Blindside (12 page)

“Ten-four.”

She hated hanging up but, for the moment, he wasn’t the issue. Hitting her lights, she rolled code three behind a Ford with a new paint job and a busted taillight, the setting sun brilliant and painful gold shining directly in her eyes.

He led her a good chase before finally slowing down. She could sit here and wait for backup, or she could put on her cop panties and get tough.

“Good evening, sir. Do you know why I pulled you over?”

She leaned over the passenger window while the driver, a giant beard of a man, tipped up a paper bag hiding a bottle.

“Step out of the car, please.” Firm voice hid that her knees slightly shook in the starched creases of her uniform. She kept her hands loose on her belt, ready to draw if he pulled out a weapon. When he did step outside, he hulked above the car, his body that of a has-been high school linebacker, complete with faded flannels and SMH ’98 screaming in reds and yellows across his barrel chest. He held a brown paper bag in one of those meaty hands.

“Do you know why I stopped you?”

A loud burp carried over the wind. “No ma’am.”

“Is that alcohol in that bag?”

“No alcohol. Just Vodka.” And a hiccup.

“I need you to take a sobriety test.”

He simply stared at her, sad little eyes, lips twitching under the beard.

“You know better than to drink and drive. Now you can take the test, or come with me down to the station.” She considered her options. “You’ll probably try to outmuscle me, considering you weigh about three hundred pounds. You might hurt me, and I’ll make sure to turn on the waterworks when we get in front of a judge. Guess who he’ll feel sorry for,” she said, her voice still calm, the baton handle clutched in a sweaty hand.

He sighed, his shoulders slumping down then he pushed his hands onto the blue shine of his truck. “My wife left me.” And he manfully tried to control his sobs while she did the breathalyzer test, walking with graceless dignity to her patrol car when it read way above limit.

He even gave her a small wet thank you when Lana put her hand over his head to ensure he didn’t bonk his forehead on the roof of the patrol car. She exhaled in relief just as a shadow fell over her, cutting off the gold brilliance of the sun. Baton in hand, she whirled around to find Narc, San Michael’s hero standing in the glow of twilight, his features hidden in contrasting light and shadow.

“Looks like you handled it.”

“I did.” And damned if she wasn’t proud. “Thanks, though. It’s good knowing you got my back.”

She flushed as she said that, the sunlight in her eyes blurring her vision. She wished she could see his face, but then again, so did every woman and most men in San Michael.

“I got your back, officer.…” Velvet tone lifted at the end in an implied question.

“Rossini. Lana.”

“Narc.” He offered her a wide leather-clad palm pulsing with disciplined strength. Most men, upon finding she was a cop, tried to assert their dominance, gripping her fingers, squeezing her knuckles.

Her palm felt…right somehow, held in his hand. Despite the harsh rays of the sun, she tried to look into his features, his build familiar somehow, his wide shoulders edged in in dying daylight.

“Well. Thanks.” She had to clear her throat to keep it from drying out. “See you around.”

“Lana.”

He shouldn’t have said her name. Her name whispered from of his mouth in an intimate caress, a velvet whip of need. Recognition and disbelief slammed through her belly, a conflicting ball of forbidden heat.

“You should be riding with a partner.”

She tried to quell her pounding heart. “She called in sick, and we’re thin as it is. The shift’s done anyway.” Then the radio at her shoulder squawked dispatch calling out shots fired at the harbor, all units requested code three to assist
.

She found herself on the floor, back to the wall, still weeping. Big Al sprawled, softly snoring, on her lap. Wiping the tears away, she searched in the dark for her phone, finally finding the cord tethered to her computer.

She didn’t get up so not to dislodge the warm weight on her knees. With shaking fingers and blurry vision from the razor bright light emanating from the phone, she emailed Crash for information, including personal phone number of Amy Avalon, star reporter of Channel Six News. Al grumbled when she put away the phone and tried to get more comfortable.

“Let’s get some sleep,” she said, her voice a bag of rust. “Then later, we’ll go visit Nicky at the harbor.”

***

The hours bled together under the gray tears of rain and Mac couldn’t stand the glass prison of the tower. The vials secure against his chest, he sought solace in the silent company of whiskey while the day stretched out like a tired rubber band.

