Chapter 30
Ben
The station was loud with the kind of controlled chaos that preceded a major operation.
Officers moved through the corridors in tactical gear, checking radios, reviewing assignments for later that night.
It was still a few hours away, but the determination in the air—especially after today’s OD—was palpable.
I’d dropped Jolly at home after the motel to give him time to rest before we rolled out. He’d need every bit of it. A full sweep of an active distribution point would push him hard, and I wanted him sharp.
I checked my phone again. The text I’d sent Kayla while I’d been home still showed delivered, not read. When I’d dropped Jolly off, I noticed her car gone. I hope William hadn’t gotten sick at Trish’s or something.
My phone rang. It was Vance.
“Ben. You at the station?”
“Yeah. Prepping for tonight. You here?”
“No. Listen, I need to talk to you about something. Not on the phone.” His voice carried a tightness I hadn’t heard before. “I’ve been running down a lead. Something connected to the syndicate. It’s sensitive, and I don’t want it going through channels until I know what I’m looking at.”
Shit. “Affecting tonight?”
“Affecting everything.”
Beyond shit. Fuck. “Okay. Where?”
He gave me a location. A pull-off on the mountain road north of town, near the bridge over Kettle Creek gorge. I vaguely knew the spot. Scenic overlook and bridge.
“Just you,” he said. “Leave Jolly. If this person sees a military-looking dog, they’re not going to cooperate.”
“He needs as much rest for tonight as possible. Give me twenty minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Vance.” I turned toward the wall so no one would overhear. “Do I need to bring backup? Get Rawlings in on this?”
“No. Not yet. Just…come out here. It’ll all make sense.”
“Okay.”
I pocketed the phone, told the duty sergeant I’d be back before staging, and walked out to my truck, wondering what the hell was going on.
The road north of town climbed through switchbacks, the headlights carving into dark forest on both sides. No moon. The darkness boded well for our op in a few hours but made these mountain roads scary as shit.
Vance’s unmarked sedan sat at the pull-off, tucked against the guardrail where the road curved along the gorge. Below it, somewhere in the dark, Kettle Creek cut through rock on its way to lower ground.
I parked behind him and got out.
Vance was standing beside his vehicle. Jacket over his tactical vest, hands at his sides. I didn’t see anybody else around. He stepped forward.
“Thanks for coming out.”
“What’s going on, man? We don’t have time to fuck around tonight.”
“Walk with me a second.” He moved toward the front of his car. “I appreciate you coming out here. This couldn’t wait.”
He stopped. Turned sideways. Stepped back from the passenger door.
Kayla was in the front seat.
My brain stalled on it. Kayla. Here. Why? Why was she here on a dark mountain road, sitting in Vance’s car?
Had something happened to William? Had there been an emergency and Vance brought me—
Then I saw how she was sitting. Her body angled awkwardly toward the center console, her shoulders torqued, her posture wrong in a way that didn’t make sense until the headlight glow caught the plastic around her wrists.
Zip-tied to the steering wheel.
Everything inverted. Instantly, not gradually.
My body understood before my mind finished processing—the location, the isolation, the man I’d trusted standing three feet from the woman I loved.
Vance had kidnapped Kayla.
My hand immediately went to my sidearm.
“Don’t. I don’t want to shoot her, I really don’t, but don’t doubt I will.
” Vance’s weapon was already out. Not aimed at me.
Aimed through the window at Kayla, the barrel close enough to the glass that she’d flinched toward the center console.
“Take your weapon out. Two fingers. Set it on the ground.”
Fuck. My hand froze at my sidearm.
I looked at Kayla through the windshield. She was shaking. Small tremors running through her shoulders, her jaw tight, her wrists straining against the plastic. Her blue eyes blinked out at me, terrified.
I drew my sidearm with two fingers and set it on the asphalt.
Because Kayla.
If it were me, I’d take my chances. But I wouldn’t take a chance with Kayla’s life.
I glanced at Vance, still looking at me but pointing his gun at her. He knew that. He knew that keeping me in line was just a matter of keeping her in danger.
Vance picked up my weapon and tucked it into his waistband, then stepped back to a distance that gave him a clear line on both of us.
“Walk toward the guardrail. Hands where I can see them.”
I walked. The metal was cold under my palms when I turned and leaned against it. The void at my back pulled at me like a physical thing.
