Chapter Six: I Need Answers
Outside the living room, Greg heard Sam clatter down the stairs; as the constable entered the living room, he announced, "House is clear. He's not here."
His gryphon side pulled back a bit in clear disappointment, giving Greg precious breathing room to calm down and rein himself back in. Still, he was far more curt than usual as he faced the injured woman on the couch. "Look, I realize you've been shot, Corporal, but I need answers now. How you doing?"
Dark brown, wavy hair tumbled partway down her back and framed a face that was tight with pain and worry. She looked like she was right on the edge of crying, her mouth scrunched up to keep her lip from quivering and her light blue eyes were as defiant as she could manage. She wasn't a hardened criminal; if fact, if Greg had to guess, she'd been forced into her current position, but it was nearly impossible to muster any sympathy for her at the moment. Keefler's doctor friend hovered next to the couch, tending to the bullet wound in her chest, but even she was grim; she knew all too well that Meg Keefler was between a rock and a hard place.
"I'm fine," Keefler gritted out.
Experience and long practice had Greg negotiating even as he wrestled with his rising temper. "The man who brought you here, he's making some dangerous choices right now," Greg informed the injured woman, watching her carefully. "We need to find out where he is."
Keefler shook her head, curling away from the angry group of cops.
"You know him," Greg said flatly, "We know you're involved."
Captain Quadir spoke up, her voice firm, "Meg…talk." When Keefler's face turned mulish, Quadir demanded, "Who do you think you're helping by not talking? Meg, neither of you is walking away from this."
The doctor was wearing a stethoscope and her hair was similar to Keefler's, long and wavy, but black to Keefler's brown. The business-like woman's face was slim and sculpted, with full, pouty lips and eyebrows that had been carefully trimmed to curve neatly above her brown eyes. A pert nose completed the picture and, judging by Keefler's bandages, she was a very good doctor who wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty.
Greg followed up, somehow keeping his voice level. "This guy you think you're protecting is on a very destructive path." He almost choked on his next words, but got them out. "We can help him. You give us his name."
It looked as if Keefler was choking on her own words, but she finally gave him an answer. "His name's Colin Potter. He's my husband."
"He's your husband," Greg echoed grimly, before growling, "Where'd he go?"
Sensing his simmering fury, she balked. "I don't know."
"Did he mention the name Cavelle?" Jules questioned, "Neal Cavelle?"
Keefler recognized the name, but she didn't respond.
It was fortunate that neither woman was watching Greg Parker closely or they almost certainly would have seen his brown eyes shift and gleam with a gryphon's protective rage. "Meg, do you want to help your husband?!" Greg shouted. As she jumped and looked up, he snapped, "Neal Cavelle!"
"Yes," she miserably gave in.
Jules stepped in, an intervention that Greg later gave thanks for. "Is that who he's meeting?"
"Yes," Keefler confirmed. "He didn't tell me where."
Well aware he'd already lost control, Greg pulled back. "Okay, keep talking to her," he murmured to Jules before taking himself away from the situation.
Once he was a few steps away, the Sergeant flexed his hands open and closed several times, determinedly yanking his temper – and his gryphon side – back onto a leash. His vision was still far too detailed and his hearing picked up every nuance of sound, but he didn't have time to deal with that. "Donna?" he called.
"Yeah?" she inquired.
"Gunman's name is Colin Potter; he's on his way to meet Cavelle," Greg reported. "You get anything from Drug Squad?"
It took a moment for Donna to switch gears. "Uh, he lives in Parkdale, but he conducts after-hours meetings at his brother's trading company at 2336 Dundast Street East."
"Okay, let's get a head start," Sam decided; he and Wordy hurried past their Sergeant, though Wordy tossed his Sarge a quick, encouraging thumbs-up on his way by.
Greg couldn't muster a return smile, instead offering a brisk, "Keep listening."
"You know," Donna remarked, "If you get Colin to talk about Cavelle, that would be the first solid piece of evidence we have on the guy. You'd make Drug Squad's day."
