Assassin P.I. (16 page)

It was something Jack would never be. He knew that now. God, how he missed his father.

Jack pushed the thoughts away and pulled a chair up beside his mother. Sitting beside her, he took her hand. Sometimes he wondered if she spent each day reliving a happier time in life, a time before her husband had been killed, a time before her son had been disgraced and kicked off the force. He hoped so.

“Remember that gal I told you about? Angie?”

His mother’s gaze never faltered, too lost in her own thoughts, unable to respond.

“She’s back, and she’s bringing me a heap of trouble.” He laid his head on her hand, clasped in his. He missed hearing her voice, hearing her laughter. “I don’t know what to do, Ma. Tell me what I should do.”

His mother lifted her good hand and stroked his hair. For a brief moment, she was his mother again, offering comfort where none was to be found, and then she was gone again, staring off into space.

“I’ll tell you what you should do.” Jack spun around as Deluca pushed off the doorjamb and entered the room. “Dump the girl. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, she’s no good for you.”

“I don’t know what to do anymore. How did I get here?” When had his life become such a mess? When Angie walked through his door? Or was it before that?

“How?” Deluca asked incredulously. “
How
? Are you freaking kidding me, Jack?!”

Staring at his best friend with new eyes, it all made sense. The life of danger he’d led, his vigilante crime spree, Deluca had been there through it all. “This is all your fault. You pushed me into this life.”

“Please,” he scoffed. “You never needed anyone’s help to push you over that ledge, to make you into the cold-blooded killer you are today. Least of all mine. After your daddy died, you were so blinded by your black and white version of right and wrong that you couldn’t stand to see anything else. You were a sniveling mess, lost and angry at the world, too smart for your own good. Without me to guide you, you would have taken to the streets destined for a life of crime. I kept you on the straight and narrow. I got you into the academy, got you a job with the P.D.
I
did that.
Me
.”

Deluca paced, getting caught up in his tirade. “Then you had to go and fuck it all up, get yourself fired. If I hadn’t given you a new purpose in life, your sorry ass would have wound up penniless, living in the streets, drinking yourself to death. So don’t you
dare
go pissing on the hand that feeds you.”

“You’re the one who got me into this mess in the first place.”

“If my memory serves correct, I only helped you cover up your crimes.
I
kept the heat off. I even showed you which lowlifes to off, but
I didn’t force you to pull that trigger, and I most certainly didn’t turn your heart black with vengeance. You did that all by yourself.”

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Stop you? Hell, I wanted to
be
you. Every cop wishes their hands weren’t tied by red tape and rules. You deserve a damn medal of honor for your work to clean up these filthy streets. I was proud of you. Hell, even your own father would be proud, God rest his soul.”

Jack winced. His stomach roiled with anguish. How could he have gone so far astray?

“In your world there are no shades of gray, Jack. I gotta tell you Jackie-boy, from where I stand, the whole world is a clusterfuck of gray.”

Jack appraised his friend with new eyes and saw how much he’d aged in recent months. “I killed Trevor Santino. It was me, all along. I’ve been searching for a killer, when all I had to do was check the damn mirror.”

Silence. Deluca didn’t confirm or deny the statement as truth. Didn’t have to. “Who do you think covered it up for you? I’m in this thing as deep as you are. By killing Doheny, you tugged the one thread that was holding everything together, and I can’t stop it from unraveling anymore.” Deluca paused and placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder. When he spoke again, his voice was low and filled with regret. “Do me a favor, Jack. Be smart for once in your life. Don’t resist.”

A steady stream of blue uniforms took their cue and began filling the room, squeezing the air from the room.

“He’s all yours, sweet cheeks.”

“Are you sure?” Detective Sweeny sneered. “‘Cause he sure looks like he’s resisting to me.”

By then Deluca was strolling down the hallway, whistling an old tune Jack recognized as one his father used to sing.

“You have the right to remain silent.” Sweeny grabbed Jack and twisted first one arm behind his back and then the other. It wasn’t until the handcuffs were slapped on and tightened painfully that he began to panic.

“I know my Miranda Rights.”

Don’t fight it. Do not fight this
, he told himself. Even a single twitch would give the officers the excuse they needed to forcibly subdue him, a task they would surely relish doing. He was not about to give them the satisfaction of seeing him fight or panic in the least.

