With a deep inhale, Brayden took four steps back. Then—with a forced exhale that came out as a grunt—he threw himself forward into the red-painted door for a third time. Under his exertion, it shuddered. It creaked. It bowed in, just a little. But it stayed closed. He drew back again, and this time, he lifted a booted foot and slammed it full force against a spot just below the handle. A satisfying, splintering crack heralded his success, and the frame fell apart as the door flung open.
Brayden slid sideways, pressed his back to the wall and readied his weapon.
“This is Detective Maxwell of the Freemont PD,” he announced, his voice far calmer than his racing heart and mind. “I’m armed. Identify yourself.”
His words were met with silence. He waited with as much patience as he could muster, straining to hear anything—a shuffle, a breath, a whisper—that would give away the occupant. He heard nothing.
Inching forward cautiously, he stuck the tip of the gun and the tip of his toe over the edge of the door frame and prepared to be jumped. Everything remained quiet.
“If you’re in there,” he called, “say something now, because I’m coming in hot.”
Still nothing.
Easing off the wall, Brayden dropped down and raised his gun at the same time. There was zero reaction, and as his eyes scanned the exposed room, he realized it was not only empty, but also completely dark. If Nadine Stuart had taken Reggie by force, it wasn’t to this location.
Fighting a maddening combination of frustration, helplessness and an anger that he knew stemmed from his worry, Brayden stepped into Nadine’s unit and flicked his gaze around the living space. It was a crowded mess. Knickknacks and photos dotted every surface. The air was musty—almost rank—and everything was covered in a layer of dust that appeared years old. A filth-crusted stack of mail sat in the middle of a coffee table, open and waiting, as if someone were going to come back and go through it at any second.
The place didn’t look like it was lived-in at all, let alone fit the bill for what Brayden imagined a single twentysomething woman would feel comfortable with. He wasn’t coming at the assessment from a presumptuous point of view. A decade of police work had given him a feel for how people lived, and just the basic facts he had about Nadine Stuart made him sure this wasn’t her primary residence. He doubted he’d find much of a clue in the apartment about her actual whereabouts, so he tugged his phone from his pocket and prepared to call his brother. He needed something else to go on. As he lifted his finger to dial, though, he heard a muffled sound from somewhere up the hall.
Cursing his own stupidity, he dropped the phone back into his pocket and readied his gun again as he moved to the dark, open hallway. He flattened himself to the wall and slunk along until he reached an open doorway. A quick check told him it was an empty bathroom. A few feet farther, he reached two more doors. One was also open, and was clearly as dark as the rest of the house. The other, though, was shut tight, and a soft yellow glow was just barely visible from beneath the bottom.
Jackpot.
Brayden snaked out his free hand and closed it on the doorknob. A quick, carefully silent turn told him that it was unlocked. He released it slowly and leaned back, working over what to do. Whoever was on the other side—please, let it be Reggie, and, please, let her be safe—had to know he was there. It wasn’t as though he’d made a subtle entrance.
So why are they still hiding? They had an advantage, at least for the minute before I realized they were even here. Why not use it?
His only answer was a cough from the other side of the door.
“Seriously?” he muttered under his breath.
The cough became a thick, cringe-inducing hack. Then the hack cut off abruptly in a curse, which was followed by absolute silence.
Puzzled, Brayden grabbed the handle again, calling out as he turned it. “I’m coming in armed. If you’ve got a weapon, declare it now.”
The reply came as a wet-sounding wheeze. “I don’t have a damned weapon.”
Brayden still proceeded with caution. He swung the door wide. Then waited. He lifted his gun and inched forward. Then waited some more. When there was no movement from inside, he pulled the same deal as he had at the front door—he dropped to one knee, weapon lifted.
“You can stop that,” said the gruff voice inside the bedroom. “I can’t even stand up.”
Lowering his gun, marginally, Brayden brought his attention to the prone form on the bed. It was a man. So sickly looking that his face was all but gray, his hair a matted mess. And it only took Brayden a second to figure out why his appearance was so haggard. Though the T-shirt he wore was white, it was stained crimson and brown everywhere but the sleeves and collar. It was ripped open, too, and a six-by-six-inch piece of cellophane had been taped over a jagged, thumb-sized hole just below his rib cage on one side.
Brayden lifted his eyes to the man’s face. “You’re Tyler Strange.”
