The Distance Between Us (Mac Security Series Book 3) Page 2

  “Yeah, why not?” I shrug. “We need to get close to him and this is the best option we have.”

  My eyes rove over the three of them, the looks on their faces all saying the same thing; that I shouldn’t be doing this, but I don’t care. If we want to get information on any of them, then this is the only way we can get it. Besides, it’s not like they would suspect an innocent woman. Especially if I get the act just right.

  “I don’t think—”

  “You got a better idea?” I interrupt Luke.

  He stares me down and narrows his ice blue eyes at me. He can give me his “stare” all he wants, but he knows that shit don’t work on me. I’m immune to all of their tactics.

  “Well?” I raise my brows at him, waiting for his answer. His brow furrows and he stands up, his hands clenching into fists.

  “Fuck!”

  “Now now, no need for the language.” I smirk.

  Lifting up out of the chair, I walk out of the office and over to Evan’s station, writing a note on a piece of paper asking him for some gadgets to go undercover with. I’m not stupid, I wouldn’t go in without some sort of communication with the team, but at the same time, I need to distance myself from them so that Jonny doesn’t find out about me.

  I’ve been working on a plan since the moment I read Jonny’s file, my mind working overtime. This is the best way I could think of to get close to him and gather information, not just on Jonny but on the cartel too.

  I walk back over to the office and say, “I’ll be back in an hour to brief everyone.”

  “We’ll be here,” Ty answers.

  I nod and walk away.

  First thing I need to do is pack a bag, there’s no way I’ll be able to stay on the compound. I need to fully immerse myself into this job, and that means that I also need to find a place to live.

  Within hours, I’m ready to go and they’ve all been briefed. This isn’t the first time that I’ve gone undercover. Although every other time I’ve done it, it hasn’t been for long. It can be dangerous but exciting too, and I can’t deny the thrill running through me right now.

  I like to think of it as acting, and I was always good in drama class. Pretending to be someone else is fun. The last time I was undercover it lasted for a week, but this time I have no idea how long it’ll be for, so I’ll prepare for a few weeks but I know it could end up being longer.

  I’ll miss being on the compound every day and seeing the guys, but to get close to Jonny, I know I need to be working at the club. With who he’s rumored to be, he’ll be sure to check out where his staff lives and who they are, so heading out now is the best thing to do. Getting myself set-up and ready before I go in for an interview.

  “So, you’re gonna be a stripper?” Evan asks, his mouth open wide.

  “Yeah.” I smirk and roll my eyes. “Of course, I’m not. There’s a position at the bar. Interviews are in a few days.”

  “Wait.” Ty holds his hand up and we all turn to face him. “You mean that you don’t already have the job lined up? I don’t like this, Kitty, I think you need to hold off awhile.”

  I lean back in my chair and lace my fingers together, resting them on my stomach.

  “Boss.” I raise a brow at him. “I’ve planned it all out. I’ve got an apartment sorted, I have an interview. I need to be working there to get any info. I’ll have access to things that we wouldn’t normally have access to. It’s a good plan. I know it’s all really quick, but I need to be in the apartment before I have the interview. I need to be seen around.”

  “I don’t like this,” Luke mutters.

  I shrug my shoulders at him and look back to Ty. He’s the one who will ultimately have the last say. If he says no, then I won’t be able to do it.

  “Fine,” he relents, scraping his hands down his face. “You got the kit?”

  “Yep.”

  “Evan?”

  “All set, Boss. Burner phone, panic button, trackers, all set to go.”

  “I want a daily update. You know the rules, you go more than twenty-four hours without contact then we’ll head in and blow your cover.”

  “Got it.” I stand up and push the chair back with the back of my legs. “Luke? Be a doll and carry my bags to the car?”

  He smirks and shakes his head, grabbing the bags that I carried here from my house as Evan picks up the bag with all the gadgets inside.

  “You need me to go through them with you?” he asks.

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  I follow Luke out and head to the car that I’ll be using. It’s an old beat up truck that smells like wet feet, the thing needs a deep clean but it’ll do for now. I can’t very well turn up in my Camaro.

  “Check in with me when you get there,” Ty grunts, enveloping me in a hug.

  “Will do.”

  “I’ll speak to you soon,” Kay says, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

  I swallow the lump in my throat that’s forming and wrap my arms around her. The last couple of years we’ve become close and we tell each other everything. She knows about my past, about my upbringing. Everything.

  Once she opened up to me about her past, I felt it was only fair to do the same thing, even though I didn’t really want to at the time, but I’m glad I did.

  “Yeah,” I croak, trying hard to push that lump back down.

  Get a grip, Kitty. It’s not like you’re never coming back.

  I get passed from Evan to Luke and then I jump into the truck, turning the key and making the engine rattle to life.

  “Laters!” I wave and drive off the compound.

  The compound comes with added security and once you’re on it, you know that no one can get in. Being out in the open has its risks. We’ve all played parts in putting some big players away and the threat of them looms over our heads.

  But I’ve never been one to adjust my life because of the fear of the unknown. No one dictates what I can and can’t do. Not anymore anyway.

