Vendetta (24 page)

Vincent’s mouth stretched into a tight line. “Joey’s in college. Tess said he’s the family’s pride and joy. He had more to lose than Nico.”

“A life is a life,” she said fiercely. “One’s not ‘better’ than the other. And they actually did more damage that way, destroying one branch of the family by killing the father and another by burying their son alive. No wonder Tess was a mess after she called me from Rikers.” She paused, still unsure about discussing her father’s escape. She let a couple seconds drag by. Sometimes the best way to get over something was to go through it. It was foolish to think that it wouldn’t be on Vincent’s mind. Constantly.

“She also told me what Joey said about my father’s escape. The guards knew, Vincent. They let it happen.” His mood went darker still and she saw the anger smoldering in his eyes. He could tame it now, most of the time. But how could she expect him to not to react when she could feel her own blood boiling?

“So did guards let him out? Or did people come in?” Vincent asked.

She said, “They wore ski masks and they carried weapons.”

“So, covert ops all the way. I wonder how they made it happen. Rikers is huge.”

She shared every drop of his bitterness. “You only have to buy off a couple of people if you know which ones to go to. But even Joey knew about it.”

“Unless Joey’s lying. Maybe he’s trying to come up with the right information to make himself valuable to you.”

“Tess wants to get him released as soon as we can.” She drank some of her coffee. She hadn’t realized until that moment that she’d used up all her reserves. She’d been running on empty for so long it had begun to feel normal.

“We’ll help him,” Vincent said.

“It’s just… we can’t help him right now. And I hate it that I can’t go after my father
now
. And this kidnapping investigation is moving too slowly.”

He rolled over on his side and gently brushed a tendril of hair away from her eyes. He kissed her temple.

“It’s not. It just seems that way because you’re not in the mix. They’re sidelining you and you like to call the shots.”

“No,” she said, and then she thought it over. He was right. “I’ve worked on a team before. But there’s no team here.” “Agreed. And we’ve taken matters into our own hands.”

“But not with my father.” She placed her hand on his broad chest, unaware that she was calibrating his heartbeat until its calm, steady beat soothed her. “At least, not while they’re watching me,” she amended.

“They’re not watching
me
,” he countered.

She cupped his cheek. “Everyone is watching you. Every time you do anything, you’re putting yourself at risk. Does Nico know who you are?”

“Not so far, but I was pretty surprised that he didn’t. All he knows is that we want to help. He thinks that’s why I went after him in the first place. To scoop him up and keep him safe from Robertson and Gonzales.” Before she could ask the question, he answered. “I took him to J.T.”

Cat’s stomach twisted in a knot. “But Nico will put two and two together. If he figures out that J.T. is your friend, he might make a deal with Robertson and Gonzales—his cousin for Vincent Keller.”

“It’s done. Tess and J.T. took him to a house Claudia had planned to take him to. He had the address, but he’s never been there before.”

She relaxed, but only a little. At least Nico wasn’t compromising J.T.’s home with his presence. “So who does he think all of us are? He talks to me on Claudia’s phone, and you scoop him directly off the street? And does he know Tess is a cop?”

“He thinks we’re part of McEvers’ undercover sting operation after Robertson and Gonzales,” he said. He smiled grimly. “Which is closer to the truth than it’s not.”

She took another bite of her sandwich. She knew she was hungry but she didn’t feel it. She needed to get back in the game, get things done. Claudia’s crime scene was secured, evidence bagged and tagged, and her part was over. There would be an autopsy. Her discovering Claudia had probably red-flagged her, and the more she found out about Robertson and Gonzales, the more she realized that she needed to lay very, very low.

“Hey, busy brain,” he said.

“I was wondering if we could link the blackout to Angelo’s abduction. The blackout has been classified as an act of terrorism,” she told him. They both knew what that meant: FBI jurisdiction. But a different task force would investigate it. Robertson and Gonzales would not be there to obstruct justice.

Thank God.

“I don’t think it was intended to be a terrorist act,” Cat said.

Vincent looked over at her. “Sure it was. Just for a different kind of war.”

