Crash & Burn by Abigail Roux
“Did you really have to stick me this deep?”
“It had to look real.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty fucking real.”
“Walk it off, O’Flaherty.” Liam paused to hitch Nick higher on his shoulder. “You stuck to the script?”
“Like Velcro. Told him you knifed me. I fucking begged him for help.”
“That bastard. I told you not to admit you’d killed Burns.”
“Oh my God,” Nick grunted.
“What good could come from him knowing that shit, hmm?”
“None. But I had to tell him. I had to just . . .”
Liam huffed. “You convinced me this was the better plan.”
“I know.”
“Made me throw my frozen finger overboard.”
“I know,” Nick muttered. “What’s Plan B?”
Liam’s hand tightened on Nick’s arm. “We don’t have a Plan B.”
“I don’t get it,” Kelly said for perhaps the fourth time in the last hour. “How the fuck could you do that, Ty? He’s your best friend!”
Ty shook his head. “That didn’t stop him from killing Richard Burns, did it?”
Kelly snarled, and Ty just shrugged like it didn’t bother him.
Zane knew it did, though. He was working hard to keep his opinions to himself and trying to keep the remaining men of Sidewinder on track. And as far as he was concerned, on track was verifying what Nick had said.
He just didn’t know exactly how to do that yet.
“I’m going after him,” Kelly announced, and then he stood, grabbing for his coat.
“How?” Digger asked. “We don’t know how long he was gone. And it’s snowing like crazy, you can’t track him in this.”
Kelly raised his head, nostrils flaring. “Ty can.”
Ty nodded for a few seconds, obviously deep in thought. Then he lurched to his feet. “He’s right, we need to find him. He was hurt, he might be . . . it’s too cold out there if he had nowhere to go.”
“He did have somewhere to go,” Kelly snapped. “You just drove him away!”
“Doc, give me a break!” Ty shouted. “If he’d told you he killed someone you loved, how would you have handled it? He fucking broke my heart!”
No one moved, and no one met Ty’s eyes.
“Let’s go find him first, and then we’ll deal with the fallout,” Zane finally said.
Owen snorted. “Only way I’m going out there to find him is if Ty promises he keeps his handcuffs to himself. Otherwise, I’m letting Irish have his way with Baltimore.”
Digger nodded in agreement. “Man can wander out of the desert after three weeks, he can handle snow in the city with a little love tap in his side.”
Ty sighed and put his hands together as if praying at an altar. “I promise. Okay? I promise. Let’s go find him. Zane? Stay here in case he backtracks, please?”
“You got it. Be careful; he might strike first and ask questions later.”
Ty merely nodded, looking sick as he followed Kelly to the front door.
Zane stood in the kitchen until the four of them left, then pulled his phone out and stared at his contacts list. He wanted to do some digging into Richard Burns. He just needed to pick the agent he trusted most. Or rather, the agent he suspected least. He pulled up Fred Perrimore’s number and called him.
“What up, boss man?” Perrimore answered, the smile evident in his tone. “Working on your honeymoon?”
“Yeah. I have a favor to ask of you, Freddy.”
“A favor? Not an order?”
“No, not this time. You up for it?”
Perrimore hummed, then sighed heavily. “Do you have bail money?”
Zane grinned. “If it goes well, you won’t need it. I have faith in you.”
“Great. Fill me in.”
Zane tried to keep to the bare minimum, using the excuse of an ongoing undercover operation for not giving Perrimore all the details. Perrimore was a veteran, though; he understood that sometimes leadership meant compartmentalizing things. And sometimes granting favors to your boss meant not having the whole picture.
“So, when I find these account numbers, you just want a record of the transactions? I’ll need a warrant for it.”
“No, no warrants. This isn’t to make a case, it’s just for information. Do it fast, do it quiet, don’t leave a paper trail. And only look at the time frame I gave you, okay?”
“You got it.” Perrimore sounded like he was already on his computer, searching down the cartel’s accounts.
