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  The room filled in behind him. Two officers stood, service weapons out. It was Detective Jones and Patrol officer Tate.

  “Freeze!”

  Viktor turned to look at them.

  Two more of my guys joined to their sides—Detective Donner and Sergeant Mike Mueller.

  Viktor turned back toward me.

  He ran at me. I planted my fist in his gut stopping his progress. I stuck my right foot behind his and put my right hand in his chest pressing him over my outstretched leg. His feet came from the ground. I drove him into the tile floor. He coughed.

  I rolled him over. “Cuffs!”

  Jones came over and planted a knee in his back. We linked him up. I went through his pockets looking for the key to the wine room. He didn’t have it. I pulled him up and shoved him at Donner and Sergeant Mueller.

  “Keep an eye on him.”

  I motioned for Jones to follow me. “I need your help with something.”

  We walked down the steps to Callie in the wine room. I pushed open the inner door.

  She ran to me. “Carl!” Callie wrapped her arms around me through the gate.

  “We’re going to get you out of there,” I said.

  I grabbed the metal gate. I nodded for Jones to do the same.

  “Count of three?” he asked.

  I nodded. Jones fired off a three count. I leaned back and pulled as hard as I could. I could see Jones doing the same. He put his foot up on the wall for more leverage. The gate creaked and flung open. It sent me stumbling back. I caught my balance. Callie rushed out into my arms.

  “I’m so sorry, Carl. I’m so sorry you got wrapped up in this.” She held me tighter than I’d ever felt before.

  I pulled back. “What exactly is this, Callie?”

  “I’m sorry.” She looked me in the eyes. “I wanted to tell you months ago but Deputy Klein wouldn’t allow it.”

  “Deputy Klein?” I asked.

  “He’s a U.S. Marshal. I’m in witness protection.”

  Chapter 31

  Ray awoke in darkness. The stench of death surrounded him. The smell was thick enough to taste. His head throbbed. His hands were cuffed. Ray looked left and right in the darkness. A glowing plastic handle that he recognized caught his eye. It was the emergency trunk release tab. He lay in the trunk of the Bentley with Scott’s body. Kane must have cuffed him and put him inside.

  Ray rolled on his stomach. He grasped the handle behind his back and pulled. The trunk lid flipped up. He got to his knees and rolled himself out of the trunk. He stood. The Bentley was embedded into a tree. Ray looked inside. Kane was gone. The sound of sirens echoed in the distance. Red and blue lights of police cruisers speed past out on the street. They headed in the direction of the mansion. At the patch of destroyed bushes by the street, another squad car slowed. With his arms restrained behind his back, he jogged back into the yard and out of sight.

  He watched the cop exit the car and head toward the Bentley. The cop was alone. He approached the back of the car. The light from his flashlight shined over the grass. The cop got to the trunk. He shined his light inside on Scott’s body. The cop called it in on his shoulder radio. Ray needed to act fast.

  He circled the yard in the darkness, and crept through the trees to stay out of the officer’s field of vision. The cop still stood at the back of the Bentley shining his flashlight in. Ray started toward him. He was slow leaving the cover of the tree line. He built his speed to a jog. The cop stood twenty feet away. Ray went to a full run. The cop heard Ray’s pounding footsteps and spun around. He reached for the gun at his hip. Ray was two strides away.

  The officer’s reaction was too late. Ray lifted his leg and delivered a boot to the cop’s face at full run. The cop flipped over the back of the car and collapsed to the ground. Ray rounded the back. The cop tried pulling himself to his feet. Ray punted him in the face. The officer spun over and fell to the ground. Ray lifted his foot and stomped down. The cop stopped moving.

  Ray scooped up the cop’s flashlight. He shined it on the cop from behind his back. A key ring on the cop’s belt reflected the light back. Ray dropped the flashlight and positioned it to shine on the key ring with his foot. He spotted two small keys—handcuff keys. He sat with his back next to the cop’s body and tried to unclasp the keys from his belt.

