“That’s not—”
A flurry of voices behind me drowned out my words – probably for the best – and I jerked my head around, ready to bellow for everybody to shut the hell up.
But then I saw the men in the doorway and recognition slammed into me. I curled a hand into a fist. My gaze landed on one in particular.
The man in the back. Dark red hair. Dark eyes. I'd seen his face before. In the pictures my PI had taken.
None of the brothers looked at me. I tried hard to do the same, although I couldn't keep my gaze from lingering on the tallest of the three men.
Victor Gallagher, Toni’s brother. The other two men with him had to be Deacon and Franky. She had a third brother, but he didn’t live here. I had a feeling he wouldn’t mind making a trip back here for this, though. All of them looked pissed and it wouldn’t take long for their anger to find a target.
Rightfully, it should be me. I'd been the one to get her into this mess.
Vic’s gaze slid to mine. There was no recognition, but his gaze narrowed nonetheless, lingered for just a moment.
He shouldn't know me. Just as I shouldn't know him. Yet we both recognized the other. If it hadn't been for the letter I'd found at my door, I might've felt more justification at having set Toni up. Now I was just frustrated. They'd get back there to see Toni, find out what I'd done, and this ass at the desk wouldn't even give me a simple answer about what was happening.
As the Gallagher brothers disappeared through the door, my gut twisted into newer, tighter knots. I turned back to the officer. “I've got new evidence. Please let Lieutenant Green know that.”
I walked away from the counter, unsure what to do next. After a moment, I sat down and pulled out my wallet.
Green had given me a card.
Why hadn’t I thought of that before now?
People were always giving me cards. More often than not, I threw them away. Sometimes, I passed them on to my administrative assistant. I rarely kept them. But I’d kept the lieutenant’s, shoved it into my wallet along with the cards from the FBI agents.
Now, I punched Green's number into my cell phone and waited. When it went to voicemail, I left a message, reading the letter from memory.
Then I called the numbers on the other cards I'd gotten. Nobody answered, so I left the same message on their voicemails too.
That done, I didn’t know what else to do, so I sat...and waited.
Sitting out in the waiting room of any police department, a man could make millions in a year, or he could make nothing, and there would be people in uniform who just didn't care.
It wasn’t something I was used to. I was accustomed to getting what I wanted, to having all of the connections I needed to get things done. Maybe if I could get the attention of the people striding around or talking on the phone, I could do something. But what was I supposed to do? Throw my weight around? Make calls?
I’d done that bit before and it hadn’t really worked out well.
I stroked my thumb down the plastic that held the letter and looked up.
I still didn't have a single response to any of my calls. I had to try again. It had been after one when I'd gotten here and it was coming up on four in the morning.
Getting to my feet, I made my way back over to the man at the desk. I saw him take a slow breath and plaster another fake smile on his face.
“Have you had any luck contacting the lieutenant?” I asked.
“She’s here.” He nodded. “She’s tied up with a suspect. As soon as she’s available—”
“Toni Gallagher isn’t a fucking suspect,” I said. I didn’t raise my voice. Instead, it came out cold as ice.
The officer’s eyes widened, then narrowed.
The letter was still sitting next to him. I reached over and tapped it, fighting to keep my voice even and polite. “Would you please take thirty seconds and read this?”
Maybe it was the please that did it.
This time, he did more than just take a cursory glance. And his eyes widened halfway through.
He shoved up to his feet, calling out to somebody whose name I didn't catch.
“I’m taking this,” he said to me, voice clipped.
“What are you—?”
But he was already striding off.
A couple more hours passed. It was a little after seven now. Another cop, dressed in a rumpled suit, had come out, asked me several questions, made notes, and then nodded. A woman, her shirt crisp and fresh, had come out and asked the same questions, in a different order.
When a third person, another man, came out, I finally held up a hand. “I want to see Lieutenant Green.”
