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“She needs protection.” I toss my bag in, but I don’t step away. Instead, I tear the zipper open and reveal an arsenal of weapons that bring their brows up in question. “She needs a familiar face,” I tell them, taking my handgun out, checking the magazine, and then slipping the piece into the holster on my hip. “She and I have a rapport that you won’t.” I grab a second weapon, repeat my steps, and holster it. “You want to solve a murder. As homicide cops, I get it. That’s your job. But I’d like to protect the girl before she becomes Vallejo’s next victim.” I grab a knife, similar to that I buried in Vallejo’s neck five years ago and slip it into my boot. “I’m still not convinced he’s alive, by the way. But even if he’s dead and buried, his name is still being tossed around. For as long as that’s happening, I’m showing up to make sure no one else dies for no fuckin’ reason.”
I fix the leg of my jeans to comfortably cover the blade, then standing tall again, I set my hand on the trunk lid and meet the curious stares of the two watching me. “You’re here for your dead guy. I’m here for the alive girl. Seems to me, our missions are complimentary to each other and won’t pose a threat to the other.”
“How the fuck did you get a bag of guns on the plane?” Fletcher backs up and heads toward the driver’s seat. “You didn’t have time to run that paperwork, Banks.”
“I know people.” I circle around and pull the back door open. Malone slides in in front of me while Fletcher slips into the driver’s seat and turns over the engine. They’re parked illegally, blocking cabs and annoying the shuttle bus driver who tries desperately to get through. “Catch me up on your case so we’re all on the same page.”
“We don’t need to be on the same page.” Malone turns in his seat and looks me up and down again. He’s trying, so fucking hard, to place me. To remember where he knows me from. “You’re not part of this case.”
“And yet, you need me to identify your witnessandyou picked me up from the airport. Sounds like you need me. Her name is Rory,” I fill them in. “She’s twenty-one-years-old. College kid.”
“She runs with a limp,” Archer inserts quietly. Dangerously. “She was massaging her leg on the bus.”
“I was one of the responding officers to an accident she was in in November. She was sleeping in her car, and a drunk plowed his truck right into her. Shoved her little hatchback off the side of the hill and almost killed her.”
“Shit,” Fletcher grumbles. “While she slept? That sucks.”
“Why was she sleeping in her car?” Malone counters. “In the winter?”
“College kid,” I shrug. “She was driving through town on her way here. She was rushed into surgery right after the accident because the impact broke her femur.” I bring my hand up and rub my eye, like the gesture helps me think. “Left leg. The bone pierced her skin. I’m surprised she’s running at all, to be honest.”
“Must hurt like a motherfucker.” Archer reaches up and touches his shoulder absentmindedly. “Alright. So you and her have a rapport? She’d open the door to you if you were the one knocking?”
“Well…” I look out the window as Fletcher drives us away from the airport and into Copeland City traffic. “If she’s smart, she won’t open the door to anyone.”
Again, Archer twists in his seat and meets my eyes. “Does she even know you, Banks?”
I shrug and ignore his probing stare. “I sat with her awhile. I kept watch over her while everyone else was busy.”
“For fuck’s sake.” He turns back to face the front and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’ve busted your way into my case, but why do I feel like you’re gonna blow it, too?” Then he turns again and pins me with a glare. “And why do I know your face?”
A phone chirps from the front of the car, “Peaches & Cream” bleats, while Fletcher uses the rearview mirror to watch me suspiciously.
Like I’m the asshole.
“Mayet,” Archer answers shortly. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re heading to the station first,” Fletcher says. A cynical man might wonder if he speaks purely to dilute whatever Malone chats about. To distract me from whoever Mayet is. “Checking in. We’ll run you through the war room and show you what we’ve got. You’ll give us more than a first name and general bio of the girl. Then we’ll go find her.”
“What have you got so far?” I keep one ear on Malone—Lorenzo was shot point blank by a Colt .45. Something about Doctor Emeri. The morgue. Ballistics—and with the other half of my brain, I focus on Fletcher. “Vallejo?”
He turns a corner and brings us into congested city traffic. “We haven’t seen or heard from him yet. We only have circumstantial so far. His name popped a couple of times during canvassing.”
“Popped?” I sit forward in my seat. To listen to two conversations at once—straight-walled cartridge. “What do you meanpopped?”
“Like… we have no eyewitnesses, except the girl. But we have others who think they heard a little shouting. Just before the shooting started, two independent statements mention Vallejo’s name. Another says they heard Lorenzo’s name. Lombardo was a banger who owed someone money. That someone, we assume, is Vallejo. We know Stevens has priors and connects to Vallejo.”
“And you know I connect to Vallejo,” I surmise. “Which is why I got a phone call.”
“Records say you were the last to see Vallejo alive,” he murmurs. “They’ve got you down as DEA, Banks. And you were running an OP inside one of Vallejo’s clubs.”
“I put my knife in his throat.” Sitting back, I exhale as Archer wraps up his call and says goodbye to whoever is on the other end. “I put a bullet in his gut. But then I had to bail out.” I bring a hand up to scrub against my jaw. “I assumed he was dead.”
“We won’t know till we know.” Archer turns in his seat, his phone lowered and crushed in his palm, and his green stare beating into mine. “At this point in time, we’re only hearing his name. We have a single grainy street camera image of a guy who could fit Vallejo’s description. That’s it. But he’s a dangerous man, and so are his stooges. So whoever made that hit the other night still poses a significant risk to our witness.”
“And you want to find the witness first. Not to keep her safe for her own sake. But to plop her on the stand when the time comes to testify?”
His eyes narrow, and his temper alights just beneath the surface. He’s trying to figure out where he knows me from. And yet, I already know exactly who he is. I was DEA for years, and undercover for most of them. You don’t work in that world, especially as Henry Banks’ son, and not get around to each mob family in the country in one way or another.
