Jumping at Shadows (20 page)

It was a grim victory.

And now it was time to nail Victor Kroger.

Chapter Twelve

“
S
EVERAL
businesses remained closed today, and many local churches have canceled services as a result of the ice storm that fell last night and into the early morning. Hundreds of people are still without power as ice accumulation downed power lines. Breten City Electrical Management offices are currently working to restore power, but the fear is that the worst of the weather is still yet to come—”

The voice stopped abruptly as Eric cut the ignition. The dull gray edifice that had been Victor Kroger’s center of operations loomed in front of him. The three-story warehouse showed only darkened windows and chipped bricks, with the scattering of trash and debris lining the bottom edge bulging under the accumulation of ice that swept over it. David McKennon had spent the better part of a year inside those walls, though Eric had been inside only once, the day Victor had been arrested for extortion, blackmail, gambling, drugs, prostitution…. McKennon had done well at aligning the charges. Victor had stood tall and proud, his massive frame intimidating even as he was led away in cuffs, and the glare in his dark eyes had been aimed at McKennon throughout each step to the armored security vehicle that would take him to jail. Solely at McKennon, until the final step that would put him inside the bulletproof metal. That was when his glare had swung to Eric.

Eric remembered it clearly. He had been standing with the captain by the unmarked car they had brought to the site, behind a gathering of other police and crime personnel, watching the end of what had been a year-long investigation. He had been wearing jeans rather than an official uniform, with his leather bomber rather than the standard-issue coat. Maybe that was what had made him so visible, made it easy for Victor Kroger to spot him behind the crowd.

Less than a second had passed from the time Victor had turned his head until the moment his gaze had bored into Eric. There was no question that Victor knew who he was, none at all that he knew who had been behind the whole operation that led to this moment. Victor Kroger had recognized him instantly, though Eric had only seen Victor in footage.

His breath puffed out in a cloud of vapor as the air in the Jeep cooled, and Eric finally pushed the door open. Ice crunched under his feet as he stepped to the pavement, and the slamming of the door was loud in the stillness of the empty warehouse district. Thrusting his hands in his pockets, he moved to the rusted metal door that would lead into the abandoned warehouse. His right hand curled automatically around the grip of the 9mm he carried.

T
HE
phone continued to ring long after it should have been answered. T.J. shifted against the sink in the corner of the lab he was half perched on, absently twisting a sharpened pencil in his free hand. He had left Eric his Jeep specifically so he would have transportation if he needed it, although T.J. couldn’t think of a single reason that he would need to go out in this weather. Not this long after Eric had dropped him off, with more than enough time having passed for Eric to have made his accusations at the precinct, and the Captain to have sent him home—after reminding him of his ban from the premises. And Eric would have called had there been an emergency, either on his cell or through the switchboard, or via any number of people T.J. worked with who Eric knew would be able to reach him. Eric could have gone to the store, been at one of their neighbor’s houses, or left the house for any number of other legitimate reasons, but knowing that didn’t stop the knot that was forming in T.J.’s stomach.

The Jeep could handle the roads, but it couldn’t control the other drivers out there. The thought of Eric caught in an accident made his stomach twist sickeningly.

He breathed to calm the beat of his heart as he shifted again against the cold porcelain. Eric hadn’t answered his cell, and the home phone continued to ring in his ear.

T
HE
screech of metal echoed around the bay of the warehouse as Eric pulled the door open. It hadn’t been locked since the crime scene investigators had finished, and only a few remaining beer bottles and cigarette butts showed that the warehouse had been used at all since it had been abandoned yet again. The bay was an open area, with empty, decrepit offices lining the wall to the left and a metal staircase to the right that led up to the second floor. The far end was nothing more than sheet metal and concrete, with anything that could be stolen and sold having long since vanished. The windows on the bottom floor were few, and those present were caked with dirt and sludge, occasionally sporting broken glass.

Eric knew nothing would be found on this level, though, and he turned his eyes to the metal staircase leading up. It was an office on the second floor that Victor had used to organize his business dealings, the single staircase allowing limited access while being easy to guard. A fire escape from the second floor had been his designated escape route, though McKennon’s impressive work had ensured that route had been closed when it counted. Victor had been trapped beside the evidence that should have put him away. The bust had gone like clockwork.

Only to have the trial make the effort worthless.

Eric swallowed a sudden surge of anger. Rehashing the trial wasn’t why he was here.

Victor had kept the evidence of his crimes limited to the papers and computers he had housed in this warehouse, and every office in this place had been stripped bare by the evidence technicians; every corner, nook, and cranny scoured until they were sure that nothing was left of the activity that Victor had been engaged in, leaving the warehouse an empty, metal husk.

At least it was supposed to be. The clang of metal accompanied each step as Eric climbed to the second floor. The office that McKennon had identified as Victor’s center of operations was clearly evident, as it spanned most of the back wall. Still, only dim gray light made it through the crusty windows up here, and Eric had to pause to let his eyes adjust before it gave him enough visibility to move. There was nothing to trip over, though, the fabricated metal floor just as bare as the bay below. The only thing breaking the emptiness was the dark shape of the desk that was still present in the office, along with the chair that Victor had sat in when he ordered his crimes to commence. Why the technicians had left these and nothing else, Eric didn’t know, but that wasn’t his concern when he finally stepped into the dark shadows of the office. The wheels of the chair squeaked when Eric pulled it out, and leather groaned when Eric sat down.

