The Wolf, page 14
“I owe you,” he said to Her as he stepped out from the house. Then he spoke more loudly, “You made it.”
Mayhem was characteristically cheerful, the male raising the boxes up like they were a trophy given in an obstacle course competition. “I got you cheese, pepperoni and cheese, and sausage, pepperoni, and cheese.”
“Did you also—”
The prisoner nodded over his shoulder. “I snagged a gallon of bottled water. It was the best I could do. It’s in the back—here, take these.”
Lucan accepted the stack of boxes, sandwiching them between his palmfuls of nine millimeter, feeling the warmth, smelling the melted cheese and the sauce.
“I’ll come back for the water—”
“I’ll bring in the—”
“No.”
Mayhem stopped in the process of opening the back. “Why not. You said you needed help.”
“Stay here,” Lucan snapped. “You’re not coming inside.”
He went into the house, put the food load down on the chipped countertop, and bolted back out.
“Forget it,” he said the second he stepped out. “Don’t even start.”
Mayhem was leaning against the hatchback, arms crossed over his chest, the gallon of water dangling from two fingers. And he wasn’t smiling.
“I’m not talking about it.” Lucan strode forward. “Gimme the water. I owe you. And that’s as far as we’re going.”
“You’ve got a problem, prisoner.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But whatever it is, it isn’t your business.”
“Sure as hell is. You told me to come out with food. You get caught with—whatever the hell is going on here, and I’m in on it.”
“No one knows you’re here.”
“No guarantee on that. You know the way shit is in the camp. There are few secrets, and those rare things that stay hidden will be used against you.”
“Then the less you know, the better, right?”
“No, in this case, the less backup you have—and the more danger I’m in.”
“I don’t need backup.”
“You needed pizzas. And what are you going to do for food tomorrow—”
“I’m going to get it myself. Time for you to go, Mayhem—”
“I know you brought that nurse here.” As Lucan narrowed his eyes, the other prisoner shook his head. “So one of two things is going on. You’re either fucking that female in the robes, or she’s treating someone for you. Since your request didn’t include a dozen red roses, I’m thinking it’s not about dating.”
Lucan leaned in and snatched the water. “Do yourself a favor and stop thinking about me and this house and all the shit that is not going on.”
“You asked me to come here.”
The “asshole” was implied in the tone.
“And now, I’m telling you to get the fuck out.”
For the first time, Mayhem’s eyes flashed with an aggression at odds with his generally yeah-cool-whatever personality.
“You don’t want to go this alone, wolven,” the male said in a low voice as he yanked the water back. “And I’m not talking about whatever the fuck is happening in this sieve of a house. I’m talking about the prison camp. We’re down to three hundred males and females, and the Executioner needs every one of us. You’re allowed to go to Caldwell and make the deals because he’s got you fucked hard if you don’t. That leeway doesn’t go on forever. You’re going to be missed unless someone covers for you, or were you planning on leaving here in less than an hour for check-in?”
“Fuck.” Lucan paced around. “I can’t go yet.”
“Then what are you doing about check-in.” When Lucan didn’t respond, Mayhem held out the plastic jug. “My price is I want to know what the hell is going on. The food and water are free.”
Lucan let his head fall back so he looked up at the shining stars. Then he leveled his stare once again. “Why the hell do you care?”
With a shrug, Mayhem replied, “I don’t have anything better to do. And I haven’t been allowed to watch TV for how long? Your drama is going to be my new favorite show.”
“This is not a fucking game.”
“Didn’t say it was. But I did say you need me and I quoted my price. What do the words cost you.”
Rio’s life, Lucan thought.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.
“Excuse me? I’m more like Lucifer.”
“No, you’re more like a toddler.” After a tense glare, Lucan grabbed the jug. “You’re not going down in the cellar. You stay on the first floor.”
As he turned away, Mayhem stuck right on his heel. “Where are your shoes?”
“Not on my feet.”
“I can see that.”
Opening the back door, the two of them stepped into the kitchen—
Mayhem stopped as his nostrils flared. And then he shook his head. “A human. This is about a fucking human?”
At that moment, the cellar door opened and Nadya, the nurse, pulled herself up the last step by the jamb.
Both Mayhem and Lucan jumped forward to help, but she batted them off. And after she caught her breath, she said the one thing Lucan didn’t want to hear.
“We must bring her in. She has had two blows to the head and she needs monitoring. I cannot stay here much longer and you are not going to know what to do for her if she has a seizure.”
Mayhem threw his hands up, went over to the pizza boxes, and flopped the top one open. As he bit into a slice, Lucan cursed.
And cursed some more.
* * *
José had just been leaving headquarters, having finished the write-up on the scene at that trap house, when his phone rang. And now he was not on the way home, but heading across town to the urban-most edge of the suburbs.
Home had been the plan, but not the vow. He knew better than to promise his wife anything off-duty related after all these years. It was a good rule of thumb, and one that he was not going to miss when it was no longer an operational imperative.
