Blood, Ash, and Bone (28 page)

I examined the desktop. Nothing seemed to be missing, but the pens clustered in a pile like loose kindling, and the edges of the folders were skewed and uneven. Not how Trey left his desk, ever.

Our room had been searched.

I cursed and called him again, cursing louder when it went straight to voice mail. “I don’t know what you’re doing,” I said, “but we’ve got a bigger problem than Hope. Someone’s gone through your files. Call me back ASAP.”

I turned on the floor lamp. And my stomach plummeted.

I saw the sofa cushion on the floor in front of the bar, the crooked chair. I went into the bedroom. The search had gotten sloppier in here. My suitcase lay like a gutted fish. The comforter crumpled at the foot of the bed. I reached to turn on the bedside lamp, but I couldn’t find it.

Then my foot crunched broken glass. Not just a search. There had been violence here.

I took a deep breath and willed myself calm. I called Trey again. And standing there in the darkened room, I heard a soft vibration. I got down on all fours on the broken glass and followed the sound under the bed.

Trey’s phone.

My heart stopped, then hammered. I reached under the bed and pulled it out with a trembling hand. I was going to be sick, pass out, scream, cry. I breathed until the worst of it passed, then stared at the phone. How had it gotten under the bed? Where was he?
Slow down
, I told myself.
Think
. There was a way to figure out what had happened. He’d shown me himself, the two of us in bed, the rain lashing the window.

I pulled up the password sign-in with shaking fingers. What was the formula? Okay, it was Saturday, Saturday was the seventh day. No, the sixth. What was the date? The fifteenth. I typed in the words, then fed that into matrix six. I hit enter, got a nine digit code. I entered that.

Access approved.

I sobbed once in relief. I was in. I scrolled down the library until I saw the file. I clicked it.

It began with the door opening. “Find it,” a voice said. Male. Monotone. “Start with the safe, then the bedroom. I’ll post up at the elevator.”

The door closing, the sounds of searching. Then something muffled and unintelligible. A radio? A different voice suddenly. “Who? Fuck.” An electronic crackle. “Seaver’s on his way. Go to Plan B.”

And then twenty seconds later, Trey was in the room. I heard the door open and close. Heard the last snatches of our phone conversation. Silence. Then there was only the sound of blows, and grunts, the whiplash of flesh colliding with flesh, the hard reverberation of bodies.

Trey’s voice next, strained from exertion, but calm. “Who are you?”

Not people he recognized. The first clue. They didn’t answer.

Trey again. “You’re law enforcement, both of you. Savannah metro uniformed patrol.”

“Not tonight, we’re not. Now you gonna come easy, or you gonna make it hard?”

No response. A shuffle of footsteps, more fighting. The golf clubs tumbling, the thunk of metal on flesh.

Somebody hissed in fury and pain. “Goddamn fucker broke my arm!”

Satisfaction jolted me. Trey could hurt people, and I wanted him to hurt
these
people, I wanted to hear him break every one of them. But I knew that wasn’t how things had ended. My stomach clenched, knowing what was eventually coming, ordained by the empty room.

There were two of them, one of him. They were cops. They had guns, and he hadn’t made it to his weapon yet.

Something unintelligible, then Trey again. “What do you want?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the order.”

“Whose order?”

A shuffle of feet. More meaty blows. Another sound, a hard slap against the wall, muttered curses, another crash. More grappling, the hotel door opening and slamming shut. A new sound, a muffled rapid clicking. The thump of a body hitting the floor. Silence.

I started shaking.

The first voice again, still monotone. “Get him in the cart. Now.”

More noises, frantic and hurried. Dragging, muttering, a curse from the man with the broken arm.

Anger burned in my chest. I would kill them. I wanted it more than I’d wanted anything in my life.

“Tape him tight.”

More muffled sounds, banging and clattering. The rip of duct tape, the door shutting, the hiss of silence. I shut off the recording.

They had Trey. I’d sent him right to them.

I rocked back and forth on the floor. In all that uproar, he’d found a way to leave me the phone—a key and a clue and a warning, all rolled into one. He needed to leave it so that they wouldn’t take it from him later. He needed me to know that the bad guys were Savannah metro cops, in uniform. Cops he didn’t know. Three of them.

