The muffled ringing of a cell phone interrupted. It was just an ordinary ring, no music, which he knew must mean it was the disposable.
Caroline was already reaching into the back, scrambling to pull it from his backpack. He could smell the faintest of sweet scents from those heart-shaped flowers as she jostled them while getting to the phone. When she handed it to him, he automatically glanced down at it, but it told him nothing. The name and number of the caller did not come up.
Unless this was a wrong number, there were only two possibilities. His heart started to beat a little faster.
“Hello,” he said into it. Careful, just in case.
“All right, you’ve got me back down here in the cesspool,” DeBlassis growled in his ear. Just hearing that familiar voice conjured up the man in Reed’s mind’s eye: light brown hair buzzed the last time Reed had seen it, bright blue eyes, pugnacious features, six feet, stocky build. Who would have thought that Reed ever would have considered that combination the most beautiful sight he could possibly lay eyes on outside of Caroline? DeBlassis continued, “Where the fuck are you?”
A wave of relief washed over Reed so strongly and suddenly that he might have closed his eyes from the impact, if he hadn’t been driving.
“In the wind,” he replied, and glanced Caroline’s way to find that she was sitting up and looking at him with sudden hope. He gave her a quick, encouraging smile even as he said to DeBlassis, “You’re here? In New Orleans?”
“You called, I came. Been on a fricking plane all day. Brought the troops.”
“What troops?”
“The feds, who do you think? On the way down we were looking into that shit you sent. It doesn’t paint a pretty picture of the local yokels.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“So where you want to meet?”
Reed calculated, and named a little restaurant about a mile from Six Flags. He didn’t want to get any closer to the abandoned amusement park in case the sight of swarming federal agents should spook Holly, or anybody inside, into doing something stupid.
“Give me about twenty minutes,” he added.
“That long?” DeBlassis groused.
“I’ve got to drop off a passenger first.” Out of the corner of his eye Reed saw Caroline stiffen. He refused to look at her, but then, he didn’t have to—he could feel the killer beam of her eyes on his face.
“A passenger? We talkin’ the punk kid you busted out of jail or that smokin’ cop you abducted?”
“The cop.”
“Okay. Twenty minutes,” DeBlassis agreed abruptly.
“DeBlassis,” Reed said before the other man could disconnect. “Thanks for coming.”
DeBlassis grunted in reply. The buzz in Reed’s ear told him the conversation was over.
“DeBlassis is here with the feds,” he told Caroline. There was an edge of excitement in his voice as he dropped the phone down into the console. She’d heard, he knew, but it bore repeating. He felt his mouth stretching into a slow grin as the reality of it hit him. “Looks like we may be going to get through this after all.”
“Thank God. Oh, thank God.” Her response was heartfelt. She’d curled one leg beneath her and leaned forward as she’d listened to his conversation, and now she slumped a little in the seat with relief. “They’ll go after Holly and Ant
and
get you out of this?”
“I hope so. I’ll know more once I meet with DeBlassis.”
Then her brows twitched together and she frowned. “You’re planning on dropping me off somewhere before that?” Her tone was way too polite. She was watching him steadily.
“Cher.” They were close to the little dive hotel that was his immediate destination, maybe two miles from the restaurant where he’d arranged to meet DeBlassis, and about three miles from Six Flags. “There’s a hotel right up the block here. It rents rooms by the hour, it’s a dive, but it takes cash, doesn’t require ID, and nobody sticks their nose into anybody else’s business. I’m going to give you some money, and I want you to go in there and get a room and hole up and wait for me.”
The laugh she gave did not bode well for his plan.
“No,” she said baldly.
“ ‘
No’
isn’t an option here. That’s what’s going to happen.”
“Reed. I’m a cop.”
“Yeah, well. Bullets kill cops, too.” That’s what was scaring him, he realized. He was starting to get tantalizing glimpses of a future, of what was possible. DeBlassis was in town with the feds to help him solve this damnable case and get his life back. And he’d found Caroline. The black hole that had been his life for so long that he could hardly remember it any other way was suddenly starting to light up with twinkly little stars.
