DEATHBLOW Page 2

  She could deal with being pushed around, but if Keith hurt Justin, she would shoot him. She had a gun in the cookie tin on the top of the fridge.

  She held her breath. Don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry. And Justin quieted after a final wail.

  She didn’t have time to relax. Keith stalked her, mouth turned up in anticipation.

  She evaded, stepping around the ottoman, then putting the kitchen island between them.

  “Here they are.” She opened the top drawer and pulled out the battered manila envelope on top. She needed to refocus him. She laid the custody papers out on the island, then searched for a pen.

  “Are you trying to piss me off?” Keith caught up with her and grabbed her by the wrist, his gaze hardening.

  “Why don’t you sign these while I make you something to eat? How about a couple of hamburgers?” He always liked the way she made those, with sautéed onions and peppers on top. “I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”

  But the dangerous glint in his pale blue eyes spoke of a different kind of hunger that had nothing to do with food.

  “I bet you put out for the photographers.” He growled. “Are you still whoring for your agent? You don’t think I’m good enough now? I’m not as good as he is?”

  She was a small-time model these days, modeling for the weekly department store circulars, making barely enough to pay for the apartment and support herself and Justin. She’d never had an inappropriate relationship with her agent—who was gay—or the photographers. At least a dozen people milled around at a shoot, everything timed to the minute. There wouldn’t have been an opportunity if she’d been looking for it.

  And she wasn’t. God knew she learned her lesson, again, the last time she’d let her guard down with a man. But she couldn’t tell Keith about that. If he found out that she was pregnant again, it would send him into a rage. Her latest crisis was her own problem. So she simply said, “I don’t have time to date.”

  “You’re a fucking liar.” He let her wrist go, but before she could step away, he grabbed her arms, tightly enough to hurt.

  “Stop.”

  “Or what? You’ll blabber to the cops again? You think it’ll work better this time? Do you know how much money my company donates to the police department? You think the cops would ever want to mess that up?”

  “Please let me go. I’m sorry.”

  She’d learned her lesson with the police the last time. The officer responding to her call told her any accusation of battery would be her word against Keith’s. And then he advised that she should stop provoking her guy. “Just get along,” he’d told her.

  Keith had trapped her, in more ways than one. She couldn’t fight back physically and win. He was stronger; she’d just get hurt. If he put her in the hospital, who would take care of Justin? If she went for the gun, she’d have to use it. He wouldn’t stand for being threatened. Once she pulled the gun, there would be no turning back.

  Then the police might or might not believe that it was self-defense. If she went to prison, where would her son go?

  If she went for a restraining order against Keith, he’d fight back by demanding time with Justin, an official, enforceable shared custody agreement. And having to send Justin to him on the weekends, on unsupervised visits, scared Wendy more than death itself.

  If this had been just about her, she would have fought back, would have run a long time ago. But they had a child together, which meant they were tied together—by custody law if nothing else. She couldn’t find a way around that. There were no good choices at this stage. All the choices were the kind that decided who got hurt, her or her son, and how badly.

  So she took the beatings.

  But as Keith shook her, a loud rap sounded at the door.

  “Wendy? Is everything okay? I heard that crash from the end of the hallway as I was coming up.”

  Sophie’s voice coming through the door was nothing less than a lifeline. Oh, thank God.

  Wendy tried to move to let her in, but Keith held her in place. “I don’t want to find out that you’ve been complaining about me behind my back.” His tone dipped low, threatening. “Our relationship is nobody else’s business.”

  “Wendy?” Sophie Curtis, pretty much the only friend she had left, called again.

  Keith silently shook his head.

  Another rap on the door. “I’m coming in.”

  And she could, thank God. Sophie had a spare key for emergencies.

  Keith stepped away as the door opened, the smell of fresh paint rushing in with Sophie—building management was having the hallways painted. He put on a charming smile, the hostility melting off him in an instant. He changed roles faster than a stage actor.