Vance opened the passenger door. He reached in with a folding knife, cut the zip tie securing her to the steering wheel, and stepped back. “Out.”
Kayla climbed out. Her legs were unsteady, but she didn’t stumble. The severed zip tie hung from one wrist. She stood beside the sedan, and her eyes found mine and held.
I kept my voice level. “What the fuck is this, Vance?”
“This is a problem I’d rather not be solving.” He reached into his jacket and produced a small medical-looking case. He held it at his side without opening it. “But you didn’t leave when you were supposed to, and now we’re here.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means you were supposed to leave. Investigation closed, Martinez conveniently took the fall as being the leak, and you should’ve moved on.” His eyes were flat and steady. “Instead, you stayed. And somehow got fucking intel about us moving the operation tonight.”
The guardrail bit into my palms. I had no weapon. Kayla was still directly in his line of fire. The gorge was behind me. I had no angle, no advantage, no play I could see that didn’t end with her getting hurt.
That was not fucking happening.
The best I could do was keep him talking. As long as he was talking, he wasn’t acting, and as long as he wasn’t acting, I had time to figure out something.
“It was you. The whole time. You were the leak.”
“I was never just the leak.” Something shifted in his voice. The way a CEO would correct someone who’d called him the receptionist. “A leak implies someone else is in charge.”
The world I’d been operating in for weeks—the assumptions, the hierarchy, the chain of command I thought I understood—crumbled right in front of me. None of it had been right.
Vance wasn’t just the leak. Hell, he hadn’t been the leak at all. He’d been controlling both sides simultaneously.
“I run it, Ben. Every distribution point, every supply line, every dealer. I built the whole operation, and I run it. And it’s making me very, very rich.” He let out a breath like he was relieved to be finally telling someone. “And nobody suspects me at all.”
He was admiring his own work out loud, the way an architect might stand in front of a building he designed and point out the load-bearing walls to someone who’d only ever seen the lobby.
“You didn’t suspect me, did you?”
“Fuck off.” I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
But he aimed his Glock closer at Kayla. “Did you suspect me? Answer me.”
I ground my teeth so hard my jaw ached. “No. I didn’t suspect you. Not even for a second.” It was the truth.
Vance smiled. Slow, full of teeth. “Neither did Donovan. You two, the big hotshots from the private sector, couldn’t see what was right in front of you. Couldn’t even catch me as the leak, much less as the person running the whole syndicate.”
“You made sure of that.” God damn it. We’d been played from the beginning. “You set up both raids.”
He loved that I was finally starting to understand just how smart he was. “Fuck yes, I did. The first one had some of my people who actually knew something. So I had to tip them off and get them out.”
“But the second was a setup from the beginning. That’s why the dealer didn’t know anything.”
“Yeah, poor guy. Patsy from the start.” Vance shrugged.
“And Martinez was a chef’s kiss perfect convenience I couldn’t pass up either.
By then, I knew you and Donovan were looking for the leak in the department.
I thought I’d try to pin it on Briggson, but Martinez fell into our lap.
Dumbass drinking bastard. But for the record, he never actually gave up any useful info to anyone in my organization. ”
I had never wanted to punch someone in the face as badly as I did Vance right now. “You piece of shit. He killed himself because of you.”
Vance gave an overtheatrical grimace. “Well, actually…”
It fell into place. Martinez hadn’t killed himself at all. Vance had killed him and made it look like a suicide. Had shown up at the man’s house under the pretense of checking on a down-and-out colleague and “found” him dead.
“Yep.” Vance nodded. “Everything you’re thinking, I’m sure it’s probably right. Couldn’t leave any loose ends, especially when they were so easy to tie up. One suicide note and all of a sudden, the leak issue was fixed for good.”
Son of a bitch.
The night felt like it was closing in on me. Vance had killed Martinez. He would have no problem killing again to save his operation.
“You need another patsy.”
He shrugged. “Not so much a patsy as a distraction, while I get my operation moved out of town. I have no idea how you found out about the warehouse tonight. Do me a solid and tell me, would you?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Vance walked over to Kayla and put the Glock right up to her temple. She let out a terrified sob. “Oh, come on, Ben. Just satisfy my curiosity.”
I couldn’t stand the terror in her eyes. “A Drift user overheard the plans. Gave it up during questioning today.”
I didn’t mention Briggson or Mia. I was giving this bastard as little usable information as possible.