She took a drink of coffee. “I want to talk to Nico-face-to face. I’ll need the address of the house.”

“You’ve been working too long. You need a break.”

“Now with all this going on.” She set the coffee and plate on her nightstand. “You shouldn’t come with me. You’ve been out on the streets too much in the last two days. You’re playing Russian roulette.”

He opened his mouth to argue, and she gave him The Look. Instead of acquiescing, as she expected, he wrapped his arms around both her shoulders and eased her onto her back. His eyes flared and his hand trailed to the belt of her robe. He loosened it, all the while his gaze locked on hers. He pushed the fabric away. His hand splayed across her bare stomach, and he stirred.

“We can’t do this now,” she whispered.

“We have to do this now,” he replied.

Then his lips were on hers, and his arms came around her, and he was right. There was no decision to make; choice was an illusion. The imperative to make love with Vincent could not be refused. They were a nimbus of life in a black sky of death. They moved through that shadowy sky together as they had so many times before. Stars gathered in Vincent’s eyes, in his hair, his smile. In the proof of his link with her.

Destined.

“Catherine,” he murmured. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Vincent,” she whispered back.

Weakened by weariness, they gave each other strength; distressed by injustice, they soothed each other with hope. Unclothed and vulnerable, they dressed each other in the armor of warriors.

When it was over, they lay for precious seconds in each other’s arms. Then she called Tess and told her she was on their way. She also told Vincent that he was
not
coming.

He went to the window and pulled back the curtain so that she could see the darkened sky. The city glow was there. For the majority of New Yorkers, all was right with the world once more.

They both began to dress. Cat wondered if Vincent realized that he was just as sexy getting dressed as he was when he was taking it all off. Then she wondered exactly what he was getting dressed
for.

“You’re not coming with me.”

She prepared herself for an argument but all he said was, “I know.”

“Oh.” She was pleased.

“I’ll check Turntable. See what I can glean from there.” When she parted her lips to argue, he kissed them. “I won’t talk to anyone. I won’t let anyone see me.”

She groaned. “You know, just… I guess it was yesterday… I was thinking how much I was enjoying being on a case with you again. It’s like when we first met.”

“I remember. We found out that we made a great team.”

“Yes. Except I think there’s even more danger now, rather than less.” She felt pensive. “I thought once we brought Muirfield down, things would be different. That you would finally be safe.”

He grunted. “At least I never had that illusion.” She felt such a sense of loss for him until he added, “I’ve already accepted that
you’ ll
never be safe. You’re a police officer.”

“And…” She gazed at him in wonderment. “…you’d never ask me to give that up?”

“It’s what you are,” he said simply. “Unless you gave it up because you wanted to, you wouldn’t be Catherine Chandler anymore.”

“And I accept you as you are,” she murmured.

“Beast and all?”

“All.” She dimpled. “Well, except for the snoring.” He blinked, affronted. “I do not snore!”

They finished dressing and left Cat’s apartment separately, she directly to her car and he off into the night. Troubled, she watched him go, replaying their conversation in her mind. She did love Vincent, did accept him as he was, but she didn’t know in her heart if she thought of his beast side as a part of him, or
apart
from him. She had chosen to be a cop. He had not chosen to be a beast.

But I didn’t chose to be Bob Reynolds’ daughter, either, and Vincent has moved on past that.

She left the Village, and then the city, passing boarded-over windows, grim reminders that less than forty-eight hours ago, New York had been caught in a blackout. She called Tess.

“On my way.”

T
ess and J.T. had driven Nico way out into the sticks in Yonkers. J.T. had left Mr. Boston White Sox at his place with his new litter box, food, and toys, and Tess was charmed by how worried her man was about his new, possibly temporary, pet.

The house was plain and old with solid bars on the windows. Nico didn’t have a key, and neither did anyone else. Finally Tess went around to the back, scoured around under a million rocks and a cracked garden gnome, and found the key. Nico was very impressed when she came out of the front door and ushered J.T. and him inside. They found some canned food and coffee in the cupboard and Nico sat down to a bowl of fruit cocktail and coffee that she, Tess, made, so that her witness would live another day.

