Hard to Come By (13 page)

“I’ll help,” Sara said, rising to reveal that her outfit—from the boxers to the oversized tee—belonged to Shane. Marz’s mind flashed to Emilie. The hints of skin beneath of the lace of her blouse and bra. What he wouldn’t give to see her wearing nothing but clothing that smelled of him.

“You’re thinking it’s Garza,” Beckett said, yanking Marz from his thoughts. “Right?”

“Makes sense to me,” Shane said, looking to Marz.

That they were connecting the dots the same way he was filtered a little relief into his gut. “Question is, why the hell would Garza be picking off the Churchmen? And on whose order? Since we know he was working with Church at someone else’s direction.”

Beckett sat forward and braced his elbows on his knees. “Jackson said the gang’s rep has taken a nosedive. Maybe after the bombing and failed gun deal from Friday night, this secret partner decided Church was no longer reliable.”

“So, if that’s the case, then Garza’s ending the partnership?”

“Real permanent, like,” Shane said.

“Betcha didn’t know it was Christmas?” Nick said
from down the hall. He returned to the room a moment later. “Or that Santa’s name is really Miguel Olivero.” He handed the printout to Beckett. Shane crossed the room to look over the guy’s shoulder. Unlike Easy and Marz, Nick, Beckett, and Shane had met Garza when his team came through their base at one point a few years back.

“I think it’s him,” Shane said, staring at the page.

“Definitely him,” Beckett said, his expression hardening.

“I think so, too,” Nick said. “Hair’s longer than when we knew him, but otherwise he looks like the guy I remember.”

Marz released a long breath, his effort to understand what the hell Garza was up to leading him back to the scumbag’s sister. “Emilie said Garza has worked for a defense contractor since he got out of the Army. About as solid a confirmation that the guy works for Seneka as we’re likely to get.”

Nick braced his hands on the back of the chair. “Speaking of her, what was it you wanted to talk about before the shit started hitting the fan?”

Bracing for a fight, Marz crossed his arms. “Right. Uh, well, besides the defense contractor work, Emilie also said she hasn’t been close with her brother since he returned stateside. She wasn’t real comfortable talking about that, either. Clammed up and changed the subject. I’ve gotta tell you, not a single thing makes me think she’s in on any of this with Garza. Hell, I’m not even getting the vibe that she knows about any of it. She’s just too . . . good, too genuine.”

Beckett held up a hand. “Not a single thing besides the fact that she had a huge-ass stash of contraband in her basement, you mean.”

Marz threw him a look. “Obvo, smart-ass. I’m talking pure gut-check instinct here.”

Shane frowned. “So let’s say she’s totally innocent and unaware. The shit is hitting the fan for her brother, and now there’s a bounty out on his head. What happens when he returns to her house to grab the stash and finds a bunch of baseball bats in the gun bags and flour instead of heroin?” he asked, referring to the fake items they’d put in place of the guns, heroin, and cash. They’d made sure the switcheroo wasn’t obvious. Someone was going to have to open everything up to see it’d all been switched out and the real stuff was gone.

“Shit,” Marz said, scrubbing his hands over his face. He’d been so focused on the fucking lies that he’d lost the forest for the trees. The forest being Emilie’s safety. And
this
was why you didn’t get involved with an asset in an investigation. “Nothing good, that’s for damn sure.” He planted his hands on his hips, his heart squeezing as fear slithered in. “Hell, maybe we should keep some protection on her. I could go—”

“Whoa. Hold on,” Nick said. “Let’s think about this, because we are short on personnel and high on problems that need solving right here. Do you have any reason to believe Garza spends time at her house?”

Marz thought about everything he and Emilie had talked about across their dates. “Truth be told, she hasn’t mentioned him visiting. And we didn’t see him while we were there. But he must’ve gone there at some point if he’s responsible for putting the stash in her basement.”

“No idea how long it’s been down there, though,” Beckett said. “And since we know he’s responsible for these murders, that means he’s in Baltimore tonight
and was in town this past Tuesday. Circumstantials point to him being here.”

Marz blew out a long breath. “Okay. At least until her family party on Saturday. Which brings me to the other thing I wanted to say. Emilie invited me to the party—”

“That’s perfect,” Nick said. “That’s our chance to grab Garza.”

