Avenged (3 page)

AS CARLY DROVE
to work that night, she battled an icy fear creeping through her—that she would lose Nick in the line of duty.

But God was in control, right?

That’s what her mother reminded her of frequently. It was also a recurring message at church. However, one of the hardest things for Carly to face in her relatively new faith was the fact that bad things often happened to good people. When Jeff had run interference for her on Correa’s yacht before sacrificing his life, she’d found herself in this odd conundrum: his death left Elaine, a wonderful woman, a widow and single mother to three children. It should have been Carly who died that night. Yet Jeff never could have made the swim she
made. If she hadn’t jumped when she did, she would have died along with him and the killers most likely would have gotten away with several murders and major theft. Jeff’s sacrifice was the only way.

But why? They were both fighting bad guys.

God is in control.

“Ugh.” Carly slapped the steering wheel. Nick had been sleeping when she’d left home. He planned to be back to work at midnight. When she’d kissed his forehead before leaving, the memory of the night with Jeff had grabbed her by the throat. She thought she’d put the demons from that incident away, but now, as she worried about Nick, they came roaring back. Just because Nick was a good and honest Christian man didn’t mean he couldn’t be snatched from her in an instant. That thought scorched her mind and made her physically sick to her stomach.

When they’d been married the first time, neither one of them had been Christians.
And,
she thought with some bewilderment,
I never worried about him then as much as I do now.

Working to defuse the fear, she turned up the radio. It was a few minutes before she reached her destination. A light fog drifted about, and she wondered if it would get thicker throughout the night.

Andrea had asked to meet Carly before work for coffee at Half Baked and Almost Grounded. Even though she knew Andi just wanted gory details about the shooting, Carly was glad for the diversion. It was eight thirty and the shop closed
at nine thirty. Carly had to be to work by ten, and she never minded being early.

Carly smiled at Erika, who stood behind the counter. “Hey, glad to see you got the door fixed.” The door had been completely smashed with the vandalism from the other night.

“Ned and Londy were able to fix it. That’s why Jinx and I have the night shift.”

Just then, Jinx, Erika’s cousin, poked her head out from the kitchen. “Hi, Carly.”

“Hey, Jinx.”

Ned and Erika owned the shop, but it was truly a family effort. Erika was the queen of the kitchen, baking a lot herself but also employing great cooks for all aspects of the bakery/restaurant. Ned, her husband, did the least in terms of physical work, but he was by far the most inspiring man Carly had ever met. He’d been a Marine deployed in Iraq when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the vehicle he was driving. Ned lost his left hand and suffered a traumatic brain injury in the explosion. He’d been in a coma for three months and doctors said he’d never come out of it when all of a sudden he woke up.

Carly connected immediately with Erika when the woman shared the story of her husband’s struggle back from the catastrophic injury. He was far from 100 percent—there were issues with memory, concentration, and migraine headaches—but he was alive and working as hard as he could to get his life back. He never complained, instead doing as much as he could to help with the business.

“What will you have?” Erika asked.

“Just a large house blend.”

Erika handed her the coffee. She wouldn’t take Carly’s money; in fact, the shop was a well-known pop, a place any cop would get coffee for free. The policy also applied to servicemen in uniform. Carly put a five in the jar on the counter designated “Donations for the Wounded Warrior Project.” Nodding thanks, she took the coffee and joined Andrea.

Her friend, as usual, looked immaculate, even though Carly knew she’d just gotten off work. Her nurse’s scrubs were perfectly creased, looking as though she’d just put them on rather than worn them for an entire shift. Every shiny blonde hair was in place.

Carly self-consciously ran a hand through her unruly, thick hair as she sat. She had given up trying to figure out how Andrea did it. They’d been friends since they were kids. When Carly went through her divorce, Andi was there for her, and together they’d rented an apartment by the beach. Andi’s friendship had been a haven for Carly during the year she and Nick were apart.

“Hey, Andi, what’s up?”

“What’s up with you? Will the city be embroiled in a gang war, and will ace reporter Alex Trejo miss all the action?”

“Ah, you look a little too gleeful at the mention of a gang war.”

“Just channeling my sweetie, Alex. You know he’d love covering a story like this.” Alex, Andi’s current love interest, was the local police beat reporter and Carly’s former nemesis
turned friend. He’d also been a part of the investigation into the mayor’s murder and had helped Carly when Joe’s infant son had been kidnapped.

“Yeah, I do,” Carly said. “And to tell you the truth, I missed him this morning. How is he doing?”

