Diana sat inside her car, parked in an open field just outside the tiny town of Oxford, Alabama. Because she was in sight of a cell tower, reception was pretty good out here in the tall grass and no trees; she clutched a phone in each hand—neither was her own.
The two small black burners were in addition to the standard monthly-plan version she owned and operated as Diana Kincaid, police officer, nearly detective, suburban homeowner, friend, wife. These were new; these belonged to Sin. These were links, ties, chains, to her past, and sucked her back into a life she had worked hard to slough off.
One phone connected her to Owen Dunham. She’d texted the agent to ask about Nick’s cell phone. What could Dunham track down? Could he tell anything about the number the cell forwarded to? Though he had responded rather quickly that he’d look it up and get back to her, he hadn’t replied with any results for two days.
In the meantime, she’d been lying low and thinking. Reviewing what she’d learned, she tried to put the pieces together in a new way. Nick had in fact been out of town, or at the very least out of his house. Reese had come and cared for his things. Given Nick’s short trip, he had to have been actually gone.
He left his cell phone behind, in a bedroom drawer, with the volume turned all the way down. Diana’s only conclusion was that he didn’t want Reese to find or casually see the phone, and he also didn’t want to have it in Chicago with him.
But why wouldn’t he want his own phone?
He clearly needed communication. And he clearly needed to stay in touch with his local friends because he forwarded the number to another phone that he must have been answering . . . was he avoiding identification? Triangulation of his number?
None of it sounded good. None of it sounded like a man giving a lecture at an esteemed university.
The other burner phone connected her to Will. Aside from the fact that he was still alive and healthy, there was no good news on that front either. When she’d come home from staking out Nick’s place and tracking Reese back to her own home, she found a text waiting from him. The words would have stopped her heart had she not gotten used to hits delivered by such bad news over the past few weeks.
The Kurevs are looking for the Beller girl.
That had stopped her in her tracks. It put her into this “laying low” holding pattern. Will stayed silent otherwise, but she put the pieces together as she was sure he had. Looking for “the Beller girl” could only mean that they had linked her to the series of murders their organization had suffered over a four-year span. If they hadn’t figured out the connection, there would be little reason to even know her name.
Cynthia and Wendy Beller had been children, collateral damage in a cold, standard hit from well over a decade ago. The story was probably now used as a cautionary tale: don’t leave any family members alive, not even the little ones. Because little ones grow big and memory is long.
Only now was she beginning to feel the weight of what she had done. The burden was much heavier than she would have expected. In fact, she’d never anticipated feeling it at all. She might have gotten away without it, gotten away with what she’d done, had she doled out her revenge on a one-for-one scale. If she had followed that simple ratio, she would have killed three men and walked away.
She would not have made the waves she had made.
The first man she ever killed had no link to the Kurev organization and would have gone unnoticed. The later loss of one of their hit men in a singular incident, a handful of years after the incident on her family, would never have been traced back to her.
But she hadn’t left it at that. It wasn’t enough to remove the men who pulled the triggers. She’d gone after the ones who ordered it. And the ones who’d stood by and let it happen and those who stood on the heap of dead bodies that included her parents. Her backlash had created another backlash and the tide had again turned.
Ivan thought he’d found the Beller girl.
But no one had come to find her at her home. Were they watching? Was she a sitting duck?
Diana had to conclude no.
If they’d known where she lived, they would have come and taken care of their problem before now. It had been a while since Ivan had visited and died in her town.
Her own cell phone rang.
Christ on a cracker.
And with that one call, her time off was over. The investigation into the shooting of James Stewart was well on its way. There was no reason to suspect anything other than a by-the-book incident, and Diana was needed back on the job—it wasn’t like the department was swimming in spare officers or flush with extra funds. Her paid leave was no longer. She was on shift again, in uniform starting the next evening.
Before she even had time to mourn the loss of what little freedom she’d found, her personal phone rang again. Nick.
There was a grin in his voice. “Did you just hang up with the chief?”
“You already know I did.”
“No, you could still be on the other line . . .”
She almost laughed. “I’m not. I’m on shift tomorrow night.” She held back the sigh that wanted to come out. She couldn’t afford to give that to Nick.
“Sooooo.” He drew out the word, indicating that she might not like what she heard. “I was hoping you could come in around noon? Put in a half day on the cases, help us out with some follow-up?”
“Sure.” Why not? She couldn’t afford to look like she was slacking. “Did you clear it with the chief?” But she answered her own question before he could. “Of course you did. That’s why you’re calling directly on the heels of his call.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll be there then.” Diana paused a moment. She didn’t want to be opportunistic but didn’t feel she really had other options open. She had to find out what she was up against, and if that something was Nick. “So, how was the lecture?”
