All Kinds of Tied Down (15 page)

“Why are you getting a text from a detective and not someone on our team?”

“You know White gives out our numbers to the detectives he’s working with.”

He shook his head. “That’s not protocol.”

I scoffed.

“Shut up.”

“Mr. I took time off my last security detail to go bang some girl before picking up dinner.”

“One time!”

I did my best Sam Kage impersonation. “Perhaps you need an extended vacation, Mr. Kohn, so you can get all the fucking out of your system.”

“Crap,” he groaned. “You would have thought Ching would have warned me that he was on his way over from the safe house.”

I snickered. “Ching lives for that shit, you know that.”

“I know it now,” he said, exasperated.

I couldn’t help laughing.

“And that Kage impression is kinda creepy.”

We rode the elevator down in silence and when the doors whooshed open, Chris Becker stood there with his partner, Wes Ching.

They made an interesting pair, Becker, the ex-University of Kentucky linebacker, and Ching, his smaller though decidedly more aggressive partner. Becker was one of those guys women watched when he walked down the street, a confident stride and easy smile. Ching was quieter, and, people thought, the saner of the two, until he kicked down a door and charged through. After a raid it was always “That black guy and the Asian guy, what the fuck was with them?” Of course that was only if Kage wasn’t around. If he was, you could bet no one said a word about any member of his team. It wasn’t healthy.

When Becker saw us, the cocky grin instantly appeared. “Morning, ladies,” he teased, waggling his thick brown brows.

Kohn flipped him off.

“What’s wrong with you, you havin’ your period?” Ching asked loudly.

I smiled at all the women in the hall getting on the elevator. “Make sure you all report that bullshit to Supervisor Kage upstairs.”

“Fuck you, Jones!”

Kohn pointed at Becker before turning to follow me down the hall. “Asshat,” he grumbled.

“Yes,” I agreed. “But when Becker’s coming through the door after your ass, you like him, right?”

He grunted.

That was a yes.

In the car, Kohn started complaining. “Let’s take mine. This is like going back in time.”

“It’s vintage.”

“It’s shit,” he confirmed. “For fuck’s sake, Jones, there aren’t even any air bags in this.”

I changed the subject, because I had to drive. I had a whole thing about other people driving; it was only because Ian was such a dictator about it that I gave in to him. “So what witness are we transporting?”

“Nina Tolliver,” he said, grinning. “And I heard you like her, so that’s good, right?”

“I don’t make judgments,” I lied, flat out, because of course I did. I was human, after all. “And I don’t like her like I wanna pick out china patterns with her. I just think she’s a good person who totally won big in the ‘I married a psycho murdering scumbag’ department.”

Drew Tolliver had started out as muscle in the Corza crime family and worked his way up and up until he was a major player in prostitution, drugs, loan-sharking, protection, and guns, and his newest addition right before the feds busted him was assassinations. His wife had been blind to all of that. What she did see, the day he stopped beating only on her and started in on his twin boys, age seven and a half, was that he was a bad man.

“I can’t imagine being a prisoner in my own house,” Kohn said thoughtfully. “It was smart to send her kids off to boarding school. I mean, sucks for her not to see them, but at least they were safe.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “And it gave her time to get a new hobby.”

The amount of incriminating evidence Nina Tolliver had collected on everyone who came to their home was staggering. By simply leaving her laptop on in the living room when men dropped by to see her husband and turning on a web camera no one ever noticed, she got hours of damning footage. Murders were planned, people were named, and every face was captured, so there could be no doubt about who was talking, who was giving orders, and who was carrying them out.

Then, to get away, she’d begged him to take her along on a trip to Atlantic City, and he’d relented. “She’s really brave,” I interjected, because it had to be said. “And it was brilliant to freak out on the plane with an air marshal. They took her off in cuffs.”

“Yes. Brilliant.”

“And now she gets to finally be with her kids in a safe, secure place.”

“As soon as she testifies,” he reminded me. “Which the first part of is her deposition.”

“Which she does today.” I sighed. “So let’s get her there so she can put her husband away for life. The quicker she starts this process, the faster he rolls, and guys even higher up the food chain can be put away.”