  The lights from another police cruiser caught his attention. A second car pulled up at the street. Ray yanked at the keys. They wouldn’t come free. Ray heard a car door close in the distance. He pulled at the keys harder. The light from a flashlight shined on the sidewalk. Ray pulled with all his strength. The key chain ripped free.

  Ray knelt. He held the cop’s handcuff keys in his right hand. He poked away with the key until he felt it slip into the lock on his left cuff. With a quick turn of the key, the cuff came loose. He unlocked his right hand and dropped the cuffs to the ground. He pulled out the Desert Eagle. The flashlight came closer. The cop was still forty yards away—too far in the dark to get an accurate shot. Ray aimed toward the light and waited. The cop approached—thirty yards away. The beam of the flashlight touched the ground five feet in front of where Ray knelt. Ray aimed twelve inches right of the flashlight and fired. A muzzle flash filled the darkness in front of Ray like daylight. The shot rang out like a cannon through the night air. The flashlight fell to the ground.

  Ray got to his feet and ran through the yard. He’d stop for nothing. He wouldn’t look back to see if there were other cops pursuing.

  Five houses down, he crossed the street. He ran between the houses heading south. Front yards became back yards, then a street. Front yard, back yard, street. He pulled up in a backyard six blocks from the Bentley. He saw the lights from a main crossing street ahead. Ray put his back to a garden shed and holstered his gun. He pulled in huge breaths of air.

  He was dizzy. Ray’s forehead throbbed. He reached up to feel another giant gash above the one delivered by Kane. He stuck his finger into the wound. It was wide and deep. He didn’t remember anything after being kicked in the face by Kane. He looked at his suit jacket. It was covered in blood—as were his pants. If a cop spotted him, whether they knew who he was or not, he’d be stopped and questioned without a doubt. He needed to stay out of sight.

  Ray unbuttoned his jacket. He used the inside corner to try to wipe the blood from his face. It would do no good. He buttoned himself back up and continued on to the mansion.

  From a block away, the lights from the police cars lit up the neighborhood. The lieutenant must have gotten the word out that Viktor and the girl were there. Ray needed to know if Viktor had been taken into custody. He stuffed his hand in his pocket for his cell phone to call him. It was gone—so was his lucky knife. Ray slipped into the neighboring yard and continued toward the house. Through the bushes he could see at least a half-dozen police cars out front. Ray rounded the brick fence to the back of the mansion. He peered over the top into the house. Police offers huddled and talked in the living room. He watched. More cops joined in. They looked around.

  He saw Lieutenant Kane and Callie. The two sat close on the living room couch. He didn’t see Viktor anywhere. Ray followed the fence toward the front of the house. Two patrol cars parked outside the home’s entryway. An officer stood at the rear door of one of the cars. There was someone inside. Ray couldn’t tell who. He moved a few feet for a better look.

  “Shit.”

  Viktor was in the back. The police had him. There was a single cop outside. Ray pulled his gun. He grasped the top of the brick fence to pull himself over. The cop’s back was to Ray. He wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Ray hoisted himself up on the fence and dropped a leg over the other side. His movement stopped before he swung himself over. Four more officers rushed down the front steps of the house. Ray froze. Five cops were too many. He’d be arrested at the minimum. Ray retreated into the darkness.

  Chapter 32

  Callie handed the cell phone back to Detective Jones. She just wrapped up a phone call wi
th the Deputy she had been dealing with at the U.S. Marshal’s office. Callie sat next to me on the couch in the living room and rested her head against my shoulder.

  “Are they coming?” I asked.

  “Yes. They should be here within the hour.”

  “And then?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Sergeant Mueller approached. He held my service weapon, wallet, phone and keys—everything that normally resided in my pockets. “Is this stuff yours? I found it in the kitchen.”

  I nodded and took the pile of my belongings. “Thanks, Mueller.”

  I turned back to Callie. “Are they going to take you somewhere else? Hide you?”

  “I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Is that your choice?”