Marz raised his hands. “Just hold up and let me say this. I get that going is good for the mission. But, I . . .” He shook his head.

Beckett shoved out of his chair and paced a few feet away. “Aw, for fuck’s sake. Tell me you don’t like this woman.” He turned and stalked back up to Marz, the bulk of his shoulders straining the top of his gray Henley. “
Please
tell me that you kept your head on straight, your dick in your pants, and that you didn’t get involved.”

Anger slithered into Marz’s chest. “Look—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Beckett said, a storm rolling in over his expression. “No offense to the ladies in the room, but this is a mission with real shit at stake, not the dating game. This fucking thing is heating up. We are being hunted. Hell, we have a goddamned bounty on our heads courtesy of one of the biggest gangs on the East Coast. So, please, Derek, tell me that you know what’s important in all this.”

That anger turned into a red-hot pressure that made Marz’s chest feel like it just might burst. “Fuck you. I know what’s at stake and what’s important. I lost my leg over this situation. Or have you forgotten?” He felt like an asshole as the words spilled from his mouth, but he was maybe angrier than he’d been in . . . God, he wasn’t sure how long. “Oh,
no
, you
never
forget about that, do you?” Annnd a little more of an asshole, now.
But he couldn’t abide being questioned about his dedication, commitment, and seriousness. Not for a fucking minute. And not by the guy who was supposed to be his best friend.

Beckett’s gaze went ice-cold and all emotion bled from his expression.

Marz turned away and faced the rest of the group, and he didn’t miss the fact that the guys were looking at him like maybe he’d gotten a personality transplant in an alien abduction. Granted, anger wasn’t something he showed a whole helluva lot. He shook his head. “I like her,” he said in a low voice, refusing to feel ashamed of the first real feelings he’d maybe ever had for a woman. “I think I have to go to the party because it gives us our best opportunity of nabbing Garza. But I want to tell her what’s going on. I feel like shit lying to her. I don’t want to do it anymore and I don’t think it’s necessary. And now I think it’s in the interest of her safety that she knows what’s really going on around her.”

Crickets
. He met Nick’s gaze, then Shane’s, then Easy’s. All the others were real busy not making eye contact.

Nick crossed his arms. “If you tell her, how do we know she isn’t going to turn around and tell her brother?”

Beckett scoffed.

Marz squeezed his eyelids shut and mentally counted to five. It was the only chance he had at not taking a swing at the guy. Finally, he looked at Nick again. “I have no guarantee. Only thing I can offer is my instinct and my read of her. So it boils down to trusting me. Just like you did with Shane when he said he could trust Sara.”

“He’s got a point,” Shane said, wearing a sympathetic
expression. It helped ease some of the pressure in his chest that Marz wasn’t totally alone in this. “We had no guarantee Sara wouldn’t turn around and tell Bruno what I’d told her. Or that she wouldn’t set me up for an ambush when I thought I was meeting her.” He put his arm around Sara’s shoulders and caught her chin in his fingers. “Sorry, I never really thought any of that. Because my gut said you wouldn’t.” Shane looked at the other men. “Y’all did trust my read on that.”

Nick rubbed his eyes and sighed. “Is anybody else as goddamned tired as I am?”

A low murmur of agreement rose up.

Marz sure knew he was.

“Look,” Nick said, dropping his hands to his side. “I totally get where you’re coming from. I sure as hell can’t talk when it comes to having gotten involved mid-mission.” He took Becca’s hand. Marz could almost see the gears turning in his mind. Finally, Nick nodded. “I trust you. Always have. Go with your gut.”

Relief flooded Marz’s veins. “Thank you.”

“We good?” Nick asked, scanning the rest of the group. Nods all around. Beckett gave a noncommittal grunt.

An awkward silence followed.

“Is that all?” Marz asked.

Nick shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned. Let’s convene at oh-eight-hundred and figure out what’s next.”

“Good enough,” Marz murmured, and then he turned and walked out. Up the steps. Across the unfinished apartment to his bedroom. He shut the door behind him.

All about the mechanics of moving now, he shut off his thoughts as he changed clothes and traded out his regular prosthesis for his running blade. He was a
bundle of angst that needed to be worked out one way or the other. Because, the thing was, as much of an asshole as Beckett had been for saying what he’d said, he’d also given voice to some of Marz’s own internal criticism of his conduct in this situation. And that shit burned.

