Collared (Going to the Dogs) Read online

  “You got a name?”

  “Would I call you if I didn’t?”

  After he got the name, he hung up. “We got Lang. Let’s roll.”

  At the door to the apartment, the super standing by, Caleb called out. “Rob, it’s Detective Shaw. Open up! I want to talk to you, buddy.”

  He heard a lot of commotion and a crash. The super quickly opened the door and Caleb saw Rob going out the fire escape. Caleb called, “Lang!” This time Lang didn’t get far, since Shane was waiting for him at the bottom of the ladder.

  When Caleb reached street level, he grabbed Rob by the back of the shirt and slammed him face-first into the brick building. “Where you going in such a hurry, Robby boy?”

  “No place, Shaw.”

  “I don’t know why,” he mused to Shane, “but I got a feelin’ he’s lying.”

  “That’s not good, Rob. Caleb gets meaner when people lie to him.”

  “I think you’ve been avoiding me. Gotta ask myself why that is. Is Rob mad at me? We used to be such good friends.” He slammed him against the wall again. “I pay you for information and you help me recover stolen items. That’s our deal. You know, I think you’ve been avoiding me lately, welshing on our deal.”

  “This is about that socialite robbery, ain’t it?”

  “What do you know about it?” Caleb growled, his jaw tightening.

  “Look, Shaw, it’s self-preservation and fear. I’m more afraid of the fence then I’m afraid of you.”

  “What fence would that be, Rob?”

  He shook his head.

  “Don’t make me throw your ass in jail for obstruction, Rob. I’d hate to do that to my friend. With your pretty face, you’d have plenty of admirers.”

  “Dammit, Shaw. You can’t let him know it was me who squealed.”

  “You know that I’m completely discreet, Rob. Spill.”

  With fear in his eyes, Rob said, “Lou Silva.”

  “Thanks, Rob. Now take a hike.”

  “What about my money?”

  Caleb laughed without mirth. “You made me chase you, Rob. Next time don’t waste my fucking time!”

  Rob walked away cursing.

  “Lou Silva…that’s one nasty piece of work, Caleb.”

  “He still needs to be questioned. I say we go in mean.”

  Twenty minutes later they were at the warehouse of Lou Silva, who was a major fence that Caleb and Shane had been unable to collar…so far. He’d slipped through their noose a couple of times.

  As soon as they arrived, with a black and white for backup, Caleb knocked on the locked door of the warehouse. After a few minutes a skinny guy with long hair opened the door.

  “We’re here to talk to Lou.”

  “Who are you and what do you want?” his tone surly as he eyed the uniforms.

  Caleb showed him his shield. “NYPD.”

  “Lou don’t like talking to no cops.”

  “Tough, we just have some questions for him. We can either do it here or downtown.”

  “Lou still ain’t gonna like it.”

  The guy backed up, looking skeptical and fidgety As soon as Caleb and Shane stepped through the door. The guy yelled, “Cops!” and ran to the back of the warehouse. Shane took off after him and two guys in the back opened fire. The uniforms came in while Caleb took cover, pulling his weapon. The uniforms kept the two guys busy. Shane took the skinny loudmouth down before he could reach the stairs, but by now Lou had to know they were here. Shane cuffed his guy and pulled out his weapon.

  Caleb stayed low. When he reached Shane, he said, grinning, “I got your back. Go get that piece of shit.”

  Caleb ran for the stairs and Shane kept the heat off him. At the top he moved swiftly toward the office.

  As soon as Caleb entered, Lou grabbed up a blonde woman sitting at a desk. With a flick of his wrist he flipped open a wicked-looking switchblade.

  Caleb brought up his weapon and trained it on Lou. “Let her go, Lou. There’s nowhere for you to go,” Caleb ordered.

  “I’ll kill her. Drop your gun.”

  He nicked the woman’s neck, and Caleb let go of the grip of his gun and held it out, balancing it on his thumb. “Okay, Lou,” he said with a conciliatory voice. “The gun is going down. Let her go and it’ll go easier on you.”