“Mr. Lang–”
“Lieutenant Green.” I was fucking tired of playing nice, and I let it show in my voice. It was too early – or late, depending on how you looked at it – and I hadn’t gotten shit accomplished. I’d been here for six hours and the hangover wasn't helping.
Toni had been here for over fourteen, a snide voice in the back of my head said.
And I was trying to fix that.
The man – his badge said Reardon – peered at me for a moment and then he nodded. This time, when he walked off, I didn’t sit back down. I moved over to the window and stared outside, watching as a misty, gloomy morning dawned.
***
The door to the back had opened and closed so many times, I’d finally stopped looking.
This time, though, I did look, more out of reflex than anything else, my head already half turning back to the window when my brain kicked in.
Swinging my gaze back around, I stared intently at the petite woman who’d just come striding through the door, her head high and shoulders straight. Her chin was lifted and her hair, all that rich, dark red, hung in a tangle down her back. There were shadows like bruises under her lovely eyes, but other than that, she looked fine.
Nobody had hurt her.
I breathed a bit easier.
It lasted for all of two seconds, because then Toni was shifting her gaze around and she saw me.
She stumbled and the shortest of her brothers caught her, concern clear in his dark blue eyes. She gave him a quick smile and went back to glaring at me.
After a moment, she curled her lip and looked away, saying something in a low voice to the brother who'd caught her. He looked a little older than the others, which meant he was probably the oldest of the lot, Deacon.
I couldn’t stop myself. I should have, but I couldn’t.
“Toni.”
I took a step toward her and watched as those smoky blue eyes swung back to mine. She inclined her head and a cool smile settled on her lips. But she didn’t say anything. She just continued walking with her brothers.
One of them peeled himself away from her and placed himself between us when I took another step toward her.
It was Victor.
He was a few inches shorter than my own six foot three inches, and lanky, but he held himself in such a way that told me he wasn't someone to be trifled with. He raked his gaze up and down. My spine stiffened at the obvious derision in that look, but I didn’t react.
What would I be doing if someone had done to Isadora what I'd done to Toni? And that was assuming they didn't know that Toni and I had slept together.
I’d beat the shit out of anyone who hurt my baby sister. Something I fully intended to do as soon as I found out who'd taken her. I couldn’t fault these guys for standing up for Toni. But she was walking away. Cutting around Vic, I said her name again.
“She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“I understand that, but I have things I need to say.” I held his gaze for a moment, and then looked back to see Toni almost to the door.
She wasn’t even looking back this way.
“Toni, just listen to me, dammit!”
“This him, Vic?” The stockier of the brothers had left his place at Toni's side to join Vic. If the other one was Deacon, I assumed this one would be Franky. He had a broad face, re
ddish-brown hair, and pissed off light brown eyes.
“It is, Franky.” Vic reached up, scraped his nails down his cheek. He had his sister’s hair color. Her stubborn jaw too, and he lifted it pugnaciously, like he was daring me to do something.
“I just need to talk to her,” I said. “I want to apologize.”
“Is that a fact?” Franky nudged Vic to the side and I looked down, hoping he might be more reasonable.
Almost instantly, I knew I’d wasted that hope.
From the corner of my eye, I saw that Toni had slowed down, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was gesturing toward her brothers, and I had a feeling she was more worried about them than anything I had to say.
It’s a family dinner.
Knowing my chance was sliding away, I knew I had to make a choice. Let her go, or say it in front of everyone. I raised my voice. “Toni, I’m sorry. I was...”
She didn’t look at me, but everybody else was.
“Toni, for fuck’s sake!”
She glanced down at her hands, nails folded in so she could study them. She pursed her lips as she gazed down at her manicure as if her fingers were of utmost importance.
That was it. My temper flared and I shoved between her brothers.
That was yet another big mistake, I realized.
They caught my arms before I made it a full step. I tried to jerk away and they just put more muscle into it. They were shorter than me, but they were far from weak. Getting away might involve some serious physical force here.