All his efforts to keep from exploding nearly went to waste right then and there. Let the man who'd shot one of his people walk just so the louse could turn state's evidence? Once again, Greg's eyes burned with gryphon fury and his teeth flashed in a brief, silent snarl. "Yeah?" he questioned, mock-lightly, before going icy cold. "I don't give a damn about their day. Just get there fast."
"Sir?" Donna questioned, concern in her voice.
"What?" Greg bit back.
"Do you want my team to handle this?"
It took an act of willpower to force a modicum of calm back into his voice. "We'll meet you there, Donna."
"Okay, but…"
"Go," Greg ordered. "Observe and maintain distance, all right? We need to know our players better before we join the game, that's what we're doing right now, you copy me?"
"Yep," Donna confirmed, "Loud and clear."
Greg took a few more seconds, breathing slowly and trying to let the tension dissipate. It didn't work, but he did regain enough control to return to Jules and their best lead on Potter.
The man driving the SUV sniffed and fought back tears as he drove; how could he have done that to her? How could he have risked his precious Meg? But, as had so often been the case for the past several months, his need quickly overcame his regret. He stopped his car and pulled out his small vial of precious white powder. Colin was careful to only let a tiny amount tip out onto his fist, then he quickly sniffed it up and closed the vial before setting off once more.
Almost…almost done…
"Colin's a war correspondent," Meg Keefler told the more sympathetic female constable, keeping her eyes away from the angry, steely eyed Sergeant. "He was on assignment in Afghanistan." She sniffed. "He came back, but it wasn't Colin, really. He'd changed."
Meg descended the stairs just in time to hear glass shatter. She crouched down to see that Colin had accidently knocked a lamp over; even as she watched, he gathered up the broken glass, trembling and sweating.
"To get the stories he needed over there…"
Meg hurried to her husband's side, determined to keep him from hurting himself. She was angry at the decisions he'd made, at the decisions he was still making, but she loved him nonetheless.
"Hey, hey. Hey." As she grasped his hand and he looked up, she saw the desperation in his face.
"…he got close to his sources. He worked those relationships."
"Are you okay?" Meg asked, resting a hand on his arm.
"Trust. A favor for a favor."
Greg watched Keefler closely, grateful as the analytical part of his mind ground into gear; with information about the subject to consider and weigh, his gryphon side was pulling back, lying in wait for its prey to be found. Hopefully, by then he'd have regained enough control to think like a cop instead of a friend.
"Yeah, I mean, he'd seen some disturbing things over there," Keefler remarked, shrugging as best she could. "And everyone copes their own way. Colin's always been…impulsive, addictive. And it turns out some of those sources he made friends with…"
"Drug traffickers," Jules concluded.
Keefler nodded. "They got him on opium first. And then heroin. And then whatever he could get his hands on."
Her voice was bitter and Greg tried, he really tried, to see things from her point of view. But all he could see was that if Potter hadn't made the choices he had, then Ed never would've been shot by an addicted drug smuggler in the middle of trying to get to his pregnant wife's side. Grimly, the Sergeant observed, "And those friends kept enabling him, a favor for a favor."
Keefler's eyes closed and she started to cry.
Meg sat next to her husband on their couch, as close to him as she could get, trying to understand why he was so haggard and desperate, even outside of his newly acquired drug habit.
"I'm sorry, Megs," he said miserably, holding onto her hand as if it was the only thing keeping him anchored.
"Don't be sorry," she told him, stroking the back of his head. "It…it's over. We'll get you help."
"It's not over," he replied, shaking his head in despair.
Leaning forward, she questioned, "What do you mean?"
"I owe them money."
Panic and fear rose up in her. "But they're ten thousand miles from here."
"They have people here, they'll find me." Colin paused, then emphasized, "They'll find us." As Meg stared at him in horror, he whispered, "I need your help, Megs," and pulled her close in a hug.
"They had someone…on the inside in Afghanistan and they needed someone on the receiving end. Someone who could turn a blind eye."
"They said that if we don't do this, they're going to come after you," Colin related.
