had been in the air when he’d first come through the alleys. He didn’t know what in the hell it was, but the police were starting to spread out all over the neighborhood. Squad car lights were spilling into the alley area from the east. He had to get Jane and head west as quickly as possible. He was running out of time, his body temperature rising, his gun hand starting to shake.
“J.T., be careful.” She kicked a loop of wire away from her, sounding frightened out of her wits. “It’s … it’s back there, something.”
Something they didn’t have time to deal with, not with the police closing in and him falling apart.
Coming up next to her, he kept the area in front of him covered with his pistol, wondering if what had scared her could have been something as simple as a stray dog, or another homeless guy setting up house, or just some trash skittering across the pavement—but he didn’t think so.
“Come on,” he said when he reached her side. “Let’s get out of here, before the cops show up.” And they were less than a minute away—way less.
She didn’t hesitate to move out with him but kept her gun drawn. A police cruiser turned into the patchwork area of parking lots and junk, its light bar going full-out, and when he broke into a run, she did, too.
“You heard me, babe. Stand down and get your butt home,” Dylan repeated, and he didn’t like repeating himself. When he gave an order, he wanted to hear only one thing in reply: Yes, sir.
“Crutchfield is expecting me. If we want him, and we do, it’s better to play the hand the way we dealt it.”
His wife had a point, but so did he.
“The game has changed. We’ve either got a player we don’t know about, or J.T. is a certifiable psychopath.”
“What’s happened?”
Cherie signaled him that she had Grant on the line, and he gave her a short nod.
“Loretta called me. J.T. and Jane were spotted at Mama Guadaloupe’s, and shortly after the sighting, King Banner and Rock Howe were massacred in the alley, and I mean massacred, not just killed. They were overkilled, literally torn to pieces. Hawkins and Creed are there now, and I need you here.”
He heard her swear softly under her breath, the shock hitting home, but it took her less than a moment to rally, her voice growing hard.
“All the more reason to pick up Crutchfield, Dylan, and you know it.”
“And Kid is on it. He’s already at O’Shaunessy’s, but I need you here.” About another ten seconds and she was going to have him on his knees.
“Dylan, my job is going up against bad guys. It’s what I do, and I—”
He heard the insistence building in her voice, and he cut her off.
“This isn’t about you, Skeeter,” he said. “It’s about me, and I need you here. If we lose Crutchfield, we’ll get him another day. If I lose you …” He couldn’t even say it.
Thank God, she didn’t make him.
“I’m turning around now.”
“Good.” That was good. Very good. Now he could breathe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
She’d shot him, the bitch. Shot him clean through the meaty part of his upper arm, in one side and out the other. Her next shot had grazed him, and the last had gone wide of its mark, but the bitch had hit him solid with her first bullet.
It was a new dynamic, a woman with a gun, unexpected, most unwelcome. Worse, it had been one helluva shot, at fifteen yards, with him on the run and moving in on her fast and low. She wouldn’t be an easy catch, but he would catch her, and her helluva shot was going to cost her. She could have died fast and clean, but now she’d added to his pain, and he was vengefully angry.
She would pay for his blood with her blood.
It was justice.
They both would pay, her and Farrel. The Bangkok beast had taken her from Monk, interfered in the kill, and sealed his doom. His death would not be a simple one, either.
Monk cowered deeper into the trash and boxes behind the grocery store and tore off one of his sleeves to bind his wounds and stanch the flow of blood. Million-dollar blood is what Dr. Patterson had called it, and Monk couldn’t afford to lose it. MNK-1 had been worth a million dollars on the open market, all because of the chemically enhanced brew pumping through his veins and