The Best Goodbye (21 page)

It was DeCarlo. “They’re there. You’ll have to take them out.”

That was it. Nothing more. But I knew exactly what he was talking about. My last job wasn’t over yet.

It was dark as shit. I hated working in the dark. Times like this, I wondered what the hell I’d gotten myself into. I had craved danger and excitement. Something more than what I had. But was
this
really what I wanted?

Working with Captain had been cool. He wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. The man had compassion and knew when to draw a line and stand on one side of it.

Cope, however, was a fucking maniac. I swear, the dude killed for fun. He never acted like it affected him or like he regretted one moment. And this was the man I was supposed to get my marching orders from.

Fuck my life.

“Captain’s been alerted. This will end soon.” Cope’s voice came from the shadows. Dammit. He always came out of nowhere. Never could hear the son of a bitch. He was like a damn ninja.

“How’s it gonna go over? We locate them?” I asked, annoyed that he’d once again snuck up on me when I was actively attempting to be alert.

“Alexa has them on target. Captain will go to her and take them out.”

Captain had said he was done with killing. The fact that he had to come in because of an old job didn’t sit well with me. I wanted to know that when I walked away, I would be truly free.

“He ain’t working anymore,” I replied. “Why can’t we do it? Hell, I’ll do it.”

Cope lit a cigarette and shrugged as he stared out at the old house I’d been instructed to watch. “You’re right. But this is his problem. We tracked them and made sure he knew, because Benedetto takes care of his own. Captain might be out, but he’s still got blood on his hands for DeCarlo. We have his back, but he knows the kill is his responsibility.”

Seemed screwed-up to me. I still didn’t understand all the inner workings of this thing. What I did know was that DeCarlo wasn’t completely on the up and up. There was something else going on, other than offing men who deserved it. All I got was orders from Cope, and so far, I hadn’t been able to close a deal on my own.

“The girl you’re watching is who you need to focus on. We think she knows what we need. I’ll give you the details tomorrow. Tonight we end this for Cap.”

The job I was sent here for was getting more and more complicated. I wasn’t even sure what the details were yet. Just that there was a man we were searching for who had abducted a kid ten years ago and gotten away with it. I’d been told nothing more.

Cope reached for his phone and checked the screen. “He’s there. Alexa has armed him, and he’s going in. Let’s move that way in case he needs more backup,” Cope said, dropping the lit cigarette and stomping on it. He began moving toward the forest behind us.

“What about the house?” I asked, when I turned to follow him.

“Ain’t no one there of importance. Just needed you in a prime location, and I figured this would keep you busy,” he replied in a bored tone.

Fucker. He really was annoying as hell. I’d been out here watching this house for three hours and had about a million mosquito bites to show for it.

“When you planning on giving me more credit?” I asked, annoyed. Everyone was so scared of Cope, but he only killed those he was told to kill. He followed orders, same as everyone else.

“When you do the fucking job you’re given,” he replied, as he continued to move forward. “Now, shut the fuck up, and stop bitching like a woman. Focus. Cap might need us.”

I wanted to argue or at least call him a motherfucker, but I kept my mouth shut. I hadn’t actually been given a job that was easy. Being told to stalk my cousin’s sister was messed-up. Didn’t help that I’d already had my eyes on her before I signed on for all this shit. Nan was a hot piece of ass. But if she was fucking around with someone DeCarlo wanted, then she was in danger.

And I couldn’t even tell Mase about it if I wanted either of us to live.

After the most amazing morning of my life, I had woken up to Captain being distant and awkward. I hadn’t been expecting him to withdraw like that. When we were younger, we had become more attached every time we slept together. This experience was completely different.

His thoughts had been elsewhere. When he had given me an excuse that he had to get to work to deal with some things, his eyes said something else. I felt like I’d been given the brush-off. My stomach was twisted in a knot for the rest of the day.

Franny coming home had helped brighten things some. Having her talk about her day and hearing her laugh at her favorite television shows was a definite distraction. I didn’t have to work that night, and for that I was thankful. Facing Captain now seemed impossible.

