The Stranger Next Door (17 page)

Jack’s heart sank so low he swore he could feel its rapid beating in his stomach. Bile rose to the back of his throat as he listened to the intense conversation.

“Was anyone in the car?”

“Negative. The car was empty. I took the liberty of contacting the local hospitals, and none have a patient by the name of Tess McCoy nor has anyone matching her description been admitted within the last forty-eight hours. Sorry, Marty.”

“Thanks.” Officer Flynn frowned.

Jack stood up and began to pace. “If she isn’t in the car or any of the hospitals, then where the hell is she?”

All eyes turned to Roman.

“I can think of only one person who could possibly have her.”

“Who?” Jack asked from between clenched teeth.

“Whoever’s pretending to be Ritchie. Someone’s been threatening me for the last three months. They’re claiming to be him, but I think it could be someone closely related to him out for revenge. After all, I did put him in prison for the rest of his life.”

“Where would they take her?”

Roman stood and moved toward the door at a quick clip. “There’s only one place I can think of. If this person is set on doing things the old way, which I'm certain they are. It’s deep in the woods and is backed by a large lake that makes escape, or entrance, from the rear of the building nearly impossible.”

Standing, Jack hustled behind Roman, as Robbie, Patrice, and the captain followed suit.

“How can you be sure?” Robbie asked, grabbing his keys and handing Patrice her purse.

“Because that’s where we took people who had information we needed. We’d, um, question them, then…”

Jack didn’t need for him to finish the sentence to know what they did after the questioning was over. Tess was about to be tortured and killed over something she knew nothing about. He couldn’t let it happen. After denying what he knew he felt for Tess, he now realized he loved her. She was his life now, and he would do anything to get her back.

Jack slid into the seat beside Robbie, while Patrice and Roman slid into the captain’s police car.

Hitting the gas, they followed the captain down the street.

“We’ll find her,” Robbie said quietly as he steered the speeding car down the winding road.

Jack didn’t answer. His mind was nothing more than a jumbled mass of confusion. How could he have let this happen? He shouldn’t have let her leave alone. Now he was about to lose the only woman he’d ever loved.

Closing his eyes, he prayed they would make it in time.

Chapter Nineteen

Something warm and sticky dripped onto Tess’s upper thighs.

Cracking her eyes open, she ignored the pounding in her head as she fought to focus her eyes.

Forcing her eyes fully open, she recognized the red substance coating her thighs as blood.
Her blood.

When Boob Number One, as she’d dubbed Sal, punched her in the face, he must have knocked her out. And, worse, he’d broken her nose in the process as the pounding in that area was almost more than she could tolerate.

“Come on, Sleeping Beauty, rise and shine.”

The sting of the ice water as it splashed over her head and shoulders forced a squeal of shock from her parched throat. She looked up and into the eyes of someone she’d never expected to see.

“Danny?” she gasped in surprise as her long-time friend Officer Danny Holdings peered down at her. Joy surged through her at the realization she’d been found. How lucky was she that her friend had come to her rescue?

Danny reached forward and tipped her face up then examined her nose and mouth.

“You haven’t touched her other than this, have you?”

“No, sir. Just that. You were right. She’s a mouthy little bitch,” Sal said with a shake of his head and his now injured hand.

“Danny?” Tess murmured with confusion as the man before her nodded at the other man’s response. “Danny, what’s going on?”

As she peered at the man she’d known for the last decade, she noted several differences, in not only his appearance but in his entire demeanor.

His usual shaggy blond hair was slicked back against his head much like Sal the Boob wore his. His police uniform had taken a backseat to a black suit and tie and, also like Sal, a pair of hideous shoes completed the ensemble.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on here. It was obvious to her that Dean wasn’t the only crooked cop on the force.

“You’re with them. You’re the old man?” she said with astonishment.

“How very observant of you.” Danny nodded his approval. “You always were a sharp one.”

“This is why you were at the airport, isn’t it? You were watching me.”

“Correct. I was keeping an eye on you, hoping you’d step away from that behemoth you’ve been screwing so I could lure you out to my car. But you never did. You two were all over each other like a pair of horny teenagers. It was quite pathetic. Then that other man joined you, and I knew I wasn’t getting out of there with you.”

“How did you know I’d be at the airport?” she asked.

“Followed you. My men had been watching you. Every time you left your house, someone was on your tail,” he replied easily. “How do you think we knew where to snatch you this time?”

“Why?” she asked breathlessly. “Why are you doing this?” The pain rumbling through her took a backseat. It was nothing compared to the shock of Danny’s betrayal.

“Oh, come on, Tess.” Danny cocked a brow. “Don’t act like you don’t know what this is all about.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” She shook her head, ignoring the intense throbbing of her head.

