Captive (Lace Underground Trilogy Book 1)

  My eyes sweep up to the sun visor, and I secretly sneer at Tiffany's picture. Maddox clipped it there at her insistence so she could be his 'guardian angel'. Tiff, as he lovingly calls her, has satiny gold hair and large blue eyes. Even her skin is like cream. And in case I didn't know, after being reminded a hundred million times by my pride-filled partner, Tiff is going to be a dentist. Maybe her patients can call her Dr. Tiff.

  I wipe my sunglasses on the end of my t-shirt and lift them, only to find that they are greasier than when I started. I resort to the hot breath method of lens cleaning which makes them only slightly better. My bottom scoots across the vinyl seat and I slump back.

  "Norville needs to be more specific with his insider info. Getting details from him is like dealing with the cable company when they tell you the service guy is coming sometime between Monday and Thursday." Maddox sounds tired, and I angrily wonder if he and Tiffany were up late last night.

  He sits up and shakes the sedan with his large frame. His shoulders inch past the seat on each side and he has to push the seat clear back to get his long legs under the dash.

  Maddox turns the ignition to accessory and the radio pops on. The volume is low, but the speakers suck so it sounds better. The Rolling Stones' Angie creaks through the crummy speakers. Maddox reaches for the volume. "Hey, Ten, here's your song." He starts to croon along with Jagger and damn, if he doesn't look and sound beautiful doing it.

  Hearing Maddox sing my name scratches at my heart. My hand shoots forward and I turn it off. He sings a few more notes before noticing that Mick has fallen silent. "Uh, I was singing to that. And I was sounding pretty fucking good too. Your mom once told me I sound just like Mick."

  I rest my head back against the seat. "My mom, an interminable flirt, also tells the mailman he looks like George Clooney."

  "Well, does he?"

  I blow a subdued raspberry from my lips. "Clooney's ass maybe."

  Maddox turns the radio back on and squelches my protest by promising not to sing. He thinks it's because his singing annoys me. If only that were the case.

  He starts drumming a beat on the steering wheel. Unlike his singing, it's annoying. "So how is what's his name?" he asks casually.

  I know exactly who he's asking about, but I wait to see if he comes up with the name, knowing full well, the forgetful moment is an act. He drums faster and then stops. "What's his name again? Bryce? Fluffy name. Sounds like something you'd name a pet rabbit."

  "Then I guess Brodie is lucky that his name is not Bryce. And Brodie is fine. We're going out to dinner and a movie tonight. If this damn stakeout ever ends."

  "He's kind of a dick, if you ask me." Maddox continues his steering wheel melody but it's far less intense.

  "Didn't ask you," I say curtly.

  The car wiggles side to side as Maddox reaches across to the glove box. We'd been just a front seat console away from each other for five hours, but the second he passes into my personal space, my heart races ahead. He unexpectedly turns his head while still leaning in front of me. He's close enough that I can count the freckles on his face. Three. But I already knew that stupid, meaningless fact. I also know exactly where the thin scar he got from crashing his bike through a sliding glass door at the age of ten dissects his right eyebrow.

  Maddox smiles faintly at me and holds up a stick of gum. I shake my head. He backs out of my personal space, but I can still feel the heat of him in the air around me. I can still smell the faint fragrance of his shampoo, even through the stink in the car.

  He sits back hard enough to make the entire car shudder. He unwraps the stick of gum but pauses before pushing it into his mouth. "Ten," he says tentatively as if he's not sure where his sentence is going. He looks at me and his jade green eyes pierce right through me. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you."

  A black Escalade with darkly tinted windows zips past our car, spraying it with fine grit from the asphalt.

  I sit up straight. "It's gonna have to wait. Looks like shit's about to go down."

  The black SUV pulls up in front of the liquor store. A slim, short guy with an oversized gray hooded sweatshirt hops down from the driver's seat and leaves the car running. He glances around just enough to let us know we've got the right guy.

  "That's him, that's Vinny," Maddox says.

  Our suspect hurries on his bright blue, unlaced high-tops into the liquor store.

  "Car's still running," I note. Maddox is already out the door.