“Oh! It went really well. Better attended than the first one even.” He went on to give her a few more details before shifting gears to talk about an open case he needed her help with.
She had actually grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen, figuring she wasn’t technically on the clock, but it was work, and started making a few notes when one of the burner phones buzzed.
She’d had them both on.
A bad idea triangulating all three lines to this one location all at one time, but not as bad as having them locate at her house.
Trying not to interrupt the conversation nor lose any notes she’d need for the next day, she used her left hand to flip open the buzzing phone.
The one from Will.
The message was clear.
I screwed up not figuring this out sooner. Too much accent, strange emphasis. Ks were talking to “Nicolae.”
Diana lied plenty in her life. She once believed she was good at it. But now she wasn’t so sure, and it was becoming clear she was a rank amateur when compared to some others.
Nick had been spinning serious webs while she was on the phone with him. He gave little details, just enough to make his lies seem real without going overboard. She knew not to do that, not to give so much that you sounded false even if someone wasn’t looking for it. She also knew the rule of three—anything stated three times in succession meant the person was lying, at least to himself, and probably to you too. But it was Nick’s fluency with the falsehood that was most disturbing. She didn’t press him for the name of the professor he was lecturing with but had no doubt he’d produce a name as though he actually knew someone there, and he’d remember it the next time she asked too.
No, Nick had not been away lecturing eager college students; he’d been talking to the Kurevs about the ninja. Thank god Will had been there.
She hated that he walked out the door so easily. She hated that he was gone when she wanted him. But now, she would have suffered being nearly blindsided if she hadn’t gotten the info Will delivered.
It had taken several more texts to tease out the details. According to Will, Nicolae had left before they spoke of the Beller girl. So he was likely not privy to the details of Ivan’s reason for the trip. Will didn’t know if Nicolae had been there for other visits before or after, since Will had only managed to listen in the one time. As he was on the back side of the house, he hadn’t even seen the car pull up, had never seen the visitor, only heard him. He didn’t have definitive proof that it was Nick. But who else could it have been?
She spent her afternoon running Nick’s PD errands, knocking on doors, and taking statements for several cases he had open. Given the night shift she was working, the six hours with Nick had put her on an eighteen-hour day. She didn’t care, except that she hadn’t been able to sleep.
It was a good thing they were doubled up in the patrols tonight and she was riding with Reese. She was bordering on exhaustion. Once she’d decided sleep was elusive, she’d gotten up and trained. It was an old habit, harkening back to the camouflaged stage where she and Will had practiced and fought. Back then, there’d been no job to get to, no routine to keep hold of, and no one to question her if she needed to pass out and nap.
“Diana?”
The small hand passed in front of her face.
“Earth to Diana, do you copy?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She smiled at Reese and fought the urge to spill her guts—to tell her friend about the cabin, the killing, the whole other life. “Sorry, Nick had me on some interesting cases this afternoon. And of course I come back right into an eighteen-hour shift after a whole week of lazing around.”
A bark of laughter burst out of her friend at that comment. “I don’t see you lazing. You would at least head out and hike. You probably watched all of four hours of TV while you were off, if that. I, on the other hand would have consumed a minimum of two pints of Ben & Jerry’s for every day off and caught up on some soaps.”
Diana knew that wasn’t quite the gospel truth, but she let Reese believe it for a moment. Though she pushed at the idea, the dam held, and she didn’t tell everything, but she leaked what little truth she could, and for the rest she omitted and lied as best she could with her merely passable skills. “It’s just that Will’s out of town, and that’s pretty rare. I’m not sleeping well since he’s been gone. Sorry you got me for partner tonight—you may have to prop me up by morning.”
“Hey, I’m glad I got you. God knows I don’t need Ben Rabin.”
“What about him?” Diana hadn’t ridden with him yet since it was a relatively short time they’d been on the same shift, and she was hardly on it herself anymore as she transitioned over to detective.
“He’s constantly on me to help him cheat on his wife.”
“What?” Oh thank God. Good, normal gossip that would help keep her awake. She dove in with everything, trying to ignore the pressing thoughts of the Kurevs despite the fact that Will had reported yesterday that Kaspar, Roman, and Yulia were all accounted for. Being out patrolling with Reese meant she didn’t have to act like she believed Nick, like she wasn’t ready to cry at the unfairness of it all, or maybe the fairness of it.
“Yeah, he either wants me to sleep with him—which is so not going to happen—”
“That’s blatant sexual harassment, you know.”
“I think so.”
Diana gaped, enjoyed the normal exchange and was pleased with her genuine outrage for her friend. “How is it possibly not?”
