Drawing The Line (2 page)

“
Any nausea, vomiting, dizziness?” Scott shined an obnoxiously bright light into her eyes, and okay, she officially hated this. Serenity placed her hands against the hard tile and pushed, breaking the grip of whoever had been steadying her head. An icy sweat popped over her brow as she registered another paramedic leaning over Colin a few steps away, but she couldn’t see anything else before Scott and his cohort maneuvered her back to the floor.

“Is Colin okay?” Her stomach climbed up to her throat, turning her word
s to a high-pitched croak as her memory filtered back in slow, disjointed blips. “I think he’s bleeding. Please—”

Scot
t appeared in her line of sight, seriousness etched on his face. “My partner is taking care of him, I promise. But you’ve sustained a head injury, and that means you’ve got to be still while we check you out. Are you feeling any nausea?”

As much as she wanted to fib and say no so he’d let her get up
, Serenity couldn’t. “Maybe a little,” she admitted, swallowing back a queasy pang that would’ve made the fib a straight-up whopper. Maybe moving so fast hadn’t been her best plan.

“Okay
, Serenity. I’m going to stabilize your back and neck, just as a precaution, and take you to Brentsville Memorial so the doctors can take a better look.” Scott reached out for a big, scary-looking neck brace, and panic jolted through her chest.

“I can’t go to the hospital! I have to cal
l Colin’s wife. And I’m responsible for the diner. I can’t just leave! My employees will be here soon, and we’ll have customers—”

The paramedic
shook his head in an adamant
no
. “The police will make sure it’s all taken care of. But right now, you need to get checked out.”

Her hopes did a swan dive right alongside her gut, bu
t she refused to just give in. “Can you at least call my manager, Julianna, to open the diner? Her number is in my cell phone. She’ll know what to do.”

As long as Jules didn’t go all stubborn on her, anyway.
Serenity prayed she’d be able to convince her friend to skip a worried trip to the hospital in favor of calling in their night cook to help get things started in the kitchen. That way Mac’s could at least open, albeit late, and maybe Serenity could stay with Colin at the hospital until his wife got there. God, she hated that she couldn’t see him from her vantage point on the floor. She couldn’t even make a stupid phone call right now.

And her head felt like she’d been on a four day bourbon-bender with a heavy metal band.

Scott re-appeared in her line of vision, but focusing on him took more effort than it should. “We can have someone from the hospital get in touch with your manager, but I wouldn’t plan on opening any time this morning,” he said, nodding at the firefighter as they cradled her head to slide the neck brace into position.

Serenity’s mouth went dry
, the hard plastic pinching at her shoulders through the thin cotton of her T-shirt as fresh confusion spun through her already muddled brain. “Why not?”

The paramedic’s eyes met hers, and although his expression went soft, his wor
ds were dead serious as they triggered the cold realization she’d been missing in all the chaos.

“The police are going to be here awhile
, Serenity. Your diner is officially a crime scene.

CHAPTER TWO

Jason Morgan
ducked beneath the bright yellow crime scene tape strung across the trees in front of Mac’s Diner, his senses on full alert and his head on a swivel. Dew still lingered in the crevices of the well-traveled sidewalk, dampening them to a smudgy gray, and the cheery sunlight pouring down from overhead served as a hell of an irony considering it brightened a crime scene. The fact slid beneath Jason’s calm demeanor, scraping at him for a brief second before he defused it. Yes, Mac’s was familiar territory, and yes, it rankled that a vicious act had been committed in a place where he ate lunch every Wednesday.

But vicious
went with the job, which meant keeping those feelings at arm’s length was a moral imperative, no matter how tempted he was to do otherwise.

“You’re late.”
Noah Blackwell crossed his arms over his plain white button-down shirt, his badge glinting from its spot next to the Glock on his belt. Jason’s best friend and partner of three years served him with the same expression of pure nothing he always wore, prompting an oh-
hell
-no expression over Jason’s face.

Jason had been forced
to save up his ribbing for two months while Noah recovered from a gunshot wound to the arm. No way was he doing this somber and serious thing now that the guy was finally all-systems-go again. Not that Jason had ever been a fan of serious in the first place.

“
Good morning to you, too,” he said, unable to keep his smirk in check. Damn, it was good to have Noah back on active duty. Even if the guy
had
fallen in love with Jason’s twin sister while he’d been injured. Jason amped up his smile as he mentally plugged his ears and sang la-la-la at the thought of his sister involved with anyone— even his best friend. “You’ve been here since five minutes after Lieu called this in, haven’t you?”

“
I can’t help it you’re a slacker,” Noah popped back, his raised brow the only change to his trademark stony demeanor. He scanned the periphery of the surrounding block, although Jason was willing to bet it wasn’t for the first time, or even the second. “I’ve been here a few minutes.”

Jason did a reverse of Noah’s visual sweep, starting from the other side of
the scene. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, right down to the cherry-red awning fluttering in the breeze overhead, and shit. Wasn’t that just going to make this case fun from the start. “You get the initial from the uniforms inside?”

Noah nodded in
one singular lift of his chin. “Yup.”

God, it was too good to pass up.
“Then you’ve been here for more than a few minutes, you fucking workaholic.”

Noah cracked a rare half-grin
, bringing Jason’s attention back to the neatly-kept ribbon of sidewalk in front of Mac’s. “Sorry. I’m just glad to be out from behind the desk, you know?”

“
I’ve been listening to you complain about being a desk jockey for the last four weeks,” Jason reminded him, letting the humor seep into his voice. Better to joke about it than ponder the alternative. He jerked his head at the double glass doors, smoothing his expression. “What’ve we got?”