“Good. Then you know anything you say from here on in can and most definitely will be used against you in a court of law.”

Despite his conviction to stay nonchalant about the predicament he found himself currently in, he couldn’t stop the immediate retort that flew off his tongue. “Go to hell, Sweeny.”

“See that, boys. They always resist.”

When the batons and nightsticks came out, he knew he was in for the beating of his life.

“So tell me, Jack, how’s it feel to be on the other side of the law? Do you think you’ll be sharing a cell with any of the shitheads you put away? Who knows, it sure gets lonely at night. Maybe one of your old buddies will let you get your snuggle on.”

Jack cast a final glance at his mother. Tears slid down her cheeks.

Chapter 16

Angie blew out a frustrated breath. After searching Jack’s place for over an hour, digging through every nook and cranny for any evidence of Jack’s guilt or innocence, she’d come up empty-handed. Nothing. There was nothing to be found. No incriminating evidence tucked away. That had to be a sign, right?

She’d finally gone in to work, a weight lifted from her shoulders. Jack truly was innocent. Now all she had to do was convince Agent Shaw.

When she’d arrived, she’d half expected to see Jack with his feet kicked up on his desk, reading a dog-eared comic book, but the office was empty. No note to tell her where he’d gone, either. Part of her had been relieved, since technically the last time she’d been at the office, he’d fired her. Again. But she wasn’t going to let that stop her and had let herself in as always, taking up residence at her desk. She’d wait all day if she had to. Even Shamus was unusually quiet and reserved and had been pacing the office. Maybe her anxiety was rubbing off on him.

She was still there three hours later, bored as hell but defiantly refusing to budge from her post when the front door swung open.

Jack?

Her heart sank. Not Jack. Shamus squawked in surprise and took flight to avoid being stepped on by the men who entered the office. Standing before her were two officers of the law, their gazes dark and unreadable. Definitely not customers either.

“5-0. 5-0,” Shamus chirped as he scurried up Angie’s arm and onto her shoulder. He ducked his head under one wing.

“May I help you, Officers?” Angie kept her face neutral, but inside, she was quivering.

One officer took a step closer. He loomed over her, peering down. “Step away from the desk, ma’am.”

She bristled at the commanding tone in his voice. No one ordered her around like that, except Jack. Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

Shorter by a good half a foot, and at least fifty pounds thicker than Jack, the officer lacked Jack’s charisma, his charm. When he smiled and leaned close to her face, a menacing glint in his eyes, his breath stank of stale onions. “I said . . . move.”

The other officer fished something out of his pocket. He flashed a legal-looking document in front of her eyes, too quick for her to comprehend the words, before pocketing the papers again. “We have a warrant to search the premises.”

“Oh, crap. Oh, crap,” Shamus muttered in her ear. “5-0. Oh, crap.”

Oh, crap
was right. Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. A search warrant? Damn that Agent Shaw. He’d moved faster than she’d expected him to.

The other officer touched Angie’s elbow, an expectant expression on his face. When she didn’t stand as he’d wanted, cold fingers gripped her arm.

“Hey!” she yelped.

Shamus nipped at the vise-like fingers wrapped around her arm. “Fuck off, sweet cheeks.”

Startled, the man’s grip loosened enough for Angie to yank free of his hold. She scowled at him, her body heated with anger. “Keep your paws off me.”

Shamus took to the air, hurling insults at the two officers. Grabbing her purse, she stood and straightened her clothing.

Officer Onion-Breath let out a vulgar whistle, his eyes lingering on her breasts before trailing downward toward her ass.

In all the time she’d spent working as a burlesque dancer, she’d garnered her fair share of catcalls and whistles from creeps like him. It was nothing she hadn’t heard before, but someone had always been there to keep the men in check, someone like Marco, to keep the men from pawing at her body. Without Jack to protect her, her skin prickled in disgust.

Losing interest in her, Officer Onion-Breath perused the office, toppling whatever his fingers touched. Small stacks of papers and files fluttered to the ground in his wake. He stopped to thumb through Jack’s collection of comic books and dime-store P.I. novels. “Your boss has a serious hard-on for old-time crime novels, huh? Too bad he ain’t no Dick Tracy. You, on the other hand?” He gave her body another appraising glance. “You can ride my stick all night long, anytime you like.”

