Shades of Gray (30 page)

Miller’s stomach shrank into a knot, his hands flexing on the wheel. He turned right at the next side street and parked against the curb. He checked his gun, reloaded from the bullets he kept in the 228 | Brooke McKinley

glove compartment. He came at the house from the back, picking his way through yards crowded with trash and debris, broken glass crunching beneath his feet. Miller jumped lightly over the ramshackle chain-link fence surrounding the house, skirting his way around the car to check the license plate. GHT 4783. Madrigal’s car.

There was no time for relief or fear. Danny was dying inside that house. Miller’s brain reverted to agent-mode automatically, noting facts with the ticking accuracy of a computer: only one car, kicked-in back door, no drag marks in the dirt—Danny had been upright when they’d entered the house—eye-level window on the side of the house missing half its plywood patch. Miller moved around the corner of the house, careful to stick to the clumps of dead grass, where his footsteps made no sound. He pressed himself up against the exterior, taking a deep breath and risking a quick look inside. The window opened into an empty room, the wood floors coated with a thick paste of dust and grime, the walls decorated by a graffiti artist’s multicolored spray cans.

The room led into the kitchen and Miller could see Danny tied to a chair, blood running from his hand onto the floor in thin streams, his elbow bent backward, snapped like a twig. His head was hanging forward, bloody and swollen. Miller put a hand up against the side of the house, heaving in air, fighting back the black spots swarming across his vision. What do you do when the person you love most in the world is dying right in front of you, being taken apart piece by piece before your eyes?

You fucking suck it up and get in there, asshole!

Miller glanced inside once more, noting Madrigal’s position next to Danny. He didn’t have a gun in his hands, but Miller could see one tucked into his waistband within easy reach. Another set of legs was visible, seated in a folding chair, but Miller didn’t have a clear view of who was there or what sort of weapon they might be holding. It didn’t matter. He had to go in. There was no time to stop and call Colin. It was a moot point anyway; by the time he arrived, it would be over, one way or the other.

Miller cocked his gun and then crept around to the back door Shades of Gray | 229

again. He climbed the steps on silent feet. A deep voice floated out through the cracked doorframe. “I’ve had enough. Finish it.”

“But I barely started,” a voice Miller recognized as Madrigal’s protested. He sounded like a whiny child being denied a long-promised treat.

“I said finish it!”

Miller didn’t take time to think, instead counting on his years of training to guide him through. He burst into the room, the door exploding inward and slamming against the wall, the knob burying itself in the mealy plaster. “Don’t move,” he yelled, his rock-steady gun hand trained on Madrigal. “Or I’ll blow your fucking head off!” Madrigal froze, both hands rising slowly in the air. But Miller had to fight his trigger finger, which wanted—with almost undeniable force—to pull back, fire bullet after bullet into Madrigal’s body. Miller willed his finger to stop moving, glancing at the man seated in the folding chair across from Danny. Hinestroza. Miller refused to show his surprise, not wanting to give away a single advantage. “Get your hands behind your head, right now!”

Hinestroza complied. He didn’t seem agitated in any way, his movements relaxed. Miller moved to Danny’s side, reaching down with one hand to yank the restraining cord off his body. “Danny,” he said urgently, not taking his eyes off Madrigal. “Danny, can you hear me?” Danny moaned, a low, desperate sound, his head rolling forward on a limp neck, a loose-hanging flap of skin near his ear giving Miller a glimpse of muscle underneath. Danny’s eyes shifted upward, the pupils so dilated that his green eyes looked black. But those eyes recognized him, Miller was sure. He rested a hand on Danny’s shoulder briefly.

This was do-or-die time. He couldn’t hold Madrigal for long. Not with these odds. Any second now Madrigal was going to make a move; he couldn’t afford not to.

“Turn around,” Miller commanded. “Put your hands flat on the counter.”

