ROUGH RIDER (28 page)

I
was shivering
. When I had things under control, I could suppress my fear. Right now, things were very much out of my control.

The plan was simple: let Captain Pierce into the safe room, let him play with the dummy computer Nathan had his tech guys set up, and record the whole thing. Surely, there’d be something on the tapes and computer logs to nail his ass to the wall.

Things had went wrong right from the start.

Nathan had made himself scarce just like we’d planned, but when Captain Pierce arrived, he wasn’t alone. That wasn’t part of the plan. He wasn’t supposed to have company.

Four men climbed out of the squad car, looking uncomfortable in their blues. I stared at the stiff and immaculate uniforms as the captain approached. They were too clean. Too perfectly pressed. They were bullshit.

Brand new uniforms. All of them. Uniforms taken right out of inventory at the station. They were the complete opposite of the rough-looking men wearing them, and that meant these men weren’t cops. They were playing dress-up. Emerald green eyes shined on the face of the closest phony officer as they approached. I tried to stay calm, leaning up against the unmarked black Crown Victoria.

Irish. Fuck.

Nathan was right. Captain Pierce had been working with Mr. Wallace this whole time. Getting Nathan out of his mansion and into protective custody was his way of putting him under his thumb. He was never supposed to testify.

The mansion loomed just at the end of the street, quiet and unguarded. Nathan’s men would be nowhere near this place today. We were taking no chances and definitely didn’t want to spook the Captain. The trouble was that I desperately wished they were here now.

“Detective.”

“Captain,” I replied, nodding toward the other men. They kept their distance, not locking eyes with me.

“Don’t mind them. I needed a few men I could trust on this one. Where’s Nathaniel Hale?” the captain asked.

“He’ll be in Philadelphia for some big charity drive all weekend. His company is investing in a children’s hospital,” I responded, the rehearsed words flowing easily from my lips.

“Smart man, giving himself an alibi as that shipment hits the docks. I take it you’ve got the keys to the castle?”

“Keys, and a disabled security system,” I replied. “He keeps his computer in some kind of safe room just off the kitchen. I’ve taken the liberty of shutting down his video surveillance for the afternoon.”

“Excellent. Move out. I want this done quickly,” the captain said, waving the men toward the house. They started up the path toward the oversized front doors as he turned back to me. “You did good work, Detective.”

Fuck.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

The captain was the one who was supposed to go into that room. He was the one I needed on video, planting evidence. I could hit the panic switch, and he’d be locked in that stupid room until I could hand this whole case over to the boys in Internal Affairs.

“Now walk.”

The Captain’s voice had become gruffer, more stilted. I stared at the hard lines on his face before glancing downward to see his Sig 223 pointed squarely at my stomach, the dark shape both sinister and beautifully engineered.

“Captain… I don’t understand,” I said, staring down at the gun.

“Sandra, I’ve sat across the table from the kinds of criminals that would haunt your fucking nightmares. I’ve seen evil, and I’ve been lied to by some of the best. I’ve made a career on seeing straight through bullshit.”

“Captain,” I started, but he cut me off, jabbing my gut with the barrel of his gun.

“I said, walk. No more lies, no more fucking bullshit you stupid bitch. I’ve had to put up with your ass on my force for all these years, and this is how you repay me? You’ve put my whole fucking family in danger. How much is Nathaniel Hale paying you for your loyalty?”

I stared to move, urged on by the business end of his firearm. The Irish men had reached the house, but clearly they weren’t just walking in the front door. One was moving around the side of the house, quickly finding an electrical box and beginning to work on it.

He’s cutting the lines…

“My loyalty? How much did your soul cost, Captain?” I asked, looking at him with all the vile hatred I could muster.

“You don’t understand, do you, Sandra? You could have let that squad car go, and we’d never be standing here. Sometimes, you break a few eggs for the greater good.”

“Nathaniel Hale would be dead if I did that. Is that your greater good?”

“Nathaniel Hale is dead anyway, and the world won’t miss him” the Captain replied coolly. “I need to think about the rest of my city and I need to think about my own safety. Did you seriously think four walls and some iron bars would keep anyone safe from Mr. Wallace? Half the prison guards this side of the Mason Dixon line are named ‘Mick’ and ‘O’Reilly,’ for Christ sakes. I’ve got a wife, and a child, and I’ll be fucking damned if I let you get them killed for some self-centered billionaire asshole.”

I grunted as he jabbed me in the ribs with the gun, pressing me on toward the door. “Open it,” he said angrily, forcing me inside as I pulled it open. Two of the phony cops followed us through, guns drawn.

“Point them to the laptop,” the captain demanded. I raised a hand, pointing toward the kitchen.

“In there, past the cabinets on the right. It’s open.”