  I watch for a few seconds as my partner strolls across the street, coolly, calmly in his faded jeans and black steel toed boots. His bicep thickens, stretching the tattoo on his arm, as he rakes his fingers through his dark hair. His long strides make quick work of the space between us and the idling SUV.

  From the corner of my eye, I catch a movement. A gangly guy, maybe nineteen or twenty, wearing a Mortal Kombat t-shirt and backwards baseball cap, rolls toward the SUV on his skateboard.

  I slip out of the car and stick my hands in my pockets as the guy looks my direction. He seems to easily convince himself that the woman walking across the street is just heading to the liquor store. Maddox has already pulled the keys from the Escalade. He leans casually against the side of the car, out of view of the sidewalk and tosses the keys on his palm as he waits for the transaction.

  The driver steps out of the liquor store carrying a brown bag. He spots the kid on the skateboard and tilts his head toward the adjacent alley. I stop in front of the shoe store on the opposite side of the alley and pretend to browse the sandals, but I can see right through the window pane and out the shop window on the alley side. Vinny, a drug-pushing middleman has been selling tainted heroin and people are dying from it. He is in a lot of trouble, but he's just a stepping stone. We need Vinny to get to the source of the lethal drugs.

  I cough once, the signal for Maddox that the transaction has taken place. He steps out from behind the Escalade. "Now just what are you two boys doing?"

  "Fuck." Vinny shoots out of the alley and grabs the passenger door handle. He rockets into the Escalade and bolts over the console to the driver's seat.

  The skater takes off, but isn't going to get far in an alley.

  Maddox walks to the driver's window and taps on it. "Guess you need the keys."

  I'm entertained enough by the scene that my attention is diverted from my suspect. It takes a second before the sound of skateboard wheels grinding over cement pulls my attention back.

  The junkie shoves me hard in the chest as he skates past. I stumble back several steps before taking off after him. "Wait, I'm just trying to save your life, you stupid dumbass!" I yell. My feet slap the pavement hard. I'm fast and his skateboard is slowed by the cracks in the city sidewalk.

  I close in on him. His hat flies off as he hits a rut and the board is airborne. He lands hard and makes the split second decision to kick the board back toward the lady cop chasing after him. I don't have time to react or slow my sprint. The board is flying straight at me. At the last second, before I can jump out of the way, the fast moving board hits a crack and flies into my shin.

  "Fuck!" I push off the ground to avoid falling face first onto the cement. Just like the board seconds before, I'm airborne. My subconscious shouts at me to tuck and roll. I somersault and manage somehow to land on my side. Thudding pain shoots through my entire body. I roll twice before stopping against a newspaper stand.

  "You all right, Ten?"

  I wait for a second to see if anything feels broken. Just bruised. I push to sitting and look in the direction of Maddox's voice. Somehow, in the midst of my tumbling act, my partner managed to catch the skateboarder. He's holding the jerk by the back of his shirt. The guy is comically flailing his tight fists through the air never making contact with anything. The whole scene has pulled a group of boys out from the local comic book store. They have a good laugh at the angry guy punching at the air.

  Maddox gives him a sturdy shake. "Knock it off, Rocky. We are just trying t
o help you. Look what you've done to my partner. You're in big fucking trouble. Trust me, when we do the good cop, bad cop routine, she's always the bad cop."

  The guy has dirt smeared on his face and looks as if he hasn't bathed in a month. He curls his lip at me as I stand up. He's been skipping the toothbrush too it seems. "She's definitely a bad cop," he says snidely.

  The guy flinches as I limp toward him. I pick up his skateboard on the way and decide to hop on and give it a whirl, avoiding the painful steps on my right shin. Sirens scream in the distance. Two black and whites are heading toward us.

  "Hey, bitch, get off my board," he sneers.

  I stop and look at him, ready to lecture the ass about calling me a bitch but decide it's not worth it. Instead, I turn back to the group of boys watching the scene. I put my heel on the end of the board and spin it around. "Here you go, boys." I push the board toward them. They grab it and run.

  "What the fuck?" the junkie whines. "You can't do that."

  I shrug. "Just did." I lift my chin to Maddox. "Let's book him. He needs a shower and food and a few weeks without jamming needles into his veins."

