The Wolf, page 26
Looking over her shoulder, she cut Luke’s protest off. “I know the drugs. I sell them. When was the last time you were picking between bales of white powder and knowing the difference between coke and heroin? You’re a negotiator, not a processor, right?”
“It’s not that hard,” he said remotely. “One lick and I know the difference.”
“Do you know how to test it? Do you know what to do with the pure stuff?”
He opened his mouth. Shut it. Opened it again.
“Let’s get this done and over with,” she said. “You told me that it was quiet during the day. We just killed the two guards outside, and the head of it all. No one knows we’re up here right now. Things will never be safer.”
Luke’s eyes burned—but not from anger. It was from something else, something she wasn’t sure she could handle right now. Or maybe at all.
“Rio, it’s an unnecessary risk—”
Apex spoke up. “To who? Not to me. Not to fucking Kane. It’s not unnecessary at all. And she’s right, we don’t handle drugs. We’re not part of the workers, and never have been. What the hell do we know?”
“Do you want to die here, Rio?” Luke demanded as he ignored the other man. “You want this to be how it ends for you?”
“Oh, absolutely,” she snapped. “That’s why I let that man murder me about fifteen minutes ago. Instead of shooting him in the heart. Twice.”
There was a tense standoff. And then Luke broke away and walked around like there was so much anger flowing through his veins, he had to either move or explode.
When he stopped short, she had no idea what was going to come out of his mouth.
“Fine, but I’m taking her down.” He jabbed a finger at Apex. “You’re too involved.”
“And you’ve bonded with her,” the other man snapped. “So who’s the problem here?”
Luke marched right over to the guy. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Bonded? Rio thought.
Before a brawl got started—because, yeah, that was going to be so helpful—she double-checked the clip in her gun and walked over to the door out to the hall.
“What’s the combination to this keypad?”
Mayhem, who’d been totally quiet, joined her. “I got it.”
He put in a pattern and the lock shifted—
“Will you let me get armed first?” Luke bitched.
“We’re leaving now,” Rio announced as she opened things and stepped out—
Oh… God.
The man she’d shot had been spear-mounted on the wall, sharp pegs stabbed through the back of his throat as well as in various places down his torso, his body weight suspended off the floor.
“You wanted to do this,” Luke said to her in a low voice.
She looked at him. “No, I have to do this.”
“You don’t even know Kane.”
“This is about my brother,” she blurted. “I was forced to learn a helluva lot of things I didn’t want to while trying to deal with his overdose. At least now, I can put some of the knowledge to good use. Let’s go.”
Rio walked off in a daze, her past tangling with the present—but she had to snap out of all that. Which, as Luke had pointed out, was the survivor thing, wasn’t it: Stay focused, stay sharp, stay in the here-and-now. It helped you not get shot.
Besides, when she’d been escorted down here by that guard, she’d had that crushing headache and all those weird thoughts. She couldn’t afford to waste this opportunity to mentally record the details of the building.
Forcing herself to plug into her environment, she saw—
Four rooms. There were four processing rooms, going by the layouts down the long hall, and she stopped at the door the guard had walked her out of.
“Here.”
Luke stepped up next to her. “We gotta move fast.”
“Thanks for the tip.” Rio rolled her eyes. “I was going to stroll around and maybe do a little feng shui inside. You know, redecorate some. Maybe design a mural.”
Luke shook his head and glanced over his shoulder. “Mayhem, do you have the—”
“Code?” the guy said. “Yup. Aren’t you glad when I set this all up, I kept a default?”
“How did they not kill you?” Luke said like he was pondering a law of the universe and wondering why it existed.
“They don’t think I’m very smart.” The guy stepped up to another keypad and entered a different pattern. “There are advantages to appearing to be an imbecile.”
“Well, you’re an expert in that,” Luke muttered.
When the lock clicked free, Rio opened the way in—and immediately started for the cage of kilos in the corner.
“You stay out here,” Luke ordered Mayhem before joining her.
As the door eased shut behind them, she took a deep breath and smelled the unpleasant chemical sting in the air. She hadn’t noticed it before, probably because she’d been frantic.
“What happened to your brother?”
Rio nearly lost her stride as she went around one of the worktables. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“The testing chemicals are on the desks over there.” Clearing her throat, she rerouted her trajectory and went to one of the supervisors’ monitoring positions. “This is exactly what I need.”
Putting her hand into a wicker basket full of ampoules, she nodded. “Yup, this’ll do for testing.”
The thing was even trademarked NarcoCheck. She couldn’t have done better if she’d ordered the stuff herself.
“Now can you get me in that?” she said as she nodded at the cage.
Luke crowded into her personal space. “Stay behind me.”
“Why, what are you going to—”
The shot rang out in the room, sharp and loud, and Rio covered her head and hit the floor. Fortunately, the bullet ricocheted elsewhere—and what do you know, from around the edge of the desk, she saw the chain link uncoil and fall free of the bin.
Rio didn’t wait for the all-clear. She rushed over to the cage, opened the front access panel, and reached in to the blocks. Which were marked “H” or “C.”
