Sheltering Dunes (27 page)

Flynn didn’t touch her, as if knowing that Mica would not tolerate being restrained. “Allie and another officer were at the door. They wanted to talk to you, Mica. Not arrest you, talk to you. If you go willingly—”

Mica snorted. “Jesus, when are you going to grow up? You believed what they said? That’s what they always say. Right before they put you in a room and close the door and leave you there without anything to drink or anything to eat or anyplace to piss. They leave you there until the walls close in, and you’ll say anything and do anything just to be treated like a human being again.” She shoved Flynn’s shoulder and Flynn stepped aside, her hands still by her side.

“They’re outside, Mica. They’ll pick you up anyway,” Flynn called as Mica hit the first stair down.

Mica spun around, fury raging through her. “You brought them here? I trusted you.”

“I know. And I trust you. I know you told me the truth. I trust you’re here and not in Philadelphia with him because you know what you have to do. You know the right thing.”

Mica straightened, considering her options. Flynn was probably telling the truth, inasmuch as she knew it. She couldn’t know what being pulled in for “questioning” was like. Maybe they didn’t plan on arresting her right now, but if they got her in a box and she couldn’t bluff her way out, she might end up behind bars all the same. She had her pay in her pocket—just short of a hundred dollars. She could get a long ways on that if she could make it out of town. But she needed to get up-Cape and had no way to do that without taking the bus. Even the ferry wasn’t running anymore. She had no time and no way out. She’d run to the end of the line.

She’d bluffed her way through all those years with Hector, and he’d never known she loathed every touch, every glance, every minute she spent with him. She could bluff her way through a couple of hours, hell, a whole day of interrogation if that’s what it took. If they knew anything, they’d be here to charge her, not talk.

She picked up her bag and started down the stairs. Flynn’s steps echoed hers.

“Mica—”

She didn’t slow, didn’t look back. “There’s nothing you can say I want to hear. Like I already told you, I don’t need a priest.”

*

Looking straight ahead and making sure her face was blank, Mica walked out the front door. Her shoulders tightened when she saw the cops. They weren’t hard to make, although they were both in street clothes. She recognized the pretty one, Allie. The one who’d dated Flynn. She flicked her gaze to the good-looking dude with her—tight jeans, short-sleeved button-up black shirt, black boots. Small breasts, lean hips. She knew plenty of girls who would go for her. They pushed away from the SUV they were leaning against and started toward her. The only way to deal with cops was to surprise them and never let them know you were scared. She crossed directly to them, meeting up a few feet from their vehicle.

“I hear you’re looking for me,” Mica said.

“That’s right,” Allie said. “We’d like to talk to you.”

“Talk?”

“Just talk,” the black-haired one said. “My name is Bri Parker. You remember Allie Tremont?”

Mica smirked. “We keep bumping into each other, so yeah, I know who she is.”

“We’d like you to come to the sheriff’s department with us,” Parker said. “We want to talk to you about Philadelphia.”

“And if I don’t?” Mica said, thinking fast. Philadelphia. So they knew who she was. If they knew that, then they knew almost everything. But they hadn’t come to arrest her. So they didn’t have much. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

“It’s a free country,” Allie said. “And you know your rights without us needing to tell you.” She spread her hands in a
See? I’m being friendly and reasonable
gesture. “But like I said earlier, someone tried for you once. There’s another girl who looks a lot like you lying in intensive care in Hyannis. I think they thought she was you. They almost killed her. Next time, they might not miss.”

“If I’m not here, then I don’t have to worry about that, do I?”

“Probably not,” Allie said. “You can disappear again, for a while. But you know they’re going to look for you. And who do you think they’re going to ask first?”

Heat scorched through Mica’s chest. There was a reason she didn’t get close to people. Caring about people made you vulnerable, because they could be used against you. She’d spent years under Hector’s thumb, under his goddamn hot, sweaty, cruel body to keep herself and her family alive. He’d promised that her little sister would not get passed around when she came of age and La Mara recruited her, and he’d sworn that her little brother would not have to kill or risk being killed by MS-13. She’d sacrificed more than her pride and her body and her conscience to assure he kept his word. She’d shut herself off from caring about anyone. When you didn’t care, you couldn’t be hurt.