“You know her husband doesn’t deserve to go into the program.”

“WITSEC doesn’t judge; it depends on what he saw,” I said sagely.

“Yeah, I know. It just sucks.”

T
HE
SAFE
house in Brookfield was not federal, but a Chicago PD property, and as such, it lacked many of the amenities that usually came with ours. It was a small ranch-style suburban tract home with a huge basement. It was older, had only radiators for warmth, and basically reminded me of one of my least favorite foster homes, down to the pink tile and frosted glass sliding doors in the bathroom. There were some missing ceiling tiles in the kitchen, so if you were cooking, you could glance up and observe spiderwebs above you. The whole place gave me the creeps. It smelled like Pine-Sol and mold. I was glad protection rotation only came around every three or four months. Sometimes marshals did transport, sometimes protection, sometimes relocation. They moved us around so we stayed sharp. It was also supposed to make it impossible for anyone to ever be able to say with any kind of certainty which marshal would show up for what duty.

It was why Topher Cassel, Joshua Rybin, Ted Koons, and Keith Wallace, the four Chicago PD detectives there when Kohn and I showed up, had no idea who was going to walk through the door. They probably didn’t expect the
GQ
model Eli Kohn resembled. Between the clothes, the three hundred dollar haircut, and his lean and muscular build, they probably thought someone was screwing with them.

“Hey,” Kohn greeted, pulling his badge from the breast pocket of his stand-up collar trench coat. “Lemme see yours, gentlemen.”

They brought out badges for him, which were basically redundant since we were only there because we had clearance to be. After we all shook hands, I turned to talk to our witness.

Nina Tolliver was a tiny woman. It was the first thing I thought. Her long brown curly hair hung to the middle of her back, and it was held away from her face with an octopus clip—which I recognized because I had roommates in college, four of them, all women, and the bathroom had been littered with everything from rubber bands to lacquered chopsticks. None of my annoying, loving friends had hair as long as Nina’s, though. So to be saying something as I walked up to her, hand out, I commented on it.

“Damn, woman, you got a lotta hair.”

And that fast, instead of the obvious apprehension she had for the police detectives, I got a warm smile. She looked good in her navy Ann Taylor suit.

“I’m Nina Tolliver,” she said, like I didn’t know. Like maybe we were having a normal conversation. “And you are?”

“Miro Jones,” I answered, smiling back.

She tipped her head. “Miro?”

“It’s short for Miroslav,” I explained like I always did. “It’s Czech.”

“I like it,” she said, and I recognized that along with the interest I was getting, the genuineness, I was also seeing concern.

“Are you scared?”

She shook her head.

“Then what?”

“You two came alone?”

“No. There are two other marshals here somewhere. Maybe you haven’t seen them yet.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Gotta be,” I scoffed. “I promise you, we always transport in fours, not twos.”

Her brows furrowed. “You’re wrong. You’re the only marshals I’ve seen today.”

It was instant—the roll of my stomach, the shiver of dread, because I knew, right then, at that moment, that it was me and Kohn and Nina, and that was all.

I glanced to Kohn and he gave me a quick nod, understanding what was happening as much as I did.

“Oh Lord, I gotta pee,” he announced loudly, and all four detectives laughed as he darted out of the room.

“I like the running shoes,” I said, pointing at them. “They really set off the outfit.”

She shrugged. “I figured I’d carry my heels with me for the deposition, but I’m probably overdressed anyway. It’s not court today, not yet.”

“Right,” I agreed, realizing that now would be the perfect time to kill her, before the bright lights of the media circus. The calm before the storm, just a federal prosecutor and the defense attorney listening to what she had to say. “So we have some time. You want some tea?”

“That would be great,” she replied softly.

“I’ll make you some tea,” I yelled after Kohn before pivoting to face Nina again. “Take me to the kitchen if you would, please, madam.”

She graced me with a smile, and I was about to follow her down the short hall, but I remembered that I was acting and had to make sure it all appeared real.

“You guys want any?” I offered the detectives.

“No, man, we’re good,” Cassel answered.

