Chapter Nineteen

Luke Patterson had done a lot of difficult things in his life.

His time in the service hadn’t exactly been a cakewalk.

Even before then, when he was a kid, he’d survived a lot of situations that might have broken somebody without his strength or determination. He hadn’t exactly seen it that way at the time—adulthood had a way of casting things in a different light. All he’d known back then was survival.

Yet as he drove away from the safe house where he’d stashed Claire with Weston keeping watch, he was sure he’d never done anything harder. Not even close.

“You know she’s in safe hands with me,” Weston had reminded him, only partly kidding around. He understood what Claire meant, how Luke felt, and what it did to him to leave her behind. Safe hands or not.

None of them would ever be satisfied with letting others protect the ones they loved, no matter who those others were.

If it wasn’t for the need to put in face time around the office, he would never have considered leaving her side, no matter how remote her location. It wasn’t like the cabin, in that the cabin hadn’t been deliberately rigged to keep it off the grid.

This safe house was. Luke and his brothers used the cabin’s generator and solar panels as inspiration to keep clients as protected as possible by making them as invisible as possible.

Even having set up the safe house himself wasn’t enough to make leaving any easier. But facts were facts, and Ballard wouldn’t be satisfied without confirmation of Luke being in the area and following his normal routine.

Which was why he drove to the office with his hands gripping the wheel tight enough that he could’ve sworn he heard the thing creak from the strain. It was why he stopped off for coffee and a bagel, making sure to take his time getting in and out of the car so anybody driving past could see him easily.

Brax was waiting at the office. “No bagel for me?”

“Here. You can have this one. I’m not hungry.” He handed the bag to his brother before heading to his desk. The absence of files was still a minor miracle and enough to make him smile for a second.

“You’ve got to take care of yourself if you plan to take care of her.” Brax leaned against the doorjamb, picking at the cinnamon raisin bagel but watching Luke all the while.

“I realize that. But I couldn’t swallow a bite right now if you paid me, not since we talked this morning.” He couldn’t shake the mental image of his mother realizing there was something wrong when her foot pressed down on the brake pedal and nothing happened. If she had been on the freeway—

He shook himself free of this. It was enough that she was safe. He’d drive himself insane if he kept asking “what if.”

“You think Claire will be able to find what we’re looking for without being noticed?”

That much he was sure of. “Absolutely. She knows what she’s doing. It’s one thing to not get around safeguards placed specifically to keep her out of Passage Digital’s network without raising a red flag, but Ballard’s people can’t put up blocks to other sites not under their control. So as long as she uses her tricks to mask who she is and where she’s accessing the information from, she’ll be fine.”

“You sound pretty confident.”

“I am. She’s the best. And it isn’t like she doesn’t understand the stakes.”

“I wasn’t trying to insult her. Don’t get your feathers ruffled.” Brax flashed one of his winning smiles, the same smile that he’d used to get out of trouble more times than Luke could count. “Just remind me once things calm down for good to make fun of you until I run out of breath for finally falling for a woman.”

“I’ll do that right after I remind you to grow up. How’s that sound?”

His burner phone rang. Brax grew serious as he perched on the edge of Luke’s desk to listen in. “Yes?” Luke answered, glancing at his brother.

“All’s well,” Weston assured him. “Your lady is working her fingers to the bone over here. I don’t think I’ve ever heard keys clicking so fast.”

Like that was what he wanted to hear about. “Has she found anything?”

“Oh, definitely. She hacked the security footage around the office building—not in Ballard’s offices, mind you, but the ones nearby. That way he won’t know somebody’s been looking around. She managed to pick up clear shots of a pair of big guys who tag along with him wherever he goes. You can plainly see them from a camera across the street getting in and out of his car. She ran a facial recognition scan, and their names are Nick Masters and David Brooks—both ex-CIA, both with filthy records.”

“A perfect resource for a man with no scruples.”

“Exactly.”