Zane still had those numbers memorized all these years later. He hadn’t even had to look them up.
“What’s my turnaround on this?” Perrimore asked.
“ASAP. Life and death, here.”
“Yeah. Hey, Garrett, you okay? You need more than account numbers from me?”
Zane held his breath, watching the door. “Not yet,” he finally said. “But sleep with your gun, got it?”
“I really hate working for you sometimes,” Perrimore claimed, but the grin in his voice told Zane another story.
He was smiling when he ended the call. For the first time, he’d tipped their hand to one of the agents at the office. And it felt good. It felt like he was finally on the offensive. If Perrimore was the mole—although Zane had just bet his life that he wasn’t—things were going to start happening pretty fast now.
He checked that his gun was loaded, then slid it into his belt, just to feel better about his chances.
Ty knelt at the head of an alleyway near the row house. He’d found several cigarettes by the building, shielded from the heavy snow. Someone had waited here. Had someone waited for Nick? Unfortunately, there was no telling which way they had gone from here, not without guessing, and the snow had completely obscured anything else Ty might have been able to follow.
Kelly was standing on top of a fire hydrant, peering into the night. Owen and Digger were pacing back and forth like bloodhounds, but they didn’t seem to be coming up with anything.
Ty examined the filter in his hand, turning it over with a frown.
His stomach dropped into his toes and he lurched to his feet. “This is Liam’s brand.”
“I thought Nick said he killed him,” Kelly said. He hopped down and hunched his shoulders against the cold.
“He did, but then he said he didn’t, then he said he killed Burns. I think he was just confused.” Ty winced, head throbbing with stress and exhaustion. “Could be he thought he killed Liam and didn’t hang around to make sure. Could be he was lying.”
“Why would he lie about killing Liam when he copped to everything else?” Digger asked.
Ty shrugged helplessly. He was trying to think like Nick in this, but finding he just couldn’t. He didn’t understand any of it.
“Stockholm syndrome?” Owen asked tentatively.
“Bell always was good at psy ops,” Kelly agreed. “If this was an attempt to make Nick think his friends had turned on him and Liam was all he had left to depend on, it was a damn good one.”
“Lucky said he needed help getting evidence,” Digger added. “Maybe he came here to feel you out. See how likely you were to work with him and Liam.”
“Sounds like Nick,” Owen agreed. “The bleeding was a little overly dramatic.”
“The bleeding should have sold it,” Kelly grunted.
Ty glared at him, but Kelly shrugged.
“How many times have you showed up on his door, bloody?” Kelly demanded. “How many times has he said yes without asking why? He still has holes in his boat!”
“But it still floats,” Ty muttered defensively.
Kelly cursed under his breath.
“I’ve lost him.” Ty ran his frozen fingers through his hair. Even without the snow to cover Nick’s trail, he would be nearly impossible to track in the city. Guessing his destination and wandering around calling his name like a lost dog would be just as effective as tracking him at this point. They’d have better luck with educated g
“We should head back, start looking into the types of places he’s gone to ground in before. Check all the marinas in case he has the Fiddler in town.”
Owen and Digger fell in behind him as he trudged back toward the row house, but Kelly remained where he’d been, staring off down the street. Ty stopped and waited, but Kelly shook his head. “I’m not coming back ’til I find him.”
“Doc,” Owen started, but Kelly held his hand up and turned away.
“I’m not coming back,” he said again, then started off in the opposite direction.
Ty glanced at the other two, waiting for them to make their choice. He wouldn’t have been surprised, or even blamed them for it, if they followed Kelly into the dawn. But neither man budged. They finally gave Ty identical shrugs, and the three of them carried on toward the row house in silence.
Ty found himself facing down the barrel of Zane’s gun when he opened the door. He stopped in his tracks, waiting while Zane stuffed the gun into his holster.
“Something happen?” Ty asked.
Digger shoved him inside when he didn’t move. “Cold!”