Madrigal turned, but too quickly, one hand grasping the pliers, 230 | Brooke McKinley

throwing them hard at Miller’s head. He ducked and the pliers winged past in a blast of air, landing with a thud in the corner. Miller only lost his concentration for a moment, but that was all Madrigal needed, his arm shifting behind his body to grab his gun. Miller straightened, taking aim as Madrigal’s gun centered on his own head. It was a race to see who was going to get off the first shot, but before either trigger could be pulled, Danny launched out of his chair, bursting forward with a ragged scream, throwing himself at Madrigal.

“Danny!” Miller yelled, pulling his gun up short as Danny dove into his line of fire, driving Madrigal backward. Time stopped moving as Madrigal and Danny wrestled for control of the gun, Madrigal’s two good hands against Danny’s one undamaged arm—brute strength against a decade of pent-up vengeance waiting for its moment. Miller couldn’t get a clear shot without risking Danny and he didn’t dare move away from Hinestroza. This was Danny’s fight now.

The seconds spun out into eternity, the bright bang of a gunshot slamming everything back into focus. Danny wrenched free, his momentum toppling him backward, pulling Madrigal down with him, and the gun spun wildly across the kitchen floor. Danny pushed himself across the floor with his heels and single working elbow, Madrigal tangled around his legs, trying to climb over Danny’s body to reach the gun.

Miller moved around the chair in an attempt to grab the gun, or at least kick it away, his own weapon still pointed at Hinestroza. He pulled his foot back to make contact as Danny threw his arm over his head, hand scrabbling on the floor, fingers finding and tightening on their goal. He brought the gun up between his bent knees and aimed at Madrigal’s head.

He didn’t give a warning the way Miller had. He didn’t hesitate.

He bared his bloody teeth and blew Madrigal’s brains out against the worn plaster walls—bullet meeting skull, proving that it was possible to kill Madrigal after all.

It took Miller a moment to move, for his professional instincts to take precedence over the shock. He crossed to Hinestroza and tied him Shades of Gray | 231

to his chair, taking pleasure in wrenching the cord tighter than he needed to, watching Hinestroza’s mouth curl up in displeasure as the soiled cord left a thin red line against his snowy-white shirt front.

Danny shoved Madrigal’s body off his legs with frantic kicks. He backed away, scooting up to a sitting position against the wall, the gun hanging loosely from his fingers.

“Danny?” Miller said, squatting down in front of him, trying to catch Danny’s wildly rolling eyes. His face was such a field of blood that Miller couldn’t tell what damage he’d suffered. “Can you get up?” He held out his hand and Danny covered it with his own palm, a small sobbing noise escaping him as Miller pulled him upright.

“I’m going to call—” Miller looked at the wall where Danny had been leaning. It was splashed with bright red, streaking down to pool on the grimy baseboards. “Danny.” Miller’s voice didn’t sound like his own, high and panicky. “Is that your blood?” Danny looked confused, glancing from the wall to his own body.

“I… I think he shot me,” he managed finally.

“Oh, Jesus, Danny,” Miller moaned, wondering how he could have missed the blood on Danny’s shirt, his left shoulder soaked dark red, his T-shirt ragged and torn. “Oh, Christ.” Danny let go of Miller’s hand, slumping back down onto the floor, sliding sideways, his head coming to rest against the worn linoleum.

Miller dialed 911 with shaking hands, his voice ragged and barely coherent as he spoke to the emergency operator. He let the phone fall when he was done, lowering himself down next to Danny. “Please, Danny,” he breathed. “Please hold on.” He hoped he hadn’t exhausted all of God’s good wishes earlier, hoped God hadn’t had enough of this sordid mess and turned His back on them with a disgusted sigh. Miller knelt on the floor and used his palms to stanch the bleeding. He tried not to think, tried to concentrate only on Danny’s warm skin, refusing to feel it growing colder, looking away from Danny’s life bubbling up between his fingers.

232 | Brooke McKinley

MILLER rubbed his hands together, Danny’s blood worked into every line of his palms, embedded in black half-moons under his fingernails.

