Front Page Fatality (24 page)

I raised my head and peered at my ankles. Like my wrists, they were bound to a big metal table with medium gauge, white rope.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here,” Nash said.

I concentrated on keeping my breathing even, trying to slow my pulse. I refused to let him see that I was about to pee myself.

“That crossed my mind,” I said. “Why not shoot me in the alley and be done with it? The river was right there.”

“I need to know how you put this together. I already had to deal with an unpleasant situation this morning. You showing up here was not something I expected.”

Killing a man was an ‘unpleasant situation’? I’d hate to see what really got him upset.

“Who tipped you off?” he asked.

“Why should I tell you anything? You’re going to kill me anyway.” I nearly choked on the words. Saying it aloud made it real.

“There are many ways to die, Nichelle,” Nash smiled and wrapped a hand in my hair, jerking my head to one side and removing a few strands. “Some of them are less pleasant than others.” 

I stared, keeping my silence.

“I suspect you’ve been talking to Mike Sorrel.” Nash said, his hand still in my hair. “Since he’s jumped ship, I can’t ask him, so I need you to share.”

“I’m an only child. I suck at sharing.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.

“You have a knack for sarcasm.” He wrenched my hair harder, and I gasped as I felt a clump give and a warm trickle down the back of my neck. “I don’t particularly care for it. Who told you?”

“No one.” It was the God’s honest truth, unless someone promoted Google to personhood. Too bad he didn’t believe me.

He snapped his arm backward. White stars of pain exploded behind my eyes and I screamed. Nash flung a bloody clump of my hair onto the concrete behind him.

“Don’t make me ask again,” he said.

I closed my eyes and took slow breaths, trying to mimic the Lamaze breathing Jenna had used when Carson was born. When I could speak, I focused on Nash.

“There is no mysterious trench coat-clad source.” I said, blinking back tears brought on by the pain. “Only my computer. Tax records are boring as hell, but they’re often a reporter’s best friend. So is Google.”

Nash didn’t appear to know about Joey, and I wasn’t about to tell him. Too bad I didn’t have some kind of mobster bat signal. Joey could probably get me out of the warehouse without scuffing a wingtip.

“Is that a fact?” Nash held my gaze and appeared to relax, his grin returning as he pulled out his cell phone. “Nice detective work. Have you ever considered going into law enforcement?”

“Ugly shoes.” I tugged at the restraints on my wrists, which were snug, but not too tight. My double-jointed left thumb could probably help me slip a hand out of them if I could stretch them a bit. Trying to look relaxed, I kept pressure on the rope and my eyes on Nash.

“Aren’t you supposed to uphold the law?” I asked.

“There’s not as much money in being a good guy.” He didn’t look up from his phone. “Look where it got Gavin Neal.”

“Do you know he had a sick little boy?” I asked, already sure he didn’t care.

“And if he’d kept out of my business, the sick little boy would still have a father. If you’ll excuse me, I have some calls to make.” He smirked. “Don’t go anywhere.”

He disappeared into the dwindling stacks of boxes, and I stared at the ceiling, contemplating a way to save my ass while Nash tried to cover his. The back of my head burned with what would’ve been all-consuming pain in any other situation.

Flexing my forearms, I strained the ropes against the table. They cut off my circulation when I pulled, but I could’ve sworn they felt looser every time I relaxed. How the hell could I get out of the building without getting shot?

Bob must have heard the commotion when I’d dropped my phone. I didn’t want him to come riding to the rescue, but I hoped he’d call someone. Jerry. Starnes. Spiderman. I wasn’t picky, though it might help if the someone had a gun.

I popped my thumb flat and tried to wriggle my hand free. I almost had it when Nash’s voice came closer again. I shoved my wrist back into the rope.

“Good news,” he said, sticking his phone back into his pocket. “Things are going my way again. And in a way, I owe you my thanks for forcing my hand.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll take a ride home in lieu of a card, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m not that grateful.” Nash’s eyes skipped around the warehouse and he nodded, appearing satisfied with the progress.

Faint chatter and the sliding, slapping thud of the crates being moved were the only sounds. From what I’d seen earlier, there was no one in earshot who’d care if I screamed.

“Hey, if you didn’t know I suspected you, how did you know I was here this morning?” I asked.

“A combination of luck and brilliance.” What could only be described as a shit-eating grin crossed his face. “Your copy editor wants your job.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I stared, waiting for him to go on. That back-stabbing bitch. She better hope Nash finished me off before I had a chance to practice my
ap-chagi
on her.