A noise then, my own cell phone, ringing. I knew who it would be before I put it to my ear. I swallowed hard and willed myself calm.

“What do you want?” I said.

The monotone voice was unemotional. “You have the document?”

“I don’t have anything. We—”

“Then find it. You have two hours, if you want him back. Don’t call the cops. Don’t call your detective friends. Don’t call 911, or we take him apart piece by piece, understand?”

I closed my eyes. Focus. Think. Listen.

The voice grew firmer. “I said, do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” The voice softened, calm, persuasive. “There’s no reason he has to die, not if we keep things simple. Can you do that?”

“Yes. Please let me—”

“We’ll be in touch.”

The line went dead.

I sat in the rumpled wreck of my dress, phone in hand. Two hours, they’d said. I had two hours to find Hope and convince her to give me whatever it was she had.

My phone vibrated in my hand again. I stared at it for a moment, lost, dazed. I put it to my ear.

Hope’s voice was angry. “I told you not to call the cops!”

A bright fury rose. “We didn’t!”

“Liar! They were there, I saw them, the same ones. I told you—”

“You know them?”

“What?”

I licked my lips and spoke as calmly as I could. “Listen to me. We didn’t call those cops. They were already there. And they took Trey. So if you know who those men are, you’d better tell me and tell me quick.”

Her voice wavered. “I don’t know who they are, but I know…I know…”

“What?”

“They’re cops, bad ones. One of them shot Winston. You can’t—”

“I need that Bible, Hope.”

“It’s not the Bible they want.”

“Whatever it is. Give it to me. Now.”

“I can’t, they’ll—”

“I don’t goddamn care! I need it or they’ll kill him, and I swear to God, if they hurt him, I will track you down and I will end you!”

“This isn’t my fault! I needed money, that’s all!”

I closed my eyes. This was an opening. “I’ll get you money, however much you need. Just give me—”

“I can’t! It’s all the leverage I have now! If they come for me—”

“Hope—”

“They’re dangerous!”

“So am I. You have no idea.”

“I can’t!”

I took a deep steadying breath. “Hope, I will give you enough money to vanish. You don’t ever have to show your face around here again. But I need whatever it is you have, or they’ll kill us all. Me, Trey, you. You have to give it to me.”

A muffled sob at her end, then her voice, almost a whisper. “Meet me at our old break spot behind the tattoo shop. One hour. Bring ten thousand dollars.”

Then she hung up. I wanted to throw the phone against the wall, but I couldn’t. I closed my eyes and willed down the sick creeping horror. No official channels. No Phoenix. No best friends, no reluctant helpmeets. Not even Garrity could save me this time.

Because the bad guys were cops. Trey had made sure I knew that, and Hope had confirmed it. I examined my phone. Could they be listening? Did rogue cops have access to that kind of technology?

I didn’t know. I got angry then at all the things I didn’t know, at the situations I found myself in. Hope’s refrain was my refrain—I hadn’t meant for any of this to happen—and like Hope, I was in way over my head.

But I knew where I needed to start. There was only one person who could help me now, and I was willing to pay whatever price he asked.

I stood up and shucked the ridiculous dress, kicked it in the corner. I peeled the corset off, tossed it on the heap. I got jeans and a t-shirt. I went to the safe for my gun, but it was empty. Ransacked too. Luckily, I had Trey’s H&K with me, and a fresh mag.

I dressed quickly, then pulled Trey’s new leather jacket from the closet. I put the ammo in one pocket, the nine-millimeter in the other. The jacket didn’t fit well, but it was tangible and comforting and smelled like Trey.

I practiced a draw in front of the mirror. It was awkward and slow, and I knew I’d have to do better in the real world. I barely recognized myself—my eyes dark with smudged make-up, my hair tumbling from its bobby pins in tangles and tendrils. I looked haunted and strung out, wild and desperate.

Like a woman capable of anything.

Chapter Forty

Boone’s place lay on a peninsula between Talahi and Whitemarsh Islands, at the end of a winding path that looked nothing like a driveway and everything like a dent in the underbrush. But the road was true, and it had only one destination once you were on it. The cat briars tangled thick at the edges, every foot I drove taking me deeper and deeper into the untamed.