Gasping in disgust, Angie wrapped her arms around her chest. Where was Jack when she needed him?

“Leave the woman alone,” the other officer chided his partner. He offered a weak, disingenuous smile. “I apologize for my partner’s uncouth behavior. But you’ll have to wait outside while we conduct our search, ma’am.” He gestured toward the door.

Torn, Angie bit her lip, stalling for time. Legally the men had every right to remove her from the premises and commandeer the office so they could conduct their search in peace. That didn’t mean she had to like it. Or go willingly. Under different circumstances, she had no qualms about using her womanly wiles to gain the upper hand in tough situations, but the way Officer Onion-Breath was leering at her was enough to dissuade her. Her skin crawled at the thought of what he would do to her if given half a chance.

Instead, she changed her tactic and appealed to the kinder of the two officers. “Maybe you should come back when Mr. Gaines returns to the office. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

He’d better if he knew what was good for him.

The officer coughed to cover his obvious discomfort. “Not likely, ma’am. Your boss was arrested an hour ago.” His smile was apologetic as he escorted her to the door.

Jack arrested? Too numb to argue, Angie allowed herself to be swept out the door. Shamus followed but stayed close. The bird paced the pavement, muttering obscenities as he watched the action on the other side of the window.

She dug in her purse for her cell phone. Despite what the officer had said about Jack being arrested, Angie tried to call him, praying there had been some sort of mix-up. After three attempts, each one going straight to voicemail, she blew out an exasperated breath and called Agent Shaw instead.

As soon as the call connected, Angie let loose with a string of expletives of her own. “What the hell, Shaw? Seriously? You had Jack arrested?”

The throbbing that had begun behind her eyes was working itself into a full-blown migraine. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Think, Angie, think.

What would Jack do? Probably drown his sorrows in a bottle of scotch before screwing the prettiest girl he could find in the strip club. Jack was predictable, if nothing else.

“Wait. What?” came the confused response, but she didn’t buy it, not for one second. How could she have ever trusted Agent Shaw to begin with? This was all her fault. The FBI, Jack’s arrest, everything.

She paced the sidewalk, seething at the unexpected turn of events and berating herself for being the catalyst of Jack’s destruction. Through the window she could see the two officers overturning furniture, rifling through cabinets, and dumping drawers. Clearly they were more interested in causing a mess than in finding whatever it was they sought. She couldn’t watch anymore, and turned away. “What do you think you’re going to find? I’ve already searched the entire office. You know that. There’s nothing here. No smoking gun, no . . . no nothing. He’s clean, Agent Shaw.”

“Slow down. Where are you?”

“Like you don’t know,” she hissed into the phone. “I’m at Jack’s office and the two goons you sent over are ransacking the place, searching for God only knows what. But I guess you already knew that, seeing as how you’re the one who requested the search warrant in the first place.”

She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder. Inside the office, the two men were huddled around Jack’s desk.

“Listen to me very carefully—” Agent Shaw began, but the rest of what the man said was lost on her as she stared in horror at the events unfolding within the office. Officer Onion-Breath dangled a gun from his gloved finger. He flashed a smug shit-eating grin her way as if to say, “See? I told you so.” The other officer fanned a stack of cash he’d presumably found. They snapped a picture of each item and dropped them into evidence bags.

Was this how Agent Shaw was planning to catch his suspect? Even as it was happening right in front of her eyes, her brain had trouble processing the information. She’d seriously misjudged him. “You told them to plant evidence? I knew you were ambitious, but this? This is downright heinous.”

“Angie! For the love of Pete, listen to me.”

“What?” she snapped back at the phone.

“Those aren’t my guys.” Agent Shaw’s voice took on a tone of urgency. “You need to leave. Right now!”

Being perp-walked into and through the police stati
on, for the second time in his life, wasn’t high on Jack’s to-do list. Some of the faces had changed, but the sights and sounds never would. Although this time, the openly curious stares from former friends and co-workers, with their false accusations and obvious disdain that bordered on disgust, didn’t bother him as much anymore. He’d already fallen from grace once. Even if the accusations against him had been fabricated from thin air, which they had, both then and now, irreparable harm had already been done to his reputation and career. And if he’d managed to survive a fall like that the first time, then, by damn, he could overcome it again.

