Authors: Kat Attalla
“What makes you think he’s going to give it over to you?”
“Oh, he’ll turn it over. He quite possibly blew his whole career today to protect you. Or at the very least, his unblemished record. And a lucky thing for me he did, or you’d be in a detention cell right now. But, then, there was no doubt in my mind that he would do anything else. It sort of renewed my faith in young love.” His last line was delivered with biting sarcasm and followed with a mock-gagging sound.
Unfortunately, she was in no condition to appreciate what Jack had done for her that afternoon. Faced with the possibilities of what could happen now, her heart pounded so rapidly that it threatened to explode. Nothing in that file implicated Stucky. He wanted to frame her and Jack. He planned to kill them both and remain among the officially missing in the line of duty.
Night descended, and with it the dark suspicion that she might never see the sun again. Stucky pulled off the main roads and weaved his way through the deserted storage warehouses of old Port Newark. Only rusted-out shells remained of the freighters that graced the once-busy piers. When the new port was built, the area had become a ghost town. Now, only the occasional vagrants or small time hoods trying to make a drug sale ventured down the eerie back roads. Both Jack and Stucky alike seemed to know the sleaziest areas of any city, a sad commentary on the reality of their world.
The car came to a sudden stop. Her body fell forward into the dashboard, and her head hit the windshield. Her cry of pain and surprise was returned with a malicious snicker.
“That’s what happens when you break the law and don’t wear a belt.”
She straightened in her seat and checked her forehead for bleeding. Her temples throbbed. She wanted to cry, but she refused to give Stucky the satisfaction of reducing her to tears.
“Don’t worry, Lilly. In a few more minutes you won’t feel a thing.” He opened the driver’s side door and hauled her across the seat, sliding her out alongside of him.
The abandoned, graffiti-covered building was boarded up. A notice reading “This Property is condemned” hung on the door that Stucky kicked open with his foot. He started in and then suddenly stopped. In a display of sorely misplaced manners, he bowed and pointed for her to pass in front. “Ladies first.”
She burst out laughing, but she had no idea why. Maybe it was the stress or the last vestige of her sanity slipping through her trembling fingers. Hell, she’d blame it on the full moon. She really didn’t care anymore. “You have a gun pointed at my head and you’re worried about being polite? Why don’t you just shoot me now?”
“And have Jack miss it?” He motioned her down the dark hallway. With only an outside streetlight to guide her, she tripped over the wooden debris that
Littered the filthy building. Stucky made no effort to help her. Instead, he pulled a penlight from his pocket to light the way for himself.
A musty old army cot leaned against the wall in the corner of an empty back office. A battery powered lantern that he switched on cast ghostly shadows on the drab walls. Every movement was reflected in giant proportion around the room.
“Sit on the bed and roll up your sleeve,” he ordered.
“What?” She saw him remove a needle and a small vial from his pocket, similar to the one Jack carried.
He filled the hypodermic, never once removing his eyes from her as he worked. “Have a nice rest,” he mocked, jabbing the point into her upper arm. Her last and only consolation—the fast-acting drug took effect quickly, and she passed out in minutes.
* * * *
Jack stormed out of the bank. Although he never planned on this scenario, he was thankful that he had Lilly add his name to allow him access to the safe deposit box. He tucked the file tightly under his arm and headed for his car.
How could he have been so blind? He suspected that Stucky might still be alive, but he never expected his ex-partner to be so brazen as to show his face in broad daylight. Less than a block from the federal building! Stucky had to be desperate, and that made him all the more dangerous.
He couldn’t shake the picture of Lilly from his mind. She looked so scared, and with good reason. In his entire life he’d never felt as useless as he did when Stucky held that gun against her face. Her present situation had nothing to do with Santana. Lilly wasn’t the target, but the pawn. The expendable piece to be sacrificed for the victory.
Jack cursed himself repeatedly. He had worked with Stucky before, so he should have sensed a problem when the older man tried to get out of the assignment in Genoa. It had nothing to do with burnout or stress. Lilly could identify him as Santana’s associate, and he couldn’t take the chance of her seeing him. Stucky must have planned the explosion in Nice when Jack refused to drug Lilly again.
By the time Jack got to his car and headed in the direction of the Lincoln Tunnel, the heaviest part of rush hour had hit. The traffic crawled through the tunnel. The humid heat and smog made for tempers well above normal, and his constant blaring of the horn wasn’t winning him any friends. He wished that he had borrowed an agency car rather than his rented sedan. Not that a siren would have been much help in the gridlocked traffic.
When he finally made it down to the docks, he knew immediately that the game had begun. He couldn’t see a car within a two-mile radius of the old boathouse. Instead, Stucky left a note with an ambiguous message only Jack would understand. Stucky was sending him on a scavenger hunt to buy time until night fell.
He detested these sadistic games. Knowing the techniques helped to keep his temper in check. In a mind game, the winner would be the one with the steadiest nerves. He found it difficult enough to play when the stakes were merely his own survival, but this time he was responsible for Lilly too and very emotionally involved—a definite taboo for a federal agent on assignment.
He snatched the folder from the dashboard and tucked it under the front seat of the car. If Stucky wanted it, he could come get it.
Jack stepped over the broken remnants of the front door. He moved silently past the front office and down the long corridor. As he proceeded deeper into the building he could no longer count on the street lamp to guide him. He paused with his back against the wall to use the last faint beam of light to check the carriage of his gun.
He remembered the old warehouse from a case he’d worked on with Stucky in Jack’s rookie year. He should have noticed, even back then, that his colleague wasn’t the hopeless idealist he’d been. Time became an enemy, so inching along the creepy walls damn near killed him. He tried to recall the layout of the decrepit building, but so many years and miles had passed. If his memory served him, the hall led to a group of offices.
