TWENTY-SEVEN

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Luca barely registered the sound of a fist hitting the door. He didn’t know how long he’d been hanging here, but time had stood still since Jeff grabbed the bullwhip and he’d been lost in an eternity of pain.

Qué chingados! They know I’m not to be disturbed during my workout.” Jeff stalked across the room and yanked open the door.

“Ray. What the fuck do you want?”

Luca heard a murmured apology and something about a phone message. He tried to lift his head to see who Ray was, but his neck wouldn’t obey.

“Our special guests have arrived,” Ray said. “They’ve got the money. The girlfriend is so fucking cute. Can’t be more than eighteen or nineteen and her dad owns one of the casinos downtown so she’s got to be loaded. She wants our new guy to supply all her friends.”

Jeff let out a long breath. “Good job setting that up. I wanted to finish up here, but I’d better go meet them. A casino owner’s daughter can give us a line in to a new tier of the city. Get the room ready. I’ll see you upstairs.”

Luca sagged in the chains, thanking whatever guardian angel had just spared him the agony of being whipped again with ten feet of thick, braided leather.

Jeff collected his implements and laid them neatly on the table, before grabbing a towel from his gym bag to wipe himself down. “I won’t be back tonight,” he said. “I plan to fuck Gaby until the sun comes up. But I’ll leave instructions for my men to come down and keep you company.”

Luca heard the unmistakable roar of a Harley-Davidson engine. For a moment, he thought he’d passed the point of no return, but when he forced his head up he saw Jeff smiling at his phone by the open door.

“It’s Gaby,” he said in delight. “She’s texted four times in the last hour about our dinner tonight. She’s really looking forward to it.” He slid his thumb over his phone. “Do you notice how quickly she came to me when you disappeared? You were nothing to her. A fling. And once you were gone, she came back to me.”

His phone rang in his hand, the unmistakable sound of “This Life” by Curtis Stigers & The Forest Rangers.

“Gaby!” He looked back over his shoulder with a satisfied smirk as he answered the call. “I just got your texts.”

Christ. Gabrielle was going to spend the night with this monster? Luca yanked on the chains but the thick metal cuffs were tight around his wrists. Maybe after a few hours’ recovery, he might be able to swing his body in the direction of the table—

“That’s great news! I’m on my way.” Jeff ended his call and turned to face Luca, an almost fanatical gleam on his face. “I’ve got him! Gaby found the fucker who vandalized my car. I thought it was you, but she tracked him down through the serial number on his phone, and she’s watching him right now at a Mexican restaurant in Harlingen. This day is just getting better and better.” He scooped up his gym bag and towel. “I might be in a very good mood when I come back. Vengeance and fucking in one night. You just might get to die easy.”

Luca shook in his chains. “You touch her and the things you’ve seen the Mafia do to people that piss them off will be nothing compared to what I do to you.”

Jeff laughed. “You’re hardly in a position to make threats, and if you think you’re going to be rescued, think again. No one knows where you are. As far as anyone is concerned, you were taken to jail by a couple of LVPD police officers. Except there is no record of your arrest, and no way of tracing you here. You’ve disappeared, and you’ll never be seen again.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck her. And I will. Again and again and again until she doesn’t even remember your name.” He turned as he pulled the door closed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a business meeting to attend, a vandal to arrest, a dinner date with a hot little cop, and then a little pussy for dessert.”

*   *   *

“He’s coming.” Paolo leaped up from the living room floor. “I heard a door close, and now I can hear footsteps. I think the basement stairs lead into the kitchen.”

“Damn. He can’t see me.” Gabrielle looked around frantically just as Ray came down the hall.

“Something the matter?”

“Bathroom.” She bounced up and down as if she were desperate. “I really need to go.”

“Down the hall,” Ray said pointing in the opposite direction to the door where they’d found Jeff’s clothes. “And Garcia will be ready for the meeting in about five minutes.”

