In Too Deep: Station Seventeen Book 3 Page 25

  “I’d be surprised if you could,” Dallas said, flipping his legal pad closed to look at her. “Coping with mental trauma takes time. But I want you to know that in here, you’re not weak, and you’re not helpless. In fact, I think today you were pretty damned strong.”

  Quinn paused. “So if I, ah, came back next week, maybe we could keep talking so I can start getting my head around my”—Easy. Breathe—“kidnapping? As long as that’s okay.”

  He looked as shocked at her words as she’d been to say them. But Quinn couldn’t deny feeling at least a little more grounded at having talked to him about being scared, and God, even though she knew it wouldn’t happen overnight, she really did want to start getting back to normal, for real.

  “I think that’s a great idea,” Dallas said. “In the meantime, do me a favor and stay safe out there, okay?”

  Quinn nodded and promised, “I will.”

  Ice had just about had it with sloppy work from careless idiots who couldn’t find their asses with both hands and an anatomy textbook.

  Crossing his arms over his chest, he sat back in the private booth in the VIP room of The Tunnel. At least the nightclub was Viper territory through and through, out of the reach of both the police department and the Scarlet Reapers—a little fact that made it easier for him not just to show his face in public, but to have a business conversation without having to worry over locked doors and secure phone lines.

  Ice took a deep breath and worked up the patience he was going to damn well need in order to handle this shit. “What do you mean, Dixon’s agreed to a deal with the DA?”

  Adam, who had been with the Vipers long enough to know Ice regarded loyalty above all, adjusted his baseball hat and kept his voice low even though the thumping bassline of the music coming through the club’s speakers was more than adequate cover for their conversation. No one in here would dare betray Ice, but they didn’t need to know his business, either.

  “That’s what my brother told me,” Adam replied. “Said it happened a coupl’a hours ago. He knows someone with the same parole officer as Dixon. Dude asked the PO if he could get in on Dixon’s work release placement since he heard he was going back to the clink for busting up that pizza place, but the guy said nope, Dixon cut a deal. No jail time.”

  Ice took a swallow of the Grey Goose in front of him, barely feeling the burn of the liquor as it went down. The fucking idiot must have sung like an opera soloist to sleaze his way out of any jail time at all, considering the charges he’d been looking at. Of course, Ice really shouldn’t be surprised at this point. Dixon had been dumb enough to rob the place when Ice had specifically told him to go only for the intel and the beat down on that ex-hooker informant, just like he’d been dumb enough to get caught even though Ice had told him to lay low.

  While the robbery had been unplanned—at least, by Ice—the fire had been part of the strategy. No way was he going to pass up the chance to rattle that weak-ass paramedic and send the intelligence unit a message that their informant wasn’t safe from him. Showing up at the scene himself had been a risk, he’d known, but one worth taking. He’d been able to smell the sharp tang of the blonde’s fear from fifty yards away, and by the time she’d been able to go squealing to her cop friends, he’d been long gone.

  Unfortunately, time had been a factor after the break-in at Three Brothers. He’d had to choose between Cherise and Dixon. Ice had known she was the weaker link, far more likely to believe the cops’ fairy tales about shit like immunity and being able to keep her safe than Dixon, so he’d made the strategically smarter move. The bad news was, Dixon—the disloyal son of a bitch—had turned out to be as loose-lipped as Cherise would’ve been had the cops gotten to her first.

  The good news was, the only way the cops would get near her now was with a body bag. It’d been a shame he’d had to pump her full of heroin laced with enough fentanyl to drop a linebacker. Her mouth hadn’t been half-bad, even if he hadn’t been convinced she’d keep it shut when things really mattered. He might not be able to murder those two paramedics—yet—but no one would bat an eye at Cherise turning up as a poor, sad statistic. Shit, she’d even injected the first dose herself, and Ice had been certain to dump her in prime Scarlet Reapers territory once her body had been cold. No one could tie the Vipers to her death. No one could even prove Ice had ever had contact with her. The whole thing had been flawless.