And now there was Flynn. Flynn, who refused to be frightened when she should be. Flynn, who thought her faith and her crazy-ass ideas of right and wrong were enough to make a difference. And maybe they were. Maybe they were for most people, but not for her. Not in her world. Faith, trust, love, and loyalty weren’t part of her world. Letting Flynn get to her had made her forget the lessons she carried in her scars, inside and out. She was probably going to pay in blood for that mistake, but Flynn didn’t have to.

“Let’s go,” Mica said, gesturing to the SUV.

Allie quickly covered her surprise with a brisk nod and opened the back door. “Bri—you drive.”

Mica was almost inside when Flynn called, “Wait. I’m coming.”

Mica slid into the back as Flynn crossed the street.

Allie blocked the door. “I’m sorry, Flynn, but you can’t come.”

Flynn leaned around Allie and peered into the backseat. “Mica? Are you all right?”

Mica ignored her and stared at the back of Parker’s head. Flynn didn’t move even when the cop told her to. Flynn never gave up. And she’d just get herself in deeper if Mica didn’t find a way to shut her out. She had to drive Flynn off. She thought of Flynn’s story of the girl she couldn’t save. Flynn had been wrong to feel guilty, to feel responsible, but she’d probably never believe it. Flynn only knew how to care.

Mica turned on the seat and looked out at Flynn. “You think you know what’s best for people, when you don’t really see them at all. You think the collar you’re still wearing, even if you pretend not to be, gives you the right to interfere in other people’s lives. Your arrogance blinds you. I don’t want to be the next one to get killed.” She grabbed the door and pulled it closed. The heavy thud echoed the heaviness in her heart at the flash of pain and sorrow in Flynn’s eyes.

Flynn jerked back from the SUV, pain lancing through her chest.
The next one to get killed. Your arrogance…Your arrogance…

“Sorry about that,” Allie said.

“No,” Flynn said. “She’s right.”

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Allie said, “but I know she’s wrong.” She gripped Flynn’s arm. “Look, I need to go. And you need to let her go, Flynn.”

“Take care of her, Allie.”

“Damn you,” Allie muttered. “Damn you for asking that.” She stalked around the front of the vehicle. “I will if I can.”

Flynn stood in the street as the SUV rolled away.

You need to let her go, Flynn.

Allie was right. Mica didn’t trust her. Mica didn’t want her. She had made the same mistake with Mica she’d made with Debbie—she’d fooled herself into believing her reality was theirs. Her blindness had cost Debbie her life. Mica was right. They were all right. She needed to let her go.

The sheriff’s department was a lot cozier than the lockups Mica was accustomed to. When they brought her through a side door into a short hallway, she smelled pizza and cleaning solution. Not the usual piss and vomit stench that always seemed to hover in the Philly station. The windowless interrogation room, what
they
called the interview room, was just like the others she’d been in. Gunmetal gray table bolted to the floor in the center of a bare-walled room, plain metal chairs, big O-rings welded to the table for handcuffs. She wasn’t wearing handcuffs, but she might as well have been. When Allie’d said, “Have a seat. I’ll be back in a minute,” and walked out, the snap of the lock slamming shut on the interrogation room door was as sharp as the clang of the steel bars on a jail cell driving home. There was no door handle on the inside. No way out.

Mica glanced up at the surveillance camera in the corner, smiled, and sat back in her chair. Folding her arms over her chest, she stretched out her legs and tilted her head back against the hard metal chair. The ceiling had water stains on it that looked kind of like clouds if she squinted. She tried to let her mind go blank, but she kept seeing Flynn’s face—the hurt and sad acceptance. Like Flynn believed what she had said. Mica flinched inside at the idea of hurting Flynn, who had to be one of the only people in her life who’d stood up for her. Stood by her. But she’d had to hurt her to keep her safe. All the same, she hated herself a little for putting that wounded look in Flynn’s eyes.

