He swaggered to my side, taking a long draught from the tumbler and licking his lips before again regarding the thug, almost like he’d forgotten about him.
“How much ground do you think you can cover before she unloads her clip? Your friends down there might get away, if they run, but I’ll take great pleasure in knowing that you most certainly won’t.”
O’Rourke didn’t answer. Behind him, his groupies shifted uneasily. No one took their eyes off me, but I could tell that some silent exchange was going on between them. I hoped that none of them could tell I had no idea whether or not Nathan’s little plan was going to work.
I could hit the gas can, sure. But could I make it blow? That seemed like something straight out of an action movie. I preferred to keep the business end of my gun pointed right where it belonged: center mass on the Irish asshole with the big mouth.
Standing next to me, Nathan seemed so calm. I could feel his stoicism, his self-assuredness radiating from his body. I gripped my weapon tighter and nodded in agreement.
“So, what’ll it be?” I asked him with far more certainty than I actually felt. “You boys wanna do this the easy way, or the hard way?”
I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. O’Rourke’s face pulled taut in cold, hard rage, and then he turned and descended the stairs, his men following soon after. My eyes found themselves firmly planted on the oversized handgun tucked into the back of his waistband.
“Leave the gas cans,” I instructed, finally tearing my eyes away from them to look up into Nathan’s face.
He waited until they’d shut the door to look down at me. Then he produced the faintest of smiles.
I holstered my gun, leaving the thumb-strap open in case we were in for any more visitors. “Thanks,” I said, though it pained me to do so. Maybe Nathan was a bit braver than I’d given him credit for. “You really think a bullet would set the gas off?”
“No,” he answered, downing the rest of his whiskey in one harsh gulp. “I don’t. And I’m pretty sure the boys downstairs would have riddled us with holes before you took down more than two of them.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I replied, a shiver passing through me. He was right, of course. I only had a clean shot on two of them, at best. Even if we ducked back into Nathan’s office, they could have lit the house and left us to smolder…
“So if I couldn’t stop them, why did they back down?” I asked.
“Because they know where I live, and they were just here to scare me. I think it might be time to talk about that safe house, detective,” Nathan replied, his smile growing. “I suddenly have a burning desire to put this place on the market.”
CHAPTER TWO
“So, it’s worse than we thought.”
I stood in front of Captain Pierce, looking down at his wizened face as he leaned back in his chair. His fingers touched his lips, drumming softly the way they did when he was thinking hard about something. His bright eyes narrowed as he stared off into nothingness like an oracle searching the aether for answers. When his faraway look receded, he turned his attention back on me.
“I made a mistake sending you without backup, Williams. If something had happened to you today, it would’ve been my fault. I would’ve had to live with it. It was a bad call. It won’t happen again.”
I straightened. That was the closest thing I’d get to an apology, and I was happy to take it. Captain Benjamin Pierce wasn’t exactly renowned for his overabundance of sentiment, and given how he felt about me, a female cop doing what he felt to be a man’s job, it was more than I had expected.
He stood up from his chair and walked to his office window, lowering one of the horizontal blinds that made mincemeat of the sunlight streaming in. The department had a great view of the city from here and overlooked the distant bay. I got the feeling that he was silently wishing this case away so he could be out in his fishing boat hauling in a marlin or two.
“Look… I want you to keep what happened out there quiet for now. No reports. It’s possible those men stopping by our playboy’s mansion wasn’t a coincidence. Someone might be feeding them information from the inside, letting them know who we’re talking to as we build the case.”
“You think we have a rat?” I asked, my voice low.
“I think we have reason to be careful,” Captain Pierce replied, shifting his gaze back to me. “I spoke with Mr. Hale,” he began. “He said you handled the incident well, despite your obvious disadvantage. I know there wasn’t much you could do, given the circumstances.”
Obvious disadvantage? The words burned in my mind.
“Yes, sir,” I answered, though I didn’t particularly agree. I couldn’t help but feel like I’d fallen short in my efforts to protect Nathan, especially since he’d had to step in and convince those goons I was serious. In all my time on the force, I’d never fired my gun on duty. This time, I was a breath away from pulling the trigger. I felt like a rookie on her first day, and worst of all, I had no doubt that was how the other officers and detectives would choose to see me. I wanted to be angry at Nathan, but I could only be mad at myself. This was my failure, and I needed to own it and not let it shake me up for round two.
Captain Pierce must have read my expression, because he sighed, ran a hand through his white hair, and turned to face me.
“Sandra,” he said, “everybody has something go wrong at some point. Today, you had to let Wallace’s boys walk free to save yourself and the witness. Nobody got hurt, his property is still intact, and you not only convinced Mr. Hale to testify, but to move to the safe house he was so adamantly against last time I sent a uni out there to talk to his spoiled ass. I know it’s not a perfect score, but I think you can count this one as a win.”
I nodded and forced a smile. “Yes, sir.”
He mirrored my expression. “Good. Now, let’s talk about where we go from here.” He put his hands on his hips on either side of his pot belly. “Mr. Hale will be transferred to a secure location on the other side of town. It’s nothing fancy, just some apartment complex near the tracks, but it’s the last place anyone will look for him.”
“The Peachtree Overlook?” I asked, raising a brow. Captain Pierce nodded, and I stifled a laugh. “Oh, yeah. He’ll just love that.”
I couldn’t imagine Nathan Hale, a man accustomed to living in the lap of luxury, reacting to the Peachtree Overlook with anything short of disgust and horror. Those apartments weren’t exactly the worst the city had to offer, but they were far from the best. Located just a stone’s throw from the railroad tracks, they had a layer of grime and soot embedded into the exterior, and from what I’d heard, the inside wasn’t much better.
“A rich boy living in the Peachtree Overlook,” I mused, shaking my head. “I almost wish I could see it.”
“I’m glad you said that, because you will see it,” Captain Pierce answered. “You’re still on the case, detective. In fact, you’ve been assigned to him full-time until the trial.”
I felt all the blood rush from my face. My lip trembled for a moment, disbelief slackening my jaw as I tried to process what he’d just said.
“Wait—full-time? Meaning…”
“Meaning you’ll be sitting on Mr. Hale until the start of the trial,” Captain Pierce finished, sitting down again behind his desk. “The paperwork’s already been filed. You’ll be undercover, of course, posing as Mr. Hale’s girlfriend, Candy Love.”
I shot him an “are-you-serious?” look. I couldn’t help it—Candy? Really? Like some kind of stripper?
The captain waved his hand dismissively, as if that detail didn’t matter. “It’s just for a week, detective. And you won’t be the only cop there. We’ve arranged for undercover officers to be present on each floor. If you need something, just holler, Candy.”
I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. The captain made it sound like I was staying in a guest room at some quaint little bed and breakfast. “Just holler” was more likely to mean “if we hear gunsh
ots, we’ll come running.” I didn’t need him to candy-coat this for me.
I also couldn’t figure out if I was being punished or rewarded. An undercover operation was a serious undertaking, but a week with Nathaniel Hale was an even more arduous one. Why me? Why not someone with a little more experience who hadn’t let five criminals walk free just a few hours ago?