from her shirt, out of place, but the unit itself had stayed put. A regular miracle that ranked right up there with how she’d survived another clash with Baker.
“Seth? You…there?”
“Where are you?” he cried, worry heavy in his voice. She heard the sound of his engine in the background. He was on the move.
“No time…to explain,” she gasped, out of breath. “I stashed…Baker’s laptop.”
She quickly told him where to look. “Cops are gonna…take me into custody soon. I’m not gonna make it hard for them…to find me, but don’t worry. Just get that computer. Start working on it. You got that?”
“Yeah, but Jess—”
“No buts, Seth. Just work your magic, genius. I’ll catch you later.”
With every muscle in agony and protesting, Jess took off her com set and ditched it under a withering shrub in front of a house up for sale. The ramshackle dump didn’t look like hot property, so her equipment was probably safe until she could pick it up later. She was in enough hot water. No need calling attention to Seth, her Boy Wonder and resident Einstein with a computer.
Besides, she had bigger problems.
A siren closed in. They’d be on her soon. Jess heard the crunch of gravel under a tire as the patrol car pulled to the curb. She kept walking, keeping her back to the cops. No sudden moves. Spiraling red and blue lights filled the dark sky with color. Party time. She slowed down, nice and easy, heard the cop’s voice pierce the fog building in her brain.
“Stop right there.” A stern voice. “Put your hands up. Now!”
“Okay, okay. I’m all about cooperation here.”
She did as she’d been told, stopped and raised her hands, still not turning around. She knew the cop had a gun on her. Protocol. She wouldn’t do anything to provoke a fight with the boys in blue.
“Get on your knees, hands behind your head. Do it!” Another voice. A cop and his partner.
Feeling beat up and raw, Jess didn’t have any more fight in her. Sinking to her knees, she yelled over her shoulder, “Officers? I’m a freelance Fugitive Recovery Agent. And I’ve got a permit to carry and a Colt Python under my shirt. I can explain everything.”
“Yeah, I bet you can…” one of them said. “Bounty hunter.”
The cop said the words like he’d just been forced to eat raw monkey brains on a cracker at gunpoint and couldn’t spit it out. She hated the term “bounty hunter.” Cable TV hadn’t done her profession any favors. And today her obsession with Baker hadn’t helped.
Ignoring the cop’s cynicism, she closed her eyes as they manhandled her to the sidewalk, yanking her hands behind her back to fit her into cuffs. And, of course, they took her gun. Back at the local cop shop, word would get around she’d been at it again. Her crusade against Lucas Baker would be under harsher scrutiny.
Jess appreciated the challenge of talking her way out of this, but knew she’d never fool one set of dark eyes. Detective Samantha Cooper had her number. And they went far enough back to make lying impossible. If Sam got called in at this hour, Jess knew her night had only just begun.
For a cop, the ringing of a phone in the middle of the night meant only one thing—bad news.
Samantha Cooper awoke as if waiting for it. Her eyes popped open on the first ring. No need to wait for cobwebs to clear. In the dark of her bedroom, she reached for the phone on her nightstand, her voice steady and calm.
“Cooper.” Already on the job, she answered like an on-duty cop.
“Hey, Sam. Sorry to wake you. Miller here.”
She recognized the voice of the night desk sergeant, Jackson Miller, a top-notch cop cruising to retirement.
“Yeah, Sarge. What’s up?” Raised on one elbow, she flicked on the light and squinted as she grabbed the pen and paper she kept handy by the phone. “I’m not on tonight.”
“I know, but I got something you might want to hear. Something personal.” He paused only a moment before he continued. “It’s your friend Jessica Beckett.”
Sam’s heart lurched. She tossed the pen on her nightstand and slumped back onto the pillows, pulling the covers to her chest. Her stomach suddenly felt queasy, like the aftereffects of a roller coaster free falling from its pinnacle on full tilt. A part of her had known this day would come, when she’d get the call in the middle of the night telling her Jess had crossed one too many lines in the sand. Maybe her friend had been living on borrowed time from the day they’d met.
Fearing the worst, Sam couldn’t stop the flood of memories from invading her mind, dark childhood images that had changed her life forever. In truth, they were never far from the surface. They had marked her and stripped away what remained of her innocence. Scars buried deep. But in her mind it had been far worse for Jess, who dealt with the scars she carried on the outside, visible for all to see.
“Is she…?” Sam shut her eyes, catching the emotion in her voice. She cleared her throat. “What about her, Sarge?”
She waited for him to spit it out.
“She had another run-in with that scumbag Baker. And it ain’t going well, if you know what I mean.”
Sam breathed a sigh of relief, but shook her head. Baker served as the catalyst for a longtime crusade Jess had against sex peddlers in all shapes, sizes, and perversions. And her childhood friend had elevated pissing people off into an art form. Jess never knew when to quit. Most days, she admired her for it. No, the word “envied” described it best. That kind of attitude not only emblazoned the way she lived her life, but how she had survived what happened to her.
But in the solitude of her heart, Sam knew the truth. Jess had become her Achilles’ heel, the focus of a pervasive guilt that made it impossible to turn an apathetic shoulder to her friend. She knew it. And at times she suspected Jess used it against her—all for the greater good, of course.
“I’m coming in. Who’s got the lead on this?”
“You’re not gonna like it, Sam.”
She felt the start of a tension headache tighten at the base of her skull. No way to start the day, but sidestepping it was out of the question. She knew what Sergeant Miller was going to say before the words were out of his mouth.
“The chief has taken a personal interest.”
“This time of night?” With brow furrowed, she glanced toward her alarm clock. “It’s almost three.”
“He got called in on a high-profile murder that happened two hours ago. Some rapper I ain’t even heard of. A gang thing.” The sergeant lowered his voice. “Anyway, once the press left, he caught your friend’s case. Bad luck for her.”
Sam shut her eyes again and took a deep breath. She worked at Harrison Station, the Eleventh District. Last year, Harrison took top prize on the most murders in the Chicago metropolitan area. A dubious distinction her fellow detectives would have preferred to pass on. The chief’s personal concern over this statistic did not surprise her. The media would be all over this one, dredging up the station’s marginal record once again.
As a member of the metro police department, Sam worked in Vice Control under the Detective Division of the Bureau of Investigative Services. She’d been working her way toward Homicide for the past two years, hoping to catch a break into the more prestigious unit. She didn’t need this. Butting heads with the chief, her boss’s boss several times removed, was not her idea of a smart career move.
Within BIS, the chief headed up her entire division and had five deputy chiefs reporting to him. Plus, the man had shot up through the ranks like a regular golden boy, garnering the favor of the superintendent and many others during his meteoric rise.
How far would she go to get Jess off the hook this time?
Her personal connection to Jess was already known within the CPD, but no one knew the reasons behind her loyalty. Her pact with Jess had gone unspoken, a commitment born as much from her own burden of guilt as the love she felt for her headstrong friend.
But Sam’s career in law enforcement meant everything to her. It had become the focal point to her life, giving her a sense of worth. Would she be forced to choose between her life’s blood and the friend she loved like a sister?
Sam prayed it wouldn’t go that far.
