Evil Without a Face (Sweet Justice) Read online

  “You sound pissed. Don’t tell me you didn’t like the way I redecorated your shit hole. With that dump, I was doing you a favor.”

  The sleaze bag had the nerve to gloat. Baker had a smile to his voice mixed with a heavy dose of contempt, enough for her to picture his ugly sneer.

  “You had it comin’, but we ain’t done yet, darlin’. You got somethin’ of mine and I want it back. I figure we’ll trade for it.”

  She heard a heavy scrape and a loud thud in the background. But the muffled gasp and moan of a guy’s voice put her over the edge. She forced herself to breathe.

  Baker came back on the line. “I got your boy. Seth Harper, the one who’s a fan of Jerry Springer.”

  If she’d had doubts before, Baker knowing about Seth’s T-shirt made her a believer. Baker had Harper. And she had to keep the man talking to divert his attention from the kid.

  “Out of curiosity, how did you make the connection between me and him?”

  “You delivered him on a silver platter, sweet thing. It all started when I watched you and your cop friend walk through your busted door.” He laughed. “I gotta tell ya, it was worth the wait to see the look on your face. But contrary to what you might think, I ain’t stupid. You both had weapons drawn, and your friend’s a cop. I seen her at the station. And believe me, I know how to fly below radar with the cops. Shootin’ one of ’em is no way to earn brownie points.”

  Baker embellished his story, enjoying himself.

  “Hell, I knew you didn’t have my property with you. And you sure as hell didn’t have it stashed at your dump or I would’ve found it. So I figured all I had to do was wait. You’d lead me to it eventually.”

  In the background she heard Seth cry out again. What the hell was Baker doing to him?

  “Leave him alone, Lucas. You’ve got my attention, so talk already.” She pressed. “Tell me. How did you cross paths with Seth?”

  “Well, pretty boy here, he was a gift. I must be living right, but you, not so much. I followed you downtown, having no clue where you was going. But when you came out of that fancy pile of bricks with this guy in tow, I recognized him right off. He’d collided into my SUV with his shit blue van that night you was chasin’ me. I ain’t good at math, darlin’, but even I could put two and two together. You wanna talk to the kid?”

  An interminable moment of silence. Dead still. Jess swallowed hard, then heard Baker bellowing in the background, angry words muffled and distant.

  “You better speak up, asshole, ’cause I can make you pay in ways you can’t even imagine. You’ll be beggin’ me to kill ya.”

  She clung too tight to her phone, straining to hear every word. In her mind she pictured what Baker might’ve done to Seth, the image pure torture.

  “J-Jessie? I’m s-sorry.” Seth. It was definitely Seth on the line.

  She let out the breath she’d been holding.

  “What has he done to you? Are you okay?” Both were stupid questions, but she was running on impulse and not thinking straight. That would have to stop. She needed to focus.

  “Just give him what he wants. It’ll be o-okay.”

  Seth could talk, but he sounded seriously messed up. Yet despite his condition, he had the wits to send her a clear message: Give the bastard what he wanted because he’d rigged the laptop. They’d be able to track Baker’s moves online. Sooner or later the jerk would make a mistake.

  All she had to do was make the exchange and get Harper back. Then her boy genius could exact his own brand of retaliation—revenge best served cold.

  Baker got back on the line. “Your toady is still breathin’. That’s gotta be worth somethin’. I expect you to show a little appreciation for my…generosity.”

  “If you lay another hand on him, I swear—” she began, but the scumbag didn’t let her finish.

  “You act like you’re in charge. Well, don’t you have balls.” The man laughed again, an abrasive sound. Baker using Seth as leverage took their feud to a whole new level and the bastard reveled in it.

  “No, but I’ll have yours if you lay another finger on that kid. I could use the target practice. And you already know I can make your life a livin’ hell.”

  The line went dead silent. By the time Baker regrouped, his amusement had vanished.

