Who Knows the Dark (27 page)

He suddenly understands why the von Zandts sold him their daughter and their real estate empire.

When his father dies suddenly of a heart attack while on business in Colombia, the business world mourns. And Carson? Carson counts it as the best day of his life so far. The money he wires to the associates of Mr. Smith? Worth every single penny.

T
HE
RAIN
died off in the middle of the night.

Outside, the sky cleared and moonlight hit the trailer like a spotlight.

“Let’s go,” Cade said quietly.

“What about him?” LJ—now dressed in Alec’s nearly dry suit, hair slicked back—kicked at the back of the still unconscious fed’s leg.

“Leave him. Let’s assume he was telling the truth and he came alone—we have time before anyone realizes he’s not where he’s supposed to be.”

Rachel grunted, leaning against the wall of the trailer. Cade could read her expression clearly—it said
put a bullet in his head and be done with it
—but Cade’s stomach for killing might only exist when his life was in immediate danger.

Billy came to mind.

But Alec? He still wore the face of a friend, the body of a lover, and while he was handcuffed, unconscious, Cade couldn’t make himself do it.

The gun was holstered under LJ’s jacket now, safe.

“Everyone remember the plan,” he said, earning an eye roll from Rachel and the finger from LJ. “Jesus Christ, we’re dead.”

The “plan” was fairly simple. A Trojan horse of sorts, as Federal Agent Alec Allard brought “person of interest” Caden Creel to the District police with a desire to “share some information.”

Rachel’s damsel in distress role was helped by the fact that her voice was nothing more than a scratch, bruises blooming around her throat. The pulled-together costume of rolled-up jeans, a hoodie and rain slicker, and boots made her look like an abused teenager.

It made Cade a little sick.

They trudged through the muddy mess that was the dozed but unfinished ground—formerly home to high-rise office buildings, expensive condos and hotels, and major congested arteries for commuters and visitors traveling into Manhattan.

Now? Deathly quiet, bathed in moonlight, and oppressively dangerous.

A few hundred yards down toward the water, they spotted the only permanent building for miles: the District checkpoint. A small ferry operated on “District Business” only, tightly controlled by the police. Cade spotted at least fifteen uniformed and heavily armed officers milling around behind the barbed wire-topped fence.

They were spotted easily, a large light from atop the fence sweeping in their direction. Cade tensed, hands already up as his fugitive role kicked in.

“I’m a cop!” LJ yelled, waving his card with one hand as Rachel peered out tentatively behind him. “I got a fugitive and a lady—she needs medical attention.”

Guns raised in their direction; the sniper in a crow’s nest aimed his rifle at Cade’s head. A few officers congregated, as if in counsel with each other, and then slowly the gate creaked open.

“Are you armed?” a voice yelled.

“Yeah, I got my service piece.” LJ didn’t drop the hand with the ID card in it—it was their only hope of getting through this alive. “You need to see it.”

A contingent of five cops approached through the shadows, the bright light cutting in and out of their path. They appeared and disappeared with each pass, coming closer with each flash.

“All three of you, hands in the air and down on your knees. Anyone moves, they get shot,” the leader yelled again. “Right now. You have three seconds to comply.”

“Right, sure,” LJ called out, casual as he could be. “ID in my hand. You can check me out.”

Cade dropped to his knees, sinking and squelching in the cold mud. Beside him, Rachel fell, collapsing weakly—he spared her a glance and caught the faintest wink as she began sobbing loudly.

“It’s all right, ma’am,” LJ said loudly as he joined them in the muck. “Just let the cops do their job, okay? We’ll get you to a hospital.”

As the cops closed the last few feet between them, Rachel’s cries grew louder and more desperate, with LJ playing comforting detective. Cade watched the men’s faces—mostly impassive up close—but their eyes kept darting from LJ to Rachel.

She swayed a little, then fell to the ground dramatically.

That jump-started the officers out of their hesitation. Someone grabbed Cade, threw him to the ground, and roughly searched him.

“Clear!” the guy shouted as another said the same from beside him.

“You can take the piece—I don’t care,” LJ was saying. “I need to talk to someone at the department. A sergeant, a captain, please. It’s a matter of life and death.”

Cade kept his mouth tightly closed, his head turned slightly to keep the offensive-smelling mud and construction debris from restricting his breathing. Murmurs of conversation—and no one directly answering LJ—increased his concern. This was a ridiculous plan. They were all going to die.

“They’re bringing a stretcher!” someone yelled in the distance, and Cade’s spiral slowed just a bit.

Rachel’s melodramatic cough-sobs amped up as one of the officers yanked Cade off the ground.

“Let’s go,” he said, barely waiting for Cade to get his footing before pushing him toward the bright lights and more heavily armed men.

They put him in a small windowless cell, still shackled. He slid down to sit on the floor, breathing through a tiny panic attack because, Jesus Christ, what was the next bit of the plan? What was going on with LJ? Where was Rachel? His thoughts raced and rambled, hands and arms going numb in his lap from the weight of the handcuffs.

What if they just shot him? What if the hackers had done a shitty job on the ID and LJ was dead?

He shook under the weight of this madness until light-headedness brought his forehead to his knees.

Breathe. Breathe.
He could do this.

The door rattled for a moment, then creaked open to reveal a female guard armed to the teeth and wearing a bulletproof vest. She came into the cell and leaned down to unlock his cuffs.

“Come with me,” she said, neutral and banal in tone.

He got to his feet, rubbing his hands together in an attempt to bring some feeling and use back into them; the officer turned to walk out, and that was when Cade realized she didn’t have her gun drawn.

In a large white room in the back—with a killer view of the water and District skyline behind wired glass—LJ sat at a long table, a large Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand and a plate piled high with sandwiches in front of him. Rachel, wrapped in a green blanket, sat next to him.