I wasn’t sure what to say to him or even how to look at him. He had kissed me goodbye and said he’d call me soon. That was it. Then he’d just gotten out of here as fast as possible.

Franny’s constant talk about how much fun she’d had when he took her to school that morning didn’t help. When she finally stopped talking about him and started on her homework, I was relieved.

I focused on making dinner, even though I didn’t have an appetite. I hadn’t had one all day. There was no room in my stomach for anything but that knot he’d left there.

When Franny’s bedtime finally rolled around and I hadn’t even gotten a text from Captain, I was devastated. Smiling and tucking her in like my heart wasn’t slowly breaking open was hard, but I’d managed it.

It wasn’t until I knew she’d fallen asleep that I curled up on the sofa with my phone in my hand and let the first tear slowly fall. I knew he was busy, and I knew what his work was like, but I also knew that if he’d wanted to, he would have found a moment to at least text me something, anything. Anything at all would have been nice.

A knock at the door startled me, and I jumped up and wiped my eyes. Maybe it was Captain, and he’d come to see me and explain why he hadn’t called all day. I hurried over to the door and opened it, expecting Captain, but froze when an extremely tall and terrifying man, with the widest shoulders I’d ever seen, locked his cold, steel-blue eyes on me.

I gripped my phone tightly in my hand. I had no idea who this man was, but I had a feeling that I’d need the phone to dial 911. I wondered if I could do it fast enough.

“Stop hatching an escape plan. I’m not here to hurt you. Get your neighbor over there to watch your kid, and come with me. Captain needs you.”

What? I stared up at the man, wondering how he could be that attractive and scary as hell all at once. And how he knew about my neighbor and my kid.

“We need to go. Get your girl taken care of, and let’s move,” he said with authority.

“Excuse me, but who are you?” I asked, taking a step back, with my hand on the doorknob.

He sighed as if I was exhausting him. “Knew I should have sent Alexa,” he grumbled. Then, with an irritated glance, he pointed to the bedroom where Franny was sleeping. “Your daughter needs your neighbor to stay with her. I need to take you to the fucking hospital, because Captain had some bad shit go down tonight. When he wakes his ass up, he’s gonna want to see his woman. Now, would you please do as I tell you, and stop asking me a million damn questions?”

Two things I never wanted to hear in my life were “Captain” and “hospital” together in one sentence. Maybe it was stupidity, or maybe it was fear for Captain . . . or maybe I just couldn’t imagine that someone who wanted to harm me would talk to me like a disobedient child, but I pulled out my phone, keeping my eyes on the large man the whole time, and dialed Mrs. Baylor’s number.

“Better be your neighbor you’re calling,” he muttered.

Diana answered on the second ring. “Rose, you OK?”

“Yes, Mrs. Baylor, I’m fine. But I need to visit a friend who has been put in the hospital. Could you please come stay here with Franny? She’s already sleeping.”

I could see the relief on the man’s face as he nodded and walked back into the darkness to a black truck that I almost couldn’t see, even in the moonlight.

“Oh, my goodness. I hope everything is OK. I’ll be right there.”

“Thank you,” I replied before hanging up. I walked out onto the porch. “How do you know Captain?” I asked the man.

“Worked together.”

I couldn’t picture this man working in a restaurant of any kind, but then, Captain didn’t really fit into the industry himself, either. “At the restaurant here?” I asked, knowing that if he said yes, he was lying.

What sounded like a muffled chuckle came first. “Fuck no” was the only response I got before he climbed back into his truck.

Mrs. Baylor hurried across the yard and patted my back when she got up the porch steps. “I got her. You go see about your friend.”

I thanked her again with a hug and hurried down the steps to the truck—and a stranger I was choosing to trust completely.

•  •  •

Once I was in the truck, I buckled and turned to study the man already pulling out onto the road.

“Just because she looks harmless, that doesn’t mean she’s not a smart woman. Don’t think she didn’t take in the make and model of this truck and look at your license plate before we drove off. If I don’t come back, she’ll report you to the police.”

A very small, almost elusive smirk touched the corner of his mouth. “Good” was his only reply, before his face went back to complete neutrality. As odd as he was, that response was comforting.

