Читать книгу Shattered Vows - Maggie Price - Страница 9

“Been a week since Heath escaped,” Nate McCall pointed out that evening. “Any word on the street about him?”

Sitting across the booth from his brother, Bran shoved aside the plate of dinner-special meatloaf and mashed potatoes he’d barely touched. Around them, the small downtown diner was filled to capacity, the air thick with conversation and the warm, spicy smell of home cooking.

“Zilch,” Bran said. “We’ve got a list of Heath’s associates, most of whom were with him in the Crows gang. But still nothing solid on who helped him kill the corrections cop and escape from the funeral home. The lowlifes we’ve rousted claim they haven’t got a clue where Vic is.” He gave his head a frustrated shake. “Bottom line is, we’ve got nothing.”

“The theory that he and his partner headed for Mexico might be on target,” Nate pointed out. Like Bran, the middle McCall son had inherited their father’s tall, rangy build and wide shoulders. In contrast to Bran’s lighter coloring, Nate had the olive skin, black hair and chocolate-brown eyes prevalent on their mother’s side of the family. Presently on duty and working out of OCPD Homicide, Nate wore a black suit, crisp white shirt and crimson tie. Beside his empty plate, his handheld radio broadcast the usual muted chatter between cops and dispatchers.

“Heath isn’t in Mexico,” Bran said. “He’s here. Close.”

Nate studied his brother over the rim of his coffee mug. “What makes you so sure? None of the cops involved in the credit-union shootout have gotten so much as a hang-up phone call.” Nate’s eyes narrowed. “Unless you have and haven’t told me. If that’s the case, you and I need to step out in the alley so I can beat some sense into you.”

“You’re welcome to try, bro,” Bran drawled as he rolled his right shoulder in an attempt to ease the ache out of it. “I haven’t heard from Heath. But I can feel the bastard, Nate. He’s burrowed underground somewhere close. Waiting.”

Nate set his mug aside. “I’d be the last person to slam cop instinct, since mine has saved my butt a few times. I just hope yours is sending a faulty message in this case.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Bran shoved back the cuff of his sweater and checked his watch. It was nearly eight. He’d gone to his apartment when he got off work, changed out of his uniform, then settled in front of the TV. Soon, his attention veered to the well-worn furniture that had come with the apartment. It ate at him that until that morning he’d had no clue what style of furniture Tory preferred. He’d never even asked. His mind had soon shifted to wondering what else he hadn’t bothered finding out about the smart, stubborn, sexy woman he’d married in a fever. The woman from whom he’d wanted intimacy both in and out of bed. With those thoughts weighing on him like lead he’d called Nate and arranged a dinner meeting. He’d chosen the diner because it was a short drive to the library learning center where Tory was working surveillance.

“Nate, thanks for meeting me, but I need to take off. I have to go by the library.”

Nate angled his chin. “What’s there?”

“Books,” Bran said dryly. “And Tory. She’s working a surveillance.”

Nate snatched up the check and pulled a couple of bills out of his pocket. “So, since you know where she is, you guys must be talking again.” He held up a hand when Bran started to protest his paying the tab. “You buy next time. This is good, right? You seeing Tory?”

“Depends on a person’s point of view. I’ve got the papers she served me in my parka. I’m supposed to sign them and give them to her tonight.”

“Supposed to?” The trained interrogator in Nate pounced on the words. “Since you haven’t signed them, does that mean you’re having second thoughts about the breakup?”

“No, Sherlock. It means I didn’t have a pen handy.”

Nate’s dark brows drew together. “Dammit, Bran, you and Tory haven’t even made it to the one-year mark. Are you positive you can’t work out your problems?”

“No hope there, bro.” Especially not since their problems came down to different inherent needs, Bran added silently. He wanted a woman to turn to him, lean on him. Tory had shown him time and again she was too take-charge to do that. Her getting miffed that morning when he’d tried to help check under her car’s hood proved she hadn’t lightened up.

It had also proven a few other things.

Namely, the hunger he felt for her was as sharp as it had been from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. He hadn’t had to kiss her today to know what she tasted like—he carried her taste inside him. Still, he had damn well wanted his mouth on hers again. On a lot more places than just her mouth.

