Page 14
“I heard car doors and voices outside, right after you came in. You were probably too tired to notice right away. While you were in the bathroom, I checked on them. I wanted to wait for you to get out of the shower, to be dressed, at least, before I confronted you. But Hank—”
“Showed up and forced you to take a different approach.” She shook her head. “It’s always Hank, believe me. What about the noises you heard?” He’d missed this, how they worked so well together. They’d been partnered on several calls before Dylan had left RGPD and the comms between them had flowed without a hitch.
Until you split.
“It was Hank meeting up with two of my men.” He filled her in on what he saw, the few words he’d overheard. “I was too far away to hear everything, and I had to be careful that they didn’t see me if they glanced up at your door.”
“Son of a—” Veronica cut herself off and he couldn’t hold back a smile. She never swore when he’d known her and he imagined her work experiences and some salty colleagues had influenced her vocabulary. It sure had his. “That explains the strange car I saw when I spoke to Hank on the porch. And that’s why Hank came up here, then. He was very upset about my kicking him out of the apartment.” She leaned in, just a hairbreadth, but he noticed, knew what she was about to reveal was critical. “He was checking to see if I noticed the amount of money we brought in, and to get the notebook.”
“Don’t you count your take together?”
“We do, but last night was especially busy, so I did the final count on my own.” She grinned. “I’ve managed to turn Frisky around since I’ve been in place. Sure, there’s the flow of ‘goods’ that Rex uses the profits from to pay the minimal overhead. He’d keep this open if it were nothing but a dump, which it basically was a few months ago. Now we have nightly drink specials and we’ve changed up the music to what the girls prefer during the bar-top dance numbers. The clientele has moved from almost exclusively male to fifty-fifty. We had a bachelorette party tonight.” Her gaze darkened. “They were a party of twenty and consumed so much, I was concerned we’d have an OD.”
“It’s hard, selling the stuff we’re under oath to stop, isn’t it?” He hated this part of undercover work, too.
“Beyond hard.” Silence dropped a blanket over their conversation as she bit her lower lip, refused to meet his gaze. He reached for her, placed his hand over hers.
“I’m sorry. I know it makes you think of Tawny.” The sister she hadn’t been able to save.
She wrenched her hand from his and stood up, making the table shake and knocking over the box of sugar packets.
“You know nothing, Dylan. Not anymore.”
Veronica wanted to run from the apartment, get into her car and drive the hell out of Red Grove. Out of Stark County, and keep going until North Dakota was miles behind her.
You want to escape the truth.
She did. She’d do anything to bring Tawny back.
You are.
Dylan stood, kept his hands at his side, his gaze wary. As if she was a wild animal who’d strike at any moment.
“It’s been a long night, Dylan. We need to figure out what we each need and how we’re going to get there, before either someone figures out that you’re not a big bad dealer from somewhere down south, or that I’m not an experienced nightclub manager and expert purveyor of mind-altering substances.”
“Absolutely.”
She ran her fingers through her hair. It really was a wet rat’s nest, but she’d get the snarls out later. “You’re saying that Hank and at least two of your guys are trying to cut from the cream. I wouldn’t expect any less, actually. Hank’s already cheating on Rex with you, of course he’d cheat me.”
“To be honest I didn’t expect this from my guys—they’re often afraid of their own shadows. But they’ve had a bad run of it, with their boss getting killed in the shakedown last month.”
“They were part of the Queen City cartel, then?” She mentioned the rival to Rex’s cartel.
He nodded. “Yes. And they’ve never forgotten how Rex played a part in their boss’s death. I ‘happened’—” he made air quotes with his fingers “—to arrive to salvage the remaining crew a few days after he was shot down.”
“So they’re still out for revenge, even with you at the helm now?” She needed the information to send a report to Sheriff Colton. “That reminds me, does your brother know you’re here?”
Dylan nodded. “Callum knows I’m working in the vicinity but he’s not in on exactly who I’m working with or who I’m trying to bring down. Unless you’ve already told him?”
She shook her head, chagrined at Dylan knowing more about her assignment than she did his striking a chord of annoyance. “Of course you already know who I’m reporting to. For the record, I have to report into my PD, too. But yes, the sheriff’s office is calling the shots day in and day out. I did check in with Callum yesterday, after our meeting, but figured he might not be privy to your exact whereabouts.”
“I appreciate that.”
She paused, not wanting him to think she was trying to tell him his business. Too late.
“He needs to know, Dylan. We could have gotten ourselves killed yesterday if we’d handled that meeting differently. If we hadn’t recognized each other.” Her insides twisted, but not from her attraction to Dylan this time. From fear that she could have killed him, or gotten herself killed.
“Yeah, he does need to know, now that you and I are working together. You’re right. My supervisor wanted me to come in here as quietly as possible, without informing either the Stark County Sheriff or Red Grove PD. You know how it works, Veronica, it’s always easier to apologize than risk being kept out of an opportunity like this.” Dylan’s reply masked the unspeakable truth they both knew. The constant awareness that there could be corruption at any level of law enforcement. A bad cop or agent would put their lives at risk. She deliberately avoided saying it aloud. As if doing so would somehow make the possibility real.