He let out a coughing laugh. “You don’t say.”
“Where’s Reggie?”
“Don’t know.” Strange closed his eyes.
“You don’t know, or you won’t tell me?” Brayden snapped.
The other man didn’t answer. His breathing was shallow, the rise and fall of his chest inconsistent.
Brayden tried again, forcing himself to use a more conciliatory tone. “You clearly need medical help that’s far beyond my training, so let’s take care of that first. While we’re waiting for the ambulance, you can tell me what you do know about Reggie.”
“I’m dead already,” Strange replied.
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“Thanks for the positive vibes, Detective, but I was beyond repair even before this whole gunshot-wound incident. Acute necrosis of the liver. Addiction’s a son of a you-know-what. Booze, mostly, but I’ve always taken what I can get. And speaking of which...” The other man opened his eyes and swept a hand vaguely across the room. “I dropped some pain meds in here. You mind?”
Brayden spotted the little white pill bottle sticking out from under a chair. Shoving aside an urge to simply pick it up and hurl it at the man on the bed, he instead grabbed it gently, noted the oxycodone label addressed to someone else entirely and handed it over as politely as he could manage.
Tyler Strange lifted the cap, popped an indeterminate number of the painkillers, then closed his eyes again. “Thanks.”
Brayden clenched his teeth. Every second in the dingy apartment was a second away from Reggie. A second he didn’t know whether or not she was okay.
“It was her, right?” Strange said.
“What was her?”
“She was the one who saw me and Chuck in the alley.”
Brayden saw no point in lying. “Yes.”
“She startled Chuck just enough that he forgot to check if I was dead or just nearly dead. Gave me enough of a chance to hide. So I guess I can thank her for this slow, painful death.”
“If you give me a hint about where she is, I’ll happily pass along your message.”
The other man choked out another laugh. “My sister.”
“Nadine?”
“Yeah. You’re a detective. Did I hear you say that?”
The man’s seemingly random changes of subject was giving Brayden mental whiplash. “Yes.”
“I don’t usually like cops.”
“Some people don’t.”
“I don’t trust ’em.”
“I guess your experience with us hasn’t been too good.”
“Corrupt cops, clean cops... You all hate guys like me.” Strange’s eyes drifted shut again. “It hurts.”
“I can call someone.”
“No. Don’t. It’ll just put her in more danger.”
“Who? Your sister?”
“Can you help her? That’s what cops are supposed to do, right?”
“I can’t help anyone until I know where Reggie is, Tyler.”
“One-track mind, huh?”
“As far as my girlfriend’s safety is concerned, yeah.”
The other man’s lids lifted, and in spite of their glassiness, his gaze was sharp. “What’s that like?”
“What?”
“Loving someone so much you can’t think about anything else.”
Brayden swallowed against the sudden roughness in his throat. “I’m new to it, actually. But I can tell you that right now, it hurts. It scares me, to think that she might not be safe, and even more than that, it scares me to think that I haven’t had a chance to tell her exactly how I feel about her.”
“She’s safe,” Strange mumbled. “Or I assume she is.”
Hope buoyed under the surface, but Brayden forced himself to reply without betraying any hint of it. “Tell me what you mean.”
“Nadine. She’s been following you guys. Trying to figure out which side you’re on.”
“Which side?”
“If you were with Jesse Garibaldi, you would’ve shot me on sight. Like Chuck did.”
“I’m not with Garibaldi.” His placid tone was even more forced now. “And I’m nothing like Chuck.”
“No.” The other man breathed out a thick breath, then drew in another labored one. “I assume your girl is the same. That’s all Nadine needs to know.”
“All she needs to know for what?”
“Did she tell you what happened?”
“I didn’t speak to her.”
“Right. I keep forgetting.”
“Forgetting?”
“Everything.”
“What does Nadine need to know?” Brayden repeated, exasperated.
“There was a bomb here, did she tell you that?”
“She didn’t—yes. I know about the bomb.”
“Burned up her face something good. I liked her right away, you know? If I had to have a sister, I’m glad it was her.”
“I’m not sure I’m following, Tyler.” Understatement of the year. “And I’m not sure what this has to do with Reggie, either.”
But the other man was on a roll, the words tumbling out. “She was mad when she found out about me, and even madder when she found out our dad wasn’t the stand-up guy she always thought he was. Didn’t like having him knocked down off that pedestal, and really didn’t like that she couldn’t tear a strip off him about it. Our dads were friends, did you know that?”
