Vice (Tortured Heroes Book 1) (17 page)

J
ase

“Jase!”

I whirled on Gates as he put a hand on my arm, about to punch him in the jaw if he didn’t let go.

“Not now,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. They’d kill her. I believed it in my soul. Mandy Marsh’s pictures wouldn’t leave my brain. They swam above me, clouding out almost everything real.

“Jase.” Gates got in my face but lowered his voice to a whisper. “You’re lying. I can tell.”

“I’m not lying. I need to meet Kinney. I’ll have more to tell you when I get back.”

“Like hell. And you’re not going by yourself. Let me be your ears.”

“No! Not this time. I’ve got this, Gates. I mean it. Step off, man.”

“They took her, didn’t they?” Gates finally took his hand off me and stepped back. His eyes flooded with fear and he balled his fists. “Tell me the fucking truth.”

Should I? How the fuck did I know whether he was someone I could trust with Devin’s life? They told me to come alone. I’m not an idiot. That’s not how this shit works. Chances are I was walking into a damn ambush or that Devin was already dead or both. God, they were right. All of them. The bastards. My heart clouded my judgment where Devin was concerned.

I closed my eyes slowly and gave Gates a nod.

“We bring the cavalry with us, they kill her,” he said. It was a statement, not a question. An acknowledgment of the fucking jackpot I’d just landed in.

I nodded again.

“Well, shit, Jase. You lead, I follow. I told you I had your six.”

“Why?”

Gates blinked. His steel gray eyes widened. “You know, I should probably have a better answer for that. Truth is, I’m not sure. You’re a loose cannon. I’ve told Stan that from the beginning. He came to me when he had the idea to bring you in. He tell you that? No. Probably not. In fact, it wasn’t just his idea. He asked me to give him options outside our own guys. You were on a very short list of people I brought to him. You weren’t even my first choice. I’ve worked with some guys down in Lincolnshire. Good guys. I asked around and figured you were worth the risk after all.”

“Thanks. That’s heartwarming, Gates. That tells me why you think you can trust me. Now why should I trust you?”

“Because if I wanted to put a bullet in your back, I’ve had about a dozen chances already. And because Northpointe is
my
town. I remember what it used to be like and I’m pretty damned eager to bring that back. Devin Marsh gets that. And I went to school with Mandy Marsh. Had a crush on her. Those fucking pictures tipped it for me too, Jase. I want those cocksuckers to pay.”

I clenched my jaw and gave him a slow nod.

“Great,” he said, slapping my arm again. “So what’s your plan, Butch?”

I raised a brow. “Well, Sundance, there’s at least a chance Cy Marsh still thinks I’m useful to him. That’s plan B.”

“What’s Plan A?”

Gates gave me a dubious look as he slid into the passenger seat of my car. I pulled out my phone and handed it to him.

“You know that place?” I asked him as he read the address at the bottom of the email Floyd sent.

Gates nodded. “East side. Not much out there. Warehouses mostly.”

“Right. Now look at the picture of Devin.”

He did. He winced but didn’t say what I was thinking. She was running out of time. “Does that look like someplace on the East side?”

“Nope.” He sat up straighter in his seat as he noticed what I did in the window next to Devin’s head. “Shit. That could be the duplex I told you about.”

“Right. Hell of a lot of birch trees out that window.”

Gates smiled. “Jesus, Jase. This is going to take a stroke of fucking luck for you to be right.”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“Fucking fabulous,” Gates said as I peeled out of the Safety Building lot and headed west.

Gates gave me directions when we turned into the neighborhood. I parked two blocks away, hoping it would give us enough cover. The hard part would be if we got her out. If Cy Marsh had an army waiting for us, we weren’t going to be able to outrun bullets. That was
if
Devin was in any condition to walk. I shoved thoughts of all the terrible things that might have already happened down deep. One thing at a time, baby. I’m on my way.

We had our stroke of luck. Partly. Gates showed me the house. A small duplex on a shaded corner. One half of it looked dark, the other had lights on. Cy Marsh’s BMW was parked in the driveway but it was the only vehicle we saw.

“He’s not expecting company,” Gates said, crouching beside me. He drew his weapon. I reached down for mine. I missed the weight of my service weapon, but the smaller Sig Sauer I carried in my ankle holster would shoot just as dead.