“Could you tell me your name, please?” I asked.

He scowled. “Cope.”

Cope? Was that a name? “Cope like Copeland?” I asked.

“Cope like Cope” was his reply.

Well, OK, then. “Nice to meet you, Cope. I’m—”

“Addison Turner. You lived in River Kipling’s home as a foster child for four years. His mother was batshit crazy and abused you. I know everything about you, so save it.”

My mouth dropped open as I listened to this man sum up my whole past with River in four sentences. How did he know this? Was he really that close to River? “So Captain is really in the hospital? This is true?”

He nodded and kept scowling.

“He’s going to be OK, though?” I asked, my heart starting to beat faster and my fear clawing its way to the top. Although I had gotten into this truck, I wasn’t so sure he was being honest with me.

“Fuck yeah. Cap’s survived more than a flyaway bullet to the leg. He’ll be fine, but he’s gonna want you.”

Flyaway . . .
“What?”
I asked, grabbing the handle of the door as the word “bullet” sank in. Someone had shot him? How? Why? He was at work tonight.

“Reckon ain’t my shit to share with you. Cap will have to do that. But yeah, he’s gonna be fine. He’ll even get to keep his leg. Clean shot through.”

Keep his leg . . . clean shot through. Oh, dear God.

I didn’t say much more as I watched him drive in the direction of the hospital. A very large part of me was thinking I’d rather he had come to abduct me than escort me to the hospital where Captain was lying, shot up half to death.

When he pulled into the parking lot, I almost jumped out of the moving truck.

“Whoa, woman. Seriously, chill the fuck out. I’ll get you up there quick,” he barked at me when I started to open the door.

“I need to get to him,” I snapped back.

“And I’ll get you there. Jesus,” he grumbled, as he opened his truck door and I jumped down from my seat.

This guy had better hurry, or I was leaving him here and heading straight for the information desk. I didn’t have time for him to take his time.

“Room 345. Go on. I need coffee,” he said, as if he could read my mind.

I didn’t even turn back and look at him before I broke into a run.

Keeping my eyes open was fucking hard. The pain meds they had me on were intense. I’d felt the bullet tear through my leg when the jackass went down with one last pull of his trigger. My mind hadn’t been on the fact that my leg was shot though. All I’d cared about was that I was going to live. I wasn’t leaving Addy and Franny.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been shot, but it was the first time I didn’t want to die. I had something to live for now. That changed everything. I had killed two men tonight. Cope had taken out the third when I’d gone down with my leg.

This was my end to it. I had a family now, and this life was not what I wanted for them or for me.

“Addy is on her way up,” Alexa said, rising from her chair. “I’m gonna go find Cope and help him get some coffees. He had to deal with the police questioning, but he’s handled it, and they’re gone now.”

I couldn’t nod, because my head felt like it weighed a million tons. “Thanks,” I whispered. I didn’t want Addy walking in here with Alexa sitting by my bedside. She didn’t understand this world or what I had done.

I was going to have to come clean, though. If I’d died tonight, she wouldn’t have known why. They would have never explained it to her. My secret would have died with me. Addy needed to know. She deserved to know.

I had to trust that she loved me enough to forgive me for all I’d done.

Alexa walked to the door, then stopped and looked back at me. “She got into a truck with Cope, a guy she’d never met, just because he told her you were in the hospital. She took a chance with her life because she was so worried about you. And we both know how Cope looks. She’ll forgive anything.” She headed out the door without another word.

They all knew my past with Addy now. I’d had to clue them in, but Cope had already researched her and knew everything. He’d even known Rose was Addy before I had. Bastard was a fucking genius.

The door had only been closed a few moments when it opened up again, and Addy came into the room, her eyes wide and her face flushed, like she’d been running.

“River,” she said breathlessly. Then her hand covered her mouth, and she let out a small sob as she walked over to me slowly.

I wanted to get up and pull her into my arms, but I couldn’t move.

“Come here,” I said, using all my strength to lift my arm for her to come lie on my chest.

She didn’t pause before doing exactly what I wanted.

I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m OK,” I assured her.