Vendetta (25 page)

“Stop. Come out. Or I’ll shoot,” she declared.

Her attacker’s answer was a bullet. It missed Tess and she didn’t pay any attention to where it hit. She stayed small but mobile, hauled ass behind a tree trunk, and worked very hard not to return fire in a residential neighborhood.

She held her breath so he—or she—couldn’t hear her panting. Then she let her air out very slowly despite the protest of her lungs. One person had attacked but there could be others. There could be one behind her right now, in fact. As swiftly as a competitive swimmer drew breath, she looked over her shoulder. Darkness. There were no lights on in the other house. In fact, it looked to be abandoned. Good news; that would give her more leeway to discharge her weapon without the fear of harming civilians.

Her primary goal had to be protecting Nico. Secondary was capturing her attacker. She had to know if someone was after the kid—someone who would try again even if she fended them off this time. But if this was some weird random street crap and some unfortunate gangbanger had just attacked an armed police office, she had to know that, too.

Since Nico was number one, she checked over her shoulder again and ran backwards between the two houses, with the intention of moving to the back door of the safe house and securing her witness. J.T. wasn’t armed, which appeared to be a good thing. It wouldn’t be good for their relationship if he shot her when she came in barreling back in.

She held her breath again, listening as her feet made very soft swishing noises through the grass. She’d played cops and robbers with her five brothers during her entire childhood. That early training had come in handy, since all of them had joined the police force. And it was handy now, as she stealthily approached a wooden fence and dropped down into a crouch as the gate opened.

She waited a beat. Then, as a crouching guy in a ski mask slunk out, she leaped to her feet and put the barrel of her gun to his temple.

“Who sent you?” she whispered.

He swore, also in a whisper. She preferred not to shoot him so she got ready to knee him… just as a bullet zinged past her ear and slammed into the fence.

The first bullet was followed by a second and then things got a little confusing until she heard Cat shouting, “Tess! Tess!”

Then Cat was bending over her with something dark on her fingers. Probably blood; Tess said, “Whose is that?” as she scrambled to her feet… and nearly fell over.

“Whoa.” Cat grabbed hold of her. “Yours. Were there two?”

“That I know of.”

“I fired at two guys. They got into a black truck without plates. They’re gone,” Cat said, clasping her by the wrist. “Nico and J.T. are safe.”

“Did I get shot?” Tess asked in disbelief. Her shoulder stung. “Who were they? Did you get anything?”

“Nothing,” Cat said. “I should have come sooner.” Her voice was strained. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? Saving my life?” Tess touched her jacket. Her fingers came away wet. She said something her mother would not have approved of and huffed. “Oh, man. I
did
get shot.”

“Well, you’re up and walking, so you must have been grazed.”

“Where are all the concerned neighbors?” Tess asked rhetorically.

They went in the back way, as Tess had originally intended. When J.T. saw her, he went chalk-white.

“You’re hurt.” He began to sway.

“Are you going to faint?” she asked him. “Sit down and put your head between your legs.”

“I’m not going to faint,” he insisted. Then he fell down heavily into his chair at the dining room table.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Nico said. “I only called the once.”

“Let that be a lesson to you.” J.T. glared at him.

“We have to get out of here
now
.” Cat said. “They might come back.” She said to Tess, “Are you okay?”

Okay
enough
was what she meant, and Tess nodded. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll take Nico this time, to mix it up,” Cat said. “This just got more complicated because we have to find a new safe house. I guess a motel.”

“You can go ahead and flush my phone down the toilet,” Nico said. “Please.”

Cat looked baffled. Tess understood the headshake J.T. gave her and said, “I’ll explain later. Let’s just go.”

J.T. opened the passenger door and helped Tess sit down. Her shoulder was burning but her arm was completely functional. She fumbled around for the first-aid kit in her glove compartment and opened a package containing a gauze pad with her teeth while J.T. slid behind the wheel and started the car. The poor guy was completely unnerved.

“I don’t like you getting hurt,” he said flatly.

“Do you think it
was
his phone call?” Tess asked. “Because we still have the phone.”