He opened the door and nearly walked into Beckett.

Rearing back, Marz shook his head. “I don’t want to do this,” he said, nailing the guy with a hard stare. He pushed by him and didn’t look back.

“Derek.”

Just keep walking
.

“Derek!” Beckett said louder.

Marz turned and looked over his shoulder. “Haven’t you said enough tonight?” When Beckett didn’t respond, Marz nodded. “I thought so.”

And then Marz split. Despite the muscle fatigue that had made his thigh ache all day, he had a date with a treadmill. Way he was feeling right now, pounding the shit out of himself was the only way to keep his mouth shut and his fists from swinging.

E
milie wasn’t sure what woke her up. But the instant she was awake, she was sure that something wasn’t right. The digital clock on her nightstand read 4:32.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized it wasn’t quite as dark as it should be. And then her vision adjusted further to realize that there was a low glow in the room. A low orange glow that moved over the ceiling. She glanced to the windows that faced toward the bay.

Her heart became a bass drum in her chest and her scalp prickled. Something was out there. What the hell?

She slipped out of bed and crossed the room to the window. She didn’t have curtains or blinds up at either window facing the water, because she loved the view too much to block it.

For a moment, she couldn’t make sense of what she
was seeing. Manny had built a fire in her backyard. Yeah, because¸ that’s a normal thing to be doing at 4:30 in the frickin’ morning.

Indecision gripped her right up until he tugged his T-shirt over his head and dropped it into the flames.

Gooseflesh broke out over her arms and neck. She couldn’t think of a single good reason why someone would be burning their clothes in the middle of the night. But she could sure think of several bad reasons.

Not bothering to change out of her tank top and sleep shorts, Emilie took off across her room, down the steps, and back across the first floor to the back door. She yanked it open and flew out onto the porch, the chill of the night settling on her bare arms and legs. “Manny, what the hell are you doing?”

Holding his jeans in his hands, he whirled and jumped, his eyes filled with fear and his expression stricken. “Go back inside,” he rasped, holding the denim to cover his hips even though he still wore boxers.

Ice crawled down her spine. “Not until you tell me what you’re doing.”

Manny shook his head. “Go in, Em. This doesn’t involve you,” he said, his voice almost tremulous.

It does now
, she thought, but she bit back saying as much. Snark wasn’t likely to help her in this situation. She stepped down to the grass and glanced to the jeans. “Why are you burning your clothes?” The grass was cool and damp under her feet.

He shook his head and retreated a step. This new fearful behavior set off all kinds of alarm bells in her head. She’d not seen him act like this before, and she wasn’t sure how to read it. Another manifestation of his paranoia?

Manny tossed the jeans toward the fire, but his
throw went wide and only one leg fell squarely into the flames. He didn’t seem to notice, because he crouched at a duffel bag by his feet and pulled out new clothes. Quickly, he jerked on a T-shirt and gym shorts. He toed off the boots he wore and stuffed his feet into a pair of sneakers, not bothering to tie them.

Emilie’s belly knotted in suspicion and dread. Why would someone burn their clothes? She could only think of one reason, and it was one that required her to gather every ounce of courage she had. “Did you hurt somebody, Manny? Because if you did, we might be able to make it right. I can help you.”

“Couldn’t be helped,” he said, voice like sandpaper. “It’s kill or be killed now. Only way to keep us all safe.”

Oh, God. He’s killed someone. Not on a battlefield while serving his country, but here. Tonight
. Tears immediately pricked the backs of her eyes. What had happened to her poor brother? To the man who had taken care of her, and she’d idolized, for most of her life?

Manny threw the gym-bag strap over his shoulder. “It’ll all be over soon,” he said. “You gotta trust me.” He came to stand right in front of her, towering over her because of how much taller he was. “Do you understand, Emilie?”

She stared at him a long moment, then nodded. “Yes, Manny. I understand.” And what she understood broke her heart.

He kicked his boots into the fire and swiped the jeans closer with his foot. “Good, now go inside and make sure everything’s locked up. I’m gonna make this right,” he said. And then he took off around the front of the house. A moment later, the loud rumble of the Hummer’s engine sounded out.