“She called police headquarters this morning asking for information on a murder. Of course, that murder hasn’t been reported to the proper authorities.” Nash said. “But she insisted that a
Telegraph
reporter had witnessed it. Since we LoJacked your car, it was easy to see you were nearby.”

“How very Orwellian villain of you. When did you do that?”

“McClendon said you left it at the coffee shop, so Brandon went by before dawn and put in a tracking device. It came in pretty handy.” He grinned like a father whose son had just scored the winning touchdown.

“Brandon Smith?” If my minutes were numbered, I had to find out who that guy was. “Why would he LoJack my car for you after you killed his brother?”

“Noah got greedy. He and his friend were trying to blackmail me, and after I paid them very well for the effort I asked of them.”

From his tone, he could’ve been talking about the weather or his golf score.  “I wasn’t sure what to do, because I couldn’t afford to lose Brandon,” Nash continued. “But he was surprisingly reasonable.”

“I even went to Noah’s house and explained it all to him. Right before I shot him.” The voice Nash had been arguing with earlier came from behind a stack of crates to my left.

Except closer, with a more conversational tone, I recognized it instantly.

I clenched my eyes shut. No way.

“Brandon,” Nash boomed. “How are we doing out there?”

“Almost done.”

I opened my eyes just as Jerry Davis’ face came between my head and the ceiling.

Smith was in much better shape than he’d been in when he left Florida, with darker hair. His clean-shaven face looked younger, too. But Jerry Davis was the man from the mug shot, plus one extreme makeover.

“Brandon?” I whispered.

“Yes, Nichelle?” He leaned over me and batted his lashes, his laugh low and disturbing.

How many times had I talked to him that week, with him “filling in” for Aaron? Christ on a cracker, as Eunice would say.

“You didn’t know.” He grinned. “How about that?”

“You’re quite the thespian,” I said. “I suppose that helps when you’re trying to get away with murder.”

“I was sure you’d pegged me when I let it slip that I was watching the Seminoles in the college series,” he said. “I knew you had to know where Noah was from. Isn’t that why you turned me down when I offered to help you?”

Strike two. Nash’s Gators pennant and Jerry’s college world series. Fat lot of good it did me to put it together now.

As long as they were giving answers, I figured I’d try for a few more. The way Nash’s eyes flicked to his phone every four seconds, he was waiting for a call. And the boxes were disappearing fast. Maybe I could buy a few minutes if I could get them bragging about their cleverness. Not that I knew what I’d do with more time, but I wanted it anyway.

“Why put the drugs on a boat?” I blurted the first question I thought of. “Doesn’t that limit where you can take them?”

“We used to use trucks,” Nash said. “But for the last couple of years, some friction has made that difficult. This spring, the river level rose enough that the water allowed us access to the coast, and I didn’t need to fight anyone over transportation. No one was the wiser until that baseball player lost control of his speedboat.”

“Friction. With the mob.” Gavin Neal’s guns had come off a truck, so it followed that Joey’s friends had been involved.

“We tried to work a deal with them,” Nash said. “I even had McClendon perjure himself during a murder trial and say he hadn’t read the defendant his Miranda rights so their guy would get off. But they’re stingy bastards.”

Greedy crooks. Imagine that.

“And the guys who died in the boat crash, Freeman and Roberts? Did they know what they were hauling?”

Nash shook his head, staring at his phone again. 

“They weren’t the type,” he said. “Which is what made them the perfect cover.”

The phone binged and Nash turned his back, studying the screen and muttering to himself.

I turned to Jerry/Brandon, the crime scene stills of Darryl and Noah flashing up from my memory, both of them relaxed in the face of death. Because they knew him.

“You knew I was here because you tracked my car.” I said, talking to keep from panicking as Nash waved an arm in a wrap-it-up gesture at whoever was carting off boxes. “It was you with the rifle. A dart, right?”

He grinned.

“I tried to aim for your hip. They hurt a lot more when they hit you in the neck. I do what I can for the pretty girls.” He leered, trailing one finger down my arm, and I clenched my jaw to keep from spitting in his face.

Brandon turned his attention to something I couldn’t see, and I tried again to yank my left hand free.

Success!

And not a minute too soon, if I could just think of some way to capitalize on it.

Arm still at my side, I looked around, noticing a muted splashing sound had now replaced the slapping of the crates moving. The sharp scent in the air was suddenly strong enough to make my eyes water. Shit.