“Well, he was really straightforward. No pressure. Just the question. Almost like asking me if I wanted to get dinner at the drive-through or if we should go in and sit. But he asked me more than once. It took a while to get that ‘no’ through his thick skull.” Reese turned the wheel, driving because even at the beginning of shift, they’d seen that Diana was clearly not the best candidate for that job.
Diana would miss this when she graduated to full-fledged detective. In her mind she changed the “when” to “if.” While the promotion would mean more of the work she loved, it would mean no more shifts with Reese. No more shifts where neither of them asked what the other wanted, because it was just going to work. Like now, when Reese was pulling into the RaceTrac to stock up on ridiculously large-sized sodas.
Reese handed Diana a Styrofoam cup and then filled her own with ice. “Yeah, once he finally got that idea clear, he seemed to think it was okay to ask me to stand guard or help him pick up girls and then cover for him so he could cheat.”
“Again, line crossed.” Diana filled her cup with Coke, wishing there was a higher caffeine option. She hadn’t drunk the stuff for years and then adopted it as part of “normal” and was now close to addicted. “You can sue.”
“Yeah.” With an exasperated sigh, Reese reached across the counter, pulled apart two lids and handed one over. “But the other 99 percent of the time, I really like him. I don’t want to sue him. He’s not pushy, other than asking the same thing repeatedly, but I never feel like I have to say yes. In fact,” she gestured with the cup as she pulled out a few ones and paid for both drinks, “lately I’ve just been flat-out telling him that cheating on his wife is a total dick thing to do. He tends to agree.”
Diana would have thanked her friend for the drink, but she’d get the tab the next time, or the next. There was something about it . . . they didn’t share all their secrets, but she felt secure here. They didn’t keep score.
“You know, next time he asks, tell him that if he asks again, you’re going to tell his wife that he did.”
“Oh that’s good. I don’t have to tell her anything I don’t know for a fact, but I’ll tell her that he keeps asking me to sleep with him and cover for him. He’ll shut up.” She pushed out the door, pausing the conversation so the two of them could listen to the crackle of the radios and go right back to picking apart Officer Ben Rabin as soon as they realized the call wasn’t for them. “I really don’t want to do anything to him. Ironically, aside from that, he’s the best cop I’ve seen.”
Diana’s eyebrows lifted in a questioning look before she slid down into the passenger side.
Reese turned the engine. “He’s unbelievably fair. No racial or gender bias at all, not that I’ve seen. He hits on me but never makes a suggestive move to any women when we’re on patrol. He makes every person he talks to think the cops are the bees’ knees. Even the people he arrests like him! They practically confess to him, offer up their associates, and hold out their hands to get cuffed! Aside from being a dick horndog, I want to be like him. I’m tired of being BOLO girl.”
“Hey! I’d love to be BOLO girl!” When the radio crackled again, it was with a BOLO. Diana almost laughed. “There you go. Work your magic!”
“As if.” But Reese pushed the gargantuan cup of soda into the holder and started scanning the area. She made a series of seemingly random turns while she and Diana kept their eyes peeled for the blue Chevy Cabriolet that had just fled a probable domestic. Diana learned to not chime in with ideas. Reese would take turns that others suggested, but it had pretty much always came down in the end that Reese was headed the right way.
They wound up at the edge of the district—streets to the right belonged to White Oak, but those to the left were Cobb County territory.
Diana looked left when the right showed nothing of promise. “Hey, isn’t that—”
She didn’t finish; Reese was turning the wheel and Diana was on the radio, letting dispatch know to call in to Cobb County and tell them that the White Oak patrol car was crossing lines while they followed the BOLO.
The radio crackled again, Melissa in dispatch asking, “Is Donaldson driving?”
With a smile, Diana hit the button. “Duh.”
They crept up behind the Chevy, keeping their distance until the car pulled into a driveway.
As though the driver might hear, Reese whispered. “Bingo” and pulled the car up across the driveway, blocking him in. That was when he realized he’d been found.
He stepped out, closed the car door, and smiled as they walked up to him. “Hello, ladies. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Reese smiled too. “It seems that your wife has filed some charges against you, sir. We’ll need you to come with us.”
“Oh, I can’t do that.” He pointed back to where the neighborhood street met the main road. “You ladies are out of district.”
Bastard, Diana thought, he knew where the district lines were and had come to this house because it was over the line. Very few normal, law-abiding citizens knew exactly where the lines were. Well, he had another thing coming. “Oh, yeah. We’re here at the request of the Cobb County Police. We’re authorized. So if you’ll please—dammit!”
He was gone. Off like a shot and vaulting the back fence as his friend in the house stuck his head out the back door, spotted the cops, and rapidly disappeared back inside while Diana and Reese gave chase.
