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“Let me out, you bastards!” The woman’s voice was raw and charged with rage.
“Who’s that?” I asked any one of the four other cops in the room.
A weird grin crossed Cooper’s lips. “Indiana Smith.”
I blinked at him. “Why’s she in a cell?”
“She shot a flare gun at another boat and set it on fire. Then she resisted arrest. Whisper from Border Force brought her in late last night.”
Good. That meant shadowing her salvage mission was off the cards, and I could focus on the orphanage case. I sat at my desk, and as Indiana’s rage alternated between banging on the bars and yelling, and bouts of silence, I transferred my notes and photos from my phone to my laptop.
“Kingsley,” Captain Watts barked as he marched up the hallway from the holding cell.
I stood up from behind my desk. “Yes, sir.”
“My office.” He marched away.
I raced to catch up with him.
He sat behind his desk.
“Shut the door,” he said as I entered his room. “Sit.”
As I sat, I pulled my notepad from my top pocket.
“Indiana Smith got herself locked up last night. Did you hear why?” Two lines between his brows deepened.
“I heard.”
“I pulled some strings to talk the guy Indiana shot the flare gun at into dropping the charges, and we have agreed to do the same with the resisting arrest charge provided she salvages Chui’s boat.”
“Why don’t we get another salvage crew?”
“Her boat is the only one in these parts big enough to handle Chui’s yacht. And Indiana is the best. I’ve just told her about the need for secrecy about this salvage. Your job is to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid.” He jabbed a finger toward me as if punctuating the gravity of the task.
I cocked my head. “For example?”
He shrugged. “Pretend Chui’s yacht is too deep, or worse, detonate Chui’s yacht.”
My brows drilled together.
“Trust me. Indiana knows all the tricks in the book. She learned them from her father, who you’ll also have to contend with.”
Beyond the office window that looked over most of the police station, two other cops swung their gaze toward me with weird grins at exactly the same time. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they’d overheard his comment.
“What’s wrong with her father?”
Watts cracked his knuckles. “Let’s just say that Indiana is an angel compared to Old Smithy.”
Great.
“I want to keep working on the orphanage case while Indiana does the salvage,” I said.
Watts nodded. “As long as you keep your eyes open. We know at least three attempts have been made to search that yacht. The last boatload of bastards we chased off shot the shit out of the Border Force boat, and that’s why the damn thing is written off.”
“Wrote off the boat?”
“Yeah, automatic weapons with armor-piercing bullets. Captain Ryder and his crew were just lucky they didn’t use the RPG he saw them aim.” Watts sniffed and leaned back. “Kingsley, I can’t stress enough how much we need to keep this salvage under wraps. The fewer people who know, the better.”
