Читать книгу Last Man Standing - Julie Miller - Страница 10

Something wasn’t right.

Maybe it was him.

Cole Taylor looked through the limousine’s tinted window and watched the muddy, gray-green waters of the Missouri River rush beneath the arched steel and concrete bridge. The dual highway took them north from Jackson County into Clay County, leaving behind the congestion of interstate traffic and expanding commercialization for the scenic rolling hills and lush farmland of rural Missouri.

He was alert, but not afraid. He’d numbed himself long ago to the fear and danger he lived with every day. Ignoring his emotions was a matter of survival. Giving in to them meant madness or death. Or turning.

Some days he wondered if he’d gotten so good at his job that he had turned.

Truth and justice had once sustained him, driven him. But those ideals had blurred as he’d made enemies into friends, and a few friends into enemies. He’d ignored his conscience and turned his back on everything he’d once held dear. As the car picked up speed toward its destination, Cole admitted that this day—like so many others in these past few weeks—was more about surviving than caring why he was here.

Two years working under deep cover for KCPD and the DA’s office had whittled the scope of his day-to-day living down to nothing more than that. Survival.

It was a damn cold-blooded way to live.

He was the good cop gone bad, selling out his colleagues and his soul for big money and a chance to dispense justice on his own terms. That was the story that had gotten him here. Only the story was beginning to feel a whole lot more real than the life and loves and friendships he’d left behind.

“You seem antsy this morning, Cole—”

Years of training kept him from starting at the indulgent voice of the man sitting beside him on the black leather seat of the limo.

“Is something wrong?”

Cole pulled himself from his worrisome thoughts and turned to the white-haired gentleman. “Just a feeling.” He reassured his boss with an expression just short of a smile. “I wish you’d let me check out this private hospital before driving out here. You want me to be in charge of security, yet you insist on taking foolish risks like this.” He nodded toward the unlit cigar clenched in the other man’s arthritic hand. “And you know the doctor is going to tell you to give up those things, too. How many times have we had this discussion about your impulses?”

The older man laughed. “My wife, rest her soul, was the only one I ever let criticize my choices. Now you’re nagging at me.”

At six-four, with a muscular body and well-honed skills that made him a deadly fighting machine, no one would mistake former KCPD Detective Cole Taylor for anyone’s nagging wife. Yet Jericho Meade patted Cole’s knee and scolded him as if Cole were his nurse, not his bodyguard.

“I’m not nagging,” Cole insisted, hating these fond, almost familial feelings he had for his employer. “I’m laying it on the line. You make my job harder than it needs to be.”

“Keeps you on your toe—” Meade’s laughter wheezed into raspy puffs of air. He pressed a gnarled fist to his chest as a fit of coughing seized him.

Cole squeezed a supporting hand around the man’s bony shoulder. “Jericho?” The old man snatched at his left jacket pocket, desperate to retrieve what was inside. But twisted bones and rattling coughs kept him from succeeding. “What is it?”

“His mint.” The robust man sitting across from them leaned forward. Paulie Meredith’s thin strands of black hair barely covered his scalp, making it impossible to hide his deep wrinkles of age and concern. He reached into Jericho’s pocket, pulled out a foil-wrapped piece of candy, opened it and slid it into his friend’s mouth. “It soothes the cough.”

Cole frowned. “You’re sure he won’t choke?”

Sinking back into the plush upholstery, the seventy-six-year-old patriarch waved aside Cole’s concern. “I’ll be fi—” Another fit seized his chest, ruining the reassurance.

“Jer, old friend, you have to take it easy.” Paulie wore the trappings of his wealth in a half-dozen gold and silver rings, and the paunch of his belly that pulled at the buttons of his designer suit. “There are hundreds of doctors in K.C. Good ones. I don’t know why you insist on seeing this Kramer guy way out here.”

