B007S2Z1KC EBOK Read online

  Matt recognized the writhing gold snake. He recognized the man. Scowling, he stepped forward into the room.

  “Hello, Eddie,” he said quietly.

  ***

  Clare watched Tyler with concern and growing exasperation. He drummed on the table. He tipped back his chair. He jumped up to stride between the refrigerator and the pantry and sat down again without getting anything to eat. He was clearly uneasy and yet he wouldn’t go home.

  He must, she decided, have something he wanted to talk to her about. She knew better than to badger him. Teens talked in their own good time. Obviously, Tyler wasn’t ready to confide in her yet. Maybe if Officer Stewart left the room...?

  But when Joe Stewart, in response to her signal, left them alone for a few minutes, Tyler wouldn’t even make eye contact. Bending double to tie his shoes, he buried himself under the kitchen table.

  Clare waited. When he didn’t resurface, she decided to take the plunge herself. “Tyler, what’s up? Is something bothering you?”

  “No.” He tugged at his laces.

  When Stewart returned a few minutes later, eyebrows raised in question, she shook her head in defeat. The policeman shrugged and turned back to the newspaper.

  Sighing, Clare got up to make another pot of coffee.

  ***

  “You can’t touch me, man,” Eddie said, uncrossing his legs as he lounged on the filthy mattress. “I’m not breaking any laws.”

  Matt strolled forward to turn down the volume knob on the old TV. “No? How about loitering? How about unauthorized occupation of a building? How about assault with a deadly weapon?”

  Eddie widened his eyes. “Assault? You mean somebody got hurt?”

  Matt wanted to swipe the mock innocence right off that smirking face. With an effort, he kept his tone even. “The minister at Grace Church, Reverend Carter, is in the hospital tonight. Was that a mistake, Eddie?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Besides, I heard you already picked up the shooter for that one. Violence, you know, that’s not my way.”

  A slow rage ignited in Matt’s gut. “Yeah? What about Paul Harmon, Eddie?”

  Eddie tipped back his head against the wall, watching Matt with bright malice. “The lawyer? Can’t nobody prove I did that guy. I was in jail.”

  “But you ordered the hit.”

  “I could have mentioned, like to a brother or a business associate, that it wouldn’t bother me none if this lawyer went down. That doesn’t make me responsible.”

  “And the threats against Mrs. Harmon?” Matt asked through his teeth. “I suppose you’re not responsible for those, either.”

  Eddie held up his palms. “Hey, man, I got nothing against the little garden lady.”

  “I warned you to stay away from her.”

  “And I heard you. Of course, I can’t control what my friends might get up to. But you can count on me...not to be responsible.”

  Matt’s blood ran cold at the threat and then hot with fury. He was seized with a violent, primitive need to protect his own, to defend his woman, to pummel this low-life bastard to a whimpering lump who could never threaten anyone again.

  But he couldn’t. He was sworn to uphold the law.

  Clare’s danger made him more aware than ever before of the restrictions of his job. And more scared for her sake than he’d ever been in his life.

  Frustration ballooned inside him.

  “Why don’t you come down to the station house with me, Eddie, and you can explain in detail how it is you’re not responsible.”

  “You can’t arrest me. You got no probable cause.”

  “This isn’t an arrest. I’m inviting you in to show everybody what a good citizen you are.”

  “What if I—”

  A muffled thump behind Matt made him jump back, half turning so he could watch the hallway and still keep Boothe in his line of sight. Boothe coiled his legs under him.

  “Don’t move,” Matt ordered.

  Another thump. Matt braced for an attack, reaching under his windbreaker for his gun. But no one appeared in the dark doorway, and Boothe was looking definitely uneasy.

  A third thump was followed by a crash. As Matt whirled, Boothe hurled his cup at Matt’s head. The limp container struck his forearm, showering ice and liquid over his face and jacket and onto the floor.

  Matt cursed as Boothe sprinted for the front door. He leveled his gun, shouting the command to stop, but he couldn’t fire with water dripping into his eyes, didn’t want to squeeze off a shot in the dark. He took a step and slid on wet linoleum.

  The front door slammed.

  “Shit,” Matt said.

