Cold & Deadly (Cold Justice: Crossfire #1)(27)

“S’okay, boy.” He was slurring words like a drunk. Shit. He squinted at the signpost. Almost home. Just a couple more miles.

The flashing, blue strobe lights in his rear-view told him he was in deep shit.

He concentrated intensely and pulled over onto the shoulder. Except he was going way too fast and couldn’t find the brakes as his feet had quit working. He tried to jerk the wheel, but a telephone pole came out of nowhere. He swore and grabbed onto Ranger’s scruff and closed his eyes.

The detonation of the airbags snapped his head back like a punch. The impact jarred every bone in his body. His shoulder felt as if it was being ripped out of the socket. The terrible scream of steel crashing against wood penetrated his brain. Pain stabbed at his torso, across his face and down his legs. Blackness numbed the edges of the agony, then consumed him whole.





Chapter Eight





Driving home from the bar, Ava had initially turned the police scanner on for company, but the need to hear her mother’s voice overwhelmed her. Ava lived in an apartment above an antique store close to the Rappahannock River. The biggest noise pollution was the clopping of shod hooves on a Saturday morning when the horse-drawn carriages full of tourists drove by.

It was wonderfully quiet.

On nights like this, however, quiet turned to lonesome and combined with the quiet desperation she was feeling over Van’s death, lonesome became unbearable. To remind herself she had people she loved, who loved her in return, she picked up the phone.

“Hey, Momma.”

“Ava. Sweetheart. How are you? When are you coming home?”

Her mother wasn’t talking about a visit.

Ava ignored that. “Christmas. I told you already.”

“It’s late. Are you just leaving work?” Her mother thought she worked too hard. This from a woman who’d run a restaurant six nights a week while single-handedly raising three kids. “Did you eat?”

Greek parents liked to feed their kids like guppies, until they burst.

“I was out.”

“On a date?” Her mother was always trying to pair her off. Her younger sister had married her high school sweetheart a few years ago now and had already popped out two kids, taking the pressure off a little. Ava loved her niece and nephew but wasn’t ready for kids. Not to mention the whole lack of a partner thing.

“Someone from work.” It wasn’t a lie but it was misleading as hell. That’s how pathetic she was.

“Is he Greek?”

“No, Momma, he isn’t Greek.” Were all parents like this?

“Is he good-looking?”

“He’s a colleague, Momma.”

“So, he is good-looking. Is he married?”

“Let’s pretend he is.”

“So, he’s good-looking, and single. Is he rich?”

Ava didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She hadn’t called to talk about Dominic Sheridan with her mom—more to stop thinking about the man. “Is rich more important than kind?”

Her mother stopped laughing. “No, Ava, but I know you wouldn’t be with anyone who was cruel.”

Suddenly Ava’s eyes stung. They’d both learned to avoid evil men, unless she was slapping handcuffs on them. “I’m not with him. We were working.”

“You work too hard…” The nagging resumed.

Ava tuned her out. Something on the police scanner caught her attention and she turned it up. A black Lexus had crashed into a telephone pole on Route 17.

A fluttery feeling stole through her stomach. “I gotta go, Momma. I’ll call you again on the weekend. Love you.”

It couldn’t be Dominic Sheridan. That didn’t prevent her from swinging the car around and heading back to check it out for herself.

It took twenty minutes to reach the scene of the accident. She slowed to a crawl. Two police cruisers, a firetruck and an ambulance were already pulled up on the side of the road. Amber, blue and red lights swept the area, lighting it up like a war zone. A patrolman directing traffic waved her through. She rolled down the window as she drove by, telling herself that although it was the same make of car Sheridan owned, it couldn’t be him.

Then she saw the dog being held on a leash by another officer, and she swerved onto the side of the road.

“Get back in the car and move along, ma’am,” the patrolman yelled at her.

“FBI.” She flashed her creds at the cop. “What happened?”

He blinked in surprise. She was still in her stakeout clothes from that morning. Ripped jeans and graphic tee hardly screamed “federal agent.”

He stared at her badge, clearly dubious. “Looks like a DUI. Guy crashed into a pole.”

“Is he alive?” She held her breath for the answer, her lungs hurting.

“Banged up pretty bad, but he’s alive.”

She exhaled. Thank god. How badly was he hurt? “Can I see him?”

The sound of a saw sent dread racing through her. The firemen had the jaws of life on the side of the car and were opening that sucker up like a tin can.

“Why? Who is he?” The cop eyed her suspiciously.

“He’s a fed. Supervisory Special Agent with the Crisis Negotiation Unit.”

“Might not be a Fed much longer. Guy crashes into a pole on a nice day on a clear highway he’s probably drunk.”