Assassin P.I. (17 page)

On the other hand, he could deny he’d ever met Doheny, but lying wouldn’t help his case either, especially when they probably already knew the truth about his encounter with Edwin. ’Twas far better to say nothing, than say something that could later be used against him.

“How’s the wife, Wallace? She still screwing Sweeny?”

“Go to hell, Jack.” Officer Wallace closed the case file and leaned back in his chair. “You don’t want to talk? Fine by us. I’ll do all the talking for you.” He stood up, walked around the side of the table, and sat down on the corner. “Your new girlfriend hired you to review a case for her. We’ve got your ugly mug all over our surveillance cameras taking illicit photos of a case file in which Mr. Edwin Doheny was the key witness. The way we see it, you visited and accused Mr. Doheny of falsifying his statement in the death of Trevor Santino. He denied it, but you couldn’t let it go. We’ve got a half dozen witnesses or more who will testify in a court of law that they saw you kidnap Mr. Doheny from his workplace on the night in question.”

The last part was probably true enough. There were several men loitering about who could verify that Edwin had taken a ride from him. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch for them to believe Jack to be the killer.

“What happened, Jack? He piss you off, so you had to kill him?” This bit of supposition came from Sweeny, who was taking great delight Jack’s dilemma. “We got more than enough witnesses and evidence to tie you to his murder. Found the gun, the money, even found a vagrant who saw you dump the body. Ready to talk now?”

Surprise, surprise. More paid witnesses. Was Wallace a dirty cop, too? Or just Sweeny?

Both, if he had to gander a guess.

“Hell, I suppose we should be thanking you. You did half the work of our investigation for us. You’re the one who ID’d our vic. Even came back to the scene of the crime, you cocky bastard.”

Jack chewed the inside of his cheek to keep from responding to the accusations. Despite portraying what he hoped was an outward appearance of boredom, a throbbing had begun behind his eyes, radiating pain throughout his entire head and down his body. How could this be happening? Again. Coupled with what felt like a fractured rib and a small contusion above his right eye, his strength was sapped. What he needed now was a morphine drip and sleep. No. What he needed was a miracle.

Too bad he didn’t believe in miracles.

“You don’t seem surprised, Jack.” Wallace peered at Jack with a puzzled expression, mistakenly attributing this to an admission of guilt.

“It was only a matter of time before someone tried to frame me again.” The words were out of his mouth before his brain had time to call them back.

Sweeny slapped his hand on the desk and stood. “Come off it, Jack. You’re as dirty as they come. As dirty as your old man was, from what I hear.”

Jack shot up, toppling his chair to the ground, immediately regretting the abrupt movement. Nobody talked about his old man like that and got away with it. Nobody.

He fought to keep from toppling over as darkness encroached on his vision. Gripping the edge of the table, he ground out through clenched teeth, “My father was a good cop, as good as they came. He died a hero.”

“Yeah? Well, that ain’t the way your buddy Deluca tells the story. Like father, like son.”

Nick rendezvoused with Angie in the parking lot of the diner where they’d previously met. Only this time she was visibly shaken.

“I want to see him. I need to make sure he’s okay.” Her normally sultry voice had taken on a shrill tone, bordering on hysteria.

Jack’s gray parrot paced the interior of her car, equally distressed.

Christ, what a mess.

“It doesn’t work like that. Only lawyers and law enforcement can speak to a suspect.”

But convincing her otherwise was going to waste precious minutes they didn’t have. Eventually he’d given up, agreeing to do what he could to help.

First stop? Jack’s office. The place was trashed, but they hadn’t found the video recorder Angie had secretly planted in a potted plant. She tugged the device from its hiding place and dutifully handed it over. After that, he’d followed her to her apartment, so she could drop off her car and the crazy foul-mouthed bird. From there, they’d driven straight to Ellington Bay P.D. On the way, she’d filled him in on the officers and their search of Jack’s office. By the time Nick and Angie arrived at the precinct, Nick knew he’d have a fight on his hands.