  He considered pursuit, but his throbbing thigh would slow him down. Running wounded, he was no match for the younger man. Better to call in from the truck.

  After he investigated the noise that had prompted Boothe’s flight. He still had to find Richie.

  Limping back the way he’d come, he fumbled for and found a row of switches by the corridor. He hit the lights and waited. Nothing.

  “Police!”

  No answer. He edged around the corner. Pale light fizzled from the ceiling, revealing graffiti sprayed walls, peeling metal doors and another scummy floor. He tried the nearest door, the one with the key still in the lock. The knob turned. Cautiously, Matt pushed, standing back from the widening black rectangle, until the door met with resistance from something on the floor.

  He looked down.

  A metal folding chair lay on its side just inside, a boy’s body bound to it with what looked like clothesline. Matt’s heart stilled and then pounded with renewed energy. He dropped to his knees by the fallen figure, heedless of the tearing pain in his thigh, and reached for the pulse just under the jaw. Found it and turned the face toward the dim light from the hall.

  A small face, a scared face, eyes wide above the duct tape that sealed his mouth.

  Richie.

  ***

  Outside, the dog barked twice in warning, and then repeatedly in a rising scale of excitement.

  Joe Stewart stirred in his chair. “He do that a lot?”

  Clare listened to the crescendo from across the drive. “Not really. Trigger’s actually pretty tolerant. We have kids and crew on and off the lot all day. Of course, if someone approaches the house...” Her words trailed off as she realized what she’d implied. “Or it could be a neighbor walking their dog,” she added.

  The patrolman pushed back from the table. “I better go check it out.”

  Framed in the kitchen door, he paused. “Lock up behind me.”

  Clare nodded, her mouth dry.

  Tyler got up and shuffled over to the door. He leaned his forehead against the glass. “You think there’s really somebody out there?”

  Collecting Joe Stewart’s empty mug, Clare carried it to the sink, trying to disguise her own uneasiness for the teenager’s sake. “Probably not.”

  “If there was, what would you do?”

  He sounded serious. Too serious.

  “Hide under the bed?” she joked.

  He shook his head, coming closer, speaking earnestly. “No, really. What if somebody was out there, and he had a gun, and he wanted you to leave? Would you?”

  Clare turned from the tap, drying her hands on a dish towel, buying time. For some reason her answer was important to Tyler. Maybe, with his cousin out of jail, he was facing new temptations and hard decisions.

  She didn’t deceive herself that a project paycheck would be enough to keep Tyler from the streets. She understood, a little, the pressures of his world, the edge he balanced on between law and belonging. It wasn’t all that different, she thought, from the line Matt walked between duty and compassion, or her own tightrope between loving and the fear of loss. She framed her reply carefully, choosing words that might have meaning to the teen.

  “It’s a matter of respect. I couldn’t respect myself, or ask anyone here to respect me, if I gave up on something I believed in because I was afraid.”

 
; Which was why, she realized suddenly, her stubborn heart refused to give up on Matt.

  “But what if nobody knew?” Tyler persisted. “Or what if they saw you, like, had to do it, you didn’t have no choice?”

  “You always have a choice. You have to do what you believe is right.”

  Whatever he would have replied was cut off by a bang from outside, half familiar and frightening. Tyler’s head jerked up.

  Clare looked past him to the door. The knob rattled, and then the door flung open.

  Her first impression was that Joe Stewart had come back; her second, that the officer had been hurt, and the young man in baggy pants who burst into her kitchen was seeking help.

  With a sense of shock, she registered the snub, black muzzle of a gun in the young man’s hand.

  Everything in the corners of her vision splintered and all the elements of her safe, cozy kitchen re-formed like a crazy kaleidoscope image around the black barrel of the gun. Danger. Without thought or hesitation, she stepped in front of Tyler to shield him, only to have her perceptions shattered again when the intruder spoke.

  “Hold her arms. I’ll deal with you later.”

  ***

  Richie was crying, scrunching his neck to wipe his face on his shoulder.

  “Man oh man oh man...”

  Matt ignored the anger churning his gut, keeping his touch light and his voice easy. “It’s okay, kid. You’re going to be all right.”