  “I don’t care what they say. I’m not leaving you.”

  “Did you not trust me enough to tell me?”

  She shook her head. “I asked Deputy Klein if I could. He forbid it. I trust you with my life, Carl. I should have just told you anyway.”

  “Can you tell me what your involvement is?”

  “I’ll tell you everything. Where do you want me to start?”

  “From the beginning.”

  “OK.” She paused. “I worked at a club Viktor owned called Napitok. From the first day I started working there I could tell something was off. The club had a lower level that was off limits to employees. They had some high-tech hand print security thing on the door leading down. The employees would joke and gossip about what might be down there.”

  “I take it you found out?”

  She nodded. “I walked past the club on a Sunday heading to the store. I had an apartment just up the block. The club was always closed on Sundays, but Viktor’s car was there. I figured I’d pop in and get my paycheck. We got paid on Saturday nights, but I had off. I walked up to the front door and noticed Viktor’s trunk was open a crack. I went over to close it. When I lifted the lid to slam it, I saw what was inside. The trunk was filled with clear plastic totes. Each one was stuffed with hundred dollar bills—the old kind. The back seat of his car had the same totes filled with more money. There was so much—too much money to count. It couldn’t have been from the club. I walked in and saw the door leading downstairs open. I glanced down. Ray and Viktor stood next to a big machine. Viktor inspected the sheets of bills coming from the side of the machine. Ray cut the sheets and loaded the money into the plastic totes. I got out of there right away.”

  “You went to the police?”

  “No. They came to me. Well, not the police, the FBI.”

  “How did they come to you?”

  “I guess FBI had been looking into Viktor for racketeering charges. Ray wasn’t on their radar. He’d just come back from somewhere in Russia. They had surveillance set up on the nightclub. When their video caught me leaving the club in a hurry, they contacted me. I told them everything I saw. They asked me to try to get them one of the bills.”

  “Did you?”

  “I couldn’t. I never saw the hundreds again after they took them from the club. They wanted me to stay working there and watch for anything else. I told them about the case that Viktor always had with him.”

  “This is the case he was looking for?”

  She nodded. “He guarded the thing with his life. They wanted me to try to find out the contents, except he’d never leave it anywhere. It never left his sight. Then one day, for just a few minutes, he left it in his office. I guess a fight broke out inside the club. Viktor left his office to go see what was going on. I went to look in the case but it was locked. Viktor’s surveillance screens on his desk showed him coming back. I didn’t want to find out what would happen if he caught me snooping around his office, so I grabbed the case and left out the back. I turned it over to the Feds and never went back.”

  “So you didn’t have the case at your house?”

  “No. I was trying to warn you by telling you it was in the closet. If I’d just told them that I turned it over to the Feds, they would have killed us both.”

  “What was inside?”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t actually know. I’m guessing something to do with making counterfeit money. The Feds wanted me to testify, to which I agreed, and they set me up with the U.S. Marshal’s office. The Marshals moved me here right away. They were worried that Viktor would come after me.”

  “I guess they were right.”

  “I’m so sorry, Carl.” Callie let out a long breath. “Alright, let me do this. I’ve been waiting a long time.”

  “Do what?”

  She looked me square in the eyes and grabbed my hand. “My name is Calista Albero. Everything about me is fake. The house, the furniture inside, the car, it’s all property of the U.S. Marshal’s.”

  “What’s real?”

  “Me. The two of us together. That is real. Every conversation we’ve ever had. Every laugh. All those things are real. Me being in love with you is real. The fact that I’m pregnant is definitely real.”

  I sat quiet, unsure what to say.

  “Do you still want me in your life? I mean, I guess I understand if you don’t. Everything about me is made up. I’m not a bartender. Well, I guess I am now. I took the hostess job as part time work while I attended classes. I was in school to be a Radiologist. Everything I have is someone else’s. All my stuff is in storage somewhere. I don’t own the house, I don’t own the BMW. I’m just a…”

  Her rambling was cut off when I pulled her in and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Yes. I want you in my life. I don’t care what material items you have.”