One he wasn’t so sure he could win.

Angie could hardly meet his eyes. When she did, distrust and blame was all he could see staring back at him. She was right. She had absolutely no reason to trust him. He still believed Jack was guilty of murder. Just not the murder he was being accused of.

Flashing his credentials, he and Angie were buzzed in. They found Chief Deluca and a handful of other officers in the break room.

Nick cleared his throat. “You have my suspect in custody. Release him.”

The chief took another bite of his burger, ignoring Nick’s demand altogether. The room fell silent while they waited for some sort of response.

Long, uncomfortable moments passed while Deluca chewed. If it came to it, Nick could pull rank on the man. He’d never done it before, but he knew that an FBI case trumped local LEO’s. After a nearly imperceptible nod of his head, the other officers cleaned up and filed out, leaving only Chief Deluca, Nick, and Angie in the break room.

Chief Deluca swiped at his mouth with a napkin and for the first time since they’d entered the room acknowledged their presence. He dismissed Angie after giving her a cursory glance and focused his attention on Nick. “Is that so? Who?”

“You know who.”

The chief jerked his head toward Angie. “What’s she doing here?”

Nick debated how to answer. Downplaying her presence was likely to raise more suspicions, helping no one. Outing her as a confidential informant would cause a riff between her and Jack, and subsequently his inside information would dry up. But it was the best chance he had. Hell, it was the only chance he had.

“She’s working with me. As my C.I.” Beside him, Angie stiffened. God, he hoped he was making the right call. “I need a positive eye witness.”

Angie shifted her weight as Chief Deluca studied her. Her face flushed but she held her ground, chin held high.

Good girl.
Maybe, just maybe, this would work after all.

Shifting his gaze back to Nick, the chief stood. “I think we should take this conversation someplace more private. Let’s go to my office.”

Halfway down the hall, Angie stopped, an urgent glint in her eye. “Excuse me for a moment. I need to use the ladies’ room. It’s kind of an emergency.” She smiled apologetically, but underneath was a glimmer of hope. “Can you please point me in the right direction?”

The chief paused, probably debating the sanity of letting her wander the halls unescorted, before relenting. With a look of gratitude, Angie promised to return in a few minutes.

It wasn’t until the office door was closed that the man dropped the act. Unleashing his disdain of all things Federal, Chief Deluca turned on Nick.

“Release a prime suspect in a murder case?” he spat. “Now, I don’t know how you FBI boys do things, but around here, we don’t like letting suspects walk free.”

“I
know
he didn’t kill your victim. I can prove it.”

The slight pause in the chief’s voice bolstered Nick’s confidence.
Ah-ha.
He’d finally one-upped the arrogant bastard.

“How? ‘Cause I got a dozen witnesses or so who saw Doheny get into a car with Jack. Ain’t nobody seen him since until he washed up on my shore, deader than a doornail. Add to that the gun and money they found when they executed the search warrant, and I’d say we caught ourselves a bonafide murderer. We did that. Not you. Seeing’s as how I may have solved your case for you, I’d say a thank you and a round of beers would be in order.”

Just staring at the man’s smug face was enough to set his blood to boiling. Nick took a deep, calming breath. Pissing off the chief wouldn’t do anything for him except get him a black eye identical to Jack’s. “Yeah, well, I have iron-clad proof that Mr. Gaines was framed for this murder.”

“Yeah? How’s that?” The chief eyed him with curiosity.

At least he finally had his attention now. Nick held up the SD card that definitively proved Jack’s innocence. “Got a computer?”

Angie headed toward the bathroom Deluca had directed her to. Keeping calm was harder than she thought. Casting a furtive glance over her shoulder,
she took a left instead of a right, praying she was heading in the right direction. The hallway was lined with darkened windows. All but one.

Jack.

Fraught with worry, the urge to run to him hit her hard. But she tamped it down as she tried to appear casually lost. With time against her, she figured she only had maybe ten or fifteen minutes before her absence would be noticed.

