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It doesn’t take even that long before Brian starts ranting. “You can’t keep me here. I have rights.”
“You do. Do you know why we brought you in?” Alex asks. The fucker knows full well why he was hauled in here.
“’Cause you pigs all got it in for me,” he spews, leaning forward and slamming his palm on the steel table.
“Is that how you see it?” Alex draws out the sentence with a smirk on his face. “I could do without your ass sitting in a chair in front of me. But you’re a sloppy thief, or, as the evidence is piling up, an inept hitman.”
Yeah, the fucker knows he’s in trouble. He straightens his back in his chair. Beads of sweat are starting to form on his forehead. Brian clamps his jaw tight and his palm forms a fist that he draws back, putting distance between himself and Alex.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brian claims. Even from where I’m standing, I can see he’s lying. Damian lets out a snort of derision.
“Who’s he trying to sell that shit to?” Damian scoffs. I don’t bother to answer, keeping my eyes glued to the scum who has repeatedly attempted to kill Jasmine.
“I’m feeling the mood to be generous. This is a limited-time offer. There’s a good chance the DA will take your confession into consideration when asking for a sentence from the judge.” Alex offers him an out, but Brian tries another tactic.
“If you had anything on me, I’d be in cuffs by now,” Brian replies.
“Fine. Stand up.” Alex rises to his feet. “Hands behind your back.” Alex motions for Brian to stand. Brian remains motionless. “You want this done by the book, we’ll do it by the book. Just know the offer’s gone.”
I’m thinking Alex is done toying with him when Caleb waltzes in to join them. He slams down a file. “You really want to do this?” He points to the file. “There’s more than enough in there for a conviction.” Caleb continues to stab his finger on the top of the file. “Fingerprints in Miss Belfour’s apartment, a tracing of your shoe print that’s a perfect match to the shoes in your closet, including the problem you have with your left foot and the depression you make when you walk. We also found the file with all the information about Miss Belfour hidden in the vent of your bedroom. Information we know you were given.”
Caleb stands up straight, his hands on his hips, glaring at a completely deflated Brian slumped in his seat. “Option one, you confess and give up your accomplice. Maybe, and it’s a very big maybe, depending on what you have to offer in the way of information, we’ll ask the DA to take it into consideration. Option two, you take this all on yourself. Attempted murder is a minimum ten years in prison, but we’ll build a case on how she was terrorized and on her emotional despair. She’s pretty and sweet and will have the jury eating out of her hand. We’ll ask for the max, and I think we’ll get it.” He pauses for effect. “I’ll give you a minute to think it over.” Caleb then motions for Alex to walk out with him, leaving Brian alone in a cold room to think on his future.
Caleb and Alex join Damian and me. I look at Caleb. “You think he’ll turn on his boss?”
“He doesn’t have a choice. The guy knows what he’s facing and he’s not selfless enough to go down for this alone,” Caleb answers.
Damian says, “You’re convinced he’s not doing this on his own? It’s not an obsession for a pretty girl? Some shit like that?”
“The file we found is far too detailed,” Caleb says. “No way does Brian Candor have the intellect and means to gather this kind of information. That file has Jasmine’s adoption records, including the name of her biological mother and pictures of Jasmine that must have been taken over the span of weeks. Jasmine’s been stalked and that data accumulated with great precision. Chances are a private investigator gathered the data and handed it off to someone who, in turn, hired Candor to finish the job and get rid of her.”
I blow out a harsh breath. “So, we still don’t know why she’s a target.”
“We’re closer than we were yesterday, man,” Alex reminds me. He meets Caleb’s eyes. “How long are we giving him?” He jerks his head to Brian, who’s holding his head in his hands, his elbows resting on the table.
“The longer he sweats, the more likely he is to tell us all he knows,” Damian answers on Caleb’s behalf.
Caleb gives it longer than I would like, but I have to trust him. He’s been in this position thousands of times, and he’s the most practiced at getting under a perp’s skin. Sitting on the sidelines is torture. I pride myself on not being a violent man, but I’m really tempted to rush into the room and pound my first into Candor’s face until he begs me to stop. Even then, I’m not sure I would. Most likely, Damian and Alex would have to tear me off before I ended his miserable life.
When Caleb finally reenters the room, Brian is willing to talk. Brian confesses to taking on a job to kill Jasmine for fifty grand. He got twenty-five at the start, and he gets the rest when he provides proof of death. Brian has a burner, which was found in his apartment. That’s how he’s contacted by his boss. He only receives calls and doesn’t have a way of getting in touch. Brian confirms that he gets a call at least once a week. Whenever his boss calls, the sound is distorted to hide his actual voice. Since the guy called only a few days back, another call isn’t likely to happen for several more days.
“Why does your boss want her gone?” Caleb keeps at him.
“I don’t know,” he moans. Candor’s been in there for hours and he’s wiped, but Caleb doesn’t back down.
“You don’t know?” Caleb chides. “You make the decision to end the life of an innocent woman and you don’t even wanna know why the guy wants her dead? You expect me to believe that?”
“Fifty grand is a lot of money. He wired the first half within seconds into my account. He said, ‘No questions asked. Make it look like an accident.’ After the first week, when I failed to run her down, he called again and he sounded mad, like really pissed. He told me to get my shit together and get this done or I’d get done. I would have told him to take his money back, but I already spent some of it. And from the way he was talking, this girl was dead anyway.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t need to be part of it,” Caleb retorts, his face twisted in disgust.
“What do you want me to say? I fucked up, all right?”
“How’d this guy find you?” Caleb asks, taking another direction with his questioning.
With a heavy sigh, Brian runs a hand over his face. “I go to this bar called the Cave. I was in there one night, and Cranshaw and me were shooting the shit. We were drinking, had more than we should, and started talking about what we’d do for money. We were fucking around, not really serious, and we started saying shit like I’d eat a eel for ten grand.”
“You ended at taking a life for fifty?” Caleb concludes.
