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Craig Anderson dropped his rifle into his lap, and drove away from the Porter Pub. He didn’t care where; he just needed some space between him, and the shots he fired.
Mac Davis? How the hell did he get pulled into this mess?
“Call Bridgeman,” he ordered his phone.
“You do it?”
“What the hell? You wanted me to shoot a drug dealer, you said.”
“Did you?”
“You said the drug dealer was meeting with a reporter,” Craig said flatly. “Toby Rollings is Black. No Black man came out of that restaurant, Bridge.”
“I didn’t tell you the drug dealer in question was Black,” Bridgeman said. “Rollings has a white cousin. Gets called in to handle the hard stuff. He’s in town to back Rollings’ play. Did you take him out?”
“Missed,” Craig said. Mac got called in to do the ‘hard stuff’? What the hell? “You could have told me that before sending me down there. I saw Lucy head toward the pub — but I hesitated. I’ve been doing surveillance on Rollings’ crew for two weeks — and he wasn’t Rollings or one of his crew. I wasn’t about to shoot some random coworker of Lucy’s for God’s sake! And then something spooked him. He dropped to the sidewalk, and I missed. A better description next time?”
Bridgeman snorted. “You’re getting cautious in your old age? When did that happen?”
“For over a decade I’ve been a mostly-legit gun dealer,” Craig said levelly. “Then you blabbed your mouth to a corrupt cop, and I got blackmailed into a stupid-shit convoluted plot to take out some cops. And suddenly I’m being hunted. So I get a call from you: Can you help out an old friend? But it isn’t that simple is it, ‘old friend?’” Craig said the last almost viciously.
“Come down to the old club,” Bridgeman said. “I’ll buy you a drink. We can talk about what to do next.”
“In 15,” Craig said sourly. He ended the call. He took a moment to stash his rifle behind his seat, and then he just sat there, gathering his thoughts.
This wasn’t a coincidence. Was it?
He needed a moment to figure all this out. He closed his eyes for a moment against the headache that was forming and thought back. God, had it really been 20 years ago?
Twenty years ago, he, Bridgeman and a woman cop named Jesse McBath had been a team. And then Craig and Jesse got married. Craig shook his head. He loved her then, still loved her now. But he wasn’t any good at being a husband.
He wasn’t any good at being a cop either. Bridgeman? Bridgeman had plans. He didn’t want to stay some grunt cop, barely able to pay rent.
In this town, where a lot of drugs flowed through on their way up and down the I-5 corridor, it was easy for a cop to make some extra money.
And Craig looked the other way while Bridgeman parlayed his contacts into money, and then into power.
Jesse, however, couldn’t let it go. It was wrong, she insisted. And she was going to blow the whistle. By the time she found out, however, Bridgeman was firmly established as an up-and-coming officer — he’d already been promoted to captain. Youngest ever, yadda, yadda. Internal Affairs didn’t believe her. They opened an investigation, however.
And the trail led to Craig Anderson, not Bridgeman.
Damned fucker set me up, Craig thought grimly. He stilled burned with rage. He’d been allowed to resign from the force instead of facing charges. It cost him his career.
It cost him his wife.
Cut adrift, he’d finally found himself in Marysville, Washington, and he had bought out a guy who wanted to retire from his gun shop. Wasn’t going to get rich at it, but it was a living.
Then that whole mess went down last fall, and Bridgeman found him.
“I need you for a job,” Bridgeman had said.
Craig snorted. “Why would I do anything for you, Bridge? You set me up years ago and cost me my job and my wife. You can go to hell.” He was pretty sure that when Malloy ran a background check on him, he’d discovered Bridgeman, who was only too eager to divulge all the crap Craig supposedly did.
Crap that Bridgeman actually did, although Craig couldn’t prove that either.
“Couple of reasons,” Bridgeman said. “One, the cops up there know you were let go down here. They know you were a dirty cop. Guess how that’s going to play out?”
“I wasn’t dirty,” Craig denied.
“Prove it.”
Craig was silent. If he could have proved it, he would still be a cop.
“Second? Well, I know you still got a soft spot for Jesse. Right?”
Craig didn’t respond to that either.
“So you do this job for me, and Jesse continues to live her best life. And she won’t need to know that her baby sister is in deep shit.”
“Lucy?” Craig asked, startled out of his silence.
“Yup. We had a big drug bust down here, word on the street is that she leaked it,” Bridgeman said. “The sweep went out and brought back only a few baby fishes. Everyone is scrambling to figure out who let the big players know.”
“You set her up to cover your ass?” Craig asked. “Seems like that’s your standard way of doing business.”
