Coup De Grâce (11 page)

I nodded.

The name sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t place the name with a face.

“What
doctor’s office do these women go to?” I asked, the thought suddenly occurring to me.

“The Women’s Center of East Texas for this one. The others are various ones of the Ark-La-Tex,” he said. “But all of their systems interconnect since the doctors float throughout the offices.”

I turned my head to look to the kitchen counter.

On the counter was the officer’s service weapon, badge, and various accessories he wore on his utility belt, car keys, and his phone.

But the thing that drew my eye was the badge.

When a law enforcement officer has fallen, there’s a tradition that other officers wear a thin line of blue over their badges to commemorate the fallen life.

It’s usually only worn during the period of mourning, but over the years, it has come to be a show of respect for all law enforcement officials, civilians and public servants alike.

“You see this?” I asked Palmer.

Palmer looked over and pursed his lips at the sight. “Yeah.”

The badge had two strips of black duct tape arranged in an X across the badge, as if he was saying he took care of that particular officer.

“Asshole,” I growled in anger.

“I concur,” Palmer agreed.

Then a thought occurred to me.

“Did you check the tape for prints?” I asked.

Agent Palmer nodded. “Yeah.”

“What about the back of the tape?” I asked.

I wasn’t a crime scene tech, but that would be a place that
I’d
look for prints.

Agent Palmer pursed his lips.

“They’ve already collected the evidence, but I’ll just take that to the techs and see if they can find anything,” Palmer said as he took an evidence bag out of his pocket, then used the tip of his pencil to hook the badge and drop it into the bag.

Once zipped, he said, “That’s why I wanted you here. I noticed the other day you had a good eye. Nobody else could tell me much about the suspect, but you did.”

I shrugged, uncomfortable with the flattery.

Palmer’s phone rang, and he pulled it from his pocket before answering it with a muttered, “Yeah?”

“You’re fucking shitting me,” Agent Palmer said in surprise. “No fucking shit? Alright, we’ll come down now.”

Palmer was already headed out the door, and I followed behind him quickly.

The officer at the door, who was guarding the door for us, nodded as we passed.

When Palmer hung up the phone he looked at me with elation in his eyes.

“The cop,” he said nodding to the house. “Made it through surgery and is talking. He wants to speak with us.”

Us?

Why would he want to talk to me?

I didn’t question it, however, only got into my truck and followed him to the hospital.

When we arrived, the entire hospital was swarming with cops.

Since the shooting had taken place, everyone and their brother was here, reporter wise, which meant that my fellow men in blue had to be here to take care of crowd control.

“Are you with the FBI?” One reporter asked as we started pushing through the crowd.

“No comment,” Agent Palmer muttered darkly.

“Are you the officer who responded to the Baby Cop Killer?” Another reporter asked.

That question was directed at me.

But I acted like I hadn’t heard, and kept pushing through right along with Palmer.

Agent Elliott met us at the ER’s doors and held the door open wide as we crossed through.

“Talk to me,” Palmer ordered Elliott.

Elliott started hurrying to the elevators as he spoke.

“He’s awake, first and foremost. He woke up viciously the moment the anesthesia wore off, but he can’t speak per se,” Elliott
explained. “The bullet missed his brain completely. Apparently
,
at the last moment, Amsel jerked to the side. The bullet passed through the base of his neck and came out his mouth just perfectly. He lost a few teeth, and has a quite a bit of tissue and muscle damage in his neck, but he’s expected to make a complete recovery. Had to tell him that his wife died on the OR table. The baby didn’t make it either.”

I shook my head.

That didn’t sound good, even with him saying he would make a full recovery.

His wife was dead. His kid was dead. His life was forever changed.

How could he ‘recover’ from that?

I knew I couldn’t.

If I lost Nikki, I’d be so fuckin’ lost it wouldn’t be funny.

Even though I hadn’t had her the last year and a half, I still knew she was okay.

Amsel, though, didn’t have that gift.

He would forever live knowing he couldn’t protect his woman and child.

Then I berated myself.

Amsel may not have those problems.

I just knew I would if our situations had been reversed.

If it was Nikki carrying my child.

Then I shivered.

Nikki
wouldn’t
be carrying my child.

No matter how much the idea of it turned me on.

“This is him. I got him a pad of paper to write everything down. I also had them fax the copies of all the members who work for The Women’s Center,” Elliott said, shaking his hand that had a thick pile of papers in it.

When I made to wait outside, Elliott
jerked his head. “You too. He asked for you.”

My brows rose. “Me?”

He nodded. “Yeah, apparently he knows you.”

“How would he know I’m working on this case at all?” I asked.

He stopped and turned. “He was the best friend of Darren Cox.”

My mind shut down.

Mother
fucker
.

That guy. The murdered father in the crime scene that started this case for me.

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

Elliott
nodded. “Yeah, needless to say he’s not doing too
good.”

An hour later, with more information than Agent Palmer had in months over multiple cases, we walked out of Wolfgang Amsel’s hospital room.

We still didn’t have a name.

We did, however, have a hair color.

Black.

Which seemed to be the man’s trend.

Amsel had explained that he’d just gotten off work and was in the kitchen eating the breakfast his wife had just cooked for him when someone had knocked at the door.

She’d gone to answer it, and he’d looked up when she started backing up.

He’d said that he heard ‘
Turn around or I’ll shoot her
!’

His service weapon had been at the island, half a room away from him, so he’d turned.

And was promptly shot in the back of the head.

He looked over in time to see his wife gunned down moments later by a man with black hair.

Then he was gone.

And he was left to watch as his wife fought for her life.

My phone rang when we made it to the waiting room, and I smiled when I saw it was Nikki.

A little bit of
happy
in a big bowl of
oh fuck.