Maybe someday, if she got out of this alive, she’d say she was sorry. Right now she had to get her head in the game and try to piece together what they might have on her. Unlike so many of the other La Mara crew, male and female alike, she hadn’t wanted to make her name by pulling some big job, or to gain a reputation by being arrested and doing the time without giving anyone up. As Hector’s old lady, she didn’t have to participate in anything she didn’t want to—unless Hector wanted her with him. Then she couldn’t avoid getting pulled into his action.

Thinking back to what they could put on her, she only came up with the night she’d been with Hector after some of his crew had hijacked a truckload of electronics on an exit ramp off the New Jersey Turnpike. She hadn’t been in on the heist and didn’t know many of the details, only that he’d gone out in the Hummer to oversee the transfer and had picked her up on the way back. He always wanted sex after he’d made a big score. Liked to recount the events while she blew him and, if she didn’t get him off right away, while he fucked her. Of course, he wanted sex most of the time—when he was feeling good, when he was feeling frustrated, when he was angry, when he needed to demonstrate his authority. He especially liked having sex with his crew around, so they could watch him dominate her.

That night the police had pulled them over right after he’d picked her up, and took them in for questioning. She didn’t know anything except what she’d overheard when Hector was deploying his lieutenants, and that hadn’t been much. Hector didn’t talk about his business with her, and when he tried, she changed the subject. She didn’t want to know. She wasn’t naïve, she knew what he did. She knew evil when in its presence, but she was smart enough to know that what she knew could one day get her killed or put her in jail. She hadn’t told the cops anything and after twelve hours, they’d let her go.

Now she balanced on the razor’s edge between death and being put away. If Hector found out she was talking to the law, or even suspected she had, he would kill her. If she didn’t go back to him, he would kill her. And if she talked about what he’d done and the knowledge implicated her, she could go to jail. If she tried for a plea bargain, Hector would kill her before she ever had a chance to testify against him. The only way out was to deny everything. If she didn’t cooperate, if she gave them nothing and could keep running until she disappeared, she might live. She’d be living in the shadows, a shadow herself, and might not have much of a life, but breathing was always better than not. Maybe.

A lot of maybes.

So she waited. She figured they’d take at least an hour, maybe two to soften her up, wait until she was anxious, hungry, and thirsty. Maybe wait until her nerves had her bladder on edge and then force her to talk while she was worried she might disgrace herself.

A sharp knock came on the door and Allie walked back in with someone new. Another rangy, dark-haired stud, this one tougher around the edges than the one Allie had been with before—carved cheekbones, blocky jawline, intense sea-blue eyes. Cop’s eyes. Harder, more experienced than the ones she’d been looking into recently.

“This is Detective Mitchell,” Allie said. “She’s got a story for you.”

Mitchell pulled out a chair opposite Mica, and Allie took up a post by the door.

So they hadn’t made her wait, and now this new one was going to take the lead. Huh. She would’ve figured Allie to be the one in charge. Maybe this was her boss.

“I’m from Philadelphia,” Mitchell said. “I wanted to talk to you about Hector.”

“Hector who? Lots of dudes named Hector.”

Mitchell smiled. “I guess that’s true. But I think we both know who we’re talking about. And since I’m not here to run any games on you, I’ll lay it out.”

And she did. Mitchell told her how they’d been watching Hector and his crew and her. She showed her a picture of her with Hector and a couple of his lieutenants. Mitchell said they knew about Hector’s jobs, and they knew she was Hector’s girl, and Hector’s girl had to know what Hector was doing. They didn’t want her, Mitchell said, they wanted Hector. They wanted her to help them get him.

“If you know so much,” Mica said, staring at a stain on the ceiling over Mitchell’s head that looked a little like roadkill, “why don’t you just go get him.”