“Does it matter?” Bridgeman said. His tone said he was amused, not angry, at the allegation. Craig grimaced.
“So why me?”
“Read about that whole mess last fall up your way,” Bridgeman said conversationally. “I knew Malloy. Scary fucker.”
Craig grunted. “And crazy. But he’s dead now, and good riddance.”
“No lie there,” Bridgeman agreed. “He ran a background check on you, you know. And he found me.”
Craig had shrugged. “Old news.” Just confirmation of what he’d guessed — Bridgeman had been happy to give Malloy and his buddies what they needed. They’d used that old story to blackmail him into doing some surveillance for him. Threatened to use it to pull his license as an arms dealer.
He’d figured then they had to have gone to Bridgeman. Weren’t too many people who knew the story back then, and fewer still would remember.
“So I recognized some of the names in the story,” Bridgeman continued. “And I filed that away. You know how it is.”
“I know how you are,” Craig said dryly. Names? What names?
“So then this happens. And Jesse comes to me, wanting to know what is going on — why were they blaming Lucy? And of course, I promised her I would see what I could do.”
“And you call me?” Craig had asked incredulously.
“Why don’t you give Jesse a call? And then come see me. We can talk better in person.”
It took Craig 24 hours before he finally called Jesse. After the fight at the Parker House wound down to its predictable ending — some bad guys dead, some under arrest, and of course, at least one planner of the whole thing was free to scheme his revenge — Craig had drifted down to Portland. Got a job bartending there. His official background check still came back clean, he was pleased to know.
He was living in a fourth-floor walkup studio in Chinatown, and bartending/bouncing at a strip joint. At 45, that was a hell of a career advancement. Well, he was alive. And he wasn’t in jail. There was that. He had Mac Davis to thank for that.
His gun shop in Marysville was up for sale. The gun inventory was safely stored away. On impulse, he’d sent Mac a key to the shop. He’d keep an eye on it. Selling that sucker might take a while. Who knew? Maybe he’d even be able to return to it. He kind of liked Marysville. He fit in. A bit down and out, a bit seedy, but on the whole, not doing so bad.
So he called Jesse and told her what Bridgeman had said. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Lucy?”
Jesse was silent. “I don’t know, Craig,” she said. “She’s an assistant DA. We don’t talk about work. She got divorced, did you know about that? And she’s been running wild since then. So could she have said something to the wrong person? Possibly. Did someone leak info, and she’s being set up? You of all people know that’s possible.”
“Took you 20 years to admit it.”
“I figured it out,” she said. “But you were gone by then. And I wasn’t going to follow you up there. My family is here. You weren’t going to come back. And we’d pretty much killed the love during those last fights, hadn’t we?”
They had, he thought. Not that he stopped caring. She probably hadn’t either. Neither of them remarried. And occasionally, they talked.
Craig thought about what Bridgeman had said. About names he knew, and he frowned, because that hadn’t sounded good. “I’ll come down, if you want,” he told Jesse. “Take a look around. Can you put me up?”
There was silence. “Yes,” she said finally. “Come.”
That had been a month ago. He’d told his boss at the bar he had a family emergency. “Hate to leave you in the lurch, and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone,” he had said with regret. Craig liked the man, actually. And there were worse places to work than a strip bar. The man had nodded. “Come see me when you get back,” the bar owner had said. “Nice to have a bartender that doesn’t drink and keeps his hands to himself when he’s working.”
Craig promised he would, because you never knew. He just might end back up here. But he gave his notice at the apartment and packed everything back into his pickup. Not that he had much at this point. He’d rented the studio furnished.
And he’d headed down to Jesse’s.
Jesse wasn’t working in Vallejo any longer. She was now an assistant police chief in Fairfield, the county seat, about 15 miles northeast of Vallejo. She had a small house, with a large yard that she gardened extensively. What was there about middle-aged women and rose gardens?
Hard to think of Jesse McBath as middle-aged, Craig thought ruefully.
And she had a second bedroom. Well, he hadn’t expected the invitation to include bed privileges. He stored his stuff in her shed out back, and then he’d gone in to see what Bridgeman wanted.
Or what Bridgeman said he wanted, which usually turned out to be two different things.
Craig came back from that first meeting more confused than he was before he went into the city. Jesse invited Lucy out for supper, and that didn’t clear things up any either. Lucy insisted she hadn’t leaked anything!
“How could I?” she asked. “I don’t hang out with drug dealers. I don’t even hang out with cops. And yes, my ex is a reporter, but I didn’t tell him anything either. Besides, he already knew — he was on the ride-along when they busted people and came up empty.”
“How did he already know?” Craig asked.
