"Chief?"
Nick jerked at the sound of Hector's voice. He looked up from the paperwork on his desk to see his deputy standing in the doorway of his office, staring at him as if he'd shaved his head and put a ring in his nose.
"Didn't you hear your line buzzing?" Hector asked.
Nick frowned at the phone on his desk, noticing the blinking light. It wasn't the first time in the twenty-four hours since he'd last seen Erin that he'd zoned out. "Who is it?" he growled.
"Frank Rossi returning your call."
Waiting until Hector retreated into the main reception area, Nick punched the line. "It's about time you called, Frank. I was starting to think you were avoiding me."
"Now, why would I do that, partner?" the other man asked.
"Maybe it has something to do with Erin McNeal."
"My favorite niece," Frank said easily. "Good cop, too. How's she working out?"
"Just fine, if I didn't mind my deputies getting run off the road and shot at. Any idea what that might be about?"
Tense silence buzzed through one hundred miles of fiberoptic cable.
"I figured you might be able to fill me in, since you didn't bother when you sent her down here," Nick snapped. "Who's after her, Frank?"
A curse broke the silence, then Frank sighed. "Is she all right?"
"She's fine. I put her on admin leave. I'm still waiting for an answer."
"I don't have all the answers, Nick."
"Since you obviously know more than I do, let's start with what you do have."
Frank sighed. "You're aware of the shooting she was involved in six months back? The perp she took out in that warehouse the night Danny Perrine was shot?"
"What about it?"
"We had DNA pulled from the blood at the scene. It was a long shot, but we sent it out anyway, hoping for a lucky break. Preliminary results came back, but when we punched the info into the national database we didn't get a match."
The hairs on the back of Nick's neck stood on end. "So, you didn't ID the thug she shot. What does that have to do with someone putting McNeal on their hit list?"
"Erin and Danny Perrine were operating on a tip that night in the warehouse, Nick. There was supposed to be a heroin buy. A couple of pounds. Some cash. In the scope of things, it should have been small time."
Nick wasn't sure he even wanted to hear what Frank was going to say next. He didn't like mysteries when it came to police shootings. He sure as hell didn't like the way this one was shaping up. "Who was the thug?"
"Does the name Damon DiCarlo ring a bell?"
Nick barely heard the last part of the sentence over the pounding of his pulse. "If he's any relation to Vic DiCarlo, I'd say we have a hell of a problem on our hands."
"Damon is his son."
It was Nick's turn to curse. Vic DiCarlo was Chicago 's version of John Gotti. Ruthless. Powerful. With a reputation for violence that left even veteran cops nauseous. "You kept me in the dark, you son of a bitch."
"Save it, Nick. I'm not finished."
"Why didn't I know about this?"
"You didn't know because I didn't know. Regardless, I thought Erin would be safe down there."
Cold realization crept over Nick like freezing rain down the back of his neck. " Erin shot Vic DiCarlo's son."
"That's what we suspect."
"Why did it take the Chicago PD six months to figure it out, for crying out loud?"
"Damon DiCarlo doesn't have a record," Frank said. "He's never even been arrested. So his DNA wasn't in the database. We had to get a warrant and search his apartment. We finally got something from a hairbrush. To extract DNA, we had to find a hair with a damn root attached. That took some time. After the lab typed it, we had to match it with the blood we found at the scene. That's no easy feat."
"Have you picked him up?"
"We would have picked him up weeks ago and found some other way to collect his DNA, but Damon DiCarlo is missing. The feds have had surveillance teams out looking for weeks, but no one has been able to locate him."
"How long has he been missing?"
"Six months."
Nick cursed again. "What about the old man?"
"He's in Sicily where we can't touch him-"
"He's not in Sicily, Frank."
The other man hesitated. "Intelligence tells us he is."
"I'll bet he's in the States. Maybe even here in Logan Falls. He's after Erin, damn you."
"That's not possible."
Nick ground his teeth. "You put Erin and my entire town at risk."
"The Chicago Police doesn't operate on hunches, Nick. I suspected DiCarlo was involved, but I couldn't act until I had proof."
"What about Erin? Did she know?"
"She suspected. It was Danny Perrine's snitch who tipped them off. Erin didn't have any proof."
Anger lashed through Nick like a bullwhip. He'd deal with Erin and her not confiding in him later. Right now, he needed facts. All of them. "Tell me what I need to know, Frank."
"From all appearances, Damon was running heroin," Frank said. "He'd been using since high school. Vic was of the old school. Like most of his Mafia cronies, he didn't approve of drugs-particularly heroin. He probably didn't even know Damon was running his own little show. I suspect Erin shot Damon in the warehouse that night, injuring him or possibly even killing him. Vic DiCarlo found out about it and covered for his son. He didn't want his son's reputation within the Mafia family tarnished, so he picked him up and took him to a doctor. If his son died that night, he may have gone to Italy simply to bury him. We were going to pick up McNeal as soon as we knew the whole story."
"You're too late," Nick said tonelessly. "We've had two incidents here already-"
"If DiCarlo, wanted her dead, she'd already be buried." A wave of fear washed over Nick, mingling with the anger, burgeoning into something volatile and dangerous. He looked down, found his free hand clenched into a fist so tight his knuckles hurt. "I want McNeal protected."
"I can have a U.S. Marshal down there first thing in the morning. We'll transport her to a safe house out of state-"
"Make it two marshals, and they'd damn well better be here before morning." Fear stabbed through the anger like an ice pick through slush when he realized Erin wasn't the only one who was vulnerable. His entire family was at risk. Stephanie. Mrs. Thornsberry. "I want my family protected, too."
"DiCarlo isn't after you or your family, Nick."
"Unlike you, Frank, I'm not willing to take that chance. Just do it. Two marshals for Erin, and two for my family." Without waiting for a reply, Nick slammed down the phone.
He couldn't believe it had come to this-the sludge from Chicago 's underworld leaching all the way down to Logan Falls. Why the hell hadn't Erin confided in him?
The urge to go to her was overwhelming. He had to know she was safe. He had to keep her that way until the marshals arrived. But the need to protect Erin was tempered with the terrifying knowledge that he hadn't been able to keep Rita safe. He hadn't been able to keep Stephanie safe.
Nick stood abruptly, aware that his heart was beating out of control. How was he going to protect her and his family against a Mafia kingpin who had his own private army at his beck and call? Striding to the door, he swung it open and stepped in to the outer office.
Hector looked up from his desk, his brows drawing together. "What's wrong, Chief?"
"I want you to get the cruiser and follow me to my house." Crossing the room, Nick unlocked the gun cabinet and removed the department shotgun, which hadn't been touched since last year, when he'd cleaned it up for the Boy Scout tour. "Take this along, with extra ammunition for your sidearm. Wear your vest."
"My vest?" The other man jumped to his feet, his eyes as big as saucers. "Holy cow, Chief, what's going on?"
"Precautionary measures. I just spoke with Chicago PD. Vic DiCarlo might be paying McNeal a visit for something that happened back in Chicago a few months back."
"Vic DiCarlo?" Hector's mouth dropped open. "The Vic DiCarlo?"
The name sent an icy finger of dread scraping up Nick's spine. "We're going to drive over to my house, then you're going to escort Steph and Mrs. Thornsberry to that physical rehab center in Indianapolis."