Hard as It Gets (22 page)

Becca’s jaw dropped. “Charlie’s not an addict.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Marla said, flipping the pendant of her necklace between her fingers.

“What made you think that?” Nick asked.

“Dark circles, bloodshot eyes, all disheveled looking and acting paranoid. Plus, he paid with cash when he checked in, like he didn’t want anyone to know he was here. Almost everyone uses plastic these days.”

Becca whirled to Nick. “He’s not a user. I promise you that. God, after Scott—” She shook her head. “There’s no way.”

“I believe you. All of that could easily be explained by him being on the run for so long.”

Relief flooded through Becca’s chest, making it easier to breathe. That he outright believed her—no debating, no questioning, no measuring—meant the world to her. She sagged against him.

“Well, believe what you want. That’s what I saw.” Marla dropped the necklace and crossed her arms. Becca frowned and stared at the oval pendant.

“One last question,” Nick said. Marla rolled her eyes but nodded. “Was there anything left in his room after they left?”

“No, they cleaned it out. Now ’scuse me, I have to get back.”

The pendant had an engraved cursive
C
in the middle of the silver.
C,
for Cathy. Becca’s mother. Becca frowned, her heart nearly stopping cold, and stepped in front of Marla. “That’s my mother’s locket.” Her gaze flashed to the woman’s, who wouldn’t meet it back. “That’s my mother’s locket,” she said again, half disbelieving what she was seeing.

Marla shrugged. “I found it.”

Nick moved in closer. “Where?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It does to us.” He pulled another hundred out of his wallet. “Please give the lady back her family heirloom.”

For a long moment, Becca thought Marla was going to fight them, but the power of the stack of twenties in Nick’s hand apparently convinced her. She unhooked the necklace and almost threw it at Becca. “Was on the floor in his room. I didn’t steal it. Now ’scuse me.” They stepped to the side, and she darted past them.

Before Becca even had the chance to start freaking out—which she was well on her way to doing—Nick cupped her face in his hands and tilted it up. He kissed her forehead. “Knowing the details doesn’t change anything about his situation. I know that wasn’t easy to hear, but she gave some things to go on. At worst, this was net neutral. Okay?”

Neutral. Right. Charlie being kidnapped, hooded, and dragged away in a van. “I’m trying,” she said, gripping her mom’s locket tight.

“You’re doing great, Becca. Don’t doubt it for a minute. Oh, but unless you want to have a heart attack patient to care for, don’t run into a dark space without letting me clear it first. She could’ve been leading you into a trap.” That arched brow made a reappearance, and it was as sexy as it was stern, though he probably didn’t intend the former.

“I’m sorry. All I could think about was losing her.”

He kissed her forehead again. “I understand that. But I’m more worried about losing you.”

The words overwhelmed her with emotion—gratitude for his concern, admiration that a hard-edged soldier could show such tenderness, and another feeling, too. One that created a warm, expansive pressure in her chest. “Okay,” she managed. She opened her palm and showed the locket to Nick. “This was mine. It’s from my mom’s jewelry box in my room. I have no idea how Charlie would’ve gotten it.”

Nick frowned. “When was the last time he was at your place?”

She shook her head. “He came over for Christmas. So, about four months ago?”

“Let’s get you out of here and we can talk more about it.” He grasped her hand and led her back to Beckett and Shane, who had been standing guard outside the hallway. As they all made for Nick’s car, he said, “Street thugs grabbed him Monday morning. Emptied his room.”

“Well, that nails down time of disappearance, but it only hints at who took him,” Shane said. “Where to now?” He paused at the driver’s door to his big charcoal gray pickup.

“Back to Hard Ink, I guess,” Nick said.

“Wait.” Becca leaned into the crook of steel created by her open car door. “Can we go to my house?” She knew she couldn’t stay there, but there were some things she’d really like to check on and bring with her. And the morbid curiosity to see just how wrecked the place was had been crawling up her spine for the last day. She knew what Charlie’s apartment looked like. Was hers better? Worse? Maybe it was stupid to fixate on it, but the unknown felt harder to deal with than just facing it.