Picturing her leaning near him under the car’s hood, he had to grit his teeth against the instant tightening in his gut. With their mouths nearly brushing, he had watched her face flush. Saw her green eyes go smoky. Her response during those heat-driven moments had told him her desire equaled his. The white-hot chemistry that had brought them together—and fueled their elopement—was still a churning eddy inside them both. That he’d wanted to dive back into the eddy told him his defenses were not as impenetrable as he’d thought.

That little slice of reality had convinced him it was best to let her go before they tangled themselves up again. He would sign the papers tonight. Then Tory could get on with her own life and he could regain his balance in his.

Nate leaned in. “Look, everyone in the family has been walking on eggshells over the subject of you and Tory. Since you brought it up, I figure that opens the door to me asking you a question.”

“Which is?”

“What the hell is the deal?”

“What deal?”

“Why did you walk out? And don’t tell me you don’t care about her. I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

Bran had no intention of examining emotions he’d clamped a lid on months ago. “We have certain issues.”

“There’s headline news,” Nate said drolly. “You don’t want to tell me, fine. But you know how good Grace is at zeroing in on relationship stuff, and more than once she’s said—”

“Wait a minute. Have you and Grace been having regular conversations about Tory and me?”

“I wouldn’t call them regular,” Nate said with a shrug.

“What the hell do you call them?”

“Occasional. And we’re not the only ones who’ve been talking. The sisters had a big powwow at Mom and Dad’s. Josh was in on it, too.”

Bran’s eyes slitted. “Little brother sat in on a gossip session about my marriage?”

“To be fair, he was there because he heard Mom was making spaghetti. So he just got dragged into the discussion.”

“Well, great.” Bran jabbed an index finger in Nate’s direction. “How would you like it if the sisters had powwows about your relationships?”

Grinning, Nate winked at a petite, blond waitress who zipped by with a tray loaded with food. “I don’t have relationships, remember? I have encounters. Anyway, Grace thinks you walked because Tory’s so independent. I figure the big problem you’ve got is that she’s so different from Patience.”

Bran’s jaw set. “You don’t think I knew that when I married Tory?”

“Maybe you thought you did. But for a guy used to being totally in charge and calling all the shots, I suspect you didn’t know what hit you.”

Bran’s teeth threatened to grind together. Only to himself would he admit that Nate was right—not until after he and Tory eloped and the sexual haze began to lift had he seen the immense contrast between his late wife and his present one. And he’d also understood that a gap the size of the Grand Canyon separated his and Tory’s basic needs.

Because the idea of pounding on his brother sounded like a good way to work off his frustration, he aimed a feral smile across the booth. “Speaking of getting hit, I’m ready to adjourn to the alley.”

Just then, Nate’s radio crackled to life. A patrol cop’s disembodied voice notified dispatch of a Signal Seven at an address across town. Dead body, Bran’s cop brain automatically translated.

“You’ll have to give me a rain check on the alley,” Nate said, scooping up the radio.

“Too bad,” Bran muttered while Nate advised dispatch that Homicide was en route to the scene. “I suppose everybody will get together for another damn powwow after the divorce is final,” Bran said as he and Nate rose in unison and pulled on their coats.

Nate slapped his shoulder. “Knowing our sisters, it’s inevitable.”

“Yeah.”

The instant they stepped out into the brutally cold night, Bran’s cell phone rang. He snagged it off the waistband of his slacks, flipped it open and frowned when it continued to ring. It took him a second to realize Nate’s cell also had an incoming call.

“McCall,” Bran said into his phone. He and Nate turned slightly away so they could each hear their respective callers.

“This is Captain Everett,” Bran’s boss said, his voice booming.

“Yes, sir—”

“A black and white is at your wife’s house. She’s not home. Do you know where she is?”

Bran froze. “Yes. Why?”

“Garcia’s husband was murdered. Shot.”

Bran’s pulse kicked. Susan Garcia was one of the patrol cops involved in the credit-union shootout. Shifting, he glanced at Nate, saw his brother’s grim expression as he listened to whoever was on the other end of his call. Bran figured Garcia’s husband was the victim at the scene Nate had just been called to.