The rest of the office was empty. No files, no boxes, no other furniture. The desk had no doubt been thoroughly searched and the drawers long since emptied. Every physical item related to Victor was gone, every secret compartment or hidden hole checked. Nothing had been missed.

Eric sighed as he tilted his head back, letting his eyes close as the chill air bounced off the metal walls.

The office was empty, but it wasn’t physical evidence he was after. If he was going to figure out what Victor was up to, he needed to put himself inside Victor’s head. Think like Victor thought, plan like Victor planned.

It was why he put himself in Victor’s place.

“I’
M
GOING
to call it a day after this,” T.J. said over the digital reading of the particle counter positioned in front of him. The numbers were good, but he wasn’t sure how concerned he would have been at the moment had they not been. He continued without looking up. “Eric has the Jeep, so I’ll check out one of the trucks and drive it back tomorrow.” He didn’t need permission to do either, but speaking out loud eased the nervous tension still twisting in his stomach. He had tried to call Eric again, but Eric hadn’t answered.

Rosalie Newman only nodded from her place behind him, and both looked up sharply when the bulky figure of Mark Barnes stepped into the lab. A general supervisor with nearly thirty years at Perlman, he was the one in charge of this lab and the direct liaison between the lab and higher management. But Mark stopped only a few steps through the door, and T.J. felt the knot in his stomach tighten when the wrinkled, pale-blue eyes landed squarely on him.

“T.J., you have a call up front.” He paused long enough to set his jaw even tighter. “It’s a Captain Benjamin Carroll from the Breten City Police Department.”

C
OLD
air may have been slipping beneath the leather of his jacket to chill his skin, but the heat in his groin was unmistakable as Eric stretched his legs in front of him. The creak of the chair was loud in the empty warehouse, and the roll of the wheels on the scuffed tile floor created a low hum as the chair was pushed back. Eric tilted his head against the seam of the leather as he slumped lower across the back of the chair, dragging his hands over his thighs, not quite touching the erection that pressed up against his jeans. He had come here to get closer to Victor, but the quiet stillness had somehow turned erotic, leading his thoughts, inevitably, to wander to T.J.

Envisioning T.J. in this position made him groan as his cock strained against his zipper, and the creak of the chair echoed off the walls as he imagined himself straddling his lover’s hips. The silent warehouse amplified the sounds of their imagined breathing as he pictured himself sinking onto T.J.’s cock, fucking himself on that solid heat in the cold emptiness of this office where Victor had set so many things into motion, where the year-long ordeal of catching him had ended, and where anyone who crept up the stairs would see them.

Sex in public places came with the danger of discovery, adding a level of excitement they both enjoyed in combination with the sheer carnal pleasure of sex itself. They had done it before, at least semipublicly, in places like the secluded cove in Key West, where they had made love in the wet sand as the ripples of waves washed over their skin. They did it in Vermont too, at a rest area on the way to a mountain resort and again at the resort itself, in the moonlight outside the lodge with the snow melting around them. They even did it in Breten City, in the alley behind the drug store with the lube they had just purchased, and in the trees along the trail around Orchard Park when the hour was late enough—or early enough—that it was absent of its usual delinquents. They had even done it once in an empty schoolyard, when a childish romp among the playground equipment had led to T.J. fucking him, long and slow, under the dome of the multi-colored jungle gym.

And they had done it in the back of his truck in the parking lot outside Sparklers last summer. Eric’s zipper was already down by the time the memory of that drunken night returned, and he slipped a hand under the waistband of his underwear to stroke up his length, remembering the feel of T.J.’s hand doing the same. Alcohol had made them particularly daring that night, and the screech of the chair as he pushed his hips up mimicked the bounce of the truck when T.J. had finally shoved inside him. T.J. had loved that night as much as he had; it was why he had wanted to keep that picture of them, the one that had caught them just as they had been getting started….

The picture that Victor Kroger had taken.

Ice suddenly raced through his veins, stalling his arousal and bringing his hips to stillness. A sliver of terrifying realization began to uncoil inside him, with a cutting certainty that softened the cock under his fingers. It wasn’t possible, he told himself, though his disbelief was losing the war against fact as the pieces began to fall bitterly into place.

“Those pictures included you as well as me,” Eric whispered, though T.J. wasn’t there to hear him. “But they didn’t bother you at all. The man outside the window, the car casing our house. You kept telling me I was seeing things, that they weren’t real.”

Sudden memories flitted through his mind, from their first meeting at the Main Street Pub eight years ago when Eric had accidentally jostled him at the crowded bar, to their first kiss the following night, at the end of their first date. He remembered how gorgeous T.J. had looked in the bar, how that gorgeousness hadn’t faded in daylight or in the absence of alcohol. He remembered the excitement when they had decided to move in together before the summer was over, picking a small, cheap apartment downtown rather than either of the houses they were renting. He remembered the sheer joy when they had used the money they had saved to make a down payment on their house, and the thrill of rightness when they had closed on the house they would share just as their second winter together was ending.

And he remembered the warmth and tenderness on his lover’s face when T.J. had asked him to marry him, and the determination of his promise that even though it wouldn’t be legal, their marriage would be just as real. It had been the anniversary of their first meeting, one year to the day from when an accidental stumble had brought them together, and it was in the same place where it had begun, in front of the entire Pub crowd. With his heart in his eyes and every emotion he felt written on his face, T.J. had proposed on bended knee.