Читать книгу Undercover Holiday Fiancée - Maggie K. Black - Страница 12

TWO

Chloe’s body tumbled through the air. She tucked her head into her knees, braced herself for impact and aimed for the huge mountain of stuffed toys. The second she’d felt herself about to go over the railing she’d kicked the gang member in the chest with both feet and launched herself out of his hands. If that criminal had been so determined to force her backward, she was going to take charge of the moment. Life had taught her that much. She couldn’t always control whether or not she was going to fall. But she could control how she landed.

Her body hit the mound of fluffy stuffed animals, just like a kid cannonballing into a ball pit, sending toys flying. She gasped a prayer. Then she reached for her pocket and breathed a sigh of relief. She still had the Gulo’s cell phone.

She pushed her way up through the mound and looked at Trent. He was still down on his knees, with the barrel of a gun against his skin, and his face pale as he scanned for her. Her gaze met his and a visible wave of relief swept over him.

But still she could read the question floating in his blue eyes.

She nodded, feeling the sliver of a smile brush her lips.

He grinned and turned back to the Gulo, who was staring at Chloe in shock. Trent struck. With one quick motion, Trent snapped the gun out of his hand so quickly the gang member gasped in shock.

Chloe grinned. Yeah, there was nothing quite like seeing Trent in fighter mode. Too bad she couldn’t afford the time to stick around and watch. She tumbled from the stuffed animals. Toys cascaded across the floor. She allowed herself just one more glimpse of Trent’s strong form now fighting for all their lives against not one but two Gulos. Her fighting style was precise and tactical, based on an understanding of anatomy and physics. But Trent was a blistering force, all power and instinct.

She rolled to the platform and peered under. Four pairs of stunned eyes met hers.

“Come on!” she said. “We’ve got to get you guys out of here.”

“You’re Coach’s fiancée, right?” The whispered question came from a young man with curly brown hair and a composure that implied this wasn’t his first crisis. Under any other circumstances she would’ve laughed.

“No, I’m a cop.” She pulled her badge out and pushed it in front of his face. “You are?”

“Aidan. I’m the center for Third Line.”

So, the hockey equivalent of a third-string quarterback then.

“Okay, Aidan. I’m going to crawl around to the other side of this platform, and you four are going to meet me there. We’re all going to stay really low and head down the hallway. Once I give the word, you’re going to jump to your feet and sprint to the exit as fast as you can. Nice and simple. Got it? Now let’s go.”

She turned to crawl away but felt a hand grab her ankle. It had to be Lucy’s brother, Brandon. Dark hair falling over an angular face, his earnest eyes were deep with worry. “I have to find my sister, miss. She works at the coffee counter.”

Being called “miss” grated. She preferred Detective or Officer. But she couldn’t begin to imagine how he must be feeling and now was no time to quibble. “You’re Brandon, right?”

He nodded. “Brandon. Brandon Butler.”

She blinked. Frank Butler’s grandson? She vaguely remembered seeing his grandchildren from a distance at their grandmother’s funeral. “Your sister’s okay. She made it out safely.”

“Thank you.” He let out a long breath and closed his eyes for a split second as he whispered a prayer. But the anxiety in his face didn’t fade. “What about Coach Henri?”

He pronounced the French version of “Henry” like the letter H was silent, so it almost sounded like “Enry.” Seemed Trent hadn’t strayed too far from his real last name on this cover. But as Trent liked to say the best covers always contained a hint of truth.

“Don’t worry. Your coach is going to be okay.” Now, to hurry up and get them all out of there before they noticed just how okay he was doing.

Trent was still battling two Gulos at once. He was such a strong fighter he seemed almost invincible, except that she happened to know he’d dislocated his shoulder once or twice in the past. She prayed it wouldn’t happen this time, and would come back to assist him once she got the civilians out.

She crawled flat on her stomach around the side of the stage, where the students were already making their way out from under the platform. The second-floor Gulo was nowhere to be seen. She waved a hand at the hockey players and started toward the wall, her body low as she moved across the floor on her forearms. The players followed. They reached the wall and she waved them on, putting herself between the young men and the gang members, praying the Gulos wouldn’t see them.

The sport center’s main hallway lay long and empty ahead of them in a maze of destruction and broken glass. The doors shone at the end as headlights blazed in the darkened parking lot, sending a blinding white glow against the glass, punctuated by dashes of moving red and blue. Emergency services had arrived.

