Bad Boy's Touch (Firemen in Love Book 3) (34 page)

Jenna and I canvased the apartment while the cop continued to knock, growing more and more impatient by the second. I searched the ceiling, hoping for a crawl space like the one Twinkles had. No such luck.

“Ma'am, you have one minute to open the door.”

“H-hold on, I'm getting dressed.”

I was about to start panicking – but then something hit the window. When I whirled around to look, I almost had a heart attack. Brett was staring back at me!

“What are you doing here?” I pulled open the window. “You got arrested.”

“No time for that now,” he said, reaching for my hand. “C'mon. I'll get you out of here. Charlie and James are waiting in the car.”

Melody got very excited. “My James? You have him? I have to see him.”

I gently stopped her from jumping out the window. “You have to stay here. If you don't, they'll wonder where you disappeared to when they break the door down.”

Jenna nodded. “They're not stupid. They'll figure out how you escaped – which means they could track James down too.”

“Ma'am?” More furious pounding. “This is your last warning. There may be an explosive device in that room. Open the door.”

I peeked out the window. Brett was standing on a narrow fire escape, barely wide enough for a small child. The metal was rusted; rungs of the ladder were missing in places.

I'd take that over getting arrested any day.

Brett began his descent to the lower levels. I held the laptop tightly and climbed down after him, with Jenna close behind. Good timing, too. The cops were trying to kick the door down now.

“What should I do?” Melody squealed.

“Go along with them,” I said. “Let them search the place. They'll leave when they don't find anything.”

“And James...”

“He'll be fine. Promise.”

I surveyed the parking lot below us as we climbed down. My car was parked on the front side, where the main entrance was, but the cop cars were blocking that route.

When I spotted a cruiser idling in the parking lot, my stomach sank.

“Oh, no. There's another one waiting for us.”

“Uh, not exactly.” Brett chuckled in his guilty way. “That's our ride.”

“You stole a cop car?!”

“What else was I supposed to do? They took everything from us before throwing us in the cell. Then Harvey showed up, killed the power, started some big fire, and all the inmates escaped. It was a madhouse. We had to get out of there.” He kissed my hand. “I had to get back to you. Nothing else mattered.”

My heart pounded, and it wasn't just from the adrenaline of running from the cops – for the second time since I'd gotten involved with him.

Soon as this mess was over, I'd give him another chance. Stupid, perhaps, but it felt right.

“Harvey... Why would he do that?”

“Didn't your boss fire him?” Jenna suggested. “He was super pissed. Maybe he did it as revenge.”

“He was mad, so he sets the jail on fire and allows a pack of criminals out into the streets. Well, I hope Victor realizes what a nightmare he's created. This is all his fault.”

The next rung crumbled as I put my weight on it. It vanished from beneath my foot, nearly sending me plummeting ten feet down.

“Whoa, there,” Brett cried, offering me his shoulder to stand on. “Whatever you do, don't fall to your death.”

“Yeah, I'm kinda trying not to.”

Finally, we reached solid ground. Charlie was in the driver's seat. He poked his head out and waved.

“This was your idea, wasn't it?” Jenna asked him. “Damn it, you're gonna get in trouble again. You can't just go around jacking cop cars like it's some video game.”

“Trouble?” He laughed. “Trouble follows me everywhere I go. Might as well stop fighting it and embrace it.”

James sat in the passenger's seat. He gaped at me as we piled into the back.

“Where's Melody? I thought you would be bringing her with you.”

“We couldn't do that. We needed her to stay and play dumb while the cops search her place.”

“But the bomb... She could be in danger.”

I held up the laptop. “I think she'll be just fine. Now the question is, what to do with this thing?”

Nobody knew, but that question could be pondered later – after we'd gotten someplace safe. Charlie floored it and got us away from the apartments with a couple of U-turns and a bit of driving the wrong direction down a one-way street.

Jenna kept peeking out the windows to see if any cops were following us. They weren't, but I'd left my car there, which made me nervous. I prayed none of them recognized it.

“Now what?” Charlie asked.

“Well, I made a deal with Victor. The contents of the safe in exchange for your freedom. Obviously, there's going to be a change of plans.”

“Wait a sec.” James stared at me. “You have the safe from Freddy's place?”

Brett cleared his throat. “About that... We kinda used twenty grand of the money to buy coke so we could plant it on Harvey.”

I wasn't sure whether to be angry at Brett or impressed with his ingenuity.

“That wasn't the plan,” I muttered. “We were just going to do recon work tonight. Let Harvey know Charlie was back in town. See his reaction, then go from there.”

“I know, but –”

“You went ahead and did this without telling me.”

“Because I knew you'd say no. Maddie, you gotta understand something. You can't catch a guy like Harvey or Victor by playing it safe. You have to take risks.”

“But you didn't talk to me about it first.” Don't cry. Not now. “You want to be in a relationship with me? I can't be with a man who doesn't respect me enough to make important decisions
together.
”

Tension hung heavily in the car. Jenna squirmed and stared out the window. Charlie whistled some annoying tune.

“This is a little bit different than discussing where to go for dinner or whether to buy a new TV,” he protested. “Harvey is a psychopath. If he's not stopped, someone is going to die. It could be your brother or Jenna. Could be you.”

He was right, of course, but that didn't make it stop hurting any.

“You promised me you wouldn't spend that money,” I said quietly. “Not a dollar of it. Said you wanted me to trust you.”

