Tastes Like Candy (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 2) (42 page)

~*~

Michelle

“The bombs, asshole,” Tommy said, face creased with irritation.

              Cartwright set his jaw and glared at all of them simultaneously. “When I tell the police about this…”

              “Oh, drop the accent, Princess Di,” Candy said. “It’s terrible, anyway, and we all know you aren’t British.”

              Michelle wanted to laugh – one of so many things she loved about her man: his irreverent sense of humor – but instead she hitched herself up higher on the van’s bench and said, “We also know your name isn’t Bryan Cartwright. So quit with the act, if you please.”

              In a sudden eerie swap, Cartwright slipped into a New York accent and said, “Well thanks, your highness, for being so polite.”

              “Don’t talk to her, shitbag,” Candy said. “Don’t even look at her.” His face was flushed with anger, and Michelle could read the fury, the jealousy, the worry in his eyes. He would never tell her not to be herself, to sit still and look pretty, but he
hated
that this man was speaking to her, looking at her. It wasn’t about any sort of doubt when it came to her; it was about his terrible fear that the rest of the world would hurt her, take her from him. And she couldn’t resent him for those emotions. Not ever.

              “What we’d like to know,” Miles said, redirecting, “is the locations of these bombs we’ve heard so much about.”

              Cartwright rolled his eyes.

              Candy’s arm snapped forward, a blur, and he punched Cartwright in the face.

              “Shit,” Miles said.

              “How’s that feel?” Tommy asked.

              “Boys,” Michelle said.

              Candy opened his hand against his knee, flexed all the fingers. When he spoke, his voice was calm. “We know all about you – your little cult of Bryan. And we know you and your men are the ones who’ve been bombing the city. We aren’t the police; we don’t need evidence, or warrants, or anything official. And we don’t have to follow any sort of code when it comes to interrogating you. So. Now would be a good time for you to cooperate.”

~*~

Albie

He had enough photographic evidence to put someone away for a very long time, but they would still need something to corroborate Cartwright’s involvement.

              He was tucking his camera away when he heard voices. Distant, indistinct, echoing. People out in the main part of the warehouse.

              Albie stowed his camera and slipped down the hall on silent feet.

              The hall ended on a gallery, narrow and steel, with a handrail that hit him above the waist. Down below, his club brothers had come in through the main door, dressed in black, bearing torches and weapons.

              Albie whistled to get their attention. When they glanced up, he noticed Paul’s face before he noticed anyone else’s; the scabbed-over cut on his neck was visible even from a distance.

              “Search the place,” Albie told them.

~*~

Fox

“It’s Bryan.”

              “Yes, we know what the idiot’s name is. Stupid fucker named his movement after himself,” Fox muttered. “Who does that?”

              “Sounds like something you would do,” Walsh deadpanned.

              “Well, yes, but my name is considerably cooler than ‘Bryan.’”

              “No,” the kid said. His lip was split, both his eyes blacking, and the tips of his thumbs were scorched from Fox’s lighter. “I don’t know where the bombs are. But Bryan has the detonator.”

~*~

Candy

“It’s the mobile,” Miles said, and Candy knew he was right. “The detonator switch.”

              “Fuck.” Candy glanced over at the phone they’d set on the console between the front seats. “Is that true?” he asked Cartwright. “Where are the bombs?”

              Cartwright smiled through his split, bloody lips. “Right,” he said in his unnerving New York accent. “’Cause I’m gonna tell you that. Why don’t you make the call and find out?”

              “It’s alright,” Tommy said. “We’ll find them. After the rest of our crew is done turning over your warehouse.”

              Cartwright’s eyes went to him.

              “You understand you aren’t getting out of this van alive, right?”

              The first shot took them all by surprise. A sharp
ping
and a
whir
, and the ripple of air disturbed.

              They stared at one another, a half a beat of shocked silence. Then Candy yelled, “Get down!” and threw himself across the van, flattening Michelle to the hard metal floor, covering her body with his.

              Miles and Tommy followed suit, all of them kissing the floor of the van, hands clapped over their heads.

              It was a relentless volley, full auto gunfire battering the side of the van with terrible pings and screeches.

              Too late, Candy realized Cartwright hadn’t taken cover, had instead lunged toward the front of the van. The cellphone.

              “Shit!”

              He levered up on his arms, but it was too late.

              Hands bound together, Cartwright still managed to pick up the phone, and press the dial button with his thumb.

~*~

Fox

His heart pounded, a choking rhythm that echoed through his throat. He felt the hot slide of sweat down his back, under his clothes, and kept running. Beside him, Walsh kept pace – much to his shock – and their boots slapped the cobblestones in near-perfect sync.

              They were never going to make it to the warehouse in time. At that moment, Fox would have given anything to be as tall and long-legged as Mercy Lécuyer.

              But, as it turned out, that wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

              They barreled out of the alley and around the next corner, and were met by three masked men carrying AK-47s.