  “Hey,” he said, “no need for alarm. We got a little carried away.” He winked at Wendy as if sharing a private joke, as if they’d been sharing a careless moment of passion.

  Sophie stayed in the doorway as she measured up the situation with a neutral look on her face. “Bing is coming up in a minute. He’s parking the car. He just got off shift at the police station.”

  Keith turned to Wendy fully, his back to Sophie, pure hate flashing onto his face. He grabbed the custody papers from the kitchen island, crumpled them into his pocket. “A boy needs his father,” he whispered, his voice full of warning. Then he turned to go. “Need to drop my car off for detailing. You girls have fun.” Smiling again.

  Sophie closed the door behind him and turned the dead bolt. “Sorry I’m late.”

  She was a head shorter than Wendy, wrapped in a stylish black wool coat, her cheeks pink from the cold. After her pretty serious health issues for the past couple of years, it was nice to see some healthy color on her.

  Her wild red curls bounced around her face as she moved forward. She dropped her purse on the kitchen island. “Are you okay?”

  Wendy smiled, fighting against her sharp disappointment. She’d failed to get Keith to sign over custody once again. She filled her lungs and pushed the despair aside.

  “I’m glad you’re here.” She glanced at the windows. “I wish the rain would stop already. I thought we could take Justin for a walk when he wakes up from his nap. Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.” Keep talking. Maybe Sophie didn’t notice anything. “How was traffic?”

  She’d never told anyone Keith had turned abusive—not her friends, and not her parents who lived in Florida and already worried endlessly about her.

  Keith Kline was somebody in Wilmington. He held memberships in all the right business clubs. His company gave a ton of money to charity, including the Police Association. The police wouldn’t help her. And the people who loved her would get hurt if she dragged them into her screwed-up relationship. Sophie couldn’t find out. Nobody could.

  Wendy walked over to the smaller bedroom, pushed the door open a few inches, and peeked in. Since Justin was sleeping peacefully, she went back to the kitchen. “Out like a light. Want something to drink?”

  She was the one who’d picked Keith. He was in her life because of her bad judgment. She had a child with him. She had to figure out how to deal with that. Handling Keith was her responsibility and nobody else’s.

  Sophie watched her. “I didn’t realize Keith was coming over today. How are things with him?”

  “Okay.” Keith would kill her if he found out that she talked about him behind his back. She grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge. “Is Bing really coming?”

  “No. Do you mind? I thought—” Sophie shrugged out of her coat, folded it over the back of the sofa, then walked over to the table with a tentative look in her eyes.

  She wore dove-gray slacks with a white top, her style flawless. She had a good eye for color and design. Could have worked in the fashion industry. Not that she’d ever been interested in that kind of thing. Sophie’s passion ran to computers. She had her own web design business. She was smart and strong, everything Wendy wanted to be.

  “How was your checkup this morning?”

  Sophie
flashed a brilliant smile. “Passed with flying colors. The ticker keeps on ticking.”

  Wendy set the bottles on the table, then moved to pick up the chairs so they could sit and chat while Justin finished his nap.

  Sophie helped, caressing a translucent acrylic dining chair that had the sleek lines of a sports car. “These look fantastic. I have serious furniture envy.”

  “Scored them from Mia.” An interior designer who often worked on the same sets as Wendy. “Castoffs of some millionaire client.” They were modern design, pieces of art that Wendy could never have afforded otherwise. Her table didn’t match, a minor detail. Someday.

  “Hey, the pictures are new too.” Sophie moved toward the living room, where new photos hung on the wall.

  The photographs caught Justin in the early morning light, sitting in front of the window, dust particles floating in the air, sparkling like diamond powder in the sunlight. The images had a surreal, magical feeling, the perfect symbolism for the magic of childhood. The morning she’d taken those pictures was one of the few times when everything had come together perfectly.

  “You have serious talent.” Sophie kept looking. “If you ever quit modeling, you could be a professional photographer.”