He was afraid of being plunged right back into darkness again. Once burned, twice shy had nothing on him. He knew from personal experience just how fast a man could lose everything.
“I’m going with you.” Caroline had that stubborn expression on her face. “I’m in on this. No way am I not in on this.”
By that time they had reached the hotel, a four-story pink stucco building with its unsurprising name, Pinky’s, emblazoned in neon on the side. He knew it from his days in vice, because, at twenty-five dollars an hour, it was a popular spot for hookers in the area to take their johns. Multicolored Christmas lights, garish against the pink, outlined the double glass front door and lower windows. He could just glimpse a lighted Christmas tree through the big front window. The parking lot had only a few cars in it. Pulling in, he parked in a shadowy corner. Then he cut the engine, unfastened his seat belt, and turned to look at her.
It was dark where they were, but he could see her perfectly well in the glow of neon lighting.
“Come on, Caroline,” he began impatiently. She glared at him. She was making no move to unfasten her seat belt, her arms were folded over her chest, and if ever an expression said
wild horses aren’t getting me out of here,
hers did. He reached for his wallet, pulled out all the cash he had left. “I’ve put you in enough danger. This is going over to the feds now, and then I’ll be out of it, too. I want you to take this money and go in there and get a room. I’ll be back just as quick as I can.”
She eyed the cash. She eyed him.
“Screw that,” she said. “And screw you, too. This overprotective crap you do is sweet in small doses, but it has got to stop. I’m an adult, I’m a cop, and I decide what I am or am not going to do. And I am going with you.”
He dropped the cash in her lap and leaned over to unfasten her seat belt.
“The hell you are,” he said perfectly pleasantly. The seat belt strap slackened across her body, but she immediately grabbed the buckle and clicked it back down into place. The look she gave him was nothing short of belligerent.
“Try to stop me,” she snapped. “Go on, give it your best shot. What are you going to do, tie me up in the backseat? Leave me handcuffed somewhere? I don’t think so. Not anymore.”
“Goddamn it, Caroline, would you please just give me a break here?” The hideous thought occurred to him that if she was bound and determined not to go into the hotel there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do. He could drag her out of the car, but if he physically carried her into the building they’d call the cops. Pinky’s minded its own business, but not to that extent. He narrowed his eyes at her in frustration. “If I’m being overprotective, it’s because I don’t want to take a chance on you getting shot. And that’s because I damned well can’t stand the thought of losing someone else I love.”
He hadn’t even realized what he was going to say until the words were out of his mouth, and then they stopped him cold.
Caroline stared at him, her eyes wide.
“What
did you say?”
He was mute. He had nothing. He was still chewing over the words, and the feelings behind them, himself.
As far as getting her out of her seat belt was concerned, what he’d just said worked like a charm. She unfastened it with a click and curled both legs beneath her and leaned toward him.
“Reed Ware, did you just tell me you loved me?”
It was too dark to see the green in her eyes as they searched his, but he was sure it was there. Those long lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. Her delicate features, her kissable mouth, every beautiful inch of her was right there in front of him, his to claim.
His heart shuddered a warning. Life was about as predictable as a hurricane, and if he did this, if he went there, he was once more going all in, pushing all his chips to the center of the table, with everything to lose.
“Yeah,” he said. “I did.”
The smile that beamed back at him put the neon lights behind them to shame.
“I love you, too,” she said, clear as a bell, no hesitation for her. Then she leaned across the console and put her hands on his shoulders with the obvious intention of kissing him, but he didn’t wait.
He picked her up and pulled her over the console and into his lap, scooting the seat as far back as he could so she wasn’t squashed against the steering wheel and kissing her at the same time. Then her arms were twined around his neck and she was lying back in his arms and her mouth was driving him insane and he was kissing her like she was everything he’d ever wanted in his life, which she absolutely was.
“I love you,” he said against her lips, because she deserved to hear it and he needed to say it, to plant his stake in the future with those words.
“Reed,” she murmured, sounding as dazed and dazzled as he felt. Then she surfaced just long enough to fix him with a militant look. “Don’t think you’re changing my mind. I’m still going with you.”