Gates put a hand on my shoulder, stilling me. Until then I hadn’t realized I’d been vibrating on the balls of my feet, too keyed up to stay still.

“You got this?” he said. “We’ve got one chance to surprise them.”

“I’m good. I’ll be okay. How do you want to do this?”

Gates bit his lip. “I’ll take the back. You go around the side?”

“Got it. You wait for my signal.”

“K. What did you have in mind?”

I shrugged. “It’ll pretty much be me screaming like a bat out of hell.”

“I can work with that.”

He slapped me on the back and we started our commando crawl toward the house. We only made it a few feet before the crack of a gunshot pierced the air. My heart shattered.

“New plan!” I yelled. Gates was already on his feet beside me and we ran for the house, guns drawn.

I got to the front door first and barely slowed down as I charged it with my shoulder. It wasn’t locked and Gates grabbed me by the back of the shirt to keep me on my feet as we tumbled in. I hugged the right wall and Gates went low. Corner to corner. We cleared the living room while Mitch shouted out our presence.

“Police. Down on the ground!”

The kitchen was just off the living room. I took one side, he took the other. Clear. Nothing left but a short hallway with two rooms on either side. Mitch dove to the ground as Cy Marsh walked out, hands up, a sick smile on his fat face.

“On your belly, mother fucker!” Gates yelled. I charged Marsh. Gates had him down as I stepped around him. A bathroom door was open on one side of the hall. I cleared it and pulled the door shut. I slammed my shoulder into the door the only room left. I already knew what I’d find there.

Devin. Alone. She wasn’t tied to the bed anymore but she lay back, her head lolled to the side. Her eyes were open and she smiled when she saw me. My heart lifted and I brought my gun down. Mitch had Marsh cuffed and on his knees in the hallway behind me.

“Clear!” I called out to him as I tucked my weapon behind me in my waistband and went to her.

“You came,” she said, her words slurred, and my heart burst open. On the nightstand beside her the little baggie of Hot Shot lay crumpled and empty. Liquid residue in the spoon beside her.

“Oh God, Devin?”

“It’s okay? I’m okay.” She tried to sit up and focus on me, but her head must have spun. She had trouble holding it up.

“Goddammit. Call an ambulance, Mitch. Goddammit! Baby? Stay with me!”

She nodded and tried to stand, but her equilibrium was shot as that fucking poison worked its way through her bloodstream. I got to her and lifted her in my arms. As I stepped around the bed I saw Floyd Bowles’s lifeless body with a bullet hole through his right temple. He bled out all over the beige carpet.

“Let’s get you out of here, baby,” I said to Devin. Carrying her out into the hall, I froze when I saw Cyrus Marsh on his knees.

“Jase … he said he was going to kill …”

“Shh. It’s all right. He’s not going to hurt you. I’ve got you. I won’t let you go.” I turned to Marsh. “I’ll fucking kill you. You hear me? If she dies, you die.”

He smiled. “You’ll do nothing. There’s no one to tell you anything anymore.”

“You just killed a guy pretty much right in front of me! You think your biggest problem is a racketeering charge?”

Marsh smiled. “I was defending my niece. Someone had to. Did you see what he put into her veins? I only wish I’d gotten here a few seconds sooner. Or that you had. You’d better hope that ambulance comes quickly. I read in the paper that new shit kills kids.”

“Tell it to the jury, asshole,” Gates said.

“It won’t get that far,” he said. “The prosecutors won’t even bring charges against me. This is
my
town, Officer Reddick. You’re just passing through. You get these cuffs off me now, Detective Gates, and I’ll make sure you’ll only face a minor reprimand.”

My nerves turned to ice and Gates caught my eye. But Marsh wasn’t done.

“Everything you think you had against me bled out on the carpet in that bedroom. You don’t have shit. You don’t even have a witness. Take a look at her.”

“Jase.” Devin stirred in my arms. “Have to tell you. Kinney.”

“Hang on, baby. Help’s coming.”

“Jase.” She slurred my name badly. God. He was right. The bastard was actually right. This could fall apart. Floyd was dead.

“Anthony,” Devin said. “You have to find him. Uncle told me he’s going to kill him today.”