“Yeah, yeah, I see it.” He switched his cell to his other ear, the one that had always been better at its job. “It’s brick, right? Three stories—yeah, I’m just pulling in now. Yup, there you are.”
Parallel parking his unmarked in between a truck and a minivan, he got out and locked up. His headache, which had been a constant background noise for a good hour or two now, had mysteriously disappeared as soon as he’d answered the call from the captain. Who refused to be known as chief.
All things considered, it should have been the opposite way, he thought as he waited for a couple of cars to pass by. But focusing through discomfort was either a habit or a skill for him.
Either way, he’d refined it over time.
With the coast clear, he jogged across the two lanes. Or shuffled, was more like it.
“Captain,” he said as he lifted a hand.
Standing next to the entrance of an unremarkable brick apartment building, Captain Stanley Carmichael was dressed in plain clothes—which was to say that he was wearing a dark suit. His tie was unknotted, however, the blue strip of silk hanging loose. The man was also smoking, the cigarette between his teeth halfway done, two crushed stubs by his scuffed loafers.
“Thanks for coming, José,” was the exhausted greeting.
“Stan, what’s going on.”
As José came up the short concrete steps, he shoved his hands in his pockets, and thought about the many times they’d stood together and all the different contexts of the proximities: The two of them had gone through the academy at the same time, back a hundred and fifty million years ago. José hadn’t had a lot of patience for the political side of things, however; he’d been too interested in solving crimes. His buddy, on the other hand, had excelled at the palm pressing, but not in a fake way. Even as Stan had risen through the ranks, he’d still stayed plugged in at every level of the hierarchy, from the newbies to the rank-and-file cops to the mayor herself.
“I got a problem,” the captain said.
When the guy just looked off into the distance and continued to smoke, José leaned against the railing on the other side of the brick stoop.
There were times when questions were invasive, even if you’d been invited into the conversation, times when silence and collected breath were preparation for the hard stuff about to come.
“Okay,” Stan said, “let’s go in.”
The captain dropped the cigarette with a lot of tobacco still remaining before the filter. Crushing it with the tip of his loafer, he opened the outer door into an anteroom with mailboxes. Past that lineup of little squares, there was a second entry that was all glass, and Stan unlocked it with a code that he punched into a keypad.
The lobby on the far side had institutional carpeting, dreary wallpaper, and an elevator with a cockeyed “Out of Order” sign taped to its panels. The smell was a cross between Crock-Pot, fresh coffee, and fabric softener; not exactly nasty, but just a lot in the nose. And meanwhile, underfoot, the floor creaked like maybe it could have used a couple more support joists rising up from the basement.
It could have been any one of a thousand such buildings throughout the city. The state. The country.
As they went forward, the captain who refused to be called chief didn’t say a thing, and José was content to follow—because he wasn’t in a hurry to hear the story. He already knew the subject, even though he didn’t have the name yet, and he could guess the circumstances, even though he didn’t have the fact pattern.
The staircase had short-stop steps that were deeper than usual, and José bet a lot of people tripped on them because they weren’t the standard height and depth. At the top of the landing, the captain went left. Two apartments down, he stopped in front of a door that was no different from any of the others in the hallway. Out of habit, José looked left and right, noting all the doors with numbers that began with 2 because they were on the second floor, and whether there was anyone peeking out of a doorway at them, and if there were any unusual stains on the runner.
The captain took a nitrile glove out of his pocket, snapped it on, and slid a single-soldier key into the dead bolt face. With his forefinger and thumb, he turned the brass knob and then pushed.
The apartment on the far side was dark and stuffy, lit by an overhead fixture in the center of the main living area. As Stan went to take a step forward, José grabbed his arm—
“Stop.”
The other man froze like a statue. “What?”
José pointed to disruptions in the carpet. “Scuffs and blood. This is a potential crime scene, captain.”
There was a moment where Stan closed his eyes, and then he seemed to deflate. “You’re right.”
“We can’t go in without booties. Is there a body?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I called you.”
“Stan, come here.” José pulled the man back out into the hall, the apartment door shutting itself with the key still in the lock. “Talk to me. Who the hell lives here?”
“Rio Hernandez-Guerrero, she’s one of our undercovers. She was involved in two incidents last night. I put her on administrative duty pending assessment as per protocol, and she was supposed to come into HQ this morning. She never showed up, never checked in. We reached out to our sources downtown, no one’s seen her. Her car’s out front. Her cell phone’s been inactive. And she hasn’t been here—”
“Someone went through this apartment already?”
“Officer Tan from Internal Affairs did a welfare check at one. There was no response to his knocking, so he entered, turned the light on, and did a walk-through. We gained access because Rio’s old patrol partner still had a key and gave it to us.” The captain nodded over to the door. “Tan came back and checked at four again. Nothing. No one.”
“Okay.” José checked his watch even though he had an idea of the time. “And just to confirm, no one’s heard from her since you spoke to her last night?”