There was silence. “Good question,” Lucy said slowly. “I don’t have the answer to that. It isn’t like we have long heart-to-heart conversations. If we were still having those, we’d still be married.”
Craig had laughed, but he carefully didn’t meet Jesse’s eyes. Damn it, he missed Jesse. He always had. They’d been 25-year-olds when things went to hell. Now they were 45, and every year, every mile, showed on him. He was still fit enough. But he kept his hair short now, because it was gray and receding, and he wasn’t ever going to do a comb-over. He had aches and pains and moved a bit stiffer. His face had lines. There were scars, ones that mostly didn’t show when he had clothes on. And Jesse had given no indication she wanted to see him without them.
And why would she? Sure, her body was fuller. He was pretty sure the brown hair had help, and she had laugh lines at her eyes.
She was still the prettiest woman he’d ever seen.
Lucy looked a lot like the younger version of Jesse he remembered, although she had to be close to 40 herself. She was thinner, dressed more expensively, wore makeup even though it was just the three of them and they were at Jesse’s house.
The difference between a cop and an attorney, Craig decided. Jesse was down to earth, no-nonsense. She’d seen it all and wasn’t impressed. Unfortunately, Craig thought that included him. But Lucy was ambitious still. And worried. Craig wasn’t sure about what, and she wasn’t telling them everything.
Well, no one ever did.
“Lucy?” Craig said gently. “What aren’t you telling us?”
Lucy avoided his eyes, and Jessie frowned. She looked at her sister thoughtfully. “Lucy?” she said slowly. “What happened?”
“Nothing!” Lucy said angrily then. She got up to leave. And then she hesitated. She looked back at Jesse. “If Ben needed a place, would you take him in?”
Craig frowned. Ben was Lucy’s son from an early first marriage. He had to be in his teens?
“Why would he need a place?” Jesse asked.
Lucy chewed her lip. “Never mind,” she said.
“No,” Jesse said firmly. “You’re a big girl. If you’ve gotten in over your head, I trust you to either get out of it, or ask for help. But Ben? He’s my nephew. And if he’s in trouble, you’re going to tell me right now.”
Lucy shook her head. She put on her jacket and left.
“What was that all about?” Craig asked Jesse afterwards.
“I don’t know,” Jesse had replied.
So Bridge had Craig tail a few guys over the coming days. A Black guy named Toby Rollings, who was doing quite well for himself. Big house, beautiful wife, two daughters. He had an office in an industrial park, and apparently imported Talavera pottery and other high-end Mexican arts and crafts.
And drugs. Rollings had a crew of four or five men, and they were drug distributors. Bridgeman had just nodded when he reported that. So he already knew. What did he want to know then?
Stay on them, Bridgeman ordered.
It didn’t make sense to him, but he did it. If all Bridge wanted was someone he could threaten into doing some surveillance, it was no big deal. Pissed him off, some, that Bridgeman thought he could snap his fingers, and Craig would jump. On the other hand, he was spending time with Jesse, and that felt good.
Going to break his heart all over again, he thought. But there were worse things than a broken heart. His heart had been in deep freeze for way too long.
For some reason that made him think of Angie Wilson, the photo gal for the newspaper. He liked her. Not in a romantic sense, he was too old for her, and he knew it. He wasn’t going to be that kind of dirty old man. But it had been a long time since he’d even liked someone enough to care what happened to them.
Hell, he’d liked Mac Davis. And Rand Nickerson. And that old vet who ran Wilderness Ventures. He wondered if Wilderness Ventures needed a hand this coming season? Maybe he’d check in and see — if he could figure this out.
Because he wasn’t going to leave until he was sure Jesse wasn’t in Bridgeman’s crosshairs. And he’d figure out what was going on with Lucy and Bridgeman as well. Something was, he was sure of it.
A week after the first dinner, Lucy came back out. This time she had her son with her. Ben had grown up to be a good-looking, if sullen, teen. Well, sullen and teen boy seemed almost redundant. But Ben looked like Jesse, brown hair, brown eyes, that quirk to his lips. He looked like what a son might look like if he and Jesse had made things work. He shoved that thought down deep inside.
But Ben brightened up and gave Jesse a hug. So real affection there. Craig shook his hand, and the boy straightened up a bit. Yeah, Craig remembered being that age. Respect was everything.
“Tell her,” Lucy ordered.
Ben scowled. “No,” he said.
“Ben?” Jesse said, and she sounded hurt. “You don’t trust me with your secrets? There was a time you told me everything.”
Ben winced. He started to talk, then stopped. He shook his head. “He said...,” he trailed off, then tried again. “He said he’d hurt you, hurt you and Mom, if I talked to anyone. Especially you. You’re a cop.”