Colin had suggested—twice—that Miller find a bathroom and clean up, but he’d ignored the advice, scared to wash any of Danny away.

They’d been waiting at the hospital for more than two hours.

Everyone in the emergency room gave them a wide berth, staying far away from the bloody, broken man who watched the trauma room’s swinging doors with unblinking eyes.

Miller had ridden with Danny in the ambulance, Colin following behind in his car. Danny had been unconscious most of the way, waking once, briefly, as they’d neared the hospital. His eyes had found Miller’s amid the chaos of needles sticking into his skin, the oxygen mask breathing life into his body. Miller hadn’t given him a chance to speak, had leaned over and whispered fiercely in Danny’s ear, “You don’t remember anything, Danny. You don’t remember.”

“Miller. Miller?”

“Huh? What?” Miller didn’t take his eyes off the doors hiding Danny from view.

“What exactly happened back there?” Colin asked.

Miller had already given him the abbreviated version as he’d watched Danny being loaded onto a stretcher at the scene. He knew what Colin was doing. Testing Miller’s recollections, looking for holes.

It came with the job.

“I found the house. Madrigal had Danny tied to a chair. I went in and Madrigal went for his gun. We fought over it. Danny got hit when the gun fired. I managed to get the weapon away from Madrigal and I shot him.” Miller bit out each sentence, adding no more details than he’d given the first time around.

He could feel Colin watching him. “Nobody else was there?”

“No.”

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Silence. “Then what happened to Madrigal’s car?” Miller’s breath froze in his throat, but he shrugged easily, eyes still on the doors. “It’s a bad neighborhood. Cars don’t stay put for long.”

Colin sighed. “Miller.”

“Do we have to talk about this right now?” All Miller’s fear spilled over into anger at Colin. “Jesus Christ!”

“We’re going to have to debrief you. And Butler too—” Miller stopped listening. A doctor came through the swinging doors, pulling a surgical cap off his head wearily, his eyes searching the sea of waiting faces. “Agent Sutton?” he called.

Miller shot out of his seat like a carnival act, transformed into a human cannonball. He couldn’t stop himself from invading the doctor’s personal space, crowding too close, pushing for answers. “How is he?

Is he going to make it?”

“Mr. Butler is almost out of surgery now; they’re closing him up.

We were able to remove the bullet from his shoulder successfully. He’s also—”

“Is he going to make it?” Miller repeated.

The doctor held up one hand, asking Miller for patience he did not have. “He has extensive injuries. A fractured humerus and a dislocated elbow, a severe facial laceration near his left ear. We brought in our plastic surgeon to suture that wound. He’s missing all the fingernails on his left hand. He has a concussion from blunt head trauma and significant kidney damage. He was hit in the right kidney multiple times with something harder than a fist.”

“Brass knuckles,” Miller said, low.

The doctor didn’t appear shocked. Working the emergency room in this part of town meant he’d probably seen it all before. “That would account for the damage. It’s still touch-and-go as to whether he’ll lose the kidney. He is in serious but stable condition. We anticipate—”

“Is he going to make it?” Miller cried.

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The doctor looked at him—two men used to having the upper hand staring each other down. Then he nodded slowly. “Yes, he’s going to make it. With his gunshot wound and other injuries, the risk of infection is high. But barring serious complications, he should eventually make a complete recovery.”

“Thank you,” Miller whispered, every muscle in his body melting with relief after hours of holding himself stiff with tension. He could feel the hot scald of tears on his cheeks and he didn’t care, didn’t care that Colin was standing next to him, that the true nature of his relationship with Danny was being revealed. The life he’d known was over, regardless, thrown away in that filthy, blood-spattered kitchen.

His moral compass had been broken in an instant. And already Miller was learning the cost of making his very own deal with the devil.

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“SO, WHAT happens now?”

Miller ignored Hinestroza, shifting his weight as the linoleum bit
into his knees, his hands aching from pressing so tightly against
Danny’s wound.

“I assume I’ll be arrested.”