~*~

Albie

He was halfway back down the hall when he heard the first detonation. It didn’t sound like it ever did in the movies; a real charge was a deep, low blast of pressure, moving through the floor, up through his boots, settling low in his gut like he might be sick.

              He spun back around, threw himself against the metal railing.

              Down below, the wooden shipping crates lining the main warehouse floor were exploding, one after the next, the fire bright as a solar flare.

              It wasn’t car bombs. Cartwright wanted to bring this entire building down.

              “Get out!” Albie shouted, but his voice was lost in the terrible pressure and the crackling of destruction.

              They were fleeing, though, his brothers.

              His eyes latched onto Paul, the way he glanced up and over his shoulder, looking toward Albie up on the balcony.

              And then the crate beside Paul was a ball of fire and shrapnel.

~*~

Michelle

The gunfire stopped abruptly, the silence crushing. She heard tires squealing somewhere beyond the van. Heard Candy breathing like a racehorse in her ear. Heard the rapid thump of her heart.

              “Let me up,” she said, wiggling her shoulders.

              Candy did, but he kept his hand cupped against the back of her head, like he was trying to be her helmet.

              Miles and Tommy scrambled up onto their knees, too.

              They all noticed Cartwright with a collective, “Shit.”

              He lay slumped over the center console, riddled with bullets, bleeding everywhere, eyes sightless and unblinking. Dead.

              Candy grabbed the back of his coat and dragged him down onto the floor. Michelle moved away on instinct.

              “We need to move,” Candy said, climbing over the console to slide behind the wheel. “We’ve gotta find the bomb site.”

~*~

Fox

“Fuck,” he said, as he and Walsh skidded to a halt.

              “How are we gonna Kung Fu our way outta this shit?” Walsh muttered.

              “Krav Maga,” Fox corrected.

              “Hands!” one of the masked men yelled. “Hands up and on your knees!”

              Fox heard the roar of an engine just before a boxy white Nissan work van swung into view. It didn’t slow, and mowed down their masked assailants with a sequence of nauseating sound effects.

              It jerked to a halt and the back doors opened. Tommy poked his head through and said, “Need a lift?”

~*~

Michelle

The street was on fire. That was the only thought that filled her mind as the van halted. All she saw were the flames, leaping toward the low gray rainclouds. Even with the windows rolled up, she could smell the acrid stench of burning wood, and scorched chemicals and plastic.

              Was London ever going to be anything but burning streets for her, now?

              She didn’t realize she was reaching out with her right hand until it was swallowed up in Candy’s firm grip.

              “It’s okay,” he said, quietly. “I’m sure they’re okay.”

              The back doors of the van opened and her uncles spilled out, heading toward the inferno.

              The first drops of rain began to strike the windscreen when she saw the knot of dark-clad men coming toward them.

              She spotted Albie.

              She didn’t see Paul.

~*~

Inspector Bill Lehigh, City of London Police

The scene at the warehouse was the sort of thing he hadn’t thought to see when he joined the force ten years ago. What he’d just witnessed on the streets of his city was like something snatched from one of his Iraq nightmares.

              It was with immeasurable relief that he walked into the station, eyes gritty, shoulders aching, that nerve pain in his neck in need of about three whiskeys. The low level hum of activity, the familiar smell of undrinkable coffee and the sound of his shoes rapping the tile soothed some of his ruffled nerves. PTSD – he’d been diagnosed after his tour of duty. It still plagued him, evenings like these, when he’d been cataloguing body and bomb parts. The investigation was going to be extensive; Interpol was getting involved, and he had no doubt messages from a half dozen countries awaited him when he got back to his desk.

              They would have to wait, though, because something else awaited him there. Someone else.

              A young woman sat in the chair beside his desk. Petite and feminine, her shining blonde hair secured in a tidy bun. She wore a pencil shirt, heels, white silk blouse. She held a small black zippered pouch in her lap.

              “Hello,” he said, too exhausted to be any kind of chivalrous. He heard the disgruntled inquiry in his voice, and couldn’t seem to alter it.

              “Hello,” she returned.

              Bill mostly fell into his chair, hands finding his temples and massaging. “Listen, not to be rude, but it’s been a very long day–”

              “That’s why I’m here,” she said, and for the first time, he really looked at her face.

              She had all the component parts to present a pretty picture. But he’d been a soldier, and now a police officer, and he knew that dead-eyed, jaded, seen-too-much look well enough to realize that whoever this girl was, however old she was, he wasn’t dealing with a regular citizen.

              His hands fell to his lap and he straightened in his chair. “You are?”

              She set the zippered pouch on his desk. “From what I can gather,” she said, London accent crisp and efficient, “you’re an exemplary cop without so much as a single disciplinary mark against you. I think you’re one of the loyal ones. One of the ones who does it for the right reasons.”

              He stared at her.

              “In there” – she tapped the pouch with one black-painted fingernail – “you’ll find everything you need to know about the people who blew up the warehouse today. Their leader is dead, but I’m sure some of his remaining followers will pick up his torch and move forward with it.”