  The engine sputters a few times on the way to the apartment that I’ve rented in the town that the club is in. It’s in a rough part of town but that doesn’t bother me. It’s all to add to the act.

  I pull up outside the complex, the darkening sky making it look even more dangerous. That coupled with the group of guys standing outside sends my instincts haywire.

  I breathe deep and switch the engine off, counting to ten in my head and then sliding out of the truck.

  “Ah, you must be Kitty?” a voice says from behind me.

  I turn slowly and scan the guy from head to toe. Badly-fitted suit pants and a button-up shirt with a tie, a clipboard tucked under his arm, and a nervous smile on his face.

  “Yep, and you must be… Cliff?”

  He nods and shifts his eyes from me to the opening of the complex, running his finger under the collar of his shirt and pulling against it.

  “Shall we?” he asks, waving his hand.

  I nod and pull my bags out of the truck bed, handing him the one that holds my clothes. He looks shocked at first but I just give him a sickly-sweet smile and tilt my head.

  We walk side by side toward the complex and past the group of guys who watch us with observant eyes.

  “Just up the flight of stairs,” Cliff says, pointing to the stairs that run on the outside of the complex.

  I walk up ahead of him and stop when we get to 5B. He puts the key in the lock and opens the door.

  “My manager said that you paid three months’ rent upfront, so all you need are the keys.”

  “Thanks,” I say once he’s put my bag down inside the apartment.

  I hold my hand out for the keys and he places them into the palm of my hand and looks around nervously again.

  “So erm… yeah… bye.” He waves awkwardly and shuffles out of the door.

  I spin on the spot, taking in the apartment. There’s a ratty sofa in the middle of the room, covered in stains that I don’t even want to think about and a small TV in the corner. The small living r
oom is open plan with a kitchen and two doors toward the back.

  I open up the door on the left, it’s a small bathroom comprising of a toilet, shower, and vanity, all in need of a good cleaning.

  The door on the right is a bedroom complete with a queen-sized bed, the mattress bare. I switch the light on and look down at the stains. That’s the first thing that will go. Ain’t no way I’m sleeping on that. What the hell is with this apartment and stains? The brown carpet is covered in them too.

  I walk back to the living room and grab my bags, placing them on the bed and starting to unpack as I make a mental list in my head of what I need to go and buy first thing in the morning.

  I pull up to the complex the next morning and start to empty the truck bed. As soon as I woke up, I was out of the apartment and heading to the shops to grab what I needed to get the apartment up to living standards.

  The place is riddled with cockroaches and the stench of it is worse than the truck. Armed with enough cleaning supplies to clean a hundred apartments, I walk past the group of guys that are hanging around the entrance.

  “Morning.” I smile, showing my teeth and adding extra peppiness into my steps.

  “Well hello there, sunshine,” one of them answers. I look at him and figure that he must be the top dog amongst this group of people. His dark eyes watch me like a hawk and I can’t help but wonder if I know him, he looks familiar but I just can’t place him.

  His hand adjusts the backwards cap on his head and he lets his foot drop off the wall the longer I stare.

  I smile and huff out a breath. “Think one of you strong men could help me with my bags?”

  Catching people off guard is what I do best. Most people would have walked past them with their head down and tried to be invisible. There’s no point in that though, all you’re showing is that you’re scared. Disarming someone like this is what you need to do.

  “Sure.”

  Top dog takes the bags out of my hands and follows me up to my apartment. I don’t intend to let him in but as soon as I have the door open, he’s pushing in and scanning the place.

  “Erm...” I bite my lip and look around. “The place is a mess, I only moved in last night.”

  I don’t move from the open door, I might want to disarm him by being little miss peppy, but I’m not stupid. Being in a closed space with him probably isn’t the best of ideas, especially when I don’t even know his name.

  “Yeah, all the places here smell like this.” His eyes rove over the apartment and then land back on me causing goose bumps to spread all over my skin as he looks me up and down.

  I swallow as he moves closer, his almost black eyes narrowing on me.

  “New in town?” he asks and I nod, clutching my hands in front of me. “Maybe I can show you around sometime?”

  He’s two feet away from me now and I have to crane my head right back to be able to see his face.

  “Sure,” I whisper.

  He smirks and nods, side stepping me and heading out of the apartment. I wait a beat before I look outside and see him heading down the stairs.

  “Dick,” I mutter as I close the door.

  I unpack the bags and pile it all on the small kitchen counter, shoving the rubber gloves on my hands and grabbing the big bottle of bleach. Time to kill those cockroaches.

  “Shooting at Wayward Apartments, requesting back-up.” The voice comes over my radio and I lift it off the holder on the dash and click the button on the side to tell them I’m on my way.

  I look into the mirror and wait for a break in traffic before I do a U-turn, flipping the switch on the dashboard and making the lights and sirens come to life.

  There’s always something going on in Wayward, the area is run-down and in a dangerous part of town. At least half the calls that come through are to do with something going on there. If it was up to me, I’d knock the whole apartment complex down and be done with it. But I suppose that they’d have to move on to elsewhere, so it wouldn’t really solve anything because they’d just be someone else’s problem.

