Skin Deep (19 page)

Parker looked up as Kellan came to a clumsy stop a few feet away. “Hey, man. You okay?”

“I…” Kellan shook off the question, because answering it with a yes would make him an epic fucking liar. “How is he?”

Although the other paramedic didn’t slow her compressions, Drake gave up a tight shake of his head. “No vitals. Gates found him in a hall closet. Looks like they were cooking meth in the kitchen, and somehow the chemicals ignited. He must’ve been trying to hide from the fire until you guys showed up. I did all I could, but that smoke is pretty toxic. Once you breathe enough of it in…”

“Yeah,” Kellan said, already in motion. “Thanks, Drake.”

No emotions. Just what’s in front of you. Go
.

Pushing past the adrenaline-fueled shake of his legs, he cut a straight path to Engine Seventeen. The details were far too tidy to be accidental, the victims too connected to him and Isabella and last night’s party to be a coincidence. Angel and Danny Marcus were both dead.

Which meant Isabella was in danger of being next.

Although it took all of his waning strength, he crammed the thought down long enough to haul himself into the back of the engine and grab his cell phone from the storage compartment behind the operator’s seat. His fingers jerked in broken motions over the screen, but somehow, he managed to pull up Moreno’s number and hit “send.”

Come on, sweetheart
. Kellan’s pulse slammed against his eardrums.
Answer the phone. Be okay. Answer the—

“Moreno.”

Relief hit him in a hot wave. “Isabella? It’s Kellan.”

“Walker?” She sounded odd, her voice laced tight with surprise and a tone he’d never heard her use and didn’t recognize. “Oh God, are you safe?”

Wait, how could she already know about the fire? “Yeah, are you?”

“Yes, I’m…” Isabella broke off in confusion. “Angel never showed, Kellan. DuPree’s got her.”

Dread leaked through his limbs, but still he said, “I know.”

“What? How?”

As much as Kellan knew he needed to tell her what had happened, he couldn’t deliver the news over the phone. “I’m at a fire scene in North Point. How fast can you get here?”

I
sabella didn’t even wait
for her Mustang to make a full stop behind the cluster of lights-flashing emergency vehicles before throwing the car into
park
and flinging the driver’s side door wide on its hinges. Her boots flew over the pavement, temples pounding from all the thoughts trying to wedge their way into her over-crowded brain, but she swiped them out of the way in favor of the only one that mattered.

She needed to find Walker.

“Excuse me.” Station Seventeen’s rookie—Smith? No, Slater—stepped into her path over the weed-infested sidewalk. “Ma’am? I’m sorry, but you can’t—”

Isabella didn’t even slow by a fraction. Thrusting her badge over her head, she half-hollered, “RPD,” continuing over the concrete and crab grass. She searched wildly for Kellan, the tang of smoke strong enough to leave a bitter taste in her mouth as her breath moved in and out. The small clapboard house in front of her was no longer on fire, but from the look of things, the status change was recent. First responders milled around the front yard, some returning hoses and equipment to the half-dozen emergency vehicles lining the block, some moving into and around the house, probably to make sure the fire stayed out. Isabella looked at every face, her eyes darting over the names emblazoned in reflective letters across the back of every coat, and for the love of all things sacred and holy, where the hell—

“Walker!” Isabella’s heart slammed into her sternum as she caught sight of him by the side yard, away from the throng of other first responders. He stared at the scene, his bright red suspenders locked in a tight line over equally tight-looking muscles, and sweet Jesus. He looked awful.

“Isabella.” Relief flared over his soot-streaked face, although the emotion lasted less than a second. His dark hair stuck up in a thousand directions as if he’d been tugging on it without mercy, and his T-shirt and turnout gear were covered in heavy layers of sweat and grime. But none of those things froze her to the grass in panic and fear.

It was the look in his eyes that did that, pinning her into place with the sort of bone-deep sadness that felt like it went on forever, and oh. Oh God.

“Tell me,” she blurted, closing the rest of the space between them with a handful of brisk strides. Kellan’s hands found her shoulders as he swept a gaze over her from head to toe, and she reached up to curl her fingers over his. “I’m fine, Kellan.
Please
just tell me what the hell is going on.”

“How do you know DuPree had Angel this morning? Do you have proof?”

“N-no.” She shook her head, trying to process the question. “Someone working with DuPree called me this morning after Angel didn’t show. Somehow he found out I’m a cop, and he knew she’d agreed to meet me, but…”

Realization clicked like a row of dominoes falling one right into the other, sending a hard shot of fear through her blood like ice water.

DuPree didn’t have Angel. She was here. Inside.

Dead
.

Isabella felt herself lunge toward the house only after her legs had started to go, but she barely made it three steps before Kellan moved in to stop her.

