Violet Darger (Book 4): Bad Blood Read online

  Luck’s eyes narrowed.

  “Actually, I’m surprised you know that. I thought maybe you were under the impression the ‘I’ stood for Insubordination.”

  “We’re following a lead! How is that insubordinate?”

  “Holding back key information from the rest of the task force isn’t the kind of thing that gets you a Letter of Commendation.”

  Darger had to stop herself from blurting out that she didn’t give a flying fuck about Letters of Commendation. But she held back.

  Instead, she said, “It does if you find the bad guy.”

  Luck gestured impatiently back at Jaworski’s house.

  “We found the bad guy.”

  “No. We found one of the bad guy’s minions. Think about it. If Jaworski’s the one that killed Angelo Battaglia, who do you think ordered the hit?”

  His eyes found hers.

  “Vinny Battaglia.”

  She nodded, then made a gesture that there was more to the answer than that. He closed his eyes when it hit him.

  “You think this Jaworski guy might lead us to where Vinny the Bull has been hiding out.”

  Darger smiled, pleased that he’d put the pieces together himself. Luck settled back in his seat. He didn’t seem nearly as impressed with the breakthrough as she thought he should be.

  “Come on,” she elbowed him playfully. “Isn’t this what you signed up for when you became a Fed?”

  “You know what’ll happen if Price finds out about this? He already treats me like his pet whipping boy. I’ll be so deep in it…”

  “And if I’m right, and Jaworski takes us straight to Vinny Battaglia’s doorstep, you can have all the credit. You’ll be the hero.”

  “If. If he leads us to Battaglia. If he doesn’t, I’m screwed.”

  “No, because I’ll say it was all my idea.”

  “It is all your idea.”

  “Does that mean you’ll do it?” She waggled her eyebrows.

  Luck lifted his head, gazing at the ceiling like it might hold some answers.

  “One day,” he said finally, holding up his index finger. “You have one day to find something, and then I’m spilling all of it.”

  “Deal,” she said.

  She tried not to grin — she didn’t want to gloat — but she allowed herself a small but satisfied smirk.

  Luck grumbled something under his breath and went back to studying the rearview mirror.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “I said you’re a real pain in the ass.”

  In the silence that followed, Darger couldn’t help but start to feel the pressure rise.

  She’d been so sure this was the right course of action. Her gut practically screamed it.

  But sitting here in the stillness had her questioning things again.

  What if this blew up in her face? It was a risk to play it this way, to hold back Jaworski’s name from the rest of the task force. She couldn’t deny that.

  But no. She was on the right track. She had to be. And she didn’t have a choice, really. If she was right about the mole, they had to keep it all on the down low.

  Her eyelids fluttered.

  Luck’s doubt was infectious. That was all.

  The moisture was heavy in the air, and the interior of the car grew humid as they sat. Luck turned the air on, trying to cycle some of the dankness out of the small space. Darger kept her focus trained on the house, eyes traveling from window to window, looking for movement. For anything.

  Chapter 27

  The rain started up again, and Darger couldn’t help but feel like that helped camouflage them. Like the droplets were a cloak, concealing them from suspicious eyes.

  A car passed them on the street, tires sizzling over the wet road.

  She doubted that was true — the camo idea. At least not literally. Maybe the added stimulus of the rain helped distract. The white noise of the droplets hitting the car. The pulse of lightning in the clouds. The fact that everything seemed rendered in a shade of gray.

  Her phone rang. She glanced down at it, saw Owen’s name on the screen.

  Her eyes flicked over to Luck. She didn’t really want to have this conversation with an audience, but she was supposed to fly down to Atlanta in two days, and there was no way she’d be done with the case by then. She had to break the news to Owen, and she wasn’t likely to have a minute alone at any point today.

  She sighed and answered. Owen was so excited this time, he was practically shouting.

  “I did it! I pulled the trigger. She’s all mine.”

  “Start over. What do you mean, pulled the trigger?”

  She felt Luck’s eyes on her and tried to ignore it.

  “Grace O’Malley.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The boat! I bought it.”

  “You mean rent, right? Or charter, whatever.”

  “No, I mean bought.”

  “I thought you were just going to look at it.”

  “Well, I got there, and goddamn, she’s just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Aside from you, of course. Anyway, me and Bert — that’s the owner… former owner — got to talking, and it turns out he’s been looking to sell it. And I started thinking, well hell. This has always been my dream. I got the advance money for the book. It felt like the universe was trying to tell me something. Did I mention it was built the same year I was born?”

  “You did.”

  “It’s a sign!”

  She laughed a little at his earnestness. “You’re insane.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or maybe you just really wanted an excuse to wear one of those skipper hats.”

  “Well, yeah. That hat tells everyone on board that I’m in charge.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  “See? It’s working already,” Owen said.

  The conversation lulled for a beat.

  “I emailed you some pictures,” he said, his tone only slightly less enthused.

  “I told you not to send any more dick pics to my work email.”

  “Keep making that joke, and one of these days I’m really going to do it. They’re pictures of the boat. I know you’ll be here to see it in person in a few days, but I couldn’t wait. I wanted to show her to you now.”