  The officers in the house started heading for the front door. Chatter came over the radios.

  “Something is going on. I have to go check on this. Are you going to be OK here?”

  “Yeah, don’t worry about me.”

  I got up from the couch. I found Hank coming my way. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “We got a ten-double-o from the scene of the Bentley.”

  “When?”

  “A few minutes ago.”

  “Ray?”

  Hank shook his head. “Gone.”

  “Shit. How? What happened?”

  “Torrey and Susco reported to the Bentley. Torrey got there first. He was attacked. Susco got shot.”

  “Shot?” An empty feeling filled my gut. I left Ray with his Desert Eagle. “How bad?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m heading over there now.”

  “Hold on. I’m coming with you.”

  I went back to Callie and handed her my phone. “Ray got away. I have to go. Call Hank’s phone as soon as you get something figured out with the Marshals. Just look through the contacts for Hank Rawlings. Don’t disappear on me.”

  “He got away?”

  “I’ll find him. Call me, OK?”

  She nodded.

  I gave her a quick kiss and met Hank at his car out front. I slid in and pulled the seatbelt over me. He pulled out.

  “Did you run the plates on the Bentley?” I asked.

  “Wesley Brewer. He owns the house as well. We tried multiple phone numbers, but didn’t get anything.”

  “Age?”

  “Sixty-six.”

  “The guy in the trunk wasn’t that old.”

  “We’ll get an I.D. on him. Hey, reach in the glove box.”

  I opened it up. A badge lay inside. Burnt leather surrounded the shield. I grabbed it and gave it a closer look. It was mine. “Why do you have my badge? Why is it burnt?”

  “I pulled it out of your Corvette.”

  “Why is it burnt?”

  “You don’t know?”

  I shook my head. “Know what?”

  “Someone lit your car on fire.”

  I let out a puff of air through my nose and rubbed my eyes. “Great.”

  Hank pulled from the subdivision out onto Interbay Boulevard. We’d find out the condition of the officers in a minute. We neared the spot where the Bentley crossed lanes. Five squad
cars were pulled onto the sidewalk. The lights from an ambulance lit the backyard where the car crashed into the tree. Hank and I made a U-turn and pulled up onto the sidewalk behind the other cruisers. We hopped out.

  The group of EMTs administered tests to Torrey sitting on the grass. Three more EMTs wheeled someone back to the ambulance on a stretcher. I jogged over. They had just loaded him inside. I looked in and didn’t see any blood. Susco wore an oxygen mask. He pulled it from his face.

  “You took a shot?”

  “Shot me in the damn chest. Vest did its job.”

  I stood in shock. I couldn’t figure out how he was alive. If Ray shot Susco with the Desert Eagle, Susco should have been dead, vest or not.

  “Did he use Torrey’s service weapon?”

  “No. Torrey’s weapon never left his hip.”

  “Do you know how lucky you are? If it he didn’t use Torrey’s service issue, that shot came from a .50 caliber Desert Eagle.”

  “Fifty, huh? That’s why my insides feel like Jello?”

  “The level-two armor shouldn’t stop a bullet of that caliber.”

  He coughed. “Not level-two.” He nodded at the vest lying on the grass outside. “We just got new SWAT vests. They’re supposed to be able to stop a forty-four round. I guess you can add a .50 caliber to that list.”

  I slapped his boot. “Glad you’re alright. I’d write a good review for that vest company.”

  He nodded and put the mask back over his nose and mouth. I took a step back and one of the EMTs closed the doors.

  I turned to him. “What’s the extent of his injuries?”

  “I’d guess cracked ribs—possible internal injuries. We’re about to head out now.”

  “Alright, thanks. Make sure he’s taken care of.”

  I walked to Torrey. He scrunched his face in pain. Red contusions covered the side of his head. His nose was swollen and bloody.

  “Are you going to make it?”

  He smirked. “Think so. Guy packs a wallop.”