Ex's and O'S (26 page)

“No ma’am,” the police officer answered.

Adam had the dawning thought that he didn’t have to remember the man’s name. It

was on his shirt. Lukowski.

Lukowski glanced at Adam and promptly turned a ruddy shade that at least broke up the bland colouring. “But I didn’t know he was gay, either, until I came here.”

Adam didn’t bother asking if that was a problem. The man was friends with Nick and Josh. He scraped his voice past his desert dry throat as he locked gazes with Lukowski. “He EX’S AND O’S

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wouldn’t be so irresponsible. Just because he kept his private life private doesn’t mean he’s a different person from the man you’ve known.”

“But I didn’t know him, not really,” Lukowski said. “Or not on a personal level, but you’re right. His work ethic hadn’t changed at all. Still, he wouldn’t have been the first person to—”

“But he didn’t,” Adam snapped, shoving up from the couch. “So where is he?” He was very much afraid he knew that answer, at least in general. Les was in the hands of Rollins’ thugs, or Rollins himself. Maybe Lukowski was right and he should never have come here.

“Did he tell you about someone hanging around the alley across from the station?”

Lukowski asked.

“Yes.” And Adam knew then, with a certainty that left him as cold as the Arctic

tundra. “He went to confront whoever was in the alley, or to wait for them.”

Lukowski nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving Adam’s. “That’s what I was afraid

of, what I think now. I checked the alley before I came here. Couldn’t tell if there’d been a scuffle there or not—there’s trash everywhere. But I didn’t find Les, which means either he’s hunting whoever that was down, or…”

He didn’t need to say anything more. Les wouldn’t have taken off and left them all worrying after him. Adam knew Rollins had taken Les, and judging by the sympathetic and worried gazes of the others in the room, they knew it too.

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Hours earlier…

Les kicked a bag of trash out of his way, frustration making him careless with his strength. The bag burst and spewed rotten food and God only knew what else across the alley. There was nothing here, not the slightest hint that anyone had been using this place to watch him. Les had been so sure he’d find something, maybe even the man who’d been watching him. As he’d stepped outside, he’d felt eyes on him. Les hadn’t been able to spot his watcher, though, and he’d gone into the alley hoping if nothing else the guy would follow him here. That hadn’t happened, and now Les was as rank as the alley and at his wit’s end as to his next move.

“What are you doing?”

Les looked up at the familiar voice and grimaced. “Looking for a clue, a freaking map to Rollins and a signed confession, notarised by God, the President and the Pope.” He propped his hands on his hips and glared at Lukowski. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Besides throwing a hissy fit and, as difficult as it is to do, making this alley even more disgusting?”

Les snarled at the man and just barely resisted kicking another bag. “I can’t find anything on Rollins, legally, anyway. I thought, maybe…” he shrugged and looked away from Lukowski. “This needs to end. Adam and Charlene shouldn’t have to be afraid to live their lives.”

“You mention them a lot,” Lukowski said in a neutral tone. “Well, a lot for you,

anyway. Especially Adam. I have to wonder.”

Les’ whipped his head around and narrowed his eyes at the other police officer. “You don’t have to wonder anything. It’s not your business.” His heart was pounding so hard his fingers tingled.

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Lukowski narrowed his eyes right back. Les sighed and started to scrub at his face then dropped his hands back to his sides. “Look, I don’t understand what exactly you’re implying or why you’re implying it, but just leave it alone, okay? I don’t have the time or the patience to deal with it right now.”

In the blink of an eye, Lukowski’s expression shifted back to the friendly visage Les was used to seeing. “Okay, you’re right. I apologise. I guess I’m just a little jealous that you and Adam seem to be such good friends after only a few weeks when I’ve never even been able to get you to hang out, you know?” He waved his hand when Les, feeling like the shittiest human being ever, would have spoken. “No, don’t worry about it. It’s my problem.”

Les didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t realised Lukowski really gave a damn

whether he hung with the guy or not. He also wondered if Lukowski had been hoping for something more than friendship, but that was a question he’d never ask.

