Last Man Standing. Julie Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ to the young mother who had stopped to help as well. “Thank you all.”

      “Grandma.” Alex said the word and demanded she listen. “I know what it is. Those guys called me by my new name. Taylor.”

      Martha tried to grasp the significance of what he was saying. “They knew you? Were they part of a gang?”

      He shook his head impatiently. “They were too old. The guy I grabbed was in his twenties or thirties, even.”

      She didn’t laugh at his skewed conception of old. “They didn’t call you Alex or Pitsaeli?” Though Gideon and Meghan had been his foster parents for several months, his adoption and legal name change had gone through less than a month ago. Now she was thinking what he was thinking. And hating it. “I heard Taylor, too. And why would he throw away money but keep pictures?”

      This was something a little more complicated and a lot more personal than a routine purse snatching.

      She turned to the man with the phone. “May I?”

      He handed her the phone and she punched in a number she knew by heart—that of the office of the police captain of the Fourth Precinct. She kept her gaze riveted on the wise eyes of her grandson. “I’m calling Mitch and reporting this.” She brushed a lock of his wavy black hair away from the corner of his bruised mouth. “And then we’re going to the hospital.”

      Chapter One

      Something wasn’t right.

      Maybe it was him.

      Cole Taylor looked through the limousine’s tinted window and watched the muddy, gray-green waters of the Missouri River rush beneath the arched steel and concrete bridge. The dual highway took them north from Jackson County into Clay County, leaving behind the congestion of interstate traffic and expanding commercialization for the scenic rolling hills and lush farmland of rural Missouri.

      He was alert, but not afraid. He’d numbed himself long ago to the fear and danger he lived with every day. Ignoring his emotions was a matter of survival. Giving in to them meant madness or death. Or turning.

      Some days he wondered if he’d gotten so good at his job that he had turned.

      Truth and justice had once sustained him, driven him. But those ideals had blurred as he’d made enemies into friends, and a few friends into enemies. He’d ignored his conscience and turned his back on everything he’d once held dear. As the car picked up speed toward its destination, Cole admitted that this day—like so many others in these past few weeks—was more about surviving than caring why he was here.

      Two years working under deep cover for KCPD and the DA’s office had whittled the scope of his day-to-day living down to nothing more than that. Survival.

      It was a damn cold-blooded way to live.

      He was the good cop gone bad, selling out his colleagues and his soul for big money and a chance to dispense justice on his own terms. That was the story that had gotten him here. Only the story was beginning to feel a whole lot more real than the life and loves and friendships he’d left behind.

      “You seem antsy this morning, Cole—”

      Years of training kept him from starting at the indulgent voice of the man sitting beside him on the black leather seat of the limo.

      “Is something wrong?”

      Cole pulled himself from his worrisome thoughts and turned to the white-haired gentleman. “Just a feeling.” He reassured his boss with an expression just short of a smile. “I wish you’d let me check out this private hospital before driving out here. You want me to be in charge of security, yet you insist on taking foolish risks like this.” He nodded toward the unlit cigar clenched in the other man’s arthritic hand. “And you know the doctor is going to tell you to give up those things, too. How many times have we had this discussion about your impulses?”

      The older man laughed. “My wife, rest her soul, was the only one I ever let criticize my choices. Now you’re nagging at me.”

      At six-four, with a muscular body and well-honed skills that made him a deadly fighting machine, no one would mistake former KCPD Detective Cole Taylor for anyone’s nagging wife. Yet Jericho Meade patted Cole’s knee and scolded him as if Cole were his nurse, not his bodyguard.

      “I’m not nagging,” Cole insisted, hating these fond, almost familial feelings he had for his employer. “I’m laying it on the line. You make my job harder than it needs to be.”

      “Keeps you on your toe—” Meade’s laughter wheezed into raspy puffs of air. He pressed a gnarled fist to his chest as a fit of coughing seized him.

      Cole squeezed a supporting hand around the man’s bony shoulder. “Jericho?” The old man snatched at his left jacket pocket, desperate to retrieve what was inside. But twisted bones and rattling coughs kept him from succeeding. “What is it?”

      “His mint.” The robust man sitting across from them leaned forward. Paulie Meredith’s thin strands of black hair barely covered his scalp, making it impossible to hide his deep wrinkles of age and concern. He reached into Jericho’s pocket, pulled out a foil-wrapped piece of candy, opened it and slid it into his friend’s mouth. “It soothes the cough.”

      Cole frowned. “You’re sure he won’t choke?”

      Sinking back into the plush upholstery, the seventy-six-year-old patriarch waved aside Cole’s concern. “I’ll be fi—” Another fit seized his chest, ruining the reassurance.

      “Jer, old friend, you have to take it easy.” Paulie wore the trappings of his wealth in a half-dozen gold and silver rings, and the paunch of his belly that pulled at the buttons of his designer suit. “There are hundreds of doctors in K.C. Good ones. I don’t know why you insist on seeing this Kramer guy way out here.”

      Jericho’s chest shuddered in and out, indicating just how difficult it was for him to catch his breath. But the firm command in his steely blue eyes brooked no argument, even from his oldest and closest friend.

      “First of all, Paulie, never call a sick man ‘old friend.”’

      The teasing fell on deaf ears. “You’re not dying.”

      “The hell I’m not.” Jericho’s breath whistled in his throat as he gasped for air. But then, through sheer will, it seemed, his breathing regulated to a raspy but even rhythm. And though his pasty skin didn’t regain its healthy color, he smiled. “Dr. Kramer said he could run the diagnostic tests at his private research clinic with few questions asked and no publicity. My heart and lungs may be going, but I don’t want anyone outside the family to know about it. Not until I find Daniel.”

      Find Daniel? Cole discreetly looked away at the mention of Jericho’s son. It was the one aspect of his employer’s personality he didn’t know how to handle.

      Paul Meredith was more direct. “Daniel’s dead, Jer.”

      “We don’t know that. I’m not selling the business, no one’s running me off, I’m not naming a new heir until…” He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t bring himself to speak of the gruesome task he’d given Cole. Find my son’s body and bring it to me. Then I’ll know he’s dead. The shallow wheezing СКАЧАТЬ