Keeper of the Peace (Graveyard Guardians #2) (21 page)

Maybe leaving the Reaper society wasn’t the
only thing changing for him. Maybe he had to change the kind of
person he was too.

Shit, now he was becoming some sort of goody
two-shoes.

After contemplating this for less than a
minute he decided that he would never be a good man, he just wasn’t
made that way.

CHAPTER

20

DAVID

Son of a bitch! His head felt like he’d been
hit with a fucking brick.

David moaned and attempted to open his eyes.
His lids lifted just enough to let in a sliver of light and spikes
of pain shot through his head.
Dammit, what the hell
happened
?”

Why couldn’t he move his arms
? He
jerked one arm and then the other, discovering that neither of them
could move. Shit, he was fucking tied up! With another jerk, he
realized that he wasn’t actually tied up, he was handcuffed to a
chair. They were probably his own damn cuffs, too. He shoved back
the pain and forced his eyes to open against light that hit him
like shards of glass.

The first thing he saw was Marcus and Aaron
sitting on a dirty, gold couch straight out of the seventies and
staring at him. Oh wait, he knew that couch. He let his eyes wander
further, taking in the surroundings.

Dark paneled walls, green shag carpet, ugly
ass couch full of cigarette burns, big gaudy lamps … yup, it was
his old house. It looked just like it did the day he left.

“Foster, this is one fucked up house.”
Marcus stood. “
Please
don’t tell me you actually live here.”
The Hispanic man towered over him at an intimidating, six foot
five. He had scars on his face and tattoos covering his neck and
arms. The bad ass look wasn’t merely for show either, he was
Julian’s top enforcer.

David had thought he was done with Julian
and his goons for good since he left L.A. He had been undercover,
on a case, trying to take down drug trafficking operation that had
a certain brand of meth spreading like fucking wildfire.

When he went into the operation, it took a
full year before he was trusted enough to meet the guy in charge of
the Los Angeles branch, Julian Hernandez. Julian was the very kind
of man you would imagine would be the leader of a drug trafficking
operation. He was rich, ruthless and worst of all, smart as
hell.

Julian was also who David was after. He
needed to nip it in the bud, take the ring out where it began. A
man who ran such a successful drug business wasn’t exactly easy to
get to though. He’d had to work his ass off to move up the
ranks.

Living undercover sucked big time, to put it
mildly. When you were forced to live a life that wasn’t yours,
there was basically no contact with those you knew outside the
operation, so any friends you made were on the inside. And, most of
the time, those people weren’t really your friends.

He had been one of Julian’s many delivery
boys. That’s what they called the guys who delivered the drugs,
picked up the money, and also took care of any loose ends that may
have complicated things. Yeah, delivery boys were the guys who
offed people and buried them in the backyard, the ones who cut off
fingers to make a point … shit like that. David thanked the powers
that be, every fucking day, that he never had to be the one to
perform any of those executions. Sure, he’d had to watch a few
times and that was more than enough to last a lifetime.

Going into the operation, David had been
terrified he would be forced to use drugs in order to maintain his
cover. His story was that he didn’t use the product he sold, that
it made people get sloppy and his work was never sloppy. Everyone
he worked with seemed to accept this, especially since he wasn’t
the only one who worked with Julian and didn’t use.

In any case, he’d thought he was done with
those people and that part of his life when Julian’s operation
disappeared and he left L.A. But, no, here he was with the delivery
boys, one of them being Julian’s number one enforcer, and he was
the one under the knife this time.

“Jesus, David, did you really think we’d
never find you?”

David sniffed defiantly, “I don’t know,
Marcus, you guys disappeared … dropped off the face of the fucking
earth. What was I supposed to do?”

Marcus narrowed his eyes and glared at
David. “You’re a cop.”

Since he wasn’t exactly in the best place to
be sarcastic, he just nodded. “Yes, you know I am. Now why the hell
are we in this dump and why am I cuffed to a chair?”

Aaron rose from the ugly couch and stalked
toward David, “Where the hell is Coop?”