“What’s going to happen to this place?” I fought to keep my voice even, because I already knew the answer.

“You don’t smell the gasoline?” Nash spun back toward me, cold smile in place. “Enough chit chat. You’ve had a fine last interview, and we have somewhere to be.”

His phone rang and he raised it to his ear.

“Are we good?” he asked.

He shot Brandon a thumbs up.

“Excellent.” Busy swallowing nausea and tears, I wasn’t sure which of them said it.

Nash slid his phone into his pocket and pulled a gun out of his jacket.

“Bullets are much quicker than flames, Nichelle,” he said. “What’s it going to be?”

19.

Here comes the cavalry

I closed my eyes as Nash prodded my shoulder with the gun when I didn’t answer him. Before I opened them again all hell broke loose around me. The door slammed open with a metallic ringing. Nash and Jerry/Brandon whirled in two different directions as a barrage of sharp cracks split the stillness outside.

I froze for the tiniest fraction of a second before I wrenched my right hand out of the rope, losing a good bit of skin in the process. Clawing at the binding around my left ankle, I got it loose, then used the heel on that shoe to lever the rope and jerked my right foot free. Swiveling on my tailbone, I pulled my knees to my chest and slammed both feet into the small of Brandon’s back.

The stilettos on my battered black Louboutins sank into his kidneys, and he let out a strangled cry and pitched face-first onto the concrete. He didn’t move to get back up.

I somehow rolled over, flipped backward, and managed to land upright on the far side of the table.

Though his attention was on the commotion outside, Nash still stood less than ten feet away. Between me and the door. Leg throbbing and head wound burning, I stumbled back two steps, looking around for another way out.

“Not so fast,” Nash said as he whirled on me.

I planted my Louboutins and shoved the table with all the strength I could muster.

It flew at him, the casters beneath it gliding across the concrete. The wind left his chest in a
whoosh
and he staggered backward when the steel edge hit him squarely in the sternum.

A gleeful cackle came from somewhere. Maybe from me. I wasn’t sure of anything but the relief that washed over me as the building filled with bodies encased in black tactical gear.

Brandishing large guns, the cavalry took its orders from a tall man in a bulletproof vest whose face was mostly obscured by a two-way radio.

“Watch the woman,” he ordered, striding to the middle of the nearly-empty room. “Donovan Nash, you are under arrest.”

I took my eyes off Nash long enough to see that Captain Rescue had a gun in his other hand. He didn’t move the radio, but the ice-blue eyes peering over the top of it widened when they met mine.

I didn’t process that before Nash raised his gun, swinging between me and Officer Cool. He settled on the easy target.

“Give my regards to Gavin Neal, won’t you, Nichelle?”

The room was empty. Nowhere to hide.

A shot fired.

I screamed. But the pain didn’t come.

Nash crumpled to the ground, a dark spot blooming across the middle of his tailored navy suit coat. A pair of SWAT-clad officers pounced on him.

I locked eyes with Captain Rescue, who holstered his sidearm as the radio handset fell away from a face I could never forget. 

Adding shock to the adrenaline and sedatives was too much. The room wavered, the floor seeming to buckle under me as I fell.

But I never hit the ground.

Kyle Miller, ex-love-of-my-life, sprinted across the dozen feet of concrete between us and caught me as I drifted back into the fog.

More voices. I lifted my eyelids, but couldn’t focus on the backlit figure next to me for a full minute.

“Bob,” I mumbled. “My story.”

“That’s the Nichelle Clarke I remember. Bleeding. Nearly murdered. But always thinking about the story.”

Not Bob.

“Kyle?” I blinked.

His voice had a commanding edge I’d never heard. He leaned forward, no longer silhouetted by the summer sun flooding the ambulance. The white sheet over my lap reflected flashing blue and red from the emergency vehicles crowding the parking lot around Nash’s warehouse.

I probed gingerly behind my ear, finding hamburger where a sizable chunk of my hair had been. It hurt. And was still bleeding.

If I was dreaming, I had to award points for realism.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but what the hell are you doing here?” I asked. “Am I dead? Because when I heard your life flashes before your eyes, this is not what I had in mind.”

“No, Nicey, you’re not.” He chuckled, gentle hands smoothing the hair I still had off my forehead. “All things considered, I think you’re okay. But I want someone to check you out.”

“How? Where did you come from?” I stared, even reaching a hand up to touch his face lightly.