  “That’s the dream.” To be living somewhere far away from Keith, having a successful business so she didn’t have to worry about the future and money. To be strong and independent. She felt light years from that this morning.

  Sophie turned with a smile, but then her eyes grew somber as she caught Wendy’s mood. She stepped closer. “You know you can tell me anything, right? That’s what friends are for.”

  “Sure.” Wendy twisted the top off her water bottle. Sophie didn’t deserve Keith’s nastiness dumped on her. With her health issues, stress was the last thing she needed. “Everything’s fine.”

  Sophie glanced at her legs. “Then why is your knee bleeding?”

  Wendy looked down, past the hem of her new wool skirt where bright red drops beaded on her skin. Unlike high-fashion shoots, department-store flyer jobs let models keep the clothes—a perk her small budget appreciated.

  She grabbed a napkin, dabbed where her skin had split on her right knee. No big deal. She could definitely cover that with makeup for work.

  She tried to stretch her face into a smile. “I slipped.”

  She struggled to put on the public-Wendy persona, the mask that showed her in control of her life and happy. She’d been modeling since she was sixteen; she could act. She’d become good at hiding her scared, weak core even from those close to her. Except, the nonchalant laugh she was working on never formed on her lips.

  Sophie waited, practically radiating patience, love, and support. She wouldn’t push. She never did.

  The mood shifted between them.

  Tears gathered in Wendy’s eyes for some stupid reason. She dashed them away. She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t a crier. Crying never solved anything. Tears usually made Keith angrier.

  Sophie came over and put her arms around her, held her. The comfort felt so incredibly good, especially after Keith flying off the handle, after being scared to death for the last twenty minutes. Wendy drew a deep, shuddering breath.

  “I didn’t really slip,” she whispered.

  “I know,” Sophie whispered back, holding her tightly. “We’re going to figure out what to do about this.”

  Chapter Two

  Joe woke with a screaming headache to the sound of someone trying to break down his front door. He grabbed his jeans from the floor and dragged them on, then shrugged into a wrinkled T-shirt. Socks. He found a pair. He didn’t think the Brant Street Gang knew he lived in Broslin, but he shoved his gun into the back of his jeans as he drummed down the stairs.

  Not how he’d planned his morning. He’d meant to sleep until noon, then spend the rest of his day in a nice, warm station, catching up with paperwork. The chill of the river still sat in his bones. He punched the heat up another degree as he strode by the thermostat.

  He yanked the door open, ready to send away whoever had come to see him, then swallowed the words when he came face-to-face with his boss. “Captain Bing.”

  The captain wore his uniform, probably heading into work. He was maybe an inch shorter than Joe, solidly built. He might have been fifteen years Joe’s senior, but he could still whip serious ass. He expected his men to keep in shape, and he didn’t ask anything of them that he wasn’t willing to do himself. He put in his time at the station’s small gym.

  The man’s gaze hesitated on the four-inch cut on Joe’s left cheek, courtesy of the log that had slapped him in the face on the river. With twenty-some stitches sticking out, the wound looked like a giant red caterpillar was crawling across Joe’s face.

  “Well, that’ll disappoint the ladies.” But then the captain grunted. “Never mind. With you, they’ll probably like it, think it’s all manly.” He peered behind Joe. “Anyone naked in there?”

  Joe stepped aside. “I’m having an off morning.”

  Captain Bing was the only person he couldn’t send away, especially since the man was holding a tall cup of coffee. He had a Main Street Diner paper bag in his other hand, which likely held a slice of pie. For coffee and some of Eileen’s famous strawberry pie, Joe would have let the devil in.

  “How’s the concussion?” the captain asked.

  “Fine.”

  “You didn’t answer your phone.”

  “I was trying to sleep in. Any news on Lil’ Gomez?”

  “The kid hasn’t been found, as far as Chief Gleason knows.” Bing followed him to the kitchen and sat. He looked around before his gaze returned to Joe. “You’re not supposed to sleep with a concussion.”