  He disposed of the clothesline binding the boy’s arms and moved along to his feet, working quickly, trying not to imagine the pain of returning circulation. There would be time for sympathy later. He had his probable cause now, he realized with a sense of triumph. He’d call in, and a patrol could pick up Boothe.

  “Oh, man,” Richie moaned.

  “Give it a minute. You’ll be fine.”

  “Not me.” A sob burst from the boy. “Oh, God. We gotta go.”

  He wasn’t making sense. “Sure,” Matt soothed. “In a minute. We’ll go to the hospital, get you checked out.”

  The boy struggled to sit up, clutching at Matt’s jacket. “No. We gotta go now. Clare’s.”

  A cold, queer pressure formed in Matt’s chest like a fist around his heart. “Why to Clare’s?”

  Richie gulped manfully. “That’s where he’s going. Tyler.”

  The fist squeezed. “Why?”

  “To scare her, Eddie said. To shoot her. I don’t think he wanted to. That’s why Eddie took me...tied me...because I knew. I heard. And he said Tyler better do it or he...” The explanation was too much for the boy. He began to sob again, clinging to Matt.

  Terror yawned inside Matt, threatening to swallow him up. He forced himself to think like a cop, to react like a cop. Terror wouldn’t help Clare. He seized the boy’s shoulders and gave them a single, hard shake.

  “Richie, listen! Tyler went to Clare’s on Eddie’s orders?”

  Woebegone, Richie nodded.

  “Is he armed? Does he have a gun?”

  Another nod.

  Matt swore. He’d left Tyler at Clare’s house. And Eddie Boothe was out there somewhere, maybe armed and certainly dangerous. He needed to call Joe Stewart. He had to warn Clare. “Okay. We’ve got to get you out to my truck. Can you walk?”

  “Oh, man...”

  “Can you walk?” Matt growled through his teeth.

  Richie sniffled. “Yeah.”

  He couldn’t, not really. Matt half carried the boy to the truck and supported him on the bench seat while he called on the cell phone to put out a radio bulletin on Boothe and request backup.

  “See if you can raise Joe Stewart,” he said into the receiver as he shifted the truck into drive. “Yeah. I’ll meet you there.”

  Richie huddled on the seat, looking small and scared. “Is it okay? Is Clare okay?”

  Matt punched in another set of numbers on the phone. “I don’t know. I hope so.”

  He waited through two clicks and an interminable silence for the connection, while he drove with one hand and two feet and his heart in his throat.

  Click. Ring.

  “Come on, sugar, answer the phone,” he murmured, staring past the windshield into darkness. “Dammit, Clare, pick up.”

  ***

  The phone shrilled again. Clare winced as Tyler jumped, jerking her arms. Eddie, pacing the kitchen, twitched.

  “You might as well let me get that,” Clare said, making an effort to speak reasonably around the dread that choked her.

  “Shut up, bitch,” Eddie said.

  She put up her chin, refusing to be intimidated. “They’ll only call back until you do.”

  “Yeah, well, you won’t be around to be bothered by it. Tyler, I told you to take care of her.”

  Behind Clare, Tyler shifted and squirmed. “The cop was here.”

  “Well, he isn’t here now, is he?”

  Oh, no, Clare thought. Oh, dear Lord, please. “Where is Officer Stewart?”

  “I shot him. Like Tyler’s supposed to shoot you.”

  Clare closed her eyes, her own deep fear momentarily displaced by the memory of Joe Stewart joking and patting his waistline. “Is he dead?” she whispered.

  “By now, maybe. He’s not getting up to help you, anyway.”

  She opened her eyes to glare at him. He grinned, fingering his earring, and took a few steps closer. She could smell his excitement. She could see it in his face, the dilated pupils, the euphoric high of violence. Nausea stirred her stomach. She swallowed it, determined to deprive him of the pleasure of her reaction.

  He peered into her face, seeking whatever thrill he got from his victims. Clare held herself straight, grateful for Tyler’s unwitting support at her back, and forced herself to stare evenly back.

  “Bitch.”

  The word hit her face like spit. Eddie swung away. “We’re wasting time. Do her, Tyler. You want to be part of the family, you got to be a man.”