Kinney. If he was still alive, he might be our only shot. That is, unless I ended Cy Marsh right here. It would be easy. Gates met my eyes and a muscle clenched in his jaw. I knew he was thinking it too. One bullet would put him out of business and end the FBI’s case. Then Cy Marsh wouldn’t be able to hurt Devin’s business or her ever again. Cut off the head of the snake.

“Your call,” Gates said as he kept his gun drawn on Cy.

For the first time, Cy Marsh stopped smiling. Color drained from his face and his mouth dropped open. He saw the truth in my eyes. I would do it. I would end him.

Devin stirred in my arms. Then her body went limp. God, the EMTs needed to
get here.
The instant I thought it, I heard the sirens blaring in the distance.

Now or never.

The bastard made it easy. If he would have stayed down on the ground it would have gone another way. He panicked. He kicked backward and tried to round on Gates. I let Devin slip gently out of my arms and lay her on the ground. Gates made eye contact with me as we both pulled the trigger at the same time.

Cyrus Marsh crumpled to the ground. Gurgling, he clutched his chest and rolled to his back. Gates stepped over him, gun still drawn. Cy reached up for him one last time, then his arm dropped down as the life bled out of him.

The ambulance screeched to a halt in the driveway and I ran out to meet them.

J
ase

I paced the floor near the nurse’s station. Gates stood off to the side making his report to the officers on call. They’d brought Cyrus Marsh in the ambulance behind us. He had a faint pulse for a moment, but he died in the trauma room across the hall from Devin.

My heart stopped when the doctor finally came out. Young guy. Dark skinned. A friendly smile and sure step as he walked up to me. “Your friend’s coming around. It’s lucky you were right there. We’ll get the toxicology later, but that might have been a lethal dose she took.”

“She didn’t take it,” I said through tight lips. “They shoved it in her against her will.”

The doctor nodded. I don’t know why it mattered that he knew the truth. I just knew that no matter what, even if she never wanted to look at me again, it was my job to be at Devin’s side and try to protect her.

“Well, we’ve got some paperwork that will need to be filled out. Do you know who her next of kin is?”

I looked across the hall where the nurses had just pulled the blanket over Uncle Cy’s face. “No next of kin. She’s got me.”

“Well, okay then. She should start to come around in the next few minutes. She’s probably going to be a little groggy and out of it for a bit. But she got here in plenty of time. I don’t anticipate she’s going to suffer any long-term effects from what happened. I’m sure the police are going to want to talk to her though. I can’t sugarcoat this. I’ve seen too many kids dying from the same stuff. I urge you to cooperate with the investigation.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Will do, Doc. Can I go in and see her now?”

He nodded. “Sure. Just keep it brief. Try not to get her excited. She needs IV fluids and rest. Then she’ll be good as new.”

I shook the doctor’s hand then walked behind the curtain where Devin lay. She looked beautiful, small, and so alone. Except she wasn’t. If I had my way, she’d never be alone again.

I thought she was asleep at first, but when I closed the curtain behind me, she stirred and brought her hand up over her eyes. “Jase?”

“I’m here, baby,” I said, pulling up a stool next to her. I took her hand and kissed her palm. My heart lurched when she didn’t pull away. But her eyes looked so hollow when she looked at me.

“Is it over?”

“It’s all over. I’m sorry. Your uncle didn’t make it.”

Devin nodded. “I remember. Sort of. He tried to hurt your friend. He killed Floyd, Jase. Shot him.”

“I know.”

“What about Kinney? Uncle Cy said something about hurting him before the end of the day. Do you know if he’s okay?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. My main concern has been getting you safe, Devin.”

Tears filled her eyes and she looked toward the window. She took a breath, then another, then she finally turned back to me.

“I trusted you,” she whispered. “Opened my heart. All of it.”

I pressed my forehead against my fists and looked up at her again. “I know. God. I know. I’m so sorry for lying to you. I’m sorry for all of it. If you want me to leave you alone now, I will. But I won’t go far. You can hate me for the rest of your life, but I’m still going to watch out for you.”

She gave me a weak smile then started to cough. God, her body racked with spasms that I knew caused her pain.

“My head,” she said. “Feels like I got hit with a sledgehammer.”

I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her. I wanted it more than anything.

“Jase. I need to tell you.”

I braced myself, feeling like she was about to hit me with her own sledgehammer. “I’m right here,” I said.

“When you told me you loved me, was that a lie too?”

