Promises to Keep (11 page)

Thirty

They parked across the
street from the address Sabrina'd rattled off to Ben and watched the parade of navy-clad unis streaming in and out of the brick building that housed Robert Elm's offices.

They'd made plans on the drive over—what to do about Lark, how best to handle Sabrina. Neither one of them wanted her involved, but they were past that now.

She appeared across the street, marching a trussed-up Lark out the door, her SIG stowed snuggly in his ear. Strickland was a few steps behind.

“You're up. I'll take the boy; you go get our little runaway,” Ben said. “Meet me back at the house.”

Michael exited the car without saying a word and crossed the street, walking toward her. When Lark saw him, he smiled but stayed quiet. Sabrina had him double cuffed, two pairs strung together to accommodate his massive frame, as well as a pair of waist chains. A third set of cuffs locked his wrists to the chains wrapped around his middle. There was an enormous lump just above his left temple, oozing blood. She used the gun in his ear to push him forward.

“Your prisoner, Agent Payne,” she said for the benefit of anyone who might be watching the exchange.

He opened the rear door of her unmarked and shoved Lark into the back of it. “I'd appreciate help transferring him back to my field office, Inspector,” he said, securing Lark's seat belt and locking it in place before sliding into the passenger seat.

She stood on the sidewalk, looking at him for a moment before turning toward her partner. She spoke in low tones he couldn't make out, but whatever she said pissed Strickland off.

“This is
bullshit
.” Strickland leaned down and pushed his face through the open car window, within inches of his, looking directly at him. “You could probably kill me with a fuckin' toothpick—I know that. But if you think for one goddamn second that I'm gonna let—”

Sabrina hauled him back. “Shut up. Shut your mouth right now, Strickland.” She looked around to ensure that no one was listening. “I have to do this. Do you understand what I'm saying? I don't have a choice. I'm in this—”

“Then so am I.” Strickland said it like it was the simplest thing in the world … and for him it probably was. He had no idea what he was buying into; but Sabrina did. Michael could see fear for her partner written plainly on her face.

“Sorry, partner. Like you said, it's a bit above your pay grade,” she said before rounding the front of the car and yanking the door open. She slid behind the wheel and started the engine.

“How'd you get him cuffed?”

She shrugged. “He cuffed himself. And then I knocked him out with a fifty-pound paperweight off Elm's desk.”

“Pussy move,” Lark said from the back seat, the laughter in his voice barely suppressed. “What's the matter, Lady Cop? Does the big black man scare you?”

Sabrina said nothing. Instead she slammed on the brakes, sending Lark's enormous body flying forward, choking him against the shoulder strap of his seat belt.

She accelerated again, relieving the pressure the belt put on Lark's throat. A thin ribbon of blood welled against his mocha-
colored skin, but he just chuckled. “How 'bout you pull over, sweetheart, and cut me loose. These cuffs are starting to chafe.”

“How about you shut up,” Sabrina said.

Michael looked out the window, waiting for the landscape to change from busy downtown to desolate waterfront before speaking. “Pull over.”

“What?” She shot him a look. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously. Pull over. Now.” He turned in his seat and glared at the man in the back seat. He waited for Sabrina to kill the engine before he spoke again. “Did you kill Elm?”

Lark sighed. “No. Like I told your girlfriend, I found him and the rest of them like that about thirty seconds before her numb-nuts partner told me to reach for the sky.”

“Then who?” The possibilities were endless. Reyes. Shaw. Whoever managed to gain control of Cordova's interests.

“Hell if I know. I forgot to pack my crystal ball,” Lark shot back, but he was lying. Michael could feel it.

“How did you know about him?” he said.

“Elm?” Lark shrugged. “You and the little prince got me holed up drinking tea and eating fucking crumpets with Old Mother Hubbard. I got bored,” he said.

“Yes. But that doesn't tell me
how
you knew about him, does it?” He smiled. “Where did you get your information, asshole?”