Emilie stood there, absolutely frozen by an ice-cold
wave of grief and regret and sadness. If she’d submitted the psych eval petition two days ago, Manny would’ve been in a hospital by now. And whomever he’d hurt would probably be safe and snug in their bed right now. Her throat tightened and her gaze settled on the fire.

Her gaze settled on the jeans.

On instinct, she dashed toward the blaze, grabbed a denim belt loop, and tugged them out of the fire. All of one leg and part of the other had burned, but the seat and crotch of the pants remained intact. Flames still crawled up the material.

After a split second of indecision, she dashed into the house, grabbed the broom from the pantry, and flew back out. And then she beat the hell out of the clothing until she’d smothered every last cinder. Turning to the fire again, she thought to salvage the boots, too, but they’d been totally engulfed. And she couldn’t see anything left of his shirt at all.

Setting the remains of his pants on her porch, Emilie turned on the outside faucet and unrolled the hose. And then she doused Manny’s bonfire until it was nothing more than a smoking pile resting on a ring of blackened grass. Using the pole end of the broom, she knocked the pile apart, finding a few more red embers deep within, so she doused it again for good measure.

By the time she was done, Emilie was cold and shaky and just totally poleaxed by the realization that her once-loving brother had hurt someone. Had very probably killed someone, given his behavior and what he’d said.

With a last look at the remains of the fire, she dropped the hose to the ground, not bothering to rewind it, grabbed the jeans, and went back inside.

For a long moment, she stood in the dark kitchen,
everything inside her
not
wanting to see. Right now, the last thing she wanted was proof that what he’d said was true and not a delusion.

Taking a deep breath, she flicked on the light and spread the clothing out on the kitchen table.

A moan ripped out of her as her gaze landed on the dark red streaks and dots on the one hip and thigh. “No. No, no, no,” she cried as she backed away from the sight. Her spine came up against the refrigerator.

Emilie slid down to the floor, curled her arms around her knees, and cried.

If she’d done something sooner . . .

If she’d fought harder with her mother . . .

If she’d been stronger and
faced
the reality in front of her. Just once.

But she hadn’t, had she? And now Manny had hurt someone.

It was her worst fear come to life.

E
MILIE WASN’T SURE
how long she’d been sitting in a ball on the kitchen floor. But, by slow degrees, the sunrise filtered into the room.

Pain and regret sat like shards of glass inside her chest, but she couldn’t fix what had happened. The only thing she could do was prevent the situation from getting any worse.

And, as far as she could see, that meant she couldn’t delay submitting the emergency evaluation petition. She couldn’t wait until after tomorrow. She couldn’t give her mother the chance to see Manny first.

She just needed to act.

Emilie hauled herself off the floor and grimaced as her muscles and joints gave her the business for sitting in that position for so long. Keeping her eyes away from
what lay on her kitchen table, she fixed her coffee and then made her way to the bathroom for a quick shower.

Fifteen minutes later, she was dressed and ready to go, not having bothered to dry her hair. She grabbed a hair band from her dresser and threw her hair up into a ponytail. Meeting her gaze in her bedroom mirror, she couldn’t believe how bad she felt this morning after how wonderful she’d felt last night.

With Derek. Her date with him seemed like a lifetime ago.

She grabbed her cell phone from the charger and did a double take. The new-message icon was lit up. Who would’ve texted her over night?

The text was from Derek.
Good morning, brown-eyed girl. Need to talk to you about something when you have a minute. Call me?

She stared at the message until she’d reread it at least five times, but whatever it was would have to wait. Emilie couldn’t indulge in the fun that was Derek—

Derek.
Derek what?
How had she not learned his last name yet? Come to think of it, she didn’t think she’d told him hers, either. Oh, well. Another time, assuming this thing with Manny didn’t explode all over her life.

How can it not?

She really didn’t know.

Downstairs, Emilie fished her laptop out of its case and clicked over to the still-open emergency evaluation form.

Her gaze scanned over the page until she reached the line asking for a description of the behavior that led her to conclude the evaluee had a mental disorder. Fingers shaking, she added a brief description of the events from last night, and then she hit print. From the direction of the tiny den that she’d turned into an office came the
chug-chug-chug
of the printer. She grabbed the form and folded it in three so it would fit in her purse, and then she carefully disassembled a frame with a picture of Manny in his dress uniform to take with her. When she was done, she returned to the kitchen, where she stood and stared for a long moment at the bloody jeans.