“Hello?” I answered the phone.

“Hey,” she said worriedly. “We’re outside the ER entrance and there’re a bunch of people outside the doors. What’s going on?”

I cleared my throat.

“There was another murder,” I said softly. “Give me a few minutes to come down and I’ll escort you inside.”

I’d known she’d be here.

She couldn’t help herself.

She’d been by to see Nathan Cox multiple times since he’d been there.

And with what I’d told her last night about Madden and his two kids, I knew she’d be here as soon as she could.

I’d planted the hint to call Shiloh and Georgia, though.

Madden didn’t deserve that lot in life.

He deserved to live a happy, easy life.

Something he couldn’t do anymore.

Not with two kids.

Two kids he was adamant he was not leaving.

And he was most definitely not giving up.

In the eyes of the law, a child is solely your child, no matter what the age.

Although it got a little hairy when you couldn’t take care of your children.

Something Madden couldn’t do by himself.

The best way to make this happen was to place all three within a home that was willing to take them on.

And that was where Nikki, Shiloh, and Georgia came in.

“I gotta go let my
girl in,” I told the two men in front of me. “She’s stuck outside the ER with a shit ton of cops and reporters.”

They both nodded.

“That’s fine. We’re leaving anyway. We’ll walk down with you,” Elliott said.

Nodding, I hit the down button, and the elevator doors swung open.

“Do you think what you got today will help?” I asked the two as the doors closed and we started to descend.

Elliott
shrugged, but Palmer nodded. “I think so, yes.”

I felt a relieved breath pour through me.

“That’s good,” I told them. “Really good.”

And it was.

Cops didn’t deserve to have even more people against them.

They deserved unity and support from the public, and with all the cop related shootings going on lately, it wasn’t looking good for us.

“You know my number,” I said when the doors opened.

The two of them nodded and exited the ER with me.

Once outside, they went left, and I went straight to where I could see Nikki and the two women at her sides.

“Hey,” I said, pointing towards the gap in the saw horses the police had erected.

They all nodded and started pushing through the last of the crowd until they arrived at the gap.

When Estevez would’ve stopped them, I put my hand on his back.

“They’re with me,” I informed him.

He winked. “Gotcha.”

Both girls came around the barrier and I pulled Nikki against my side with my arm around her shoulders. “I need a hug that’ll turn into sex,” she whispered against the skin of my neck. I squeezed her shoulders tightly, pulling her even deeper into me. Then, like a boss, I said, “I could give that to you…if you want.”

Hello, my name is Nikki Pena, and I’m a liar. I’m also going to hell.

-A liar’s secret thoughts

Nikki

“Hello?” Michael answered his phone with a large bite of hamburger taking up the majority of his mouth.

Michael grinned, and I could see chunks of food in his mouth, causing me to turn away in disgust.

My stomach roiled, and I looked down at the barely eaten plate of nachos I’d ordered for lunch- one hundred percent sure that if I tried to eat them I’d be barfing in no time.

It’d been four weeks since all the business with Madden and his children had gone down, and a little over four weeks since little Nathan Cox had been admitted to the hospital for a gunshot wound to his head.

All four were doing fine, and Madden was with his children at a temporary foster home until we could figure out a more permanent situation.

Nathan, however, wasn’t home.

Although he was doing much better, he still wasn’t where he needed to be to be allowed release from the hospital.

Then there was the murderer out there killing cops and their pregnant wives.

That was the worst.

That part was so scary because I worried for my friends and family, since all of them were cops.

Nausea started to slither up the back of my throat, and I hastily grabbed my cup of tea before taking several sips in a vain attempt to keep it down.

“I told you to buy a four wheel drive,” Michael said, taking another bite of his sandwich.

I closed my eyes as a ball of food and stomach contents started coming up my throat, and swallowed convulsively to get it to go back down.

“Yeah, I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Michael said with a laugh. “Don’t dig it down any more. I’ll be there.”

I opened my eyes when I felt the table cloth move from him standing up.

I raised an expectant brow at him, all the while trying not to let on just how badly I felt.

“My sister’s stuck in her front yard. I have to go pull her out. Do you want to go or are you going home to study?”
He asked hopefully.

I immediately started to feel bad.

Although I’d spent time with him over the last month, I’ve not spent much time with
him
.

We were together…just not
together
. I was there physically, just not mentally.

I’d been studying for my final exam that would hopefully lead to me being a certified mid-wife in the state of Texas.

A test that I was taking next week if all worked out as planned.

I had been ignoring him, though, and I was regretting that.

The only time we actually spent together, without me studying, was when I was laying in his arms at night.

“I’ll go,” I said softly, standing up.

A wave of exhaustion hit me the moment I stood and I swayed.

Michael caught me by the elbow and asked, “Okay?”

I nodded. “I’m really tired.”

His brows raised.

“That’s ‘cause you’ve been studying into the wee hours of the night, working so much you get overtired and waking up at the crack of dawn for more studying,” he admonished, helping me around the table and easing me into the aisle.

He didn’t let go of my hand until I was fully ensconced in his truck.

“Buckle up, baby,” he whispered, running the rough palm of his hand up my thigh.

I shivered at the familiar touch, and my core started to clench in anticipation.

“Okay,” I said quickly, plugging my seatbelt in and squeezing my legs shut tightly to circumvent the need that was slowly starting to course through me.

Nausea completely forgotten now that I could only think about how his cock would feel inside my…
Nikki!
Control yourself!

I was a walking horny machine.

At any given time of the day or night, I was ready to go.

So horny, in fact, that I now masturbated in the shower to thoughts of Michael when he wasn’t there to take care of me.

“What are you thinking about?” Michael asked, the look on his face comically knowing.

“Nothing.” I muttered, trying my best to make the whole horny feeling go away.