Toronto Tales 1 - Cop Out

To the friends and family who’ve supported me and helped me get this manuscript off the ground, most especially Chudney, Jax, Dottie, and Alex. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Chapter One

 

K
URT
hunkered down behind the car, waiting for Ben’s signal. How bulletproof were these cars? Thirty years ago, they were built like tanks. His father still had one, called it an antique land yacht. Now… well, they sure as hell weren’t titanium.

The sun blazed, heating his face, making sweat drip down from his short hair and into his collar. His navy-blue shirt was already drenched—Kevlar vests were hot and heavy, but they were a necessary evil. Last Tuesday in May, but the temperature rivaled the middle of July. He fucking hated midday busts on sunny, summery days. The sunshine meant they had no visibility advantages, and a sudden glare could blind someone at a critical moment.

He swiped the back of his hand across his forehead. At least if he were undercover, he could be wearing a bandana to soak up the sweat. The acrid scent of the tar heating in the asphalt battled with rotting fish and garbage from the nearby market district. He wished they’d waited for backup. But he’d only been a detective for three years—Ben had been doing this for a lot longer, and he had to bow to Ben’s greater experience. His partner might be taciturn and reticent, but he was a dedicated and effective officer. Kurt trusted him with his life.

As it should be.

Ben slipped into position by the front door of the building and gave him the signal he’d been waiting for. Tugging the collar of his vest one final time, Kurt crept around to cover the rear of the building, holding himself close to the wall, out of any of the windows’ sight lines.

Gustav, one of Ben’s informants, had contacted Ben with a tip about a suspect. Ben said they had to follow up immediately, and Kurt trusted his partner to do what was best, even though the tip was for a case that wasn’t even theirs. But Ben had contacts everywhere, and it couldn’t hurt to get a few kudos from the drug squad.

Glock poised, the familiar grip kept him grounded while he waited for the inevitable dash for the back when an officer announces himself at the front. He stretched to peer through the dirty window. There were no people. No movement. Nothing to suggest the room he observed had been used in a long time. A layer of dust coated the table and chairs.

Ben demanded entrance loudly enough for Kurt to hear, bringing his attention back to the door. Almost simultaneously, Ben booted in the front door and the building exploded, throwing Kurt backwards.

T
HE
light hurt his eyes, but Kurt couldn’t shut them any farther than they were. He wished he could scrunch his ears shut, too, against the infernal beeping.

“Are you awake?” a strident female voice asked.

He cringed.
“Come on now, it’s time to wake up.”
The beeping was regular, rhythmic… like a heart monitor. Right.

The harsh smell of cleansers should have given it away. He was in a hospital. The monitors must have alerted someone of his return to consciousness.

“What happened?” God. That didn’t sound like him—that sounded like someone who’d swallowed gravel for breakfast. Talking hurt like a bitch too.

“Can you open your eyes, Detective O’Donnell?”

No fucking way. “Too bright,” he managed to say. A throbbing heartbeat of pain started in his temples. Other body parts threatened to chime in, which he wasn’t looking forward to, but hell, it meant he wasn’t dead.

The light level dropped, and Kurt cracked open his lids. A nurse with—he strained to focus—teddy bears on her scrubs, stood over him, holding a clipboard and scratching out a few notes with the loudest pen ever created.
“Thirsty.”
Despite her glass-cracking voice, the woman smiled down at him

in sympathy. “I know. But you can’t have anything until the doctor sees you.”

She patted his shoulder gently and left the room, rubber soles squeaking, making him wince.
What the hell had happened?

He tried moving each limb, gingerly, testing for soreness. Nothing screamed as loud as his head, but there were issues with his left arm and left leg. Glancing around the room, he couldn’t see anything with the date, or even the time. The last thing he remembered was getting into the car with Ben after receiving a tip. Did they have a car accident? Had he been shot? Trying to remember sent spikes of red-hot agony into his head. Heaving out a sigh, he relaxed as much as he could on the granite slab the hospital claimed was a mattress.

Although he wanted nothing more than to rip out his IV and storm out into the hallway, demanding someone tell him what was going on, in truth, he was afraid doing so would only make everything hurt worse. He’d never felt this horrible in his life—he didn’t want to know how much shittier it could get.

The unmistakable sounds of an irate Irish couple arguing in the distance wafted into the room. He relaxed even further. If his parents couldn’t convince the doctor to hurry up and see him, as soon as his brothers and sisters descended, the hospital staff would do whatever they could to get rid of the raucous brood as soon as possible.

“That’s my baby in there!”

