Red-Hot Vengeance (10 page)

Half an hour later, Carter and Atwood went downstairs. Carter picked the lock and carefully opened the door. Atwood spotted the first detector in the door frame. He aimed a little electronic device at it and was able to deactivate it. Carter waited for his signal to enter the flat. He stopped on the door sill when he saw little rays of green light crossing the room from wall to wall like a giant spider web.

“Wow,” he said. “That guy’s good.”

“Told you. He’s also fast, we have less than twenty minutes before he gets back.”

“What?”

“Shhh!” Atwood whispered.

He looked behind him, but no one seemed to have heard Carter. He stepped in next to Carter. Working as fast as he could, he aimed at each laser detector with precision, disabling them one after the other. When he was done, he motioned to Carter to follow him. They crossed the room to find a safe secured by a heavy steel lock.

“You’re good at picking locks,” Atwood said. “You have about four minutes.”

“Thanks, no pressure.”

Carter knelt next to the safe. He picked the lock like he’d done it for the door, but it took more time than expected. Meanwhile, Atwood closed the entrance door and enabled the lasers back.

“Why are you doing that?” Carter asked.

“If we go back that way, we’ll meet him in the hall. So,” he indicated the window, “I hope you’re not afraid of heights.”

Carter smiled when he remembered that, one year earlier, Williams had arrested him and Farrell because
she
was afraid of heights and wouldn’t escape through the window. He put the ruby in a cloth bag and followed Atwood outside just at the moment when Preston was opening the door.

“What the… Hey! Get back!” he yelled.

Shots were fired at Carter and Atwood as they were making their way down the emergency ladder. Preston tried to follow them, but they were too fast and too well organized. Atwood knew that the ladder was broken on that floor. As soon as they were passed the critical place, he pulled on it and it fell to the ground, a few feet below. Carter and Atwood kept descending while Preston ran to the inside stairs. When he arrived on the street, they were long gone.

**

Williams was pacing up and down the hall. He couldn’t believe Carter had let him down. He couldn’t believe he’d believed that Carter wouldn’t let him down. Williams was so angry he didn’t even know if he was raging against Carter or himself anymore. All of a sudden, his phone rang.

“What?” he yelled.

“Woah, okay, so you’re pissed off,” Carter noticed.

“You fucking let me down,” Williams shouted.

“I’m sorry. It was the only way I—”

“You could have warned me,” he interrupted loudly.

“You wouldn’t have accepted.”

“Of course not!” Williams took a second to breathe. “Where are you?”

“On my way. Just don’t shoot me when I come in.”

Carter hung up. He sat back in the relative comfort of the cab. He wondered what Williams’ plan was. He was at a point where he hardly even cared for the ruby anymore; that stone had proved more bad luck than a broken mirror. But he didn’t want to have to deal with Vaughn again. The marks on his arm were still fresh and he certainly didn’t wish to get any more of those.

When Carter came in, Williams greeted him with handcuffs. He took the gun he’d stolen and the ruby away from him. Williams then inspected the ruby. He didn’t have time to make sure it was the real one, but he hated the idea of trusting Carter once more.

“How can I be sure it’s the real one?” he asked when they were in his office.

“It is,” Carter simply said. “What now?”

“She sent me a message with a place and time to meet.”

“What about me?” Carter worried.

“You’re coming along, pal. You’re part of the exchange.”

“So you’re just gonna give me to her?”

“I have to say I’m tempted to do so.”

Carter lowered his eyes. A gesture that wasn’t like him at all.

“You really
are
afraid of her,” Williams understood.

“Okay, yes, I admit it. I am,” Carter mumbled with a mixture of anger and shame.

Williams considered Carter in silence for a moment. “I wish I could tell you I have a big plan,” he finally said in a more friendly tone. “But she’s got Kyle, and I can’t think straight.”

“Are you
that
close?” Carter casually asked.

“Yes. He’s the man of my life.”

“
Women
usually say that.”

“Carter please, I’m not in the mood for homophobic comments right now.”

“Just trying to make sense of the situation,” Carter lied.

“Is it that complicated?” Williams bitterly said. “Have you never been in love?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I
am
in love,” Carter answered, admitting it to himself for the first time. He wondered why they kept asking him that question.

“Then I think you can understand. Different gender, same feelings,” Williams concluded before Cowley knocked on the door.

“The team will be ready in a few minutes,” she said. “We should move.”

“I’ll go alone,” Carter offered.

“What?” Williams and Cowley said in unison. “There’s no way I’ll let you do that,” Williams added.