“Toni.”
Finally, she looked at me. After a moment, she turned towards her brothers. “Vic, Franky...don’t. He’s not worth it.”
Their hands fell away and Vic shoulder-checked me hard as he headed back to his sister’s side. She folded her arms over her chest as she met my eyes. There were shadows in her eyes.
“Go away,” she said quietly. “You’ve got other things to focus on besides me, so maybe you should do that.”
While I tried to adjust to the dull tone of her normally vibrant voice, she looked up at the brother who'd stayed by her side. “Deacon, I’m exhausted. Take me home, please?”
I tried one more time. “Toni–”
“No!” She spun back to me, her hands clenched into fists at her side and for the first time since I first met her, I saw the glitter of tears in her eyes. “I’m exhausted. The only sleep I got was a nap in the interrogation room. The last time I peed, I had to do it on a toilet in front of ten other women. I want to take a shower. I want some food. I want to sleep for about twenty hours straight. What I don’t want is to see you. Ever again.”
Numb, I stared at her. She couldn't mean it. She was understandably upset, but she couldn't mean she never wanted to see me again. Into the raw silence, I finally managed to speak.
“I...Toni, I’m sorry. Let me...I’ll fix this. Let me make it up to you.”
“How?” Her voice cracked as she shouted at me. “Your fucking money? Guess what? It doesn’t solve everything. Grow up, Ashford.”
She spun on her heel and stormed towards the doors, her brothers following right behind her.
“Well. I do hate to say I told you so...”
Marcum’s caustic voice came from behind me.
I didn't know where she’d come from. I didn’t really care. Looking back, I saw that Marcum had joined Lieutenant Green and the other cops at some point in the past few minutes. Great. They’d all just witnessed everything Toni had yelled at me. Dropping onto a bench, I propped my elbows on my knees and stared at nothing.
Shit.
“That went well.”
It was Green who spoke first. She cleared her throat and when I glanced up, she was running her thumb up and down the crease of the envelope containing the ransom letter.
“Perhaps we could move on to the real concern, Mr. Lang. Your sister. And this new...letter?”
Chapter 3
Toni
I was going to regret this.
Shaking with exhaustion, my head pounding, I still found myself turning around. The doors were within my reach, but I couldn't bring myself to open them. Not yet.
“What letter?”
Ash’s shoulders had been slumped, but as soon as I spoke, his entire body tensed.
“Come on, Toni,” Deacon said, resting his hand on my arm. “Let’s go. You’re exhausted and if I don’t get you home so you can rest, Mom’s going to have all of our hides.”
I gave Deacon a strained smile. “Isadora's my friend.”
They knew about her, of course. I'd told my family all about her, all about my job and how much I enjoyed working with the sweetest twenty year-old I'd ever met. Deacon’s eyes bore into mine, almost grim in their intensity, but he nodded and his hand fell away. I knew he'd understand. True friends came second only to family.
Lieutenant Green gave me a tight smile. “I’m sorry, Ms. Gallagher, but we can't discuss an ongoing investigation.”
“No.” Ash’s voice was low as he slowly raised his head.
I let my gaze shift back to him, but he didn't meet my eyes. Fine. If that was how he wanted to play it.
“You can tell her. She cares about my sister.”
Green bristled. “Mr. Lang, that's not how we do things.”
Angling my head, I studied the two of them, watching the power struggle as it played out between cop and…whatever in the hell Ashford Lang was. Mega-millionaire, sure. But this was New York. They were practically a dime a dozen. He needed to have friends in powerful places as well as money.
“Did he ask you to arrest me?” I asked abruptly.
Next to me, my brothers stiffened. In front of me, Ash went pale, his jaw going tight.
Lieutenant Green, though, could have done a soldier proud. Her shoulders went back and her chin angled high. “What a citizen of this city requests of me doesn’t dictate my duty, Ms. Gallagher. I do what I swore to do when I picked up my badge.”