  Of course, Dixon had gone and shit on his carefully laid plans anyway, the fucking traitor. Ice had been willing to wait out killing those two paramedics until after the deal with Sorenson went down in five days—he’d had to be. But now there would be heat on him when he needed to be invisible, and that, he couldn’t abide. It was time to give the RPD something else, something far bigger and nastier, to worry about other than digging into his business.

  He’d have to be extremely careful. No more loose ends. No more maybes.

  He needed an expert, one with a foolproof plan to keep the intelligence unit off his trail, the Vipers’ assets safe, and his business alive and kicking.

  “Get Rusty on the phone,” Ice said, and Adam’s eyes went appropriately wide in the flashing lights of the club.

  “You want the firebug? Man, that guy is off his fucking rocker.”

  Ice smiled. There was such a fine line between dedication and insanity. Rusty was brilliant. The pyromania was just a nasty side effect. But since the man’s other specialty was what Ice needed right now, he’d deal with whatever he needed to in order to reach his goal, and reach it fast.

  “Tell him I need him here in an hour for a job that’ll get his hands dirty and make a whole lot of noise.”

  24

  Luke had never been so happy to see oh-six-thirty in his life. Never mind that Sinclair and Bridges had agreed to let him and Quinn go back to work today after having missed only that one half-shift three days ago, and that his family and friends had all remained completely safe since then, too. But the RPD had pulled together an impressive amount of intel in the last two days, from Dixon’s confession that Ice was behind the break-in at Three Brothers to a bunch of details about some arms deal that was allegedly going down within the week.

  They’d sadly lost any leads they’d have gotten from Cherise when her body had been discovered in the back alley of a nightclub frequented by the Vipers’ rival gang early Monday morning, but even though it looked like a straight-up OD, the intelligence unit was still working whatever leads they could find to try and connect her to Ice. Quinn had even had what she’d called a “decent” session with Garrity.

  Despite the fact that Ice seemed to suspect the RPD knew about the kidnapping, he wasn’t acting on it. The case against him was coming together. There was a plan. He and Quinn were safe. About to head back to the jobs they loved.

  Annnnnd cue the segue.

  “You ready?” Luke asked, sending his gaze to the passenger seat of his Nissan.

  Quinn flung off her seatbelt, grinning in reply. “Are you kidding? I’ve been up since four.”

  “I know.” A bolt of heat moved through him as his short-term memory gave up a very wicked slide show in his mind’s eye. “Or did you forget I’m also an early riser?”

  “Luke, please,” she murmured, closing the space between them to brush a sweet-and-sexy kiss over his mouth. “After what you did to me this morning, I won’t even forget that when I’m ninety.”

  His lips parted into a smile as he kissed her back. “It was a pretty nice way to wake up.” That’s what she got for not wearing panties to bed. But no way had he planned to pass up saying good morning with his mouth between her thighs.

  “Just nice?” Quinn asked, and his smile became full-blown laughter.

  “Better than nice,” Luke agreed, arching a brow. “Hot.” He kissed her again. “Insanely sexy.” Kissed her longer. “In fact, I might need to make a habit of waking up right here more often.”

  He slid his hand from her rib cage to the seam of her jeans. A sigh tumbled past her
lips, threatening to wreck him, before she pulled back.

  “We’re going to be late,” she cautioned, apparently thinking better of turning him down outright when she added, “Rain check for tomorrow morning after shift.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Laughing, Luke got out of the car. Putting a solid visual on their surroundings, he took in the vehicles parked along Washington Boulevard, the brick and neatly kept siding of the brownstones and shopfronts on the other side of the tidy sidewalk, the bakery that was already beginning to bustle with the pre-workday crowd. He and Quinn had heightened awareness down to a science, and she repeated his scan in reverse out of the corner of her eye as they walked toward the fire house. Changing out for their shift quickly became roll call, then morning house chores, and even though he wasn’t headed back to the firefighter side of things for another week and a half, Luke walked into Station Seventeen’s engine bay fully expecting a gigantic ration of shit from his engine mates.

  Which worked out great, because that’s exactly what he got.