  “Move away from the door,” he shouted. Caleb complied, but as Lou dragged the woman towards the door, she elbowed him in the side. With that opening, Caleb lunged at Lou and grabbed the hand with the lethally sharp blade.

  They grappled, Lou pushing Caleb into the desk and punching him in the face with a vicious blow. Caleb let go as Lou slashed at him and he jumped back, but not before he felt a stinging pain across his forearm. The next time Lou slashed wildly at him, Caleb grabbed his arm and disarmed him, slamming his elbow into Lou’s face.

  The man stumbled backwards and hit the glass window overlooking the warehouse below. It shattered and Lou pinwheeled his arms as he began to fall. Caleb lunged forward and grabbed onto his belt to keep him from going over.

  Lou looked up at him and snarled. “I’ll fucking cut your heart out.”

  “You’re not going anywhere yet, Lou. I’ve got a few questions for you.”

  Then Caleb cuffed him and sat him in a chair.

  Shane walked in and placed two necklaces on the desk. Two of Harper’s stolen items. Luckily the settings hadn’t been stripped of the diamonds yet.

  “Where did you get these, Lou?”

  Lou stared at him with a sullen I’m-not-talking-to-no-damn-cop look.

  Caleb sighed. “These were stolen from Harper Sinclair, and the charges are piling up. If you give me some help here, I’ll ask the DA to go a little easier on you.”

  “Fucking go to hell.”

  “He got them from this big dude.”

  Lou looked at the blonde he had cut.

  “You talk, Donna and you’re dead.”

  “You tried to kill me, you piece of shit!”

  “Shane.”

  Shane hauled Lou up and out of the office and closed the door. Lou continued to yell threats and obscenities at her, but the woman was completely unmoved.

  “You sure you’re okay? You don’t need to go to the hospital?”

  “I’m fine.” The wound on her neck wasn’t life-threating, and the EMTs had taken care of bandaging it.

  “Thanks for your help back there, Donna. Nice move.”

  He held a chair for her. “What can you tell me about this man who sold the jewelry to Lou?”

  “He looked military.”

  Something snapped together in Caleb’s brain. “How do you know that?”

  “He had that look, just like my father. Buzz cut, sandy hair and these really scary blue eyes like they were lit from within by crazy. He made my skin crawl.”

  “Why?”

  “He looked like a killer.”

  “Height? Weight?”

  “Six-two, maybe six-three. At least as tall as you.”

  “Six-two.”

  She nodded. “He was ripped, just like you. Looked like he worked out.”

  “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “He was driving a black sedan, a Toyota I think, but I can’t be sure.”

  “If I got you to an artist, do you think you could give him a description?”

  “Sure. He’s the kind of guy you don’t easily forget.”

  Caleb reached out and squeezed her arm. “Thank you. You’re very brave.”

  “Lou’s a bastard, but he paid good. But no one holds a knife to my throat. I hope you lock him up and throw away the key.”

  He turned her over to an officer to escort her to the precinct.

  “Want me to take a look at that, detective?” an EMT said.

  Caleb looked down at his forearm. “Just clean it up. It’s shallow.”

  An hour later, he had the sketch, and Donna wasn’t kidding. This guy was big and scary. He was already running the sketch through facial recognition while he wen
t back to the security footage the night of the breakin and didn’t see the guy. He wondered if he was working with a partner.

  While he waited for facial recognition to finish running, he went back to Harper’s building. He was tempted to go upstairs to see her. Now that there was maybe a military connection, Caleb had some more pointed questions for Harper’s chauffeur. But that would have to wait. He showed the sketch to the doorman, and he didn’t remember seeing the guy, but said he should check in the back, where deliveries were handled.

  The security doorman looked at the sketch and didn’t recognize the guy, but said there had been several deliveries that night.

  Caleb remembered seeing in the footage a man delivering a bouquet of flowers. The doorman insisted that he was heading to a specific apartment in the building. He remembered that someone had checked this out the day of the breakin, but had listed the delivery as legitimate. Caleb decided to double-check.