His arms hooked around her shoulders, her waist. “Easy, Isabella. Hold on for a second.” His grip was tight enough to be unforgiving, but she struggled against it anyway.

This wasn’t happening. Not again. Isabella had promised. She’d
promised
.

Panic seized her lungs, turning her breath to sand. “I need…you have to let me…”

“The fire’s barely out. You can’t go inside,” Kellan said, his mouth somewhere by her left ear, but no, no, no, she had to help Angel. She had to get into that goddamned
house
.

With another push, she struggled against the vise-like hold keeping her grounded. Kellan shocked her by letting go of her shoulders, then shocked her even harder by staying in her path and cupping her face between both palms to keep her from running.

“Isabella,
stop
.”

Her chest hitched at an unnatural pace, hot, traitorous tears burning beneath her eyelids. “Angel is in there, isn’t she? DuPree killed her.”

“Isabella…”

She gripped the sleeves of his T-shirt so hard, her knuckles ached. “Yes or no! Walker, I need to hear you say it.”

“I’m so sorry,” Kellan said, sadness scraping over the words like sandpaper. “We did everything we possibly could, but yes. Both Angel and Danny Marcus died in this house fire.”

Oh. God
. “Danny Marcus is dead too?” Isabella’s knees buckled.

But Kellan stepped in closer to steady her. “Yes.”

For a second, she couldn’t speak or think or breathe. Angel had trusted her. She’d promised the woman safety, and instead, Angel was dead.

Just like Marisol
.

Isabella closed her eyes and fought the urge to be sick. She had to focus. She was standing in front of a crime scene, and it needed to be processed. If she could get inside, if she could just find one sliver of evidence linking DuPree to this fire, if she could figure out a way to trace the phone call she’d received, then maybe she could fix this. She had to fix this. She had to shut out the pain and work.

“Isabella.”

Although her name was little more than a whisper on Kellan’s lips, it cracked her wide open, and she sagged against him. Angel was dead. DuPree had murdered her. Isabella couldn’t fix this.

But she knew someone who could.

Pulling back from Kellan’s sturdy embrace, she slid her cell phone from the back pocket of her jeans. Her fingers flew over the screen, her heart racing along with them as she pressed the phone to her ear.

“Come on. Come on, come on, come on,” Isabella murmured, her heart catching in her throat when the call connected after the second ring.

“Hey, it’s me. I need you down in North Point, right now. It’s urgent.”

The next fifteen minutes were some of the longest of her life. She had questions—Christ, no less than a thousand of them—but despite the spinning in her brain and the pressure crushing her chest, she stood still and waited and remembered how to breathe. Kellan stood beside her, not saying anything but not budging either, until finally, a voice sounded off from behind her, low and serious.

“Would you like to tell me what the hell is going on here?”

Isabella turned to meet the unreadable expression Sinclair had paired with the demand, unsure whether to feel relieved or filled to the brim with dread. “Julian DuPree murdered two people here this morning. I don’t know if I can prove it, but I’m absolutely sure he’s responsible.”

With a deep breath, Isabella told her boss what she’d uncovered, from the intel Carmen had given her last week to the deal she’d struck with Danny Marcus in the park. Things got a little dicey when she got to the party she and Kellan had crashed off the books, but despite the steel-gray glint in his stare, Sinclair listened silently until she finished.

“Is that everything?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Yes. Look, I know you’re mad”—the glint in his eyes simmered darker, and she amended her statement—“furious. But Angel is dead. DuPree has to be stopped.”

Sinclair stepped in, his eyes moving from Isabella to Kellan, who still stood beside her on the front lawn of the fire-eaten house.

“Talk to me about this scene. Are there any signs of foul play?” he asked, and Isabella’s stomach pitched at the full ten seconds Kellan took before responding.

He swept a long gaze over the house before turning to look at Sinclair. “Best we can tell right now is that the fire started in the kitchen, where there’s evidence of a pretty big meth lab. It looks like someone got careless with the chemicals and the heat, which sparked an explosion that made the flames spread rapidly. Angel and Marcus appear to have been hiding to stay away from the fire, but the smoke inside the house was highly toxic. We did everything in our power to try and revive them both, but neither one made it.”

“Wait.” Isabella blinked. Processed. And came up with a big, fat
oh hell no
. “Are you saying these deaths look like an accident?”

“This fire hasn’t even been officially out for more than thirty minutes,” Kellan said slowly. “I can only tell you what things look like right this second, but the fire marshal will have to put all the pieces together to give you anything concrete. If he can even find anything in that mess.”

Deep inside Isabella’s chest, something snapped. “I don’t give a shit what this
looks like
! This fire, these”—her throat knotted, turning her words high-pitched and wobbly—“deaths, they aren’t an accident. DuPree is behind this, Kellan. These are
killings
. Angel and Marcus were
murdered
, and DuPree is responsible.”

