A Mended Man (The Men of Halfway House Book 4) (21 page)

"But?" Jessie prompted.

"Then I saw an old video."

Jessie tossed the cushion to the side and leaned forward. "Of what?"

"A home video. Ty totally looks like his dad. And man, Aidan looks like his mom. It's funny, because they kinda look alike but still different and you know that thing—"

"Cole, focus please." Sometimes, he could easily understand why Aidan wanted to strangle him.

Cole stared at him and blinked a few times. "Oh! Yeah! The video. He was different. Not like the Aidan I know and love to piss off."

Jessie threw his head back against the couch. Sometimes, even
his
patience ran a little thin. Especially when he was so…frustrated. "You already said he was different. Different how?"

"Everything. He was smiling, laughing, and he and Ty were roughhousing the way I used to with my brother. It's like he's a pod person now. Totally weird."

Jessie fidgeted, tugging on the seam of his jeans. He had to admit, the shift in Aidan's personality from lighthearted to all-serious piqued his interest. What had hurt Aidan badly enough to warrant that iron fortress around his heart? Jessie took a deep breath. That answer would have to wait for now; he had a few pressing deadlines. "Believe it or not, I'd love to have you hang out, but I have a ton of work I need to wrap up today."

Cole nodded and stood from the chair, walking over to the folders and papers Jessie had spread out on the table. "Can I grab a sheet from this notebook?"

Jessie nodded and walked over to him. If Cole was going to write down that recipe, Jessie needed to make sure he could understand the handwriting which was usually as erratic as the man himself or the quirky Renzo-shortcode for abbreviations he assumed the world could decipher on their own.

While Jessie questioned each random squiggle he couldn't understand, his mind wandered elsewhere, to the one mystery man who increased his frustration yet still managed to ease his mind. A mystery he couldn't wait to solve.

Aidan sat in the rickety chair and leaned forward with his forearms against his thighs. He hated waiting. He peered up at the walls and the high ceilings at the peeling paint and broken windows of the abandoned building. Definitely not the standard interrogation room, but it would work all the same. Especially under these circumstances.

He swiped at the sweat trickling down his temple.
Fucking Miami heat
. The musty scent of concrete mixed with the all-too-familiar humidity definitely didn't help cool his temper. He pulled out his phone to send a text message.

Probably going to be late.

Jessie immediately responded.
Want me to save you dinner?

Aidan smiled and something fluttered in his chest. Jessie always seemed to do that to him.
I'll grab something.

OK. Be safe.

He pocketed his phone and watched his equally impatient team members. Travis paced the room with his hands shoved in his pockets, and Wall stood with arms crossed, leaning against the concrete wall.
Wall against a wall.
For some reason, that always made him chuckle.

"If he doesn't talk here, and we take him to the station, he'll be out within the hour and we'll lose the only fucking lead we've got." Travis continued to pace.

Aidan crossed his arms and scowled, staring at the closed door of the neighboring room. It shouldn't take fifteen minutes to extract information. Not unless Manny was offering the perp a drink and a smile and trying to charm the information out of him.
Any means necessary
. The rules handed down for this case were clear: there weren't any. They had finally found a lead in the Traveling Matador case, the FBI-nicknamed serial killer responsible for three dozen deaths over a span of five years across six states—the most recent, two nights ago in South Florida. The link: the discarded victims were each wrapped in a red cape and speared with a decorative dagger. Their one lead sat in that room—the man who'd decorated the daggers had decided to start signing his work. He had picked the worst time to showcase his vanity.

The barely-hanging-on door of the room swung open and Manny stormed out with Sunny close on his heels.

Manny planted his hands at his hips and his nostrils flared with each angry huff of breath. "Son of a bitch won't give us the name. I texted our contact at the FBI to come here and pick him up. Maybe they can get something from him."

Aidan looked over at a too-quiet Sunny with her arms tightly crossed. Even he could detect something was off. He walked over to her. "Are you okay?"

She nodded quickly. Too quickly.

Aidan glanced over his shoulder to Manny. "What the hell happened in there?"

Manny turned sharply, then stilled when he saw Sunny, her arms wrapped even tighter around herself. Manny's features softened and hardened at the same time. She pointedly glanced at Aidan before exiting the building.

She was anything but
fine
and she'd never let anyone else in on the whys.

Aidan walked up to Manny, invading his space. "What did he say?"

Manny glanced at the door of the neighboring room and sneered. "The son of a bitch said he was working with someone, but we'd never catch him. He described what the guy would do to her." He turned to face Aidan, the anger evident with each controlled breath. "In detail. She wasn't fazed at all in there. I didn't think she'd let it sink in."

Of course he didn't. No one ever did. Sunny was as much a wall as Wall was to most people, especially when it came to anything emotional or personal. In her mind, she had to be. Just as Aidan fought a stereotype regarding who he preferred in bed, Sunny constantly kicked and punched that glass ceiling every chance she had and refused to show any form of weakness or fit anyone's version of a damsel in distress.

But one homicide case they had worked together some time ago had revealed a hint of vulnerability she couldn't hide from Aidan's questioning stare. She'd finally confessed that her driving force to join the police had also been the one thing that ate away at her core. As a child, she had witnessed a violent attack against her older sister and had locked it away as best she could in her mind. But Aidan had seen that same vulnerability a few times since joining the team—handling Jessie's case and all these other serial assaults the team tackled affected her. Unfortunately, he could sympathize far more than he wanted to admit.

Aidan tried to control the building rage vibrating throughout his body. "Give me five minutes."

"He won't talk."

"Five. Fucking. Minutes. Reyes."