  I’m two minutes out when my cell rings, but I ignore it. It’s probably Ty again anyway. He’s been calling me constantly since last night but I haven’t had a chance to call him back. I’ve been on this shift now for fourteen hours straight and I can’t see me getting off anytime soon after this call.

  I pull my SUV to stop behind the several other squad cars, jumping out and running over to Kurt who’s already on the scene.

  “Fill me in,” I demand.

  “Two injured, one dead. The shooter has been apprehended.”

  I puff out a breath as we walk forward, assessing the scene. There’s one body covered with a dark sheet and paramedics treating the other two that have been injured.

  “The shooter?”

  “Unknown, he’s new. Probably initiation.”

  I shake my head and grit my teeth as I look over to the squad car and meet the shooter’s eyes. The kid can’t be more than fourteen and the sad thing is that I see nothing in his gaze, he’s blank, no remorse at all.

  This shit isn’t right.

  “Any witnesses?”

  “Yeah, but none are talking,” Kurt answers, running his hands through his dark blond hair.

  Of course, they’re not. People know better than to talk to the cops. They’d be signing their own death warrant if they did. It just means that we need to build a solid case with evidence other than eye witnesses. We aim to do that anyway because witnesses tend to change their stories when it comes to getting on the stand, but having an account from someone who will actually stick to their story always makes your case that much tighter.

  I turn to face Kurt, assessing his green eyes. There’s something behind them, a tiredness that I can’t help but think is about the job and I don’t like the look of it. With this job, you need to be alert and on the ball, I don’t need one of my best men slacking off.

  I wave my hand at a couple of uniformed officers, calling them over to me and waiting until they approach.

  “Go door to door. I want to know what the hell happened here.” I point to the squad car that the shooter is sitting in and growl, “And somebody get him down to the goddamn precinct.” They nod and scuttle off without another word said.

  “Who’s the victim?” I ask, standing against the wall to the opening of the complex.

  “We don’t know yet,” Kurt answers, his hands resting on his hips. “We know it’s a woman though.”

  I don’t reply as I watch the paramedics lift her off the floor, the sheet falling off her arm.

  My mind goes blank as I stare at her. I deal with murders all the time, it’s a sad fact of my job, but whenever it’s a woman, something just switches inside my brain.

  Every life is worth something. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, fat or skinny, black or white. We all have a mother and a father. We all have someone who loves us, who will miss us.

  There’s evil in this world, so evil that it’s hard to comprehend how people can be like that. It’s my job to get them off the streets and I’ll do anything and everything that I can to get them behind the concrete walls and barbed wire fencing of a prison. To make sure they can’t hurt anyone else.

  “You help with door to door, I’ll help with the crowd,” I tell Kurt.

  We both separate and he joins the uniformed officers as I head into the crowd. My eyes scan the people who are watching and automatically go to the one I know to be the head of the gang at Wayward.

  I narrow my eyes at him, but he’s not looking my way. He’s looking down and talking to somebody. I walk closer, bearing to the left, trying to see who he’s talking to. He throws his head back and laughs, garnering the attention of the crowd.

  This is one piece of scum that needs to be off the streets. Everything he’s around goes to shit. I’ve had him down at the precinct several times, and each time I can never get anything to stick. He always lawyers up and they’re not just your average lawyers, they’re good on
es, really good ones.

  I get to the edge of the crowd and see he’s talking to a woman, her back to me and his front facing me. I stare at him, waiting for him to look up.

  Shoving my hands on my hips, I keep my fingers close to my gun. If anything goes down, I need to make sure that I’m quick. My reflexes are out of this world, but things can happen in the blink of an eye and although we have at least twenty officers on the scene, this is still his turf.

  My eyes narrow as he grins down at the woman but I don’t take notice of her. I wait.

  Finally, he looks up and a slow, steady smirk lifts up the corner of his mouth. I grit my teeth and step forward. He knows that I’ll be questioning him about what went on here today. He’s not stupid. In fact, I think he’s smart, really smart.

  “Joel.”

  “Well hey there, Sergeant.” He winks and it takes all of my willpower not to throw my fist at his face. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need a word.”

  He doesn’t move and he doesn’t show any indication that he knows what I’m talking about. He’s good like that, he can wear a mask like nobody’s business.

  The woman turns around and my eyes flick to her and back to Joel, not taking her in.

  “Let me introduce you to Kitty. She just moved here.” He grins and looks down at her.

  The sound of her name has me looking down again and the breath leaves my body with an audible whoosh.

  What the hell is she doing here? And what the hell is she doing standing next to Joel?

  I open my mouth, about to ask just what the hell is going on when my eyes connect with hers. Her light brown eyes swirl with emotion and the slight shake of her head tells me to keep my mouth shut.

  I swallow against the dryness of my throat and turn my attention back to Joel, trying not to give anything away.

  “Like I just said, I need a word.”

  “Catch you later, Kitty Kat,” he murmurs, touching her shoulder.

  My hands clench into fists and my muscles lock, ready to attack. He fucking touched her, not only that, but he called her Kitty Kat, I’m the only one who gets to do that, motherfucker.