“Devin …”

She put a hand up. “Don’t answer that. I need to get this out. Jase, every person who’s ever told me that has hurt me and left me. Every single one. I know I need time. I should figure out whether you’re worth trusting.”

I straightened my back and gave her a slow nod.

“I know I
should
take time, but Jase. I don’t want to.”

Fuck. She gutted me. She pushed me away. Suddenly, everything I thought I wanted in the world didn’t matter. Not getting my badge back. Not Northpointe. None of it. I only cared that the woman I loved was telling me I’d hurt her too much.

“I get it. I can only say I’m sorry.”

“No. Jase. I know I should take time, but can we just skip it?”

My heart dropped. “Devin?”

She turned and struggled to sit up. I went to her, putting my arm behind her back to give her the strength she needed. Devin put her hands gently on my face, cupping my jaw. Her brown eyes shone with emotion.

“I want to skip it, Jase. I just want you to tell me you love me again. Because I think I love you too. And it scares the hell out of me. You could hurt me. You could destroy me.”

“I know. God. I know. But I never want to again.”

“Good. Because you came, Jase. You
came
. When I needed you the most you didn’t run.”

“Never. I swear to you. If you’ll give me a chance. I’ll never leave you, Devin. Ever.”

Her smile melted my heart. “Good. Now shut up and kiss me.”

I did. I took her in my arms and held her close. Devin sank into me and kissed me back. It was perfect and right and nothing else mattered in the world. When she finally pulled away I helped her get settled in the bed. Her skin went pale and I knew the effort of what we’d just done sapped her strength. My baby needed rest.

“Well, now I know you mean it,” she whispered.

“Good.”

“I have vomit breath, Jase. And you kissed me anyway.”

We laughed together and Devin winced, clutching her forehead. I leaned down and smoothed her hair away as I kissed her again.

“Get some rest, baby. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

She was already snoring by the time I stood.

* * *

C
hief Lewandowski
, Agent Cutler, and Mitch waited for me outside Devin’s room. I let out a breath and headed over to face the repercussions of whatever they’d decided. I may have taken Cy Marsh out of business, but that didn’t mean someone else wouldn’t step up to fill the void.

As I approached, Stan stepped forward first. He held something in his outstretched hand. A small black box. Mitch’s eyes narrowed and a hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth.

Cutler shook his head. “This was messy!” He jabbed a finger at Stan. “You still don’t have control of your people. You let these two go off cowboy style. Now when this shit starts coming back down the river, we’ll have to start all over again to figure out who the players are. Cy Marsh in custody would have made my job a hell of a lot easier.”

Stan turned to him. “I don’t give a shit about making your job easier, Tim. I care about my own city. That asshole tried to hurt two of my officers. He got what he deserved. The purse strings over the mayor and any other shitbag he had under his thumb just got cut. That’s good for me and good for my town. Go back and play in your own sandbox. Leave me to rebuild mine. Only know I’ve got a fighting chance to keep it clean.”

Cutler’s face went white, but he had nothing else to say. He gave me a vile look but turned and stormed off.

“Thanks, Chief,” I said. “Sorry about the mess.”

He smiled. “I meant what I said. You’ll find I
always
mean what I say.”

Then I realized what he actually
had
said. He’d called Mitch and me
two
of his officers. Stan put the black box in my hand and reached into his waistband. I hesitated for a beat then opened the box. He’d given me a shiny new silver badge. I looked up and Stan handed me a service weapon. I gave him a tight-lipped nod and tucked the gun behind me into my waistband.

“Thanks.”

“Oh, don’t thank me yet,” he said, slapping me on the back. “Come on. Your girl’s in good hands and needs to sleep it off for a while. I need you at the Safety Building for an hour. Paperwork to do. Lots and lots of paperwork. You sure this is what you want?”

Gates reached over and slapped his hand into mine. He was beaming and my heart clenched at the gesture.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure. Just don’t stick me with this asshole as a partner. He’s reckless.”

Gates laughed. Stan had his arm around me as we walked toward the elevators. “Oh, I won’t. I need you elsewhere for a while if you’re up for it. I need you on the street so you can get to know Northpointe like the back of your hand. You think you’re up for that?”

Stan smiled wide and pulled a cigar out of his pocket as the elevator doors opened and we filed into it together.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Yeah. I think I’m more than up for that. This town is starting to grow on me.”