Gunfire and vile shouts sounded from above. A huge decorative snowflake crashed to the floor ahead of them and shattered. They’d been spotted.

“Run!” She leaped to her feet and ran forward, pausing just long enough to make sure each and every member of the team had made it to their feet and was moving. Bullets rang behind her. The youths sprinted down the hallway. Chloe ran behind them, taking up the rear and urging the boys on.

The doors in front of them opened. Cops leaned in, reaching out for them. The young men ran through, guided by police. One by one they disappeared into the parking lot. Thank You, God! They were going to make it. Every single civilian Trent had been protecting was going to be okay.

Footsteps pounded down the hall behind her as the last player tumbled through the door. A hand grabbed her neck and yanked her backward so suddenly she felt her feet slip out from under her. A plastic mask pressed against her cheek. A rough voice barked past her ear, “Stay back! This pretty little thing is mine!”

The cops stepped back. The door closed. For one quick moment her eyes searched the hallway behind her. Two Gulos lay on the floor where Trent had been fighting just moments before. Trent was gone. Her body was pulled backward into an office. She looked up into the cold, plastic stare of an old-fashioned goalie mask.

She’d been taken hostage and Trent had left her to fight for her life alone.

* * *

Trent watched through the eyeholes of the vintage goalie mask as fear filled Chloe’s face. A gasp slipped through her lips. He winced. Didn’t she know it was him? Didn’t she understand that he just needed to grab one quick moment to tell her what she needed to know about his undercover investigation before she ran into a mob of local cops? The security cameras in the center might be so bad they were practically nonexistent, but that didn’t mean he wanted a phalanx of officers—let alone Butler—seeing the local hockey coach yanking a provincial detective away for a private chat.

“Hey, it’s okay.” He let go of her body and reached up to pull his mask off. He didn’t get the opportunity. Chloe’s strikes came hard and fast, beating him around the head and sending the mask spinning until he could barely see through the eyeholes. “Chloe! Stop! It’s me—”

A strong, precise and determined kick caught him in the gut and sent him flying back against the wall. She’d knocked the air right out of his lungs. He could barely make himself heard in this stupid mask. Or she was so determined to fight she wasn’t even listening.

Her fists flew toward him again. Enough! He could hardly get this stupid mask off if she kept attacking him. He ducked her blow, swung her around and pressed her back up against the wall. He braced his forearm across her chest, pinning her, and yanked the mask off his face. “Chloe! Stop! It’s me!”

“Trent?” The fear and the fight fell from her face. Her eyes went wide.

They were standing so close his arm was the only thing keeping her chest from touching his, and he could feel her heartbeat radiating through it. For a moment he couldn’t tell if she was tempted to slap him or to hug him. He stepped back and raised both hands in front of him before either could happen. “I can’t believe you didn’t know it was me! Don’t you remember when we first worked together undercover, I called you a ‘pretty little thing’ and then you pretended to be mad at me.”

“That wasn’t pretend.” She blew out a long breath. “Not that I expect you to understand that.”

He didn’t know what she meant by that, but now was hardly the time for arguments. “Are there any casualties?”

“Not that I know of,” she said. “There are two college students in the upstairs exercise room—a young woman named Poppy and a hockey player from Haliburton named Johnny. They’re on the phone with 9-1-1 and barricaded themselves in. I also helped Brandon’s sister, Lucy, escape. She told me the security guard had gotten out, too.”

“And hostiles?” he asked. “I disarmed three.”

“I only saw three, too.” She touched her right sweatshirt pocket with the back of her hand, like she was checking to make sure something was still there. “Look, I don’t know what you’re playing at, Henry, but you have exactly sixty seconds to explain what’s going on. Because now, thanks to you, there’s probably a whole parking lot full of cops thinking that one of their own is being held hostage by a goof in a goalie mask.”

A goof?

“What are you even doing here?” he asked. Trust Chloe to barge into the middle of his undercover investigation and start demanding answers. “You just happened to be hanging out in a random, small-town sports center when gang violence broke out?”

“I’ve been popping by here to work out,” she said, without meeting his eyes. “I have the week off work, and I own a house in the country about half an hour from here. This is the closest gym that has a pool and equipment room.”