  “Well it’s about freaking time!” came Shae’s voice from the equipment room doorway, accompanied by a smile so genuine, he had no choice but to smile back. “I was beginning to think the department was going to keep yanking you two out of here for training indefinitely, you fucking slackers.”

  “Yeah, that’s us,” Quinn said from beside him, her laughter ruining any chance she had at nailing the sarcasm she’d almost certainly intended. “Luke and I are total delinquents. As a matter of fact, we had to drag ourselves away from Netflix and naptime just to be back here with you grunts.”

  “Daaaamn.” Kellan laughed, and Dempsey along with him. “Give a girl a rookie and she’ll take a mile.”

  Quinn’s cheeks flushed, but still, she said, “Mmm. Slater’s mine for the next week and a half. And don’t you forget it, Walker.”

  Not even the sly glances Kellan and Dempsey exchanged at the subtle innuendo could crush the good vibes brewing in Luke’s chest. The normalcy of fire house banter—and more importantly, the genuine, wide-open smile it put on Quinn’s face—made any potential brow-raising worth it.

  Damn, Luke really liked her. And the crazy thing was, it felt far too good to scare him.

  Shae waggled her brows, popping off with one last comment about him and Quinn being back in the trenches before she turned to grab the inventory clipboard off the wall beside the storage cage where they kept the SCBA tanks. Luke aimed himself at the ambo—he and Quinn had a ton of work to catch up on after their morning inventory was under their belt. Who knew, if they got lucky enough to have a gap in their day, he might even be able to teach her a little more ASL, too.

  But he barely got two steps past the back of Engine Seventeen before the look on Gamble’s face stopped him dead in his tracks.

  “Lieutenant? What’s—”

  “Slater. Stop.”

  Quinn, who was right on Luke’s boot heels, stuttered to a halt right next to him, her smile evaporating in an instant. “Gamble? What’s going on?”

  He looked up with an expression Luke had never, ever seen before, and God, what could possibly make Gamble, who was the saltiest SOB Luke knew, turn so pale?

  “I need you to very carefully, very quietly get everyone out of the engine bay and tell Captain Bridges to put us on lockdown. Immediately.”

  “What? Why?” Luke asked, the muscle in Gamble’s jaw the only part of him that moved as he replied.

  “Because I just did a security sweep of the engine, and there’s a bomb underneath it that’s big enough to blow the entire engine bay halfway to the moon.”

  Quinn choked out a noise that Luke barely heard past the freight-train slam of his heart against his eardrums. “T-there’s…”

  “A bomb under the engine,” Gamble said, his voice low and quiet. “It’s not on a timer, which means the detonator’s got to be on a remote. But I also found this.”

  He held up a cell phone, the kind convenience stores sold in those prepaid deals, and the message flashing across the screen turned Luke’s blood to ice.

  NO ONE IN, NO ONE OUT. EVACUATE THE FIRE HOUSE AND DIE LIKE ALL TEN OF YOU DESERVE, MOTHERFUCKERS.

  Oh. Christ.

  “Gamble—”

  “Listen to me,” he said, cutting Luke off with a tight nod. “I don’t know how much time we’ve got here. This thing is sophisticated enough to put all the IEDs I’ve ever seen to fucking shame.”

  Jesus. Luke didn’t even want to know how Gamble recognized what a complex explosive device looked like, let alone how many IEDs he’d ever come across.

  The lieutenant continued. “It doesn’t look like there are any pressure sensitive triggers on this thing that would set it off on contact, so I’m going to try to get a good look at it, since getting the bomb squad in here is obviously out of the question. But you need to go, both of you. Get everybody out of this room. Now.”

  “Quinn.” Luke turned toward her, something odd turning over in his chest like a boulder that had been lodged in place for far too long. “Go tell Shae and Kellan and Dempsey to get out of the engine bay and get Bridges. Go right now.”

  Miraculously, she nodded. “O-okay. I can do that.” She pivoted and disappeared at a swift run.

  “Slater,” Gamble ground out, his dark eyes boring holes in Luke from ten feet away. “You need to go, too. Go with Copeland.”