“Chomping at the bit to get back to his newspaper crime beat. He’s gotten over the shock of his mom dying suddenly, but he hurts. And his dad is a basket case.” Andrea shrugged one shoulder and ran a finger around the rim of her cup. “The short answer is, he’s having a tough time. He was never close to his dad; there’s a lot of bad history there. But the man is so lost since his wife died that Alex can’t believe he’s the same father he grew up with.”

“Does he know when he’ll be back?”

“Maybe in a week.”

Carly told her about the shooting and how everyone thought it looked staged. “The thing is, two gangsters are dead. You know there’s going to be payback.”

Andi nodded. “And you’re worried about Nick.”

“Don’t remind me. Tell me about your day; get my mind off things.”

Her friend rolled her eyes but complied, filling Carly in on all the latest hospital happenings.

Carly sipped her coffee and listened while Andi talked. She sat facing the door, a habit from her rookie days when training officers drummed into her head the need to be aware of her surroundings and the people in them. It was Monday night, and the shop was virtually empty. There had been a
group of four college students at a table in the back when she walked in, but they left about the same time she settled in with Andi. She figured she and Andi would be the last people Erika kicked out.

The front door opened, and Carly looked that way from reflex. When she saw the man entering, Andrea’s voice faded into the background and every alarm bell in Carly’s head went off. His stride, the way he carried himself, said trouble, and Carly feared she was about to witness a robbery. She groped for her backpack and the security of the weapon inside.

Andrea stopped midsentence. “What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Andi started to turn but Carly stopped her.

“Don’t turn,” Carly hissed. Her backpack was in her lap, gun within reach, but she didn’t want to overreact by yanking it out. Without taking her eyes off the man, she told her friend, “Keep talking but get out your phone and call dispatch. Tell them to send a car here for a suspicious person.”

“Suspicious person? You look as though you see Freddy.” But Andrea did as Carly asked.

Carly kept her eyes on the man, calming a bit when he placed both hands flat on the counter. No gun. Eyes narrow, she studied him, feeling more relieved when she saw nothing to convince her he had a concealed weapon.

He wasn’t Freddy, but he was fresh out of prison—of that Carly was certain. Ex-cons had an air about them, and it was strongest right when they got out. Their posture, how they wore their hair, even how they dressed gave them away. It was
a by-product of the institutional lifestyle, where they were monitored and directed by someone else 24-7.

He wore a long-sleeved black shirt, buttoned up all the way, and black chinos with a sharp crease in them. His head was shaved, and dark, prison-style tattoos snaked up his neck from beneath the shirt collar toward an ear that looked half–chewed off. He’d given the dining area a once-over, so he knew Carly and Andrea were the only patrons inside.

Carly’s tension returned to full as she noticed Erika’s reaction to the man. Her expression and body language told Carly she was not happy to have him on the other side of the counter.

“They’re coming,” Andrea said. “Now will you tell me what is going on?”

Carly shook her head, straining to hear what was being said at the counter. But classical music was playing and Erika and the man were speaking in low tones. Then Erika stepped back, folded her arms, and waved a hand toward the door.

“You should go,” she said clearly and sharply.

The man stomped his foot and with a sweep of his hand knocked the donation can toward Erika, who had to step aside to keep from being struck. The clang of metal and coins hitting the floor brought Carly to her feet.

“That’s enough,” she said, sliding her backpack to Andrea, making a split-second gamble that the man was not armed and wanting her hands free.

Erika and the man both turned her way. In three quick steps, Carly was at the counter. “She asked you to leave.”

He looked at Carly with two of the darkest and coldest eyes she had ever seen. And now, close, with a full-on view, she could see that his face was a mess of divots and scars. Either he’d been in a car accident or he’d been in a lot of fights.

“This doesn’t concern you, sweet cheeks,” he said in a harsh, raspy voice, indicative of damaged vocal cords. He took a half step her way—to intimidate, she was sure. They were even in height, but he was a good forty pounds heavier than she was and solid, not fat.
Prison weight training.

Carly took the balanced stance that years of weaponless defense had taught her and refused to be intimidated. “It concerns me because I’m a police officer and you just committed vandalism bordering on assault.” Without taking her eyes from the man’s, she addressed Erika and sensed, rather than saw, that Jinx was watching from behind the kitchen door. “Do you want to file a complaint, Erika?”

“No, no,” she answered in a clipped, tight tone. “I just want him to leave.”

Carly wished she’d said yes but wasn’t going to argue with Erika. She shrugged and kept her own tone light. “Hear that? She said it again.” Carly pointed to the door. “Time to go.”