Her heart didn’t pound; her feet did. She didn’t breathe heavily, didn’t need to. This didn’t matter. Of course it mattered to someone, and that’s why she ran, but it likely wouldn’t make a difference in the grand scheme of things, and that’s why she didn’t panic, didn’t lose it, didn’t just flat out run.
Just as Reese could always somehow figure out where the BOLO was, Diana could run down bad guys. She’d been like him, knew how to evade. So she saw how he would turn and just what he would attempt before he even thought it, and she outmaneuvered him.
Reese ducked left, Diana right, using each decision he made to shrink the gap just a little more.
They closed nearly three quarters of a mile, and the man running farther and farther away from his blue Chevy was starting to get winded. Diana had to hand it to him though; he was going for it. She still added “evading arrest” to the mental tab she was keeping on him.
As criminals went, he wasn’t the worst. He didn’t pull a gun and try to shoot them, he didn’t take hostages, and he wasn’t even running through people’s houses—she’d seen that before. He also headed toward businesses. Many were shut down at this hour, but he ducked behind a bar, poorly lit in the best of times, and currently drowning in its own puddle of neon.
Diana made it there, around the side of the building, just out of the light, a few moments before he did. She’d banked on his thought process and on the fact that Reese was behind him and she’d taken the gamble.
For half a second, she hugged the corner of the brick, staying out of the dim glow of the bare bulb perched out back. Her dark uniform mimicked shadow with only a spot of white for her city PD logo, a glint off the badge she wore on prominent display when she was in her blues. She waited.
Two people came out the back of the bar and she cursed in her head. The last thing she and Reese needed was anyone else involved in this awesome little dustup.
The man leaned into the woman’s space for a kiss but was met with a shove and stumbled back away from her. Through the short distance Diana heard the muttered “Bitch.” But he walked away.
The woman however, made no motion to move. Stood as though she was waiting for someone to turn the corner. Diana wanted to warn her but couldn’t. She heard the pounding footsteps of a man who had never been taught how to run the correct way and never learned not to hit people who didn’t pick a fight with him, like his wife. But now she was stuck with another woman in his way.
She muttered the F word. Or she must have. Because the woman turned, looked for the source of the sound as though wondering what might be back around the corner, and for that Diana’s suspect hit her as he barreled around the corner.
It was a hard hit, too.
The idiot wasn’t looking where he was going, but that was due to looking over his shoulder, which was due to Reese, still coming up behind him, and gaining ground from the looks of it.
The woman took an unprepared full-body smack and stumbled forward, barely saving herself from flying face-first into the pavement. And of all the pavement in town to have to kiss, this was likely some of worst, Diana thought. People had probably been murdered here, had gotten sick and vomited, or maybe screwed against the wall. It was a dark back lot and anything would go. But the woman got it together fast and stayed on her feet.
While Diana was glad the woman didn’t get really hurt, she regretted not being able to add another assault charge to the idiot’s growing tab. There was every possibility that his wife would recant her statement and kill that initial reason for bringing him in, but a good resisting arrest and an assault would go a long way to keeping this f-hole in jail, at least for a little while.
He looked at the woman then at Diana and back to Reese, who smiled at him.
Diana knew her friend was thinking, This idiot is surrounded by women and at least two of them could and would take him down. Diana started to smile, too, but she didn’t finish it.
The woman hadn’t seen Diana come out of the shadow, hadn’t seen Reese coming up behind her, and without knowing they were there, she turned and spewed out, “Asshole!” Before she finished the word, she hit the man with a well-placed elbow, catching him solid under the chin, laying him out cold.
What she saw knocked the wind out of Diana as well, and she moved rapidly back into the darkness she’d come from, her breath freezing her lungs, her muscles working on faith rather than knowledge.
“Ma’am?” Reese came into view then, stepping forward hands out.
The woman heard the voice behind her and turned before getting a good look at Diana. Hopefully hadn’t even seen that Diana had been there.
“Ma’am!” Reese walked up and paused, hands still out, just a moment away from the woman. “Are you armed?”
Something in her voice, the tone, told Diana that her friend was wondering where she was, wanting to know why she didn’t come out. And that was going to be the death of her. Diana couldn’t come out.
Before Reese could hit her radio and announce that she’d cornered the BOLO, Diana reached up and switched hers off. Even as she was sure she’d gotten that done, her feet started flying. She bolted away from the scene, away from her friend and partner.
As she left, she could hear Reese. In her mind’s eye she could see her blue gaze sweeping the area, keeping a wary eye to both the downed suspect and the woman who’d put him there, as she tilted her head to speak into her shoulder-clipped radio. “Kincaid. This is Donaldson. I have the suspect.”
Reese didn’t know it, but she had something else, too. Something Diana couldn’t face. So she ran as far and fast as she could.