“So, because your cover was blown, you felt it appropriate to punch him. He’s lawyered up and is going for police brutality, Gates.”
Mason snorted. “Please.” But he quickly snapped his mouth shut when he saw Chief’s look.
The room stayed tense as we all stared at each other in silence for what felt like hours. Finally, Chief sighed and handed two files to each of us. “Look, we’ll take care of the police-brutality thing, but I don’t think it should come as a shock to you that you are out of the undercover narcotics division.”
Do. Not. Say. Desk.
“But since Juarez already had his suspicions of the two of you, he had guys lined up in case he was taken down. And we just caught wind of it this morning. There’s a hit out on both of you.”
“What the fuck?” I whispered mostly to myself as I looked through the top file. There were new credit cards, a driver’s license . . . everything I would need to start over. Except the name didn’t say Logan Kash Ryan. And the state sure as shit wasn’t Florida. In its place was Logan Kash Hendricks. Texas. I glanced over at Mason, who was now scrambling to see what was in his file, before looking at Chief. “Chief, for the last three and a half years we’ve lived—almost the entire time—with thugs, dealers, and druggies. When don’t we have someone wanting us dead?”
“This is a serious hit. What we’re doing isn’t exactly witness protection. But it’s getting you away from here until things calm down, and before you say anything”—he held his hand up and I snapped my mouth shut—“you’ll still be working. Just not with narcotics. You’ll still be undercover.” He grabbed both files that had been under the ones with our new identities and opened them. “Do you remember the college girl who went missing and was found tortured to death in that basement about two years ago?”
I skimmed quickly over the file and newspaper clippings. We’d been neck-deep in another operation at the time and hadn’t been paying much attention to the news. But that had been huge. She’d been the third girl in what they were now calling the Carnation Murders. All the girls had looked alike and each had been found tortured, murdered, and with one white-and-pink carnation lying on her chest. The last girl had been right in our backyard.
“A few of our detectives have found some things other than physical appearance, type of torture, and the flower that are starting to link all of them together. Whether we’re about to go on a wild-goose chase or not, we don’t know. But they’ve been studying this trail for a few months now and we just got the okay to send in some of our guys.”
“All right. And . . . ?”
“And we’re sending the two of you.”
Glancing down at my new ID, I peeked at Mason’s file and saw that he had a Texas driver’s license with the last name Hendricks as well. “I’m sorry. Let me see if I’m understanding all this. You’re getting us away from a hit that may or may not be out for us, we have Texas IDs all of a sudden, and you’re sending us somewhere. You’re sending us to cowboy country?!”
“You always were a quick one, Ryan,” Chief said, deadpan. “Or should I say, Hendricks.”
“If you’ve followed this trail to Texas then it’s out of our jurisdiction. Let Texas law enforcement deal with it.”
“Austin detectives have already been sent all of the information we’ve collected on this James Camden guy, and they’re expecting you on Monday.”
“Monday?!”
Chief continued like we hadn’t spoken. “Mind you, there’s never been an actual suspect that has had any credibility, and when the victims’ family and friends were shown a picture of James Camden, no one had ever seen him before. And no one can actually track Camden down, so it’s possible his identity has been stolen.”
Just looking at the balding now-forty-year-old put a bad taste in my mouth. His mug shot from a petty theft six years ago looked like a photo from a story you’d see on the news about a child molester. I studied his face and every description of him as Mason and Chief argued over the fact that we wouldn’t be able to tell our families where we were going but would be able to keep some forms of contact with them. This was the weirdest form of protection I’d ever heard of. And I blamed Mason for all of it.
“We have jobs set up for you as bartenders at the two places his paper trail has led to in Austin, but other than that we have nothing on him. You have bank accounts set up with money you’ll need to set up an apartment we’ve already rented out for you.”
“We aren’t—” Mason said, but was quickly cut off.
“I know you don’t bartend, and so do the owners. They have been informed of the situation, but the staff hasn’t. Just try to blend in and find Camden. This is a college town, so we have to assume he’s looking for his next victim. You will check in with the Austin police department same as you would do here for undercover assignments; you will be on their payroll for now. You are now cousins, but the rest of the cover story will be up to the two of you to decide upon. As I said before, you cannot tell your family where you are moving to, only that you are going away on another undercover assignment. Now, get out of my office and get your asses to Texas.”
As soon as we were out in the hall, I turned my glare on Mason. “Texas? Really? Your mess-up has us moving to Texas?”
“You can’t put this shit on me, Kash. Juarez had us pegged and listed already; this has nothing to do with me punching him.”
“You know my mom is going to flip and try to figure out where we’re going.”