“So,” Lukowski said brightly, “tell me what I can do to help.”

“After I shower off in the locker room,” Les muttered. He always kept an extra

uniform at work, just like the other officers did. “I can’t stand the smell of myself.”

Lukowski muttered an agreement but put a hand on Les’ arm when he would have

walked by. The man’s brown eyes were wide, nearly pleading, as he held onto Les. “Please, just tell me. You can shower after.” He wrinkled his nose and sniffed. “We both will. I think I’ve caught the alley funk odour too.”

Les started to jerk his arm back and shove past Lukowski, but there was a spark of desperation in the man’s brown eyes that made him rethink the impulse. Finally he nodded and shared his plan to find Rollins, his belief there had to be something to bring the asshole down with. He just didn’t have the skills needed to attain such information.

Lukowski sucked his bottom lip between his teeth before releasing it with a soft

sound. He tugged Les back into the alley, as if afraid someone would hear them. Les wanted out of the stench, but allowed himself to be led several feet back into the nasty place. He still felt bad for blowing Lukowski off all those times. “So you need a hacker, someone who can access Rollins’ private information. Probably I can help you with that.”

Les shook his head. “No, I don’t want you doing anything illegal. I’ll find a way to nail Rollins’ balls to the wall. Maybe Chase will know someone I can hire.”

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Lukowski frowned briefly as he went back to torturing his lip before speaking. “Chase is that guy in the hospital, right?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to ask him because I’m pretty sure he’ll find a way to escape from the hospital and hunt Rollins down and kill him, very slowly.”

“Huh.” The other man glanced up at the strip of blue sky between the two buildings.

He let go of Les and scratched at his chin before tucking his hands in his pockets. “Have I told you about my cousin?”

“No,” Les practically snapped. What the fuck did Lukowski’s cousin have to do with anything? Then Lukowski began talking about ‘Beto’ and his amazing computer skills, pointing out that Beto was also a licensed PI.

“Maybe I can take you over there now, if he’s available,” Lukowski offered.

Les grimaced and looked down at his filthy uniform. “No, I need to shower before going over—” He didn’t see the blow coming until it was too late. Pain exploded in his temple and Les crumpled onto the rancid garbage beneath him. Les didn’t even come to when the cuffs snapped tight around his wrists, or when Lukowski left him long enough to get his SUV and pull it up to the alley.

In fact, he only regained consciousness when Lukowski doused him with ice cold

water. Les came to with a gasp, his temple radiating increasingly intense waves of pain. He pried open his eyes and tried to blink away the double vision. Anger, betrayal—hurt—Les’

head throbbed with those emotions as Lukowski looked down at him with that same fucking friendly expression. “Why?” Les slurred, or thought he did. He wasn’t sure he’d actually pushed the word out.

Lukowski shrugged without looking the least bit repentant. “Why else? Money. Once your body is found and the furore dies down, I’ll quietly resign, unable to continue working as a police officer after my ‘friend’s’ death—except, you weren’t ever my friend, not really, were you Les? Too good to hang with someone like me.”

Les was reeling, physically and emotionally. He fell onto his side and gasped as the pain in his head doubled. How had he been so blind to Lukowski’s duplicitous nature?

“If it helps any, I would have sold you out even if you were my friend,” Lukowski said in a bland tone. “Rollins has a lot of money, and he’s very generous with it—or at least, EX’S AND O’S

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he was to me.” He chuckled and slapped Les’ cheek hard enough to make Les’ eyes water.

Still, he forced words passed the tight ball of fear in his throat.

“I don’t understand why he’d want me dead.”

Lukowski sat back on his heels and shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?” then he smiled. “Are you thinking this is the part where I explain everything?” His smile vanished and he stared at Les intently. “It’s not going to happen. And you know you aren’t the one Rollins really wants, but you’re in the way. Now.” Lukowski stood and brushed his hands against his pants. “I refused to kill you, so Rollins will be sending someone along to do that as soon as I let him know I have you. Shouldn’t be too long. I better get back to work for a while before going and nabbing your pretty little boyfriend.”