  Maddox is still holding the guy's shirt as he reaches down to pull out the envelope of tainted heroin. "Don't you know this stuff'll kill ya?"

  The black and whites pull up to the curb. "The cavalry is here," I quip. "Why don't you hand junior off. Wait, what happened to Vinny?"

  Maddox motions behind me with his hand.

  I spin around and look back toward the Escalade. Maddox has handcuffed Vinny to the street light pole. The idiot has shimmied up the pole like he's harvesting coconuts. He's a good ten feet up but seems puzzled about where to go next.

  Maddox hands off the junkie to Officer Evans, and we walk over to the light pole. My gait is hampered by what I'm sure is a massive bruise. Maddox stares up at Vinny who has, for some reason, decided to continue his climb. "Where you gonna go when you get to that long arm with the light, Vinny? We could just leave you up there, only I need my cuffs back. Can't catch bad guys unless I have my cuffs."

  Vinny looks down at the circle of officers that have now surrounded the pole, more for amusement than to show any kind of force. Officer Murray takes out his phone and snaps a picture. Vinny grunts and says something under his breath before inching back down the pole.

  Maddox gets his cuffs and hands Vinny off to the officers. He motions for me to follow him back to his car. "Let's go get an ice cream. We deserve it. Nice little gymnastics display by the way. But not a ten. The landing was a little rough."

  "You think? I thought it was a ten." I hobble after him. "I'm injured so you're buying. And I'm getting a double fucking scoop." We climb into the car. "So what were you going to tell me before all the fun started?"

  Maddox sets his hands on the steering wheel and stares blankly at the dials on the dash for a few seconds. He starts the car. "Nothing really. It can wait."

  3

  Maddox

  Captain Clark is sitting at his desk looking over some files and pictures with his best buddy, Detective Grimly, as I burst in.

  "Knock, asshole," Clark snarls at me without looking up from the pictures.

  Grimly shoots me a fatherly scowl over his shoulder. I back up two steps and knock on the inside of the door. "We got Vinny."

  "Do you want a hug and kiss?" Clark mutters. Clark is a Santa sized dude who likes to chew toothpicks and does the comb-over thing. His face looks like a sack of potatoes and he has a personality to go along with the look, but Mrs. Clark, Glenda, to be exact, is a sweet smiling, flawless skinned brunette who bakes cookies for the station and has an infectious laugh. She's the kind of woman you want to find standing up at the chalkboard when you walk into your new classroom because you know it's going to be an awesome year. Numerous theories about how potato-faced Clark landed a beautiful charmer have been bandied about the station for years. Unless he has a secret trove of treasure, the only other plausible theory, and one that brings up a little barf in my throat when I think about it, is Ten's suggestion that the guy 'knows how to fuck like a rock star'.

  Ten's profoundly off kilter footsteps sound behind me. "Did you tell him we have Vinny?"

  I look over at her. "Yeah, he says he has a kiss for you."

  "No, thanks. I've had my fun for the day." She's rolled up the leg of her jeans. The crash with the skateboard has morphed into a black and blue goose egg.

  Clark peers up over the rim of his glasses. "Christ, Tennyson. Get some ice on that thing before it swells."

  "I think that ship has left the barn." Ten winces as she leans over to touch it.

  Grimly laughs arrogantly thinking he's caught her saying something stupid. "I think the saying is ship has sailed or the horse has left the barn."

  Ten claps him on the shoulder. "Thanks for straightening that out for me, Grimly."

  Rather than burning shoe leather chasing down criminals, Grimly spends most of his work day ass kissing the big ass sitting in the chair across from him. Which is just as well because no one wants to partner with the guy. He's a lousy shot and trigger happy to boot.

  Ten pulls up a seat and rests the foot of the bruised leg on the armrest of Grimly's chair. His cheek gets all twitchy, and it's obvious he's irritated but Ten ignores the twitch. It's one of the million and a half things I love about her. She reaches across Clark's desk and spins one of the pictures around.

  "Help yourself, Tennyson," Clark says wryly, but he knows Ten is one of his best detectives, so he leans back and lets her look at the picture. I stand over her shoulder.