Go figure what that meant, she thought as she thanked the Lord for the bene she hadn’t expected. And jeez, it meant Apex or Luke could have done this part of things after all.
Grabbing one of the “H” blocks, she went over to the desk. She thought about just taking some of the test solution units with her, but then what if the label on the block meant something else?
There was a pair of scissors by the desk, and she pierced the wrap on the kilo and got some of the powder on the blades. A quick drop from the dropper, and the substance turned yellow. She’d been hoping against hope it would be red for morphine, but what could you do.
“Do you need a cutting agent?” Luke asked.
“No,” she said as she paused to inspect the consistency of the heroin. “This is extremely pure. So we’re going to use a small amount and dilute it with boiled water.”
“How will you be sure of the dose?”
“I’m going to give him it intravenously bit by bit. The effect is fairly instantaneous so we’ll know by how he eases.”
“Just don’t kill him.”
Rio focused on his face for the first time since he’d walked through the door into those private quarters. He looked… exhausted nearly to the point of sickness, with black circles under his eyes and lids at half-mast. Although she couldn’t tell whether the latter was because he still thoroughly disapproved of what she’d insisted she do.
“I won’t,” she said as she tucked the kilo against her. “Can you take me directly to the clinic?”
“Can’t you just tell me what to do? You can stay with Apex and Mayhem in the private quarters—”
“I’ll answer that the same way I did to Apex. At least I know what I’m doing.”
Luke cursed. Then rubbed his head like it hurt. “Look, we can’t stay down there long. This place is going to start waking up soon. Once that happens, we need to get you out fast and it’s easiest from where we were. All we do is go right out the other door.”
She left that potential argument alone and headed for the exit—except then she doubled back and went around behind the desk. Going through the drawers, she pulled them open one by one—
“Thank God,” she muttered as she reached into the big one down by the floor.
“What is it?”
“Narcan pens. In case I get it wrong.”
The entire drawer was full of them, loose and out of their boxes, like their use was a fairly normal occurrence. She speared into the collection and took as many as she could fit in her fist. Then she shoved them at Luke, making him hold the load.
“Okay, we’re ready.”
Luke filled his pockets with the pens. And then stared across the space at her.
“What,” she demanded.
“We go down there, you do whatever you have to, and then we’re going back to those private quarters.”
“All right. Fine.”
* * *
Lucan emerged from the workroom first. Apex and Mayhem were right out in the hall, guns that they’d lifted from the Executioner’s stash by their sides. They hadn’t changed into the uniforms of the guards, but the weapons spoke for themselves. If any prisoners happened to break curfew and run into them? No questions would be asked.
And up here? Well, the Executioner pegged on that wall like a side of beef was a helluva banner.
“We’re going to the clinic,” he said. But as if those males didn’t know what the plan was?
Lucan stayed by Rio as the four of them proceeded down the corridor. Rio kept looking around like she couldn’t believe the scale of the operation.
“Checking out to see if we can take care of your boss’s needs?” he heard himself say bitterly. After all, Executioner or not, he shouldn’t kid himself. There were still drugs that had to be sold, weren’t there.
She glanced over her shoulder. “I’ll tell him all about it when I see him.”
As she refocused ahead of herself, he pictured her back in Caldwell, living her life. Without him. The stab of pain in his chest made him wonder why he couldn’t pull out of this… whatever it was… with her. Deal or no deal, she was going back down south. He was staying here.
But hey, they’d be able to see each other as they made new deals.
How fucking romantic.
When they came to the stairwell, he opened the door and put his palm up so she didn’t immediately follow him. Then he sniffed at the air and listened.
“The nurse is already down there,” Apex said. “I told her we needed her.”
Lucan nodded and motioned Rio through. As they jogged a descent, the other two brought up the rear.
When they got to the bottom floor underground, he didn’t need to tell Rio where to go, which turns to take, how to be as quiet as she could. She went right down to the clinic and immediately inside.
The second they all entered the storage room, the curtain around Kane’s bed was pulled back, the nurse’s flowing robes like an extension of that which fell from the ceiling.
“You shall not hurt him?” the female said from behind the mesh covering her face.
Rio shook her head gravely. “No, never. I just… want to help.”
“I never dared to try to secure any of that.” The nurse pointed out from under a voluminous sleeve, her gloved hand shaking as if she were emotional. “It’s secured and difficult to obtain, and if you are found with it, the consequences are dire.”
“I understand. Do you have any distilled water? Or boiled water?”
“Yes, here. Come.”
As the females disappeared behind the draping, Lucan crossed his arms so that the gun in his hand pointed out behind his armpit. “I’m not going in there.”
“I am.”
When Apex started forward, Lucan snagged the male’s heavy arm. “You don’t hurt her. If this goes bad, and something happens to Kane, it’s not her fault.”
The other prisoner lowered his chin and glared out of his deep eye sockets. “That depends on what she does. And how he responds.”
Lucan bared his fangs. “You can’t blame her.”