Almost game time. The poison froze his power but did nothing to dull the pain drilling inside his veins.

“Drinking again?” Wojo straddled the stool beside him. “I thought that was my habit.”

“Cops or humans?”

A small shrug. “Some of both.”

“How’d you find me?”

“You’re in a cop’s bar, son. And I still got my ear to the ground.”

On the screen hung above the bottles, Amy Avalon smoothed her hands through her hair, darting quick, nervous glances at the camera. With the sound turned off, the only noise was clinks of glasses and honks of rush hour, the TV ticker running letters about Avalon’s Night Rook exclusive. Amy’s been on the roof of the restored Jet Theater for hours, the harbor a dim view behind her pale, rouged up face.

As the cops came in to unwind after shift change, the bartender slid a steaming mug in front of Wojo. “Hope you still take it black.”

“No other way.” He primed the brown sludge with six packs of sugar while Mac took another long and tasteless gulp.

“Get off your ass. Mac. We’re going to the dojo.”

Mac didn’t budge under the giant hand clapping him on the back.

“You’re pissing me off.” Hard gaze, hard voice. Yet, Wojo’s demeanor hid a dark kind of sadness. “We’re working out. Whatever the hell’s bugging you, you’ll forget about it on the mat.”

Mac turned to look at his ex business partner. Mentor. Friend. “How about for once, we focus on what’s bugging you?”

A moment of silence was followed by a shake of that rain slicked bald head. “Nothing. Lana called earlier.”

“What’d she say?”

“Not much. Asked me to take care of Big Al while she’s out. Refused to tell me what the hell is going on.” Wojo finished off his coffee and sat the mug down hard onto the counter.

So that was it, the line drawn in the sand. The final battleground. The syringes against his chest poked at his ribs with sparks of gleeful pain.

“I’m getting out of town.”

“Another cage fight?”

“Might as well.” Tonight, she would kill Williams.

Wojo gripped his shoulder. “So. You’re running away. Again.”

No point hiding the truth. “I’m not strong enough to stop her.” The vials lay against his chest, ice hard and somber. Necessary evil.

Above them, the ticker tape spelling out the words from Amy’s crimson mouth flashed something about the corruption in San Mike PD, tying in the Night Rook, and how they’d all find out more after a break for a commercial.

“Yo, turn it up.” Those badges slouching over their beers and coffees, looked up at the screen, their faces grim, their uniforms wrinkled from rain and hours of patrolling. Beat cops, most of them. Mac still didn’t know why nobody had called a unit to arrest him. Williams should’ve had a field day on the news reports.

“She’s going to kill Williams.” Mac figured her powers must have come back, for the same inexplicable reason she had been able to retain them.

Beside him, Wojo signaled for a real drink, pointing at Mac’s empty whiskey shot glass and requesting another. “You know that for a fact?”

“Dead certain.”

A glass of liquid gold appeared in front of each of them, as if by magic. “Then you know what you have to do.” No other questions, no demands for explanation.

Against Mac’s ribcage, the vials pulsed with ice. “I’ll cut off both hands before I hurt her.”
Again
. He didn’t say that last part. He didn’t have to.

That cop’s flat gaze was direct on his. “You do what you have to, son. We all do.”

A rise in volume jerked his gaze back to the screen just in time to see a motorcycle helmet bouncing off the camera. The shot cut off, white static filling the television for a quick, tension-filled moment. Dying daylight shimmered on the water before the camera jerked up to focus on the Jet Theater roof.

“We aren’t sure what happened,” a woman shouted over the noise, the letters on the ticker tape spelling what she was saying. “The feed cut off, and some of our equipment was thrown down. I thought I heard someone say it was the Rook. He left a message for Amy specifying no cameras.” The view panned to show long metal rods bobbing in the water.

“We aren’t able to reach the crew. Amy’s cell phone is going straight to voicemail. Wait…Oh, my God!” The camera zoomed in to catch an eerie shot of someone in a motorcycle helmet clutching a dangling man by his toothpick-thin wrist. Then time stopped and the man plummeted off a seven story building, gravity taking hold to slam him at the water’s edge.