He hung his head. “I'm sorry, but we were running out of time. I... I wanted to help so badly, Maddie. For your sake. For your family's. I didn't want to see that asshole start one more fire. He burned down your house. Destroyed your childhood. He had to pay for what he's done.”

My usual protest would have been to let the legal system take care of it. With what little faith I had left in it shattered, I couldn't bring myself to say the words anymore.

“Don't be too harsh on him,” Charlie interrupted. “Buying the drugs was my plan. I'm the one who went to the dealer and paid.”

“Yeah, maybe, but Brett's the one who gave you the cash.”

Neither man had anything to say back.

I knew he tried to do something good. His motivations were honorable ones. But did he really have no choice except to betray my trust?

“If you still have the safe, I'd like my money back, please,” James said flatly. “What's left of it.”

“You're in no position to make demands from me, Mr. Ventura. You seem to forget I'm still a cop, and I'm fairly sure you've broken a handful of laws tonight.”

He muttered something. “Just drop me off at my apartment. I'm desperate to speak with Melody.”

Brett raised his eyebrow. “You think it's safe to go there? We just escaped from a jail cell; that'll likely be the first place they look for you.”

“I'm just going to gather my things and go get Melody. I'm taking her away from this hellhole of a city.” He stared at the sky. “Maybe she'll finally be ready to leave Freddy and start a new life with me.”

“I'd run halfway across the world if I were you,” Jenna piped in. “Once Freddy figures out you stole his girl and his money, well...”

“You can't take Melody away yet.” I kicked his seat. “We need her testimony. Don't you want to see the man punished who hurt her?”

“I don't need revenge. Not long as she's safe and I'm free.”

Brett appeared to be thinking hard. I knew he was the opposite of James in that regard. When someone wronged him, he'd do what it took to lay down some payback, no matter the price.

We dropped James off because he wouldn't stop whining about Melody until we did. From there, though, we were lost.

“Let's just go back home,” I said, feeling defeated after all this. “I'm tired.”

“But the bomb,” Jenna protested. “We can't keep this thing in the house! What if it explodes?”

“Maybe we can disarm it. Cut the wires or something,” Charlie said.

“No one's cutting anything.”

After the rush of our victorious escape began to wear off, what remained was weariness and mostly fading hope.

What the hell was I supposed to do now? Harvey could burn down more buildings before anyone who cared caught him. Victor got away with whatever he liked because he simply ran this town, and I had no clue who to trust, who I could turn to about him.

Even my own squad was corrupt to the core. No wonder they always gossiped about me and looked down on me. To them, I must have looked like Miss Goody Two Shoes, the naive female cop who thought everyone played by the book just like her.

“Maddie?”

Brett studied me with concern. He lay his hand in my lap, offering me to take it. Mad as I was at him, it was the only bit of comfort I had right now.

“I give up, Brett.”

“Don't.”

“And why not? What other choice do I have? This game is over for us.” I let the tears fall at last. “When I first got put on the arsonist case, I was so excited. So eager to prove to the department that I could do the job, that I didn't just get promoted because Victor liked me.”

“But you
can
do the job. You're probably the most competent, ethical officer this town's got. Maybe I've made fun of your moral compass, but I respect it. I really do.”

His shoulder, strong and sturdy, beckoned to me. I put my head on it, too weak to keep up my anger anymore.

“Doesn't matter. This isn't like in the movies, where despite impossible odds, the good guys always win. In the real world, evil wins far more often than I wanted to believe.”

I thought I had beaten my depression years ago, but it came crashing back over me then, like a thick black blanket of despair. This blanket was so heavy that beneath it, I could barely move.

“Even if the bad guys do win,” he said softly, “you and I still got each other. We can leave the city to them, take off somewhere together far away, and never worry about them again. Just like James and Melody.”

“It's not that easy. You and my brother just broke out of
jail.
If you think they won't come looking for you, you're crazy.” I laughed and dried my eyes on his shirt. “Besides, after all the things you've done, I very much doubt we'd make it long as a couple.”

“I did what I did to get results. I might be one of the good guys, but I'm not above doing shady things to catch the crooks.”

“You'd fit in well with the local police, I guess.”

Charlie turned down Watercrest Street. Almost home. My bed was calling my name, and the only thing I wanted to do was bury myself under the blankets and forget all this.

“I thought about you while they had me locked in that cell,” he continued. “Thought about how much I'd screwed up. I was terrified I would lose you.”

Despite how pissed I was at him, I was afraid of the same thing. I snuggled into the nook of his arm, feeling like that just might be the only safe place left in my world these days.

“See any pigs?” Charlie glanced at Jenna. “Were we followed?”

“All I see are regular cars. Of course, doesn't mean they couldn't be cops in disguise.”

We were nearly at the house now. Boy, did I really wish they'd put more streetlights out here.

“Loop around the block a couple times,” I told Charlie. “And drive past slowly. They could have guys watching the place for us to return.”

But we saw nobody. Made sense, I supposed. Long as Victor thought he'd be getting the safe, he would probably call off the hunt.

Charlie pulled into the driveway. “Might wanna open the garage,” he suggested. “Don't think it's smart leaving this thing in the road.”

Jenna got out to open it up. Just as we pulled into the garage, a black car drove slow up to the house.

I tensed and squeezed Brett's hand. “Who is that?”

“Looks familiar, kind of like that car we spotted hiding in the bushes,” Brett said.

“Yeah, but that was Charlie, right?”

The car had darkly tinted windows so we couldn't see inside. When it pulled into the driveway behind us, blocking any chance at escape, my stomach churned. I put my hand on my gun, ready to shoot whoever threatened my family if need be.