“Stay away from the windows. And
what
are you doing with your phone?” Tess said. J.T. looked up from his laptop—he was checking for news coverage on Nico’s disappearance and Claudia’s murder—as Tess held out her hand.

“Give it. I
told
you not to call anybody and you have not been that stupid, right?”

When he hesitated, she cleared her throat and said, “Unless you
want
Robertson and Gonzales to show up and kill you.”

“Everybody is worried about me,” he said. “My family. If I can just tell them I’m okay. My ma. She already lost my dad.”

Tess was incensed. “You called her. You told her where you are.”

“No.”

This kid could not lie to save his life. Literally. She gave him a stern look and he flushed to his ginger roots.

“Okay, I tried to call my ma but I don’t know, I guess something went wrong but the call didn’t go through. I only tried the one time and—”

“
What?
” Tess looked at J.T. “Did it not go through because of some kind of jamming? I’m flushing it.”

“In the
toilet
?” Nico cried. “Do you know how long I had to work to pay for that?”

“You can get another one. Unless they’ve got some kind of trace on it. Then you’ll never
need
another one.”

“It was the bars! I didn’t have enough bars!” he pleaded. He held it out to her.

“Turn it off!” she yelled at him.

He cradled it against his chest. J.T. rose from his laptop and said in a pretty scary voice, “
Give her your phone now.
”

“Okay, okay,” Nico said.

Tess was impressed by J.T.’s manly attitude.
That’s my man. Supernerd
, she thought.

Nico pointed to J.T.’s phone, which sat beside his laptop on the dining room table. “See how many bars
you
have.”

Tess grabbed the phone at the same time that J.T. looked at his own phone. “One bar,” he reported.

“See? I’m telling you the truth!” Nico cried. “Please don’t flush it down the toilet.”

I’m never having children
, Tess thought. She opened it up and pulled out the SIM card. She put the card in one pocket and the phone in another.

“I’m going to take a look around outside. J.T., you have the con.”

“Oh, my God, you made a
Star Trek
reference,” J.T. breathed, with the same joy that some men said, “The Mets beat the Yankees.”

“I can feel my DNA mutating,” Tess muttered. “I’m going outside.” To Nico, she added, “Stay away from the windows or I
will
flush it.”

He nodded like a bobble head, then got quiet as Tess pulled out and examined her weapon. Given what a quivering mess he had been when she’d gone over to J.T.’s to drive him up here, she couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been to use his phone when she had expressly forbidden it.

The Palmieri gene pool
, Tess thought.
Not very deep.

Porch light off, door open, out she went. Cat should be on her way, so she’d keep a lookout for her. The neighborhood was fairly secluded but there was still a bit of traffic from people at the end of their work days. She wasn’t sure how to quantify when this workday had actually started. Or even what case she was on.

Hang on, Angelo
, she thought.

A streetlight cast a glow on the house’s cement walkway, which connected to the sidewalk. There were bushes and trees everywhere, and fences and the echo of a couple of barking dogs. She kept her gun drawn but down at her side. Listened carefully for anomalies between the surges of traffic. Looked back at the house. If someone was watching, she didn’t want to get too far away. She retraced her steps and went the other way.

There was a glint of metal in one of the bushes fronting the next house over. Could be a tricycle or a sprinkler head or a .357 Magnum.

Soundlessly, she melted into the foliage and threaded her way in that direction. And just as soon as she had gone maybe ten feet, she
knew
she was in trouble. At that precise instant, someone jumped down from the tree above her, clipping her, sending her to the ground.
Keep the gun
, she told herself as she saw stars, then burst into action. The jumper would be disoriented, too, for one or two seconds. She grabbed that advantage and rolled as she fought to regain her equilibrium.

She flopped over onto her front, then pushed herself up to a standing position with knees flexed. Her assailant bounced back up and darted into the trees. Tess extended her arms and spread her legs, making a tripod to support her weapon.