“What happened?” Bran asked.

“Miguel Garcia sold high-dollar cars,” Everett began. “A guy came into the dealership late this afternoon asking for him and requesting to test drive a Jaguar. Garcia went with him, but never came back. His boss went out looking for him. He just now found Garcia, dead in the Jag.”

Bran swallowed back the bile rising in his throat. “Anybody get a look at the customer?”

“We’ve got a vague description. Could be Heath. Could be a lot of guys.”

“Tory’s at the downtown library. I’m less than five minutes away.”

“Get there fast, McCall. Zelewski’s wife is also missing.”

Zelewski. Bran pictured the patrol cop who’d arrived at the credit union a minute behind him. “His wife sells real estate, right?”

“Yes. We’ve got cops checking all her listings now. Let me know when you locate your wife,” Everett said, then ended the call.

“Looks like Heath hit Garcia’s husband.” Bran barked the words at Nate while punching in Tory’s cell number. “Maybe Zelewski’s wife, too.”

“Going after cops’ families,” Nate added as he and Bran dashed to the diner’s parking lot. “You said Tory’s at the library. Do you know where at the library?”

“No, but I’m damn sure going to find her.”

“We’ll find her.” Nate held up his keys to indicate he would drive. “My partner can get started working the homicide scene.”

Bran climbed into Nate’s car while he listened to Tory’s cell phone ring. Closing his eyes, he sent up a silent prayer that he wasn’t too late.

Her miniature camera tucked back inside her leather tote bag, Tory slipped out of the library learning center into the freezing night. As surveillance jobs went, this one had been a cinch. A professor’s wife suspected her husband was spending his evenings at the library working on more than just a research paper. The wife was right. Over the past four nights, Tory had witnessed the professor and a nubile grad student disappear into a series of cozy study rooms. It was unfortunate for the professor—and a plus for Tory—that the doors on the rooms were equipped with grates through which the small lens of her camera fit.

It was another plus that Oklahoma City’s new downtown library learning center had an espresso bar.

Taking a sip of the steaming mocha café latte she’d purchased on her way out, she headed for her car. To avoid snagging the prof’s attention, she had parked in a different area of the parking lot during each of her visits. Tonight, the biting wind had her wishing she’d found a spot that didn’t require a hike to get there.

By the time she unlocked the Taurus’s door, her nose and cheeks stung from the cold. Not to mention her fingers, since she’d forgotten to snag her leather gloves off the kitchen counter.

Tossing her tote bag onto the passenger seat, she slid behind the wheel. She nearly fumbled her latte when the cell phone she’d switched to silent mode began vibrating like a big insect against her waist.

She pulled the phone off her belt and slid it into the converter installed in the dash so she could converse hands-free. She answered, blinking when Bran shouted, “You still at the library?”

“Yes, in the parking—”

The word ended in a choked scream when something metallic dropped past her face and jerked back against her throat. Before she could react, the cold metal yanked tighter. The bright shock of pain blinded her.

The cup dropped to her lap, spilling steaming coffee across her jeaned thighs.

Choking, gagging, she clawed at the metal while fear stormed through her. Chain her mind registered at the same instant a second loop dropped over her head and circled her neck.

Hysteria bubbled in her blood. She used her feet to push herself up in the seat, trying to ease the pressure on her windpipe. As she dug at the chain her fingernails carved furrows into her throat. Fisting one hand, she swung behind her in a futile attempt to knock her assailant back.

“Bitch, this is from Vic,” a man’s voice hissed near her ear. “Gonna eat your old man’s heart out,” he added before giving the chain a vicious jerk.

Fire roared through her lungs. Her brain begging for air, she fought to remain conscious. Weapon, her senses screamed. Her Sig was in her tote on the passenger seat, far out of reach.

Darkness loomed at the edges of her vision, a tunnel narrowing. Her hand groped for the console. Her flailing fingertips brushed its lever. The chain tightened. She leaned, straining for the lever, increasing the pressure on her neck. Unconsciousness closed in. When she hit the lever the console’s lid sprang open. Her hand came up, gripping the emergency rescue hammer she habitually kept there.