Zane shook his head. “I put a call in to Freddy. You said Nick claimed Burns was stealing money from the cartel, so I figured I’d fact-check him. Freddy’s looking up the accounts I sent to Burns when I was UC in Miami to see if money went missing from any of them.”
“You trust him with that?” Ty asked.
Zane shrugged and patted his gun, a wry smile curving his lips. “Mostly.”
Ty glanced around the room, at a loss now. Zane had been hard at work getting blood off the floor, the rug, and the few places Nick had put his bloody hand as he’d climbed the stairs.
“What now?” Owen asked.
“Where’s Kelly?” Zane asked before anyone could answer the million-dollar question.
“He wouldn’t come back,” Digger answered.
Zane nodded, frowning. “Somehow I’m not surprised.”
Ty glared at him.
“What?” Zane asked.
“I got enough pointed comments from him tonight, don’t start with me too, Garrett.”
“It wasn’t pointed, Ty. I’m just saying . . . if that was you out there, I’d sure as shit still be searching.”
Ty scowled, trying not to get upset and failing miserably.
“Kelly loves him, baby,” Zane said. “Same way I love you. It’s going to change the way the whole group operates. You get that, right? It’s not just O’Flaherty you’re standing to lose here.”
Ty blew out a shaky breath, glancing back at Owen and Digger as Zane put a steadying hand on his shoulder.
“It’ll be okay,” Zane whispered into his ear, and Ty closed his eyes.
“Hey, if we’re going to be plotting and shit, can we order pizza or something?” Digger asked.
“It’s four in the morning,” Zane said.
Digger checked his watch, nodding. “Pizza counts as breakfast, right?”
Zane looked thoroughly scandalized.
Ty fought the urge to wrap his arms around Zane’s neck and demand a hug to make himself feel better. Then he pursed his lips and shrugged. “Might as well. I know I won’t be sleeping any.”
“Oh, yeah. The mattress?” Zane winced. “Yeah, it’s not coming clean.”
“Motherfucker,” Ty huffed as he headed for the kitchen to grab the phone. “Now we got to hike another of those fucking things up those steps!”
“Karma,” Owen shot at him.
Ty grumbled but didn’t respond. They’d find Nick, they’d get the whole story, and he’d either apologize or he’d hit him. Maybe apologize and then hit him. Or hit him and then apologize. He was pissed, and Nick had crossed far over the line, but still . . . handcuffing him to the bed had not been the smartest move. Ty was going to have to pull a Zane and start thinking with his head and not his heart on this one. Or maybe just let Zane do all the thinking period for a while, until he got his mind around it all.
He didn’t have to ask the others what they wanted on their pizza, so he just ordered as they talked in the living room.
“What do you think, Garrett? You think Burns could have been dirty?” Owen asked.
Ty averted his gaze, watching Zane in his peripheral vision and pretending not to have heard the question. Zane glanced in his direction, shifting uncomfortably. He leaned toward Owen, lowering his voice, but Ty still heard him.
“I think . . . yeah, he could have been. A lot of the things I was doing in Miami, they never drew blood and they should have. I never did figure out what Burns did with the information I culled down there. And I know for damn sure he had Ty doing things that no oversight committee would have approved of. Add it all together and . . . Jesus, I don’t know. Nick’s story makes sense.”
Ty finished ordering, hung up the phone, and headed for the living room. They all shifted nervously. He threw himself on the couch and held his head in both hands. “What have I done?”
“He’ll forgive you, man,” Digger said after a few uncomfortable moments of silence. Ty didn’t lift his head. “He always does.”
“I think the question you’re really struggling with, baby,” Zane said as he laid his hand on Ty’s back, “is: will you forgive him?”
Ty covered his face with his hands. “I need to see that proof he was talking about. I have to see it.”
“So there’s what we do,” Digger said with a clap of his hands. “First we find Lucky. Then we get that evidence for you. Man, I love to have a plan!” He got up and strolled toward the kitchen, singing under his breath.