“You’re trying to tell me Dean never told you anything about his extra-curricular activities?”

Tess shivered.

“You practically lived with that family and you expect me to believe you didn’t know what they were knee-deep into?”

Tess frowned. Not only because of the situation she currently found herself in, or the fact that one of her friends and fellow officers was working the wrong side of the law, but because she’d missed all the signs of what Dean and his family had been involved in all those years ago.
What kind of cop missed something like that?
It was no wonder she hadn’t made detective yet. She was a complete idiot.

“You damn well know I don’t know anything, so why are you wasting my time?” she spat. “Besides, you're obviously living life gangster style. You should know I have nothing to do with whatever you're looking for.”

Danny walked in a wide circle around her, tapping his forefinger against his chin. Stopping before her, he crossed his arms across his chest. “Let’s try this a different way, shall we?” he said calmly. “I bet you have a lot of questions. Like, why you're here, why I’m here, and so on. Am I correct?”

“You bet your ass you are,” she grumbled.

“I see.” He nodded. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll explain some things to you, and then you can explain a few things to me.”

Tess harrumphed. “Wouldn’t that go against your rules or something? What if I told everyone what you are and what happened here tonight when this is all over?”

Danny and the other two men laughed heartily. “Oh Tess,” he said, wiping at his eyes, “that isn’t a concern. After we’re finished with you, you’ll have a real good view of the bottom of the lake.”

She didn’t know why she felt a shock of surprise at his admission. She’d seen situations like this before. She shouldn’t have thought it would be any different for her. Danny was going to kill her just like he’d killed Melanie. Fear trickled down her spine as she gazed into the face she’d once thought handsome. The face she’d once thought belonged to a friend.

He was right about one thing. She had a lot of questions, and since he was going to answer them, she asked the first one that popped into her head.

“Was Dean’s death really an accident?”

Danny shook his head. “You two couldn’t have been closer if you were attached at the hip, could you?”

Tess frowned.

“Here you sit, tied to a chair in the middle of nowhere, and all you can worry about is Dean. It’s sad really that you have no life outside of your friendship with him. After he died, you let your career, and yourself, go.”

His words rang true, and she felt that all-too-familiar pinch of shame. She really should have tried harder to enjoy a normal life, a life like the one she’d shared over the last month with Jack. Her heart squeezed in her chest.

“No,” he continued lightly, “it was so easy. Dean knew I was getting in too deep and intended to tell the captain he needed to pull me from the case. I couldn’t let that happen so a little shift in the schedule, and one black ski mask later, I was free of one very large pain in the ass. Sal here started an argument with someone then blew their chest out while I hid in the back of the store. Dean was more worried about your safety than his own and did a half-assed job of checking out the store. It was a walk in the park to step out and blow his head off.”

Bile rose to the back of Tess’s throat as she struggled to control her rising anger and disgust. The man before her was an
animal.

“What do you mean he knew you were getting in too deep? Why would he tell the captain?”

His explanation left her more confused than ever.

He chuckled. “Come on, Tess. You know as well as I do what Dean and I were working on. Don’t play coy with me. He told you every damn thing. Like you were his personal diary or something.”

“Is this about Dean being involved with the mob? Is that why we’re here?”

She watched as Danny eyed her warily for a long moment.

“All right, I’ll play your little game. The captain put Dean and me on a case. We had to go undercover, and I came to find that I liked what was going on around me. All my life I’d been told to stay away from this life, that it was bad news, that it’d bring nothing but misery to the family, but I couldn’t.

“The more I looked back at my family and deeper into the case we were looking into, the more I discovered. As it turns out, Dean’s father was the reason my uncle and father were thrown into prison, where they rotted until the day they died. Then they took my Uncle Ritchie to prison shortly after my father. After he was sent away, we fell into despair. My mother scraped away at three jobs just to make ends meet. I saw this as my chance to get even with Roman, and I started by getting rid of Dean. Then I took my uncle’s old nickname, The Old Man, to throw off anyone who got suspicious. You see, I didn’t know what kind of business my father and uncle were involved in all those years ago. I was so young; I wouldn’t have understood anyway. My mother never spoke of them or their work. She only instilled in me that I should never get involved with this lifestyle.”

Tess’s bottom lip trembled. “I thought you said you killed him because he was going to turn you over to the captain.”

As much of a relief as it was to know that Dean wasn’t really a crooked cop, she couldn’t help but feel slighted. Why Dean would have hidden something as important as going undercover was beyond her understanding, unless he was under strict orders to not tell anyone. No matter how she looked at it, she was still a little hurt he’d hidden something like this from his best friend. It shouldn’t matter to her now, for he was gone and she was about to be killed.

