Standing in the Shadows Read Free

patrol car window. Full of the terrible knowledge of betrayal.
    He sucked smoke into his lungs and stared at the cell phone with unfriendly eyes. He'd thrown away the old one after what happened last fall. If he used
this one to call Nick, then Nick would have the new number. Not good. He liked being unreachable. It suited his mood.
    He closed his eyes, recalling last Christmas, when Davy and Sean had given him the damn thing. It was from Seth's hoard of gizmos, which meant that it had a bunch of high-tech bells and whistles, some useful, some not. He'd leafed through Seth's sheaf of explanatory paperwork, putting on a show of interest so as not to hurt everybody's feelings. He vaguely remembered a function that blocked the incoming number from the display. He flipped through the pages in his mind, found the sequence. Keyed it in, dialed.
    His stomach knotted painfully as it rang.
    "Nick Ward," his ex-colleague answered.
    "It's Connor."
    "No shit." Nick's voice was stone cold. "Had a good sulk, Con?"
    He'd known this was going to be bad. "Can we skip this part, Nick? I'm not in the mood."
    "I don't care about your goddamn mood. I'm not the one who sold you out. I don't appreciate being punished for what Riggs did to you."
    "I'm not punishing you," Connor said defensively.
    "No? So what have you been doing for the last six months, asshole?"
    Connor slumped lower in his seat. "I've been kind of out of it lately. You'd be stupid if you took it personally."
    Nick let out an unsatisfied grunt.
    Connor waited. "So?"
    "So what?"
    Nick's tone set his teeth on edge. "Davy said you had some news for me," he said. "About Novak."
    "Oh. That." Nick was enjoying himself now, the snotty bastard. "I thought that might get your attention. Novak's broken out of prison."
    Adrenaline blasted through him. "What the fuck? When? How?"
    "Three nights ago. Him, and two of his goons, Georg Luksch and Martin Olivier. Very slick, well planned, well financed. Help from the outside, probably the inside, too. Nobody got killed, amazingly enough. Daddy Novak must've been behind it. You can do a lot with billions of dollars. They're already back in Europe. Novak and Luksch have been spotted in France."
    Nick paused, waiting for a reaction, but Connor was speechless. The muscles in his bum leg cramped up, sending fiery bolts of pain through his thigh. He gripped it with his fingers and tried to breathe.
    "I just thought you should know. Considering that Georg Luksch has a personal bone to pick with you," Nick said. "Ever since last November when you smashed all the bones in his face."
    "He was under orders to hurt Erin." Connor's voice vibrated with tension. "It was less than he deserved."
    Nick paused. "He never touched her. We have only Ed's word that he was planning to, and Ed's credibility is worth shit. Ed was trying to save his own skin, but did you think of that before you charged off to the rescue? Oh no. You had to be the big hero. For the love of Christ. It's lucky you weren't on active duty. You would have been crucified."
    "Georg Luksch is a convicted assassin," Connor said, through clenched teeth. "He was ready to hurt her. He's lucky he's not dead."
    "Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say. Anyhow, your hero complex aside, I just wanted you to watch your back. Not that you give a shit, or need anybody's help. And you've got better things to do than talk to me, so I won't waste any more of your valuable time—"
    "Hey, Nick. Don't."
    Something in Connor's voice made Nick pause. "Oh, what the hell," he said wearily. "If things get weird, call me, OK?"
    "Yeah, thanks," Connor said. "But, uh… what about Erin?"
    "What about her?"
    "Novak hasn't forgotten about her," Connor said. "No way has he forgotten. Somebody should be assigned to guard her. Immediately."
    Nick's long silence felt ominous. "You are seriously hung up on that chick, aren't you, Con?"
    He clenched his teeth and counted until he had his temper under control. "No," he said, in a low, careful