They all watched him, entirely baffled.
“Digger,” Owen called after him.
“The man with a plan!” Digger sang, pointing at Ty before sticking his head into the fridge to find something to drink.
“So you’re telling me these people, these fucking people you spent half your life risking your arse for, the first hint you gave them that you weren’t the fucking Boy Scout they thought you were, they turned on you?” Liam asked, his accent thickening into something Nick couldn’t quite identify as the whiskey and the indignation settled in.
He’d started out intending to clean Nick’s wound with the alcohol, but they’d swiftly turned to just drinking it.
Nick stared at him, trying to decipher the feelings Liam’s words gave him. He knew on a basic level what Liam was doing, what he had been doing for almost two weeks now: psychological warfare. The best way to make an enemy your ally was to convince them their friends had abandoned them, turned on them, or just didn’t care about them. Liam’s methods were so subtle, Nick had caught himself falling victim to doubts even as he reminded himself of what Liam was trying to do.
And somewhere along the way, Nick had realized that, despite Liam’s nefarious techniques, there was a lot of truth to his endgame. It had resulted in an odd sort of antagonistic camaraderie between them. Nick believed the man when he said he was after the cartel and the NIA was after him. Nick genuinely wanted to help him. Yet he still wouldn’t hesitate to toss him overboard if given the chance.
“You’re telling me you literally laid down your life for each and every one of those pompous fuckers, including Garrett! And they what? Handcuffed you to a bed when you admitted you aren’t a fucking saint? Why? Were they afraid of you? Thought you’d go all homicidal maniac and kill them? Did they think they were actually going to call the police or some horseshit and arrest you for following through on a government-sanctioned hit?”
“I don’t know. I guess. I don’t know.” Nick took a long drink from the bottle, then handed it off to Liam.
Liam waved it, and its contents sloshed. “Did they realize what would happen to you if the NIA discovered you’d been burned over that hit? The same fucking thing happening to me, mate, that’s what! You’d have been taken to Gitmo and disposed of. Or found in some ravine or lake in a car with cut brake lines. Or hell
Nick swallowed hard, trying not to let the stark fear filter through him. A lifetime of hits for the NIA? His soul was tarnished enough; that would be a fate worse than death for his conscience.
“Right.” Liam nodded as his blue eyes stared into a distance Nick couldn’t see. “This game, O’Flaherty, it’s for people like me. You . . . it’s not for you.”
“Is that why you want back in?”
Liam handed off the bottle, then rested his hand on Nick’s shoulder and leaned closer. “The world needs people like me. It doesn’t have to like it. It doesn’t even have to know it. But it needs me to do the things I do. And it helps if I enjoy them, hmm?”
“That’s very altruistic of you,” Nick grumbled, taking a plug from the bottle.
“Nicholas, you’re not hearing my words.”
“I’m barely understanding your words. You go all weird Russian when you drink.”
Liam snorted, and Nick fought back a smile. “See,” Liam whispered, and he pointed at Nick, pressing his finger against the tip of Nick’s nose. “The world needs people like you and your mates, too. The good ones. If everyone was like me? What the hell would there be worth fighting for?”
Nick frowned, moving his nose out of the line of fire. Liam took the bottle from Nick, sighing as he looked it over.
“What the hell happened to you?” Nick asked him.
“Life,” Liam spat out.
Nick cocked his head as Liam stared out the Fiddler’s windows.
Liam clutched the bottle to his heart. “I’m done. No more for me.” He slid off the stool, tucking the bottle under his arm. “Good night, O’Flaherty. Let’s never speak of this again.”
Nick watched him head for the stairs, his path unsteady at best. “Hey,” he called.
Liam turned and leaned against the railing, taking another sip from the bottle despite his claims that he was done.
“Have you been alone all this time?” Nick asked. “Since you left? The NIA, all that. You always work alone?”
Liam lowered his head, turning the bottle over. “My partner, she and I were together for a year or so.”