Jericho’s chest shuddered in and out, indicating just how difficult it was for him to catch his breath. But the firm command in his steely blue eyes brooked no argument, even from his oldest and closest friend.

“First of all, Paulie, never call a sick man ‘old friend.”’

The teasing fell on deaf ears. “You’re not dying.”

“The hell I’m not.” Jericho’s breath whistled in his throat as he gasped for air. But then, through sheer will, it seemed, his breathing regulated to a raspy but even rhythm. And though his pasty skin didn’t regain its healthy color, he smiled. “Dr. Kramer said he could run the diagnostic tests at his private research clinic with few questions asked and no publicity. My heart and lungs may be going, but I don’t want anyone outside the family to know about it. Not until I find Daniel.”

Find Daniel? Cole discreetly looked away at the mention of Jericho’s son. It was the one aspect of his employer’s personality he didn’t know how to handle.

Paul Meredith was more direct. “Daniel’s dead, Jer.”

“We don’t know that. I’m not selling the business, no one’s running me off, I’m not naming a new heir until…” He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t bring himself to speak of the gruesome task he’d given Cole. Find my son’s body and bring it to me. Then I’ll know he’s dead. The shallow wheezing became a moan of pain. But it wasn’t physical. “He’s still with me, Paulie. I feel him. I know he’s trying to reach me. He wants me to find him. He wants to tell me something.”

The pallor of Jericho’s skin alarmed Cole more than did his boss’s ramblings. “You need to take it easy.”

“You should be lookin’ to rip out the heart of the man who did that to your son,” Paulie advised, talking the way a strong, healthy Jericho Meade would have talked months earlier, “not pretending he’s still alive.”

“Paulie,” Cole warned. There was honesty, and then there was cruelty.

Jericho’s blue eyes clouded. “I’m not pretending. I know what I’ve seen and heard. If it’s not Daniel, it’s his damn ghost.”

“It’s obvious you need some kind of treatment, Jer. I want you to be in a place where they have the best staff and equipment.” Paulie slicked his hand across his ruddy scalp. “How do you know we can trust this Kramer guy?”

How could a man like Jericho Meade, who had destroyed so many lives in his half-century-long quest for wealth and power, ever trust anybody?

Cole watched the old man steel his will and battle past the grief that consumed him. He was considerably calmer, if weaker, when he spoke.

“I’m paying Dr. Kramer enough money to ensure his loyalty. He’d better work a damn miracle.”

“Maybe you should check yourself in to Kramer’s clinic, then.” Paulie was sounding like a gentle, lifelong companion once more. “I can run things for a while. Get yourself out of the house. Forget the business right now. Worry about yourself.”

“I am the business.” Jericho’s voice was firm. “I wanted Daniel to become the business too. Until I understand what he’s trying to tell me, I intend to hang around.”

Paulie shrugged. “What would a voice from the grave be trying to tell you?”

Cole had asked the same question the first time Jericho had pounded on his door in the middle of the night, sobbing and disoriented, claiming his son had been in his office and left a message, begging his father to listen.

“Maybe the name of whoever killed him,” replied Jericho.

The answer still didn’t make much sense.

Jericho pressed his tattered cigar into Cole’s hand and closed his eyes on a weary sigh. “Now you two shut up and let me rest. And tell the driver to kill the air-conditioning. He knows I don’t like it this cold in here.”

Paulie quickly spun in his seat and knocked on the partition window that separated the driver from the back of the limousine, to do his boss’s bidding. Cole tossed the cigar onto the car’s drink console before settling back into his corner. Then the three men fell silent and tuned in to their own internal musings.

Cole had been there four months ago, the night the unmarked package was delivered to the estate. After screening the box for any trace of explosives or chemicals, Cole himself had opened the box in front of Jericho, Paulie and a handful of family members. He’d nearly retched at the sight of the dismembered finger. Jericho had identified the ring he’d given his son and then collapsed in his chair.

Amidst the tears and curses that filled the room that night, Cole had read the attached, computer-generated note.

