Thirty-Four

The dead boy wasn’t Leo Maddox.

Michael wasn’t surprised. Leon Maddox’s only grandson was a valuable commodity, one that wouldn’t be squandered or sold into the hands of a pervert—at least not until he’d served his purpose.

The Maddox boy had been granted a stay of execution, not a pardon. No one understood the concept of living on borrowed time better than he did.

He looked at Sabrina and felt the familiar knot growing in the pit of his stomach that took root whenever he was close enough to touch her. Those roots grew deep, seeming to wrap around his spine. Digging cold fingers into the capsule that hugged it, reminding him that he’d never be allowed to have what he wanted.

Miss Ettie set a fine-bone China cup in front of him. She’d come out of nowhere, Alex Kotko trailing behind her in baggy sweatpants and a T-shirt with a picture of a cat on it, and got busy pouring coffee while the boy wedged himself under the table.

Michael looked up at the old woman and forced himself to smile. “Thanks.”

She didn’t say anything, just patted his shoulder and gave him an odd look that was half smile, half frown. Like she could read his mind and felt sorry for him. He dropped his gaze to the boy on the floor, back slammed against the side of Sabrina’s chair. On impulse, he lifted a stack of cookies from the plate Miss Ettie placed on the table and held them down at his side. The kid swiped them out of his hand and started shoving them into his mouth, two at a time. Michael smiled for a moment, but it died quickly, memories he’d thought long dead pushing in around him.

He dropped his now empty hand on the table and slouched in his chair, waiting for Miss Ettie to leave the room before speaking. “You in or out, Lark?”

Lark looked him straight in the eye. “In.”

“Good. Now you can prove it by telling us what the hell kind of deal Shaw’s got going with Reyes,” Michael said.

Lark just laughed. “You think I know?” He flicked a glare across the table to where Ben had taken a seat. “I’m not the boss’s kid; I’m his dog. I get to know precisely what I need to in order to get the job done. Not one syllable more.”

“Alright. What was your assignment here?” Michael said.

“Report back to Shaw if you got close to finding the Maddox kid. Let him know if you got a bead on Reyes.”

It was probably true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. “Is that it?”

Lark cut him a humorless grin. “You know how it is.”

Michael nodded, understanding perfectly—Lark was here to kill him. Nothing he didn’t know already, but having it confirmed wiped out any residual guilt he might’ve been feeling about throwing that capsule down Lark’s throat. Ironically, the capsule and the help from Lark it ensured were the only things stopping him from reaching across the table and snapping Lark’s neck. For now, trying to kill each other would have to wait.

“What were you doing at Elm’s office this afternoon?” Sabrina said.

Lark hesitated, seeming to be choosing his words carefully. “Shit went down—and not like it was supposed to.”

So things had gotten messy and he’d been called in to clean up. Too bad for him that Sabrina and her partner had gotten in the way.

“Who ordered the hit on Elm?” Michael said, but he already knew the answer, even if Lark didn’t.

Lark shrugged. “Either Reyes or Shaw. Take your pick.”

His money was on Reyes. Shaw had nothing to gain by Elm’s death.

“So who’d the shooter belong to?” Ben said.

Lark shook his head. “I never saw ’em, but I’d put my money on Team Reyes. Pips don’t usually get down like that.”

Michael leaned forward. “Like what?”

Lark didn’t answer him. Instead, he looked at Sabrina. “You saw Elm’s secretary. That shit wasn’t necessary.”

Sabrina nodded. “Every kill in the building was totally methodical. One bullet, head shot at close range. We found a mess in the breakroom, like someone put up a fight—my guess is Elm’s secretary. I’ll have the ME scrape her nails for trace. Maybe she got a chunk of him. We might get lucky with an ID,” she said.

“Whoever it is will come back as a known associate of Alberto Reyes. The hit on Elm was a mop-job. The rest of them were just collateral damage.” Michael looked down at the boy again. He was practically catatonic. The Reyes he knew wouldn’t waste the price of a bullet, let alone the manpower it took to track down and kill one small boy. But it’d been Cordova’s men at the hospital, not Reyes’s. Which meant whatever Alex Kotko knew, whoever he was, he was valuable—not only to Reyes, but also to his enemies.

Michael took a few seconds, weighing the boy’s importance against that of Leo Maddox. He calculated the odds of getting them both out alive and measured them against his need to complete the mission. He glanced up and found Sabrina watching him. She knew what he was doing—considering a trade—and she’d shoot him before letting him apply the most logical solution.

He looked away from her, told himself that he averted his eyes because he found her almost obsessive need to save everyone annoying—not because the wary expression on her face was one she’d give an untrustworthy stranger.

“Shooters,” Lark said out of nowhere. “Plural. As in there were two of them.”

“What?” Ben said in a bored tone that was at total odds with the interest that sharpened his gaze.

“Robert Elm wasn’t shot at close range.” He shot a glance at Sabrina and cracked a smile. “Don’t sweat it, sweetheart, it was an easy miss. You had your hands full with trying to figure out a way to bash my skull in with an ashtray—no way you or your partner’d notice something like that,” he said to her before turning his attention back to Ben. “It was a long-distant, lateral shot.” Lark reached out and jabbed a finger at Ben’s forehead, drilling him in the center of it. “There was no stippling around the entrance wound. Clean, high-powered round. Only place to make a shot like that is damn near a mile from the crime scene.” Lark shifted around in his seat and spoke to Michael directly. “I clocked it on the way here, while you and Lady Cop were busy getting reacquainted.”

Michael studied his former friend. Every twitch and tic. He’d always been able to tell when he was lying, and Brian Lark was telling the truth.

“You’re the only person I know that’s ever been on Reyes’s payroll with those kinds of skills.” Lark said to him. “Shit, only a handful of you in Shaw’s stable, for that matter.”

So who made the shot?

He had a sudden flash. The scarf girl, Eliza—the bright red stain on her forehead. The spray of blood across the cool white tablecloth. All she’d wanted was her little brother back. She’d been desperate and stupid. And about to tell him something he wasn’t supposed to know.

“Who is it?” he said quietly, his words a blanketing weight, suppressing every other sound. “Who’d Shaw send to clean up Reyes’s mess?” But he already knew.

Lark was right—there weren’t many of his kind running around.

“I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure it was Church,” Lark said, confirming his suspicions.

Things had just gone from insanely bad to downright un-
survivable.