“I got a computer. Information comes to me.” Lark smiled back for a moment before shifting his gaze toward Sabrina. “Like how those kids you pretend are yours started UC San Diego in August. The boy—what's his name, Jason? He's got a full ride baseball scholarship, and the girl lives off campus with a few girlfriends.” He flashed her his dimples. “She's pretty.”

Sabrina sat frozen in her seat for a few seconds, galvanized by the words he threw at her. Suddenly she dove at him, and Michael let her. She rammed her fist into Lark's face once, twice, three times—his head snapped back on his thick neck with each jab. She cocked back for a fourth, but Michael stopped her.

“Enough.” He caught her fist and held it. Rage stained her cheeks a deep ugly red and she jerked her hand back, glaring at him. He dropped his hand to reach into his breast pocket, pulling out a small metal box. Opening it, he removed one of three stainless-steel pellets, the size and shape of a pencil eraser. “Can you hold your gun on him without shooting him?”

“Probably not.” She lifted her SIG off her hip and pointed it at Lark's face. “But what the hell—let's find out.”

Lark grinned through the blood that trickled from his nose. “Pull it, sweetheart. I dare you.”

Michael showed him what he held in his hand. “Hey, asshole, you might want to focus. Things are about to get
real
interesting for you.”

Lark's shit-eating grin disintegrated the second his gaze touched what he held in his hand. “You don't have authorization for that,” he said.

“No, but my partner does.” He rolled the object between his thumb and index finger. “A gift from him … and I'm giving it to you. Open your mouth.”

Lark stared at him, shook his head in disbelief. “After everything I've done for you, you'd do this to me?”

“Looks like. Sabrina?” he said and was rewarded by the sound of her racking a bullet into the chamber of her SIG. “Open. Your. Mouth.”

Lark hesitated, but one look at Sabrina had him following orders. Michael tossed the metal pellet into Lark's mouth, toward the back of his throat. Lunging forward, he reached across the seat to slap his hand across Lark's face, covering his mouth and nose, while using the other to anchor his head in place.

“Swallow it.”

Lark thrashed against the back seat, trying to jerk his face out of his grasp, but it was no use. It was a thirty-second ride at best before Lark gave up trying to shake him loose. Instead he sat quietly, glaring at him in stubborn defiance. Nearly four minutes passed before he felt Lark's throat begin to work in an involuntary response to the lack of oxygen. He'd always been able to hold his breath. But he couldn't hold it forever.

Finally he swallowed the pellet, the hard knot of it moving down his throat. Michael unlocked his hands from around Lark's face and sat back in his seat. “Show me.”

Defeated, Lark opened his mouth and lifted his tongue. His mouth was empty. “Congratulations, motherfucker. It's done. Satisfied?”

“Not by a long shot.” He turned in his seat and stared out the window. “You can put the gun down now and drive.”

Sabrina dropped the gun onto the seat before starting the car. She let it idle for a moment and just watched him until he could practically feel the heat of her stare burn the side of his face. Finally she spoke. “What did you just do?”

Laughter, nasty and cold, welled up in his throat, and he let it out in one harsh bark. “What I always do: what needed to be done.”

Thirty-One

Sabrina pulled into Miss
Ettie's driveway, following it all the way to the detached garage before she killed the engine. “You gonna tell me what that thing you made him swallow is?”

That thing
was a weaponized ricin capsule, rigged to detonate much like the one attached to his spine. People tended to do what you asked of them when they realized that there was a dirty bomb free-floating in their system, just waiting to kill them.

Technology was a wonderful thing.

“An insurance policy. A way to ensure he does what he's told,” Michael said.

Gaining control of Lark was key, since he was Shaw's eyes and ears. He wasn't here to keep Michael in line as far as Sabrina went; he was here to stall and manipulate their investigation into Leo Maddox's abduction. To throw salt on their game if they got too close to the truth.