His whole body tensed, and a muscle jumped in his jaw. She knew he wasn’t going to comply, and because of that she was ready for his next move.

The man rocked back like he planned to leave, then pivoted to his left and swung his right hand toward Carly as if to sweep her away as he’d swept the can off the counter.

The hours she and Nick and Joe had practiced weaponless defense paid off. Carly simultaneously stepped back and reached up, catching his open hand and using his forward momentum to jerk him off-balance. With a quick twist of his wrist and hand, she spun him, turning him so she was behind him, bending his elbow and pushing up and in on the palm, increasing the tension in her hold until the muscles in his forearm were taut and he was on his tiptoes.

The guy was a knot of muscles, which only made it easier to control him because he had no flexibility. Pressure in a control hold applied the right way was all it took to successfully restrain someone.

The man cursed and struggled, but once Carly set the hold, he wasn’t going to get free without breaking his wrist. She planned to hold him until the on-duty unit arrived.

“I gave you a chance, pal. Now you’re under arrest for assaulting an officer.”

“Carly, please, no.” Erika leaned over the counter. “You don’t understand. This is a family matter. Just let him go.”

Carly frowned, tightened her grip, and looked at Erika. “You know this guy?”

She nodded. “Yes. He’s my brother-in-law. He’s Ned’s brother.”

“HE WAS IN PRISON
in Arizona. I didn’t know he’d been released.” Erika held her hand to her temple as she explained once the patrol unit arrived. “What a nasty surprise to see him here.”

The uniformed unit who’d responded to Andi’s call had taken Dean Barton, as Carly had learned his name was, outside to complete a field interview card. Carly wanted to ascertain the situation with Erika. Barton was quiet and compliant with the officers, but both Erika and Jinx were visibly upset.
And frightened,
Carly thought.

“I guess he expected something different from me and that made him angry,” Erika continued. “The last time I saw him, Ned was still in the hospital.” She shuddered as if that was an unpleasant memory.

“Why was he in prison?”

Erika gave a long-suffering sigh. “He’s a drug addict, and he was falsifying prescriptions. He beat up a druggist who didn’t believe his prescription, fled, stole a car, and led the entire Yuma police department on a chase.”

Jinx stepped forward. “His original sentence was ten years, so I’m surprised he’s out. It’s only been six. I know Ned hoped we’d be notified before he was released.”

“Yes.” Erika bit her bottom lip. “I have to call Ned. He needs to know his brother is free.” Something in her voice told Carly this news would not be the precursor to a happy family reunion.

“You’re afraid of him. Why don’t you press charges? I can arrest him for trying to hit me.”

Jinx and Erika exchanged looks. “It’s a long story,” Erika said after a minute. “Dean has always been the troublemaker in Ned’s family. When he was sent to prison, we thought we were free of him. I’m sorry he found us. We certainly didn’t leave him a forwarding address.”

“If you arrest him, he’ll blame us,” Jinx said.

“Yes, he will. And that will create more problems. If you can let that go—” Erika held Carly’s gaze—“Ned and I would both consider it a favor.”

Carly checked her watch. “Erika, I have to get to work. If Dean has any warrants, I’m going to arrest him. If not, I’m going to tell him he’s not welcome here and you need to look into a restraining order, okay?”

Erika’s face flooded with relief. “Thank you, Carly. Sorry this had to come up.”

Carly cocked her head toward Andi, who’d been listening to the conversation. She motioned that she was leaving the coffee shop, and Andi fell into step with her.

“That’s what I like about hanging out with you,” Andi said as they walked out the front door. “Never a dull moment.”

Carly just shook her head as Andi continued to her car. Dean Barton stood between Lopez and Flanagan, the afternoon unit who’d responded to the call.

Lopez stepped over to Carly and handed her a field interview card. “He’s clear. Says he got out of prison a month ago and just got to Las Playas today.”

Carly took the card. “No parole?”

“Apparently not,” Lopez said. “He says he was released without conditions, and there’s nothing on the computer to contradict.”

“Did you ask him what he was doing here?”

“Claims Erika and Ned are family. He was looking them up. Guy is covered with prison tats and muscled up. I’d sure hate it if he were part of my family.”

Nodding, Carly walked to the police car parked on Pine, where Barton stood, stiff with thinly disguised anger. “Mr. Barton?”

He turned his cold eyes her way but said nothing.

“You’re not welcome here—I think that’s obvious—so it’s a good idea if you stay away.”

“It’s a free country. I’m a free man.”