Jericho—

I thought a deal was a deal.

You took what was mine, so I’m taking what’s yours. Without an heir, the days of your empire are numbered. Start counting.

Jericho Daniel Meade Jr. had never come home, and his father had never recovered.

Cole watched the gray ribbon of highway pass by in a blur. He’d taken this assignment two years ago with the intent of destroying Meade’s criminal world from the inside out. Now, someone was trying to do the job for him by killing Jericho’s son and driving the man toward madness. Leaving every part of Jericho’s world in chaos until he named someone new to take over the family business—or someone moved in on the weakened patriarch and simply took what they wanted for themselves.

It was a lose-lose situation as far as Cole was concerned. He knew the likely successors Jericho might name. Every one of them would continue his reign of violence and intimidation under the guise of civilized gentility. And if an outsider was behind this takeover threat, a retaliatory mob war unlike anything Kansas Citians had seen before would leave the streets strewn with innocent victims. Battles for drug turfs would ensue. Good men and women would be cheated out of their livelihoods. Children would live in fear.

Cole felt the heavy weight of fatigue and responsibility down in the marrow of his bones. He had to keep Jericho alive until he was ready to name names and turn over state’s evidence and end an era of terror before a newer, less certain one could begin.

His deep sigh fogged the glass, obliterating his view. Waking himself from his own murky thoughts, Cole wiped the window clear with the side of his fist. He pulled at his ponytail before glancing across at the dying old man he was destined to betray.

Dozing with a peaceful expression on his wan face, Jericho Meade resembled any self-made multimillionaire who’d lived long enough to enjoy the power and profits of his labor. Tall and slender and wizened as any much-loved grandfather might be, he wore his distinguished cloak of respectability like a second skin, giving no hint of the ruined lives and deaths and addictions that could be attributed directly to his position as one of the Midwest’s most powerful and feared crime lords.

Meade’s empire might include legitimate forays into the oil and natural gas industry, real estate, the restaurant business and numerous charities. But it also included arms and drug trafficking, murder, witness intimidation, money laundering and any other number of crimes on which Cole had been assigned to uncover and deliver information to the District Attorney’s office.

It galled him that he should feel any sort of sympathy for a man like that. Whatever pain or danger or heartache Meade faced now had been brought on by himself and the greedy, ruthless habits that made the man a name on every federal, state and local most-wanted list.

But dammit, he did pity Jericho. Cole blinked his eyes and turned back to the sporadic traffic outside. Hell, he almost cared about the old man.

Probably because he’d been separated so long from the people he did truly love that Jericho’s dependence on him felt like something more substantial. It didn’t matter that their relationship was based on a lie. Cole had done his job well, starting as a bouncer in one of Jericho’s clubs and working his way up through the ranks to become the boss’s personal bodyguard. He’d immersed himself in this assignment so completely that turning Jericho over to the Feds or the DA, and testifying against him almost felt wrong.

He clung to that almost like a lifeline, using it to salvage whatever was left of his conscience and soul.

But any guilt, confusion or wishful thinking vanished as the limousine slowed and turned onto the outer road. Cole voided all emotion whatsoever and tuned into the survival instincts that had gotten him this far.

As they drove along the long, horseshoe-shaped driveway, he noted that each of the tall, ancient oaks that shaded the sloping hillside was painted white, four or five feet up the trunk. A sharpened sense of vision looked beyond the immaculate grounds, scanning the shadows behind each tree and evaluating the condition of the three redbrick buildings perched at the top of the hill.

Two of the twentieth-century buildings appeared abandoned, judging by their boarded-up windows and crumbling facades. Not good. Any busted window or broad tree trunk would provide ample camouflage for an enemy. Construction scaffolding and canvas drapes obscured sight lines even further.

Cole shook his head. For a kid, this would be a primo location to play hide-and-seek. For a man of Jericho Meade’s reputation, this remote place was the perfect setup for an ambush.