  A pasty faced man is curled in a fetal position in the middle of what looks like a posh bathroom, complete with marble floors and high gloss fixtures. The pool of blood beneath his head is a good indication that the guy is no longer enjoying his elegant lavatory.

  "Is that a dead rat or a bad toupee?" I ask. Ten's shoulders shake in a laugh, but Clark is less amused.

  "It's a toupee. Although I'm sure it wasn't a bad one when it was on his head. Howard Rainier is worth billions," Grimly says and sits back with a confident smile as if he is the only person on the planet with knowledge of the man's wealth. Grimly's nice blue sweater brushes against the dirt crusted sole of Ten's shoe. He makes a show of brushing off the dirt, his earlier confidence replaced by irritation. "Do you mind, Tennyson? This is a dry clean only sweater."

  A laugh shoots from my mouth, and I make no attempt to stifle it.

  Grimly shakes his head in disgust. "I'll go check out those names," Grimly says curtly before standing abruptly and walking out.

  I look back as the door snaps shut. "Jeez, was it something we said?" I sit in the chair Grimly vacated, but I don't mind having Ten's shoe on the arm. One of those crazy ass images that you know shouldn't happen but your subconscious insists on laying on you passes through my mind, and for a brief second, Ten is sitting on my lap wearing nothing but a blue pair of panties.

  It's not easy but I shake the image loose and sit forward. "So what about this Rainier guy? Why did somebody off him?"

  Clark shifts his gaze from me to Ten and back again. "It's not something I'm broadcasting yet, but in the past two months, two billionaires have been killed. Same method. A blow to the head."

  "So they're related." Ten pulls around the second stack of pictures.

  "We don't have enough evidence yet," Clark says.

  Tennyson hands me two of the pictures. They are two young girls who look like they've been living on the streets for a long time.

  "What do these girls have to do with it?" I ask.

  "Do you have to ask? Billionaires and their kinks." Ten pulls her foot down and winces as it hits the floor harder than she expects.

  "I don't know if we can generalize about billionaires," Clark says.

  "You're right," Ten agrees. "Old creepy men and their kinks. Better?"

  Clark doesn't answer. Ten's sharp tongue has earned her plenty of marks on her record, but her fearlessness has earned her accolades too.
>
  Clark tosses another picture in front of us. It's a slick looking guy with piercing blue eyes and a square jaw. Ten's gaze lingers just a second too long on the photo. I suddenly have the urge to punch the guy with the piercing blue eyes and square jaw.

  Ten sits back and pushes the picture back to Clark. "Is he dead too?"

  A dry laugh vibrates Clark's moustache. "That'd make life a whole lot easier. This is Kane Freestone, a very rich man but still alive and kicking. At least as far as we know. They call him the mad genius. He was a biochemist. Went to MIT and a couple other big name schools before getting scooped up by Mayer Pharmaceuticals. He left there about five years ago because they wouldn't give him funds to finish his research."

  "Research on what?" I push the other pictures back to him.

  "Not quite sure but his coworkers thought it was something dangerous enough to rat him out. He went underground, started some secret society called Lace Underground."

  "So . . . they are hiding out making petticoats?" Ten quips. Her nose scrunches up. Her leg is bothering her, and she gets grumpy when she's hurt.

  I tap her arm. "Go put some ice on that. It'll numb the pain."

  She nods but doesn't get up. "If this is a secret society, how come you know about it and what does it have to do with the odd collection of pictures on your desk?" I can see the flecks of gold in Ten's brown eyes sparkle with interest. She loves things that are twisted and secret and hard to untangle. And from the baffled look on Clark's lumpy face, this seems to be one of those cases.

  "Unfortunately, about all we know is the name. Like I said, Freestone is a genius. He keeps things pretty well sealed up. These girls are just a few of a dozen or so who have disappeared in the last two years. They're street kids, drug addicts, low level thieves and prostitutes. We think the two murder victims might have had something on Freestone, maybe two club members gone rogue."

  Ten sits up in her chair, and I know exactly what she's going to say. Sometimes I think I know her better than she knows herself.