Terror screaming through her, lungs bursting, her throat crushed beneath the unyielding metal, Tory swung the hammer in a desperate arc behind her. Rippling pain shot up her arm when one of its sharp steel points rammed into a solid mass.

“There’s her Taurus!” Bran shouted when Nate swerved his car into the parking lot amid a squeal of tires and smoking rubber.

Bran bailed out before they rolled to a stop. Glock aimed, blood boiling like a demon possessed, he went in low, advancing toward the car’s rear.

The back window was fogged over, obscuring his view of the interior.

Seconds later, Nate stepped beside him, automatic clenched in his hand. “I’ll take the passenger side,” Nate murmured.

Dread pounded in Bran’s brain. Training battered with the urge to rush to the car, but he held himself back. He wouldn’t be any good to Tory if he got himself shot. Staying low, he crept toward the rear door. Over his cell phone, he had heard her scream. Heard a man’s vicious, “Bitch, this is from Vic.”

Bran gritted his teeth. He would hunt Heath down and kill him with his bare hands. If it took the rest of his life, he would find the bastard.

The car’s side windows were less fogged than the back. Bran raised up enough to peer into the shadow-laden back seat. He saw a man’s booted feet and jeans-clad legs stretched across the seat. His upper body was slumped, face-down in the passenger-side floorboard. Heath? Bran wondered. His pal who helped him escape, maybe?

Nate pulled open the rear door, his automatic trained on the man.

Bran edged to the driver’s door, checked through the window. His throat tightened when he saw the front seat was empty. He pulled open the door. Tory’s tote bag lay on the passenger seat, its contents spilling across the upholstery. Her cell phone was still plugged into the converter in the dash. A paper cup lay in a puddle of coffee on the floorboard.

“She’s not here,” Bran said, and saw in Nate’s grim face that their thoughts were on the same wavelength. There was only one man in the back seat, which meant either Heath or his pal was still out there. Maybe he had Tory. Maybe he was close, waiting to ambush both cops when he got a clear shot.

Nate held his gun steady on the still figure while he pressed his fingers against his throat. “DRT,” he said, using cop shorthand for dead right there. He angled to get a look at the man’s face. “I don’t think its Heath,” he added before keying the mike on his handheld radio.

Staying low, Bran dashed toward the nearest grouping of parked cars. Only minutes had passed since Tory first answered her cell phone. Surely if Heath had grabbed her they couldn’t have gotten far.

Bran had just reached the front of a white SUV when he heard the faint clank of metal against metal. A croaking sob followed.

Gun aimed, he peered around the SUV. Relief surged through him when he spotted Tory. One palm pressed to the pavement, she knelt between the SUV and another car. Her Sig lay near her hand. She’d fled the Taurus, he theorized, fearing another attacker might be nearby.

It took a split second for him to register the jerky movement of her shoulders. Another to realize her free hand was clawing at her throat.

“Tory!” He rushed to her, his pulse spiking when he saw the chain looping her neck. He realized immediately the metal links were tangled in her long hair. The more she struggled, the tighter the chain pressed against her windpipe.

“Stop!” He dropped his weapon, grabbed her hands. “Tory, stop.”

“Get it off!” Her voice was a panicked rasp on the cold air. “Get it off, get it off.”

“Hold on.” His fingers squeezed hers. “Just hold on.”

Lungs heaving, she leaned into him.

Kneeling over her, he tried not to think. About the blood that slicked the metal links. Or the precious seconds lost because his fingers trembled so badly. A lifetime later, the chain slithered to the blacktop with a clank.

While sirens wailed in the distance, he eased her into a sitting position. Barely breathing himself, he watched her body shake as she dragged in short, rusty breaths.

“You’re okay,” he said, for her benefit as much as his. “I’ve got you now. You’re okay.”

He took a few drags of icy air while he watched her. She was one of the toughest women he knew, yet she looked fragile, terrifyingly so. Her face was drawn and impossibly pale; her eyes bright with fear. Bloody furrows marred her throat. Already, a necklace of dark bruises bloomed around the furrows.