  “Our swap ain’t open for discussion. I want what’s mine and I’m gonna get it. And you’ll get the kid back, but in how many pieces will be up to you.” His voice lowered to an icy whisper. “The way I see it, you got no say how this’ll go down, bitch. Now…listen up.”

  Jess shut her eyes tight and listened to the man’s demands. With the timing, Baker wasn’t cutting her much slack. One more night without much sleep and she was heading for another rendezvous with a not so distant cousin to Homo erectus.

  Given the situation with Seth, she wanted Sam as backup, to be on the safe side, but had no idea how to cover up her involvement with Baker and his laptop. She’d crossed the line and breached protocol with the evidence she knew would be on the man’s computer. Back into her apartment, she stared at Baker’s property, sitting by her front door, where she’d put it after coming in.

  She’d painted herself into a pretty tight corner, and now also had to think about Sam. If she told her friend what was going on, Sam would be in the middle of her mess, forced to decide whether to turn her in. And if Sam brought the CPD into it, they might decide their informant’s contributions far outweighed her flimsy speculations. Jess knew she had no proof. At best she’d be back to square one. At worst she might do jail time if the Chicago police wanted to teach her a lesson. Neither had much appeal, and she’d come too far to let it happen.

  She figured it was a chicken or an egg scenario. Either way, poultry always got screwed. And with most things in life, she’d learned it was far better to ask forgiveness than permission. An idea started to take shape.

  Jess looked at her watch. She’d have to come up with a plan on the fly. Part of that plan included Sam getting off shift a little early, if Jess could find a way to avoid telling her everything. She had to think. Lucas Baker held all the cards, especially with the location he’d picked, and Madame Luck had dealt her and Seth a lousy hand.

  But it was time for her to summon her own brand of good fortune.

  An alarm should have gone off in Nikki’s head long before Mr. Noskova pulled up to the closed fence of an old warehouse. The place looked run-down. Weeds lined the perimeter of the fence and had cropped up through cracks in the asphalt. A deserted guard shack with shattered windows and chipped paint stood by the front gate and an old faded sign at the main entrance indicated the warehouse used to be a textile manufacturer: GOODVILLE TEXTILES.

  She had been talking to Ivana, lost track of time, and didn’t pay attention to where they were going, especially after nighttime closed in and they turned off the interstate. Lights glittered on the distant horizon, a small town. But here, everything was black. Even the moon had conspired against her. Only the headlights of their vehicle lighted the way, drawing insects from the gloom.

  “What is this place?” she asked.

  Nikki leaned forward in her seat, her eyes peering through the darkness. Ivana turned away and stared out her window at nothing, ignoring her question. She raised her voice to get Mr. Noskova’s attention in the front seat.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Noskova, but where are we? I thought we were going…home. Your home.”

  “We’ve got a stop to make.” He offered nothing more.

  He lowered his driver’s side window and swiped a card key through a reader. The cyclone fence jumped to life and slowly rattled aside. An uneasy feeling swelled inside her, threatening to cut off her air. Realization hit as a cruel blow, flooding her mind with every detail that had led her to this place.

  Ivana had lied…about everything.

  “Is Ivana even your real name?” Nikki whispered to the girl by her side, suddenly afraid of the man in the front seat. But the girl didn’t turn her head, much less give h
er an answer.

  She was alone with two strangers and had no idea where she was. She stared through the front windshield. The man behind the wheel drove through the gate and across a massive parking lot. The shadows of the old warehouse were more imposing under the faint glow cast from a sliver of moon, giving the illusion that the inky black heaved and swelled with a life of its own. Her mind played tricks on her, conjuring images from all the horror slasher movies she’d ever seen.

  Only now it was happening to her.

  Oh, God. Please help me. Her heart pounded faster, punishing her eardrums from inside. And a slow bead of sweat trailed from her temple.

  Slowly, Nikki groped in the dark for the door handle. She stared straight ahead, not wanting to give away her attempt at escape. When she found the handle, she pulled it hard, prepared to shove the car door aside and roll out. But the handle wouldn’t budge. She tried the lock next, but it wouldn’t open.