“Two birds with one stone.” He shrugged.

“So, why am I here?”

“The money,” he answered simply.

Tess shook her head with confusion. “What money?”

“Ah, now I know you know what money I'm referring to.”

Tess regarded him curiously before her expression cleared and realization stuck her. He was referring to the money Dean had left her. Why would he want her insurance money?

He’d asked her about any money she might have on hand when he and the captain came to her house the night of the kidnapping attempt. She’d thought the question suspicious at the time but had blown it off. Now, she wished she’d looked a little harder at his reason for asking.

“I see you’ve figured it out,” Danny said snidely.

“That money was a life insurance policy he set up for me. What do you want with it?”

“You see, we were undercover for almost a year. Most everyone knew I was a cop, but it was the perfect cover. They knew I’d do everything to keep them safe. The others loved the fact I could keep the department off their backs, but they watched me ever so closely, just in case I decided to turn turncoat. We’re all suspicious by nature, you see. All those times you thought he was on vacation or out sick, he was with me, skinning narks or slicing the occasional throat. You want so badly to believe he was a good cop, just doing his job, but in reality, he was just like me. Hell, he wanted to be me, be the boss, which is why he planned on telling the captain I was getting in too deep. Because in all reality, he was too.”

Tess fought and failed to suppress a shiver. Danny grinned.

“The money he left me was a life insurance policy. I spoke to the agent myself, but let’s just say it was his dirty money … Why do you want it so badly?”

Her body ached, and her head felt on the verge of exploding. If someone didn’t find her soon, she doubted she’d be conscious when the slicing and dicing began.

“I’m in a bit of trouble with a few people it’s not wise to be in trouble with. And even though I’ve come in and rebuilt this empire the way I imagine my uncle would’ve wanted it, even I’m not invincible. I need that money.”

“Is that why you killed Melanie? Because you needed the money?”

“Yes. I knew she had money, and after a little persuasion, she directed us to the safe in their bedroom, but that wasn’t enough. And if I’d taken money from her account, I would’ve been caught for sure. Melanie told me about the money Dean left you. I knew your aversion to banks and figured you would have put only a small amount in the bank and kept the rest in a safe, somewhere in that rundown shit-hole you call a house. We searched your house at least twice while you were out with your new boy-toy but were unable to locate the safe.”

She felt like kicking herself. If she’d followed Roman’s advice and put her money in a bank, this wouldn’t be happening. But she had trust issues, even with something as safe as a bank. But really, it hadn’t saved Melanie, so why should it save her?

Stupid, stupid, stupid…

“Well, that’s too bad.” Tess shrugged the best she could and immediately winced as the pain from her broken arm radiated through her shoulder, back, and chest.

Gathering her courage, she continued. “You should’ve taken better care of your finances. There’s no way I’m giving you the money. You two turned into the scum I always fought so hard to bring down, and while it kills me that’s how Dean turned out, I can’t do anything about it now. So, what now?” she asked with growing outrage. “You’re going to slice and dice me until I tell you where the safe is and the combination then you’re going to kill me?” she snapped angrily.

“Exactly. I originally intended to do this at your house, but that nosey-assed neighbor you're screwing got in the way and you shot at my guy.”

“The guy who attacked me in the garage,” she remembered.

“Exactly. When Sal grabbed you in the garage that day, he’d failed to see your new neighbor with you on the porch, and you quite surprised him with your hidden gun. After that, we knew we’d have to try something else.

“Then Sal and Tony here tried to take you from your bedroom, but once again, your hero came to your rescue. So, I figured our best bet would be to catch you out and bring you here. We could persuade you to disclose the location of your safe and the combination, then after Sal returns with the money, we’d just toss what was left of you into the lake.”

“You have it all planned out, don’t you?” She shook her head with astonishment.

He nodded. “We fully expected your brakes to give out before you got to Roman’s, but much to our surprise, they held until you headed home. It was sheer luck it gave out as you came to that curve. Your car won’t be seen unless someone walks past. That culvert is too deep to see the bottom from within a car.”

She’d thought her brakes were a little stiff and slow to stop and had decided to call and have them checked when she got back home. If she ever got home, she thought grimly. The way things were looking she’d never see that big old house again. Her only hope now was that Jack’s private investigator instincts would kick in, and he would come looking for her. But the possibility of Jack finding her, even if he did find her car, was slim to none. She could do nothing now but try to stall whatever it was Danny was going to do to her until she could discover a way to escape or Jack came to her rescue. Whichever came first she didn’t care, as long as one of those two things happened and she made it out of there alive.