Cut and Run 09 Crash & Burn (12 page)

Nick was weaker than he would have liked while being on the run from his friends, but he didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter. If Owen hadn’t slipped him a key, he’d still be stuck in that fucking bed. Ty knew where Nick hid all his keys. Asshole.

It had begun to snow, and it was going to make getting to safety harder. Also, covering his trail would be impossible unless it got heavier. He’d stolen a sweatshirt from the bedroom closet, and he was pretty sure it was Zane’s because it was actually too big. He hunched into it, still not warm enough to be out in this cold after losing so much blood.

He couldn’t quite identify the feeling in his chest and stomach. Was it loss? Heartbreak? Anger? Guilt? Yeah, he remembered this feeling from Catholic school, and it was a hefty dose of guilt and anger. He trudged past the dark alley near Ty’s row house, just barely smelling the smoke in time to realize that he was no longer alone.

Liam stepped away from the brick wall, flicking his cigarette. Nick stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, his hand on his newly stitched wound.

“Where’s your knife?” Liam asked as his eyes traveled up and down Nick.

“Left it behind to make a point.”

Liam nodded. “Did it?”

Nick just lowered his head. He’d been so sure Ty would help him.

Liam took a step toward him and slid his arm under Nick’s, letting Nick lean on him. Nick wrapped his arm over Liam’s shoulder and gripped the material of his coat, relieved when Liam took the weight. They began a slow shuffle toward the harbor, neither saying a word for nearly a block.

“So?” Liam finally asked.

“You were right. Ty’s no good to us.”

“Story of my life, love.” Liam snorted, his breath puffing out in a crystallized cloud.

“Did you really have to stick me this deep?”

“It had to look real.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty fucking real.”

“Walk it off, O’Flaherty.” Liam paused to hitch Nick higher on his shoulder. “You stuck to the script?”

“Like Velcro. Told him you knifed me. I fucking begged him for help.”

“That bastard. I told you not to admit you’d killed Burns.”

“Oh my God,” Nick grunted.

“What good could come from him knowing that shit, hmm?”

“None. But I had to tell him. I had to just . . .”

Liam huffed. “You convinced me this was the better plan.”

“I know.”

“Made me throw my frozen finger overboard.”

“I know,” Nick muttered. “What’s Plan B?”

Liam’s hand tightened on Nick’s arm. “We don’t have a Plan B.”

“I don’t get it,” Kelly said for perhaps the fourth time in the last hour. “How the fuck could you do that, Ty? He’s your best friend!”

Ty shook his head. “That didn’t stop him from killing Richard Burns, did it?”

Kelly snarled, and Ty just shrugged like it didn’t bother him.

Zane knew it did, though. He was working hard to keep his opinions to himself and trying to keep the remaining men of Sidewinder on track. And as far as he was concerned, on track was verifying what Nick had said.

He just didn’t know exactly how to do that yet.

“I’m going after him,” Kelly announced, and then he stood, grabbing for his coat.

“How?” Digger asked. “We don’t know how long he was gone. And it’s snowing like crazy, you can’t track him in this.”

Kelly raised his head, nostrils flaring. “Ty can.”

Ty nodded for a few seconds, obviously deep in thought. Then he lurched to his feet. “He’s right, we need to find him. He was hurt, he might be . . . it’s too cold out there if he had nowhere to go.”

“He
did
have somewhere to go,” Kelly snapped. “You just drove him away!”

“Doc, give me a break!” Ty shouted. “If he’d told you he killed someone you loved, how would you have handled it? He fucking broke my heart!”

No one moved, and no one met Ty’s eyes.

“Let’s go find him first, and then we’ll deal with the fallout,” Zane finally said.

Owen snorted. “Only way I’m going out there to find him is if Ty promises he keeps his handcuffs to himself. Otherwise, I’m letting Irish have his way with Baltimore.”

Digger nodded in agreement. “Man can wander out of the desert after three weeks, he can handle snow in the city with a little love tap in his side.”

Ty sighed and put his hands together as if praying at an altar. “I promise. Okay? I promise. Let’s go find him. Zane? Stay here in case he backtracks, please?”

“You got it. Be careful; he might strike first and ask questions later.”

Ty merely nodded, looking sick as he followed Kelly to the front door.

Zane stood in the kitchen until the four of them left, then pulled his phone out and stared at his contacts list. He wanted to do some digging into Richard Burns. He just needed to pick the agent he trusted most. Or rather, the agent he suspected least. He pulled up Fred Perrimore’s number and called him.

“What up, boss man?” Perrimore answered, the smile evident in his tone. “Working on your honeymoon?”

“Yeah. I have a favor to ask of you, Freddy.”

“A favor? Not an order?”

“No, not this time. You up for it?”

Perrimore hummed, then sighed heavily. “Do you have bail money?”

Zane grinned. “If it goes well, you won’t need it. I have faith in you.”

“Great. Fill me in.”

Zane tried to keep to the bare minimum, using the excuse of an ongoing undercover operation for not giving Perrimore all the details. Perrimore was a veteran, though; he understood that sometimes leadership meant compartmentalizing things. And sometimes granting favors to your boss meant not having the whole picture.

“So, when I find these account numbers, you just want a record of the transactions? I’ll need a warrant for it.”

“No, no warrants. This isn’t to make a case, it’s just for information. Do it fast, do it quiet, don’t leave a paper trail. And only look at the time frame I gave you, okay?”

“You got it.” Perrimore sounded like he was already on his computer, searching down the cartel’s accounts.