Craig considered him for a moment. “I’m no cop,” he said, and Ben looked at him. He’d been avoiding that since he walked in the house. “Suppose you and I take a walk, and you tell me? I’ve known your mom and your aunt forever. They’ll tell you. I’m good at keeping secrets.”
Ben scowled. He looked at his mom and then at Jesse and sighed — a long-suffering sigh perfected by teenagers the world over, Craig suspected. He carefully didn’t let his amusement show.
“Let’s go then,” Ben said. “They’ll nag until I do, anyway.”
“They will,” Craig agreed.
They’d walked down to the bike trail before Ben finally got started. It wasn’t all that unusual a story, really. Ben had been out with some friends. His friends pushed him to try some pills. “I’d done weed,” he said. “This was different. You come down and all you can think about is getting some more.”
Opioids, Craig thought grimly. “Go on.”
So one night, he’d gone to this dealer to get another vial of pills, and the dealer had been talking to a man he recognized. He’d been so surprised, he just stopped. And he got caught. “He threatened me,” Ben said. “Threatened me that if I told, I’d go to jail for a long time. And if I told Mom or Jesse, he’d see to it their careers were destroyed.”
“Your drug dealer said all of this?” Craig said, puzzled. If the dealer knew all this about Ben’s aunt and mother, why only then? Ben wouldn’t be the first kid to get used that way.
“No,” Ben said. “The cop. The cop said that.”
Craig stared at the young man. “Your dealer was meeting a cop,” he said slowly. “One you recognized. And the cop caught you and threatened you.”
Ben nodded. “I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I told Mom about the drugs, and she got me help. I’m clean. I swear I am. And I’m not going to do that again.”
“Good,” Craig said. “No shame in getting in too deep when friends are pulling you there. Takes a mature man to get out of it, however. Good for you.”
Ben straightened up. He looked relieved. “But I didn’t tell Mom about what I saw,” he said. “I should have, shouldn’t I?”
Craig shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “Your mom is tough, and smart. And she’s in a position of power. So is your aunt. That’s why the cop didn’t want you to tell them. And possibly, that’s why you should. Have you heard from him since?”
Ben was silent. Craig let him take his time. They just kept walking. Craig was amused to see that they both walked alike. Shoulders hunched forward a bit, hands shoved in their pockets.
“He called,” Ben said. “Said I was a smart guy. And not to forget what he’d said. He’d know if I told. And the trap would spring and it would catch Mom, not him.”
Craig stilled. Ben took a few more steps before he realized that Craig had stopped.
“Ben?” Craig said softly. “Are you talking about Captain Bridgeman?”
Ben closed his eyes and nodded.
There was more. Ben didn’t even know why what he saw mattered so much. “Don’t cops talk to bad guys all the time?” he asked, honestly bewildered. Craig snorted. Bridge had blown it. Bridge knew he was guilty, and he assumed Ben would know too. It was almost amusing.
Ben said Bridgeman had been waiting outside his high school a couple of times. He didn’t say anything, just saluted him and drove off. Ben was afraid to go out with his friends. Afraid to go to a basketball game. He was just plain afraid.
And well he should be, Craig thought disturbed. He glanced around. “Do you know how to get us back to Jesse’s?” he asked with a laugh. “I’m lost. Unless we backtrack the whole route.”
Ben did. Craig followed along, slightly behind him, while he thought it through. First thing, they needed to get Ben out of Bridgeman’s clutches. It’s really just a hostage situation. And first you got the hostage free, and then you could take down the hostage taker.
Craig’s rage was turning cold, and with that, he was getting some clarity. It was time Bridgeman was held accountable. He didn’t think he could do it, but Lucy might be able to — if her son wasn’t being used as a hostage to her good behavior.
He wondered if Lucy even knew that. It wouldn’t surprise him if Bridgeman was just holding Ben in reserve. If Lucy turned her gaze toward Bridgeman and his connections — the interwoven connection of favors and bribes, of knowing people, and their secrets, of all of the games — then he’d let her know that her son would be the first on the firing line. The first to go down.
Craig wondered how many others were lined up to go down if necessary. If that was what it took to protect Bridgeman and his schemes? Bridgeman would take down half the town.
“Sir?” Ben said tentatively. “Is Mom going to be in trouble because of me? Aunt Jesse?”
Craig shook his head. “No,” he said. “You aren’t the problem here. And neither are Jesse or Lucy. But Captain Bridgeman might be looking to use you — kind of like taking a hostage, so that people will back off.”
Ben considered that. “So now what?”