“Your mom?” he asked incredulously. “I just told my parents and little sister I’d be there for her graduation this weekend and now I won’t. And I won’t be able to give them a reason. You know my ma, she’ll go freakin’ ballistic.”
True. She would. As we made our way out of the building, I came up with our immediate plans and shared them when we hit the parking lot. “We each get one small bag. Essentials only. Leave the apartment looking like it always does. That way if the guys Juarez hired come looking for us, it’ll look like we’re still around. I’m having dinner with my parents, then we’ll leave at ten tonight. When we get home, I’ll go in first to make sure it’s all right. Then I’m gonna go put gas in my truck and pick up my bike from storage before I head to my parents’. I’ll let you know when I leave so you can go in after; that way we don’t look suspicious. Try to crash on your parents’ couch for a few hours at least before dinner; I want to drive as much as possible tonight.” Holding up the new Texas license plates that had been in my file, I sighed as I looked at my Florida plates. “I guess we’ll change these out sometime tomorrow. Keep them hidden for now.”
Mason stopped outside the door of his truck and looked at the ground, playing with his keys. “You telling them you’re going on assignment?”
Do I ever? “Nope.”
He nodded. “All right. Call you at ten when I get in my truck. I’ll have mine filled up too.”
“Later.” I climbed in my truck and placed the files and plates on the passenger seat. Taking a deep breath, I told myself it was just another assignment. Just like the last three. Clearing my mind, I started preparing myself to once again say good-bye to my parents without their realizing what I was doing.
I HOPPED OUT of my truck, and Mason did the same. “You got the keys and everything?” he asked as he stretched.
“Yep. I’m guessing it’s . . . this way? Twenty-one oh four. First floor, Chief? Really? That’s just asking to be broken into.”
Mason followed me to the second door on the left and we both stayed silent as I put my ear up against the door. No noise. Mason inspected the handle, said it looked clean and was still locked. We’d already discussed trying not to scare any of our neighbors, so we both had our guns in their holsters on our h*ps under our shirts. But with the hit and the fact that this apartment had been set up for us, it felt unnatural to go in unprepared.
With a look confirming that we were both ready, he unlocked and opened the door and I stepped in with Mason directly behind me. As soon as we were in, he shut the door silently and we both had our weapons drawn as we cleared the unit. Satisfied with our search, we reholstered and opened all the blinds in the dark apartment before heading out to grab our bags.
“Mason—what the fuck?” I slammed the door to my truck shut and slung my bag over my shoulder. “I said one bag each.”
He hefted a box out of the backseat of his truck and reached in for another. “Yeah, you also said the essentials.”
“What do you deem essential?” I walked quickly over and opened the top. “I told you to leave the apartment looking like we still lived there, dumbass! How is taking this looking like we still live there?” Folding the flaps over each other, I pushed the box with our Blu-ray player and all our Blu-rays aside and checked the next box. “Our Xbox is not essential!”
“Dude, how can you even say that? Of course it is.”
“Not when we’re on assignment,” I hissed.
“We’re supposed to look normal. And when aren’t we playing Xbox when on assignment? We killed Juarez and his boys in all our online tournaments.”
Okay. He had a point. We were always playing. “But still, Mason. If someone goes to our place and sees our Xbox, the controllers, games, and headsets gone, not to mention the hundred or so movies and Blu-ray player . . . you don’t think they’ll find that suspicious?”
“Well . . .” He stood up and raked a hand through his hair. “Whatever. They were essential.”
“God, I f**king hate you sometimes.”
He shrugged, then picked up his bag and one of the boxes. “You know you’d be bitching in a week if I’d left them. You’re welcome in advance.”
“Hey, boys.”
We turned to see a short, freaking gorgeous blonde in next to nothing standing there with a coy smile crossing her face.
“I’m Candice.” She bounced once on her toes and the bikini top she was wearing didn’t do much in the way of helping keep her girls in. “I take it you’re just moving in?”
“Thank the good Lord above,” Mason whispered next to me, and I huffed a laugh. “We are. I’m Mason. This is my cousin Logan.”
“Cousins? Wow.” Her eyes went wide and she dragged her teeth over her bottom lip as she stuck her chest out even farther. God, could this girl have been any more obvious? “Do you need any help moving in?”
I almost laughed. She was the size of a toothpick. “Uh, no. We’re good, this is all we have. Thanks anyway.”
Her brow furrowed as she took in the two small boxes and bags but quickly smoothed out. “So, you’re moving into the apartment directly across from ours. We’ll be neighbors.”
Oh, joy. I sucked on my lip ring and watched Mason walk right up next to her.