“Damn right,” Miller said, not even sparing Hinestroza a glance.

“And then Danny will have to testify against me.” Hinestroza
hummed lightly in his throat, a sound calculated to catch Miller’s
attention. “Our deal will be off… and he’ll always be a hunted man.

Putting me in prison doesn’t stop anything, you know. My people will
keep looking for him.”

“Don’t even try to pull that shit with me!” Miller snarled. “I’m
not falling for it, asshole.”

“I’m not trying to pull anything… Agent.” Hinestroza let the
silence hang. “You
are
the FBI agent, aren’t you?” he asked when
Miller didn’t rush to fill the gap.

Miller raised his eyes to Hinestroza’s. He could feel the man’s
magnetism, his control, saw how easy it would have been for him to
exert it over a lonely, eighteen-year-old boy. “Yes, I’m the FBI agent.”
Hinestroza nodded, looking from Miller to Danny. “He cares
about you very much. He was willing to die for you.”
Miller turned back to Danny, blood spreading out beneath him in
236 | Brooke McKinley

a deep red blanket. Hinestroza’s unasked question hung heavy in the
air… what are you willing to do for him, Miller? How far are you
willing to go?

“It’s a shame,” Hinestroza continued. “All his suffering for
nothing. He’s back in the same place he was a few days ago.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Miller cried, Hinestroza’s words buzzing in
his ears like relentless mosquitoes. “Shut up!”
The sound of Danny’s labored breathing filled the room. Miller
tried to focus only on Danny’s survival, but his mind kept shifting to the
world beyond the kitchen. Hinestroza belonged in prison. He deserved
to be locked up; it was the right thing, and a month ago, Miller would
not have hesitated. It was still the right thing now, and all Danny’s talk
of Hinestroza’s wife and daughters who loved him did not negate the
trail of human wreckage he’d left behind as he passed through life.

Prison was designed for men like Hinestroza, and his incarceration
would be justice. A justice Miller could count on, believe in—one he
could practically taste.

This moment was what he’d spent three years working toward:
three years of sleepless nights, canceled dates with Rachel, memorized
facts about Hinestroza’s life and then Danny’s too. He’d lived to see
this day—Hinestroza in custody with a solid, believable witness against
him. And now they had more than drug charges; attempted murder was
on the table. He would go away forever, no question. Hinestroza owed
a debt to the world that should be paid.

But how much more could Danny endure? How much more could
be expected of him? Wasn’t Danny owed something too?

Miller felt the answer in his gut, a sharp, nagging trap that his
mind kept falling into no matter how hard he tried to steer his way
around the idea. He could let Hinestroza walk away, let him disappear
into his dark world again. But if that happened, what about the man
who would take Danny’s place in Hinestroza’s life? Because there
would be another Danny and another Madrigal, another Ortiz and
another Amanda. If Hinestroza went free, how many more lives would
be ruined because of it, how many more bodies left behind on dirty
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floors? But how did Miller measure Danny’s life against the lives of
strangers? How could men he had never met even begin to compare
with the one man who meant everything?

Miller sucked in a lungful of fetid, blood-tinged air, preparing
himself to say the words from which there would be no retreat, no
possible way back. He raised his eyes to
Hinestroza’s. “If I let you
walk out of here, you forget he exists. Danny, Amanda, his family,
anyone connected to him… they’re all safe. Forever.” Miller’s voice
was low and fierce.

Hinestroza nodded, demonstrating his cleverness yet again. No
triumph showed in his face, his expression blank, giving away nothing
that might goad Miller into changing his mind.

“And you stay gone. Don’t ever get caught. You understand me?

This is all over for him—right here and right now. It’s done.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Miller took a deep breath. “Danny told me you’re a man of your
word. That you never go back on a deal.”

“That’s true.”

