Turn Me Loose Read online

  Instead she caught only the acrid stench of scorched possibilities.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Seven years ago …

  Riva Henneman shifted in her seat, the handcuffs obviously biting into her wrists. She’d been in the interview room alone for less than ten minutes, but without a clock to gauge time, it could feel like moments, or hours. The room was featureless, no clock, no windows except the one looking out into a squad room. Ian watched her through the interview room’s one-way glass and tried to gauge her emotional and mental state. The bright-eyed, pink-cheeked coed from Kaffiend had disappeared, leaving behind a pale, silent girl who looked far too young for Ian to feel what he’d felt when he’d walked through the coffee shop’s door and made eye contact with her.

  “How did a girl like that end up one of the biggest dealers on campus?”

  Jo’s tone made the question rhetorical, but in the end, Ian didn’t give a damn. Riva was nothing more than a stepping stone to the bigger fish he intended to fry in court.

  “Are you sure she’s old enough she doesn’t need a parent or guardian?” Jo asked.

  He’d run her Illinois license through the database. No priors, no tickets, birthday the preceding June. “She’s eighteen,” he said.

  “She made her phone call,” Jo said. “Whoever she called, the conversation was short.”

  Great. Now he needed to convince the girl and her lawyer to take his deal. He needed an informant to wear a wire and record evidence against the suppliers distributing drugs to the college ring he was going to bust to add some shine to his record before the next round of promotions came up. His best bet sat in the interview room, the florescent lights unable to dull the reddish gleam in her hair.

  “Let me know when the lawyer shows up,” Ian said, and walked out of the observation room.

  Riva looked up when he opened the door and set the folder he was carrying on the table. He’d shucked his leather moto jacket but still wore the Lancaster College T-shirt, adding the symbols of his job: badge, gun, handcuff case on the back of his jeans. Empty, because Riva was wearing them. Her gaze flicked at his forearms and wrists, then his chest. Anything to avoid looking at the gun, or his face.

  “How are you doing?”

  At that her gaze met his without flinching. “Fine.”

  “Want something to drink?”

  “No. Thank you,” she added, a reluctant courtesy. Jo had underestimated her. Anger simmered under the fear.

  “Let’s take off those cuffs.”

  He couldn’t help but touch her as he did, noting automatically the way she leaned away from him, the rigid set to her muscles when his fingers brushed her wrists. He’d tried to stay dispassionate, but there was an unavoidable intimacy to all of this. He folded them and tucked them back into the case at the small of his back, all the while watching Riva. Small talk wasn’t getting him anywhere, so he kept silent as he took the seat across from her, opened the file folder, made a couple of notes. “How long until your lawyer arrives?” he asked, keeping his tone offhand and casual to downplay the offer.

  “I didn’t call a lawyer.”

  “Do you want a public defender?” he asked, doing the right thing against his better judgment.

  “No.”

  Her voice was oddly tight. When he looked up, she was staring at his left hand. He turned it over and saw in the curve of his palm her phone number, written on his skin.

  By the time he glanced at her face she was staring fixedly at the wall a couple of inches to the left of his head, color high in her cheeks.

  His heart did a funny little lurch, and the nerve endings in his fingertips flared, sending up a sense memory of her soft skin. For a brief moment he wished he could smooth that over somehow, but he needed her cooperation. “It’s late, Riva, so I’m going to make this short. We have you on possession with intent to deliver. That’s a felony that carries some serious prison time, even for a first offender.”

  She stared at him.

  “But because your record prior to this is completely clean, I’m going to offer you a deal. Help us out.”

  Her face was as white as the paper in front of him. “By doing what?”

  “Make some buys for us.”

  “How many buys?”

  “A few.”

  “Where?”

  “On campus. In return we’ll drop the charges and make this go away.”

  She looked at him. Something flashed in her eyes, but disappeared with a blink of her thick lashes before Ian could do more than note it, much less identify it. Relief? Shock? “How did you find me?”