Craig smiled at him. “Now we go talk to your mom and your aunt, and we figure out what to do to take you off the board. Your mom is smart, and Jesse is one of the best people I know. So if Captain Bridgeman doesn’t have you for leverage against them, then the two of them will take him down.”
“Is he one of the bad guys?” Ben asked.
Craig nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “He is.”
Craig walked back into Jesse’s house, interrupting an intense conversation. He ignored that. Ben trailed along behind him. “So we need to take Ben off the game board,” he said. “Bridgeman thinks he can use him as a hostage to force you two to look the other way and ignore what he’s done.”
“What has he done?” Lucy said with frustration.
Craig stared at her. “Think, Lucy,” he said. “Bad guys almost always accuse the good guys of what they themselves are doing. He leaked the task force plans. He owes people. Some of them he’s owed for a very long time. I’m sure he thinks he’s in control of them — he’s doing them favors. But they own him, not the other way around. And so he told them what was coming down from the task force. But it was too obvious that someone had leaked the plans. So he’s looking for a scapegoat. That’s what he does.”
Lucy considered that. Jesse, however, was just nodding. That didn’t come as a surprise to her. Shouldn’t to Lucy.
“So he thinks I’ll take the fall for leaking the plans to protect my son?” Lucy said. “Protect him from what?”
“Not the point,” Craig said. “Bridgeman will do what it takes. Blackmail you? Arrest Ben? Intimidate him? Threaten him or you? He’ll start easy, then escalate until you’re backed into a corner. And your reputation and your career will be in shreds. He’s already started a whisper campaign. Hasn’t he?”
She grimaced. She took a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“You got any ideas on how we make Ben safe?” Jesse asked.
Craig nodded. “I do actually,” he said. “I think we put him on the bus up to my place in Marysville. He can stay there for a week or so, while Lucy launches an investigation. He’s off the table. Her hands aren’t tied.”
“He’s 16!” Lucy protested.
Craig shook his head. “He’s a young man,” he said gently. “You’ve raised him well, Lucy. Both of you. He can do this.”
“I can Mom,” Ben said earnestly. “A bus? That’s no problem, right? I take buses all the time. I can camp out at Craig’s place. I’ll check in every night. And you can figure out what really happened with that task force.”
It didn’t end there, of course. Jesse got them all to the table, and they ate dinner. And Lucy dithered. Craig just listened. She’d get to the same conclusion eventually. “What about his father?” he asked. “Can you send him there?”
But Ben was shaking his head, and Lucy grimaced. “No,” she said. “That won’t work. Ben is more mature than his father is.”
Ben grinned at that. “I am,” he said. “I totally am. I’d be better off taking care of myself, than having to take care of Dad and myself.”
Jesse snickered, but no one disagreed with that assessment.
“All right,” Lucy said, with a sigh. “When are we going to do this?”
“Tonight,” Craig said. “We do it fast so Bridgeman doesn’t get wind of it. He’s going to need a pack, with a sleeping bag. Jesse? You still hike?”
“No,” she said. “But I’ve got all the trappings. Come on, Ben, we’ll go take a look.” The two of them went outside to the shed.
Lucy rotated her neck and tried to reduce the tension in her shoulders. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this.”
“He happened to see Bridgeman with one of the biggest dealers in the city — Ben was there to make a buy,” Craig said bluntly. “He didn’t think anything of it, really — for Ben it was more about being caught by a cop, rather than catching a cop doing something wrong. Bridgeman blew it.”
“That’s when he came to me, and I got him help?”
Craig nodded. “Ben says he’s clean,” he said. “And he says he has no desire to do that again. He sounded sincere. But Bridge is sweating bullets over a witness that can link him and Rollings — I’m guessing it’s Rollings, since that’s who he had been having me tail for a week. Rollings or one of his crew.”
Lucy sighed. “OK,” she said. “How dirty is he?”
Craig shrugged. “Connections and power,” he said. “Probably he’s taken some bribes, looked away. I don’t know how much farther they’ve sucked him in. He thinks he’s the player. But he may be getting played.”
She nodded. “All right,” she said. “So we send Ben to safety. You continue surveillance for Bridgeman until he lets you know what he really wants. And I open an investigation into the task force.”
“You have connections at DEA? FBI? Other players on the task force?” Craig asked.
“Some,” she said. “I’ll get it figured out. Have to make sure they’re not connected to Bridgeman.”
Ben came back inside carrying a backpack with a sleeping bag attached to it. Jesse was rummaging in the kitchen, building him a kit. “You got a debit card of some kind?” Craig asked. Ben nodded.
“OK,” Craig said. “You only use cash. We’ll make a big withdrawal here. Pay for your ticket in cash. You can make other cash withdrawals when you get there. Keep a low profile.” He considered the dangers of even cash withdrawals, and grimaced. Well, it couldn’t be helped.
