“I’m not implying anything.”
“Yeah, you are.” He stood. “You’re not good with the passive-aggressive. It isn’t you. So let’s put it all on the table, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Leburne claimed to the very end that he alone decided that your father had to be killed. We both know it’s a lie. We both know Cozone ordered the hit and that Leburne protected him.”
Kat said nothing.
“We spent years trying to get him to recant and tell us the truth. He didn’t. He went to his grave without turning, and now, well, we don’t know how to get justice for your father. It is frustrating and it makes us desperate.”
“Us?”
“Yes.”
Kat frowned. “Now who’s being passive-aggressive?”
“You don’t think I hurt too?”
“Oh, I think you hurt. You want to put it all on the table? Let’s do that. Yes, for years, I worked under the theory that Cozone ordered a hit and Leburne carried it out. But I never really bought it. It never quite rang true to me. And when Leburne—with no reason to lie—told that nurse that he had nothing to do with it, I believed him. You can say he was drugged or lying, but I was there. His words finally rang true. So yeah, I want to know why you visited him before anyone else. Because, putting my cards on the table, I don’t believe you, Stagger.”
Something behind his eyes exploded. He fought hard to keep his tone level. “So tell me, Kat. Why did I go up there?”
“I don’t know. I wish you’d tell me.”
“You’re calling me a liar?”
“I’m asking you what happened.”
“I already told you,” he said, pushing past her. He turned. There was indeed anger in his eyes, but there was something else there. Anguish. And maybe even fear. “You have some vacation days coming. I already checked. Take them, Kat. I don’t want to see you in my precinct until I put in for your transfer.”
Chapter 15
Kat grabbed her laptop and headed over to O’Malley’s Pub. She sat on her father’s old stool. Pete the bartender ambled over to her. Kat was examining the bottom of her dusty shoes.
“What?” he asked.
“Did you guys put down more sawdust than usual?”
“New guy. He overdid the concept of dive chic. What’ll you have?”
“Cheeseburger medium rare, fries, a Bud.”
“You want an angiogram after that?”
“Good one, Pete. Next time, I’ll sample one of your gluten-free vegan entrées.”
The crowd was a mix. At the corner tables, a few masters of the universe were having postwork cocktails. The bar had the few loners all bars need, those guys who sat quietly peering into their glasses, shoulders hunched, longing for nothing other than the numbness the amber liquid could provide.
She had pushed too hard with Stagger, but subtle wasn’t going to play here. Still, she didn’t know what to make of Stagger. She didn’t know what to make of Brandon. She didn’t know what to make of Jeff.
So now what?
Curiosity got the better of her. She flipped open her laptop and started doing a search on Brandon’s mom and Jeff’s new lover, Dana Phelps, mostly under images and on social networks. Kat told herself that she was just following up, fully closing the case, making sure, per her one worry, that the kid she’d met was indeed Brandon Phelps, the son of Dana, and not some con man or worse.
With ten empty stools, a guy with a soul patch and frosted tips in his hair sat right next to her. He cleared his throat and said, “Hello, little lady.”
“Yeah, hi.”
She found the first picture of Dana on a site that covered “Connecticut Society Happenings,” one of those places that takes pictures of rich people at parties so fancy they are called balls, and these rich people, with so much in their lives, can’t wait to click on the site to see if their picture is on it.
Last year, Dana Phelps had hosted a gala in support of an animal shelter. It didn’t take long to see why Jeff had been drawn to her.
Dana Phelps was a stunner.
She wore a long silver gown that draped and clung in a way Kat would never experience. Dana Phelps oozed class. She was tall and blond and pretty much everything Kat was not.
Bitch.
Kat chuckled out loud. Frosted Tips took this as an invitation. “Something funny?”
“Yeah, your face.”
Pete frowned at the lameness of the retort. Kat shrugged. He had a point, but it worked. Frosty took a hike. She drank some more, trying to give off a leave-me-be vibe. It worked for the most part. She did an image search on Brandon Phelps, and yes, he was indeed the skinny, stringy-haired kid who had visited her. Damn. It would have been easier if he’d just been lying about his identity or something.
Kat was starting to feel tipsy, the kind of tipsy when you drunk-text an old boyfriend, except, of course, she had no idea what Jeff’s phone number was. She chose instead to do the next best thing ex-lovers do—cyber-stalk him. She put his name into several search engines, but there was nothing on him. Absolutely nothing. She knew that was going to happen—this wasn’t her first time drunk-Googling him—but it still surprised her. A few Internet advertisements popped up and offered to find Jeff or, better yet, see if he had a criminal record.
Pass.
She decided to head back to Jeff’s profile page on YouAreJustMy Type.com. It was probably closed down now, what with his jetting off to some exotic locale with a statuesque blonde. They were probably walking the beach right now, hand in hand, Dana wearing a silver bikini, the moon reflecting on the water.
Bitch.
Kat clicked on Jeff’s profile page. It was still there. She checked the status. It still read: Actively Looking. Hmm. No big deal. He had probably not remembered to turn it off. He’d probably been so excited about getting High Society Blonde in the sackola that he couldn’t be bothered with niceties like clicking a button to let other potential suitors know he was off the market. Or maybe handsome Jeff had a backup plan, a Plan B, in case Dana didn’t pan out (or put out) in the way he hoped. Yeah, ol’ Jeff could have a bunch of women waiting with baited breath, just in case he needed a substitute or . . .
Her cell phone mercifully knocked her out of her stupor. She answered it without checking the caller ID.
“There’s nothing.”
It sounded like Brandon.
“What?”
“On Jeff Raynes. There is absolutely nothing.”