  He and Shane got in the elevator and went up to the apartment listed on the log. When he knocked, a woman answered the door.

  She looked him up and down. “Well, this is my lucky day. You wouldn’t be my secret admirer by any chance?”

  He smiled and shook his head as Shane snickered.

  “No, ma’am.” He flashed his shield. “I’m Detective Caleb Shaw and this is my partner, Detective Shane Dembowsky. We’re investigating the breakin.”

  “Oh, God. I heard about that on the news. Has everyone in the building nervous. If they got into that Fort Knox of a penthouse, you can bet they could easily get in here.”

  “Did you receive flowers on the night of the breakin?”

  “Yes, I did. The delivery came at about 5pm. The card just had ‘From your secret admirer.’”

  Caleb nodded. “Do you remember the delivery man?”

  “Vaguely, the flowers were so beautiful that I was looking at them more than him. Average build, average face. He was wearing a green polo with Flower Power stitched in blue. I think he had dark hair.”

  Shane pulled out his mobile phone and accessed the internet. “Would you be willing to come down to the precinct and talk to an artist?” Caleb asked.

  “Yes. Tell me, detective, you single?”

  Caleb smiled. She was a pretty girl, and before Harper, he might have been interested.

  “He’s way taken,” Shane said with a laugh.

  “Oh, that’s too bad.”

  “One Flower Power listed in the New York area,” Shane said. He dialed and talked for a few minutes. “They had a jersey go missing. There was one bouquet put together for a customer, but the clerk said the guy was average-looking, so that matches up. He also said he paid in cash, no way to trace it.”

  “That’s what I figured. Could you take her down to the precinct and get her set up with the artist? I want to talk to Harper before I head back.”

  “Will do.”

  As Shane led the woman away, he said, “I’m single.” She giggled.

  Caleb shook his head and went up to Harper’s penthouse. After knocking and being admitted by Juliana, he was told she was in the library working on some paperwork.

  Caleb was finally getting the floor plan down. When he got to the library, she was sitting at a desk, her head in her hand, working on what looked like a checklist.

  He just stood there and took her in, his body reacting to just her presence. He remembered the last time they’d been together, the mind-and body-melting experience. He remembered being inside her, devouring her.

  She lifted her head and turned to look at him. Joy streaked across her face, and as their gazes met and fused, her lips parted and her eyes went distant. She was having the same problem. Thank God. Sometimes, she was hard to read.

  She pushed back her chair and headed toward him. When she got there, she went right for his mouth, no greeting, no preamble, just heat and moist lips.

  He crushed her to him. Her hand went into his hair.

  “I was just thinking about you,” she whispered against his mouth. “Are you busy?”

  When she looked at his face, she stepped back “What is it?”

  “I was in the building questioning one of the tenants about a bouquet delivered the night you were robbed.”

  “Oh, does that have something to do with the robbery?” She pulled away from him.

  “It does. I also recovered two pieces of your jewelry.”

  Her face softened. “Thank you. So much.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t return them until after the trial. Right now they’re evidence.”

  She nodded. “I understand. What about the other three pieces and Blue’s collar?”

  “Nothing yet on those. I’m thinking…” He reached down and pulled the sketch out of his pants pocket. “…this guy fenced them. He’s probably in the wind, but I’ve got facial recognition going on that.”

  She gasped and her eyes widened…was that fear? He was sure Harper had never come into contact with someone as tough as this guy. He was a terrifying character. His cop instincts were kicking him really hard. What the hell was going on here?

  He grabbed her arm when she leaned back. “Do you know this guy?”

  “How would I know this man? He just looks scary.”

  “I have no doubt that he is scary. Have you ever seen him?”

  She hesitated and he got a kick to his gut this time harder as she studied the photo. She shook her head and handed him back the photo. Were his instincts off because he was too involved with her? Was she in danger? These guys who had targeted her were pros, but why? Why, out of all the easy marks in New York City had they robbed her?