He didn’t doubt she was telling the truth. The Chloe he knew would never lie to him, and it wasn’t unheard of for people in rural parts of Ontario to drive even farther for a grocery store or bank. Other college athletes and teams came from all over the area to use the facilities and rink. But, he also knew her well enough to know that there was more to it than just that. Fine, if she wanted to keep things to herself, so could he. His eyes traced down her slender throat to the lanyard she wore with her detective’s badge.

“You identified yourself as a cop,” he said.

“Of course I did. I had to rescue multiple people, report a crime in progress to the authorities and fight for my life against a Gulo gang member. So, yeah, I was going to pull on everything I could to get through.” Her arms crossed over her badge. “And your minute is down to thirty seconds.”

He let out a long breath and ran one hand through his hair. It was a lot shaggier than he liked, not to mention a bit of white had started to creep in at the temples right before he’d turned thirty-six. Then he ran his hand over his beard. That had taken some getting used to, too.

“I’m undercover—”

“I got that. You’re Coach Henri.”

“And a teacher at Trillium College,” he said. “And you’re here because of the payara investigation, aren’t you?”

“Not officially,” she said. “But I won’t deny I’ve been very curious. Gossip’s running pretty thick that Butler’s botched the investigation so badly so far that some people think he’s corrupt.” Her tone implied she wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t sure what Butler had done to earn such loyalty from her.

“And you’ve been hanging out here because you thought he could use your help?”

Something flashed in the depths of her eyes. “Well, I’m guessing you think you could, too, considering you kept calling me.”

“Maybe,” he said. He crossed his arms, too. “I’m undercover, trying to find who’s been making payara. Yes, I wanted your input. But, no, that doesn’t mean I wanted you to barge in and snoop around. All I wanted was to go out for a simple coffee—”

“Because you’re so good at showing up for coffee.”

Yikes! She was still upset about that? Yes, he knew last time they’d spoken, months ago, he’d made plans to meet up with her at a diner. But then he’d gotten a new, immediate assignment and it had seemed easier just to leave than to go through the messiness of explaining he didn’t know when he’d be able to talk to her again. Looks like he’d made the wrong decision.

“I apologize for that. Standing you up was a mistake.” Asking her out in the first place had been an even bigger one. What had he been thinking? A woman like her was way out of his league, and the nature of his work made it all but impossible to form real relationships. “I could give you a long explanation, but it would all come down to the fact that I had a new case to start and had to disappear. If you want a longer explanation it will have to wait for another time. You’re a cop. I’m a cop. All that matters now is dealing with the mess we’re in.”

She didn’t answer, but she also didn’t argue. He took that as a signal to keep going.

“Yes, a baggie of payara was found in the hockey team locker room garbage can a few months ago,” he went on, talking as quickly as he could. “It contained thousands of dollars’ worth of pills. It’s like nothing our drug guys have ever seen before. And, as you know, a drug can’t be properly banned until its exact chemical compounds are analyzed and made illegal, which means anyone arrested for dealing it is at risk of bouncing. I’m told it feels like a superhigh burst of adrenaline and endorphins without a crash afterward, which makes it popular with students and athletes. Also makes people aggressive, highly suggestible and wrecks their impulse control.”

“So, it’s your job to figure out how the drugs ended up in a small little town like Bobcaygeon?” she asked.

“The opposite. Bobcaygeon is the source. We’ve never busted anyone with more than a few pills on them. So a great, big baggie-full turning up in a sports center locker room is the biggest break we’ve had in the case. We suspect one of the third-line players you rescued left it there. The assistant coach had them skating laps the night the drugs were found. There was no payara in the locker room when they walked into it and thousands of dollars of it in a baggie in the garbage can when they walked out—”

“By who?” she interjected.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. And he should. He’d cracked much harder cases in much shorter periods of time. “Either nobody knows but the one guy who threw it there, or the others have chosen to keep it secret to protect each other. I don’t know which. Police apparently couldn’t get them to crack, so I went in undercover to try to build a relationship with them.”

Light dawned in her eyes. “No wonder people think Butler is corrupt if there’re only four possible leads and one of them is his grandson Brandon.”

He almost smiled. This was the Chloe he’d missed. The one whose brain was so quick and sharp he could almost feel it sharpening his. “I’ve spent a lot of time with Third Line and none of them strike me as criminal material. Not to mention I still have no idea where in town the drug lab is or who’s making the drugs.”

“Why do I get the impression this is urgent?” she asked.

“One way or the other, my cover job finishes after Christmas. I’m supposed to start a much larger gang-related investigation in the new year.”