Despite the new sign that labeled this former nursing home a medical complex, it appeared that only the main building had seen any sort of renovation. Freshly painted black wrought-iron work framed each door and window, and stood out in sharp contrast to the sandblasted brick. Through the modern double-paned windows, he could see the bright lights and sterile decor of the foyer and waiting room. Inside, a handful of patients and an attentive bustle of men and women in white lab coats and colorful scrub uniforms were clearly visible, even from a distance.

Every one of them made an easy target.

Jericho would be no different.

His bones radiated with an unspoken warning, an uncanny survival instinct that, combined with his unique, formidable skills, had kept him alive when other men would have ended up dead. Cole trusted that instinct the way a newborn babe trusted his mother. There was something in the air. Something waiting.

Automatically, he patted the Glock 9mm that hung beneath the hand-tailored cut of his suit coat and adjusted his pant leg to cover the smaller Beretta strapped to his ankle.

Feeling the easy possibility of an attack like a personal threat, Cole wrapped his hand around Jericho’s arm and nudged the older man awake. “You don’t go anywhere without me or Paulie right by your side. Understood?” He made the demand as if he was the one in charge.

Jericho smiled at his audacity and nodded. “Your concerns are duly noted, Mr. Taylor.” He turned away in curious anticipation as the car came to a halt in front of the double front doors and the driver hurried around to open the door.

Cole was already there when Jericho climbed out. He stood several inches taller than his ailing boss, making Cole an ample shield and giving him a clear, 360-degree view of their surroundings. With the driver leading the way and Paulie bringing up the rear, they formed a protective triangle around Jericho and walked him into the clinic.

A young man, barely out of his teens, greeted them with an articulate, guttural accent. “Right this way, Mr. Meade.” After several furtive glances, the waiting attendant sat Jericho in a wheelchair and guided them at a brisk pace past the admissions desk and down a newly tiled hallway.

Cole couldn’t tell if the young man was new on the job, nervous about working with a patient of Jericho’s reputation, or just plain intimidated by Cole’s imposing size and demeanor. Whatever the cause might be, his rabbitlike movements only heightened Cole’s suspicions about the place. He took note of the attendant’s name tag. Joe Barton. Yeah, right. Not with that accent. Cole planned to run a few tests of his own while Dr. Kramer evaluated Jericho.

All the doors along the corridor stood open, and the rooms were apparently empty. Strike that, Cole amended, as a chin-high stainless-steel cart, packed with fresh, folded linens, rolled through a doorway just before they reached it. Instinctively on guard, he pushed Jericho’s wheelchair and the attendant against the wall and positioned himself between their entourage and the cart. His hand was inside his jacket on the butt of his gun when the cart swung around and he got his first look at the man on the other side.

“Whoa. Sorry, pal.” Stooped over in green scrubs and a white lab jacket, the orderly barely made eye contact before pushing the cart on past.

Cole’s breath eased out between tightly compressed lips. He nodded to the attendant to keep moving, but remained behind to cool an edgy pulse that was still firing jets of adrenaline through his system. He breathed in deeply, a new plan forming in his head before he followed Jericho into an exam room. The green clothes and shuffling walk were different, but the orderly’s scraggly brown mustache and beady black eyes behind the glasses were the same.

Lee Cameron.

His contact with the DA’s office.

Something was up.

TEN MINUTES LATER, Jericho was secure in the exam room with Dr. Kramer, a nurse and Paulie. The driver had parked the car and returned to stand watch at the door. The nervous attendant had been sent back to the main foyer and Cole was plugging change into a vending machine and waiting for a can of soda to fall through.

Lee Cameron leaned against the wall beside the vending machine, facing Cole’s direction without actually looking at him. He looked for all the world like a worn-out clinic worker who needed every bite of the candy bar he was munching on to sustain him to the end of his shift.