“Thanks.” She blew him a kiss and hurried down the hall, noting the kitchen to her left. Keeping Ray sweet was an insurance policy she couldn’t afford to pass up.

Once in the bathroom, she texted Frankie with an update, alerting him to the fact that she’d just discovered that one of her colleagues, Jeff, was a dirty cop working for Garcia, but would be leaving shortly to hunt down an imaginary car vandal.

Frankie:

Get out. Hi-Tech electric fence around perimeter. Can’t give you back up.

Gabrielle:

Text me when Jeff leaves. We’ll find Luca.

Frankie:

Two new guards on site. Total of four outside. Stand down.

Gabrielle:

Man up. I’m going in.

Frankie:

WTF? I say leave. You leave.

Gabrielle:

Sorry. Bad service. No texts getting thru. Going to find Luca.

Frankie:

PITA

Gabrielle:

Bad service again. Text garbled. Was that THX? You’re welcome.

Frankie:

Someone just came out. Tall. Stocky. Dark Hair. Jeff?

Gabrielle:

I hope so.

When she emerged from the bathroom, Paolo and Ray were chatting with one of the guards in the living room. Heart pounding, she slipped into the kitchen, taking in the warm terracotta tiles, colorful hand towels, frilly curtains, and what she assumed was the cochinita pibil cooling on the stove. The incongruity of the domestic scene with what was going on in the house was unsettling, but not as much as the dried blood on the floor outside the basement door.

Cautiously, she made her way down the carpeted stairway to a vast basement with crisp white walls, soft white carpet, and gray leather furniture. She checked out the doors along the walls, stopping at one that had a set of keys hanging on a hook near the hinges. Gabrielle grabbed the keys and unlocked the door. Then she prayed.

*   *   *

Creak. Swish.

Luca’s head jerked up as a rush of cool air brushed over his body. Jeff hadn’t even been gone five minutes and he was fading already.

The door opened, just a crack and then wider. Luca tensed. Had Jeff decided to come back for round two?

“Luca!”

Luca stared. Maybe he was hallucinating. There were no angels where he was going when he died. So why had an angel come? A sexy angel. Dressed in pink. With long dark hair. She reminded him of Gabrielle. Maybe if he hallucinated Gabrielle, the pain would go away.

“Oh, my God, baby. What did they do to you?”

Hmmm. She sounded just like Gabrielle. And she called him baby. He liked that term of endearment, although he didn’t want to hear it from anyone except the woman he loved.

“Calm. Calm. He’s okay. Breathe.” Muttering to herself, she pulled out her phone and thumbed the keys. Was she sending a text? Did angels text? Was this the modern version of Judgment Day? Would God text back with “Heaven” or “Hell”?

“Okay. I’m going to get you out of here,” she said, tucking her phone into her fancy pink purse. “Frankie is going to arrange for a distraction and Paolo will come down and pick the locks on those cuffs. I didn’t see any other keys outside.”

Frankie. Paolo. He knew those names. His mind cleared, but not enough to understand why this angel looked and sounded like Gabrielle.

“Are you going to be able to walk when I take you down?” She touched his face, stroked a very gentle finger over his cheek. “If not, I’ll carry you out. You’re not spending another minute in here.”

Dio mio. It wasn’t a hallucination because the moment she touched him, he could feel her in his soul.

“Gabrielle?”

“Yes, it’s me. We came to rescue you. Me and Paolo.”

And that woke him right the hell up. “Paolo? You brought Paolo? What were you—?”

A loud crash outside cut him off. Moments later Paolo dashed into the room.

“Frankie got a guy to drive his truck into one of the cars parked outside. It’s not going to keep them busy for long.” He reached up and used a nifty little wire to open Luca’s cuffs.

“You should give Paolo a raise,” Gabrielle said, sliding under Luca’s shoulder to take his weight. “I’ve never seen anyone who can pick a lock like him.”