“What about those detectives? Anything there?”

“Claire is working on them as we speak. I’d guess they’ll be easier to get to than these two psycho meatheads. The odds of catching one of them without Ballard nearby is greater. They’re regular guys...detectives, probably with wives and kids.”

“So their pressure points will be closer to the surface. Easier to find and use against them.”

“Correct again. You’ll get the hang of this yet.”

“Everybody’s a comedian all of a sudden.”

There was noise in the background, making Luke’s heart clench. The sound of her voice did that to him, the longing he couldn’t shake. Wanting to have her there, with him, where he could see and touch her and know she was okay.

“She found something,” Weston murmured. “Let’s see.”

“What is it?” Luke exchanged another glance with Brax, whose eyebrows were lifted high enough to practically blend in with his hairline.

“Oh. Oh, this is good. This works in our favor.” Weston’s dark chuckle was punctuation at the end of that statement. “I’ll let the lady tell you what we’re looking at.”

Moments later, Claire’s voice washed over Luke like a gentle rain. Just the sound of it helped him breathe easier.

She launched straight into her report. “Looks like our friendly neighborhood detective has a bad habit. There are two mortgages on Arellano’s house, and he’s in credit card debt up to his eyeballs.”

“What is it? Drugs, drinking, women?”

“Judging by the locations of these ATM transactions, I’d say gambling.”

Brax shook his head and let out a low whistle while Luke pressed on. “Any sign of interference?”

“A big flashing red sign. Man, the guy even took an early withdrawal from his IRA. His checking account was nearly in the negative. But suddenly...poof! A whole bunch of money showed up across a number of different accounts like a benevolent fairy waved a wand.”

“How much?”

“There’s a lot of zeroes. Let’s put it that way.”

“They weren’t even sneaky about it.”

“Eh, they were pretty sneaky,” she chuckled, “but I’m sneakier.”

He grinned. “Of course. I can’t forget that.”

“I’d say he’s your way in. From what I’m seeing, Fisher is just plain dirty. He’s been written up for excessive force a half dozen times in four years and has a string of citations for other offenses. How does he even have a job?”

“Somebody’s convinced somebody else to look the other way,” Luke decided. “How about Arellano’s record?”

“Clean as a whistle.”

“He’s our way in, then.” Luke offered Brax a smirk. “Let’s see how Detective Arellano feels when the tables are turned and he’s the one being tailed.”

It was early evening by the time they found him, his car parked outside a Chinese take-out restaurant a few miles from the rancher he and his wife called home. There were no kids in the picture, but that didn’t make him any less vulnerable—not with a gambling habit like his.

With Brax keeping lookout, Luke waited in a narrow alley between the restaurant and the dry cleaner next door. It wasn’t more than a few minutes before a man in a rumpled suit emerged holding a plastic bag in one hand.

Detective Brandon Arellano wasn’t at the top of his game, not even close. Luke was able to grab him and steer him toward the alley without even a hint of force. He wondered if the guy was fully aware of what was happening to him. It wasn’t until they were standing face-to-face that the detective blinked hard, shaking his head a little. “Oh. It’s just you.”

Luke blinked, a little thrown by this reaction. “Who did you expect, Detective?”

“Not you. What are you doing?” Arellano looked back and forth, up and down the cramped passage. “Are you insane, trying to pressure me like this?”

“Who said anything about pressuring? I thought we might have a little chat, is all. You’ve been so interested in my life as of late, it seemed rude not to be interested in yours.”

It was then that Luke noticed something.

The man looked like death warmed over, as Sheila Patterson was prone to saying. Even in the few days since Luke had last known the displeasure of the man’s presence, Arellano had lost weight. The buttoned collar of his shirt was loose around his neck, his Adam’s apple sticking out more prominently than before. He hadn’t shaved in at least two days, and his eyes were ringed in dark circles. “What happened to you, man?” Luke asked, dropping any pretense of threat.

