Chapter Twenty #2
“Fine, whatever. Just...There's a flash stick in my pocket. Can you get it to Lyn?” If I was headed to jail, I didn't want that information on me.
There was no telling what the police would do with it.
Again, very few people knew I was undercover.
The police could see it as evidence to convict me of working with a drug dealer.
Sam dug into my pocket until his fingers closed around the flash stick. I could honestly admit I was a little embarrassed to have someone other than Sal rooting around in my pocket.
Once Sam pulled it out, he stuck it into his own pocket, and then he escorted me out of the building to a squad car. On the upside, my cover wasn't broken because the drug thug got to watch as I was read my rights and then placed into the back of the police vehicle.
Lucky for me, he was placed in a different vehicle.
I could see Sam and Clarke giving me strange looks as they spoke to the officers on the scene, including the other three members of Sal's SWAT team. I got wide-eyed looks from a stunned Officer David Wu, Officer Miles Burke, and Officer Joseph Santiago.
It wasn't hard to figure out what they were talking about. Namely, me. I just wondered how much time I had before they called my husband. It wasn't like I could deny being in the house of a drug dealer. I'd been arrested by the SWAT team after all. But there was so much more to the story than that.
If I could just get someone to listen to me.
Chapter Two
Salvador
I groaned and rolled to my side to reach for my cell phone when it rang. I squinted as I looked at the digital clock on the screen and then swiped my finger across it and held it to my ear. “Do you know what fucking time it is, Clarke?”
“Way too early or way too late, depending on when you woke up or went to bed.”
My mind tried to twist around Clarke's words so I could better understand, but there was no way that was happening. I was too damn tired.
I groaned as I flopped back on the mattress and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Just tell me why you are calling, Clarke.”
“Lany is in jail.”
I froze.
“Sal, did you hear me?” Clarke asked.
“I don't think I did,” I said slowly. “It sounded like you said Lany is in jail.”
Clarke sighed. “I did.”
I sat up in one fluid motion and flipped the covers back, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. After putting the phone on speaker mode, I set it on the nightstand and then reached for my clothes. “Start from the beginning, Clarke. How did Lany end up in jail?”
“Um...I sort of arrested him.”
I froze once again, one sock on, one sock halfway past my toes, and then turned to look at the cell phone. “You arrested my husband?”
“Yes, but I had good reason.”
I couldn't think of a single good reason to arrest Lany and toss him in jail. He might be a scatterbrained klutz at times, but he was not a criminal.
“Talk faster, Clarke,” I snapped as I finished yanking on my sock and then reached for my pants.
“So, we got called in to bust a drug house down on the west side of town. We were going through it room by room, arresting everyone inside, when I heard Sam call out that he had another suspect in custody. When I got into the room he was clearing, Lany was there.”
“In a drug house?”
I had to be sure.
“Yes,” Clarke replied.
Huh.
“Was he high?” Lany didn't do drugs, but I couldn't think of another reason he would enter a drug house. Maybe if a kid was involved or one of our friends…
“No,” Clarke replied. “When he was booked, he didn't have anything on him.”
“Wait.” I grabbed the phone, took it off speaker, and held it to my ear. “How long ago did this happen?”
How long had my baby been behind bars?
“We busted the house around eight last night.”
I checked my phone just to make sure I had the time right, and then anger ignited in my gut. “Lany was arrested over six hours ago, and you are just telling me now?”
“I had to wait until I could turn over the scene to the incident commander, Sal. You know that.”
True, that was operating procedure, but this was Lany we were talking about. “Why didn't you send someone with Lany?”
Clarke didn't reply.
“Clarke?”
“He was in a drug house, Sal.” Clarke spoke quickly and loudly, a tinge of anger in his voice. “Lany has done a lot of crazy stuff, but a drug house?”
My fingers tightened around the phone. “Clarke,” I growled.
Clarke sighed, his voice lowering when he replied, “I planned to leave him behind bars for a couple of hours to teach him a lesson.”
“And?” There had to be an “and.” Lany was involved.
“I can't find him.”
My blood ran cold.
“What do you mean you can't find him?” I snarled as my panic unleashed, ripping through my control. “Where is my husband, Clarke?”
“I don't know. Lyn is going through the booking records right now.” Clarke sighed again, this one deeper. “I swear, Sal, as soon as I find him, I'll get him out.”