Paolo eased under Luca’s other shoulder, and although Luca balked at having to rely on their assistance, he knew it would take at least a few minutes before he could walk on his own. His back felt like it was on fire, every breath hurt from what he suspected were broken ribs, his arms were next to useless from lack of circulation, and his legs shook with every step.

Gabrielle glanced over at his back and her breath caught. “Who did this to you? Was it Garcia?” She pulled a .22 from under her jacket, holding it in front of them with her free hand.

“Jeff.”

“Jeff?” She froze, but before she could ask any questions, footsteps thudded across the floor above.

“Jesus Christ!” Jeff’s voice echoed down the stairwell. “My fucking car. They destroyed my fucking car. How the fuck am I supposed to get across the city now? Don’t just stand there staring at me. Someone get me another vehicle. And find out who owned that piece of shit truck. Where’s the kid and the fucking girl you wanted me to meet?”

Luca gritted his teeth and forced his unsteady legs to take his weight. “Give me the fucking gun.”

*   *   *

That was it? A five-minute diversion?

Gabrielle bit back a howl of frustration. How the hell did Frankie think they’d rescue Luca, get out of the house, clear the yard and get past the electric fence all in five minutes? Luca could barely walk, and if they were spotted on their way out, he wouldn’t be able to run.

Emotion welled up in her chest as she took in the extent of Luca’s injuries. His back was a mess of angry red stripes, blood and bruises, his body was slick with sweat, and from the way he held himself she was sure he had a few broken bones. She’d always considered Jeff a friend, but now she wondered if she even knew him at all.

They waited for footsteps, but when the voices faded away, Gabrielle tugged Luca toward the stairs. “He must have changed his mind. Let’s go.”

“Give me the gun,” Luca said again.

She gave an exasperated sigh. “You can have the gun if you can walk.”

He took a step, leaned so heavily on her that she staggered to the side. There was no way they’d get him out like this.

“I’m going to create another distraction.” She propped Luca up against the wall and slid out from under his arm. “Hopefully that will give Frankie enough time to take down the four guards outside and get through the electric fence so he can give us a hand. Paolo, you stay with him. Do you have a gun?”

“Frankie gave me one.” Paolo pulled out a Sig Sauer P320. “I’ve only been out to the shooting range once, but I was pretty good.”

“Take good care of Luca. Gentle with the trigger.” She couldn’t believe she was entrusting Luca’s safety to a boy who’d only ever fired a gun at a paper target, but she had no choice.

“Fuck.” Luca gritted his teeth. “I’m not letting you go up there alone. Jeff is out of control.”

“I can handle Jeff.” She felt a rush of confidence she would never have imagined feeling two months ago when she’d been shot and kicked off her case, her quest for revenge at an apparent end. But then she’d met Luca and discovered a core of strength she never knew she had, and a side of herself that was willing to break the rules. Her quest to see justice done the legal way had given her a reason to live, but it had also held her back. Luca had shown her another path, a way forward. He had opened her heart and freed her from the past. Jeff would pay for what he had done. And if the law wouldn’t step up to punish him, then she would.

She heard the thud of footsteps, the creak of a door.

“Find them,” Jeff shouted. “They have to be around. Who leaves half a million dollars behind?”

Heart pounding, she walked up the stairs listening as Jeff barked orders. How long had he worked for Garcia? David would have been devastated if he’d known. She was almost glad he wasn’t alive to find out that the man he thought of as a brother had betrayed everything he believed in.

She pushed open the door and walked boldly into the kitchen as if she had every right to be there just as Jeff turned the corner.

“Gabrielle?” If their situation hadn’t been so dire, she would have laughed at the total and utter shock on Jeff’s face. But it gave her a few precious moments she could turn to her advantage.

“Jeff.” She barked out his name, holding her gun down by her side and out of sight. “What the hell is going on here? We need to talk.” Before he could speak, or even react, she swept past him and marched down the hall toward the bedroom where she’d found his clothes, and as far away from Luca and the basement stairs as possible.