Zane still had those numbers memorized all these years later. He hadn’t even had to look them up.

“What’s my turnaround on this?” Perrimore asked.

“ASAP. Life and death, here.”

“Yeah. Hey, Garrett, you okay? You need more than account numbers from me?”

Zane held his breath, watching the door. “Not yet,” he finally said. “But sleep with your gun, got it?”

“I really hate working for you sometimes,” Perrimore claimed, but the grin in his voice told Zane another story.

He was smiling when he ended the call. For the first time, he’d tipped their hand to one of the agents at the office. And it felt good. It felt like he was finally on the offensive. If Perrimore was the mole—although Zane had just bet his life that he wasn’t—things were going to start happening pretty fast now.

He checked that his gun was loaded, then slid it into his belt, just to feel better about his chances.

Ty knelt at the head of an alleyway near the row house. He’d found several cigarettes by the building, shielded from the heavy snow. Someone had waited here. Had someone waited for Nick? Unfortunately, there was no telling which way they had gone from here, not without guessing, and the snow had completely obscured anything else Ty might have been able to follow.

Kelly was standing on top of a fire hydrant, peering into the night. Owen and Digger were pacing back and forth like bloodhounds, but they didn’t seem to be coming up with anything.

Ty examined the filter in his hand, turning it over with a frown.

His stomach dropped into his toes and he lurched to his feet. “This is Liam’s brand.”

“I thought Nick said he killed him,” Kelly said. He hopped down and hunched his shoulders against the cold.

“He did, but then he said he didn’t, then he said he killed Burns. I think he was just confused.” Ty winced, head throbbing with stress and exhaustion. “Could be he thought he killed Liam and didn’t hang around to make sure. Could be he was lying.”

“Why would he lie about killing Liam when he copped to everything else?” Digger asked.

Ty shrugged helplessly. He was trying to think like Nick in this, but finding he just couldn’t. He didn’t understand any of it.

“Stockholm syndrome?” Owen asked tentatively.

“Bell always was good at psy ops,” Kelly agreed. “If this was an attempt to make Nick think his friends had turned on him and Liam was all he had left to depend on, it was a damn good one.”

“Lucky said he needed help getting evidence,” Digger added. “Maybe he came here to feel you out. See how likely you were to work with him and Liam.”

“Sounds like Nick,” Owen agreed. “The bleeding was a little overly dramatic.”

“The bleeding should have sold it,” Kelly grunted.

Ty glared at him, but Kelly shrugged.

“How many times have you showed up on his door, bloody?” Kelly demanded. “How many times has he said yes without asking why? He still has holes in his boat!”

“But it still floats,” Ty muttered defensively.

Kelly cursed under his breath.

“I’ve lost him.” Ty ran his frozen fingers through his hair. Even without the snow to cover Nick’s trail, he would be nearly impossible to track in the city. Guessing his destination and wandering around calling his name like a lost dog would be just as effective as tracking him at this point. They’d have better luck with educated guesses and phoning around to hospitals and marinas from the warmth of the row house.

“We should head back, start looking into the types of places he’s gone to ground in before. Check all the marinas in case he has the
Fiddler
in town.”

Owen and Digger fell in behind him as he trudged back toward the row house, but Kelly remained where he’d been, staring off down the street. Ty stopped and waited, but Kelly shook his head. “I’m not coming back ’til I find him.”

“Doc,” Owen started, but Kelly held his hand up and turned away.

“I’m not coming back,” he said again, then started off in the opposite direction.

Ty glanced at the other two, waiting for them to make their choice. He wouldn’t have been surprised, or even blamed them for it, if they followed Kelly into the dawn. But neither man budged. They finally gave Ty identical shrugs, and the three of them carried on toward the row house in silence.

Ty found himself facing down the barrel of Zane’s gun when he opened the door. He stopped in his tracks, waiting while Zane stuffed the gun into his holster.

“Something happen?” Ty asked.

Digger shoved him inside when he didn’t move. “Cold!”

Zane shook his head. “I put a call in to Freddy. You said Nick claimed Burns was stealing money from the cartel, so I figured I’d fact-check him. Freddy’s looking up the accounts I sent to Burns when I was UC in Miami to see if money went missing from any of them.”

“You trust him with that?” Ty asked.

Zane shrugged and patted his gun, a wry smile curving his lips. “Mostly.”

Ty glanced around the room, at a loss now. Zane had been hard at work getting blood off the floor, the rug, and the few places Nick had put his bloody hand as he’d climbed the stairs.

“What now?” Owen asked.

“Where’s Kelly?” Zane asked before anyone could answer the million-dollar question.

“He wouldn’t come back,” Digger answered.

Zane nodded, frowning. “Somehow I’m not surprised.”

Ty glared at him.

“What?” Zane asked.

“I got enough pointed comments from him tonight, don’t start with me too, Garrett.”

“It wasn’t pointed, Ty. I’m just saying . . . if that was you out there, I’d sure as shit still be searching.”

Ty scowled, trying not to get upset and failing miserably.

“Kelly loves him, baby,” Zane said. “Same way I love you. It’s going to change the way the whole group operates. You get that, right? It’s not just O’Flaherty you’re standing to lose here.”

Ty blew out a shaky breath, glancing back at Owen and Digger as Zane put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“It’ll be okay,” Zane whispered into his ear, and Ty closed his eyes.

“Hey, if we’re going to be plotting and shit, can we order pizza or something?” Digger asked.

“It’s four in the morning,” Zane said.