“I don’t know if being the same man counts as being friends,” Brayden replied drily.
Strange’s greasy hair flopped over his eyebrows as he shook his head. “Not mine and Nadine’s dad. I mean. Yeah. Him. But with Jesse Garibaldi’s dad. Used to let Jesse babysit me. Scared the living hell out of me.”
For the first time, the other man’s rambling words truly piqued Brayden’s interest. “Your dad was friends with Garibaldi’s dad?”
“Back in Freemont City. Grew up together. Got involved in the drug trade together. Just about got killed together in some bust about fifteen years ago.”
The last statement sent Brayden’s mind buzzing. “What kind of bust?”
“Don’t know the details. I was a kid when it happened. Dad got away. Not a scratch, not so much a dent in his reputation. He was too smart. Like my sister, I guess. My mom—and me—not so much. But I guess she knew what happened. Kicked him out. Heard the whole damned argument. Sent my dad to live with his wife for good. Learned my mom was the other woman.”
Brayden tried to muster up some sympathy. “Must’ve been hard.”
“I don’t know if that’s the right word. I grew up in a house with a criminal father, who was only around about forty percent of the time. Who used me and my mom as his cover. Such a joke. Strong possibility that his leaving was the best damned thing that happened to me.”
“What about Garibaldi’s dad?”
“Jesse’s dad wasn’t so lucky. It was his mistake that got them caught, and he stayed behind to try to clean up his mess. But he was killed in the bust, and the cops took everything. They tossed Jesse into foster care and launched some big investigation.”
The revelations sent a dozen questions spinning through Brayden’s head. Fifteen years earlier... No chance that was a coincidence. He had more than a sneaking suspicion he knew which cops had begun the investigation in question.
“What happened after the bust?” he asked carefully.
The man’s shoulders moved up and down in a horizontal shrug. “Dunno. I didn’t see my dad again until Nadine called me and told me he was missing. Never looked him up and steered clear of all things related. Kept my life on the straight and narrow until all hell broke loose nine years ago. Then I found out I really am my father’s son.”
“But you did see him?”
“Yes. Once. Me and Nadine both. The bomb...” He trailed off, then added something incomprehensible, shuddered a little and went silent.
“Tyler?”
The addict said nothing in response to his name, and Brayden had to fight a need to shake the other man into coherence. He might’ve even done it if he hadn’t been worried it would result in immediate death. Strange’s chest was already barely moving up and down.
So Brayden mustered up the last bit of patience in his very limited reserve and said, “Listen to me, Tyler. I don’t know what happened all those years ago when the bomb went off on Main Street. I don’t know how you were involved, or if you were at all. Right this second, I don’t even care. Just give me a hint that’ll lead me to Reggie.”
“The Main Street bomb,” Strange mumbled.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“No.”
“No, what?”
Strange’s eyes opened halfway, a stoned, almost smile gracing his face. “That’s your hint. In fact, it’s more than a hint. It’s the answer.”
“The answer to what?”
He couldn’t tell if the other man was being deliberately mysterious, or if he was just so out of it that he had no clue what he was saying at all. Then Strange coughed, and a bubble of blood formed on his lower lip and Brayden decided it was more likely the latter. He also thought the man couldn’t have much time left.
“Give me a bit more,” he urged. “Something else to go on.”
“All I wanted to do was one thing—keep Nadine safe. I stayed away because I said I would. That was the deal.”
“You’re not making much sense.” Brayden scrubbed a frustrated hand over his chin.
“I’m passing the torch.”
“Nadine. Where is she, Tyler?”
“I did it.”
More mental whiplash. “Did what?”
“When my sister called me up here, I came. I thought my dad was already dead, and I thought Nadine was wrong about him just being missing. But then Jesse called me...” His breathing grew labored for a moment.
“Jesse called you and said what?” Brayden prompted as gently as he could manage.
“I swear I didn’t know.” Tears leaked from the other man’s eyes and trailed down his dirt-streaked face as he babbled on. “He said to bring my sister with me, and I did. He said my dad was working on some secret project for him, and he’d take us there. I don’t remember anymore what I thought would happen. A reunion? Something good? I was too stupid to realize it was a setup. Too eager. We got down to that cellar and we found our dad. Unconscious, tied up. We tried to free him. Then we smelled the smoke and heard the explosion. He wanted to kill us all, I think. And I had to make a choice. So I saved my sister. I’ve been saving her ever since. She needs to keep not remembering.”
