His Runaway Juror. Mallory Kane

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СКАЧАТЬ lives were threatened.

      Her dad’s beloved, confused face rose in her mind. He was all she had. And she was all he had. She had to get to the nursing home, to see for herself that he was all right.

      She struggled to her feet, her muscles stiff from the cold tile, her stomach fighting the nausea that still clung to her. She splashed water on her face.

      How would she face her father, knowing what she had to do? Vote not guilty. Let a murderer go free.

      It went against everything he’d stood for all his life. Everything he’d taught her about justice and truth. To protect him, she would have to betray everything he believed in.

      She looked at her pale face in the mirror. How could she do anything else?

      BRANDON GALLAGHER TOSSED down a straight shot of Irish whiskey and grimaced. The burn felt good, but it didn’t wash the taste of self-disgust from his mouth. He slapped the glass down on the counter and nodded at the bartender, then got up and headed for the bathroom.

      He splashed cold water on his face, and when he did, his senses were filled with the scent that clung to his fingers. Vanilla and fresh coconut.

      He held out his arms and examined the scratches. A ghost of a smile crossed his face.

      He turned on the hot water and scrubbed his hands with soap, then rinsed his face. Lifting his head he met his eyes in the flaking mirror.

      “Can’t wash away your own stench with whiskey, nor her perfume with soap, can you, Gallagher?” he muttered. He patted his face and hands dry with a paper towel, then he wet a corner of it and wiped the specks of blood off his forearms. She was a fighter. That was good. She’d need to be.

      Foshee had carped at him all the way down the stairs and back to Gio’s. This ain’t good cop, bad cop, salaud. You too soft. Mais, yeah, I better tell the boss you can’t handle it.

      Brand hadn’t reacted, although his insides had clenched with worry. He’d prayed he was reading the little Cajun right. Foshee was merely flexing his nonexistent muscles. He wouldn’t really go to Castellano.

      Feigning unconcern, Brand had just grunted and muttered that there were better things to do with females than rough them up.

      To his relief, Foshee had laughed.

      You better watch her. Make sure she don’ turn tail.

      You watch her and I watch you. Boss wants to hear how you handle this job. You try something with her, I be waitin’ my turn, yeah.

      As soon as he’d gotten free of Foshee, Brand had driven back to Lily Raines’s apartment. He was surprised to see her car still there. But just about the time he cut his engine, she’d rushed out and taken off in a spray of gravel. He knew where she was going. To Beachside Manor—her father’s nursing home.

      She’d definitely gotten the message.

      Satisfied that she’d understood the threat Foshee had made, and relieved that she hadn’t been hurt by his manhandling, Brand had turned his car around and headed straight here, to the neighborhood bar. He sent his reflection a disgusted glance.

      The local watering hole. God love it. His dad would have been proud.

      Grimacing at that thought, he pushed his hands through his hair, and went back to his seat at the bar.

      He faced down the shot glass filled to the brim with pale brown liquid. The sight of it made his mouth water.

      No. He rubbed a hand across his face, feeling the day’s growth of stubble and smelling the last faint whiff of Lily Raines’s perfume.

      He’d come too close too many times to sinking into a bottle, just like his old man. Just like his oldest brother. There were better ways to die.

      And there’ll allus be worse ones. His dad’s slurred Irish brogue echoed in his ears.

      “Shut up, Dad,” he muttered.

      As much as he’d like to use a quart of Irish whiskey to drown the look of terror in Lily Raines’s eyes and forget the reason he’d been there to see it, he couldn’t afford to.

      Three years and thousands of hours of undercover work were on the line. And as of tonight, his career probably was, as well.

      Because Giovanni Castellano, the King of the Coast, had ordered “Jake Brand,” with Armand Foshee to watch over him, to make sure Juror Number Seven held out for acquittal in Theodore “Sack” Simon’s murder trial.

      With a sigh, Brand threw some cash down on the bar, turned his back on the brimming shot glass and headed for his car. He maneuvered the dark streets to a private pack-and-mail store that rented post office boxes. The store was closed, but he had a key to the alcove where the boxes were located.

      He parked at the entrance and took a moment to roll up the leg of his jeans. Gritting his teeth, he ripped the tape off his ankle and with it the miniature tape recorder that had been a part of him for the last three years.

      He massaged his skin where the tape had abraded it, ejected the tiny cassette and inserted a brand new one. He stuck the tape recorder in his shirt pocket. His ankle could use a rest. He’d tape the device back on his leg first thing in the morning.

      He pulled his sock up and his cuff down.

      Then he wrote the date on the used tape’s label and dropped it into an envelope, unlocked the box and shoved it inside, just as he’d done three or four times a week for the past three years. His fingers encountered a note. A single sheet of paper, folded once. He stuck it in his pocket and grabbed the untraceable prepaid cell phone his contact had left in the mail box.

      He dialed the only number programmed into it. The cell phone of FBI Special Agent Thomas Pruitt.

      “Pruitt. It’s Gallagher.” He could hear voices in the background. It sounded like a ball game.

      “What’s up?”

      “I got an assignment today from Castellano.”

      “No kidding? Hang on.”

      Brand heard Pruitt tell someone he’d be right back. After a few seconds the background noise lessened.

      “Sorry. My kid’s baseball game. Go ahead. What happened?”

      “Castellano put me with a ratty little lowlife named Foshee. We paid a visit to a juror in the Simon case. Leaned on her hard. Foshee threatened her to vote not guilty, to hang the jury, or something would happen to her father.”

      “Wait a minute. Castellano gave you this assignment himself?”

      “Yep. I got called into his inner sanctum—his table at Gio’s. Foshee was there, along with a couple of muscle-heads with machine pistols.”

      “I’ll be damned. Finally! We’ve waited for three years for a break like this. СКАЧАТЬ