Time to return the favor.

“That tells me nothing, O'Shea.” She removed the keys from the ignition and clenched them in her fist.

“It's a less permanent version of what Shaw had planted inside me.” He glanced at Lark in the rearview. “And it's how we're going to make sure he plays by the rules. Our rules.”

“Will it kill him?” she said, sounding a bit hopeful.

He shrugged. “Each pellet is charged with a low-level electromagnetic pulse that's drawn to the iron in your blood. The magnetic reaction causes it to adhere to the stomach lining, making it impossible to regurgitate. The charge should wear off in a few days and it'll pass through his system in about a week—provided he doesn't do anything stupid.”
Like piss me off.
He opened his door and stepped onto the curb before yanking the back door open. He lifted his Kimber off his hip and held it casually at his side. “I'm gonna unbuckle your seat belt. If you try to go all Mike Tyson on me, I'm gonna shoot you.”

“I could've killed her, you know,” Lark said, his tone quiet. “Back at that office. I could've killed her and her partner both. But I didn't.” Before he could respond, Lark moved his glare to Sabrina. “Do you see what you've done to him? How fucked up he is over you? If you care at all about—”

Michael unsnapped the seat belt and hauled Lark out of the car. He slammed him against the rear fender and buried the barrel of his Kimber so deep in the soft underside of Lark's chin that the tip of it disappeared.

“Shhh—stop talking.” He cocked the hammer back, the
clack
of it resounded in the quiet. “Here's how it's gonna go. You're gonna shut up, because the next time you speak to her, I'm going to take this gun, jam it down your throat, and pull the trigger. Nod if you understand, asshole.”

Lark jerked his head back on his neck, his jaw pulsing with pent-up anger.

Michael grinned. “Glad we had this little chat. I feel much better.” He reholstered his weapon and spun Lark around to work his cuffs open. “It goes without saying that it's best for you to tread lightly. Follow directions and keep your mouth shut and this should all end reasonably well for you.”

That was a lie and Lark probably knew it—he'd never been stupid. He was screwed either way. If he helped Shaw, Michael was prepared to pull the pin on the mini-grenade he'd just tossed down his gullet. But if Shaw found out that his prize pet was a turncoat, he'd kill him without even blinking.

He hadn't so much ensured Lark's cooperation as leveled the playing field. In the end it came down to who Lark was more loyal to: him or Livingston Shaw.

Michael spun Lark back around and stepped away while the other man rubbed the red welts the cuffs had raised on his wrists. His expression was flat, but his eyes told a different story.

Looking at him, Michael didn't like their odds of coming out on top. He didn't like them at all.

Thirty-Two

Ben greeted them at
the door. “Is it done?”

Michael nodded. “Yeah,” he said, tossing the kid the box containing the rest of the ricin capsules.
For all the good it's going to do.

Ben tossed them back. “Keep 'em.”

Michael caught the box and dropped it into his pocket. He thought about what he'd just done. About how it made him no better than Livingston Shaw.

Lark was equally yoked now, but he couldn't serve two masters. Michael had little advantage over Shaw. Nothing really, except the fact that he and Lark had been close once. He knew Lark better than anyone. Even so, it was going to take some doing to convince his former friend to help them.

Sabrina brushed past him before shutting the door. Her face changed when she saw Ben. Went soft, giving the kid one of those smiles of hers that felt like a sucker punch. He looked away, feeling like he was intruding on something private. Like he wanted to disrupt whatever was going on between them. He had no right to be angry. He'd left her—more than once—and if he was being completely honest with himself, up until twenty-four hours ago, he'd had no intention of ever coming back.

Ben reached out, brushed her hair off the back of her neck to assess the damage done to her head. And she let him.