“People think the apartment is empty,” he continued. “So don’t be obvious. But explore the city. Go for walks. Eat down along the docks. Enjoy yourself. And call me, not your Mom or Jesse. The first place he might look for phone records is Lucy’s.”
Lucy nodded at that. “He might track Ben’s records,” she murmured.
“He might,” Craig agreed. “So you’re going to have to work fast. We’re buying some time. Two weeks? Three? No more than that.”
Ben had some clothes at Jesse’s, and he added them to his pack. “Buy whatever you need,” his mother told him.
Jesse looked up bus schedules. “Train is better,” she said, looking at Craig with a question mark. “Any reason to do bus?”
Craig thought about it. “Bus is cheaper,” he said. “Train is faster. Train will work.”
“The trip is 24 hours,” Jesse told Ben. “But sleeping on the train is a lot easier than on the bus.”
Craig snorted. She had that right.
It was Craig who ran Ben into Sacramento and put him on the train, while the two women stayed at Jesse’s. Craig didn’t think Bridgeman was watching them that carefully, but safe was better than sorry.
“You’re sure Mom is going to be OK?” Ben asked as they waited for the train.
Craig hesitated. Could he say that? “I think your mom can take care of herself,” he said finally. “I think she’s smarter than Bridgeman.”
He winced, then added. “I wasn’t smart enough when I ran afoul of Bridgeman. But I was 25 and a guy and dumb.” Ben grinned at that. Craig smiled at him.
“Your mom? I’m betting on her. What do you think?”
Ben nodded. Not completely reassured, Craig thought, but then he shouldn’t be. This might give Lucy the maneuvering room she needed, however.
“Call me nightly,” he reminded the younger man, and then he surprised them both by giving Ben a hug. “Be careful,” he added gruffly, and then he grinned. “Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Ben laughed and got on the train.
Craig breathed a little easier when Ben sent him a text the next morning from some place in Oregon. And he got regular texts or phone calls after that.
Lucy thanked him. “Now let me see if I can figure out what Bridgeman is up to,” she said grimly.
Craig nodded. He continued to take surveillance orders from Bridgeman, but he couldn’t see what Bridgeman was really after. Mostly he was following the Rollings crew. But for the last week or so, not Rollings himself. He didn’t ask why, he just filed his report each night — usually meeting Bridgeman at a cop bar down by the station. To his surprise, Bridgeman actually put him on payroll. He wasn’t going to turn it down.
“No, you’ve got a knack for it,” Bridgeman said. “For as big a man as you are, you seem to go unnoticed. It’s a useful skill.”
Craig kept his reaction to himself. Malloy had said similar things as he’d blackmailed him into keeping watch on the cops’ houses. It still left a bad taste in his mouth. He hated that he’d played in role in all of that. He’d heard the cop — Rodriguez — would probably be out on medical disability.
Malloy was dead. Others were headed to prison. But he doubted that was much consolation to the poor bastard who was in a wheelchair, maybe for life.
Ben had been up at his place about 10 days, when he called. “Uncle Craig?” he said softly. “I’m being watched.”
Craig swallowed hard, but he kept his voice even. “What makes you think so?”
Ben described a black sedan that had been sitting down the block for two days. “I haven’t gone out,” he said. “I don’t turn on the lights. But I’m going to have to go out soon. I’m getting low on food.”
Craig noted that Ben was becoming quite self-reliant. Good. “Let me see if I can jar them loose,” Craig said slowly. “Someone may come to check on the place, so stay quiet? And keep watch. See if the sedan follows them. If so, you can get out of there. Take your pack. I’m going to give you the name of a wilderness outfitter. He’ll take you in. Probably put you to work.”
“OK,” Ben said, sounding somewhat doubtful.
Craig called Ken Bryson, told him he needed a place for his nephew to hide out. “Good kid,” Craig said. “But he saw something he shouldn’t. Need a place to stash him while it gets sorted out.”
Bryson grunted. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll put him to work. Bit early for any trips out. But there’s always work to be done. Can I hire him legally? Or under the table?”
“Probably room and board,” Craig said. “But sure, legal is good. And when I get back, I’d like to talk to you about work myself.”
“Deal,” Bryson said promptly. “You’re a good team leader. I can use you.”
So Craig called Ben back, told him where to go and how to get there. “Watch for the opportunity,” he said. “Might be a day or so. If no one comes around by then, I’ll do something else.”
“OK,” Ben said.