Whose blood is it?

The question turned the coffee sour in her stomach and made her glad she hadn’t eaten anything for breakfast.

From a drawer, she grabbed the biggest Ziploc storage bag she had, and then she carefully folded what was left of the jeans in a way that kept the blood facing out. She stuffed them into the bag and pressed all the air out so she could zip it shut.

Blowing out a long breath, Emilie called the counseling center and canceled her day. She hated to do it, but this thing with Manny couldn’t wait.

And then there was nothing left to stop her from leaving.

Almost mechanically, she gathered her things, walked out to her car, and pulled out of her driveway to make the trip to Baltimore. Since her brother didn’t live in her county, the local police were useless where this situation was concerned, which meant she needed to visit the police station in downtown Baltimore, where the authorities would have jurisdiction to issue a Be On the Look Out bulletin and pick Manny up.

That forty minutes was the longest drive of her life.

T
HE CENTRAL
B
ALTIMORE
City Police Department inhabited a massive, foreboding building just a few blocks from where Emilie had dinner with Derek the night before. Once again, the juxtaposition of today’s
reality against the almost dreamlike perfection of last night’s date struck her over the head like a two-by-four and left her with a dull ache she felt from the top of her scalp all the way down to her shoulders.

The inside of the station hummed with a frenetic energy. Phones ringing. People talking. Officers coming and going and escorting suspects and visitors here and there.

“May I help you?” a uniformed officer at the desk asked her.

Emilie hugged the Ziploc bag to her stomach, blood facing in, and nodded to the woman. “Yes, I need to talk to someone about filing a petition for emergency evaluation—”

“You need to go to the court—”

“I’m a clinical psychologist,” Emilie said. Lay people had to go through a court procedure, but professionals with certain types of expertise could file the petition directly.

“All right, then. Have a seat and I’ll get someone out to you shortly.” The officer gestured to a long wooden bench at the side of the lobby.

Emilie didn’t have to wait long. Within ten minutes, a uniformed officer leaned out a door on the side of the room and called her name. Her stomach flipped as she got one step closer to actually doing this. “That’s me,” she said as she rose and crossed to the handsome uniformed officer.

His eyes were so light they were almost yellow, a striking combination with his toffee brown skin. “I’m Officer Vaughn. Come on back,” he said.

She followed him through the door and into a hallway with a row of gray cubicles. Portraits and plaques of past police commissioners and fallen officers decorated the scuffed white walls.

“In here,” he said, gesturing to the last cubicle before the hallway opened up into a large and bustling room of desks.

Emilie sat in the hard plastic chair on the side of the desk and clutched at her purse and the baggy. Her insides felt shaky and unsettled, like she might throw up. What she was about to do couldn’t be undone.

“So you’re here to file a petition for emergency evaluation?” Officer Vaughn said as he settled into the chair and tapped his fingers against the mouse, waking the computer up and bringing the monitor to life. The BPD logo filled the screen.

“Yes, that’s right.” She fished the paperwork and Manny’s picture from her purse. “It’s for my brother,” she said. “He hasn’t been well for a while and in recent days he’s deteriorated to the point where I’m concerned he’s a threat to others. He refuses to seek treatment and is uncooperative toward any suggestions of help.”

The officer scanned over the form, which detailed all his erratic behavior over the past days and weeks, his brow cranking down midway. “What’s this about burning his clothes in your backyard?”

Emilie nodded and laid the bagged jeans on the desk, blood-side up. “I managed to pull these from the fire after he left. When I took them inside my house, I saw the blood so I bagged them up. His shirt and boots burned entirely.”

Officer Vaughn typed his password into the computer and clicked through to what appeared to be a database search. His fingers clacked over the keyboard. “We’ve got two different things going on here. First, your petition appears to be in order, so we can issue the BOLO and search his known addresses and hangouts to pick him up. Second, your brother is a suspect in an
ongoing case. Given this,” he said, tapping his fingers on the plastic bag, “I’d like you to talk to the lead detective on that case.”

Emilie’s scalp prickled. Her brother was already on the authorities’ radar.
God, what had he done?
“Of course,” she said. “Can you tell me what he’s suspected of doing?”