“You should've had it stitched up.” His hand stayed where it was, cupping her nape, his thumb sweeping down the column of her neck, from earlobe to collarbone. Michael had a sudden memory of touching her in that exact same spot. Having her pushed against the kitchen door no more than a few feet from where he stood now, his other hand working at the buttons of her cargos. Fingertips sliding beneath the elastic waistband of her panties. Fifteen months and he could still feel her skin felt against his. How good she'd tasted when she'd opened her mouth against his.

For the first time in longer than he could remember, he wanted a drink. Bad.

“Just a scratch. I barely know it's there,” Sabrina said, her lips quirked in another smile.

Ben looked at her for a moment, his eyes searching her face. “Liar.” He dropped his hand and took a step back, as if suddenly aware that they had an audience.

“Well, well, well … ” Lark said beside him, cutting Michael a shitty grin.

Michael hands curled into fists inside the pockets of his slacks. All plans of sweet-talking Lark flew out the window. He returned the grin with one of his own. “I've got two capsules left. You still hungry?”

Lark chuckled. “You have a pretty funny way of trying to convince me to help you, O'Shea,” he said before taking a seat at the kitchen table. “Making me your bitch. Threatening to kill me every five minutes.” Lark shrugged. “You coulda just asked.”

Michael folded his arms over his chest, nailing the man across from him with a hard look. “Last time I did that, you turned around and bit me. From now on, you get the muzzle.”

“No way to treat a friend,” Lark said quietly.

“We aren't friends.”

The corners of Lark's mouth turned up in a semblance of a brief smile. “If that's true, then what makes you think I'm gonna help you? I'm a dead man either way.”

He was aware that Ben and Sabrina were watching the exchange, knew he'd fucked things up with his mouth and not being able to control it. Whatever. It was never going to work anyway. Lark was never one for pretty words. “You're gonna help because no matter what kind of heartless bastard you might be, you pay your debts.”

“Debt?” Lark laughed out loud. “Please. I don't owe you shit.”

“No. But you owe her.” Michael tossed his head at where Sabrina still stood next to Ben. “And you know it. That's why you didn't kill her when you had the chance. Because what you took from her, you know you'll never be able to give back.”

Lark's face hardened, his eyes going flat again. “What makes you think I give a shit about some old lady?”

He was talking about Lucy—Sabrina's grandmother. The weight of the way she'd died, knowing that his trust in Lark was what got her killed, settled in Michael's gut like a rock. “I'm pretty sure you don't. What you care about is keeping your ledger clear.” A smile touched his mouth, and the tingle of it almost hurt. “You never liked being in the red.”

“I help you, Shaw kills me,” Lark said, his face twisted into a look of disbelief. “What the fuck I care about some make-believe debt?”

“So? You
don't
help, you're gonna die anyway. At least this way, you'll die with a clean slate,” Michael said. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, things like that mattered to Lark. It was his way of balancing out the shit they did, like dropping a few pennies in a charity jar helped alleviate the guilt of sin. No matter what you've done, you convince yourself those pennies make up for it.

The lies people told themselves.

Lark looked past Michael to where Sabrina stood. “I'm not gonna sit here and say I lose sleep over what happened. I did what I did—and I'd probably do it again. I take the shortest route from point A to point B and never think much about what gets destroyed between the two. But getting your grandmother killed was never the goal.”

Michael could practically feel Sabrina vibrating, whether it was with rage or grief, he didn't know. Probably both. He wanted to shut Lark up. To stand and put his arms around her. Hold her. Shield her from the flood of emotion he knew was swallowing her whole.

He did neither. Had no right to.

“I don't forgive you, but if helping us makes it easier to fool yourself into believing that you're a decent person, then knock yourself out,” Sabrina said.

Lark began to speak, but he was cut off by Ben's cell.

“Yeah? You got it?” Michael heard the kid say behind him. “Are you sure?” He made a few noises in the back of his throat before flipping his phone closed and moving into view.

“That was my lab rat,” Ben said, looking directly at Sabrina. “The DNA off the kid you found came in. It's not Leo Maddox.”