Craig got a prepaid phone from a local store and made a call to the Marysville cops. He reported seeing lights in a building that was supposed to be vacant, and it worried him. Used to be a gun shop, he told them. They’d do a drive by, he was told. He hung up when they asked for his name and gave the phone away to the first homeless man he saw. Why not? Someone should use the rest of the pre-paid minutes. It just shouldn’t be him.
And two days later, Ben called. “A woman came in,” he said. “She didn’t see me. And you were right. The sedan followed her. And I left. I’m with Mr. Bryson. He’s cool.”
Not how he would expect a teenager to describe Ken. But a woman? He’d intended it to be Mac, but Mac wasn’t in Washington — where he belonged, damn it. He’d been trying to figure out what to do about Ben, but it sounded like that problem was handled.
“A woman?” Craig asked Ben, frowning a bit. “Did you see her?”
“She was older than me, but not as old as Mom,” he said. “And she had a fuchsia streak in her hair!”
Craig laughed. “OK,” he said. “She’s a friend. You’re good.”
He checked that off his list of things to worry about. There were plenty of things left.
Craig had been doing surveillance almost every day for Bridgeman. It finally dawned on him that Bridgeman wasn’t really concerned about what they were doing. He was looking for someone. He gave that some thought as he sat outside Rollings office on a Monday. He’d been down here three weeks. Ben was taken care of. Lucy had opened an investigation of the task force. Both good things.
He wished he could bail. But Jesse had asked him to stay a little longer. Something was off, she said. Something they couldn’t see yet. Craig accepted her insight. She was a smart woman. Both of them were.
But Monday night, he realized he hadn’t seen Rollings himself in a week. It didn’t mean anything, really — he wasn’t doing 24/7 surveillance. More of a check-in. He’d seen the truck with Mexican plates pull in on Friday — with its load of Talavera pottery, which made him roll his eyes. But when he reported that to Bridgeman, he’d only grunted.
What was Bridgeman after, that he’d ignore a shipment coming in? That worried Craig, but he didn’t ask Bridgeman questions. He just did as he was told. But even a cop on the take would bust a distributor’s shipment. The accolades he’d receive would outweigh the hostility he’d get from the drug dealers.
Right?
Just what was Bridgeman getting from the drug distributor?
So that was troubling. And Rollings’ disappearance was troubling. Hell, it was all troubling.
Tuesday morning, Bridgeman called him at breakfast. Jesse had decided he could be useful — she wanted to ‘wake up’ the garden beds. He suspected that would mean a lot of digging, hoeing, and carrying. Fine with him.
But Bridgeman had plans for him too. “Lucy is meeting with her ex tonight, and they’re having dinner with a drug enforcer from out of town,” Bridgeman said. “You know her ex is Ryan Geller, the reporter, right?”
“Go on,” Craig said, not admitting to anything. Better that way.
“So, a couple of things. I think Lucy McBath is sharing information about our drug task force with her ex. I think they’re in on the leakage together. And tonight they’re giving new information to the drug enforcer that just arrived in town. He has to be stopped. And that’s where you come in. I want that drug enforcer dead.”
“Wait, Bridge,” Craig said. “Surveillance? Sure, I’ll do that for you. Kill a man? No. That’s beyond the line for me. Do your own dirty work.”
“You’d rather let a drug enforcer walk out of that restaurant and go back to who he’s working for with all the task force plans?” Bridgeman demanded.
“You’re a cop,” Craig had countered. “Be there and arrest him. Isn’t that what cops do?”
“I don’t have the evidence to do that,” Bridgeman said, and he actually did sound frustrated. “I would if I could. He’s bad news, Craig. He works for Rollings. He’s the man Rollings calls in for the heavy work. If he’s here, someone is going to die. I don’t want it to be me.”
Interesting that Bridgeman thought he might be the target. Craig considered that. “Rollings took a shipment from their supplier on Friday,” he said. “Who is their supplier?”
“Del Toro cartel, I’m told.”
Pretty big fish, Craig thought. “You didn’t do anything about it. How come?”
“The task force isn’t ready for another drug bust,” Bridgeman said. Craig could hear the lie in his voice. Bridge was a good liar, but Craig had become attuned to the nuances of his voice. And he was lying.
“Seems like that would be a big enough fish that the task force might scramble a bit,” Craig said neutrally.
“Not until we close up the leak,” Bridgeman countered. “They’ll be back. But if we screw this up, people will die.”
True enough, Craig thought. But it troubled him. He’d pretty much decided that Bridgeman was the leak, but... maybe not.
Or maybe Bridgeman wasn’t worried about the leak from the task force. He was worried about a leak about him. From whom? To whom? What if he reversed the flow arrows on his mental diagram of all of this? He would need to think about that — later.