“I don’t know anything anymore,” he grumped. “I’d say that would be too much like a spy movie, except that we’re already living in a spy movie.”

“I’m not hurt,” she said. “I’m only grazed.”

“Grazed is a subset of hurt. It intersects with you could have died.”

“Not from being grazed.” She regarded him fondly, then felt a rush of that J.T. mind-control-hotness and began to lean toward him to give him a kiss. Except that it made her shoulder hurt and she didn’t want him any more freaked out than he was.

Besides, she had a job to do.

“Hold on,” she said.

He looked at her quizzically as she opened the car door, got out, and placed the phone under his right front tire. She stood on the curb and gestured him forward. When he smashed the phone under his tire she exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. The phone was history. But she also wished they could have taken it apart like some superspy couple, found the secret tracing chip, and followed it back to the hideout. Then they’d bust in and rescue Angelo DeMarco. She’d have to put on her cape first.

And maybe she was getting a little woozy from bleeding a lot.

* * *

“I’m sorry about the phone.” Nico was weepy. And tired, scared, out of his element. Cat understood. “Miss Smith
told
me not to use it.”

“You need to listen to us. We’re trying to protect you,” said “Miss Jones.” “There are people after you.”

Cat just didn’t know who they were. It was getting to the point where the bad guys were going to have to take a number.

She and Tess drove back into the city using standard maneuvers to throw off a tail and avoid being boxed in on the road. As far as they could tell, no one was following them. She also knew Tess needed medical attention. Not immediately, but sooner would be better than later.

He sniffled. “I wish I’d never agreed to any of this. I mean, I’m a
musician
. I’m not some cop or anything like that.”

“Wait.” She was so intent on what he’d just said that she almost took her foot off the gas. “You’re a musician. Is that how you met Ms. McEvers?”

“Yeah. She used to come around to the clubs with this dorky guy. He couldn’t play for shit.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t even remember. I tried to stay away from him because I was afraid she’d try to get me to play with him in return for helping Joey. She and I talked a lot about music but he would be all weird. He was very anti-social.”

So he didn’t connect Claudia with Angelo DeMarco. Despite her death, the kidnapping itself was still out of the media. That in itself spoke of the power of Tony DeMarco.

“Do you… record?” she asked.

“I’ve had some studio time. But it’s really expensive. Do you play?”

“I played flute until my music teacher paid me to quit.” A little white lie that made him smile and like her, which was the point. “What’s the name of the studio?”

“Well, there was one called Deodato, and one called Maple.”

Maple.
A crackle of excitement charged through her like lightning. She remembered that name from their investigation into Angelo’s financials. So, she had two hits so far: he, Claudia, and Angelo had seen each other at clubs and he had a recording studio in common with Angelo.

“Do you think you could make a list of the names of the clubs for me? We want to figure out exactly how Claudia died.”

He punched his thigh a couple of times. “But you already know. Those scumbags murdered her!”

“You watch TV, right? We need proof.”

“Okay. There’s Black, Soundlandia and Mania, Freak, Karmarama…”

“Can you write them down? I’ll get you a pen and some paper at the motel.”

“Yeah. Oh, Turntable.”

When she had pulled up to the safe house, heard the shots, and saved Tess, her adrenaline spike had been off the charts. Now it spiked again. They were getting closer to making some connections, and she was becoming convinced that Robertson and Gonzales had a hand in Angelo’s kidnapping. If she could get solid proof that would stick to them like glue, she could get them held on suspicion. If they were the brains, then the kidnapping scheme would fall apart. Their underlings wouldn’t know what to do. However, at that point, whoever had Angelo might panic and kill him. Or they might have orders to kill him if things went south.

There were no guarantees that they would spare him even if Robertson and Gonzales continued to operate and his father paid the ransom. Kidnappers were brutal people.

A call came in. Her usual M.O. was to put it on car speaker but Nico would hear it. She glanced at caller ID: It was Tony DeMarco. Never in a million years had she anticipated that he would call her directly.

