Hotshot (4 page)

First, a college-age man wearing a Case Western backpack, his neck sliced so deep his spine notched through the coagulated blood.

Second, another male, head twisted at an awkward angle but the blood-smeared face still recognizable as the boy they’d been investigating. A machete pierced his hooded sweatshirt and into his bird-thin chest.

Don gripped the phone. His daughter wasn’t dead. Vince hadn’t been caught in the crossfire.

His pulse slowed enough that he figured he would live to see tomorrow. The ringing on the other end of the phone stopped.

“This is nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

FOUR

Shay had worked in an emergency room for three years before transferring to the community center’s small clinic. But no amount of trauma training would help the two lifeless bodies sprawled on the unforgiving cement. The murders—the violence and brutality—went beyond anything she’d seen.

She stood with Vince just outside the yellow crime scene tape surrounding the Dumpster. People in uniform ducked under the tape in a back-and-forth dance of the police, medical examiner, detectives.

The metallic smell of blood hung on the humid night air like heavy raindrops weeping for the dead. Someone had killed the college volunteer and the misguided kid who’d tried to rob her. She may have threatened to shoot Kevin during their standoff, but she hadn’t wanted him dead. If she’d disabled him with a shot to the leg, might the noise have run off whoever had been lying in wait? Or would that person have killed her father instead?

A quick check reassured her that Don stood safe and alive beside his Beemer with a detective.

The security guard spoke with a local detective while standing next to a trash can in case he vomited again. She and Vince gave their statements to a cop from a gang violence task force.

The steely eyed cop cradled his PDA in his hand, his name tag reading Officer L. Jaworski, a newbie who tended to stroke his club like some kind of touchstone for good luck. “Which entrance did you use?”

Vince stepped closer to her. “I entered the front door, followed him as far as the back, then returned to make sure Shay was all right.”

“Ma’am”—the policeman glanced up from typing notes into his PDA—“did you leave the doors unlocked?”

“No, I always lock all the doors the minute the center officially closes.”

“You’re certain?”

She struggled not to get defensive. These kids made fun of the young cop enough on their own without her showing even a hint of frustration with his bullish tactics. “Positive. Locks are like toys to these kids. Kevin could have easily jimmied the front door.”

Her eyes traveled back to the dead teen. No one had pulled the ugly machete from his chest. It seemed obscene to leave it there just for evidence photos, even if he was long past feeling pain. “We’ve had at least a dozen break-ins.”

The young cop nodded while notating. “He probably picked the front lock, then ran out of the back, which left that door unlocked as well. How well do you know the boy?”

She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, the late-night wind blowing in off Lake Erie for a chilly summer night. “I only met him once before—when he came in last week, asking for pain medication. Tonight he said he wanted drugs. His machete leads me to believe he must be a member of the Apocalypse gang.”

Jaworski eyed Kevin’s chest, the teen’s hoodie gaping wide to expose the wound and his Grim Reaper tattoo sliced down the middle. She pressed a hand to her throat and held back a shiver. She was a nurse, damn it.

Vince shrugged out of his leather jacket and draped it over her shoulders before she could argue. And she would have argued. Already his scent wrapped around her as firmly as the coat.

“It’s going to be okay, ma’am.” The policeman spoke with that universal “calming” tone she’d often used on hysterical patients, except she wasn’t anywhere near hysterical. “We can only speculate at this point, but if this boy was just after drugs, you’re safe now.”

She didn’t particularly appreciate the condescension, but she held her peace. She and Jaworski had butted heads in the past. Rumor had it he’d once been put on unpaid leave for beating down a kid.

Vince stepped closer to the cop, edging his shoulder between the man and Shay. “She’s not safe as long as she’s working here with persistent break-ins. Whoever did this moved fast and professionally, because I didn’t hear a thing go down, and believe me, I was listening.”

Jaworski bucked up territorially. “Maybe we should sign you on to the force.”

Vince smiled, even though negative vibes rolled off him in waves. “Never one of my top ten career choices as a teen.”

Suddenly Vince’s attitude became crystal clear. He’d had issues with authority back when she’d known him. He might look different, but perhaps he hadn’t changed that much on the inside.

He’d been arrested, resisted arrest, taken a billy club to the knee once so hard it sent him to the ground. Back then, there weren’t video cameras following cops around. There’d been fault on both sides. She should know. She’d been there.

Jaworski tapped in another note on his PDA before looking up. “I’m going to need everyone to come down to the station for fingerprinting to rule you out as suspects.”

The rasp of a long zipper cut the air as they sealed away the first body. She swallowed back bile just before the second rasp. “Do we ride with you for these prints, or are we free to take our own vehicles?”

Tapping his baton, the police officer seemed to be weighing the option of cramming Vince into the back of the cop cruiser just for the hell of it.

Vince eyed the crowd mixed with people in bathrobes and teens decked out with attitude. “If it’s just the same to you, we’d rather not leave the Beemer and the bike unattended in this neighborhood.”

“Well, pal—”

“Excuse me, but for the record, that’s Major.”

She blinked back her surprise. She hadn’t known he’d progressed so far up the ranks.

“Major, then.” Jaworski hitched his hands on his belt, just beside his service revolver. “Quit busting my chops. We’re doing the best we can with the manpower on hand. I would think you military types could understand what it’s like to be understaffed for fighting a war. And make no mistake about it, we’ve got a war on our hands here.”

Vince nodded curtly. The cop had been wise to speak Vince’s language.

Her father shouldered in, slipping right back into his role of easing the way for the teens he’d mentored. “I’m sorry, Officer. We’re all a little rattled here. Of course we’re glad to comply with whatever you need from us to find out who’s responsible for the death of these two young men.”

“Good.” The officer tucked his PDA inside his jacket. “You may drive your own vehicles, but we’ll be behind you.”