Miller stood quickly, not wanting to take his hands off Danny’s
wound for more than a moment, each heartbeat sending out fresh
waves of blood. “Then go,” he said, jerking the cord off Hinestroza’s
body. “Go! They’re looking for that car, so you can’t drive it for long.”
Hinestroza stood, plucking Madrigal’s keys from the counter
where they lay next to the soiled brass knuckles. He stopped at the door
and looked over his shoulder at Miller, his eyes falling to where Danny
lay on the floor. He opened his mouth, but whatever he planned to say
went unheard, upstaged by the wail of an ambulance cutting through
the still air.

“Get the hell out of here!” Miller cried.

Hinestroza pushed the door open with his foot, leaving it shifting
slightly in the breeze. Miller listened for the car engine, the crunch of
wheels over the uprooted asphalt of the driveway. Danny sighed, a
light, airy sound, his eyelashes fluttering against his pale cheeks.

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Miller pressed harder on Danny’s shoulder, willing the blood to
stop flowing. But he felt insubstantial, as if he were floating weightless
above his own life. The Miller Sutton he’d thought he was had turned
out to be a different man entirely, his concept of himself shredded down
to the stark, white bone… and he didn’t know if he could live with what
remained
.

DANNY opened his eyes, squinting against the nauseating roll of fluorescent lights blurring by above his head. “Where’m I?” he mumbled.

A pretty nurse with an upturned nose leaned over him. She smelled like pink bubblegum and had a single freckle near her left eye.

Her girlish presence was comforting, and Danny relaxed against the bed.

“You’re on your way to ICU, Mr. Butler. You came out of surgery just fine.”

“Where’s Miller?”

“Who?”

But Danny didn’t answer, suddenly scared to have spoken Miller’s name out loud. He didn’t know what was safe, what could be said and what needed to be locked away.
You don’t remember
anything, Danny. You don’t remember.

The nurse pushed his bed around a corner, punching a button on the wall with her hip, a set of swinging doors opening with a muffled hiss of air.

“Danny!” a voice called, staying the nurse’s progress through the doors into ICU.

Danny turned his head slowly, the effort taking more energy than lifting a fifty-pound weight. Miller was near the wall, moving closer, his face white and tense, his hands wearing uneven gloves of blood.

“Miller,” Danny whispered, his lips so dry the word came out as a Shades of Gray | 239

dying man’s rasp. He tried to smile, though he felt like weeping.

Miller came to stand beside him, smoothing the hair off his forehead with stained fingers. “You’re going to be okay,” he said. He glanced up at the nurse. “Can I come in with him?”

“No,” Colin said, appearing at Miller’s side. Danny hadn’t noticed him before. “Not until the investigation into what happened is closed.”

“What are you talking about?” Miller snapped. “I want to see him!”

“Miller, I can’t let you talk to him. Not until you’ve both been fully debriefed and the investigation is over. You know how it works.”

“Fuck how it works!” Miller cried, his hand clenching on the bed’s side rail when the nurse tried to push forward.

“Sir,” she said, “I need to get him into ICU.”

“It’s okay,” Danny said, fighting a losing battle with the darkness dragging him under, his whole body sinking deep. He looked at Miller through half-mast eyes. He could see love in Miller’s face, but it was doing battle with guilt, fighting hard against anger and regret, and Danny couldn’t tell which emotion would emerge the victor. He closed his eyes; he didn’t want to see any more. “My debriefing will be short,” he mumbled to Colin. “I don’t remember anything.”

“OKAY, Miller, let’s go over it one more time.” Miller sighed, pushing back in his chair to stretch his legs, his mouth coated with a paste of smoke and stale coffee. His teeth felt like they were sprouting fuzz. “We’ve already been over it five times today,” he reminded them.

The man next to Colin didn’t look up from his legal pad. “And we’ll go over it ten more times if that’s what I decide to do. Got it?” Miller realized he’d used virtually those same words countless times in the interrogation room, the same dismissive demeanor, the 240 | Brooke McKinley

sour curling of the mouth that told a suspect more about what he thought of them than any spoken insult ever could. No wonder they had all hated him. Even Danny had hated him at first.