“You’re not looking nearly as dapper as when we met in the bank last week.” Cole’s words teased his fellow investigator, though he pretended a rapt fascination with the ingredients on his can of soda.

“Budget cuts hit me in the fashion department.” Lee chewed a mouthful of chocolate and peanuts. “You might give me fair warning next time you change plans. I could have scrounged a tie and posed as a doctor instead of borrowing these from the laundry.”

“Meade usually sees a doctor named Lyddon, east of the Plaza.” Cole popped open the soda. “I didn’t know we were coming here until this morning. If Powers is pressing for something new, I haven’t got it.”

Assistant District Attorney Dwight Powers could be a real hard-ass when it came to an investigation. But what the man lacked in personality he made up for in courtroom performance. Powers got convictions that were rarely overturned. When he sent felons to Jeff City or Potosi, they served their time.

But it was up to men like Cole and Lee to find the ammunition to make Powers’s big legal guns work.

Lee scanned the break-room area and ran through the usual questions. “We’re ready to serve the warrants on the drug trafficking tip you gave us. Nothing on the new money laundering scheme?”

Cole moved to the candy machine and studied his choices. “I haven’t gotten anything on the new accountant. Except that Chad Meade hired him, not Jericho.” He dug some change out of his pocket and made a selection.

“Chad’s the nephew, right?”

“Heir apparent.” Cole pulled the candy bar from the bottom bin. “He doesn’t have the brains Jericho or even Daniel had, so if he’s up to something, you can bet he’s not in it alone. I’ll keep digging.”

“No news on who ordered the hit on Powers’s family?”

That was the ADA’s one suspicion he’d found no evidence to corroborate. Powers’s obsession for the truth bordered on vengeance.

“Nothing I can prove yet. The timeline fits. Powers was gearing up to prosecute Jericho’s son. Two large sums of money were withdrawn from the Meade accounts that same week. But I’ve got no phone record, no eye witness to place Jericho with the hit man.”

“And we’ve got no hit man,” Lee added.

Cole nodded. “I’m still waiting for someone in the Meade camp to let something slip. But I haven’t heard anything concrete yet.”

Lee wadded up his empty wrapper and shot a basket in the trash can. “I’ll pass the word along, but you know Powers wants every loose end wrapped up before we pull you in.”

Cole shrugged his shoulders and took a drink. The few minutes they’d been conversing would start to draw attention soon. Lee Cameron was his one link to the DA’s office, Cole’s only safe channel of information in or out of the game. Lee wouldn’t risk making contact with the UC operative just to shoot the breeze. “So I’ve got nothing new, you’ve got nothing new. Why are you here?”

Lee shifted position. The subtle tensing of his posture was enough to make Cole glance his way. “It’s personal,” said Lee.

“Me or you?”

“Your mom.”

Cole’s fingers dented the can in his grip. “Yeah?”

“Yesterday morning she was assaulted in a grocery store parking lot. Had her purse stolen.”

Forget anonymity. Cole stared right into Lee’s intense black eyes. “Is Ma okay?”

Lee gestured with his hand at his side, warning Cole to look away. “She’s fine. Scrapes and bruises. But your nephew Alex—I guess he tried to defend her—he got some stitches at the E.R. and was released.”

Cole let the anger surge through him, then forced it to dissipate into mere frustration. His mother had been attacked. Not only had he not been there to help, he hadn’t even known she’d been hurt.

“He’s a good kid from what I’ve seen. Probably did some damage himself. They catch the guy?”

“Not yet. But they got a plate number. Stolen vehicle. No surprise there. But we’re trying to track it. And she called in your cousin Mitch.”

A police captain on a routine purse snatching? His concern ratcheted up a notch.

“The captain doesn’t believe it was random. He seems to think they were attacked because they were Taylors. He wanted me to remind you to watch your back.”

If laughter wouldn’t have drawn attention, Cole would have given in to the irony of the situation. Warning an undercover cop to watch his back? “Every damn day.”