Brayden’s mind worked to connect the disjointed information into a proper narrative.
Nadine and Tyler’s father—a long-time associate of Garibaldi—had gone missing. Nadine had initiated a search which ended in an attempt on her life and on Tyler’s, too. Their father was probably the original target. Why? And why had Garibaldi wanted to destroy those properties in the first place?
“And why did he let you live after all that, Tyler?” Brayden muttered, more to himself than to the wheezing man on the bed.
Tyler answered anyway, “The blackmail.”
“You couldn’t blackmail him if you were dead.”
“Not me.”
“Not following again, Tyler.”
“She doesn’t remember.”
It still didn’t make sense in Brayden’s mind, but the repeated phrase about Nadine not remembering finally clicked. “She doesn’t recall the accident at all?”
“I promised I’d keep her away from Whispering Woods.” The crimson bubble on Strange’s lips blew out again, then dribbled down. “But you should go.”
“I don’t know where I’m going, Tyler,” he pointed out. “You still need to tell me.”
“She could, if she remembered.”
The final sentence seemed to push him over the edge. He shuddered again, this time almost violently. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and his jaw went slack and the pill bottle—empty—slid from his hand and fell to the ground and Brayden knew he wouldn’t speak again. A quick check of his pulse confirmed it, and there was no sense in trying to perform CPR. A stab of regret hit him. Loss of life, no matter whose, was never welcome. Right that second, though, he didn’t have time to dwell. Renewed futility was threatening to settle in.
“The Main Street bomb is my hint,” he muttered to himself.
The only thing he could think to do was to head straight to the scene of the crime. Before dragging his keys from his pocket, though, he paused long enough to give the dead man a moment of silence. He mentally promised to personally see that Tyler Strange was given a proper burial. With a final, respectful nod, he turned to go. Before he even reached the door, though, his phone rang from inside his pocket.
Hoping yet again that it would be Reggie, he pulled the slim device free. A local number scrolled across the screen, buoying that hope.
He swiped the phone on. “Maxwell.”
The voice at the other end was as unpleasantly familiar as the reply itself. “Mr. Maxwell. I believe I have something that belongs to you.”
Brayden’s throat went dry, and he had to clear his throat before answering. “Officer Delta. How can I help you?”
“Me? I’m not the one who needs assistance.” There was a pause. “Say something to your boyfriend, sweetheart.”
For a second, no sound carried through the phone. Then there was a shuffle and a squeal, and Reggie’s plea filled his ear.
“Brayden! Please. I don’t want you to—”
Chuck cut her off. “That’s more than enough.”
Brayden gritted his teeth. “What do you want?”
“I want to know what the hell’s going on. I want to know who you really are, and I want to know what this has to do with my employer. And I don’t mean the Whispering Woods PD.”
“Tell me where to find you.”
“I have a few conditions first.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m assuming you have a weapon. Leave it in your car. I’ll be checking. I’m assuming you have some kind of fail-safe network. Don’t contact them. I can’t check, but I’ll know. And finally, I’m assuming you’ll spend the whole drive here trying to figure out a way to sneak in without me knowing. Stop before you start. I’ve got guys watching.”
“Done, done and done.”
Chuck let out a dark laugh. “Damn. That was easy.”
“Should’ve asked for something complicated,” Brayden said back, his tone matching the other man’s laugh. “Give me an address.”
“I’ll give you some instructions instead. You know where the movie theater is?”
“I can find it.”
“Good. Drive there. The parking lot should be completely empty at the moment. Put your car right in the middle. When you get out, lift your jacket, pant legs and shirt. Spin in a slow circle. If any of my guys see something suspicious, they’ll shoot first and ask questions later. Once you’re done with the little dance, go to the back of the theater. There’s an unlocked emergency exit. Go through it. It’ll be dark inside, but you’ll find a low ledge on the right. On the ledge will be a bandanna. Tie it over your eyes and wait. Could be a few minutes until I’ve sorted out who’s going to bring you down. Got it?”
“Is all of that really necessary?”
“I don’t know. Why you don’t you ask your girlfriend when you get here?”
Then the line went dead.