Carly fought the anger she felt, knowing it would get her nowhere if she let this guy provoke her. Voice level, tone light,
she said, “Yeah, and I’m the cop you tried to punch. The only reason I’m not taking you to jail right now is because Erika asked me not to.”

She paused to see if he’d react in any way, but he didn’t. “A word to the wise: unless you want to find yourself back in jail, stay away from here.”

She held his gaze. After a minute, he looked away.

“Can I go now?” he asked Flanagan.

Flanagan nodded and tossed him his wallet. Barton shoved the wallet into his front pants pocket and walked away. Carly’s gaze followed him as he crossed the street to where another man stood, leaning against a white van. She realized then that the second man had probably been watching the activity in front of the coffee shop. He was taller than Barton but not as thickly built. His face was covered in a dark beard. When Barton reached the van, they exchanged a few words; then Barton walked to the driver’s side and climbed in while the bearded man took the passenger’s seat.

The van was new, and as it pulled away, Carly saw the pale green of an out-of-state plate. She was able to read three letters, but the van disappeared around a corner before she saw the rest. In any event, she was too preoccupied with the men inside to dwell on the van. There was something familiar about the bearded man; but still disturbed by Dean Barton, she couldn’t remember if or where she’d seen him before.

She looked at the FI card in her hand and caught Flanagan as he was getting into the squad car. “He didn’t say where he was staying, did he?”

Flanagan shook his head. “Said he’d find a hotel since his family didn’t seem happy to see him.”

“Thanks.” Carly checked her watch. She needed to get going.

She tried to stop herself from obsessing about Barton. But he was evil—of that she was certain—and a wave of gooseflesh rippled down her arm as she hurried for her car.

•••

Joe was already there when Carly slid into the squad meeting a few minutes early. Taking a seat next to him, she exchanged hellos with him.

“I hear Crusher is hanging on,” he said.

“Yeah, Nick told me the good news when he got home,” she said, quickly filling Joe in on the fact that Crusher had been awake and talking in the ER. But her mind replayed only one thing: the confrontation with Dean Barton. The parolee had really gotten under her skin. He was trouble with a capital
T
. Would it be trouble for her or more trouble for Erika and Ned?

The meeting came to order, and Barrett read off the watch report.

“For starters, gangs will be in at midnight,” he said.

Carly partially tuned him out. She knew this from Nick. He was splitting the team: half would cruise the Ninja neighborhood and the other half the Playboyz. They wanted patrol officers to stop and interview any gang members they came across and to pay attention to any new graffiti.

Carly refocused when Peter Harris took Barrett’s spot and briefed everyone about the shooting.

“All three gang members were shot with a 9mm,” he said. This was new information for Carly. “As for Macias’s condition, he’s holding his own.” There were murmurs in the room with this information. Pete looked Carly’s way. “Good job with the quick first aid.”

Joe hooted in agreement and Carly felt her face get hot. Applause broke out, and she punched Joe in the shoulder.

When things calmed down, Pete continued. “Macias was talking initially, but not now. He’s still alive and in a drug-induced coma. We’re not posting an officer on his room because he’s in intensive care and monitored closely by hospital staff. Right now this looks like a gang hit, so that’s how we’re treating it. Everyone be safe out there.”

As the meeting broke up, Carly filled Joe’s ear with the tale of her confrontation with Dean Barton. “He really gave me the creeps. It was as if he had a neon sign over his head with
Danger
flashing in bright-red letters.”

“Maybe you should call Arizona and ask about him. If he made as big a splash with the PD as Erika said, a cop back there will remember and maybe give you some insight.”

“I plan on doing that at EOW.”

Carly was first up to drive. While Joe completed the vehicle inspection, Carly logged on to the computer to check out everything going on in the field. Barrett had bumped them up from beat duty to wild car status, which meant they were not tied down to a beat and could handle calls anywhere.
She figured he did that in case something went down with the gangs. She and Joe wouldn’t be assigned to anything that involved Nick if it could be helped. Department policy did not allow married officers to work together, especially if one outranked the other. While some officers thought the policy stupid, Carly reserved judgment. She loved Nick dearly but wondered whether she’d be distracted by worry for him if they were involved in a high-stress situation together. It was a question she was not ready to answer, so being a wild car suited her just fine.

Her musing was rudely interrupted and she had to shift gears quickly when their police radio screamed with emergency traffic.

“All available units, respond to One Marina Plaza for a 415 crowd, growing violent.”

There was trouble in the marina.