  “A couple of other kids we’ve picked up since school started mentioned a female dealer. We’ve been watching activity around the school for a couple of months.”

  “Watching me.”

  He nodded.

  “Why?”

  “We thought you’d be the easiest to turn. Young, female, new to the business. Why did you do it?”

  She thought about that for a moment. “I needed the money,” she said. “What do I have to do?”

  She looked so young, so innocent, and very small, curled in on herself in the interview-room chair. For a moment his concern got the better of his drive. “I’ll walk you through what you have to do. Are you sure you don’t want a lawyer?”

  “No. No lawyer.”

  Present day …

  Ian Hawthorn pulled into a parking space at the back of Eye Candy’s parking lot and killed the engine on his city-issued Ford Taurus. A line of oak trees separating the lot from the street arced overhead, and the shade kept the car’s interior temperature cool as he scanned his surroundings. Behind Eye Candy a crane swiveled to hoist another panel of reflective glass to the top floor of Mobile Media’s building. Ian scrolled through his contacts, then watched the workers guide the panel into place while he waited for the call to connect.

  “HealthNorth Oncology.”

  He recognized the receptionist’s voice. “Hi, Nancy. It’s Ian Hawthorn. I need to cancel my appointment.”

  “Again?” Sounds of clicking and tapping came through the line as she worked away at her computer. “When was the last time we saw you?” she said, almost to herself.

  Ian knew the answer to that question. Nancy probably did too, but she never said anything without confirmation. Oncology appointments were tricky, and the last thing a staff member wanted to do was put her foot in her mouth.

  “It’s been two years,” she said. “Dr. Ripley attached a note to your file. It says don’t let Ian reschedule again.”

  Dr. Ripley was exactly what he wanted in a cancer doctor: brisk, efficient, no-nonsense. “Tell her I’m busy at work right now,” Ian said. “I’ll call back in a couple of weeks and schedule the appointment.”

  “It’s a simple blood draw,” Nancy said. “We can do the draw at your convenience, and schedule an appointment to discuss the results.”

  “I really can’t right now,” he said.

  “Just come in, Ian,” Nancy said almost desperately. “Anytime. Lunch hour, after work, before work. You show up and we’ll fit you in.”

  Now he felt like an asshole asking for special treatment. “Thanks. I appreciate that,” he said. “I’ll see what I can work out in the next week or so.”

  He hung up, then clicked off his phone and tucked it in his jacket pocket. Eve Webber’s efforts were paying off, with increased traffic on the city’s east side, new restaurants and shops opening their doors in a neighborhood once considered risky. The spaces were filling up fast, people eager to shed what remained of winter’s hold on the city and celebrate a beautiful spring Friday night on the patio of the city’s hottest nightclub. It should have been tempting. But nightclubs made him think of the bad decisions he’d made in the wake of a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma he’d gotten at twenty-one.

  “You’re still making bad decisions,” he muttered as he snagged his laptop bag and slid out of the Taurus. Like postponing his blood draws. It wasn’t the nee
dles; he’d preferred the constant sticks to the alien feel of the port inserted into his chest during his chemotherapy, the small plastic lump a constant reminder of his body’s weakness and everything he’d lost as a result.

  But he was ten years NEC—no evidence of cancer—and busy. The blood draw would wait. He was in the middle of the case of his career, involving drugs, corrupt cops, and a chance to put a huge dent in the drug supply coming into Lancaster. He was up for captain, earned the top score on the exam, and was only waiting for a spot to open up. His life was humming along, impossible to derail.

  Or so he had thought, until Riva Henneman walked up to his table.

  * * *

  Ian had always been in control of his life, so no one was surprised when, after his older brother Jamie became a SEAL, Ian won a spot at Annapolis, or when, at the end of his plebe year, he was ranked near the top of his class, on track to graduate with his choice of assignments: to go through BUD/S and lead a SEAL team. The only surprise was the tiredness, weight loss, then the high white blood cell count, and then the cancer diagnosis.