My jaw clenched. “I'll be home in four hours. You'd better have Lany with you when I get there.”
“I'll find him, Sal.”
“Where are Marcus and Dmitri?” They should have been there to stop whatever scatterbrained idea Lany had come up with, and even if they didn't stop him, they should have been there to protect him. They were Lany's bodyguards after all.
“I reached Marcus at the house. He said Lany had been out on some sort of mission, but he couldn't tell me what it was. Lany left in the middle of the night. Gate security said Lany was alone when he got into a taxi and headed east. No one has seen him since, but Marcus did say that Lany has been gone for almost ten days.”
“What?” I shouted so loudly that the windows shuddered. “How the hell did Marcus know he was on some sort of mission then?”
And what mission?
“Lany called home a couple of times, but he wouldn't tell Marcus where he was.”
I drew in a deep breath and then let it out slowly before asking, “Have you called Jerry?”
“As soon as I knew Lany was missing. He's working with Lyn to try and figure out where Lany is. He should be in the East Precinct, but he's not. I've even gone in and searched all the jail cells. He's just not there.”
“Talk to the incident commander and find out if any of the suspects arrested were shipped to other precincts. Depending on how big of a bust this was, we could be dealing with more than one precinct.”
If things had transpired that way, the headache involved with dealing with interagency politics would be enough to give me a migraine.
I put the phone on speaker again and then set it back down on the nightstand and started packing. I planned to be on the first available flight out of Denver. I didn't care if I had to flap my arms to get the plane to take off.
“Tell me about the bust, Clarke. Why were we called in?” I trusted Clarke to run the team while I was out of town, but maybe if I knew more about this drug bust, I could figure out where Lany had gone.
“It was just a drug bust, Sal. The commander out at the East Precinct called us in. I guess they have been gathering evidence on this drug house for a while now. It's run by some street gang or something. They got a judge's order to go in and bust the place. That's where we came in.”
I stopped shoving clothes into my bag and turned to look at the phone. “You said they had enough evidence to get a judge's order?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of evidence?”
“I didn't ask. The judge's order was enough to call us in.”
“Talk to whoever is in charge of this case. Find out if there is any surveillance.”
“Surveillance?”
“You said Lany has been missing for ten days. I want to know how long he has been at that drug house.” I also wanted to know why no one had called me before now. I should have been informed the moment Lany went missing.
I zipped up my bag, grabbed the cell phone and my jacket, and then headed for the door. “I'll be there in four hours.”
“I'll call if we find anything.”
“You'd better,” I warned.
“I will,” Clarke promised.
“We're going to be talking about this when I get home, Clarke.”
“I know.”
There was so much resignation in that tone I almost smiled.
By the time I checked out of the hotel and grabbed a taxi for the airport, I had been able to book the next flight home. It would still take me about four hours to get there, and every second was going to be excruciating.
I could feel the migraine already.
I pulled my cell phone out and dialed Lyn. “It's Sal,” I said once he answered. “Have you found Lany?”
“No, and that worries me.”
I almost rolled my eyes.
“I've checked every precinct, and he's not booked into any of them.”
That didn't make sense. If he had been arrested, he should have been at one of them. “Have you looked at any of the county jails?”
“Uh, no, but I'll look now.”
“What about the tracking chip?” I'd had our friend Skip put it in Lany's ass. It was just under the skin, but it helped me keep track of my beautiful mess. “Does it show where he is?”
“No, and that's part of what worries me. As far as the chip is concerned, Lany is at home.”
My jaw clenched. “Have Marcus search for it.”
“You think Lany took it out?”
“If it says he's at home when he isn't, then yes.”
“But why would he do that?”
“Why does Lany do half the things he does?” I asked. “I'm on my way to the airport so I'll be out of communication for a while. I'll touch base with you just as soon as I land.”
“I'll have something for you by then, even if I have to hack a few places.”
I couldn't argue with that. I wasn't even worried about Lyn breaking any cyber laws. He was good enough to hack something and not get caught, but he also worked for the FBI's Cyber Crimes Unit.
“You know Clarke and I are going to be talking about this, right?”
Lyn snorted. “Someone needs to talk to him because I'm not.”
“I understand that Clarke gets a little aggravated at some of the stunts Lany pulls, but arresting him is not the answer, especially when Lany just seems to get in more trouble when something like that happens.”