Les hadn’t been terrified, truly, completely terrified, until that moment. He shouted, adrenalin surging through him as panic welled and, spurred by the thought of Adam in this crazy bastard’s hands, Les surged to his knees, intent on killing Lukowski.

Lukowski clucked his tongue and danced away. “Now, that’s just stupid. Go back to sleep and make this whole dying shit easier on yourself.”

Les lurched to the side but, hands cuffed and on his knees, couldn’t avoid the solid kick. Lukowski’s boot connected with Les’ already battered temple with a sickening sound.

Les’ last thought was that he’d fucked up and Adam was going to die because of that fact.

“We can’t file a report yet,” Lukowski said when Nick tried to argue the matter. “Les hasn’t been missing for more than a few hours, we have no proof he didn’t just go off somewhere.”

This was definitely getting more complicated by the minute. He hadn’t expected to run into Nick and Josh here, and now he was afraid there’d be more dead bodies than he’d counted on when he’d taken Rollins’ money. And, he kind of actually was friends with Nick and Josh. It sucked that they were going to have to die, but really, they shouldn’t have come over. He had been doing just fine with his whole panicking partner act. Eventually Adam would have opened the door. He’d have subdued the little guy and his bitch of a mom easily then handed them over and been done with all this mess. Now he was going to have to let EX’S AND O’S

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Rollins know he’d need to find more spots to dump the extra bodies.
Shit. Well, thank fuck
none of them have a clue. I’ve always been able to fool anyone
. Les did the stoic thing, but Bart could take friendly to a whole new level, one where no one suspected it was all just an act.

He was simply that damned good.

He tuned back into the conversation when he felt that bitch’s eyes on him. Bart kept his expression locked in place despite the urge to cringe. Maybe he’d kill Charlene himself. It would probably be worth risking the death penalty.

“What exactly do you suggest we do?” Her icy blue eyes seemed to drive spikes into his brain, threatening the façade he’d never once let slip. “Form a search party?”

Bart blinked and shook his head. “No, I think, if this Rollins guy has Les, y’all will be getting a phone call.” Fuck, could the bitch’s eyes get any narrower without closing completely?

“What makes you say that?” she asked.

Bart fought back the shiver that tried to shoot up his spine. He really hated this woman. “Because Rollins is after Adam, not Les. I’d imagine Les is bait, nothing more.”

And he hadn’t phrased that right, because he had four sets of eyes glaring daggers at him, and Adam was making this rumbling noise—Bart rushed to cover up his mistake. “I meant to Rollins, of course. Les means a great deal to all of us.” Bart easily worked up a few tears, which he swiped off his cheeks. “I’m sorry, I’m upset too and not thinking before I speak. I—”

Charlene’s snort startled Bart into silence. He wasn’t the only one gaping at her like she was insane, either, something that gave him a secret burst of joy. At least he wasn’t the only one to think she was off her rocker, and even though the other three men were, for all intents and purposes, dead men walking—well, sitting—he liked that second of camaraderie when they all stared at Charlene.

Then she pointed one small thin finger at him, and, with one sentence, she turned the tide on him. “I don’t trust you.”

Ah well. He’d tried to do it the easy way. Bart widened his eyes under four sets of suspicious ones. “I don’t know why you’d say that,” he said with enough hurt to make it sound sincere. Bart made as if to push up from his seat, which he did, but he also unholstered his gun and had it pointed at Charlene before he’d even straightened up all the EX’S AND O’S

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way. He ignored the gasps and curses from the men, although when they started to rise he cut them a glance and shook his head. “I don’t like this bitch, so don’t think I won’t blow her head off. I’m actually looking forward to doing just that right after I make her watch me kill Adam.” Maybe Rollins would give him a substantial bonus for doing the dirty work after all.

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Les had been betrayed by the fucking bastard holding a gun aimed at Charlene’s

head—that smiling, friendly-looking, eerily bland fucking bastard! The need to pound the man’s head into the ground until there was nothing left but blood, tissue and tiny bone shards had Adam clenching every muscle to keep from lunging. He was going to take that fucker down, soon.