“I think Powers would understand if you wanted to come in off the job.”

“The hell he would. I’m right where he needs me, and my work’s not finished yet.” Cole tossed the untouched candy into the trash. Worrying about his mother wasn’t a distraction he could afford right now. Jericho’s examination would be over soon and he didn’t want his absence questioned. Still, the guilt wouldn’t go away. “Keep me posted?”

Lee grinned behind his glasses. “That’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

Though he couldn’t say he knew Lee well enough to claim him as a friend, Cole appreciated his go-between’s efforts to keep him connected to the real world. “Use it to buy some new clothes. I’ll contact you the usual way when I find out something on the new accountant or where the money’s going. Tell Ma I love her. And if there’s anything I can do to help…” But there wasn’t. They both knew there wasn’t. “Just tell her I love her.”

COLE DISPOSED OF THE SODA can on his way out the door and headed down the long, empty corridor where he’d left Jericho with the doctor. Empty. Completely.

His smooth stride stuttered as his tension shifted in a new direction. The doors were closed now. Every one of them. Efficient cleaning crew? Or cover for hidden adversaries? And where the hell was the driver?

His bones were screaming at him now.

He unhooked the holster beneath his arm and hastened his step. He knocked and shoved open the door to Exam Room 6. “Where’s Jericho?”

Paulie Meredith swung around, his large girth not a handicap when it came to defending his oldest friend. “Jeez, Taylor, you about gave me a heart attack. What’s wrong?”

Cole glanced toward the inner door. “Is he in there?”

“Yeah. Doc Kramer’s giving him the lowdown. It doesn’t look good.” The pinched lines around his mouth deepened. “Something happen?”

“Where’s the driver?”

Now Paulie was glancing around, looking equally suspicious of their surroundings. “I sent the new guy out to bring the car around while Jericho changed.”

Kramer’s office door opened and Jericho himself filled the doorway. He acknowledged the tension in the outer room with a nod, but his stoic expression never changed. “Call me as soon as you know the results of the bloodwork,” he said, saluting the black-haired doctor, then he reached out to link his arm through Cole’s. He patted Cole’s arm and rested his weight against him, suddenly acting old beyond his years.

“Your bones bothering you?” he asked.

Cole understood the reference. “This place is locking down tighter than a prison. We’re leaving. Now.”

Paulie zipped ahead to open the door and check the corridor before moving out. “All clear.”

“Go.” He hurried Jericho along with as much urgency as the old man’s tired steps allowed. Cole’s head swiveled back and forth in 180-degree arcs as he kept an eye on each door. He’d take a crowded hospital any day over this abandoned tomb of waiting danger.

“The doctor can’t figure out what’s wrong with me.” Jericho kept talking, more confident in Cole’s abilities than oblivious to any unseen threat. “He’s prescribed inhalers and steroid treatments to help my lungs, but says my heart isn’t showing the blockage or deterioration he expected. I told him it was just broken.”

Cole supposed a murdered son could aggravate any existing condition or trigger psychosomatic symptoms, even hallucinations. He listened with one ear and tuned the other to the sounds of the clinic. Or lack thereof.

He wasn’t the only one on guard against the eerie emptiness of the main room. He gave a passing nod to Lee Cameron, who had parked his cart in the opposite corridor. Get out! Cole wanted to yell. Something’s going down. But he couldn’t risk audible communication with the detective.

Cole turned Jericho toward the door. He could see the limo outside, the driver striding up the front walk— The young man pulled out his weapon just as the receptionist at the check-in window behind Cole screamed.

“Gun!”

Cole whirled around. She wasn’t alone.

The nervous attendant, armed as well, rose from behind the counter and shoved her aside. “For the glory of the homeland!”

“Get down!” He pushed Jericho to the floor, and the next few seconds ticked by with time-altered clarity.

