“Please…don’t do this.” She whispered her plea to no one.
The car drove by a large group of loading bays and pulled up to another card reader that led to a secured subterranean parking garage. The garage door opened with a swipe of the driver’s card and they drove inside, swallowed into the bowels of the old building.
As the garage door closed behind them, Nikki stared at the girl beside her, perhaps seeing her for the first time. In the dim glow from the headlights, she caught the glimmer of a tear in Ivana’s eye. And without a sound, the girl finally looked at her and mouthed the words,
All Nikki wanted to do was scream, but now, who would hear her?
Chicago’s South Side
11:00 PM CST
Little known fact, but Lucas Baker owned part of a bar and pool hall on the south side of Chicago with a cousin he despised. The place was located in a rough part of town. Jess had discovered the tidbit in her latest search for him. As far as she could tell, he almost never came to the joint. Why he chose tonight to make an appearance would remain one of life’s mysteries, mainly because she didn’t care enough to ask the son of a bitch.
The name of the place was The Cutthroat. In pool, cutthroat was a game designed to take advantage of the odd man out. The game’s objective is for a player to eliminate his opponents. In Baker’s case, life had a strange way of imitating art. The man never played by the rules, except for his own, so cutthroat described the way he operated to a tee.
The pool hall’s air was thick with cigarette smoke, a heavy country twang coming from a jukebox, and testosterone—a combination that left Jess thinking a root canal might’ve been a better choice. But Baker hadn’t given her an option, and Seth needed her.
When she walked into the crowded dung heap, every eye shifted to her. An image popped into her head. She pictured herself doing a fast dog paddle in a river teeming with piranha, flailing before the inevitable. Men of every shape and size cocked their heads her way, and not a Brad Pitt look-alike in the bunch. There were a few women, but she had nothing in common with them. She still had her own teeth and had never taken advantage of the two- for-one special at the local tattoo parlor.
“Nothing like being the center of attention,” she mumbled under her breath and turned her head to scope out the place.
“I’m reading you loud and clear.” Sam’s voice came over the ear bud Jess had hidden under her hair. Her friend would be listening whenever she keyed the mic, her only form of censorship. “Maybe you should tell me your safety word…in case you get lucky. I’d hate to intrude.”
“Very funny. Just for that, your name’s going on the men’s room wall…unless it’s already there.” Jess headed for the back of the main room, navigating an obstacle course of biceps, pectorals, and beer bellies. Baker had told her where he’d be.
“And for the record,” Sam said, “I hate this plan. I should be in there with you. Meeting Baker on his turf is like playing Russian Roulette solo. When the gun goes off, you’re on your own. No one to pick up the pieces.”
“Nice visual. And thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“What are friends for?”
Jess had already shared her thoughts with Sam, her justification for leaving a cop parked on the curb outside a seedy bar. On the drive over she’d told Sam that her gig with Baker was private. Her friend respected that, but not enough to lay off the third degree. Jess had to come up with something more.
She’d told Sam that Baker had a beef with an old girlfriend, a former hooker trying to turn her life around. Baker had been abusive, not much of a stretch to believe. And Jess helped hide the woman a month ago, despite the fact that she wouldn’t press charges. Baker had been trying to strong-arm Jess into telling him where the woman had moved.
She knew that the best lies came from elements of the truth. A year ago she’d helped a woman get rid of her ex, two hundred pounds worth of mean. She could relate to the woman’s plight, since she’d come by her own scars honestly, both inside and out.
Even so, it scared Jess how easily she conjured a lie, especially to an old friend. But in her mind, Sam needed protecting too. She had her career to think about. If Sam didn’t witness her exchange with Baker—or know anything about that damned laptop—she wouldn’t be called to testify if things turned ugly.
So far, Sam had bought her gloss over, but Jess knew that wouldn’t last long.
All she needed was time. Time to get Seth away from here and to a hospital if he needed it. And to do that, she needed Sam’s help as backup. If she didn’t have the added complication of Seth, she would’ve come alone and dealt with the consequences.
“The office is straight back by the cigarette machine.” She spoke to Sam on the communication link. “Hang tight till you hear from me.”
Word on the street was that Baker was neck deep into a string of missing kids. That’s what set Jess on his trail, but she had no proof—yet. There’d be no bounty on this case, but as she told Sam, some things were more important than any stash of cash.
“You ain’t goin’ anywhere, honey.” Some jerk outside the office stopped her. A beefy hand reached out with splayed fingers pressed to her chest, copping a feel. “Not without a strip search. Rules of the house.”
The guy smirked and looked real impressed with himself.
Jess locked eyes with Baker’s muscle, feeling the weight of her .357 Magnum Colt Python at the small of her back. A square-jawed cowboy dude in a tight white tee, wranglers, and a no frills burr cut blocked her path. He had a knife clipped to his jeans pocket, made to look like a money clip or key chain to the untrained eye. Lucas had to be behind the cheap theatrics, and she had no patience for it.
Enough was enough.
Sam couldn’t sit in Jess’s car any longer. She got out and paced the sidewalk under a glow of red and blue neon, catching movement to her right. Night shift lowlifes remained faceless in the shadows, but she felt their eyes on her. And a hooker glared with suspicion then walked around the corner, taking her business down the block. She probably smelled cop.
So much for keeping a low profile.
Sam’s eyes darted across the street to the front door of The Cutthroat. It had only been ten minutes since she last heard from Jess, but ten minutes in her friend’s world could mean plenty of trouble. Besides, instincts born of a lifelong friendship had started to niggle at her belly.
“Jess? Are you okay?” She keyed her mic. “Talk to me.”
Radio silence. Nothing.
Sam wanted to respect Jess and her reasons for confronting Baker alone. Even if she didn’t buy the whole story, she trusted Jess to do the right thing. But now that trust was being tested, and her cop instincts told her something didn’t feel right.
Jess was supposed to speak up if she got into trouble, but was her silence the equivalent of sending up a flare? Sam clipped her badge to her belt, preparing to go in. And with steady fingers, she touched the service weapon under her jeans jacket, an old habit.
“Damn it, Jess. What’s going on in there?”
Jess narrowed her eyes at the brute standing in front of her, his hand pressed to her breast. He squeezed to see if she’d react and the bastard wasn’t disappointed. She grabbed his hand and twisted his thumb backward. In reflex, he bent over and turned his back to her, writhing in pain. When he did, she shoved a hand hard against his elbow and thrust his arm up between his shoulder blades.
“Good. I was afraid you wouldn’t get the point.”
She shoved the jerk into a wall with a sharp crack, pinning him in place with the weight of her body and the awkward position she held his arm. He twisted against her grip so she wouldn’t wrench his shoulder, but he couldn’t break free without doing serious damage. He grunted and let out another yelp. By now all eyes were on her again. Jess held firm and glared at each face.
“What are you looking at?” she demanded, yelling above the blaring music from the jukebox.
For an instant she thought someone from the crowd might interfere, until a sound came from near the bar.
