moved south. New Orleans, was it?”

“That’s right. About the apartment?”

“Apartment 410 don’t got no runnin’ water at the moment. Got a nice two-bedroom on the second floor. You each could have a bed. Or is
your dog
a snuggler?”

Jackson ignored the mischief in the old man’s aging eyes. “The fire escape running by the window up there would sure come in handy when Mac needs to take a leak.” It wasn’t an actual lie, though it wasn’t the real reason he fancied that particular apartment.

“That might be so, but it ain’t gonna accommodate your own nature call lessin’ you plan on goin’ out the fire escape with your dog.”

“I’ll take a look at the problem and see what I can do.”

“You know about pipes and stuff like that?”

He didn’t, but Jackson wanted
that
apartment. “Sure.”

He watched Crammer scratch his head while he considered the offer, his rheumy eyes narrowing slightly. “I suppose you’ll be expectin’ a discount for your trouble.”

“Seems fair.”

“Can’t make no money lettin’ folks stay for free.”

“Can’t make no money sitting with empty apartments, either.”

“Your mama musta washed your mouth out with soap six times a day when you was a runt. Mouthiest cop in Chicago, is what I always said. Mouthiest, but the best.”

“Do we have a deal?”

“I’ll need a hundred to seal it.”

His cigarette pinched between his lips, Jackson peeled a hundred dollar bill out of his wallet, slapped it on the counter, then headed for the stairs. Five minutes later, Mac was slumped on a faded brown plaid couch from the seventies, and Jackson was assessing apartment 410 with a scowl.

As he headed into the kitchen, he pointed his finger at Mac. “No holes, understand? None of this is ours. And even if it does looks like hell, I don’t want it looking worse.”

After examining the kitchen and finding it had all of the necessities to keep him from starving—a noisy refrigerator, a yellow-stained sink and an old electric stove with two burners that still worked—Jackson entered the bedroom. The room was as sparse as the rest of the apartment—a narrow closet, a double bed and another floor lamp like the one in the living room with a water-stained blue shade.

The bonus was the wooden desk and chair—free of teeth marks. Jackson grunted. “That won’t last,” he muttered, then sauntered to the window and parted the dusty beige curtains.

Across the alley stood the Crown Plaza, and on the fourth floor directly across from his bedroom window was Sunni Blais’s apartment—a penthouse suite complete with a brick terrace and greenhouse. She had ultrasheer curtains covering the two sliding glass doors that led to the terrace—one door on either side of the greenhouse.

Jackson opened the window and sucked in a breath of Chicago smog. Smiling, he angled his head and let the cool air wash over his face. When he’d left three years ago, he hadn’t thought about missing the city itself. At the time, all that was important was to get away from the guilt that he’d felt over Tom’s death. And so he’d packed and relocated without realizing what he was leaving behind.

As he looked over the city, he plucked a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket, then relaxed his shoulder against the window frame. He was on his third when movement behind one of the curtains alerted him that
she
was home. He glanced down at his watch and read sixteen minutes after six. He hadn’t expected to find her home this soon after work, but he’d make a note of it.

His attention back on the apartment, he was aware that Mac had entered the bedroom. A few seconds later, he felt his partner nuzzle his leg, then start licking his boot. “Knock it off, Mac. I’ll get you some water and chow in a minute.”

A shadow walked past the slider, a quick movement that allowed Jackson only a brief glimpse at Clide’s daughter. Minutes later, she reappeared at the other slider to the left of the greenhouse. He waited, took another healthy pull off his cigarette. The curtain moved. Then there she was, as visible as a single evening star in a black sky.

She reached for the clip that held her hair off her neck. A second later, smooth black hair fell to her shoulders. A second after that, her straight white skirt went to the floor.

Jackson released a low, undulating whistle, then watched her fingers move to the buttons on her white suit jacket. He knew what was coming next. Knew he should step away from the window. Knew he wasn’t going to.

Five buttons later, she sent the jacket off her shoulders, and Jackson damn near into cardiac arrest. “Oh, hell, red underwear,” he moaned as raw heat attacked his groin and caught fire.

Mesmerized, he stared at Sunni Blais’s long, slender legs beneath a short red slip. Then, slowly, his gaze climbed back up to appreciate the most fabulous five-star chest he’d ever seen. “Either we have the wrong Sunni Blais, or Sis is adopted,” he muttered. “There’s no way in hell Clide can be her father.”

As if Mac was in full agreement, he angled his head and barked loudly. Twice.

Startled by the noise, Jackson jerked in surprise, then looked down at Mac, who was up on all fours wagging his tail. Without warning, he barked again. Louder this time.

Jackson gave Mac his knee, then glanced back to Sunni’s apartment to find that she’d crossed her arms over her amazing breasts, her gaze searching the alley to see where the sudden noise had originated and why. When her gaze locked with his, she opened her mouth and two words came out. The first word was
Oh.
The second word was…

“Shame on you, Sis,” Jackson mumbled, “that’s not a nice word.”

The same two words flew out again, then Sunni was gone from sight. But not forgotten—Jackson’s growing problem was now full blown and painfully obvious.

There was, however, a remedy for what ailed him. He could hobble to the bathroom and take an ice-cold shower—that is, if there had been running water on the fourth floor of the Wilchard.

Chapter 2

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”
Y
ou lied to the police.” Sunni met Joey Masado’s self-assured gaze and held it. It was just before closing and she was assembling the scattered notes on her desk that she’d made for Mary, her store manager for Silks. “You know we’ve never dated. Much less—”