She sucked in a breath to keep arguing, but Kellan’s next words stunned her into silence.

“I know, Isabella.”

“Y-you believe me?” she asked.

“Of course I do.” His expression went pale and grim as he shifted his stony blue gaze from her to Sinclair. “I’m just not sure you’re going to find enough evidence to prove it.”

Oh, yes she would. Isabella didn’t care if she had to comb every inch of this scene and not eat, sleep, or stop until she had DuPree dead to rights.

Just as long as Sinclair opened an official investigation.

“Sam,” she started, but he cut her off with a lift of one hand.

“All I need is a yes or no. Do you believe DuPree is behind this, and that he either killed these two people or was directly involved in their deaths?”

Isabella’s heart pounded, but she stabbed her boots into the unkempt grass and stood tall, sparing only the briefest of glances toward the scorched clapboard and the smashed-out windows on the house before saying, “Yes. I’m absolutely certain.”

“Okay.” Sinclair’s face showed no emotion even though his single word had just filled her with too many of them to count. “Let’s go talk to your Captain, Walker. I’m going to need a very detailed walk-through of everything your people saw today. As of right now, this is no longer a fire scene. It’s a potential crime scene. And I’m in charge of the investigation.”

I
sabella sat
in the chair across from Sinclair’s desk, her temples throbbing and her heart full of holes. Sam had been painfully quiet during the course of the three hours they’d spent at the house on Oakmont. Not that he was an overly chatty guy otherwise—in fact, Isabella would swear he’d emerged from the womb with his poker face fully intact and nailed into place. But he’d been one hundred percent business as they’d worked the scene, then dead silent after they’d reached the Thirty-Third. The fifteen minutes they’d been sitting across from each other as he wordlessly read and re-read the notes she’d kept on everything she’d discovered over the last week and a half had quickly become torture, and she’d had to bite her lip to bleeding to keep herself quiet.

Isabella might have plenty to say, but Sinclair still hadn’t made the call to officially open this case. Hell, he hadn’t even called in the rest of their team to help with gathering and examining the facts so he could run them up the chain of command. And she could not, under any circumstances, risk even the tiniest chance that he wouldn’t do either.

They had to catch DuPree. She had to work. Because if she didn’t work, she’d think about Angel. Angel, whose body was at the morgue at Remington Hospital. Angel, who was supposed to have met Isabella for breakfast, but instead she’d been trapped inside a burning building, terrified and alone. Angel, who she’d sworn to protect.

On second thought, screw biting her tongue. Julian DuPree needed to go down for this. Hard and fast and right goddamn now.

“How quickly can we get Peterson to okay an investigation and order search warrants for the penthouse at the Metropolitan?” Isabella asked. The surveillance equipment alone had to hold a gold mine of guilty-as-charged.

Sinclair fixed her with an unreadable blue-gray stare. “We need to rewind a little here, Moreno. I’m not calling anybody just yet.”

All the emotion from the morning—fuck, from the whole week and a half since Kellan had found those photographs—surged past the tipping point, and something hot and without a name exploded in her chest.

“You cannot be
serious
,” Isabella cut out, her spine going ramrod straight against the office chair behind her. “Julian DuPree is a psychopath who has forced God knows how many women into prostitution by keeping them locked up and stringing them out on heroin. He gets off on watching from behind the scenes as these women are violated five and six times a night, and he murdered two people—that we know of—in cold blood!”

Sinclair matched Isabella’s fire with a whole lot of ice. “Actually, I’m
very
serious. And so are the actions you took to pursue this guy off the books when I told you in no uncertain terms to back the hell off.”

And there’s the rub
. “Look, I know I took some liberties with regard to this case—”

“Liberties?” He let go of the word as if it tasted rotten. “You ignored my orders. The chain of command doesn’t exist for you to piss on it, Moreno.”

A ripple of warning traveled the length of Isabella’s spine. Yeah, she’d known Sinclair was going to be shit-slinging mad that she’d taken matters into her own hands. She just hadn’t thought he’d be completely unreasonable on top of it.

DuPree was insidious. He had to be stopped. Period.

“There’s no way these deaths were an accident,” Isabella said, diving right in to round two. “Somehow DuPree found out I’m a cop, and he connected the dots from the video footage from the penthouse to put me with both Marcus and Angel. Then he killed them to keep them quiet.”

“Or they were cooking meth and accidentally sparked a fire, then died from smoke inhalation before they could be rescued by the RFD. There’s evidence that points in both directions here.”

Sinclair’s words were quiet and far from an argument, but Isabella’s nerves were beyond frayed, her composure completely shattered.

“You’re really not going to have Peterson open a case after you just spent three hours walking that scene with me and half the freaking fire department?” Her voice came out unnaturally shrill, but she was so far past caring. “What was the point in even asking me if I was sure these are murders if you weren’t going to
act
?”