  Joe reached for the coffee. Reporting in after he’d been released from the emergency room toward dawn had clearly been a mistake. He’d managed to recover on the riverbank enough to drag himself to the nearest road and flag down a car. And because there were still plenty of good people left in this world, instead of running him over, the driver had taken him to the hospital.

  He took a long swallow. “I’ll be in for my shift tonight.”

  The captain fixed him with a hard look as he pushed the paper bag across the table. “I don’t think so.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me. I can slap a bandage on my face.”

  Bing shook his head. Scanned the cut again. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”

  “I volunteered.” He’d stepped forward, thinking if he did well with the undercover assignment, he would make detective. He’d played competitive sports once—as a wide receiver. Pushing to get to the next level was an ingrained habit. “Anybody called the hospitals to look for the kid?”

  The captain folded his hands on the table. “They don’t have anyone matching his description.”

  Neither of them said what they were both thinking: Lil’ Gomez was likely dead.

  Joe tightened his jaw. He was a cop, dammit. He should have been able to save the boy. He’d been thinking about that the whole time he’d been at the emergency room, then in the cab on the way home, then in bed while he’d stared at the ceiling for most of what was left of the night.

  “I know this is difficult.” The captain’s tone turned sober. “We feel responsible for the people we protect. It’s hard to lose someone. You never forget any of them, especially your first.” He stared at his hands. “Mine was a car accident. She died after I arrived at the scene. I started CPR. Couldn’t bring her back. Twenty-seven years old, young mother of two. Her name was Jillian Lin.”

  Silence stretched between them.

  “I shouldn’t have left the kid alone in the river,” Joe said after a while, his head pounding.

  “You couldn’t have saved him. You were both cuffed. It’s a miracle that you lived.” Bing paused as he watched Joe. “I’m the one who got you involved.” The tone of his voice said he wasn’t happy about it.

  The Philadelphia chief of police needed someone to infiltrate Ramos Gomez’s
gang. Chief Gleason had reason to believe that Ramos had an inside man at the Philadelphia PD, so the chief wanted an undercover guy from the outside. He’d attended Police Academy with Captain Bing, so he called up his old friend for help.

  When the opportunity had been brought to Joe, he’d jumped on it. He liked action as much as the next guy, and most action at the department went to the detectives: Harper, Chase, and Jack. This was his chance.

  Bing cleared his throat. “Chief Gleason wants a full briefing. I gave him the basics, but he wants you to call in.”

  “Now is good.” Joe patted his pocket for his cell. Bit back a curse. “My phone’s in the river.”

  Bing pulled his own and dialed, set his cell phone on speaker, and slid it to the middle of the oak farm table between them.

  “Morning. I’m with Officer Kessler,” he said when the other end picked up. “He’s been resting.”

  “Officer Kessler. I heard you had a rough night.” Gleason’s voice boomed through the phone. He was half-black, half-Hawaiian, built like a linebacker. Straight as an arrow that one, and the city was better for it. “How are you, Officer?”

  “I’m fine, sir. I lost Lil’ Gomez. I’m sorry.”

  “Let me worry about that. I have the officers’ report on my desk about the accident, but I’d rather hear it from you. Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

  Joe gulped some coffee, thought back to where his ill-fated night had begun. “Lil’ Gomez wanted to pick up a car. I went with him. It’s not easy to get him away from his brother. Figured I could get some information out of him about the dirty cop on Ramos’s payroll.”

  He leaned forward, toward the phone so Gleason could hear him better. “The kid found a nice BMW. Barely popped the lock when Philadelphia PD showed up. We were in a dead-end alley, no chance of running.”

  He cleared his throat. “Officer Tropper was driving after they picked us up. Officer Washington rode shotgun. So they start questioning us, name, address, the usual. And when Lil’ Gomez said his name, Officer Tropper looked at him in the rearview mirror, asked him if he was Ramos Gomez’s little brother. The kid says yes.”