Nick frowned. “That’s a bad idea.”

His words didn’t surprise her at all, or deter her. “Just long enough to pick a few things up. While we have everyone with us?”

“Hold on,” he said, pulling his buzzing phone out of his pocket and holding it out. “Marz? On speaker again. What’s up?”

“Hey. Just relaying that a Walt Jackson called for Becca through the reward line. Asked if she could return to his place as soon as possible. That make sense to you?”

“Yeah,” she and Nick said at the same time.

“Also, FYI, we’re done with the cab trace. Charlie was grabbed from the Road Star Motel last Monday morning. Found a witness,” Nick said. Another moment or two of small talk, and they hung up.

Torn between disappointment at not getting to go home and anticipation of what Walt might have to say, Becca nodded. “Let’s go, then.” She slid into the soft leather seat and settled into the corner. Man, she was tired, just bone weary. But no matter how bad she felt, it couldn’t possibly come close to what Charlie was going through, and that’s what she had to remember. With Nick and Beckett murmuring in the front seat, she almost gave in to the lull of the road noise and let herself drift off.

Becca wedged open the oval locket and frowned. The pictures that had always lived inside, one of her dad in uniform and another of the three kids, were gone. Marla had replaced them with pictures of her own, apparently. Vibrating with anger, Becca tore the images out and snapped it shut.

Back at Walt’s, Nick said, “Don’t tell him anything about what we learned today, okay? It’s great that he was willing to help, but we have no idea who his son is, and you don’t really know Walt all that well.”

Scrubbing her hands over her face, Becca nodded. “I feel like we can trust him, but I get your point. I won’t say anything.”

Nick led her over to Shane’s truck. “The landlord’s skittish. You mind keeping a lookout? Unless you’d rather head back?”

“No. I’ll stay. I’m feeling a little like we’re flappin’ around in the wind. Makes sense to stay together,” Shane said.

Nick tapped the open window. “Agreed. Won’t be long.”

They crossed to Walt’s house, and he opened the door just before they reached his stoop. “Got the message, I see. Come in.” He stepped into the light of the hallway, revealing a busted lip.

“Walt, what happened?” Becca said.

“He got jumped is what happened,” a man said as he stepped into the foyer. Probably about forty, with Walt’s coloring, eyes, and freckles, and a tattoo of a snake coiling around the length of his right forearm.

“Not their fault. Becca, this is my son, Louis Jackson.”

“Hi,” she said with a quick shake. Nick and Beckett followed. “What happened to you?” she asked again, fear mixing with her exhaustion and hunger and making her shaky.

“Had a visitor downstairs. About two hours ago. Masked. Caught him coming out of Charlie’s. Chased him off but—”

“He got punched and knocked down for his trouble. Lucky it wasn’t worse,” Louis said, eyes flashing.

“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?” Guilt rushed through Becca’s body. She couldn’t believe whatever this was had spilled over on Walt, too.

He waved a hand. “Nothing that won’t heal.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t break a hip, Pop.”

Walt scoffed.

“Why the hell would they come back?” Nick asked. “Can we borrow your key, Walt? I’d like to see if anything’s changed since earlier.”

The old man fished the key ring out of his pocket. “Bring it right back.”

Nick turned to her. “Stay here and stay inside. We’ll check it out.”

Nodding, Becca watched them leave. She could just make out the sound of Charlie’s door opening. What the hell was going on? She turned back to Walt. “God, I’m really sorry. Do you need me to check you over? I’m a nurse.”

“No. Come on in and sit down,” he said. “Just a banged-up elbow, mostly. Survived worse. Will survive this.”