David’s eyebrows shot up? “Coop? What does
he have to do with any of this?”

“Like you don’t fucking know,” Aaron
accused. “After Coop outed you, he took off and we haven’t seen him
since.”

“So,” David shrugged as best he could with
his hands restrained.

Marcus shook his head. “So … he also took
five hundred thousand dollars with him, you dumb fuck! Now where
the hell is he?” Marcus pulled his arm back and before David knew
what happened, his head rocked back as stars exploded behind his
eyes.

“Dammit!” David cursed. “What the fuck? I
don’t understand why I’m the one who is getting the shit beat out
of him. I don’t know where that asshole is.”

Aaron turned and strode away a few paces.
“See, that’s the problem. We don’t believe you.” He picked up a
broken photograph of his parents off shelf by the wall. “You and
Coop ended up gone at the same time, right after we found out you
were a fucking cop. So, no man, we don’t believe that this wasn’t
some sort plan from the beginning.”

David rolled his eyes and sighed. “You have
this whole thing fucked up. He is the one who wanted out, I told
him I’d help him and then he ratted
me
out to Julian. Why
the fuck would I help him. If it wasn’t for his dumb ass I’d
probably still be working my way up Julian’s ladder.”

Wham,
Marcus’ fist slammed into
David’s mouth.

His head cocked to the side as the large
man’s knuckles connected. He felt his lip split and the metallic
taste of blood flooded his mouth.

“Where. Is. He?” Marcus demanded.

David spat blood through his teeth. “I.
Don’t. Know.”

Aaron replaced the photo. “Listen, all you
have to do is tell us where Coop … and the money are, then we let
you go. Simple as that.”

With a laugh, David shook his head. “I’m not
fucking stupid, I know what you guys do to people. I’ve witnessed
that shit for myself. So, even if I knew where he was and told you,
I would still be a dead man.”

Making his way back to the couch, Aaron
flopped down onto it and the old piece of shit groaned under the
extra weight. “So tell us, Detective David Foster … what happened
between you and Coop?”

David didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to
talk to these mother fuckers. Jeez, they were beating the shit out
of him and now they wanted chit chat over tea and cucumber
sandwiches … fuck that.

Marcus rolled his eyes and set one foot on
the dusty, scratched up coffee table, still towering over David.
“You may as well talk. We have all the time in the world.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and then
decided it wouldn’t hurt anything. In reality, the longer he kept
them occupied, the longer it gave him time to think of a way to get
the hell away from them.

“Coop wanted out. So, I told him I could
help him and confessed to him my true identity.”

Aaron lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of
smoke up in the air. “Sounds so very super heroish.”

“If you want me to tell the story then shut
the fuck up, Aaron. Anyway, after he understood that I could help
him get away from Julian’s reign, he told me he would help me in
return, but the next thing I knew, he had outed me to Julian and
the entire operation was gone … basically wiped off the face of the
earth. Then, Coop was gone too. I never heard from any of you … or
Coop, ever again. Well, until now.

His eyes flicked back and forth between
Marcus and Aaron. “I actually thought that you guys had already
found him. That would have explained why he just disappeared.”

Marcus shook his head. “You see, David, I
would absolutely love to take your word for it. But, the problem is
that you are a liar … and a fucking good one, at that.” He casually
examined his fingernails. “You had us all believing that you were
one of us. We trusted you and took you in. Come to find out you
were a cop the entire time. Someone who lies that well is someone
you never believe.”

“I’m not lying!” David jerked forward in the
chair, pushing his wrists against the cuffs. “Take these fucking
things off me.”

Aaron stubbed his cigarette out on the dusty
coffee table, rose from the god awful couch and glanced at his
partner. “Looks like we’re going to be here for a while.”

“Not if he can tell us where we can find
Coop, and the money.”

“Dammit, Marcus!” David knew they were not
going to let him go. These were the kind of people who would kill
you before setting you free to tell the world about them. Which
left only one other option, he was going to have to try and fight
his way out of the place.

