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Carlson’s face pinched and his eyes almost crossed. He proceeded as if I hadn’t spoken a word. “It’s why your guilt isn’t at issue here. We have you and Rylan Dennis on camera, outside the Sun Prairie Condominiums, talking with Donald Baker the night he was murdered.”
Was my turn to lean forward, and Carlson flinched when I did, jolting back like I might lunge across the table at him and take a bite of his ugly ass smirk. “I’m calling your bluff.”
His spine stiffened and he swiveled his chin. His eyes darted to Hernandez, who hadn’t said one damn word since she refused to tell me if Rylan was okay.
“I’ve got nothing to gain from this, Bridgewater,” Carlson said. “I’m just letting the evidence speak for itself.”
Right.
The man treated me like I was some fresh-faced kid. Like I didn’t know the way the world worked.
Getting a confession void of evidence was excellent for an investigator’s career. It was a mark of merit and could accelerate a promotion.
Exactly what Hernandez said he wanted.
It was my turn to smirk. “You don’t even want to hear where I really was that night?”
His mouth dropped open before shutting again. And again. Making him look like he was a fish out of water, sucking for air. Then, “I don’t need to. We have video proof that you were there. We know you murdered Baker, and you’re going to jail for it.”
Didn’t say a thing for a long moment. Just let him stew in his fuckin’ lies. Finally, as the bead of sweat that’d gathered on his forehead tricked down the side of his face, I sat back in my chair. “Alright.”
His brow furrowed. His head tilted to one side. He glanced at Hernandez, who simply raised her shoulders in the slightest shrug. When Carlson turned back to face me, his confusion wasn’t contained.
“Do you have anything else to say?”
I licked my front teeth, then flexed my cuffed hands. “I want to speak to my lawyer.”
Not sure he realized it, but he sank back in his chair. His fingers started working again, that thumb rubbing over the tip of his middle finger. He licked his lips, then lifted his chin.
“If you confess, we may be willing to cut you a deal. Tell us about your ties to the D’Angelo Syndicate and help us bring them down, and maybe we’ll shave a little time off your sentence.”
A smile tugged at my lips as the reasoning behind this whole charade came to light.
The D’Angelo Syndicate.
The mafia men who’d traveled halfway across the country to help me and Vinny recover that kid, Levi Rebik.
The hacker and the ex-cop.
Taking down a human trafficking ring and a financial scam that could have decimated the world’s financial systems.
I’d showed them up. Me and my men, that hacker and the cop—we’d done what the FBI should have done but didn’t.
Carlson was trying to pin this murder on me and Rylan to get us to rat out the fuckin’ mafia.
The joke was on him.
Neither Rylan nor I knew one goddamn thing about the D’Angelo Syndicate.
We didn’t murder Donald Baker.
The only problem was, I didn’t know who did.
31
KELLY
The groggy sunlight rippled through the trap door…
