Page 86 of Into the Fire

Which meant that Brust and Nuñez had turned it off.

What reason would they have to be in here with him and not want to be recorded?

“Is there…?” Max’s voice went hoarse, and he had to start over. “Is there someone else I could talk to? Another cop?”

“Oh, no,” Brust said. “I think it’s best we keep this discussion between these four walls.”

Nuñez’s eyes were shaded by the brim of his baseball cap. “All nice and soundproof.”

Brust keyed to Max’s gaze, traced it to the security camera. “Ah,” he said. “All these budget shortfalls have us operating on a shoestring.”

Nuñez again. “Sometimes we have to turn off the cameras. You know, to save electricity.”

The words were pleasantly delivered, without a trace of menace. Max was having trouble processing them. Was he reading into some dark intent? Was this all in his head?

Nuñez fished a digital recorder from his pen-laden shirt pocket. He half turned, shielding Max’s view with a muscular shoulder, and spoke into the microphone softly.

“Wait,” Max said. “What are you saying?” He looked at Brust. “What is he saying?”

Nuñez’s voice carried to him then. “—can be used against you in a court of law.”

“Guys,” Max said. “What’s—”

“Shit!” Nuñez shouted so abruptly that Max jerked back in his chair. “Oh, shit—grab him, he’s—” He fumbled the recorder in his hands purposefully and then clicked it off. Immediately he was as calm as before. He tucked the recorder back into his shirt pocket.

Nuñez and Brust looked at Max silently. Expressionless.

Max had broken out in a full sweat. He stared at the two faces, but they gave nothing away.

And then Brust set his foot on the chair across from Max and hiked up his pant leg. Strapped to his ankle was a banged-up, nickel-plated .22. He plucked the pistol from the holster and set it on the table between them.

“What … what’s that?” Max asked.

“Oh, that?” Once again Brust gave with the grin. And once again Nuñez mirrored it. “That one’s yours.”

The bullpen was bustling, abuzz with overlapping conversations, most of them unpleasant. Perched on a hard wooden chair to the side of the detective’s desk, Evan made sure that each breath sounded labored, pushed through increasing pain.

The detective—O’Malley by his nameplate—looked exhausted, dark bags beneath his eyes. He wore sweat-matted brown curls in no discernible style and was slender to the point of frail. Lower body weight would prove useful.

His security key card was in full view, clipped to his belt, but his holster was empty. Evan guessed O’Malley had either locked his weapon in the drawer or secured it in the gun safe before he’d entered the chaos of the bullpen.

His desk was one of four currently occupied in the immediate area, the other cops conducting similar interviews, keying in similar reports. A drug-animated prostitute waved his arms around, using a high-pitched voice and noodle arms to illustrate his story. “—thought you were my brother-in-law when I approached the vehicle, uh-huh, that’s right. It was all a big mix-up, sweetie pie.”

The other cops burrowed further into their desks, trying to focus. That was helpful.

A corridor across the bullpen, guarded by a key-card-protected security door, led back to what Evan guessed were the interrogation rooms. That’s where Nuñez and Brust would have taken Max. They’d need privacy to talk to him. And to do whatever else they needed to do.

O’Malley slurped at his coffee and reviewed the monitor onto which he’d begun to input the complaint. “Okay, so surname ‘Case,’ first name ‘Justin.’ Is that right, sir?”

“Yes.”

A few desks over, the prostitute grew increasingly agitated. “Bitch, puh-lease! I’m a upstanding member of this mothafucking community!”

Evan set his RoamZone on his knee. Then he dug the Baggie from his pocket, rested it on his thigh just out of O’Malley’s line of sight. He took a deep breath, held it, and cracked the zippered seal. Given the state of his brain, the last thing he needed was a whiff of this stuff.

The cop at the adjacent desk was no more than five feet away, but his face stayed down as he chicken-pecked at the keyboard with two fingers, his brow furrowed from the effort. The faintest turn of his head and he’d have Evan dead to rights.

O’Malley squinted at the monitor. Taped to the top was a frayed photo of a dachshund wearing a Spider-Man knit sweater. No wedding ring. He rubbed at his eyes once more. “Wait a sec,” he said. “‘Justin Case’? ‘Just in case’?”