“Let’s go,” Joe said as he pulled his door closed. Carly hit the accelerator and burned rubber out of the lot after another black-and-white.

An afternoon sergeant keyed his mike to give specific instructions to responding units. Carly could hear yelling, glass breaking, and air horns blaring in the background. She braced herself for what they were rushing into.

When she and Joe screeched to a stop at what officers called the DMZ, a two-hundred-foot-wide buffer zone between the construction area and the protestors, a mini riot was boiling over. According to the judge’s ruling, the protestors weren’t supposed to encroach into the zone, but
apparently something had happened. It looked as though all of afternoon watch was facing off in the zone with about a hundred chanting protestors. Carly could hear them repeat a profanity over and over in remarkable unity. Basically they implied that the police were hassling them for no reason.

She and Joe immediately ran to a couple of officers who were struggling to arrest two troublemakers. Carly sneezed when the acrid smell of pepper spray hit her nose, and her eyes burned. She could hear an afternoon sergeant on his PA giving an order to disperse. By law, the order had to be given three times and audible to all in the area before the police could wade in and clear the area. She braced herself, wondering if this would be the night they’d don riot gear and clear the place out. Violence would provide the cause to act before the court case finished.

Once the two cursing, spitting protestors were cuffed and secured in a squad car, Joe grabbed his and Carly’s riot helmets from the trunk, and they joined a skirmish line with the other cops.

“Natives are restless,” Flanagan told them. “They know they’re likely to be evicted, and I think they want to go out with a bang.”

But even as Carly pulled the protective face shield down, the chanting was fading. The two who were going to jail had probably been the spark plugs, and now they were gone. There was debris on the ground, but as Carly dodged a bottle, she concluded that there was less flying through the air. And the sergeant didn’t give the audible, official order again.

A stubborn group of chanting, taunting protestors occupied their time and attention. Shoulder to shoulder, Carly and the other officers stepped forward in unison, moving the mass of people in front of them back across the DMZ. It was as delicate as it was forceful. Carly and the others held riot batons and worked to be as menacing as possible without being the aggressors. The objectors slowly complied and Carly could tell from their faces there was no fight left in them, but for form’s sake they moved slowly. After about forty minutes they were back in the park. Carly learned from Flanagan that the protestors and a private security officer had gotten into a screaming match that ended with the security guard being pelted with trash and debris. Security had responded with pepper spray.

Once the situation returned to an uneasy truce, the skirmish line held position for about twenty minutes before Sergeant Barrett released the afternoon guys from the scene and almost all of the graveyard units to their normal beats.

Relieved they hadn’t had to go into full riot mode, Carly took her helmet off and ran a hand through her damp hair. Her feet hurt and her back was plastered with sweat. Musing that riot control was just about the most unpleasant physical task patrol officers were called on to perform, Carly chalked a plus in the detective column. In the event she did decide to change, a detective assignment would mean she’d never have to face a riotous crowd again.

She and Joe stashed their riot gear in the trunk, and Carly was happy to return to the normalcy of patrol. But once they
were out of the marina and rolling through city streets, the atmosphere was heavier than it had been facing the mini riot.

“Things are tense,” Carly said when they pulled up to a loud music call on Ninth Street, the fringe of Ninja turf. Guys were out in yards, on porches, glaring.

The music was lowered as they made their way up the walk.

A hostile man met them at the door. “Where were you all when my homeys were smoked?”

This was the kind of contact that would never be positive, so both Joe and Carly said as little as possible and thanked him for turning the music down. He cursed them and slammed the door.

“This neighborhood is a powder keg,” Carly observed as they got back into the car.

When Joe just grunted, she cast a glance his way. “You’re awfully quiet tonight.”

He yawned. “I didn’t get much sleep. A.J. has a cold.”

“I thought you seemed distracted.” She pulled away from the curb as Joe punched in the call disposition on the computer.

Settling into patrol mode, eyes roaming, she acknowledged how comfortable she felt with Joe. Did she really want a change in this relationship even if the work itself had become tedious?

Trying not to think about the job in those terms, Carly concentrated on the world outside the patrol car. Traffic was moderate, and she watched each car passing the other way.

A priority-one call went out in another beat, and suddenly fear for Nick bubbled up again. She worked hard to steady her thoughts and focused in on a green sedan, catching the driver’s eyes as they came even, then passed. She saw him clearly enough to see his lips register “Oh no” and a curse.

“Joe!” She stomped on the brake and waited for traffic to clear so she could make a U-turn. “That’s Trey Porter; I know it. In the green sedan, and he’s splitting.”