  The doctors used the word “diagnosis,” keeping it technical, medical, clinical. In the journal the psychologist insisted he keep, Ian wrote not of diagnosis, but of betrayal, of his disloyal cells and duplicitous immune system. He was just telling the truth. Keeping it real.

  Fifteen months of treatment got him a clean bill of health and the news that he could graduate from the academy, but with a medical board that ended his military career before it began. No commission in the navy. No chance at the SEALs. He’d beaten the cancer, but in the process, Ian had gone from being a warrior to being a miracle.

  He’d loved being a winner, a warrior, a competitor. Someone to reckon with, someone who cleared all the bars and set new records, new standards. He’d really loved being a plebe.

  He hated being a miracle.

  For the first time in his life, his circumstances dictated his options, not the other way around. Miracles were grateful for a second chance, a new lease on life. Ian wouldn’t have taken it on a silver platter. He didn’t want a second chance. He didn’t want a trip to Disney World or a chance to race the Indy track with a Formula One driver, or any of the other stupid wishes other cancer victims got. He wanted the life he’d built for himself before he got sick.

  No one could give him that. In that frame of mind, angry and frustrated and resentful, he’d met Riva Henneman.

  At first all he’d seen was a girl he could use as bait to hook a bigger fish. Then he’d spent hours and hours in cars with her, wiring her up for conversations. He’d smelled her skin, felt her hair against his hands and wrists, once against his face when the wind caught loose strands and tossed them against his neck, his cheek.

  His brain said, suspect, then confidential informant.

  His body said, female. Desirable, sexy woman.

  But cops had ruined careers with infatuations with pretty girls of any age, and he had no intention of losing what he had left. When he’d gotten what he needed from her, he’d turned her loose, knowing he had no right and no business staying in touch with her without being the worst kind of creeper. He’d had power and authority over her; there was no way to initiate a relationship not founded on that imbalance. So he’d put her out of his mind as best he could, except for fever dreams hot enough to drive him crazy.

  He’d thought she was gone. Forever.

  * * *

  Cesar, the big bouncer at the front door, looked up as Ian approached. “What are you reading now?” Ian asked. Cesar’s big hands made the book look small, but Ian could tell it was about four inches thick.

  Cesar, a man of few words, flipped the cover closed. War and Peace.

  “Like it?”

  “Liked Anna Karenina better.” Cesar shrugged, like reading the Russian greats outside a club on the city’s embattled east side was commonplace.

  “This for fun?”

  “Sort of.” Cesar tried to stifle a proud smile, and failed. “I’m in the Upward Bound program at Lancaster College. This was on the reading list for the core curriculum.”

  Ian managed to control his eyebrows. Even after a decade as a cop, people still surprised him. Usually this was a bad thing. Tonight, it was a good thing. “Cool,” he said, and opened the door.

  He made his way along the hip-high wall enclosing the dance floor and started up the spiraling staircase to the office overlooking the bar. A quick double rap on the door and it opened from the inside. Joanna Sorenson, one of his detectives, peered through the gap.

  “You’re late.” She gave him the naughty-naughty finger shake, which made him laugh. He’d known Jo since they were kids on the same T-ball team, part of a small cadre of second-and third-generation cops with the Lancaster Police Department. Technically, he outranked her; in formal situations Jo followed the chain of command with a punctilious officiousness that amused him. In private, she gave him hell like the sister he’d never had.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Ian looked over the group and saw that the most important person wasn’t yet there. “I beat the mayor up here, so I’m ok.”

  Jo huffed a laugh and closed the door behind Ian. He sidestepped the sofa lining the wall and hunkered down beside Eve’s desk to pull out his laptop and power it up. The small office was crowded, even more so when the door opened to admit Eve Webber and the small, silver-haired mayor of Lancaster.