“Gabrielle.”

She made it to the room just as Jeff’s heavy palm landed on her shoulder, and she spun around to face the man who had been David’s best friend.

“What are you doing here?” His eyes narrowed, and she gritted her teeth against the tidal wave of fear crashing through her body.

“I got a tip that Garcia was here. You know me. I couldn’t resist. Do you like my disguise?” She lifted one of the black braids as she checked out the bedroom, furnished solely with a king-size bed in dark wood and matching dresser. If things got rough she could lock herself in the ensuite bathroom, or maybe escape out the window hidden behind the heavy navy blue curtains.

“How did you get in?”

“Ray.”

His face darkened and he pulled the door closed behind him, sending her pulse skittering. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” She was playing her “offense is the best defense” card but it was starting to wear thin. “Are you working for Garcia?”

“No. I’m not working for Garcia.” He took a step toward her, and something dangerous flickered in his eyes. “Garcia’s dead.”

Hope flared bright in her heart. “You killed him?”

“Yeah.” His voice softened. “I did. For you.” He pulled his damp T-shirt over his head, tossed it on the floor, as if they were two friends having a casual conversation and he hadn’t just beaten Luca half to death downstairs in the house of the drug lord she’d been chasing for the last two years.

Stunned, she just stared. “Where is he? Why didn’t you call anyone?”

“Put down the gun, Gaby,” he said softly, holding out his arms. “Come and give me a thank you hug. You know I would never hurt you.”

Gabrielle stared at his open arms as she tried to make sense of the surreal situation, of what she knew and what she’d seen, of the facts that still weren’t adding up.

“If he’s dead, why was Ray going to take me to see him?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You were the new customer?”

“I needed a way in.”

“Agent Palmer didn’t give you half a million dollars to buy a meet.” His sucked in his lips as he stared at her, considering. “Where did you get the money?”

She shrugged. “Casino.”

He snorted a laugh. “Aren’t you a lucky girl!”

Gabrielle wasn’t feeling particularly lucky at this moment, trapped in a room with a friend who had become a stranger, and who had a dark side she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

He walked over to his dresser, pulled open a drawer. “I think it’s better that way. I don’t want anything to come between us, and Garcia will.”

“What are you doing here, Jeff?”

He pulled a fresh black T-shirt over his head and sighed. “Put down the gun, Gaby. We had a nice evening planned, and I spent most of the afternoon preparing dinner. I’ll pack it up, and we’ll go to your place, eat, have a little wine, then we can cuddle and talk on the couch for a bit before we go to bed. Unless you were actually being honest about finding the guy who threw the rock at my car, and then we might take a detour first.”

She heard the slightest waver in his voice, realized he wasn’t as calm and collected as he appeared on the surface, and if she didn’t play this right, he might just explode “I wasn’t lying. I know it’s important to you. I was staring right at him when I called.”

“Fuck.” He thudded his fist on the dresser. “I want that guy so fucking bad. It was fucking rude. That’s what really got to me. There was no reason to break my windshield. It wasn’t even like he was after my spare change.”

“He thought you were threatening me when you broke my door.” She had talked to Paolo briefly in the car about the night he lost his phone and he’d explained that he was trying to protect her.

“You talked to him?”

“Yes.” She shuddered, wondering what she was going to do when he asked how she had talked to him on the phone while looking at the car vandal when she was here and not on the other side of the city.

Myriad emotions crossed his face, and his eyes softened. If he’d pieced her lies together, he hid it well. “I would never hurt you, Gaby. You know that. I was just frustrated that night. I’d been waiting for you for so long.” In two strides, he closed the distance between them and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Let’s go and have that nice evening we planned together.”