  Darger cringed.

  “So there’s a little problem with that.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m on a case.”

  “But you were supposed to fly in the day after tomorrow. You still had another three weeks of leave.”

  She could hear the disappointment in his voice. Guilt clawed at her insides.

  “I know. Something came up.”

  He sighed. She knew what he was thinking: Something always came up. But that was the job, wasn’t it?

  “Well how long do you think it will be?”

  “A few days, at least.”

  “I have to be in Tybee Island by Friday to sign the papers and all that. You could skip Atlanta, fly into Savannah instead once you finish up. Meet me there. As long as you’re here by Sunday, it’s all good.”

  “Yeah. OK,” she said, feeling better about all of it.

  “So what’s the case?”

  Darger’s eyes traced a line over to where Luck hunkered in the driver’s seat.

  Was she supposed to tell Owen about working with Luck? She wasn’t sure. She’d never really been in this position before. Working with an ex. But there wasn’t really anything to tell. They’d had a brief relationship, almost two years ago now. It was over. Done with. She’d moved on. She was sure Luck had moved on, too. So that was that.

  “Just a mafia thing,” she said, deciding to leave Luck out of it.

  “Just?”

  She chuckled. “Would you rather it was another serial killer?”

  “No, ma’am. I would not.” He said it without a trace of irony.

  A curtain in Jaworski’s house fluttered, as if catching the slight wind of someone walking past.

&nb
sp; “Anyway, I better go,” Darger said, the wrap-up of the conversation playing out on some kind of autopilot, words exchanged that she forgot immediately.

  Her eyes stayed lock on the window as a half a minute of silence passed. No further movement.

  She figured Luck would have commented on either the curtain or the phone call by now, but maybe he’d just tuned her talk out after the first minute or so. It was pretty boring to listen to one side of someone else’s conversation.

  But then his voice broke through the steady patter of the rain over their heads.

  “So you are seeing someone.”

  “Yep.”

  Silence settled around them again, and Darger wondered if he expected more explanation than that. Well, he wasn’t going to get it. It was none of his business.

  She was still pondering this when the old black metal screen door on Jaworski’s place swung open.

  “Oh, crap,” Luck said. “There he is.”

  Darger saw the man coming out of the house all on her own, of course, and “crap” was not the word that came to mind.

  Her instinct was to shoot upright in her seat, but she forced herself to stay in her half-slouched position. She didn’t want to draw attention to the car.

  She could see now why everyone giving a description of Dominik Jaworski mentioned his size first. The hulking figure lingered on the front step of the porch, locking the door behind himself. He was pale with dark hair, which he’d slicked back with some kind of hair goop. He seemed all shoulders and broad back.

  An awning over the stoop shielded him from the rain while he secured the door, but as soon as he stepped away, the droplets pelted him. He sort of ducked away from them and jogged to the Explorer in the driveway.

  Catching a glimpse of his face, she sensed a dead-eyed look to him. Darger remembered Cherie Howard saying he had a cold presence. Yeah, Darger could see that.

  He wore a charcoal sports jacket over a black t-shirt, which she almost found funny. Combined with the pomaded hair, it was like he was wearing a mobster costume. Was it intentional? In a way, she thought so. They all wanted to look the part. To play out the role, acquire the power that comes with it. All of this was something the mafia guys glamorized, something they fantasized about.

  It had that in common with the usual serial killer cases she worked. Both were all about a fantasy, a way to imagine one’s self into power. And the way they cemented that fantasy into reality was through a ritual of violent acts.

  The suspect swiveled his head for a second, scanning the area, and Darger held her breath, sure he was going to look right into the rental at her.

  Instead, he opened his car door and folded himself smaller to squeeze into the front seat.

  The taillights came on, leaving red smears on the droplet-covered side mirror Darger was peering into. The bright white of the reverse lights joined the party, and then the vehicle eased backward onto the street.

  Luck reached for the ignition, and Darger put a hand out to stop him.

  “Not yet.”

  They sat, frozen, while Jaworski’s car rumbled down the street, passing them by on the left.

  Once he’d reached the next cross street, Darger nodded.

  “OK. Now.”

  The engine turned over, and then Luck was accelerating down the road. At first she thought it was just a case of nerves — the excitement was making his foot a little heavy on the gas. But once the SUV came into view and Luck made no sign of slowing down, Darger realized he was actually trying to catch all the way up with Jaworski.

  “Ease up.”

  His eyes were glued to the SUV’s bumper, but he managed a quick glance at Darger.

  “You ever tailed someone before?”

  A frustrated sigh escapes Luck’s nose.

  “I went through the same training you did, Violet. And I was a detective for four years before that.”

  “Yeah, in rural Ohio,” she said.

  His knuckles gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. He’d always been sensitive about being a detective in a small town. She needed to take a more subtle approach.

  “I’m only saying, the real thing is different than the training drills. You get an adrenaline rush when you’re following a real target, and the first instinct you have is to stick to their bumper.”