“R
obbery-assault, forced entry through the back.”

Shock
streaked through Jason’s chest. “We haven’t seen one of those since last month when we nailed the guy who shot you.”

Jason had made the case his personal mission, throwing all he had into catching Noah’s shooter
. Coming up with an arrest had reminded Jason exactly why he did this job. Getting criminals off the street was satisfaction enough. But putting a cop-shooter behind bars? That was a special brand of justice.

One Jason had known
up-close and personal since the day the Brentsville PD had caught the man who killed his father seven years ago.

Noah
shook his head, his shoes sounding off in a muted scuff on the pavement as he led the way to the far side of the diner. “Looks like someone’s picking up where they left off. Only this time they’re getting smarter. Other than the busted locks at the point of entry and the damage to the office where the money was stolen, the place looks pretty clean.”

Well, that was new.
The other break-ins had been ungraceful smash-and-grabs with plenty of property destruction— and clues left behind— to go with the missing valuables. Whoever was behind this one was likely well-versed in violent crime. “Who’s the victim?”

“Got two.
” His partner’s face bent into a frown. “The daytime cook and the owner, both headed to Brentsville Hospital. Owner’s the one who made the 911 call. Looks like the cook stumbled on the robbery in process and was stabbed, then the owner showed up directly after and the perp assaulted her before he fled the scene.”

“Serenity Gallagher
is one of the victims?” Jason’s mind flashed over a mental snapshot of the slim, dark-haired woman he’d seen plenty of times, either behind the counter at Mac’s or smiling as she topped off a customer’s coffee, and his spine went rigid despite his affirmation to keep cool. “What’s her status?”

“
Head trauma, but she’s stable. Paramedics said she’d likely be fine, but she got lucky as hell. I guess she hit the ground pretty hard and went out like a prize fighter. You know her?” Noah’s rare look of surprise sent the emotion winging back at Jason, and he shrugged, scanning the tight corridor leading to the back of the diner for clues that didn’t seem to exist.

“
I eat here every Wednesday with my sister, remember?” Which meant that not only did Jason know who Serenity was, he also knew she ran Mac’s with enough precision to impress a drill sergeant, she made killer apple turnovers, and she had a dimple in her left cheek that could ruin the concentration of even the most steadfast of men. “Are the cook’s injuries serious?”

Noah shook his head
, eyes following Jason’s from the dark red brick walls on either side of them to the dimly lit strip of black asphalt beneath their feet. “Paramedics went vague on that one. But judging from the amount of blood on the floor, it wasn’t a scratch.”

“Don’t suppose we have a weapon?”

The snort coming from Noah was answer enough. “What, do you want tonight’s winning lottery numbers too?”

Damn, it was good to have the guy back. “Never hurts to ask,” Jason said, although yeah. It had been total wishful thinking.

“I told the paramedics to expect us for a statement from the owner as soon as the docs give the owner an all-clear.”

“
Okay, good.” Jason surveyed the alleyway, but the sharp tingle in his spine lingered. Man, he’d had Brentsville Hospital on auto-pilot lately, and the thought of someone he knew, even peripherally, having been sent there by some dirtbag doing B and E really pissed him off. He pulled in a breath, setting his unease aside in favor of his standard-issue laid back demeanor. They were going to find this guy regardless.

And the hospital was
a hell of a lot better than the morgue.

He and Noah
reached the back of the narrow alley that branched into a T, with the rear of the diner on one side and a set of row house-style attached offices on the other. Each outlet led to a separate cross-street on either side, and Jason frowned as he took a careful look at both. Easy in, easy out meant a hard case, and with nothing but the tall, windowless back side of another office building facing the corridor, they could pretty much kiss the possibility of a witness goodbye. This guy was either very lucky, or very good. Either way, catching a lead on him was going to be a pain in the ass.

Jaso
n gave the area one last visual. Oversized plastic recycling bins stood lined up at precise attention by the diner’s back door, and they were the only things in the alley besides the Dumpster at the far end and the perfectly swept stretch of pavement underfoot. No errant litter blowing around by the Dumpster, no cigarette butts…damn. There wasn’t so much as a gum wrapper on the asphalt.

His
radar twitched, just a low hum of something not-quite-right, but ignoring it was a non-option. “It’s pretty tidy back here, don’t you think?” Jason asked, sliding Noah a glance, and his partner’s expression mirrored his suspicion.

“
From what I saw, inside’s the same. Whoever did this knew enough to cover his tracks.”

The hum grew more insistent, stretching out like it planned to stick around.
“But it still looks like the robberies from a couple months ago,” he said.

The dark slashes of Noah’s brow
s went up. “We nailed Ernie Sands and the Black Skulls for those, and for putting a bullet in my arm while they were at it. You think these are related?”

Jason
took one last look around the weirdly pristine alley, slapping a lid over the swirl of unease in his gut with a shrug. All that coffee he’d mainlined on the way over here must be doing a number on his wiring. “Probably not. But there’s only one way to find out.”

After a quick yet thorough run
-through inside the diner, they left the crime scene techs to their fingerprint search and a pair of uniformed officers canvassing the area in search of potential witnesses. While hope didn’t exactly spring eternal for either one as a probability, a guy could dream. Of course, in the long run it didn’t really matter what kind of curveball this case threw at them.

He and Noah were going to solve it, because that’s what they did.
 

J
ason cleared his throat as he eased his Chevy Tahoe onto Fourth Street and headed toward Brentsville Hospital, pitching his voice to its most casual setting. “So did you see the memo Lieutenant Martin sent out this week?”

“
About the special task force unit they’re forming with vice?” Noah asked, flipping his Oakleys into place over his impossible to read stare.