As they followed my directions, I turned to the captain once more. I knew there was no swaying him, but maybe I could stall for a little more time, time that might reveal a way out of this mess.

“Captain Pierce, please… You can’t do this,” I said, trying desperately not to glance toward the decadent chairs that sat across from us. I knew full well the t22 would be transmitting this whole conversation. Just up the road, everything going on inside here was being recorded. Video, audio—it would all be in the undercover car I’d parked just on the edge of radio range. I just hoped I’d live long enough to see this bastard behind bars.

“Shut up, you stupid cunt,” one of the Irishmen said, turning and flashing me a vicious smirk. “The good captain here knows what happens to assholes who get on Mr. Wallace’s bad side. You’ll find out too, soon enough.”

I stared back at Pierce. The fire in his eyes was gone. “Is that true?” I asked, tears filling my eyes despite my attempt to control my emotions. I wondered what I saw in the man staring back. Was it regret? Fear?

He didn’t give me the pleasure of knowing. Before I could say a word he swung up the butt of the gun and smashed it over my head.

D
arkness
.
Pain. Movement.

I woke to the feeling of being bounced around the roomy interior of a trunk, but the main reason I had been shaken from my slumber was the nearly destroyed spare tire that had landed on my leg. Judging from the space and the tire floating around back here, it was probably my own detective-issued Crown Vic, and that wasn’t a good thing. I’d replaced that tire just three weeks ago, never bothering to put the stupid spare back where it belonged. They’d been putting me off at the motor pool ever since…

I took a moment to think about my situation. The captain would have taken his own car, so it stood to reason there was an Irishman at the wheel. I fumbled around in the dark for a moment, trying desperately to get my bearings.

The shotgun…

My hands flashed to the roof of the trunk, feeling around for the shortened tactical shotgun that was normally strapped to the underside of the lid. Unsurprisingly, it was missing.
Just one more thing to worry about.
I slapped my hands up against the edges, looking for some kind of handle or release to get myself out of here, but the car was too old for such silly little safety features.

I’d very quickly started to develop a hatred of the budget cutbacks that had been imposed on the force lately. In the span of only a few moments, they’d moved up the ladder from “mildly annoying” to full-blown “rage-inducing.”

What the hell was I supposed to do? Wherever we were going the ground was definitely not paved. That meant a kill site. If I knew anything about the Irish, I was about to be buried so far out they’d find Jimmy Hoffa before they found my body. If I was going to survive, I needed to get the hell out of here.

Think, Sandra. Think!

I clawed at the edges of the carpeted interior, desperately trying to inch along through the cavernous trunk. There had to be something I could do.

My fingertips hit the edge of a small compartment along the side of the space. I wrenched it open, my hands feeling around inside.

The jack!

I unscrewed the small wing nut holding it in place, pulling it out and wedging it against the floor, aiming the upper face toward the trunk latch as I began to spin the scissoring mechanism with the tire iron. It expanded, pressing the edge against the trunk and tightening even as the car accelerated. We must have been doing fifty miles per hour or more down this dirt road.

Daylight…

A small glimmer was peeking out from the edge of the trunk lid as I continued to spin the jack, my arms burning from effort as I wrenched the tire iron around rapidly. This had to be fast. I had to pop this latch before the driver saw what was happening.

With a satisfying sound of cracking and destruction, the lid burst open, blinding me with light as I stared out into the dust cloud stretching behind us. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, my adrenaline pumping through me, seeping out like glacial water from the nodes above my kidneys. We were traveling too fast to safely jump, but there were other things I could do to stop the car.

Without even a thought, I reached to the side and shoved the battered flat spare right over the edge, finding myself suddenly slammed against the inside of the rear seats as the car fishtailed.

Guess he noticed…
I thought to myself, clutching the tire iron.

The car skidded to a halt. The driver’s door opened, and there was the sound of cursing as a man came running into view, staring back at the dust trail behind us.

He didn’t even see it coming. I swung the tire iron around and screamed at the top of my lungs, the metal impacting his face and sending him sprawling. Leaping out of the trunk with pain coursing through my throbbing head, I followed up with a second blow, watching him go limp as I kicked the shotgun away from his hands.

“Motherfucker!” I screamed, my foot laying into the unconscious man.

I looked around, trying to get my bearings. We were outside of town, at least twenty miles north, judging from the mountain range in the distance. Wherever we had been going, it wouldn’t have ended well for me. I left the man sprawled out on the ground, rooting around in the glove box for the heavy duty zip ties. A few minutes later, the battered man was hog tied and left on the side of the road. It wasn’t a very friendly thing to do, but I wasn’t thinking much about this man’s personal welfare. I had a job to do.

Serve and protect.