  Luck’s stranglehold on the wheel loosened slightly.

  “Just hang back a little. Let him get a few cars ahead.”

  She felt the car slow a little, and the distance between the rented Hyundai and Jaworski’s Explorer grew.

  Sitting still in the tight confines of the car for half the morning had been maddening, and Darger was glad to be on the move. But there was a different flavor of anticipation that came with following someone, wondering at every turn where he might be leading them. There was a strange acidic feeling in her gut, like her stomach was a wadded up ball of meat trying to eat itself.

  “We could just bring him in,” Luck suggested. “Ask him a few questions.”

  Darger shook her head.

  “If he really is working with Vinny the Bull, he’d never give us anything. But if we’re sly, he’ll take us to him.”

  To herself, she added a silent, I hope.

  Chapter 28

  Jaworski did not notice the car across the street as he backed out of the driveway. Not really. Some part of his brain registered the red paint of the sedan in the rearview mirror in a distant sense, but he never flicked his eyes up to view the man and woman sitting in the front seat, never consciously considered the vehicle at all. His mind was occupied with other matters.

  He drifted down a few side streets, heading north toward the richest of the suburbs. He plucked his phone from his jacket pocket and plopped it on the passenger seat, eying its blank screen for a second. He was half-expecting a call, maybe even wanting one, but so far there was nothing.

  Boarded windows blurred past along the sides of the road. In the neighborhood just beyond where he lived, around 40% of the houses stood empty — busted-out burnt shells that looked war-ravaged standing right alongside well-maintained homes with perfectly manicured lawns. The percentage of vacant buildings grew higher as one moved away from downtown Detroit, out into the blocks that the city no longer funded in any way.

  The pavement was ragged out here — the asphalt pocked and craggy like an acne scarred face. The Michigan winters battered the streets with barrages of snow, sleet, ice, and bitter cold, eroding them rapidly. He had to take great care as he drove, weaving to avoid the worst of the potholes, protecting his vehicle the best he could. His tires juddered over the rough patches, thumped over cracks.

  But the ride smoothed out as he drove, and he was thankful for the hum of the tires gliding over smooth road, the fresh lack of vibrations throttling his hands through the steering wheel.

  He merged into the flow of traffic in the city proper, all those lanes cluttered with cars, teeming with movement, with life. The smell of car exhaust billowed in the air here, thick and acrid. The Motor City’s toxic perfume.

  His cell phone rumbled on the passenger’s seat, and his arm lurched for it out of habit. Fingers crawling over the fuzzy seat cover, finding it.

  He eased up to a stop light, brought the phone up to read the display.

  The word glowed there in black and white text: Dad.

  Jaworski swiped the green button and brought the phone to his ear.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, my friend,” the voice on the other side said. “Just wanted to check in with you. Everything go as planned last night? Your little operation.”

  He knew the voice wasn’t his father, of course, though the man had become a father figure of sorts. Vinny Battaglia always followed up with his associates like this. One on one. A personal touch that had certainly played a role in his ascent to boss of the family.

  “Yeah, we handled it — the thing he wanted taken care of,” Jaworski said. “Everything went as expected.”

  “Good. And
nobody got squirrelly? Acted like something was off?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  There was a pause. Jaworski could hear the paranoia in the old man’s voice.

  “Well, I’ll try to trust your read on things. That Polish intuition, right? It hasn’t failed me yet. I’m still breathin’ anyhow.”

  Vinny was in hiding now, police and gangsters alike looking for him. One side wanted to shuffle him into witness protection — use his intel to break up the Battaglia crime family for good. The other side wanted him dead. Either result would pluck him from his life as the boss permanently, take away everything he’d worked for, rip out a huge chunk of his identity by the roots and leave a gaping hole in its place.

  So those were the primary options facing him: Dead or working a real job out in Arizona or someplace like that. No thanks. Vinny Battaglia wasn’t going down without a fight, and Jaworski could respect that.

  “What about you? You need anything?” Jaworski said.

  The old man snorted a couple of puffs of laughter.

  “I’m fine. I don’t need so much to get by. You know that.”

  “You sure? I could bring you some decent food, at least. From… from one of the places you like.”

  No names. That was one of Vinny’s phone rules. Jaworski had almost slipped and named a restaurant.

  “Look, I’ll admit that the offer is tempting,” Vinny said. “Inasmuch as I been eating out of cans, mind you. Veal parm would hit the spot. But it’s probably best you keep away for now. Too much heat for the time being.”

  The din of traffic swelled in the background on Vinny’s end of the line. The grinding diesel engines of passing semis, throaty noises that threatened to drown the old man’s voice out. He was at a pay phone near where he was holed up, Jaworski knew.

  Vinny was old school. He’d never had a smartphone, always believed them to be wiretaps — all the other guys in his crew thought he was a lunatic until all the Edward Snowden stuff came out. Since then, quite a few had ditched their phones. The old man himself wouldn’t use a cell phone of any type at this point — not a burner phone or anything of the sort. He’d always been big on pay phones, though pickings were getting slim these days.