Cade faltered at the door. Rachel’s previous performance of noisy tears was gone; despite the bruises and dirt, she held her head high and her eyes had a calculating look.

He’d be terrified if not for LJ’s big smile.

“Come in, come in. I was just telling these officers some interesting information,” LJ said, raising his cup in toast.

The officers in the room ranged in age from twenty-five to fifty, judging by the oldest man’s military-cut gray hair. They were all wearing the same expression of neutral authority, including the only one allowed a seat.

It was Detective Francis, the man who had arrested Sam and charged him with being the bomber.

The man’s smirky grin confused Cade, even as his body rejected any attempts to move it from the doorway. Francis tipped back his chair, gesturing at the empty seat with aplomb. He couldn’t have looked more out of place if he had been wearing full Joker makeup.

“How are you doing, Mr. Creel?” he asked.

Someone pushed Cade from behind, and he stumbled into the room.

“I….”

“Maybe some coffee would help. How about a blanket?” He snapped his fingers at the youngest of the officers, and the flicker of a snarl alerted Cade to what had been apparent when last they’d met—everyone thought Detective Francis was a piece of shit.

Cade dropped into the chair closest to LJ, shivering a little as the cool air of the room mixed uncomfortably with his wet, dirty clothing.

“Agent Allard was telling me all about your adventures,” Francis said, rubbing two fingers on the table in ever-widening circles. “And what you’re trying to do.”

This didn’t sound like the plan; LJ was grinning, Rachel just sitting there with her lips pursed, and Cade had no idea what to say or do. The only things he had at this moment were a host of acting skills and a desperate need to stay alive.

“How lucky you’re the person we met today,” Cade said coolly. He glanced around, judgment plain on his face. “Interesting promotion.”

Francis’s smug face fell at that. “Change in leadership at the precinct—you know how it is. Politics.”

Someone coughed, another person cleared his throat, and the snarl came back to the policeman’s mouth.

“Of course,” Cade said graciously, as the young officer returned with another large cup of coffee and a blanket that matched Rachel’s. “Maybe this is an even more fortuitous event than I thought.”

Detective Francis opened his mouth to speak, then glanced over his shoulder at the silent assemblage.

“Get out, all of you,” he snapped. No one refused his order, though the pure contempt thrown his way was impossible to miss.

When the room was cleared and quiet, Cade tucked himself in the blanket and toyed with the steaming cup in his hand.

Rachel made a little gesture, her arm peeking out from behind the blanket. Fingertips together, tipping her head toward Francis.

“You think you can do something with our information, then?” Cade wrapped his hands around the coffee.

Francis laughed—a “ha ha ha” sound, fake and disingenuous. “I think I can turn you all over to the District police and get my money back. Orrrrr—I turn you over to some friends of mine and make a fucking fortune. Maybe enough to retire.”

“Or we can arrange a third option—perhaps give everyone what they want in order to get what we want.”

LJ pointed at Cade. “Good idea, good idea.”

Detective Francis let his gaze linger on each of them, as if trying to determine if they were telling him the truth. Cade suspected that even if he’d once been an actual cop, those skills were long deteriorated, fallen to ruin and overrun by his selfish motivations. Satisfied they were going to help him get what he wanted, Francis nodded.

“So I bring you to the city, but maybe you get lost before you hit Central Booking,” he said finally.

Cade tried to control his expression.

“Then we go to the house, we get the money,” LJ added, drawing Francis’s eyes to him. Dollar signs glowed over Francis’s head.

“I want proof it’s as much as you say.”

LJ lit up like fucking Christmas.

“Bring me a laptop.”

“L
ET
’
S
GO
,”
Francis said about two hours later, startling Cade out of a daydream where he wasn’t cold and afraid and unable to breathe properly. He blinked himself back to full consciousness to find Rachel curled up in LJ’s lap and Francis grinning maniacally from the doorway.

“Okay, sure.” Cade got out of the chair with creaky legs and shaking hands, his gaze meeting LJ’s.

LJ smiled, a half grin that was probably 40 percent bullshit—Cade matched it with one of his own.

They could both pretend they felt secure about getting on a boat with a crooked cop.

As they walked through the building, the officers who bothered to glance up gave them nasty looks—and a few pitying, which didn’t sit well in Cade’s stomach. The cops all expected the three of them to be floating in the waves before they touched the shore of the District.

“We’re going to the house,” Francis muttered when they reached the back door. His beady eyes alighted on Cade, greed dripping from his pores. “I get the money, and then I let you go. If you try anything….” The gun in view on his waist punctuated the threat.

Cade nodded slowly. “We don’t have anything to gain by crossing you,” he said, allowing a shaking timbre to his tone. The sound made Francis grin. “We need you.”

Francis opened the door, waving them through. The wind rattled Cade as he stepped into the darkness.

T
HE
TINY
boat bobbing at the docks had clearly seen better days.

LJ—Rachel tucked tightly at his side—went first. The floodlights picked them up as they stumbled down some concrete stairs toward the dock. The cold bit into Cade’s face as he watched LJ’s broad back a few steps ahead.

Francis came up next to him, shoulder to shoulder in a weird intimacy that made Cade uncomfortable.

“You’re a pretty boy,” Francis muttered, his voice cutting through the wind. “Maybe you need a daddy when this is over….”

Cade swallowed down a rise of bile.

But he was an actor, a professional whore, and a man who could seduce open the wallet of anyone with a working dick.

“Maybe I do,” Cade said, flashing Francis a sideways look, with flirty eyes.

He didn’t flinch when Francis licked his lips.

He could do this.

He would do whatever it took to get to Nox.