Composing herself, she put her phone to her ear. “Yeah,” she said tersely.

“Detective Chandler, do you know who this is?”

“Yes.”

“Can you speak freely?”

“No.”

Nico looked over at her. She told herself there was no way he could have seen her caller ID screen but a wary expression crept across his face.

“Make it so you can.”

“Hold on,” she said.

Nico was looking scared. She gave him a headshake to let him know the call had nothing to do with him.

She swung into the parking lot of a seedy motel. Tess and J.T. were directly behind her.

“Give me one second,” she said to DeMarco.

“I want you to hunker down in your seat so no one can see you,” she told Nico as she grabbed her purse, opened her door and climbed out. He did as she asked and she gave him a nod. J.T. was out like a shot. Cat held up a hand.

“I have a call I have to take,” she said to J.T., who looked surprised and backed off as she put some space between herself and the rest of their convoy.

“Good girl,” DeMarco said.

“I am not your girl,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“Okay, here’s the deal. I did something stupid. This morning at dawn. I know it was stupid and I don’t want to waste time with you telling me that.”

Cat was listening hard. She said, “You made the drop without telling Robertson and Gonzales.”
Much less NYPD.

“Bingo. And no results.”

“And you still haven’t told Robertson and Gonzales.”

“I knew you were a smart girl. Lady.”

“Detective,” she filled in. “You haven’t told them because you no longer trust them.”

“I never trusted them. I never trust anybody.”

“Yet you called me.” She didn’t give him a chance to speak. “You can’t bribe me. You can’t control me. If you want my help you have to let me do my job. And I have to talk to my partner.”

“Okay. We’ll see where that takes us. So, yeah, I did a drop. I have a way out of my building that no one else knows about. They thought I was in my bedroom sleeping. So I left and I did it. And… nothing.”

“What has changed with Robertson and Gonzales?”

I think they’re in on it. When the amount got bumped without warning, I wondered if they were engineering a better payday for themselves, know what I mean?”

“The same thing occurred to us,” Cat said. “I’ll talk to my partner. I’ll get back to you in five minutes.”

“I’ll give you my private number.”

“You could just call me from it so I can capture it,” she suggested.

“I need to get to it. Just write it down.”

“Okay.” She fished in her purse and pulled out a pen and a notepad. She clicked the pen, registering that it wasn’t one of hers. She must have picked it up somewhere. “Go ahead.”

He rattled off a number. She read it back to him. Then he cut off the call without warning. Cat put the notepad back and clicked the pen to retract the tip, glancing idly at it to see whose pen she’d taken. It had been personalized.

It bore the Con Edison logo. Cat wondered where she’d picked it up. Something tugged at her brain.

As she walked back toward the cars, J.T. gave her a wave. He had a phone in his hand.

“Burner phone,” he said meaningfully.

Vincent.

J.T. crossed over to her and together they walked a short distance away from her car. Very short. She was getting worried about leaving Nico out in the lot so long; she pulled out her gun and kept it down as she connected. Her ear was immediately flooded with headbanger music that was so loud she felt as if it blasted through her brain and exited through her other ear.

“Cat,” Vincent yelled. “Can you hear me?”

“Barely,” she said. “I was expecting surf music. Aren’t you at Turntable?”

“I was. Guess what was at Turntable.”

She crossed her fingers. “Angelo DeMarco.”

“The most disgustingly sweet sundaes you have ever had. They’re made out of popcorn balls, maraschino cherries, and coconut. And other things.”

“Yes!” Cat cried.

“What?” J.T. said. “What’s happening?”

She held up her hand to ask for quiet. “And?”

“One of the waiters finished his shift at Turntable and came here to play a couple sets. He’s actually a pretty fair bass guitarist. Then he placed a call to a music studio to complain about an overcharge.”

She crossed her fingers. “Called Maple?”

“Good sleuthing,” he said. “Why do you know that name?”

“Angelo booked studio time there. And so did Nico Palmieri. So maybe that’s how the kidnappers put their plan together—they were originally going after the cook to get him to courier drugs for them. Then they decided to move on to Angelo.”