"After me?" Meg questioned, confused. She had nothing to do with Colin's drug trafficking sources, why would they come after her?
His smile was bitter, trapped. "They know I don't care what happens to me. And I don't, Megs, I don't." Meg swore her heart stopped; how had they gotten to this point? "I don't care at all. But I can't let them hurt you." For an instant, her own bitterness choked her; if he cared about her so much, why had he gotten involved with drug traffickers in the first place? Why had he gotten hooked on drugs if he loved her so much?
"And look," Colin babbled, "We'll just do this, just this one time. Just this one time, then my debt to them is gone." He stopped, looking her in the eye. "And then I will get help. And we will go back to the way things were. But you have to believe me. It won't work if you don't believe me."
"I know," she whispered.
His eyes locked on her. "Do you believe me?"
She looked back at him, trying to speak and finally smiled sadly. "I believe you." She stroked his cheek and pulled him closer. "It's okay, it's okay," she soothed. "I believe you."
"What could I say?" Keefler wept. "What else could I do? But something went wrong."
"We know," Jules replied as her boss stifled his first response to Keefler's story.
Had she truly believed it would only be one time? Had Potter truly believed that? Once the drug runners had that first time hanging over the couple, it never would have been over. For the rest of their lives, Meg Keefler and Colin Potter would have been at Cavelle's beck and call, useful only so long as Meg was employed as a mortuary affairs specialist at the Downsview Base.
"No, not today at the warehouse," Keefler wailed, dragging Greg's attention back. "I mean on the shipping end." She tilted her chin past them, to something neither officer had noticed before. "Look under the blanket."
Jules hurried over to the blanket, which was draped over Richard Devlin's missing military locker. As she knelt next to it, pushed the blanket aside, and opened the locker up to check inside, Captain Quadir filled them in. "Someone must have intercepted the drugs before the locker left Kabul."
"Colin freaked," Keefler explained, her fear and panic obvious. "We told him he could explain, tell the guys that it's not his fault."
Explain to a group of drug dealers that a known addict hadn't stolen the shipment for himself? Frankly, Greg was on Potter's side, much as he hated it; there was absolutely no way that Cavelle would accept such an explanation from the hapless journalist turned drug smuggler. Even if it was true.
"But he was high," Quadir chipped in, "Paranoid. He wasn't listening."
"He said there's no way they'd believe him," Keefler sobbed. "But he went anyway."
Jules hurried back, a concerned look on her face. "Empty-handed? Why?"
"Because they know where we live."
Over the comm, Wordy observed, "He's already shot three people today, trying to keep this appointment." Greg envied his constable's even temper and ability to stay calm…a quality he was sorely lacking at the moment.
Sam offered up his own theory, "Maybe he thinks the only way out now is to kill the bad guys first."
Greg turned away from the two women and stepped away, calculating his – their – next move as quickly as he could. "Donna, you listening?"
"Yep," the blonde confirmed, "He shows up without the drugs, that's not gonna go over well."
From the background sounds, she and Team Three had arrived at Cavelle's building. "Any sign of him yet?"
"No. Nor Cavelle."
Jules joined her boss. "Our priority is to keep them apart," she announced. "Colin's under the influence, emotionally impulsive, and he's up against guys who can aim."
Dry sarcasm lurked in Greg's voice. "And that would be a bad thing."
Of course, the ever-present Toth couldn't let that one slide. "Sergeant, how are you doing?"
Greg almost literally bit his tongue to stifle his first three responses. Even then, it felt like he was letting his team leader down when he remarked, "Team, you heard Jules. Connect, respect, protect."
Jules took over. "Winnie, unis and an EMT to this address."
"Copy that," Winnie acknowledged.
Parker trailed after his constable and let Jules speak to their accomplice/witness. "Thank you, Meg."
"Please, please don't let them hurt him," Keefler begged.
"We'll let you know as soon as he's safe," Jules promised.
It was a good thing she'd promised. For his part, Greg couldn't quite prevent a brief, but fierce desire to rip Keefler's drug smuggling, cop-shooting husband to shreds.