“Come on man, tell us. It’s best this way
because we’re going to find some very interesting ways to persuade
you into spilling it if you don’t tell us on your own.”

David tilted his face upward so that he
could look Marcus in the eye. “Fuck off.”

Wham

Marcus’s massive fist slammed into his
cheekbone. “You are one cocky little bastard. But, your tough as
hell too, I’ll give you that much.”

When Marcus lunged forward again, David did
the only thing he could possibly think of to defend himself. He
swung kicked out and his boot connected with Marcus’s balls. It
wasn’t a move he was proud of and normally he would never consider
hitting below the belt, but under the circumstances, it was all he
had.

“Mother fucker!” Marcus immediately doubled
over, clenching his legs together.

David took full advantage, the second his
foot had made contact, he stood, bringing the whole chair with him
and surged toward Aaron, who had drawn a .45 from the inside of his
jacket. He flew toward Aaron as if he were trying to take down a
brick wall.

Aaron, slow on the draw, had just raised his
weapon when David made contact. The gun flew into the air as both
men tumbled back down onto the couch. Aaron shoved David off of
him, which actually allowed David to get back on his feet instead
of falling over as intended.

David spun quickly, nailing Aaron in the
stomach with the chair leg. “Ugh! Shit!” Aaron grunted.

By this time, Marcus was back up. Turning,
David saw Marcus was even angrier than he had been before. “What
kind of pansy ass move is that? Nailing me in the nuts,” he
growled, grabbing David by the shirt and throwing him down so that
he fell to the floor on his side, still attached to the chair.

Aaron had retrieved his gun and aimed it at
David while Marcus stood over him, with his hands on his knees,
breathing hard.

Game over
, David thought. But then,
Hannah’s beautiful face crossed his mind and he imagined her
sitting in prison, surrounded by real murderers, drug users and
other fucked up people.
Stick with it Foster, you can survive
these guys.

Marcus reared back his leg and then swung it
heavily into David’s midsection. “You fucked up, bro. Fucked up,
bad.”

David grunted as he was forced to expel a
large breath. Marcus kicked again, and again, his boots bruising
flesh and breaking ribs. Eventually David grew numb to the pain and
darkness began to claim him. He was vaguely aware of the two
delivery boys dragging his chair upright, but then … he could last
no longer, his lids fluttered shut and the world went black.

CHAPTER

21

HANNAH

She didn’t get a chance to see any of her
family before they came to take her to see the judge. Hands cuffed
behind her back, two deputies led her through the station and out
to a cruiser. They put her in the back seat and whisked her away to
the courthouse.

Mr. Ainsworth was already waiting for her
when she entered the courtroom. The deputies escorted her to the
chairs behind a table where her lawyer sat, file open in front of
him. He nodded to her in greeting as she sat down awkwardly in the
seat beside him.

A numbness had crept into her since she’d
been arrested. She wanted to cry and at the same time she wanted to
scream out in frustration, but in the end, she kept silent. She did
the crime, so she couldn’t really claim to be innocent. However,
she wasn’t exactly guilty either.

A few minutes later, they rose and the judge
entered the room. The judge was an old man who had the look of a
man who had spent many years in the military. He sat behind the
bench, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, reading over the
paperwork on Hannah’s case.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, he
addressed Hannah. “Ms. Estmond, you are pleading self-defense?”

Standing, she nodded, “Yes, Your Honor, I
am.”

“Would you please explain what happened to
cause the death of one, Jeffery Myers.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Hannah answered and then
proceeded to spill the same story she’d told David. After she was
done, the Judge peered over his glasses at her and then glanced
back down at his papers.

“This case is going to be moving into a full
trial where all the evidence can be examined. For now, the bond is
set at two hundred thousand.” He pounded his gavel and rose, nodded
to the room and then exited out the special door just for the
judge.

At his words, Hannah’s heart sunk. It was so
much money, no one in her family could afford that. Not to mention,
if they did have that kind of money, she sure as hell didn’t want
them spending it on her.