“I can do whatever the fuck I want.”
“Not with her you can’t.”
There was a brief, surging tension. And then Apex pulled away, parting the drapes and disappearing through them. As the lengths of fabric resettled themselves, there were murmurs from the other side.
Pacing seemed like a good idea, so Lucan walked down the lineup of beds. Came back. Went down again. Came back. Meanwhile, Mayhem just stood where he was, staring at the fall of sheets.
Maybe the prisoner was projecting good vibes into whatever the hell was happening at that bedside. Maybe he was having a stroke and hadn’t fallen over yet. Maybe he was thinking about absolutely nothing at all.
Total toss-up.
Lucan went to the door that opened out into the corridor. Cracking the panel, he double-checked that there was no one coming. When that didn’t seem like enough, he stepped outside and went all the way down to peer into the stairwell.
No sounds. No scents. But that could change at any moment.
All he could think about was how much he didn’t want this exposure for Rio or this wasted time. No offense to Kane.
When he reentered the clinic, Mayhem looked over at him.
“You know,” the male said, “this place is going to be in chaos when the Executioner’s body is discovered. And we need to get rid of the guards in the quarters. For one, it’ll keep things tidy, for another, they’re going to start to smell. But the real reason is the head of the guards. If they know we killed that kind of personnel? It’s going to make everything harder.”
The guy did have a point. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Of course, if you deliberately want to stir up shit, we could just put ’em on the wall. Hang ’em like paintings—oh, we could make a decoration with them. How about high-fiving. Shooting a basket—”
“No.”
“You’re boring.”
“You think this is a Mr. Popular competition?” Then Lucan shook his head. “You’re right, though, we should dispose of them. If the head of the guards doesn’t know where they are, and we’re not obvious about what we did, they won’t know who did the coup right away and what went down. They’ll have to check all the troops, and because some live off-site, it’ll take some time—which we’ll use to get Rio out of here. If only there was a way to get them outside. We’ve got another hour of sunshine left.”
“Rio could do it.”
Looking over at the guy, Lucan said, “No, she can’t—”
“What can’t I do?” Rio asked as she emerged from the draping.
“Nothing—”
“Help us take those two guards outside,” Mayhem cut in. “That back entrance from the private quarters is—”
“She is not—”
“—going to make it simple and you wouldn’t have to take them far.”
“—taking them anywhere.”
“Sure,” Rio said. “I’m strong. I’ll move them.”
“No,” Lucan snapped. “It’s too fucking dangerous.”
“And you can relax with that.” She looked between him and Mayhem. “I heard what you said. I think it makes a lot of sense. The more confusion, the better, especially if you’re worried about the head of the guards, whoever he is.”
Mayhem shot Lucan a smarty-pants look. “Great, we’ll go back to the quarters and—”
The draping around the bed was whipped aside.
Apex locked eyes with Rio, with an intensity that was so great, the male was trembling from it, his huge, lethal body poised to leap on the woman.
“No!” Lucan barked as he threw himself between them. “I told you it’s not her fault!”
“What happened?” Rio shoved him out of the way… then dug into the pockets of his pants. “I have the Narcan—”
With a surge, Apex jumped forward.
And wrapped his arms around Rio. Letting out a choked sigh, he dropped his head into her neck… and held on like she was the only thing keeping him on the planet.
Over the male’s heavy shoulder, Rio’s eyes squeezed shut and she embraced him back. “Oh, Apex, I’m so sorry, I really tried to help—”
The nurse ducked her hooded head out from behind the drapery. “He’s resting comfortably. For the first time since he came to me.”
Now Rio’s eyes flared back open. There were tears in them. “Thank God he’s not in pain.”
Lucan exhaled a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding.
And wondered what the hell the story with her brother was.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Captain?”
As José came up to the open office door, he knocked on the jamb. “You receiving there, Captain? Willie isn’t at her desk.”
From out of the private bathroom in the far corner, a muffled voice answered with what could have been anything: Hello. Not now. Come in. Fortunately, a second later, Stan emerged from his favorite crapper, as he called it. His frown was deep as a cavern, and at his throat, a tie was in the process of being redone. Or undone. Hard to tell which.
“You taking that off or making sure it stays on?” José asked.
“Wish I didn’t have to wear it at all. But the one I put on this morning got mustard on it at lunch. Well, I got French’s on my sport coat, too.” Stan nodded over to the sofa where a wad of navy blue had been tossed onto the cushions. “Good thing I have second sets of everything in my favorite crapper.”
Nailed it, José thought.
“The sacred private head, a joy to behold.” He entered and parked it on the hard chair just inside the door. “Where no one but the chief ever goes.”
“It’s the only throne I have. What can I say.”
José nodded. “I’d protect it jealously, too, if I were you. Especially considering how many officers hit the food trucks for lunch.”
“That’s where I got mustarded, as a matter of fact. And I can’t show up at Stephan Fontaine’s with part of a ham and cheese on my chest. Right by my name tag.”
“Wow, Fontaine’s. Fancy.”