At the end of what seemed like an endless corridor, he reached a door. He pushed it in, and a shrill creak echoed through the silent warehouse.
Chapter Fifteen
“Time to wake up.”
Lilly heard the words, but comprehension took a few more minutes. The drug had diminished her ability to concentrate. Her thick tongue pressed against the roof of her dry mouth.
“Get up,” Stucky demanded. He grasped the fabric of her shirt and yanked her up into a sitting position. Her body swayed, and she fumbled for the metal edge of the cot to keep from falling off.
Stucky sat down next to her, his thin lips twisting back in a grin. “Isn’t this comfy?” He rested the point of the gun under her chin, forcing her weary head to remain straight. “Hold tight, Lilly. Your man’s almost here. You’ll have the rest of your lives together. All ten minutes of them.”
His evil laugh chilled her to the marrow. Footsteps approached, and she wanted to shriek out a warning to Jack. Before she could open her mouth, Stucky spoke. “Come on in, Murphy. We can’t start the party without you.”
Jack stepped through the door. His eyes narrowed as he adjusted to the light in the room. A layer of soot covered his clothes, and black smudges darkened his stony face. His expression didn’t register a single emotion as he silently assessed the situation.
Stucky eyed Jack’s .38-service revolver and pressed his own harder against Lilly’s face.
“Let her go, Stucky. This has nothing to do with her.”
“It didn’t until you got involved. You never know when to leave things alone.”
“Did you honestly think I would after two agents were killed?”
“If you hadn’t gone to Winston and insisted on having me as your back-up in Genoa, we might not be here right now. Then again, you never would have let it go if you hadn’t seen me die with your own eyes. What better witness could I have had?” Stucky pulled Lilly in front of him to use as a shield and rested the gun against her chest. “Where’s the file?”
“When she walks out of here, you get the file.”
She braced herself for another of his mocking laughs. Instead, she felt the movement of his left arm and let out a startled cry when she received a sudden prick.
She raised a questioning gaze towards Jack, but other than a fleeting spark of apology he couldn’t hide, he made no comment.
Stucky picked up the empty vial from the cot and tossed it to Jack. “Pentothal. That’s one of your particular favorites, isn’t it, Murphy?”
Jack’s face paled. “How much did you give her?”
“Enough to do the job if she doesn’t get help soon … and leave your trademark signature all over it.” Stucky glanced at Lilly and back to Jack, beaming with pride for his intricate plan. “It wouldn’t be the first time that lovers had double crossed each other. And they all know your relationship now, don’t they, Jack?”
Jack sucked in a deep breath and smashed to bottle against the wall. “You sick bastard.”
“You left me no choice. Santana and I had a very profitable arrangement. If he goes down, he’s going to spill it all. “
“What makes you think he won’t anyway?”
“He won’t say a word if his lawyer hears from me in the next day. Without the file, you really have nothing on him or he would have been brought down long ago. You don’t have much time. Bring me the file before it’s too late.”
“No,” Jack returned as calmly, as if he was declining a dinner invitation.
Lilly smiled. She had accepted the fact that she was not going to leave that building alive, but as long as Jack didn’t hand over the file, she would not die for nothing.
Stucky shook his head, apparently unable to believe his ears. “I’ll kill her.”
“Then I’ll kill you. And all that money you have will sit in that Swiss bank account, unclaimed.”
The older man expelled a heavy sigh of regret. “The money would be hard to part with. Not everyone wants to live like you.”
Lilly lowered her heavy eyelids. Money? The man could be motivated by the loss of money but not the loss of his own life? She felt nauseous, but she wasn’t sure if it was the thought or the injection affecting her.
“We’ve reached a draw, Murphy. What do you suggest?”
“I suggest you let her go.”
“Are you crazy? She’s my trump card. I think you’re bluffing but even if I’m wrong, I’ll die knowing you’re going to suffer.”
Something snapped in the last conscious part of her muddled brain. Stockton’s cool description of the pleasure he would take in her death was more than she could quietly accept. She summoned all the strength she could gather from her rapidly weakening body. Without thought to the foolishness or danger, she landed her elbow in his gut.
* * * *
Jack reacted on pure instincts. He heard a shot ring out and saw Lilly fall to the floor in a heap. He aimed his gun directly between Stucky’s widened eyes. Every instinct told him shoot to kill, but he couldn’t. Instead, he lowered his aim on Stucky’s hand. The shot reverberated around the room, followed by a sharp cry and a second discharge as Stucky’s revolver hit the ground. Jack dropped to his knees next to Lilly.
Stucky held his bleeding hand, his face contorted in pain. The split second decision that had made Jack spare Aaron Stockton’s life left him with two regrets. One, that his ex-partner wasn’t in more pain, and the other, that he couldn’t bring himself to kill the slimy creep in front of Lilly.
He placed two fingers against the side of her neck to check her pulse. Slow, but steady. The wild shot had missed her, thankfully, but he had no idea how large of a dose had been injected into her.
“Say your goodbyes, Murphy. She hasn’t got a prayer.”
Stucky’s mocking pride in such a cowardly act pushed Jack beyond reason. He turned as stone cold as the man before him. Nothing mattered any more. He aimed his gun at the spot where Stucky’s heart would be, if he possessed one.
“Don’t do it, Murphy. He’s not worth it.” Winston entered the room, followed by two agents. They all had their weapons drawn, waiting for Jack to back off.
He wanted to pull the trigger, and that scared him. The rigid control he held over his emotions had evaporated. Like a shark in a frenzy, he smelled blood and he wanted more.