She tried the doorknob. Locked. She dug in her purse and found the tools she needed to pick the lock. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she quickly worked the lock, her hands shaking. The coast was clear, but for how long? Going to jail for breaking into an interrogation room wasn’t something she was eager to experience.

Slipping into the room unnoticed, Angie wasn’t sure what to expect. Would she find Jack chained to a table like a dog, his wrists and feet shackled together? Be turned away by an officer of the law?

Fortunately for her, the room was nothing like what she’d seen on television or the silver screen. Pleasantly painted a soothing shade of yellow, with a wooden table and four chairs placed in the middle, the room could almost pass as a study room in a college library, rather than a room where criminals confessed all their darkest secrets. A video camera was mounted in the corner of the room, silently recording. She didn’t have much time before someone noticed her presence.

Disheveled clothes, slumped posture, Jack looked every bit like a man whose soul had been broken.

She gasped. “Oh God, Jack.” Sinking into a chair across from him, she drank him in, mentally noting the swelling above one eye. “What did they do to you?”

Her finger grazed his fingertips. He stiffened and recoiled. Out of reach. Was she too late? Did he already know? After today, things would never be the same between them. The shitty thing was, she had no one to blame but herself. She’d done this. Erected an unscalable wall between the two of them.

“You shouldn’t be here, Ang.” Voice low, he looked anywhere, everywhere, but at her. “Go before you get caught.”

The pain she saw in his eyes was enough to steal her breath away. Her heart broke and her head dropped. She couldn’t watch him any longer. The tears she’d fought to stave off couldn’t be held back. Not now. Composure broken, the tears escaped. “This is all my fault. When they came to search your office, I was so scared. And then, when they told me you’d been arrested . . .” A shudder ran through her body as she gulped back a sob.

He hooked a finger underneath her chin and forced her to look at him. “None of this is your fault. In my lifetime I’ve been beaten and shot at far more times than I can even count. This?” Gesturing to the room around him, he smiled. “This ain’t nothin’, baby.”

“How can you say that? There’s a very real chance they’ll put you away for life. Doesn’t that bother you?” She nuzzled her cheek against his fingertip. Facing the rest of life without Jack by her side was tantamount to a matching prison sentence for her as well. The idea of losing Jack now was inconceivable.

“Three squares a day that I don’t have to cook?” A cynical laugh rippled through his body. “Don’t you worry none. I’ll be fine, whether I’m in the clink, or out walking the streets of Ellington Bay, free as a jaybird.”

But no matter how hard he tried to brush it off, to pretend that everything was fine, Angie knew it wasn’t. No man could walk through the fires of hell without getting burned.

He leaned forward and kissed her, kissed her for all he was worth, plundering and taking without apology. Once, twice. One hand snaked into her hair, pulling her closer. The other brushed away the remains of her tears. When he finally broke the connection, the loss was like a throbbing pain, stabbing her in the heart.

Resting her forehead on his, she whispered, “Oh God, Jack. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

With a rough thumb to her lips, he shushed her. “None of this is your fault, Ang. I did this to myself.”

“But it is. Don’t you see?” She kissed his fingertip and then brushed his hand away. If she didn’t confess now, she might never. And she couldn’t live like that, with a secret as black as night eating away at her heart. “I know what you did to my stepfather, what you did to keep me safe. When Trevor died, I thought it was you, trying to protect me again.”

Confusion twisted Jack’s face. “What are you talking about?”

She pressed on, forcing herself to confess the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “Two months ago, I called someone . . . an old friend of Trevor’s . . . and told him you were responsible for Trevor’s death. And then I told him about my stepfather, and the fight you and Marco had the other night at my house, and when he said Marco had died—”

He dropped back in his chair, appraising her with stormy eyes. “Why would you do that, Angie? Why?”

Why, indeed.

In the ensuing silence, she could hear her heartbeat, could see her whole future slipping away. Ripples of agony sliced through her. She winced and closed her eyes, not wanting to see the resentment in his gaze. When she finally spoke, her voice barely broke the silence. “I hated you for not loving me anymore.”