***

Grief ravaged Lana’s chest; anguish shot up with desperation. A man had died for nothing, simply to prove she was no threat. She had no power save for this helpless burning rage.

The small bubble of lava zinging through her veins fizzled before she could stop a senseless. death.

“I told you, I have nothing.” Scream through the wind, raw shouts of pain.

“Or you’re holding back.” Williams’s voice reached her from under a mask of a black motorcycle helmet. Beside her, Amy Avalon kept screaming.

A .40 Glock glistened in a steady, leather-bound hand. For a short moment she thought she was sleeping, seeing the Night Rook as though through previous nightmares, a dark, destructive figure, a rage-polluted villain.

“Jonny....” Wide shocked eyes, trembling hands, red hair whipping around lips smeared with crimson lipstick. “You killed him.” As if someone jolted her, Amy lunged at the gun, high heels clicking on the concrete. “You bastard, you killed Jonny!”

Lana hadn’t been on time. The Night Rook backhand Amy with heavy grace, sending her sprawling on the roof, one red shoe flailing through the air.

Power was pointless. She could do nothing but watch, letting the rain sluice over her face, her naked face because Williams had made her take off her helmet. The useless plastic weight lay under the far ledge of the roof, where she’d tossed it. And though she had revealed herself, Jonny was dead.

“I can’t believe it took me this long to figure it out.” The Glock was aimed square at her chest.

“I’m surprised you hadn’t blasted it over the news.” Lana had to scream above the wind. Amy lay on her side, face down, unmoving.

“And make everyone feel bad for a blind cop driven by this quest for justice? I don’t think so.” She couldn’t see his face under the mask, couldn’t judge what he was thinking. Her own reflection stared at her in blinding waning light, hair standing on ends, her face a twisted grimace.

The Night Rook stood less than four feet away, a vision from her nightmares, a shiny menace in black leather. “Your brother was a good cop. Maybe too good. Couldn’t see the gray between black and white.”

Breath stuck inside her throat. “But you could?”

The gun blended with leather when he waved her to step closer to the edge. “You know why they call me Doc? Wasn’t because I got more than my share of stiffs on duty.” He stepped closer, the helmet muffling a voice already choppy from the wind. “You know how many ODs I got, how many of them children? Drugs are killing San Mike. I don’t have superpowers, and I’m not a hero. But I’m not going let this city drown in that drain.”

“I get it. Believe me, I get it.” She took a small step forward, inching closer to the gun. The rain started up again, running frigid fingers over her wet hair. She had to think past the fury, beyond the pain and rage. “That’s why I wanted to be a cop.”

“I thought you got it.” For that short phrase, the Night Rook sounded sad under the helmet.

Amy groaned somewhere in the shadows. To keep the Night Rook’s focus on herself, Lana stepped closer.

“Stay back.” But there was no heat in those words, zero passion. Just cool determination, strong tired resolve. “I hated bringing Gamble to San Mike—though after this, the city will implore him to get out. You and me, we did what was right, kicking drugs out of our city. But you had to have more.”

“I didn’t care about the drugs, Doc.” Another step as she called him by the name he used to ride with.

“I know that, Lana.” Regret rang in his voice before he squeezed the trigger, slamming her down on wet concrete. She tried to breathe past the dull ache, the blooming fire. Kevlar kept her alive but didn’t stop pain.

Another shot, a dry pop somewhere to her left, a muffled scream, a dawning ruby-red haze of horror. Amy lay on the concrete with blood oozing black under her still body.

“I thought you and I were the same,” Williams continued, already having dismissed the dying or already dead reporter. “Seeing shades of gray and doing what needs to be done. You wanted vengeance, hell, I get that. I would want the same. But then you had to call her.” He jerked the gun at Amy’s limp form. “Had to do the right thing. I would’ve had more respect for you if you had simply tried to wring my neck. It was what you wanted wasn’t it? That night? Before that righteous idiot saved you?”

No power, nothing to protect her. Less than a yard away, Amy had shown no signs of life.

“I am sorry for this, Lana. There’s no other way.”

With the sun dying, she could lift up her gaze without tears to see Williams strip off his helmet. Not as high tech as hers, but close enough for what he planned.