  They had locked her inside. She had nowhere to go.

  “Please…don’t do this.” She whispered her plea to no one.

  The car drove by a large group of loading bays and pulled up to another card reader that led to a secured subterranean parking garage. The garage door opened with a swipe of the driver’s card and they drove inside, swallowed into the bowels of the old building.

  As the garage door closed behind them, Nikki stared at the girl beside her, perhaps seeing her for the first time. In the dim glow from the headlights, she caught the glimmer of a tear in Ivana’s eye. And without a sound, the girl finally looked at her and mouthed the words, I’m sorry.

  All Nikki wanted to do was scream, but now, who would hear her?

  Chicago’s South Side

  11:00 PM CST

  Little known fact, but Lucas Baker owned part of a bar and pool hall on the south side of Chicago with a cousin he despised. The place was located in a rough part of town. Jess had discovered the tidbit in her latest search for him. As far as she could tell, he almost never came to the joint. Why he chose tonight to make an appearance would remain one of life’s mysteries, mainly because she didn’t care enough to ask the son of a bitch.

  The name of the place was The Cutthroat. In pool, cutthroat was a game designed to take advantage of the odd man out. The game’s objective is for a player to eliminate his opponents. In Baker’s case, life had a strange way of imitating art. The man never played by the rules, except for his own, so cutthroat described the way he operated to a tee.

  The pool hall’s air was thick with cigarette smoke, a heavy country twang coming from a jukebox, and testosterone—a combination that left Jess thinking a root canal might’ve been a better choice. But Baker hadn’t given her an option, and Seth needed her.

  When she walked into the crowded dung heap, every eye shifted to her. An image popped into her head. She pictured herself doing a fast dog paddle in a river teeming with piranha, flailing before the inevitable. Men of every shape and size cocked their heads her way, and not a Brad Pitt look-alike in the bunch. There were a few women, but she had nothing in common with them. She still had her own teeth and had never taken advantage of the two-for-one special at the local tattoo parlor.

  “Nothing like being the center of attention,” she mumbled under her breath and turned her head to scope out the place.

  “I’m reading you loud and clear.” Sam’s voice came over the ear bud Jess had hidden under her hair. Her friend would be listening whenever she keyed the mic, her only form of censorship. “Maybe you should tell me your safety word…in case you get lucky. I’d hate to intrude.”

  “Very funny. Just for that, your name’s going on the men’s room wall…unless it’s already there.” Jess headed for the back of the main room, navigating an obstacle course of biceps, pectorals, and beer bellies. Baker had told her where he’d be.

  “And for the record,” Sam said, “I hate this plan. I should be in there with you. Meeting Baker on his turf is like playing Russian Roulette solo. When the gun goes off, you’re on your own. No one to pick up the pieces.”

  “Nice visual. And thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “What are friends for?”

  Jess had already shared her thoughts with Sam, her justification for leaving a cop parked on the curb outside a seedy bar. On the drive over she’d told Sam that her gig with Baker was private. Her friend respected that, but not enough to lay off the third degree. Jess had to come up with something more.

  She’d told Sam that Baker had a beef with an old girlfriend, a former hooker trying to turn her life around. Baker had been abusive, not much of a stretch to believe. And Jess helped hide the woman a month ago, despite the fact that she wouldn’t press charges. Baker had been trying to strong-arm Jess into telling him where the woman had moved.

  She knew that the best lies came from elements of the truth. A year ago she’d helped a woman get rid of her ex, two hundred pounds worth of mean. She could relate to the woman’s plight, since she’d come by her own scars honestly, both inside and out.

  Even so, it scared Jess how easily she conjured a lie, especially to an old friend. But in her mind, Sam needed protecting too. She had her career to think about. If Sam didn’t witness her exchange with Baker—or know anything about that damned laptop—she wouldn’t be called to testify if things turned ugly.

  So far, Sam had bought her gloss over, but Jess knew that wouldn’t last long.

