He should be afraid, John thought. He was getting kids killed over a temporary high. Using the stuff himself, judging by his runny nose and red-rimmed eyes. Dammit, they’d made it through four years of high school, never giving in to drugs except for one time when they were sixteen and pretty Mandy Sayers shared a joint.
“Denny, I can help you. I can get you out of this mess.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Flynn. I’m not in any trouble.”
Denny ran a hand through his hair and grinned while his other hand played behind his ear. He’d always been a damn awful liar.
“My father tried. Damn, he tried. I’d never seen him so frustrated. He ended up yelling at Denny. My dad never yelled. Not in anger like that. But Denny was in total denial that he was doing anything wrong. Lying to my dad. Lying to me.”
“It was like he’d betrayed you.”
John squeezed her hand. “Yeah,” he said softly.
“What happened to him?” Rowan asked after a time.
“He was executed.”
He’d spent a week trying to convince Denny to turn over his dealers and be the good guy for a change. When that failed, he just wanted him to get out before it killed him. Denny never even admitted he was dealing, never admitted he was in too deep.
“It was my fault.”
“How? Denny made all his own choices. No one forced him to start dealing.”
“Neither my dad nor I gave up. One night, the night before Denny was murdered, he told me he was a marked man. That his boss had seen the cops at his house. I knew he meant my dad, but he didn’t say it.”
“I’ll lay it straight for them. It’s not what you think, Johnny. But-but I think you’d better stop coming around, okay? Just steer clear for a while, okay?”
“He wanted me out of his life, told me as much. I left. I was hurt and angry and didn’t know what to do. I went back to my dad. That’s when he told me he’d told Narcotics about Denny. They were tailing him, hoping to catch Reginald Pomera.”
“Pomera,” Rowan muttered, familiar with the name.
“Yeah. He wasn’t top dog back then, but he was lethal. The major courier from South America into southern California. My dad didn’t tell me the details. Not then, not ever. I learned later that Pomera was in the country and they hoped to catch him. Denny was their best lead. He’d been approached with witness protection but denied he needed anything, that he was doing anything wrong.
“The next night, I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t want to betray my father, but I knew something was wrong with Denny. He had to get out, and fast. I didn’t have much money, but enough to take us to some hole-in-the-wall city where I could talk or beat sense into the jerk.” His voice cracked again, the hot sting of unshed tears caking his throat.
A memory of him and Denny. They were twelve. Riding bikes in the flood control channel. Laughing, taking jumps they had no business taking. They were lucky they hadn’t broken an arm or leg or worse. Denny always kept his hair too long, and it would hang over his eyes like a sheepdog’s.
“I went back, one last time, and that’s when I found him.”
The house blazed with light, as if on fire. But it wasn’t fire. It was cold death.
The smell of death wasn’t foreign to him. He’d lost a friend or two in the line of duty. The coppery scent of blood, mixed with the foul stench of bodily fluids at the moment of death when the body relaxed… death surrounded Denny’s house.
Denny’s death.
“He’d been shot execution style. I touched him, flipped over the body, to see if I could save him.”
The glassy eyes stared at him, dark and empty. He stared back, as if seeing his best friend for the first time.
“He was already gone. But his body was still warm. I’d missed his killer by minutes.”
“You would have been killed, too,” Rowan said, her voice tinged with emotion.
“I know.” He took a deep breath, finished up. “Against my father’s wishes, I did my own undercover work. Found out Pomera was in town. Learned from Denny’s lowlife friends that Pomera had ordered the hit because Denny was stealing from the deals.
“But,” he continued, his voice laced with intense hatred, “I think Pomera pulled the trigger himself. From everything I’ve learned about the bastard, he’d have gotten a sick thrill out of killing a pathetic, doped-up, mid-level drug dealer like Denny.”
“And that’s why you joined Drug Enforcement.”
“Yeah.”
“And why did you leave?”
Shit, she asked the hard questions. He hadn’t thought about this in so long, but he owed it to her, especially after dragging out her past. After what they’d shared.
And didn’t they say confession was good for the soul?
“It’s sort of complicated.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“I want to.”
The doorbell chimed, breaking the moment. Rowan stiffened next to him, then extracted her limbs from his and jumped up. She hurried to the walk-in closet and closed the door firmly behind her.
Bad timing. Bad planning, too, he thought as he picked up his dirty sweatpants, still damp from their run. He quickly slid into them, pulled on his T-shirt, grabbed his gun, and jogged downstairs. Sex, then purging demons-he pulled himself together and hoped Michael couldn’t read every minute of the last twelve hours on his face.
He peered through the peephole and frowned. Quinn Peterson, the Fed. His disheveled appearance and day’s growth of beard suggested he hadn’t slept much the night before.
Not another murder. That meant Rowan was next. He stiffened at the thought. No, not Rowan. He wouldn’t let the killer even get close.
He braced himself for the bad news and opened the door. “Peterson.”
“Flynn.” Peterson stepped in and John closed and bolted the door behind him, reset the alarm. “Where’s Rowan?”
“Shower,” he said.
“I’m here,” Rowan called as she came down the stairs.
John sneaked a look at her. She was composed, dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt, her hair brushed and pulled into a wet ponytail. A flush that hadn’t been there yesterday coated her skin. He couldn’t help but be pleased he was the cause of her improved mood.
But her glow disappeared when she looked at Peterson’s face. John glanced back at the Fed. “What’s wrong?”
“Let’s sit down.” He crossed the foyer and walked over to the windows facing the ocean. He didn’t look at them.
“Quinn, what happened? Did he kill someone else?” Rowan’s voice cracked.
Peterson turned to face them, eyes red. “It’s Michael. The bastard shot him.”
John barely heard Rowan’s shocked gasp. His heart pounded; his ears rang. His brother. No.
“What hospital? Where-”
“He’s dead.”
“No.” John shook his head. “Goddammit, No!” He kicked the glass coffee table with his bare foot, and it toppled over and shattered against the end table.
Michael. Not Michael. John stared at Peterson and knew there was no mistake.
Michael was dead.
An intense, physical hollowness spread through his chest, ten times worse than anything he’d ever felt before. His father’s death had been a shock that jolted the family. His army buddies who’d died had hurt his soul. Denny’s senseless murder had rocked everything John believed in, had finished forming his path.
But Michael. His best friend. His brother.
All the death, all the pointless drug murders. He’d seen more blood and guts than most people see in their lifetime. Nothing had prepared him for this.
He pictured Michael, blood seeping from his lifeless body. His eyes open, glassy… He shook away the vision, his eyes blurry with unshed tears.
“What. Happened.” His breath came in ragged gasps as he tried to control his rage.