  “Thanks for your time, Mayor,” she said, setting a couple of pitchers of ice water with sliced lemons and a tower of stacked glasses on the opposite end of her desk. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  There was a moment of silence after the door closed behind her as everyone in the room tried to figure out who was running this show. There was enough brass in the room to start a band: Ian, a lieutenant; Swarthmore, the captain of the Eastern Precinct; and the mayor of Lancaster, plus Dorchester, Jo, and McCormick.

  “I’ll do the introductions,” Sorenson said brightly. “Mayor, you know Captain Swarthmore. Detective Dorchester. Officer McCormick.”

  The mayor shook Matt’s hand, then said, “Good to meet you, McCormick. How are you holding up?”

  “Fine, sir,” McCormick said, trying not to look like he towered over the mayor and failing. McCormick made professional football players look small.

  “Undercover work is tough; going deep to investigate crooked cops is tougher. You have what you need?”

  “Yes, sir,” McCormick repeated, clearly surprised by the mayor’s blunt statement.

  “He’s just waiting for us to wrap this up so he can take off and be famous,” Dorchester said from his position against the wall. He had one foot braced against the cinderblocks and a grin on his face. The only thing he liked better than a chance to check up on Eve Webber, Eye Candy’s owner and his girlfriend of nearly a year, was a chance to needle McCormick.

  The mayor’s eyebrow lifted.

  Dorchester said, “As soon as we’re done with him, he’s off to head up Maud Ward’s security detail.”

  “Congratulations. That’s quite a coup.”

  “I’m dating her, sir.”

  Both of the mayor’s eyebrows shot up. “It’s a long story, mayor,” Jo said. “Eventually you’ll see it on a behind-the-music special. You know me—”

  “—and trust me, I regret it—”

  “—and I believe you’ve met Lieutenant Hawthorn before.”

  “I believe I have, Jo. Ian.”

  “Dad,” Ian said.

  His father didn’t take his eyes off Ian’s face; when it came down to a battle of wills, his dad would win every time. He knew Ian was due for an appointment with Ripley. “In a couple of weeks, Dad,” he said.

  A quick narrowing of his eyes, a downward tilt to his eyebrows, and Ian was a recruit at the academy again, standing at attention before older cops he’d known his whole life. “We’re a little busy right now.”

  “I’ll let your mother know you’re too busy to go to your appointment,” his dad said
in a silky voice.

  And that was his dad, chucking him under the bus. “I’ll call her and explain.”

  His dad all but snorted. “Might want to text. She’s looking for someone to clean out the greenhouse before the garden club meeting.”

  He wasn’t totally in the doghouse yet. “Thanks for the warning.”

  “Keep that appointment or I’ll offer you up to get the beds ready for planting.”

  Motivating, but not enough. He loved working with his mom in the garden. Always had. Who else in the room knew about his cancer diagnosis and treatment? Jo did, but she was as inscrutable and silent as the wall she leaned against. Swarthmore probably did; he’d been one of his father’s shift lieutenants back in the day. Dorchester and McCormick didn’t and wouldn’t ask. The diagnosis had left his father shaken to the bone, something he showed to no one but his wife, Ian’s mother, something Ian saw only because his parents thought he was asleep when his father started weeping. His parents, steadfast, supportive, and loving, had never lost the right to quiz him about his health.

  “Explain to me why we’re meeting here?” his father said, looking around the tiny office.

  That was the former chief of police talking, not his dad. “Hidden in plain sight.” Ian started laying pictures and files on Eve’s big desk. He’d been here a couple of times when Matt Dorchester was protecting the star witness in a drug case, and more since Conn McCormick agreed to go undercover to infiltrate the Strykers. The group gathered around. “We’ve all been seen in this club for social reasons, and it’s owned by a cop’s girlfriend.”

  At the word “girlfriend,” his dad perked right up. “You’re dating Eve?”

  “Not me,” Ian said hastily. “Dorchester. Gather round.”

  His dad leafed through the report Ian had handed him, stopping at the organizational chart Ian and the team had pieced together. “Run it down for me.”