Jaworski eyed Vince a final time before loping away toward his patrol car.

Her father turned to Vince. “You’ve got Shay, right? I need to make some calls.”

She should have been used to his brusque ways after all these years, and on most days, she managed to let it roll right off her, how he had more time for others than his own family. She stared at his retreating back, mad as hell.

“Hey, Dad, I’m a thirty-three-year-old woman, and there are police all around. I’m fine on my own.” And she was just fine and dandy, thanks for asking, old man.

He pivoted on his loafers. “I’m glad you weren’t hurt,” he said with no emotion, no hug. “It’s probably best you don’t call your mother. I’ll tell her what she needs to know so she won’t be surprised if she reads something in the morning paper. Thanks, Vince, for looking after her.”

Her father pulled out his cell phone, his mind obviously already miles away as he turned back toward his Beemer.

Shay tugged her keys out of her paisley backpack. “Wow, the warm fuzzies are so thick I’m all atwitter,” she muttered, tugging off Vince’s jacket and passing it back to him. “Thanks for the loaner. I really do appreciate it.”

“
De nada
.” Nothing.

Not exactly nothing. Her dad had a jacket, too, and he hadn’t noticed her teeth chattering as fast as the click of the crime scene photographer’s camera. “It seems crazy to be cold in the summer. Must have been shock trying to grab hold of me.”

“You’re hanging in there better than the security guard.”

She checked on the old man happily taking a ride from the cop. By morning, their only guard would likely be applying for a job as a Wal-Mart greeter.

Shay hitched her backpack in place and started toward her car. “Vince, why are you really here?”

“I told you already.” He walked beside her, his face as unreadable as her father’s had been. “To catch up with your dad while he’s in town. He told me he would be here to offer input for you about starting up a Civil Air Patrol squadron.”

Something about his arrival still bothered her. Wouldn’t a guy taking some R & R from battle go on a real vacation to the beach or the mountains? A cruise, even.

Why was he hanging out at a run-down community center in Cleveland, Ohio? “I spend hours a week listening for nuances in people’s voices. I’m darn near a walking lie detector. There’s something going on between you and my dad.”

“I can assure you we are both heterosexuals.”

She ground her teeth. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

Key chain rattling in her hand, she thumbed the Unlock button. He body blocked her and stepped ahead, checking the front and backseat. “Pop your trunk.”

Even if he was helping, she still resented his steamroller attitude. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Pop the damn trunk,” he barked.

She startled back a step then braced. She wasn’t a needy teen anymore, willing to take whatever anyone dished out. “Do not speak to me that way.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face, then his bare head. “I apologize for my tone. It’s been a long, crappy day. I’m torqued off because one of those overworked cops still should have gotten here faster. I’m even more upset that two people are dead for no apparent reason.”

“Amen to that.” She thumbed open the trunk on her rust bucket of a car. Salted snowy roads had taken their toll on the Ford compact, but she couldn’t see spending money on something nicer when it could be jacked on any given day.

Vince clicked on a small flashlight on his key chain. He swept the beam through her trunk, illuminating her rolled-up sleeping bag, hiking boots and—her guilty pleasure—a sealed container of instant hot chocolate. A smile tugged at a corner of his mouth as his beam lingered on the cocoa.

Then,
snap
, he clicked the light off. “Get in your car. Lock the doors. And drive very, very carefully to the police station. I’ll be behind you all the way.”

Don spun the steering wheel on his way onto the highway, heading for the airport, listening to Paulina Wilson chew his hide over the cell phone. Lucky for him, years of combat time had rendered him an expert at numbing himself on command.

“Damn it, Don, you need to back down with all these orders. I’m already up to my ass in panicked calls from that California congressman, Mooney. You’re CIA, so you get the international problems.” Her husky tones went raspy with irritation. “I’m FBI, which makes this U.S.-based mess
my
jurisdiction.”

He knew the best way to sidetrack her when she got her professional panties in a twist. “So if we were in Paris, I would get to be on top.”

Silence vibrated through the airwaves while highway lamps strobed light through his windows. They both knew jockeying for top was one of their favorite sex games.

She cleared her throat. “Inappropriate, Don. Have you forgotten there were two dead people on your daughter’s doorstep? We’ve lost an important link to a terrorist plot.”

“Of course I haven’t forgotten a thing.” Another reason to appreciate that numbing habit he’d honed. “Like how my daughter is still walking around out there.”

“I’ve added a higher security detail trailing her.”

Not the answer he wanted. “Tell that to the dead kid. A lot can happen in a few days. Vince will be tied up with his team giving the telecomm briefing, and I’ll be in D.C., which is a helluva long way to watch her back.” He’d almost lost his daughter once, the only thing to ever break his control. “She needs to know to be extra careful.”

“Even assuming she’s completely innocent, she
needs
to act natural so as not to set off any alarms that would put her in more danger.” Paulina spoke slowly but firmly. “Bottom line, Don, it’s not your call. She’s already getting special consideration because I pulled strings for you. Think like an agent, not her father. You’ll only make things worse for her if you deviate from the path we both know is the safest.”

He took his frustration down a notch. He didn’t have any choice but to keep silent. Best to move past it and hope his daughter wouldn’t hate him even more when she found out.

Three exhales later, he’d shifted gears in his mind as well as on the Beemer. His brain filled with thoughts of seeing Paulina at the airport. After work they would race to her apartment. There was no love between them, not even like, because that would entail getting to know each other. They enjoyed something more in line with mutual respect and sex.

And sex offered the perfect way out of this discussion. “What would you like as payback for all this special consideration you’re giving me?”

She laughed, but with an edge that relayed clearly she hadn’t forgotten a word of their argument. “I think it’s more a matter of what else I can do for you, lover.”