The chorus of bloodthirsty reporters was new, though. “Is it true that you killed Edwin Doheny?” one reporter shouted as the doors to the station shut behind him. Someone had tipped them off, but thankfully, they weren’t much more than a nuisance, like an annoying Chihuahua nipping at his ankles.

The handcuffs shackling his wrists together bit painfully, and his sore ribs made breathing a challenge, though he’d never allow it to show on his face. He summoned up what little pride he had left and held his head high throughout the intake process. Fingerprinted, photographed, stripped of his belongings and searched, he’d finally been tossed into the empty drunk tank, a malodorous cell normally reserved for belligerent drunks sobering up. No doubt the arresting officers would take their sweet time getting around to interrogating him.

There was a bright side to being jailed and sequestered from the rest of the no-good criminal populace, though. With nothing but time on his hands to waste, he could catch up on some much needed sleep while he waited. Tucking an arm behind his head as a makeshift pillow, Jack reclined on the narrow bench. Without his hat to cover his face and block out the light, he draped his other arm over his eyes. It certainly wasn’t as swanky as the Hilton, or as comfortable as his own bed, but it would do. For now. But sleep never came. Instead, questions swirled around and around in his mind.

Who killed Edwin Doheny? He wasn’t a threat to anybody. Unless he talked.

Which he did.

To Jack.

He’d be willing to bet the anonymous benefactor who paid Doheny to lie about witnessing Trevor Santino’s murder had done the deed himself. It wouldn’t take much to pin it back on him seeing as how he was the last person to speak with Doheny. Hell, he’d even done half the work for him. What about Doheny’s brother? Edwin said he was serving twenty years on trumped-up charges. Why? Would he know who paid Edwin off?

Jack rolled over. Names swirled through his head as he pondered each suspect. Trevor’s former boss, the District Attorney, had plenty to gain by taking Trevor out, and plenty to lose if Edwin talked. On the other hand, Trevor’s father had enough money to move mountains if he wanted to and Trevor had been bad for his image. If Edwin ever leaked it to the press that Trevor’s own father had him killed? It would definitely signal the end to any lingering political career or clout.

But neither man had any former connection to Jack. Trevor’s death had been an accident, a case of mistaken identity. In the end, Jack knew it all came down to one irrefutable fact:
he
killed Trevor. It didn’t matter how, it didn’t matter why. He did, and now he was going to have to pay.

When he reviewed the events of his life with brutal honesty, it was clear where his life had gone off track. Being framed and fired for a crime he didn’t commit was the single event that had served as a catalyst for the trouble he found himself in now.

“Get up.”

Jack peered up at the two officers, Sweeny and Wallace, towering over him. He’d been so lost in thought he hadn’t heard them enter the cell. Had either of them been the one to frame him? Anything was possible, he supposed.

Sitting up took an act of God. His muscles had tightened up and now screamed in protest with every step he took. Escorted through the hallways, they led him to an interrogation room and took a seat. Officer Sweeny smiled. Wallace didn’t. Were they seriously going to try the old ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine on him?

“You know why you’re here, Jack?” Sweeny tented his fingers beneath his chin and waited for Jack’s answer.

He knew damn well what they were going to accuse him of. Innocent or not, it didn’t matter. The two men before him were clearly out for blood. His blood.

Jack leaned back in his chair and got comfortable. This was going to take a while. “Why don’t you go ahead and spell it out for me.”

Sweeny’s eyes narrowed to two little slits. He leaned across the table, his face only a couple inches away from Jack’s. “Why, you little—”

Before the officer could do anything stupid, Officer Wallace placed a hand on Sweeny’s shoulder. Always a hothead, the man was a pressure cooker waiting to explode.

Officer Wallace waited for Sweeny to take his seat again before continuing where the other officer had left off. His face was the epitome of calm professionalism as he opened the case file and flipped through the pages. “Talk to me about Edwin Doheny.”

Jack contemplated how to respond. In situations like these, most innocent men would tell the truth, assuming they had nothing to hide. Assuming the police weren’t as corrupt as the politicians they worked for. But this was Ellington Bay, after all. Besides, he’d tried the truth tactic once, and see how well that had turned out for him? He’d ended up with a bloody lip and a permanent black mark on his service record. Ousted from the job. Disgraced. Truth wasn’t rewarded around this town.