“Wow. Ticktock.” Chloe slid past him, filling his senses with lavender and wood smoke. She always smelled far better than any cop had business smelling. “So, what’s the plan?”

“The fact that everyone knows you’re a cop is going to complicate matters if we’re seen together.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck. Further complicating matters was the fact that he had a picture of them together, smiling and hugging like the happy couple they sometimes pretended to be, displayed prominently on the desk in his office at Trillium. Fictional relationship ties were an important addition to an undercover persona, and he’d happened to still have the photo around from an undercover case they’d worked together. Thankfully she didn’t know about that. “You go out there and do what you do. I’ll wait a few minutes and come out after you. Then hopefully we can meet up later and talk further.”

A smile curled at the corner of her lips. “And what exactly do I do?”

“You know. You say the right things. You make everything work the way it’s supposed to. You fix things.” He didn’t know how to explain it, let alone define it. She was just smart about seeing the bigger picture stuff. He tended to fight in the moment.

“And how do you expect me to explain to the police how a mild-mannered teacher and hockey coach took out three Gulos?” she asked.

“One has a dislocated shoulder and mild concussion from trying to throw a bad punch that didn’t land quite where he expected.”

“You should be thankful you didn’t dislocate your shoulder again,” she said.

Despite himself, Trent chuckled. “Another was accidentally shot by his buddy whose aim was off, and a hockey coach kindly checked his wound and told him to put pressure on it. The third was already pretty badly roughed up in a fight with a brave and beautiful lady cop. All I did was make sure he tripped while running down the stairs after her. They were all very clumsy.”

“Real cute, Trent.” Her lips pursed and he could tell she was impressed, despite herself. “But if you ever call me that again, I’m decking you for real.”

His face paled as his brain caught up with what his mouth had said. He’d called her beautiful. She had to know she could make a guy’s tongue forget how to form words just by walking into a room. But why had he said it? “Sorry.”

“Fine. But don’t ever let me hear you call me Lady Cop again. It’s Detective Brant. Got it?”

“Got it.” Relief swept over him. Her hand slid back to her pocket. It was that move people made when trying to check something was still in their pocket, and it was the second time she’d done it. He could feel his detective instincts buzzing at the back of his brain.

“You were right,” she said. “I was here working out because I’d heard about the payara and I wanted in on the investigation.

“When I trained under Butler, he was so sharp. I can’t begin to imagine why he hasn’t solved the payara case yet. But I’m putting my name in for a detective sergeant’s job this spring and don’t want the fact that I trained under Butler wrecking that for me. Hopefully, I can help clear him. If not, maybe I can confront him in a way that’s respectful of his long career.

“Either way, I’m asking you, Trent, cop to cop, to find me an official role on the case. Nothing undercover or in your way. I can chase leads, conduct interviews or review evidence. Whatever you need. Just let’s call our bosses and get me officially assigned to assist you from behind the scenes.”

He laughed. It was a reflexive, defensive move and one he immediately regretted. Hadn’t she heard him? He was down to his last week before this entire assignment had to end. And now he was supposed to ask for a provincial officer to be assigned to his federal case and find something for her to do? “No. Sorry. I’m not bringing someone else in officially at this stage. I want unofficial advice from you, nothing more.”

Chloe took a step back and pulled out a cell phone. “I took this off one of the Gulos.”

Trent felt his heart stop. She was holding a drug dealer’s cell phone right out in front of his nose, and he needed it. They both knew how easily he could slide his hand around her slender wrist and take it from her, and that if she were a hostile, or a civilian, or someone other than Chloe Brant, he just might. Instead he watched as her fingers tightened around it.

“You know as well as I do, I’m under no obligation to hand this over to you,” she said. “I could log it through the OPP and let you make an official request for the data, which we both know could take a while to go through. After all, I haven’t received official confirmation of anything you’ve told me. All I’ve got to go on right now is trust. Nothing more—”

There was the crash of glass doors shattering. Loud voices shouted in the hall behind him, announcing police presence. Chloe slid the phone back into her pocket. “I’ll find you and we can talk later.”

She stepped out into the hallway, her badge held high.

Trent counted slowly backward from a hundred. Then he stepped out into the hallway. A cop stood in front of him. She was young, blonde and wearing a bulletproof vest. She pointed her weapon at Trent. “Hands up! You’re under arrest!”