  “Are you sure, Harper?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I haven’t seen him before. But I think you should ask Jeffrey.”

  “What is it you’re not telling me?”

  “Can we sit down?” They settled on the small sofa that was situated between two bookcases and up against the window. She took his hands. “I need to tell you something, but please let me get it all out before you say anything.”

  He nodded. His chest tightened more so from the fact that she was confiding in him…trusting him. It was the most amazing feeling in the world.

  “Jeffrey’s real name is Michael Dalton. He was one of three men that held me hostage three years ago when I was kidnapped.”

  Her hands tightened on his when she took in the hard look he was sure was in his eyes. But she asked him to not interrupt so he kept his mouth shut.

  “I was kept blindfolded and they made a ransom demand. The police got involved, but my father was good at convincing the police to keep it quiet so that the press wouldn’t get wind of it. But before the money drop was scheduled, Michael released me and helped me escape. He saved my life. But I was worried he would be implicated and so he changed his name. I made him keep it quiet. He didn’t want to, so please don’t blame him.”

  Caleb sighed. “You should have told me this right from the beginning, Harper. Withholding information wasn’t smart.”

  “I know, but it’s just a simple robbery and I didn’t want Michael to lose his freedom over it.

  She wrapped her arms around him, and he gathered her close. “You can tell me anything, princess. You can trust me.”

  “I know I can. I’m trusting you to make this all right.”

  “Right now, I’m more concerned about whether Jeff…Michael knows who this guy is. We’ll talk about all the other stuff later.”

  She nodded, then his phone rang.

  “Shaw,” he said.

  “Caleb, we’ve gotten a hit on the facial recognition. Harper’s chauffer isn’t who he says he is.”

  “I already know that and I’ll fill you in later. I might have another lead. Give me some time and I’ll give you a call back.”

  “All right. I’ll be here.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  They found Michael at the kitchen table eating lunch. He took one look at their faces. “You told him?”

  “Yes. He has a sketch to s
how you.”

  He stood and swore as soon as he looked down at the drawing. “Son of a bitch. That’s Evan Miller. Merc. He’s fucking crazy. He and someone else, I don’t know who, kidnapped Harper. He’s a mean, lethal bastard. I was there, too. I accepted the job blind, and when I found out it was a kidnapping, I wanted nothing to do with it. But I knew they’d kill me, and they would for sure kill her. I bided my time, and as soon as I could, we made a break for it. I’m ready to accept the consequences.”

  “The name is going to help. Thank you for that.”

  “There’s more. Two weeks ago, I saw one of my buddies in the marketplace. He recognized me. I told Harper, but she wouldn’t let me tell you. I should have, but I was worried if I was arrested that would leave her unprotected so I went along. I keep wondering if that friend is the mastermind behind it. He was very interested in her and I got that itchy feeling.”

  “I know the one you’re talking about. Is he nondescript with sandy hair and an average face?”

  “That sounds like him. Name’s Ducan Martin. Both of them were in Special Forces, so be careful.”

  “When I get back to the precinct, I’ll send the sketch to Harper’s phone so you can confirm.” Caleb stuck out his hand and Michael took it. “Thank you for saving her.” He owed this man for making the honorable choice three years ago. Otherwise, he might have never had a chance to know Harper.

  Michael nodded. “They demanded, but didn’t get the ten million from Harper’s father they asked for. He’s had me acting as her bodyguard ever since.”

  “I knew it.” she said.

  He turned to her. “Your father hired me, Harper. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but he didn’t want you to feel as if you didn’t have any freedom. But everywhere you went, I followed.”

  “Including Vegas.”

  “Everywhere.”

  “I can’t say that it really surprises me. But I never knew you were there.”

  “That was the point. Do you think Harper’s in any danger now, detective?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t believe in coincidences. It could be he hired people to rob her because he felt he deserved the payback. Miller doesn’t show up on the security tape. We won’t know until I find him. I’m glad you’re here, though. I’m going back to the precinct to chase down this guy. You sit tight here until I get back.”