Seventy-Six

Ben found a ride.

It’d taken some negotiating and more finesse than he had time for, but the outcome had been worth it. He was leaving for Colombia within the hour.

Leaving Nickels and Mandy in charge of Val, Lucy, and Alex, he’d headed to Miss Ettie’s to pack up his gear. No matter the outcome with the Maddox situation, Ben doubted he’d be coming back here for quite some time.

He had other matters to attend to.

His phone rang just as he hit the front walkway, and he answered. “Is she dead?” It was his man in Spain, the one he’d ordered to kill the Cordova woman.

“Your boy beat me to it. Worked my way in and found the guard with his neck snapped and the chick with a cluster of bullets in her sternum.”

He stopped walking for a second, squeezed his eyes shut. “Damn it …” No matter what Michael said, no matter how good he was at his job or how emotionally void he liked to pretend to be, he wasn’t built for this shit. Neither of them were. “Did he get out?”

“When I got there, the whole station was in an uproar looking for him, but yeah, he was gone.” The man on the other end cleared his throat. “Anything else?”

Ben started walking again, up the porch steps to press his thumb against the print scanner. The lock disengaged. “No. If you hear anything, let me know.”

“You got it.” And then the line was dead.

He found Lark in the sunroom, fingers clicking across the keyboard attached to several monitors, endless streams of data flowing his way.

“What are you doing?” he said, not entirely sure that leaving Lark alone for so long was a good idea.

“Where you been? Mikey called your SAT phone right after you left. He asked me for a full jacket on that Cordova woman. Found some pretty interesting shit,” Lark said without even looking at him. “She and Estefan Reyes have been—”

“Did you know my father was going to have Church take Sabrina?”

The clicking stopped, Lark’s massive head turning slowly to look at him. “Shit … I admit that she ain’t my favorite white girl but, I swear, I didn’t know that was going to happen,” he said calmly, recognizing that he was suddenly fighting for his life. “You believe me, right?”

Ben stared at Lark hard. At the beads of sweat that popped up along his upper lip, the way he flexed his fingers around empty air—probably wishing for a gun—waiting for him to answer.

“Why did you really do it, Lark?” Ben said quietly, asking the only question that mattered to him right now. “Were you jealous? It was obvious, even then, that Michael had feelings for her. Was she interrupting your little bromance? Changing him into someone you didn’t like? Did you get Lucy killed to punish him for wanting something more than a lifetime of killing?”

Lark sat back in his seat, looking away for a second before resettling his gaze on the man in front of him. “Getting Lucy Walker killed was never my intention.” He shook his head. “Sabrina is dangerous. She does more than make him want; she makes him forget. When he was here looking for his sister’s killer, he was six weeks gone and he had no intention of coming back. He was going to stay here—and die—for her,” Lark said, holding up his thumb and forefinger. “Your father was this close to letting his finger do the walking … I did what I had to do to keep him alive.” He shrugged. “You gotta kill me, kill me. Tell the truth, it’d be a relief. I’m sick and fucking tired of living under your daddy’s thumb.”

Ben believed him. He even understood him. How far he was willing to go in order to protect his friend, what he was willing to throw away. It was what he’d been hoping for. Counting on. Why he’d asked his father to send Lark with them when they left Spain.

He was going to need Lark for what came next.

“I’m not gonna kill you. Not today, anyway.” He smiled. “Pack your shit. We’re outta here in twenty,” he said, leaving Lark to stare after him.

Upstairs, he dragged his duffle from the closet and tossed it on the bed before he started pulling drawers open to collect his stuff.

“I’m going with you.”

Ben looked up to find Sabrina’s partner standing in the doorway of his room. He arched an eyebrow and kept packing. “How’d you get in here?”

Strickland held up his thumb and wiggled it before repeating himself. “I’m going with you.”

Ben gave him an absentminded scowl. “Yeah … no.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Strickland said, walking into the room, forcing him to stop packing and focus. “She’s my partner. I have to go with you. I’m supposed to be there.”

Ben clipped the carabiner through the eyelet of his duffle. “I’m pretty sure you’re the one who doesn’t understand,” he said, tossing his bag toward the door where it landed, leaning to the side in a disheveled slump. “If I take you within a hundred miles of this shit storm, Sabrina will harvest my testicles, and you know what? I like my balls. I’m attached to them. I want to keep them, so again … no.”

Strickland glared at him, that Average Joe disguise he’d perfected slipping a bit to give Ben a glimpse of what was going on below the surface. “You’re not listening and I’m not asking. I am going after her. Either with you or on my own.”

Ben didn’t answer or argue. Instead, he reached under his bed to pull out his case and dialed in the combination before turning it forward so Strickland could get a good look at what was inside. Guns. Knives. Compact explosives. Weapons and equipment that would take more time and explanation than he had patience for. “Take a good look, cop. Tell me what you don’t see.”

Strickland dropped his gaze, his face paling a bit at the contents of the case, but his jaw maintained its stubborn jut. “A point to all your rambling bullshit.”

He laughed in spite of himself. “A point … that’s funny. I’ll tell you what you don’t see. Handcuffs. A badge. A warrant. You want to know why you don’t see those things?” Ben slammed the case shut and lifted it off the bed. “Because I’m not a cop. I’m not a good guy, and I’m not going after Reyes with the intention of arresting him. I’m not going to read him his rights and make sure he stands trial for his crimes. I’m going after my friends, and if I’m very lucky, I’ll be the one who gets to put a bullet in the back of that sick fuck’s head,” he said, skirting the bed to make his way toward the door. He stopped, his shoulders slumping a bit. Pissing on this guy’s parade wasn’t nearly as fun as it should’ve been. He turned around to see him standing where he’d left him, eyes narrowed, staring at him. “Look,” he sighed. “You’re a good guy, Strickland. You believe in the law. Right from wrong, cops and robbers. But there is absolutely no place in this fight for morality or decency, because that’s the kind of shit that will get you—and more importantly, me—killed.” He turned back around, heading for the hall.

“Fuck you, you smug little prick.” Something shiny whizzed past his head before smacking into the wall. A badge.

Ben turned to look at the man standing behind him. “Excuse me?”

Strickland lifted his service weapon from his holster, ejecting the magazine and checking the chamber before dropping both on the ground. “You heard me. You don’t know me or what I believe. You don’t know where my moral compass points or anything about my delicate sensibilities.” Next, he pulled his handcuffs from his belt and tossed them next to his gun. “And you sure as fuck don’t know what I’m willing to do or how far I’m willing to go to get my partner back. You want a shot at putting down that son of a bitch? Well, you’re gonna have to get in line because I’m goddamned sick and tired of riding the bench.”

Ben felt a slow smile stretch across his face while he gave the cop in front of him the up-down—not so much sizing him up as he was recalculating what he’d thought he knew about Sabrina’s partner. “Okay. You’re in. We leave in an hour.”