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“I shot him myself! I put my knife in his throat and a round in his belly five years ago. He’s dead.”
“I’m hearing differently. And I’m searching for our eyewitness before she gets herself buried in a shallow grave.”
“Eyewitness?” My gaze shoots back to my computer screen, though nothing has changed. “What eyewitness?”
“Young,” he rattles off. “Maybe twenty-years-old. Brown hair. Trim body. She has no record. No presence online, and no way for me to find her. But she was running from Gavin and almost lost her head a couple of times. Street CCTV sees her getting on the South 59 bus and getting off again about four miles down the road.” He taps his computer keys and makes a little noise on his end of the line. “Bus footage shows a decent profile and front-on picture of her. But I can’t splash her face on the news and expect Vallejo not to see it.”
“Vallejo is dead,” I snarl. But I lower into my seat when my email dings and Archer Malone’s name pops up. Nerves ball in my throat, and an odd sloshing moves in my gut. But I hold the phone with one hand and maneuver the computer mouse with the other as I open the email and hover over the attachment. “I killed him myself, Malone. So maybe Stevens is taking up where Vallejo left off.”
“Yeah. I might’ve agreed with you. But Stevens, Buchanan, and two other unidentified men came out of an alleyway just seconds after Lombardo’s murder. The first two, we can ID. The third is too shadowed to make out. The last is grainy and difficult to say for sure. But the whispers are saying he’s Vallejo.”
“It’s been five years!” I click on the picture and wait for my computer to churn through the upload and reveal to me this eyewitness who is, in my experience, already dead meat. If Vallejo or his men want her dead, then it’s a done deal. If she’s just one of those unluckywrong place, wrong timetypes, then she doesn’t have the resources Vallejo’s lot does.
Even with him dead and one of his men steering the ship, they’re too powerful, and she doesn’t have the ability to stay alive when the hunters come for her.
I reach out with a scowl and smack the side of my computer when the screen glitches and goes dark for a beat, but then it clears and reveals a young, beautiful face I’ve seen before. I shove up from my chair so it bounces backward and slams against the desk behind mine. “Shit!” I snatch my cell with my free hand and shove it in my back pocket. “I know her, Malone.” She’s pixelated from bad technology and splotchy from fear. But her face is memorable enough, even in the dark, to know exactly who she is. “Malone! I know that girl.”
“So who the fuck is she? Give me a name so we can track her down before Vallejo takes her out.”
* * *
I step off the plane at Copeland City Airport mere hours after our phone call. Uninvited, unwanted, and with zero fucks to give for the cops who objected to me flying to their part of the country today.
I stride past other, slower passengers and glance out the frosted glass windows to the tarmac dusted with a light sheen of snow. A storm swept through overnight, according to the news, and another may be due tonight. So the fact I was able to fly in and land without the plane being delayed is, to me, a sign I’m supposed to be here.
I make my way toward the luggage carousel and through security after that, and as I move toward the airport’s exit, I reach back and take my phone from my pocket, switching it on and waiting for the internet to catch up.
Instantly, my phone beeps with texts and voicemails. I told my captain I was heading out for a couple of days off. No notice given. No permission requested. I tossed my B&E to someone else and walked out the door. And I guess word still travels fast because my father wants to know why I’m all the way over in Copeland today.
None of your fucking business.
I navigate next to my mother’s texts, though hers are much more sincere. Her questions are because she cares about me and not because she’s still reporting my whereabouts to the higher-ups in the DEA.
Heading out on vacation for a little while. It was a last-minute thing for a friend. You can contact me anytime. I love you.
Hitting send, I jump next to texts from a number I’ve yet to save in my phone. But ‘Where the fuck are you, Banks?’ and ‘We need a name!’give him away pretty easily.
“Detective Banks.”
I skid to a stop by the airport’s massive electric doors and glance up to find two cops waiting for me on the other side. Archer Malone—he resembles his late father—and Charlie Fletcher. I don’t know the latter, except by his records kept in the system. But he seems decent enough. Solid, if not for the notes in his files that mention some underhanded stuff on the job.
So I’ll keep my distance. I’ll watch my own back, and I’ll watch that of Aurora Swanson’s, too, because she’s too sweet to be left up to chance and too ill-equipped to become Vallejo’s shark bait
“Detectives.” I slip my phone into my back pocket and switch the handle of my bag to my left hand to free up my right. Closing the space between us, I offer my hand to a six-foot-something Malone. Green eyes, dark hair, broad shoulders, and ink peeking up from beneath his shirt.
I wonder if his partner knows he’s Archer Malone of the New York Malone mafia family?
“You flew over anyway.” Archer shakes my hand and studies me as intensely as I do him. His eyes narrow, and his hand tightens.
But I know the tightrope I walk by being here, so I disconnect us easily and offer the same gesture to Fletcher. “I appreciate your hospitality, Detectives. It’s not always easy or fun letting another cop onto your turf.”
“Can’t say we’ve consented to it yet,” Fletcher inserts. He squeezes my hand and looks me up and down. He’s tall, too, all three of us sitting around the same height. Similar builds. But where Malone’s eyes are a striking green, Fletcher’s are a honeycomb that edges toward pure gold. “You insist on being here. Can’t you just tell us her name?”
“You’re obstructing a murder investigation,” Malone rumbles like he thinks I give a shit. “Whether Vallejo is dead or alive, his people are still very active in my city.” He sets his hands on his hips as I bring mine back and meet his stare. “They’re still dangerous, with or without him as their head. You’ve wasted time making us wait for you.”
“And now I’m here.” I circle the shitty car they wait in front of and tap the trunk to let them know they better open it so we can go. “I’ll give you her name, but only on the condition that I’m coming with you.”
“What makes you think we won’t take the name,” Fletcher pops the trunk with a press of his key fob, “leave you behind, and get on with our jobs?”