Grabbing Nina’s arm, I walked her directly through the living room, into the kitchen, and stopped at the back door, where I waited.

“Hey,” one of the detectives called out to Kohn. “You all right in there?”

It was obviously to gauge where Kohn was, and in that instant, I heard the chirp of a sensor.

“Fuck!” came the yell as I heard feet pounding across the floor.

“Check the kitchen for the other one!”

Hurling open the sliding glass door, I drew my gun and shoved Nina through. “Keep up with me when I run,” I ordered loudly.

“Yes,” was all she said.

We scrambled down the back stairs, bolted across the yard, and I hopped the small chain-link fence that separated one piece of property from the other, and then helped Nina over, lifting her easily. I was surprised that I didn’t have to urge her on, to follow me, but she was very focused on survival. She wanted to live, kept chanting it, telling me as we ran.

“I have boys,” she repeated as she hiked up her skirt. “They need me.”

Through the neighbor’s obstacle course—a Jack Russell terrier that came streaking out through its doggie door to greet us, swing set, patio furniture—we ran as I pulled my phone from my pocket and called my boss on his private line.

“Jones?” he rumbled.

“I’m running from the safe house in Brookfield with Nina Tolliver. I’m not sure if Kohn got out or not. He was creating a diversion for me and the witness by going out the bathroom window. I have two detectives in pursuit. I think White and Sharpe are down somewhere on the grounds. I’m headed to George’s diner two blocks away because it’s the only place I know around here. Send backup now.”

“Copy that. We’re en route. I’ll be on-site in twenty, Jones.”

He was basically thirteen miles away, which could take him either twenty minutes or an hour. It all depended on traffic, even with a flashing blue light on top of his car. I-55—we never referred to it as the Stevenson Expressway—was the quickest way. “Okay.”

“Don’t die.”

“Yessir.”

And he was gone as Nina and I hit the street and ran. With her skirt around her ass and her running shoes on, she was flying. With my longer legs, I was still much faster, so I slowed to keep pace with her, but both of us were running for our lives.

A car closed in behind us, and a bullet hit a trash can beside me. I shoved Nina to the ground, turned, saw the threat, and fired. Cassel, who had come around the car to shoot me, went down as I put one in his shoulder. But Rybin, using the car as a shield, shot over the hood and caught me in my right shoulder, just off the edge of the second-chance vest I wore under my shirt. I absorbed the shock, feeling pressure and pain. Nina’s scream scared me as I fired back, putting shots in the hood and shattering the windshield, enough to make Rybin dive for cover.

“Come on!” I yelled at her.

The sirens terrified me, because the men chasing us could also call for backup. I could have been a rogue marshal who drew down on them. I could be trying to kidnap Nina. The scenarios were endless, and so because of that, I didn’t stop to wave down a police cruiser. We ran on toward Ogden Avenue, gun in one hand, the other pressed to my shoulder. Not that it was helping, there was blood seeping through my fingers.

A car came up fast beside us, and my first thought when Nina screamed was that she’d been hit. But the fact that she was able to run by me, followed by searing, smothering pain in my upper chest, let me know that it was me who took the bullet. It was at the inside of the shoulder joint and above the neckline of the damn vest, on the left side this time.

Time slowed and I was scared for a second, worried that I couldn’t protect her, knowing I was hurt. It was strange, that clarity in the midst of all the adrenaline.

“Are you—”

Her voice, the tremor in it, snapped me back into the moment. “Don’t stop! Run!”

I passed her and she followed me, the two of us running behind a frozen yogurt place, then between two buildings. We lost them because the alley was too narrow for a car and they had to circle back around. Grabbing Nina’s hand, I ran headlong into the street, horns and yelling greeting us as cars came to squealing stops to avoid running us over.

It always looked so easy in movies or on TV. People dodged cars like it was nothing. It was why I normally ended up yelling at the screen. Ian wouldn’t go with me to movies anymore; instead he made me watch them at his place. He said I got too invested in the action and needed to learn to distance myself emotionally. I was working on it.

Nina was amazing. If I had to handpick a civilian to run from armed gunman with, I could not have chosen any better. She listened better than anyone I had ever met.