Uh. They were getting closer, and Kurt hoped they’d either calm his mother down or let them in, because his mother was working herself into a fine state, and her voice tap-danced in his brain.

“Mrs. O’Donnell. Mr. O’Donnell. The doctor’s on his way, I promise. Come with me to the waiting area, it won’t be long.”
The firm voice belonged to his boss. What was he doing here? Did that confirm whatever happened had been related to the bust they’d been heading to? Why couldn’t he remember what went down? And where the fuck was Ben?
Kurt brought his right hand to his head, and rubbed gently. God almighty, he needed some narcotics, or hell, maybe a beheading wouldn’t be so bad.

“Detective O’Donnell.” A tiny white-coated woman entered his room. “I’m Doctor Sarwa. How’s the head?”

“Hurts.” There went that croaking voice again. “What happened?” “In a minute. Any nausea?”
“No, not really.” Not a lie, but he wasn’t ready to eat anything,

either.

Dr. Sarwa gave a curt nod and made few notations on a clipboard before she set it down and flipped back the covers on his left side. Kurt peered down, despite the strain it put on his eyeballs, and saw a huge long bandage over his arm. Was it broken?

The doctor peeled back the bandage, revealing a number of black stitches along a jagged cut extending along the inside of his arm from mid-bicep to wrist.

“You’re lucky, Detective O’Donnell,” the doctor murmured as she gently probed at the… he couldn’t call it an incision. No selfrespecting surgeon in the world would make a cut that ragged and random. “You didn’t break any bones.”

That was her definition of lucky? Having seen the damage, his arm began throbbing in time with the pounding in his brain.
Kurt took a deep breath. His throat was so dry, he didn’t want to say one more word than necessary. “Leg?”

She snorted. “Just a twisted knee, not serious at all.”
“Thirsty.”

“I’ll tell the nurse when I leave. You can have a little juice.” She retaped the bandage. “Looks good. Okay, quick rundown. You conked your head, and shrapnel sliced open your arm.”

Kurt laughed, but shut it down after a second when it upgraded the tap-dancers in his head to a steel drum band. “Professional opinion?”

Dr. Sarwa smiled faintly at him. “I could get technical with you, but you’ll remember this easier once the grogginess wears off. The shrapnel was dangerous—you had to get into surgery immediately or you were going to bleed out. But it could have been a lot worse. I’ll be back later.”

He might have drifted for a few minutes, but a nurse showed up almost immediately with a cup of juice, followed by his mom and dad.

“Baby, oh, baby!” His mom flew to the side of the bed opposite the nurse. At the moment, he was more interested in the approaching bendy straw. The crisp bite of apples hit his nose, and his parchmentdry mouth salivated in response.

His mom grabbed his hand and squeezed lightly. Tears wet the back of his hand. This was the first time he’d been… certainly not hurt. With six elder siblings, he’d had his share of breaks and contusions. But this was the first time he’d been hurt on the job, because why else would he have a shrapnel wound, even if he couldn’t remember how he got it.

With his thirst eased, if not slaked, he turned his head to his mom. The nurse left, to be replaced by his dad.

“Kurt, baby….”
“Mom, I’m okay.”
“No you’re not.”
Kurt winced, and his father spoke softly. “Deirdre, not so loud.

Remember what the doctor said.”
“But he’s not okay, Sean.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek.
“I’m sorry, baby.”
“How are you feeling, Son?” His father’s hand hovered over his
bandage, and finally settled on his shoulder.

“Sore.” But now that he was more awake, he was ready to go home. The pain was beginning to dull, settle, now that he knew what was physically wrong. “Dad, what happened?”

His parents exchanged a glance. His mother started weeping. “What?” They were never at a loss for words.
“Baby, you could have died.” His mom’s voice broke.

The decibel level rose outside his room. The rest of his family must have arrived. Shit, this wasn’t any worse than when Ian dared him to climb that rotting tree in their backyard. He’d broken an arm and a leg, then. This was a bad cut, a knock to the head and a twisted knee. Really not cause for all the histrionics. But they still acted like he was a baby, even though he was thirty-one. Why did he have to be his parents’ last kid?

The door opened, but it wasn’t one of his siblings who entered. It was his boss.

 

“Sir?” Nausea boiled in his gut, and the throbbing in his head accelerated.

 

“O’Donnell. Glad to see you’re awake. I’m afraid I have some bad news.” Like the somber expression hadn’t given it away.

“What, Sir?” His mother’s grip tightened, and his father stepped away, looking out the window.
“Do you remember what you were doing when the explosion occurred?”