L
OUIS SAT NEXT
to her on the couch and pulled a stack of paper in front of him, including the sketch of her assailant’s tattoos. “I didn’t recognize the man, but I might know the tattoo,” he said, his tone less angry now. “See . . .” He pointed to the solid square she’d seen on the back of her assailant’s hand. “This by itself doesn’t mean anything, but it
could
mean something if there was more to it.” Grabbing a blank notepad he’d apparently brought for this purpose, he drew a series of symbols:

“I’m sorry. Would you mind waiting until my friends return? I don’t want to forget anything or miss asking a question.”

Louis tapped his pen on the page. “Sure. I’m sorry about your brother, by the way.”

Becca nodded. “Thank you.”

Long minutes passed. Occasionally she heard a dull thump or the low murmur of a voice from downstairs. Still holding her mom’s locket, she twisted the chain and turned the pendant in her hands. She flipped it open again, sadness filling her at the loss of the family photos. Why had Charlie taken the necklace? And when?

Becca leaned toward the lamp on the end table. There was something in the ovals where the pictures went. She gasped. A string of letters and numbers filled the two spaces, roughly engraved, as if by hand. She turned the silver to catch more light. The right side read, “WCE.” The left side was a string of numbers: 754374329. Without saying a word, she snapped it shut and slid it into her jeans pocket, her heart suddenly beating fast. She’d show Nick when they got home.

A knock sounded at the front door, and Becca nearly jumped. She rose as Walt and Louis made their way to the foyer, and Nick and Beckett followed them back into the living room a moment later.

Tension and anger radiating off him, Nick held out his hand. Two rectangular pieces of what looked like metal filled his palm. “Bugs,” he said. “That hadn’t been there this afternoon.”

“One audio and one video,” Beckett said.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Becca said. “They already have Charlie, why would they monitor his house now?”

“ ‘Monitor’ is precisely the right word. I think they’re watching for who’s coming and going. Maybe they already know someone’s searching for Charlie. Reward flyers have been up for a few hours, so it’s possible. And the timing would make sense.”

Beckett stepped to the coffee table. “Those are map symbols for churches.”

“That’s right.” Louis stabbed his pencil point into a black square. “But they’re also gang symbols. If this is what you saw, Becca, then the man who tried to abduct you is a member of the Church Organization, a prominent gang run by a crime lord named Jimmy Church.” Looking up, he met her gaze, then looked at Nick and Beckett. “And surveillance like that is definitely within their capability.”

“Okay,” she said, sitting down again.

“See,” he continued, “gangs are hierarchical institutions, and they have different ways of showing that. One is with tattoos. In the Church organization, the simple cross represents an affiliate member, almost like a prospective member. Youngsters. The cross and steeple symbol represents formal gang members. They’re officially in the gang. These are the guys doing the street hustling of drugs and guns and prostitutes. The cross and tower symbol is for hard-core gang members, men in their twenties or thirties who have fully adopted gangs as their lifestyle and run crews of younger members, seeking to expand business and territory to earn status. At the next-to-top are the apostles, who hold the leadership positions, often running the gang’s front businesses. They’ve earned their seniority with a lot of time on the streets and in prison, usually, and now they have the money and the influence to stay mostly clean of the illegal activities, all while directing them. At the top, of course, is Jimmy Church, the Messiah.”

“Uh, wow,” Becca managed, letting all that soak in. It was a whole other world. “Can I see?” He handed her the page. “I saw the square. That much I’m sure of. There wasn’t any writing beneath it. But it’s possible there was a cross atop it. I saw him from across the room, though, and I wasn’t really paying attention.” She looked up at Nick. “It’s possible there was a cross. I know there was something above the square.”

He nodded. “Louis, what kinds of drugs does this organization sell? Any specialties?”

“Well, everybody sells everything, but Church has been working to dominate the heroin trade for years. He inherited this organization from his grandfather, who back in the eighties sold most of the heroin in Baltimore. Church has probably built it back to about seventy-five percent dominance, so if someone’s selling heroin, they’re probably Church’s men.”

“Can I ask why you’re willing to tell her all this?” Beckett asked, arms crossed, expression serious as a heart attack.