“No one. She said she was going to go get treated at the St. Francis ER. I have a buddy inside the hospital and he said no patient was registered under her undercover name or her real one. And none of our informants or undercover officers on the street have seen her or heard anything about her.”
“Family?”
“None in Caldwell. She’s got some distant cousins out of town, and they haven’t heard from her either.”
“Husband, boyfriend, roommate?”
“None that we’re aware of.”
“And she was reporting to who?”
“Me, basically. So I feel really fucking responsible for her.”
José gave the man’s shoulder a squeeze. “Stay here in the hall, Stan.”
The captain nodded. “I got a glove if you want it?”
“Yeah, sure.” José had nitrile gloves of his own in his inside pocket, along with booties, but he took what the captain offered because sometimes people needed to feel like they were helping. “Thanks.”
Gloved up, and with his street shoes covered, José entered the apartment. There was a short hall that led to an open area with a couch and TV, and a galley kitchen. The closed doors in the space were closets and maybe a half bath. Across the way, a sliding glass door let in the ambient light from the security fixtures outside of the building.
A body had been dragged across the carpet, the heel marks a twin track that was dotted with red spots.
He followed the trail to the open door of a bedroom. Inside, the windows were covered with blinds that were partially open, and in the twilight from the external source of illumination, he could see signs of a struggle on the mattress, the sheets and blankets on the floor, a pillow off-kilter by the headboard. Streaks on the fitted sheet also suggested blood.
This was bad.
José front and centered his phone and called up a familiar number out of his contacts. After two rings, a female voice answered.
“Kim, it’s me,” he said. “Yeah. Good. You? Great. Listen, I know you’re off tonight, but I need a little help at a scene—” He closed his eyes. “You’re the best. Let me give you the address.”
When he hung up, he just stared at the bed. He had heard of an officer by the name of Hernandez-Guerrero on the force, but he hadn’t known she was undercover. Which was the point, wasn’t it.
This had to be the woman Trey had talked about.
Shit.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The best memory Rio had of her younger brother, Luis, was from the afternoon they’d taken their grandfather’s fishing boat out onto Saranac Lake. They’d been twelve and ten, and she’d been in charge of the fifteen-horsepower, hand-crank Evinrude outboard motor that had been mounted on the stern. As they’d putted along, there had been a hypnotic quality to the way they’d rocked a course along the shore. She hadn’t been much for the worms and hooks and poles, but she’d liked being in charge, and Luis and the boat had been her own little kingdom for the time they had been alone.
When she’d finally cut the motor, she could remember clear as day the two of them out there in a calm bay, the subtle sway of the hollow tin hull and the sunshine on her head and shoulders and the bright blue sky over the dark evergreens like a dream.
She was back there now, in the boat, looking past the honey-colored wooden seat in the middle. Luis was at the bow with a line in the lake, his brown eyes fiercely trained on the bobber as if he were willing a smallmouth bass to bite. He had been a scrawny kid with a big mouth, the former a fact of the scale, the latter bluster to cover a tender heart and a worried nature.
If she had known what was coming, she would have been nicer to him that day. She would have been more careful with him, too.
He’d been less hearty than everyone had thought, and that had been at the root of everything that had followed.
Then again, she’d had to find a way to rationalize it all without blaming him. Right after the overdose, she’d tried on what it felt like to hate him, and she hadn’t been able to live with that.
As the boat continued to rock, her thoughts drifted into fragmentation, nothing sticking, not even the supercharged past—
“—scent? We need to mask it.”
“I shall take care of that.”
A man and a woman were talking, very close to her, and that was confusing because how the hell did that happen in the middle of a bay? Giving up on making sense of anything, she was relieved that she recognized the voices, especially the male one. And talk about smells. There was something earthy in her nose.
It wasn’t until she forced her lids to open that she realized they had closed, and as her eyes strained against a dense darkness, there wasn’t much to see—and not because her vision wasn’t working. It was so dim, only a weak glow of light up ahead orientating her.
Oh, and forget the boat stuff. She wasn’t on a lake; she was being carried, her legs bent over, and her torso braced on, someone’s strong arms, a long stride creating the back-and-forth motion.
“Luke?” Or at least, that’s what she tried to say. The name came out like a croak.
“It’s okay, we’re almost there,” he replied tersely.
In the back of her mind, she was aware that she was in deep trouble, and not just because she was an undercover cop going deeper into a drug supplier’s wherever: She had a feeling she was much more seriously injured than she could comprehend—which was what happened when your brain was the thing wounded most on your body.
As her lids weighed seven hundred pounds apiece, she let them slam back down again—and it was right about then that she became aware of an echoing to the footsteps around her, as if she’d been brought into an open area. The smell was different, too: Astringent with a hint of lemon bloomed in her nose. Which was better than the oppressive earth-stink before.
“Over there,” the female voice said. “The last one in the row, please.”
More rocking. Then she was gently put down, and something was pulled over her. After that, there was the sound of a match striking and then a sweet, woodsy scent.