“It’s none of your business. And if I were you—”

“You aren’t me. For one, I don’t look like somebody reanimated my corpse. What’s going on? Don’t pretend everything’s fine because I know things about you. And something tells me I’m not the only one.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Read the racing form lately?”

Arellano’s already pale skin turned ashen. “That’s none of your business.”

“Listen to me.” Luke lowered his brow along with his voice, locking eyes with the detective. The man was terrified, sweat rolling down his face and neck. It was time to take a calculated risk. “I know Ballard’s blackmailing you.”

The risk paid off. Arellano’s eyes flew open wide in time with the dropping of his jaw. “Wh-what?”

“You heard me. It doesn’t have to be this way. The man is a disease, isn’t he? He finds your weak spot and works his way in. So, what is it? He found out about your gambling and threatened to spill to the department? I mean, they can’t have a degenerate gambler on the force, now, can they?”

“Watch it,” Arellano snarled. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I? I have the feeling I’m right. Call it instinct or the way your body language is taking to me. You’re scared out of your wits, man. Like I said, it doesn’t have to be this way.”

It was clear the man didn’t want to buckle. He wanted to stay strong and pretend he didn’t have the first clue what Luke referred to, but there were limits to a man’s resolve.

He leaned against the wall with a heavy sigh. “You’re right. He found out about the gambling and threatened to go the captain unless I agreed to play along. I mean, what was I supposed to do? It seemed like the answer to a prayer. Only...” He averted his eyes.

“Only you didn’t want to play along once you figured out what that would involve?”

A single nod. “Fisher...he’s a complicated man. He doesn’t, uh, care much about going by the book. I didn’t know that Ballard already knew him, though. Not until this whole thing started. And I didn’t know how far he was willing to go. I couldn’t do the things Ballard wanted us to do.” He shuddered, shaking his head.

Luke fought to put things together. He looked down at the bag Arellano still carried and noticed how light it looked. The condition of his clothes, the sweat stain around his collar, the stain on his tie.

An even uglier picture started to come together.

“You told him you wouldn’t play his game,” he murmured, “so he forced your hand.”

“He took my wife. He took her.” There were tears in the man’s eyes when they met Luke’s again, and the pain in his voice was almost enough to stir sympathy. “He’s going to kill her if I don’t see this through. I believe him.”

Luke muttered a curse, hands linked on top of his head. This was worse than any of them had imagined. “We can get you out of this.”

Arellano let out a miserable laugh. “You can’t believe that. Not knowing what you know, Patterson. You don’t seem like a stupid person.”

“You’re right, I’m not. Which is why I know we can get all of us out of this, but we’ve got to be smart. Which means you’ve got to play on our team from now on.”

“Don’t you get it?” Arellano snarled like a trapped animal—which, in essence, was what he was. “It’s quid pro quo. Claire’s life for Amanda’s. He wants Claire Wallace dead. He requires it, or else Amanda dies.”

Luke looked away as the man started to cry, both sorry for him and more than a little uncomfortable. “He’s not a disease... He’s the devil incarnate.”

“He is. I wish I’d known. I swear, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have accepted his deal if I thought Amanda would get roped into it. She’s innocent. She didn’t even know about the blackmail money. I don’t know where he has her—” His voice lifted in pitch, taking on a note of panic.

Luke took Arellano by the shoulders and shoved him against the cold brick wall to shake him out of his spiraling. “Okay, all right. You’ve gotta stay calm and rational for Amanda’s sake. And you have to accept help when it comes your way. This isn’t like before. I’m not Ballard. I’m not trying to trick you. There’s a way we can all get what we need, but we have to work together. You need us, and we need you.”

Arellano took a few deep, shuddery breaths before pulling himself together, standing straighter than before. “You said you have a plan?”

“I do.”

“And this is a Ballard-proof plan?”

“Only if I have your full cooperation.”

He nodded, firm now. “Okay, Patterson... Let’s hear it.”