“Tory….” His chest tightened. Heath had come after her because of him. She had almost died because of him. Bran wanted to pull her into his arms, hold her, yet she was gasping for air, her body trembling. He settled for placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.”

As if his touch flipped a switch in her she broke, simply broke. Sobbing, she surged into his arms, her face against his chest, her tears soaking into his sweater.

“Just let it out,” he said, stroking her hair. He had never seen her cry. Never seen her even close to tears. Now, the sound of her raspy sobs, combined with the knowledge of how close she’d come to dying nearly overwhelmed him.

She was down to shuddering breaths when she said, “I thought…I was…going to die.”

“I know.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I know.”

“Did you…get him?”

Bran realized she didn’t know she’d killed her attacker. That news could wait until she was steadier. “Yeah, we got him.”

Still stroking her hair, he glanced across his shoulder when a siren whooped nearby. Four black and whites and a crowd of onlookers now filled the lot. If Heath had been in the vicinity, he was gone.

An ambulance barreled into view. Emergency lights pulsed. Bran settled his hands on her shoulders and inched her gently back. “An ambulance is here. Let’s get you out of the cold.”

She nodded, looking up at him. Her blond lashes were spiky, her eyes swollen from tears.

He settled his hands on either side of her waist, lifted her to her feet. When she swayed against his chest, he tightened his grip.

“Let me carry you.”

She raised a hand, her trembling fingers brushing his cheek. “I…can…walk,” she croaked. “Need to…walk.”

Even now she wouldn’t allow herself to lean on him. For the space of a heartbeat he loosened control on the emotion roiling inside him: the need to protect her, to comfort her, the blind rage against Heath for nearly killing her.

She was alive solely because she was brave and a fighter. She hadn’t needed him to stay alive. Didn’t need him to carry her to the ambulance.

“Okay, you walk.” He pressed his lips against her forehead. “I’m a step away if you need me.”

Keeping one hand locked on her elbow, he swept up his Glock, holstered it. Her Sig went into a pocket on his parka. He was about to retrieve the chain when he felt her shudder.

“Forget walking.” He swept her up gently and headed toward the ambulance. “I’m taking care of you, Tory. No one is going to hurt you again.”

“Thanks…for the lift.” When she trembled convulsively, Bran tightened his arms around her.

Gonna eat your heart out. The threat that Heath’s mother had hissed at the funeral home—and that he’d heard coming over Tory’s cell phone during the attack—replayed with new meaning in Bran’s head. One officer’s husband was dead. Another’s wife was missing. Bran didn’t know yet if Heath had gone after the wife of the fourth cop involved in the credit-union shootout, but he figured he had.

It was clear now that Heath had planned all along to hit the families of the cops who’d killed his brother and cousin, not the cops themselves. What better way to eat someone’s heart out than to target their spouse? It was the ultimate twisting of the blade, a way to deal unending, excruciating, lifelong agony to the cops.

Grim-faced, Nate strode toward them. Bran inclined his head toward the spot where he found Tory. “There’s a chain back there. It needs to go into evidence.”

“A chain?”

“The scum had it wrapped around Tory’s throat.”

Nate nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

A pair of EMTs pulled a gurney into view at the same instant Bran reached the rear of the ambulance. He sat Tory down gently on the stretcher, kept his hands locked on her shoulders. He looked into her eyes, felt the tremors that still shook her. “I’m riding to the hospital with you.”

She rubbed a hand over her mouth, nodded.

He stepped back to give the EMTs room to work.

The pain of seeing her hurt was the equivalent to a razor slashing at his heart. Because that pain threatened to overwhelm, he went with anger.

He hadn’t known what Heath had been planning, but he’d known damn well he would try something. Just as Bran now sensed with cold, hard certainty the bastard would make another attempt on Tory.

“Try it.” The violence bubbling in his blood transformed his voice into a lethal hiss on the cold night air.

He spotted Nate, saw the blood-slicked chain dangling from his brother’s fingers. Bran forced himself to take a long, measured breath. Rage, he knew, clouded the mind. So he would throttle his back. Keep it under control. Do what he had to do.

Bran stepped to the ambulance, swung up into the back.

Tory was still his wife. His to protect. His.

And he had just become her shadow.