The rain came down harder, and the wind rose with it, thrashing the slender branches of the water oaks into a frenzy. I clutched the wheel, barely able to see six feet in front of me. Finally, I rounded the first curve and saw the dock stretching into the water. Another curve and the house came into view, a two-story Lowcountry, built on pilings so that the underneath was open to the marsh. Unlike most such houses, however, Boone’s was surrounded by a high stone gate with razor wire along the top.

I drove the Camaro right up to it, got out, and banged on the doors with my fist. “Boone! Let me in!”

The security camera to my right swiveled back and forth. I stood under it and looked directly into the lens. “I swear I will stand here screaming until someone opens this gate!”

The side door opened, and Jefferson stood there. “Goddamn it, Tai, what—”

“I need to see Boone.”

“It’s too late, he—”

“Now!”

Jefferson pulled out his phone and turned away from me. A hushed conversation ensued, then he held the door open. “Hurry up. Leave your weapons here.”

“No.” I pulled Trey’s jacket tighter around me. “I’m family. I keep my gun. Now let me see him.”

***

Jefferson took me through the house to Boone, who was sitting on his back porch, watching the storm roll in over the marsh. The interior was low-lit, but I caught the details—the IV pole next to the armchair, the rows of medicine bottles on the kitchen sink—and I knew like a punch in the gut why he didn’t receive visitors anymore.

He was stretched out on a wooden lounge chair, a blanket at his feet. An oxygen tank stood sentry beside him, and although he wasn’t using it, I could still see the indentations against his nose where the clip had been. He looked yellow-gray in the dim porch light. In the shadows beyond that small illuminated circle, I saw a tall dark shape in the corner. Jasper. I ignored him and went right to Boone.

“They took Trey,” I said.

“They who?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I need money, and weapons, and I need them fast.”

“Slow down, girl—”

“I don’t have time for slow! Trey’s been kidnapped, and I have to get this document from Hope so that I can get him back, and to do that I need money! You have to help me!”

Jasper didn’t like any of this. He hovered in his corner of the screened porch, antsy and combustible. Jefferson maintained his position, calmer. They both looked ready to shoot me and be done with it.

Boone took the toothpick he was chewing from his mouth. “Were you followed?”

“Of course not.”

He pointed at the ottoman. “Sit down.”

“There’s no time—”

“Sit!”

I glared at him, not sitting.

He swore softly. “I need you calm, girl, because right now, you’re just meanness talking. You wanna hurt these people, I can see it in your eyes, and I can’t work with that. So sit.”

“Boone!”

“This is the place where we commit. And we’d better get that part goddamn right because we don’t get another chance. Now sit!”

I sat, unable to fight the tears any longer. “They’re cops. The ones who took him. That’s all I know.”

Boone blew out a breath. “Shit.”

He swung his legs to the side, his face clean of all emotion. I knew the look. I’d seen it on Trey, when he’d close his eyes and count to three and then open them with that look, as fathomless and impassive as the ocean.

I met it head on. Sink or swim.

“Tell me what happened,” Boone said, “start to finish.”

I did. He listened. I tried to include the details he needed, leave out the ones he didn’t.

I wiped my eyes. “That’s all I know. Hope’s going to meet me in the alley behind the tattoo shop in one hour. I’ll get the document, give her the money, and then the kidnappers will call back with the location to make the trade.”

“Tai—”

“Don’t argue with me, I can do this. It’s a swap, one-two, that’s all. I’m not scared.”

“Ain’t about scared or not scared. Look at me.”

I did. His voice stayed steady.

“I need you to listen, and listen good. This ain’t a ransom, probably never was. There won’t be any trade. You show up planning on that, and he’s already a dead man, you hear me?” He took me by the shoulders. “They’ll kill you too, on the spot. That’s why they want you to come. Because it’s a trap.”

Tears pricked my eyes again, blurring the swaying palmettos, the porch light. “No.” I shook my head. “No, that’s not—”

“Look at me, Tai. Don’t quit on me.” Boone took my hands in his. “Tell me true, girl. Are you willing to do whatever it takes?”

I raised my eyes to his. “I would burn down the world for that man.”

He squeezed my fingers, and I felt it swell in me, the deep power of saying yes to whatever it takes. I squeezed back. His grip was still strong, and it sealed a pact as solid as any ever made at any midnight crossroad.