  The hands gripping her arms tightened. Tyler’s voice protested in her ear. “You said I only had to scare her.”

  Eddie turned back, facing them. “And does she look scared to you? Does she?”

  “No, but... Eddie, come on, man. She’s all right. She’s been nice to me.”

  “Is that so?” Eddie swaggered closer. He trailed the barrel of the gun insinuatingly down Clare’s cheek and thrust it under her jaw. She swallowed. “You been good to him, garden lady? You want to be good to me, too? I bet you know how to be real nice.”

  Clare couldn’t speak. She felt her pulse pound against the gun mouth, her life about to be spilled. She bit her inner lip until it bled, forcing herself to meet his eyes. Her attention was so focused on the cold steel prodding her jaw, the leering face filling her vision, that she barely registered Tyler’s hands loosening and falling away.

  “Eddie, don’t.” The teenager’s voice was pleading.

  Eddie pushed the gun, forcing her head up, and then shrugged and moved away. “Okay. If we’re not going to fuck her, you’re going to have to shoot her. Go ahead. Do it.”

  Clare felt the younger man’s nervous breath expand his chest. “I don’t want to.”

  Eddie’s face hardened. “I’m giving you a chance here, Tyler. Your last chance. Do her.”

  “No.”

  Clare wanted to applaud the bravery of his choice. She wanted to scream in protest and in fear. She wanted, desperately, to live.

  Oh, Matt, she thought. I’m so sorry.

  Eddie sighed. “Fine. I’ll do it.” He raised his gun.

  And Tyler stepped in front of her.

  The wicked black hole never wavered. “Get out of the way.”

  “No.” The word shook.

  “I’ll shoot through you if I have to.”

  From behind Tyler, Clare watched him flinch, as if he’d already taken the bullet. Her heart hammered. Her mind spun. She had to do something. But what? She was short and skinny, inadequate and unarmed.

  Unarmed. But Tyler had a gun. He must, if his cousi
n expected him to shoot her. She had a sudden vision of Matt, reaching behind him to tuck his gun into the waistband of his jeans, and her gaze darted to the loose T-shirt billowing over the back of Tyler’s pants.

  Ducking, she made a grab for it. He yelped. Her cold hands fumbled under his shirt, scrabbling for the hard butt of the gun. She reached it and withdrew, trying to stand clear, trying to hold it firm in her shaking grip and fix it on the threatening figure of Eddie Boothe.

  “Drop it.”

  “Aw, jeez.” The gang leader looked disgusted.

  “Drop your gun. Or I’ll shoot.” She tightened her hold, fear and indecision clenching her stomach.

  Tyler stood to one side, dumbfounded and still. She barely noticed him.

  Eddie faced her, shaking his head, almost absurdly regretful. “No, you won’t. You can’t shoot me. You don’t have it in you.”

  Clare blinked. Her palms were sweaty. She could do it, she thought fiercely, staring into his wide, dark eyes. She would shoot him if she had to. But standing there, shaking, the imagined impact on flesh and bone, the red blossoming of blood on Eddie’s shirt as another life leaked away, kept her finger from squeezing the trigger.

  Oh Lord. Maybe she didn’t have it in her.

  The back door opened.

  “Don’t worry, sugar,” Matt said grimly. “I do. Get your hands up, Boothe.”

  Relief poured through her in a rich flood.

  Eddie froze. Slowly, he started to turn, his arms creeping above his head, a disarming grin stretching his mouth. “Well, lookee, lookee, it’s Supercop. I thought I’d seen the last—”

  Quick as a coiled snake, he whirled, bringing his arms down, and fired. Two reports echoed through the kitchen. Clare screamed as Tyler dropped to the linoleum, arms shielding his head. The acrid scent of gunpowder blistered the air. Eddie fell back into the table. It screeched against the floor as he slumped, the gun dropping from his lax grip. Matt leapt forward to catch it.

  Alive.

  Her hands reached for him, eager to confirm her sight. He ignored her touch, already crawling on his knees to the victim, patting him down, bracing him up, wadding tea towels to staunch the flow of blood from his midsection.