Something to argue about later. But he didn’t say that. Instead he kissed her again, hot and hard.
He was still kissing her when someone tapped sharply on his window.
Instantly wary, he jerked his head up. Caroline, who’d been lying back in his arms with her head brushing that selfsame window, sat up on his lap. She blinked at the window, her arms still looped around his neck.
At the familiar face that peered back through the glass at him, Reed let out a relieved breath then broke into a grin.
“DeBlassis.” He identified the intruder to Caroline, and giving her a quick kiss, lifted her back onto her own seat.
A moment later, he was out of the car and shaking hands with his old friend. Reed didn’t think he’d ever been as glad to see anybody in his life.
“Here we got all this serious shit going down and I find you making out in a car,” DeBlassis said with mock disgust.
“Wait a minute. We were supposed to meet in Shuman’s parking lot,” Reed replied, naming the restaurant. “What are you doing here?”
“We were headed that way when we spotted this car turning in here. I was pretty sure I recognized you behind the wheel. We pulled in after you, but by the time we got parked it looked like you needed a minute.”
“Thanks for continuing to hang back,” Reed said drily.
DeBlassis shrugged. “Couldn’t wait all night. And didn’t think you wanted to put on a show.”
Considering where things had been going with Caroline, Reed thought,
Fair enough.
DeBlassis’ eyes slid to Caroline, who was getting out of the Mazda on the other side while a stranger in civilian clothes whom Reed presumed was a fed held the door open for her. Just looking at her was enough to make Reed feel really, foolishly happy; recognizing that his face was threatening to ease into an idiotic smile, he glanced away. DeBlassis was wearing civilian clothes, too, a sport shirt and slacks, as were the other two men standing back in the shadows near the white SUV they’d arrived in. Reed had known DeBlassis for a long time: he recognized the gleam of appreciation in the other man’s eyes as they moved over Caroline.
“Caroline Wallace, Elliot DeBlassis,” Reed said, introducing them.
“Nice to meet you.” DeBlassis acknowledged her with a nod.
Caroline smiled.
“Really
nice to meet you,” she replied.
As she came around the front of the car toward them, DeBlassis, who from his long association with Reed of course knew Holly, peered into the Mazda and asked, “Where’s the punk kid?”
Reed was just about to tell him when one of the guys standing in the shadows moved a little, enough so that the pink neon light hit his face, and Reed realized that he knew him: Sergeant Glenn Wyman, from Vice. NOPD.
Reed’s brows snapped together as he flicked a lightning look at the second man in the shadows. It was too dark to be sure, but he looked familiar, too: Something Purnell, Major Crimes. NOPD.
His internal radar went on instant high alert. His gut clenched. His heart leaped. His blood ran cold.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
His eyes crashed into DeBlassis’, and he knew.
Reed grabbed for his weapon, which he’d thrust into the back waistband of his jeans. DeBlassis grabbed Caroline at the same time, ignoring her surprised gasp and deftly dodging the elbow she reflexively threw as he yanked her back against him and shoved his gun hard against her temple.
“Don’t move,” DeBlassis snarled at Reed, whose gun was by then up and aimed at him. For a split second the years of friendship stretched out between them—Reed had lightning recall of everything from DeBlassis’ first day as his partner to them being best man at each other’s weddings to DeBlassis’ unflagging support at Brandon’s funeral. The gun at Caroline’s temple never wavered, and Reed became aware, too, of the other three men closing in, their weapons pointed at him.
Betrayal was a bitter thing.
“You
fucker,
” he said to DeBlassis.
DeBlassis replied, “Drop your weapon.
Now.
”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
T
HE PARKING LOT WAS DESERTED.
No one on the street. Heart hammering, Caroline realized that screaming was useless with no one to hear, even as the SUV slammed to a halt directly in front of them. Trying to run or fight with three guns trained on them was suicidal. She was handcuffed; her weapon had been taken.
Two absolutely unproductive thoughts chased each other through her mind: Reed loved her. They were going to die.