Manny raised his hands in exasperation. "Fine. You've got a few minutes before they get here to take him."

Aidan looked at Wall and tilted his head, signaling him to follow. Wall pushed off his perch and silently fell in line behind him as they walked into the room. The scrawny man with closely cropped hair sat on the wooden chair with his hands bound in his lap. Wall found a spot in the corner and waited with crossed arms.

"What the hell do you want? I already told that other guy I wasn't saying shit," the man spat.

Aidan clasped his hands behind his back and slowly paced in front of the perp. He generally wasn't patient, but he knew enough about head games to wait out a suspect during an interrogation. Especially one where a little more…
encouragement
was needed to get the end result. He walked the length of the room, not saying a word, his gait slow, without a hurry in the world. A simple power play so the jerk thought he had the upper hand. He expected Aidan to speak, to ask the same questions as Manny, to be on edge and asking nicely for answers the suspect would not willingly give. The man was too confident and had already rattled Sunny's cage. The smug look on his face, a clear indication he thought he had won this battle.

Not on his watch and sure as hell not against his team.

The man stayed focused on Aidan's pacing as the seconds ticked by. Aidan had played this game many times before. A basic power play rule: first man to speak was the first to crack.

More seconds ticked by and not a word was spoken.

The man began to shift his bound hands as Aidan continued to walk across the run-down room. Aidan stopped for a moment and took a deep breath, looking off at a spot in the corner of the room.

The man stilled.

Aidan resumed pacing, and the man started fidgeting again, squirming in the seat.

"I'm not sayin' shit to you!"

Aidan stopped directly in front of the man before he spoke in a level tone. "I think you need better motivation."

"What the hell does that mean?"

In a split second, Aidan had pulled the wooden chair from under the man and knocked him to the floor on his ass. He flipped the chair over and planted the spindle stretcher between the back legs of the chair flush against the man's neck. The perp's eyes widened when Aidan put his weight on the seat of the angled chair, pressing the wood against the man's throat.

The man gasped a breath. "You're fucking crazy! You can't…can't do this." He tried to look past Aidan at Wall in the corner.

Aidan pressed the chair. "You're shit out of luck if you think he's going to snitch me out. Tick tock. I need an address and a name."

The man's focus snapped back to Aidan. "He'll kill me."

Aidan slowly raised an eyebrow. "You're assuming I wouldn't."

The man stilled. "You…you can't. You're supposed to…"

"Serve and protect. I'm here to
protect
future victims. And if you ask me to serve you, I'll rip your dick off and
serve
it to you down your fucking throat. Talk. I won't ask again nicely."

"I…I…I don't know his name," the man finally said.

"Where can I find him?"

"He's…he's finished here. He's leaving. He might already be gone."

"Address?" Aidan asked, leaning into the chair again.

"I have rights!"

"So did his thirty-six victims." He leaned more into the chair and glared at the man with the sheen of sweat across his forehead. "I hate repeating myself."

"I…have money. A big stash. You let me go and I'll give you—"

Aidan fought back the fury that roared like a beast within. "My loyalty is
not
for sale."

The scrawny man's eyes rounded. "If…if I tell you…you…you need to hide me. If he finds me…he'll—"

"Kill you like the others?"

The man nodded quickly.

"I'm heartbroken."

Images of all the victims flashed in succession in Aidan's mind. The savage brutality of each visual lit a fire in the pit of his stomach and began to twist his gut. All he cared about was the information ready to spill from the perp's lips.

Any means necessary.

He leaned forward and zeroed in on the man beneath him, staring back at Aidan with rounded eyes filled with fear.

"Address? And I'm not asking again."

Four minutes and twenty-seven seconds later, he and Wall left the room with the man sitting in the chair, uninjured and once again upright.

Manny spun on his heel the moment they swung the door open. "Did you get anything?"

Aidan nodded curtly. "Address. And we need to get there ASAP."

They all turned toward Sunny standing by the exit door at the sound of a car pulling up outside. "They're here," she called out.

Two suited agents entered the building and Travis immediately joined them, briefing them as they headed over to collect the suspect. They emerged from the room moments later with the handcuffed perp. The second the scrawny man saw Aidan, he tried to pull away from the agents, wildly yelling to keep the "psycho cop" away from him.

I've been called worse.
Aidan shrugged off the questioning glances and ignored the chuckle coming from Wall.

"Reyes, you're lead on the takedown plan," he said, trying to shift the focus off the perp's crazy mutterings as the agents dragged him out of the building, still kicking and screaming.

Manny looked a little surprised, probably shocked Aidan hadn't tried to take over since he'd managed to extract the address. Regardless of how they acquired the lead, he wouldn't step on his team member's toes, same way Manny wouldn't step on his. Aidan may have a reputation for being an asshole, but he damn sure extended professional courtesy to his coworkers who put their lives on the line on a daily basis to protect others.

"We need to get aerials and building schematics so we know all possible entry and exit points," Manny finally said to the team.

They made their way out of the building and to their cars, itching to plan a strategy to finally catch the serial bastard.

* * * *

"Something's wrong," Aidan whispered.

"Ditto," Sunny said, her voice echoing faintly through the earpiece.

Within less than an hour of securing the address, they had arrived to find the Traveling Matador still in town. One team member stationed at each entry and exit point—easy in and out plan. He peeked around the right corner of the south side of the one-story building, trying to catch a glimpse of his partner guarding the west end, finally spotting Sunny craning her neck to observe Wall stationed on the north side of the same building. Aidan looked to his left and took a deep breath, anxious as Travis stood guard in the southeast corner.