I picked the shotgun up from the dirt and threw it across the bench seat. I would have preferred something a little more concealable, but it would have to do. I needed to get back into the city. Nathan needed me, and every moment I spent out here was a moment I knew was killing him. By now, he had to know I was missing, and if he went back to the house…

If I had any hope of stopping this, I needed to get my hands on the video before Captain Pierce realized I wasn’t quite dead yet. My survival was an advantage, but it wouldn’t last.

The engine roared as I stepped on the accelerator, spinning the old Crown Vic around and leaving the Irishman in my rearview mirror.

D
ark
thoughts filled
my head as I reached down and flipped on the old police CB. Before I even had a chance to consider whether or not I should use it to call into the station, I got caught up listening to the chatter.

Captain Pierce had wasted no time. He had issued an APB on Nathaniel Hale, and men were being stationed around the city even as I battered the poor car on the uneven dirt. Squinting, I could see the highway that loomed ahead, and with it, the end of this journey.

Don’t use the radio. Don’t let the Captain know you’re alive. Get the video. Get yourself some proof, first.

As I swerved the car onto the asphalt and floored it, I wondered where Nathan was. We had scheduled a meet at a small diner on Fourth Street, but he wasn’t supposed to show up there for hours. I only hoped he would keep his damn head down until all of this was over.

There had been so many fuck-ups today already. I didn’t want him to be another one, maybe one that I couldn’t fix. There had to be a way to make things right, and I was determined to find out how to do exactly that.

The miles ticked by as I hit traffic. It was nearly rush hour. That would slow me down getting out to Nathan’s mansion, but it wasn’t about to stop me. I reached over, flipping the switch on the dash that lit up the siren and lights hidden behind the grill. Like Moses parting the red sea, cars began to move aside.

I’m coming, Nathan…

I had to ignore my fears and reservations. I needed to get to the t22 receiver from the undercover car and bring the evidence to someone I trusted. If I could get to the video, maybe I could fix this.

The off ramp was coming up fast, and I brought the car swerving down and into the upscale residential neighborhood, its houses getting more and more expensive as I approached Nathan’s mansion. Turning onto a side street, I came up quickly to the car we had parked to serve as a recording station. Inside, I knew the small receivers were doing their job, but what I needed was the USB drive they were piping the information into.

Without a key, I used the butt of the shotgun to smash in one of the windows, ripping the usb drive free and returning to my car.

I was hyperventilating as I tossed the small portable hard drive into the passenger’s seat. This was it. But what exactly did it buy me? A chance, sure, but if the Captain was compromised, how high did this go? Was the commissioner involved? The mayor?

And even if I found someone to trust, what good would it do if Wallace could still strike at us from behind bars?

No. I couldn’t take this to the police. Not when it was possible that this infection ran rampant throughout the entire department.

My thoughts flashed back to the white envelope and the press. I could bring it to the Times. I still knew a person or two on the inside. They could keep me safe and break this case wide open. The FBI would be all over it within a few weeks. I could start again with a new name and a new life… WITSEC protection and the whole nine!

With Nathan at my side? We could run away together. Surely he had some money stashed offshore.

I took a deep breath as I got nearer to my car, trying to soothe my nerves. Everything was going to be okay. A short drive, a few words with a reporter, and we could let the feds sort this whole thing out. I was done.

Before I could even get to the door, I could hear it. The police radio was going crazy. Opening the door and leaping inside, I froze in place, my mind decoding the various messages cross-firing over the speakers.

Code 999, officer needs help urgently. 10-59, hostage situation exists. Swat team en route. Police surrounding a building on Elm Street. Suspect deemed armed and extremely dangerous… Officer involved shooting…

I was gasping for air in the driver’s seat, desperately trying not to pick up the radio. My hand gripped the wheel so hard it was sending pain shooting up my arm. God help me if Nathan was involved. Did the damn fool go and poke his head up? Had he killed someone? What the hell was he doing on Elm?

“Oh, Christ…” I said aloud, throwing the car into gear. Captain Pierce’s house was on Elm Street. I’d told him the Captain was after him. Was Nathan trying to settle the score? My mind reeled as I tried to make sense of it, but a moment later, everything clicked into place.

Nathan must have left someone to watch the house. He must have known Captain Pierce took me out of there. He must have thought I was as good as dead, and that made him extremely dangerous.

Without a second thought, I floored it. Lights on and siren blaring, I flew along side streets, blazing a trail toward Elm. SWAT would be out in force, and if they went into that house and found Nathaniel Hale with Captain Pierce, they wouldn’t be so sympathetic. Despite everything the Captain had done, Elm Street was his home. He had a wife and a kid.

First rule of the force:
nobody
messes with a cop’s family. Crooked or not, it didn’t matter. Nathan would never even have a chance to explain himself before they took his head clean off. If I could get there in time, maybe I could stop it. Speed blurred my vision as the trunk slammed open and closed with every little bump.

I’m coming, Nathan. I’m coming.