Was he crazy? He had just tortured a man in his cellar, and killed Garcia. He was clearly here without Agent Palmer’s authorization, and the house was in chaos. He had to know she wouldn’t have come alone, and instead of suggesting they bring in her backup or call the police, he wanted to go for dinner? “Jeff…”

He reached for her hand. “I said, ‘Let’s go.’”

But she couldn’t move. Every instinct screamed danger, and her mind was desperately trying to put all the pieces together to come up with a picture that made sense. This was his room. His clothes were on the bed and in the drawers. He had cooked a meal in the kitchen. He tortured people downstairs. But this was also where Paolo had been told to meet Garcia. Ray seemed to think Garcia was alive and had talked to him after she and Paolo arrived. And only four days ago, a not-dead Garcia had killed Little Ricky and left him hanging in the meat freezer as a warning.

“When did you kill Garcia?”

Jeff sighed and returned to the dresser. “You’re going to ruin our evening with all these questions. Sometimes, Gaby, it’s better not to know.”

“I want to know,” she demanded.

“How about we talk after dinner? We can turn on those terrible game shows you like to watch and curl up on the couch…” He trailed off when she shook her head.

“Are you crazy? We’re not having dinner. We’re not watching TV. You’re working with Garcia, Jeff. You have to know it ends here.”

He leaned a casual arm over the top of the open drawer and laughed. “What are you saying? You’re going to call Agent Palmer? I’ll tell him I came here looking for answers, the same as you. What evidence do you have linking me to Garcia? None. I found the drugs on the table when I got here. The men I’ve got with me are all LVPD officers and will back me up. You’re so desperate to find Garcia, you’re grasping at straws.”

Maybe a few weeks ago she would have second-guessed herself, but not any more. Anger lit a flame inside her, giving her the strength to challenge him. “So you came here looking for Garcia, killed him, put your clothes in the drawers, cooked dinner, and then changed into your gym clothes so you could go and beat on the man you kidnapped downstairs?”

When he spoke, even the tone of his voice was stark. “You saw him.”

“Yes, I saw him. I saw what you did to Luca.” Her hand shook as she raised her gun. “I want to understand, Jeff. I may not have had the same feelings for you that you do for me, but you’ve always been a good friend. I never imagined you could do what you did to him. I almost didn’t believe him when he told me it was you. We’ve shared so much, not just together, but with David, and now I feel like I never really knew you.”

“David.” His face curdled as he spat out the name. “Always fucking David. You think you didn’t know me? You knew nothing about him.”

“He was my husband,” she said indignantly. “I knew him very well.”

“Did you know he stole you away from me? He stole everything. I’m standing here now because of him.” He clenched his hand on the edge of the dresser.

“Tell me,” she said quietly, seeing an opening to get him to talk. “Tell me what he did to you, and then we’ll go for dinner and talk.”

“We both got into Narcotics together.” Jeff shook out his hand. “That’s when I met Garcia. I pulled him over for a traffic violation and found drugs in his car. He was just small-time then. He gave me a little something to keep quiet and we became friends. He told me I could make more in a week with him than I did in a year with the police.”

Gabrielle felt sick inside. It was a familiar story. Good police officers, struggling to make ends meet on low pay, were seduced by the lavish lifestyle of the criminals they were supposed to apprehend.

“I said no.” Jeff dropped his hand over the drawer again, a seemingly casual gesture that wasn’t casual at all. She stared at the drawer, wondering if he had a weapon hidden inside.

“Can you believe it?” He continued. “My friendship with David was more important and I knew he would never forgive me. We had planned to move up the ranks together. Sergeants, then lieutenants, captains, and commanders. We were going to change things for the better. David always had high ideals. He was so fucking perfect. The perfect cop. The perfect friend … at least until he stole you away. He knew I wanted you, and the day you graduated I was going to ask you out. I told him I was going to do it. I trusted him. I went to buy you flowers and when I came back it was too late.”

