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“I am. It all comes back to Nathan Booth. It’s always gonna be Booth until we find who he works for.And we know whoever he works for wants to rule this city, which is why he wants the cops who know too much out of the way.”
“You’rea cop who knows too much!”
“Yeah, but I’m a Malone first.” I tap his shoulder and cross to the door. “Blood comes first, remember? Booth won’t have me killed, because if he does, Felix returns and takes his city. Or worse… Tim does. If they do that, Booth and his boss are dead anyway. It’s a game.” I grab the handle and glance back. “Think of it like chess. He makes a move, then we make a move.”
“The king eventually has to fall,” he groans. But he follows me through the door and out to the bullpen as our squad files into the boardroom across the way. “You actually suck at chess. I think you forget we’ve played down at the park. You lose every fucking time.”
“It’s a shitty game,” I chuckle, accepting an ice pack from Detective Taylor when he stalls by the boardroom door. “Thanks, Detective. You put Stohl away nice and secure?”
“Yeah, he’s down with his L.T., answering questions about your blood being on his knuckles. That’s bound to keep him busy for the next little while.”
“Great.” I step into the boardroom and swallow when a dozen faces stare back at me. Not all are enraged, but the ones that are… “Okay. I know.” I press the ice pack to my jaw and continue toward the head of the table. “You have twenty seconds to say what you’ve gotta say. Starting,” I look at the clock on the wall, “now.”
What the fuck, Detective?
What bullshit was that, Detective?
What the hell is going on?
I count them in my mind. The swears. The name calling. The questions. I take stock of who shouts, and who remains silent. I glance at Fletch and repress the grin that tries so hard to stretch across my lips—it would hurt my wound anyway—then I glance back up to the wall and let the time run out.
“Alright!” I raise my free hand to silence the group. I don’t jot down the barbs of insubordination, and I have no intention of reporting the egotistical eager beavers who take their chance to call me a prick. But I catch eyes, and let them know I heard them. “You’re mad,” I announce. “I get it. I was trying something, and it didn’t work.”
Clay steps into the room last, silently closing the door and pressing his back to the wooden frame.
“I was trying to ruffle feathers,” I continue. “I wanted to upset our perp and make him make a move.”
“Somethingworked,” Taylor declares. “Your place got shot up, but we still don’t know who went after you.”
“I thought making that statement would force our perp into flapping his mouth, but I guess he’s smarter than that. He hit my home around four o’clock this morning.” I cast my gaze out to the rest of my squad, feeding the squirming crowd information they didn’t have before now.
Couldn’thave had, since names haven’t been released to the media, and the apartment is technically in Minka’s name.
“Of everything said last night,somethingprompted our guy to shoot up my wife’s apartment. It’s our job to figure out what that trigger was and follow it back.” I meet Fletch’s expectant gaze. “I wanna run through Mercer and Wright’s case load one last time.” Then to Taylor, “I know we’ve done it a dozen times already, but tedium typically leads us to the answers. I want you to lead Officer Clay through yours and Haightman’s files. Fresh eyes will help.” Then I look at the rest of my squad. “At first, I thought this was about shooting cops for the thrill of it. A power play that would have an entire city trembling. But now I’m certain this is about silencing badges and burying information.”
Clay raises his hand, like a good little Boy Scout. “You still think this is narcotics?”
“Yeah. We have a handful of detectives interrupting a supply chain, and each of those detectives has a reputation for being a littletoostraight.”
His eyes narrow, a line furrowing between his brows. “Toostraight? Is there such a thing in our work?”
“Sure is. Cops are human, after all, and humans are known to fold under the temptation of greed. Seems to me, our vicsweren’twilling to accept bribes or keep to themselves, and all three of them came out of the same squad. Pull the files and see what we see. Our killer’s name is gonna be right there, front page and in bold. We just haven’t been looking in the right place up to this point.”
A knock at the door has my entire squad glancing around, then Clay nervously skipping out of the way when Lieutenant Fabian steps into the room.
“Sir.” Remembering my split lip, I hurriedly drop my hand and attempt to hide the ice pack behind my back. “Can we help you?”
“My office.” His hard, eagle eyes move to Fletch. “You, too.”
“Yes, Lieutenant.” He hands a pile of papers to one of our uniforms and marches his sorry ass toward the door.No good deedand all that. He stood between me and another man’s fist, and now he’s being summoned to the principal’s office for it.
“Officer Clay, you’re in charge of scribing this…” I wave toward the desk. “Meeting. Work with Detective Taylor and find me some names.” Turning on my heels, I stalk toward the door and keep my eyes down as I pass my superior. Then when I’m in the bullpen beside Fletch, we start toward the lieutenant’s office. “You ready for this?”
He digs his hands into his pockets and broadens his back, stretching the leather of his holster so his guns rest firmer against his body. “Nobody likes to be called to the boss’s office. Now we’ve got cops killing cops and mafia daddies being tossed around like it’s totally cool to discuss such things on the clock.”
“In here.” Captain Bower steps out of our smaller war room, surprising my heart into an aching gallop as we change course and move instead toward a room fractionally larger than the lieutenant’s broom-closet office. He steps aside, making space for Fletch and me to pass through, then he circles the table and takes a seat at the head. His power position. The fucking dragon seat, when he gets to look down upon his underlings and keep his back to the wall. “Close the door, Lieutenant.”
I peer over my shoulder to find Fabian following orders, flipping the locks as though our meeting needed that added punctuation. Finally, hemoves around the desk too, taking up his stance to Bower’s right, folding his arms and staring down his nose at us both.