“Nicely said,” I told her dryly. “You neither denied nor confirmed. You should go into politics.” I looked at Ash. “You’re an asshole.”
In addition to his clenched jaw, a vein started to pulse in his temple. “My sister’s life could be at stake.”
“Yeah. And how much time did you waste having the cops hassle me? How much was wasted having people trail Vic?” I shook my head and shifted my gaze elsewhere, hoping that sense of betrayal would fade.
It didn’t.
“Ms. Gallagher.”
I looked over to find Agent Marcum standing a few feet away. Her gaze was compassionate. She flicked a look at Ash, a bit of curl to her lip, a sneer. I found myself liking her, despite the side of the badge she stood on. I wasn’t feeling very friendly toward badges right now. But I liked her.
“Regardless of how he pushed, we would have ended up looking.” She shrugged and shot Vic a glance and then shifted her focus back to me. “Maybe not as hard and definitely not as...intrusively. But we would have looked. Now it’s done and we can focus on Isadora again. She’s what matters, right?”
Marcum was right. Isadora was what mattered.
When Ash asked if I wanted to come with them after Green said she wouldn’t discuss aspects of the case in the middle of the station, I agreed. I didn't want to be anywhere near Ash, but I needed to know what was happening with Isadora.
I left my brothers to cool their heels in the main lobby while Green, Marcum, Ash and I squeezed into a conference room, along with a handful of agents and detectives. I tucked myself into a corner and pretended Ash wasn’t there as the cops went about setting up a board and passing out sheets of paper.
“Who's this?” I asked softly after Marcum finished placing one large picture square in the middle of the board.
“That is our one connection.” She slid me a look. “We’ll get you up to speed here shortly.”
Up to speed? A few minutes later, after Green and Marcum had each taken turns talking, I had to fight the urge to ask them to go over it just one more t
ime.
Up to speed. Not so much. My brain was taking in what I was being told, but I didn't know if I was really processing it. The one thing I did know was that I needed to be able to examine that picture when I was more coherent.
As they started to pass around files, I edged around the table to look at the picture. While everybody behind me was talking, I casually lifted the phone I’d slid out of my pocket and snapped an image for myself. I didn't know if I’d managed to pull it off or not, but when I turned back, everybody was still busy flipping through the files. No one had seen me.
“If you’re curious...”
I blinked. Marcum was standing in front of me, holding out a file.
“It can’t leave this room, but you’re welcome to look at the photos. As far as him.” She looked over at the board. “We’ll have to put out an alert on him soon, so we’re not sharing anything you won’t see soon enough.”
Ash’s gaze shot our way. “An alert.” A muscle pulsed in his cheek as he shook his head. “I want this kept quiet.”
“I’m aware of your desires, Mr. Lang.” Marcum gestured toward the board, and the picture of the unknown man. “But I'm going to be frank here. Our mystery man doesn't have a record and your sister has been missing for quite some time. At some point, we may need help from the public. Assuming you want your sister found.”
Ash snapped his jaw shut, but the desperation in his eyes spoke volumes. He was angry, but he was also hurting and frightened for his sister.
“Please let us do our job,” Lieutenant Green said.
She flicked a glance at me and I wondered how long it would take her to figure out a way to get me kicked out.
Clearing my throat, I looked back down at the photographs. Pointedly, I asked, “What’s with the pictures?”
That was what the file held. Pictures. Or, rather, copies of them. One of the officers had put original photos in sealed bags down the middle of the table in a straight line. When had these come into play? As soon as I asked myself the question, I knew the answer. Someone had gotten these while I'd been under arrest. I wondered if they'd been delivered to the station or to Ash.
Marcum pulled out a chair across from me and sat down. “If you read the copy of the letter delivered to Mr. Lang late last night, it'll give you a decent idea of what is going on.”