  “No. Respectfully,” he added, because not even life-and-death trumped manners as far as Momma Billie was concerned, and the least he could do if he was going to bite it was do so in a way that would make her proud. “But I’m not leaving you, so tell me how I can help.”

  Gamble bit out a vicious curse. “Jesus, rookie. You’ve got balls the size of Texas, you know that?”

  “Hey, Lieu,” came Kellan’s voice from over Luke’s shoulder before he could respond. “Uncle Sam gifted me with a little expertise in this field, same as you. Thought you might need a hand.”

  “Get your ass out of here,” Gamble growled. But then Shae chimed in, too, and the big guy was totally outnumbered.

  “Oh, quit bitching. Everyone here knows you secretly love to be cuddled.”

  “I’m serious,” Gamble said, his dark stare darting from Luke to Kellan to Shae. “Get the fuck out of this room, all three of you. That’s an order.”

  “No.” Luke shook his head even though his heart (and yeah, maybe a few other parts of his anatomy) was lodged in his windpipe. “We’re a team. Tell us how we can help.”

  Before Gamble could re-up his argument, Quinn’s voice echoed through the engine bay.

  “Captain Bridges is coming. Everyone else is in the common room. All accounted for.”

  A not-small part of Luke screamed for her to get as far away as possible, like maybe a cave in India or somewhere in the Australian outback, just for safety’s sake. But the look on her face said that, like him, she wasn’t budging, and since they had way bigger issues in front of them, Luke tamped down his wasted argument for the time being.

  Captain Bridges arrived in the doorway of the engine bay directly behind Quinn, his face drawn tight with worry.

  “Gamble, talk to me,” he said, his voice calm even though he was clearly out of breath from having run down the hallway.

  “We have an affirmative 10-89,” Gamble replied, using the police department’s code for a bomb threat. He relayed the basics to Captain Bridges, who let out a rare curse under his breath.

  “Quinn, go tell Lieutenant Hawkins to initiate lockdown protocols immediately,” he said, turning back to Gamble as she broke into a sprint down the hallway. “We’re going to need a secure line to call this in.”

  “Cell phones are a no-go,” Gamble said, and Kellan nodded in agreement from beside him. “The two-ways have private frequencies, so those will be our best bet. Dispatch can patch us through to the RPD and the bomb squad.”

  “Copy that. I’ll get Sinclair on the line,” Bridges said, heading quickly for the equipment room. Luke scraped
for a breath—not an easy task, considering the circumstances—and settled on the first thing he could think of.

  “Why no cell phones?”

  “Not for the reason you’d think,” Kellan said, moving next to Gamble, both of them kneeling down to look under the engine. “With a device this sophisticated, on a remote detonator to boot, only a very specific frequency is going to set it off. Cell phones are safe in that they won’t interfere with the device…”

  “But not if you don’t want someone eavesdropping on your plans to defuse their bomb,” Gamble finished.

  Luke’s brows shot up. “You think this guy can tap our cell phones?”

  “I think this guy planted a highly complex explosive device under our fucking noses. I’m not willing to risk finding out how good he is at playing Big Brother. The RFD radio frequencies are encrypted to keep the media out of our shit. Whoever planted this thing would have to either be clairvoyant or in this room to hear the two-way coms.”

  Luke had a gut-sinking feeling he knew exactly who had planted this bomb. Or at least, who had commissioned the elaborate handiwork.

  A thought slammed into him all at once. “Quinn.” His gaze whipped toward the door to the engine bay, adrenaline free-flowing through his veins. No, no. No. “My sister and grandmother. I need—”

  “Already done,” she said, indicating the radio on her shoulder. “Bridges just got Sinclair on the line, but I had dispatch call Maxwell and Hale separately. There was a patrol car already at your grandmother’s house, and they’re taking her and Hayley to the precinct.”

  Luke’s breath released in a whoosh of relief. It lasted for only a second, though, before he felt the weight of his engine-mates’ stares.

  “Long story,” he said, and Kellan was the first to break the silence.

  “How about you tell it over beers at the Crooked Angel when we get out of this mess, yeah?”