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"Good man. Let's get in the sky." I was already starting to jog toward my own quarters to change into cargo shorts and running shoes when he stopped me.
"Due respect, sir. I know you're concerned. She's a pro, though. Are you moving too soon? You scare them, they'll scatter and I know you want this."
What he didn't add was Enough to let her take the chance.
And maybe even, Don't make whatever happens to her be for nothing.
"Agreed," I said without indicating which part. "But we're not moving until she either gives a signal –" provided she still had her phone – "Or until we know she's in, has proof, and something is going down." In fact, if she could take care of it herself, good. She could use the ego boost and even if my business could ride through any storm, that didn't mean I needed the complications. "Good enough?"
And because I'd asked, and because he was good at what he did, he said, "Good," and went to gather his men rather than saying it was all up to me or some other respectful but meaningless phrase.
I felt better just doing something.
I jogged to my quarters to change.
45
Annie
They left me chained to a metal post. Handcuffed, standing, waiting for whoever He was, who they talked about with less respect than fear. I kept feeling that this had gone from bad idea to terrible reality in record time but the truth was I had more or less expected to be where I was, on the receiving end of something unpleasant designed to put me in my place and let me know there was a whole lot more of the same coming.
There was little difference between this and being undercover. It just felt different. Because sometimes when it was drugs, the men didn't care about me. Impossible but true, my ego insisted. Sometimes they saw me as a pleasant distraction when they weren't so strung out they couldn't get it up. Other times they saw my worth as something they could sell if they needed to. Lots of girls who hung on for the fix only became prostitutes after their use got too extreme. When they were using more than they were bringing in it was time to pay up somehow. And then sometimes a girl like me was simply a great front for a dealer. The men could find lots of uses for girls.
Some of the men found girls like me fun to fuck. Some I could put off. Some – Jesse – I didn't mind. And some, usually those who had the sheer viciousness to rise to top dog position and keep it, there was no way to avoid. I thought He was going to be one of those.
I didn't think I was going to like the Him who was coming. The way they talked about him I felt like Andromeda chained to the rock, waiting to be fucked and devoured by a sea monster. Or something else. Maybe like I was in a fairytale, waiting for the ogre. Whatever, it felt bad.
That was about the time I realized something was more wrong than just nerves. Just that one thought. It felt bad. Cops can be as superstitious as athletes. I'd learned to trust my gut over the years. If something feels hinky, run. If it feels like you might have been compromised, get out. I never had been (go me, it was more luck than anything else) but one of my colleagues was. Somebody rumbled her and it would have wasted everything we went through getting into that gang to try and help her. Probably it would have ended up with both of us dead, too.
So I'd played dumb. It was the best move for both of us. She was a cop? Well, fuck, somebody do something! And they did. I didn't have to be a part of it but I was there as they beat her unconscious and left her with a note to the cops.
She regained her ability to walk and most of the sight in her left eye. She left the force though and although she told me there were no hard feelings and of course I couldn't have done anything else, I never heard from her again. I didn't blame her for the animosity. I'd have felt the same. But if I hadn't played it that way, we'd both have been dead, not injured.
I didn't know what this gut twinge was but it said very clearly that something was fucked and badly and I needed to get out. If we ruined the operation, well, fuck, my dying for it wouldn't help anyone. That had always been a very real possibility with PD, but it didn't have to be here. Get out and turn in what we had. If it all came out about Cole in the process, he'd told me a couple times he could deal with the shitstorm. Money made him harder to take down. Hopefully he was right.
Time to get out, then. Only there was the small problem of being cuffed to a post. My hands were in front of me. I had no idea how much time I had. I also had no idea if there were cameras up in the rafters. I was inside an abandoned warehouse, the windows filthy but not blanked out. The structure was a lot of concrete and metal, the tilt up type of construction, and I had no way of knowing how long the chip worked or if it still was. They'd taken my phone, of course.
Too late to worry about cameras. Or not enough time. Something like that. My thoughts went on spinning after whatever was wrong as I dropped to sitting at the post, my legs wrapped around it so my feet and hands were in proximity. Of course I couldn't see either but I could feel the sandals and I pried the one heel open, found the blades inside. Instantly sweat on my hands made me drop everything. There'd be no putting them back so if this didn't work, I had the choice of hoping for the best – that the He coming who everyone feared was an idiot who wouldn't notice my stuff on the floor and my one naked foot – or trying to throw the stuff where it wouldn't be noticed which was stupid. I couldn't throw anything with my hands restrained the way they were, and the plastic meant everything was light. It wouldn't throw, it would just scatter and drop a foot away.
Blade in hand I started working on the handcuffs. In the movies everyone knows how to pick the lock on handcuffs. In real life? It's long and slow and tedious and really damn hard to do when you can't see the cuffs, the hands, or the pick.
I kept at it and after what felt like weeks had passed, I heard a click. One wrist was free. I instantly pulled both hands around the post and stood.
To the ironic applause of the man who now stood behind me.
I grabbed for the blade, kept purchase on it, and turned fast toward him, bent at the waist, legs bent, blade choked up and pointing upward, a much more controlled way to use a blade.
And then I stopped. And stared.
"Bravo! Annie Knox. I wouldn't have expected anything less from you."
Officer Samuels stood in front of me. The asshole bad cop and my watcher when I was deep cover.
The jackoff who'd sold me to Cole St. Martin in the first place.
46
Annie