  All she needed was time. Time to get Seth away from here and to a hospital if he needed it. And to do that, she needed Sam’s help as backup. If she didn’t have the added complication of Seth, she would’ve come alone and dealt with the consequences.

  “The office is straight back by the cigarette machine.” She spoke to Sam on the communication link. “Hang tight till you hear from me.”

  Word on the street was that Baker was neck deep into a string of missing kids. That’s what set Jess on his trail, but she had no proof—yet. There’d be no bounty on this case, but as she told Sam, some things were more important than any stash of cash.

  “You ain’t goin’ anywhere, honey.” Some jerk outside the office stopped her. A beefy hand reached out with splayed fingers pressed to her chest, copping a feel. “Not without a strip search. Rules of the house.”

  The guy smirked and looked real impressed with himself.

  Jess locked eyes with Baker’s muscle, feeling the weight of her .357 Magnum Colt Python at the small of her back. A square-jawed cowboy dude in a tight white tee, wranglers, and a no frills burr cut blocked her path. He had a knife clipped to his jeans pocket, made to look like a money clip or key chain to the untrained eye. Lucas had to be behind the cheap theatrics, and she had no patience for it.

  Enough was enough.

  Sam couldn’t sit in Jess’s car any longer. She got out and paced the sidewalk under a glow of red and blue neon, catching movement to her right. Night shift lowlifes remained faceless in the shadows, but she felt their eyes on her. And a hooker glared with suspicion then walked around the corner, taking her business down the block. She probably smelled cop.

  So much for keeping a low profile.

  Sam’s eyes darted across the street to the front door of The Cutthroat. It had only been ten minutes since she last heard from Jess, but ten minutes in her friend’s world could mean plenty of trouble. Besides, instincts born of a lifelong friendship had started to niggle at her belly.

  “Jess? Are you okay?” She keyed her mic. “Talk to me.”

  Radio silence. Nothing.

  Sam wanted to respect Jess and her reasons for confronting Baker alone. Even if she didn’t buy the whole story, she trusted Jess to do the right thing. But now that trust was being tested, and her cop instincts told her something didn’t feel right.

  Jess was supposed to speak up if she got into trouble, but was her silence the equivalent of sending up a flare? Sam clipped her badge to her belt, preparing to go in. And with steady fingers, she touched the service weapon under her jeans jacket, an old habit.r />
  “Damn it, Jess. What’s going on in there?”

  Jess narrowed her eyes at the brute standing in front of her, his hand pressed to her breast. He squeezed to see if she’d react and the bastard wasn’t disappointed. She grabbed his hand and twisted his thumb backward. In reflex, he bent over and turned his back to her, writhing in pain. When he did, she shoved a hand hard against his elbow and thrust his arm up between his shoulder blades.

  “Aarrgh,” he cried out. “You’re gonna break it.”

  “Good. I was afraid you wouldn’t get the point.”

  She shoved the jerk into a wall with a sharp crack, pinning him in place with the weight of her body and the awkward position she held his arm. He twisted against her grip so she wouldn’t wrench his shoulder, but he couldn’t break free without doing serious damage. He grunted and let out another yelp. By now all eyes were on her again. Jess held firm and glared at each face.

  “What are you looking at?” she demanded, yelling above the blaring music from the jukebox.

  For an instant she thought someone from the crowd might interfere, until a sound came from near the bar. One guy started to clap, then another. As the room erupted into a standing ovation with whistles and shouts of encouragement, Jess turned her head to the door marked OFFICE, still grappling with the bouncer.

  “You’re comin’ with me.”

  She kicked at the door and waited for someone to answer. When it opened a crack, she shoved the cowboy through it, using him as a shield as she walked in with gun drawn. Beef Boy sprawled to the floor in a huff—all under the wary eye of his boss.

  “What the hell?” Baker jumped to his feet and pulled his weapon.

  Jess yelled, “Hey now, hold your water, Lucas. Let’s not get crazy.”

  She aimed her weapon between Baker’s eyes but kept her voice calm, trying to defuse the situation.