“So tell me about Rollings,” Craig said now. “I don’t recall him from when I was here before.”
“He’s too young,” Bridgeman said impatiently. “Grew up here, but he actually spent his teen years in Seattle. Went to jail, came out, returned here and set up business. He’s a Black man — made some connections in the joint with some of the Del Toro cartel. And he’s been very successful. He’s connected. Most of his market is in the City and the Valley.”
Craig considered that. Did it matter? Not really. He still wasn’t going to kill a man. He’d done some pretty shady things in the last 20 years. But he hadn’t crossed that line, not even up in the North Cascades, he hadn’t. And that would have easily been considered self-defense.
“Still not going to kill a man, Bridge,” he said firmly.
“So, wound the bastard, then,” Bridgeman said impatiently. “If he’s in the hospital, he’s out of the picture, and isn’t going to give away any task force secrets that Geller or McBath are feeding him.”
“What makes you think they are?” Craig asked, confused. Cops like Bridgeman — or McBride and Malloy last fall — always tried to play everyone. And usually they got things so complicated that it went to shit real fast.
“I have my sources, too,” Bridgeman said. “If we take out their enforcer, then we can roll up the cartel — isn’t that what you think we should be doing?”
Craig started to refuse.
“Or I can bring in Lucy McBath and her sister for conspiring with drug dealers and grill them,” Bridgeman added. “Of course both of their reputations will be in shreds, even if I never charge them.”
Bastard. Craig considered it. “How will I know who it is?”
“I’m told Lucy will be outside the Porter Pub to meet him. Watch for her. Look for the scary dude she talks to,” Bridgeman said impatiently.
He was told? Nothing about this was passing the sniff test. Especially if you knew that Bridgeman was as corrupt as they came. Shrewd. Ambitious. And on his way to the top. Jesse said he was being considered for an assistant chief position. Bringing down an assistant DA for — what had he called it — conspiring with drug dealers? Quite the feather in his hat.
“Fine,” Craig had grumbled. He could put a bullet in some drug enforcer’s leg. He knew the Porter Pub. The man should be easy enough to spot down there. The Porter Pub wasn’t one of the bars where the different races mixed. There were those types of bars in Vallejo. But Craig had found that most people preferred to drink and relax with people like them. And sometimes the ‘them’ could be quite specific. Marysville had blue-collar bars that catered to the workers at the port. Even other working men like himself were viewed with suspicion.
Race? Yeah, that was a big one.
“But Bridge... after this? I’m done,” Craig warned. “That’s the end. I’m heading back north.”
“No problem,” Bridgeman said easily. “Although you do good surveillance work. I could use you.”
He just bet Bridgeman could.
“No, I’m out of law enforcement, and even surveillance is just too close to it for comfort,” Craig said firmly. “Glad for the excuse to see Jesse again, but no.”
“Call me after you take him down,” Bridgeman said.
So Craig had gone into Vallejo. He found himself a parking spot across from the Porter Pub, and he waited. His pickup had tinted glass, and he held the gun in his lap. Tap the window button, point the gun out, fire, and drive away. All too easy. And just sitting here, he wasn’t even breaking the law.
Not yet. Craig shook his head. Cop might tell him to move along, but that was about the extent of it.
He watched the street, and he saw Lucy hurrying toward the bar like she was late, and he raised his weapon. He used the scope to see who she was running towards — and holy shit, who walks out, but Mac Davis? What the hell was he doing down here? But there he was, walking up the block toward Lucy McBath. Pieces were clicking in his brain, but he didn’t have time to put them all together right now. He rolled down his window, and aimed at the building over Mac’s head, and fired off a couple of shots.
Mac had already dropped to the sidewalk before he even pulled the trigger. Had to admire that man’s instincts.
Craig rolled up the window, and while people turned toward Mac and the building he’d hit, he drove away.
What had Bridgeman said about last fall? He recognized some names? Craig had thought he meant his name. And probably some of the cops. Had he recognized Mac’s name too?
Craig shook his head. “Doesn’t make any sense,” he muttered, and mocked himself for thinking it would. He called Bridgeman, listened to what he had to say, and headed to The Club, a cop bar near the station. See? People drank with people like them.
But he wasn’t a cop anymore. He hadn’t been in a cop bar in 20 years. Not even with Malloy and that crowd. Not that he wanted to drink with cops.
He set that aside and thought about Mac Davis. What the hell? He started thinking about who he could call to find out what was going on. Bridgeman had just set him up to kill a reporter?
Even more disturbing was his growing suspicion that maybe Mac wasn’t just a reporter?
And that thought made him really need a drink. And he was going to make Bridge buy it too.