“Trust me, Josh,” Carter said. As he expected, Williams’ attention grew stronger when he used his first name. “I’ll get your lover back,” he promised.

Williams pondered the matter. “Do you actually have a plan?”

“Yes,” Carter answered with his half-smile. “I’ll use her self-confidence against her. I just need some distant back-up.”

“Okay, you’ll make the exchange.
But
we’ll be very close behind you.
And
you’ll be wearing a microphone this time.”

“Fair enough.” Williams was about to remove Carter’s handcuffs, but the latter didn’t let him. “For once, I’ll need those,” he said.

They traveled to the place of meeting in silence. A dark blue Aston Martin was already parked there, waiting for them. Carter took the ruby along with a good dose of courage in his hands and got out of the car. He walked slowly toward the other car. When he was standing next the her door, Vaughn got out.

“Hello again,” she said. “Nice bracelets.”

“Yeah, a shame they’re not made of gold.”

“Is that the ruby?” she asked, pointing at the case.

“Officer Williams says he wants to see his lover walk free before I hand it to you.” Despite his growing anxiety, Carter’s voice was steady and confident.

Vaughn opened the back door. Kyle got out. He seemed dizzy and confused, but wasn’t injured. Vaughn pushed him in the direction of Williams’ car. He quickly understood and ran to the car. Carter watched him until he was safely inside.

“Now,” Vaughn said. “Give me that, and get in the car.”

“You’re not even making sure the ruby’s in the box?” Carter asked in genuine surprise.

“I think the cop was frightened enough not to try to double-cross me, but if you insist.”

She took the case from Carter’s hands and, leaning on her car, made the foolish mistake of turning her back to him. Carter seized the occasion immediately. He passed his hands over her head, and pressed the chain of the handcuffs on her throat. He turned around when shots were fired at him. His back against the car, he used Vaughn as a shield. Her henchmen stopped shooting for fear of killing her.

“They’ll kill you if you don’t let go of me,” she raged.

“They’ll kill you first,” Carter replied.

Vaughn was struggling, but now that Carter wasn’t under the effect of her drug, she seemed less brutal. Despite the bleeding of his arm, Carter had regained all his strength and was now able to overpower her.

“Is your team in position, Josh?” he said into the microphone clipped to his jacket.

Police cars appeared all around them. Shots were fired between Vaughn’s minions and the police. But Carter forced her to move into the middle of the crossfire. Her men instantly stopped firing, and were soon arrested by the police. Williams himself arrested Vaughn with unusual violence.

“You’re in big trouble, miss Vaughn,” he said.

**

Two days later, Williams found Carter looking at López through the floor window. He approached and stood by his side. Both considered their injured friend in silence.

“How much would you like to work with me?” Williams suddenly asked.

Carter turned to him in surprise. “You mean with the NYPD?”

“Yep.” The police had kept their word and Carter was free, but Williams thought he could be of some help because of his relations. So instead of just letting him run away, he was offering him a job. Of course, he also—and mainly—meant to keep an eye on him.

“You mean in a Neal-Caffrey-ish… sort of way?” Carter inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“What?” Williams said, taken aback by the question.

“You’re not a fan of
White Collar
?”

“Oh, right.” Williams pondered for a while. The character in that series was a consultant for the FBI. Not much to do with what he was offering, but Carter was apparently identifying with the fictional character of Caffrey, so Williams could as well use that in his favor. “Actually, yes, something like that,” he said.

“Meh, I don’t know, Josh.” Carter looked away. His eyes were fixed on López yet his attention seemed to be elsewhere.

“It would do you a lot of good, you know, to stay on the right path,” Williams insisted. “At least for a while. And then you won’t want to leave it anymore,” he added on a friendly note.

Carter smiled his perpetual half-smile and looked back at Williams. “Well, I’m not very good at staying on the right path,” he said, mimicking Williams’ tone. “I like to step out of that path and go wander in the wilderness now and then. I need my freedom,” he narrated in a dreamy voice. His freedom which had, to a certain extent, been granted back to him because he’d helped retrieve the Duval ruby and arrest a bunch of criminals.

“Suit yourself,” Williams said. “But be careful, Carter, there are traps in the wilderness. You
will
get caught and I won’t let you get away next time.”

“We’ll see about that,” Carter concluded with a look at his wrist watch. “Take care of Rafa for me. There’s somewhere I need to be.”

Williams didn’t answer. There was something fascinating about Carter. And somehow, Williams knew he would see him again soon enough.

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