Caught in the crosshairs of the well-orchestrated hit, Cole dove for the cover of a row of chairs and dragged Jericho behind him. Paulie was there a second later, shielding Jericho with his own body, as an explosion of gunfire shattered glass and popped stuffing out of the upholstery and ricocheted off stainless steel.

Shots rang out from a third direction and the driver fell.

Cole palmed his Glock and fired. Once to move the shooter to the edge of the desk. Twice to nail him in the chest and throw him against the back wall.

The seconds returned to real time as the attendant sank to the floor, leaving a trail of blood on the wall behind him. Cole rose to a crouch to assess the man outside—dead or dying, his gun out of reach. Keeping his Glock trained on the front desk, he stood, bracing his hand on Jericho’s shoulder to keep him down and out of the line of fire.

“Everybody in one piece?” Cole asked, hearing the gasps and wails of the receptionist as she huddled inside the break-room doorway.

Jericho trembled beneath his hand, shaking off Cole’s concern. “Dammit. I never should have hired that lowlife. Couldn’t drive worth—”

“I’m good,” Paulie answered, climbing to his feet. He wielded his gun as well. He scooped a hand beneath Jericho’s arm and helped him stand. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Take him.” Cole pushed Jericho toward Paulie and the door, and rushed to the desk. He knelt down to check the attendant. Dead. Damn.

For the homeland? That didn’t sound like a typical hit. Where was this guy from, anyway?

He’d have Lee run the guy’s face and prints through the computer. If they could ID the hitman, chances were they could track down whoever ordered the hit. Maybe tie it in to a lead on Daniel Meade’s death.

“Cole!” Paulie urged.

The receptionist stared at Cole in openmouthed shock. Call the cops, he mouthed, hoping his insistence was enough reassurance for her to believe he wouldn’t kill her as well.

There were voices in the halls now, as if someone had conducted a fire drill and the evacuated staff and patients were just now returning to the building. Cole stood and hurried toward the front door. But the fallen man near the linen cart caught his attention.

“God, no.” He dashed to Lee’s side and rolled him onto his back. Cole swore, every last vicious, damn-the-universe curse he knew. He smoothed the scraggly hair off the investigator’s forehead, revealing the bullet wound that had taken his life. Lee had taken out the driver, but somewhere in the melee, he’d gone down in the line of duty.

A mist stung the corners of Cole’s eyes. Damn. Damn. Damn. Lee still held his gun in his frozen grip. His badge was peeking out of his front pants pocket. Respect and regret swamped Cole. He didn’t even know if Lee had a family…. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t any damn way to live—or lose—a life.

A stroke of divine fortune had him pushing the shield down into Lee’s pocket and hiding it an instant before he felt the tugging at his sleeve. Paulie.

“We go now, Taylor.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Cole rolled to his feet and followed Paulie out the door. Jericho was already in the back of the limo. Cole climbed in beside him while Paulie got in behind the wheel and floored it.

The painted trees passed by in a blur, as did his conversation with Jericho. Yes, he was all right. Pissed off. Sore. But all right.

Cole had done his job. Followed his instincts. Made his shot. Put his life on the line for the man to whom he’d sworn his loyalty. He couldn’t protect his own mother and nephew, but he’d kept these murderers alive. The gall of it burned in his throat and chest, as Jericho promised a substantial bonus and a thorough check into Kramer and his clinic.

And as they sped down the highway toward the river—with Jericho on the phone to Chad while Cole checked his gun and holstered it—another, even more disturbing realization churned the bile in his throat.

His contact was dead.

He had no connection to the real world now. No backup. No lifeline. Nowhere to go for safety. No one to call for help.

He was on his own.

The surrounding danger and guaranteed death that such a deception could cost him didn’t bother him as much as it should have.

It was the madness that scared him. Knowing just how easy it would be for him to turn now. To forget who he really was. To never find his way back to life and love and the reasons he’d agreed to this assignment in the first place.

He’d killed a man today. He was more Meade than Taylor now.