She remembered that day. The thrill of having fulfilled Patrick’s dream. The disappointment that her father hadn’t come. David asking her out. Jeff uncharacteristically quiet …

“I don’t remember you giving me flowers.”

“I didn’t. David told me he’d already asked you out when I got back, so I threw them away. I would never have risked our friendship by pursuing you after that.” His pulse throbbed in his neck, and she dipped her head, making another quick search of the room, planning her escape route. Jeff wasn’t the man she thought he was, and she didn’t know who lay behind the mask.

“You were a good friend to him.” She tried to soothe him with a calm, quiet voice, although her heart was pounding in her chest. “Even though he did you wrong.”

“I told myself it was for the best,” he said. “You never looked at me the way you looked at him, and I figured I probably never even had a chance because I didn’t come from a rich family like him. I decided I was never going to lose out because of money again. I’d had enough of that growing up with a foster family on social assistance. So, I called up Garcia. Told him I’d get involved. He had expanded his operation, and he needed protection when his shipments arrived. I got some like-minded guys together from the department and we realized the shiny beacon on top of the squad car was the path to easy money. We targeted Garcia’s rivals, putting what we took back on the street and taking the cash. We were rolling in it, and then Garcia decided he wanted a piece of our action.”

A chill ran through her body. “What did you do?”

“I took him out,” he said flatly. “He had become the weak link, and we didn’t need him anymore. But he had one hell of a reputation. He could do deals based on his name alone. He’d been disfigured in a meth-lab explosion and he never showed his face, so I figured why not keep his name alive? I got rid of all the guys who worked for him and got my own boys on board. All cops. All disillusioned with a system where the criminals are riding around in luxury cars and the good guys are just scraping by.”

She froze in absolute shock, her mouth hanging open as she stared at him aghast. “You’re Garcia?” All these years chasing after David’s killer and he was right under her nose, sitting in her living room watching TV, walking with her in the park, and holding her during her darkest days.

“I couldn’t have done it if we didn’t share the same heritage,” he said proudly. “All our product comes from Mexico, and I have to do a lot of negotiating over the phone with the cartel bosses, none of whom speak English. They don’t know that Garcia has been dead for years or that they’ve been dealing with me. We had a great thing going. We’d flash the cherry, confiscate the drugs, and sell them under Garcia’s name. It was perfect.”

Something niggled at her brain. An unbearable, impossible, sickening thought.

“How long has Garcia been dead?”

“Three years.”

“You’re lying,” she said, making a quick mental calculation. “He’s been active over the last two years. I have reports, witness statements. And I was pretty sure it was Garcia who shot me in the warehouse.”

The faintest flicker of remorse crossed his face. “I shot you.”

Her heart skidded to a stop. “You?”

“You were endangering yourself, Gaby.” He sighed and ran his hand through his thick, dark hair. “You were obsessed and losing yourself. All you talked about was Garcia and getting revenge. I needed to get you out of the bureau so you could move on with your life. A life with me in it.”

“No. Jeff. Please tell me you didn’t.”

“I did,” he said firmly. “I set the whole thing up. I called in the tip, nudged you just enough by repeatedly expressing my concern that Garcia might get away. I knew you’d jump the gun. I just knew it. You wanted Garcia so badly you couldn’t think straight. But I was very careful where I placed the shot. I didn’t want to hit any internal organs and I wanted you to recover quickly. I knew they’d pull you off the case for that. I thought it would be enough to scare you off Garcia for good. I even arranged for your transfer to Theft so we could be on the same floor.”

Her hand came to her mouth. “Jeff. How could you?”

“To save you from yourself. To save us. We were meant to be together. I saw you first, Gaby. You just never gave us a chance.”

“I loved David.”

He snorted. “David didn’t love you. If he did, he wouldn’t have threatened me when he found out what was going on. He would have known what I would have to do. He chose to leave you alone, Gaby. But I didn’t. I could have given myself up and gone to jail when David confronted me. But I chose you.”