He’d been trapped in this room eight hours a day for the last three days. His only company had been Colin and Special Agent Ryan Nash from internal affairs—a prick of the highest order. Miller had repeated ad nauseam the details of what had happened in the kitchen of that abandoned house, walked them through his exact movements at least two dozen times already, Colin playing the part of Danny, Nash standing in for Madrigal.

“Okay,” Nash said, flipping back a few pages in his legal pad.

“How did you know where Juan Madrigal had taken Mr. Butler?”

“I didn’t know. I made an educated guess based on information from AUSA Patterson and a few things Danny had told me about Madrigal’s pattern.”

“So you just got lucky?” Nash asked, his tone skeptical.

“Yeah, I got lucky.”
Fucking luckiest moment of my life.
Miller looked from Nash to Colin. “What? You guys think I was in on this with Madrigal or something?” He shook his head, blowing out a disgusted billow of smoke. “Jesus.”

“Nobody thinks that, Miller,” Colin said calmly. Nash didn’t look as convinced, his sharp eyes cutting Miller no slack.

“And from the street you spotted the car Madrigal had been driving?” Nash raised his eyebrows.

“Yes.” Fuck him. Miller wasn’t going to give him one more word than he needed.

“Who was in the house when you went in?”

“Madrigal and Danny.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

Nash jumped ahead in the questions, a trick Miller knew well, trying to throw the suspect off his practiced pace. “If you had control of Shades of Gray | 241

Madrigal’s weapon, why did you shoot him?”

“Because he ignored my commands. He was still trying to grab for the gun. I had no choice but to fire the weapon.” The door to the interrogation room opened and a young agent who looked like he was being strangled by his tie poked his head into the stale air. “Agent Nash? I need to speak with you for a minute.”

“Fine.” Nash heaved himself out of his chair, his slight belly giving away his position in internal affairs. No on-the-job agent would allow themself that kind of indulgence. Agents prided themselves on being different from out-of-shape local cops—one more way to show off their extra rungs on the ladder.

When the door closed behind Nash, Colin turned to Miller, leaning toward him across the table. “I know you’re lying, Miller. And he knows it too. Level with me. Maybe I can help you.”

“I don’t need any help,” Miller replied.

“I don’t think you’re the one who shot Madrigal and I don’t think the three of you were the only ones in that house.” Miller didn’t rise to the bait, his eyes level and blank on Colin’s.

Colin blew out a breath, tapping his fingers restlessly on the tabletop.

“Let’s say, hypothetically, Danny was the one who shot Madrigal. Why are you covering for him? It would be a clear case of self-defense.”

“Okay, let’s go down that hypothetical path,” Miller shot back.

“So, no murder charge against Danny. But what’s to stop Patterson from resurrecting the gun charge, from when we arrested him? I’d bet that, according to Patterson, killing someone would definitely qualify as the ‘trouble’ Danny was supposed to stay out of.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Colin scoffed.

“Are you sure?” Miller demanded. “You willing to guarantee that?”

Colin stared down at the table, maybe remembering that day in Patterson’s office when she’d thrown Danny to the wolves without a second thought. “No,” he said. “I can’t guarantee it.” 242 | Brooke McKinley

“That’s what I thought.” Miller paused. “Which is why it’s a good thing I was the one who shot Madrigal.” Colin’s mouth thinned, the faint lines around his eyes growing deeper. Miller was testing his patience, trading on their friendship for his own benefit. He could see the strain in Colin’s face, tension etched there from going out of his way to rein in Nash. Miller knew Colin would probably pay a professional price for his loyalty.

You’re a real piece of shit, Miller, you know that?
For the time it took to draw in a breath he considered coming out with the truth, letting the chips fall where they may. But that would only be a way to relieve his own conscience, and Danny would be the one left hanging.

“Who else was in there, Miller?” Colin demanded. “Was it Hinestroza?”

“You think I’d just let him get away if I had him in my sights?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore.”