“Jesus,” Toby interrupted, glancing worriedly at Curtis. “What the f**k?”
Looking very unhappy with the information, Curtis asked through his teeth, “Was anyone hurt?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Why did Curtis care about that? He wanted the bitch dead anyway. “They said the dude staying with her restrained the guy until the cops got there and arrested him. But it had happened at the bitch’s house. They showed her picture! It’s her!”
Toby stood. “I don’t like it. First the cops say they found something at the scene of that damned garage—”
Curtis slashed a hand through the air, making Saul duck in reflex. Curtis wasn’t within striking range, and still his heart lodged in his throat and refused to budge.
Quietly furious, Curtis said, “We didn’t leave any clues. The kerosene was everywhere. Regardless of the rumors we’re hearing, I know it all burned. Every last single shred of evidence.”
Often they had to get rid of evidence. Saul and Toby both knew Curtis’s preference for burning it. After that damned druggie had let him down with the driving the night he tried to get the bitch, Saul had no choice but to kill him. He’d dumped the body at a current construction site where it would end up buried. Everything else had been burned in the garage.
Toby didn’t look convinced, and that worried Saul. He didn’t want to go to jail. Just the thought of it gave him nightmares for a week. It wasn’t enough to discourage him from taking part in playtime. But close. “They found something at the garage?”
“No!” Curtis bunched up in that dangerous way of his. “I just f**king told you they couldn’t have.”
Still worried, he glanced at Toby, who gave one small shake of his head.
“I was on the phone when you burst in here,” Curtis explained, “verifying that there was nothing but ash.”
“Oh.” Saul swallowed hard, but his throat felt restricted. “Well, I just wanted to let you know. About the break-in at her place, I mean. And...and that they arrested someone.”
Eyes narrowed and mean, Curtis turned to Toby. “Find out what the f**k is going on.”
“Right.” After giving Saul a pitying look, Toby walked out of the room.
Staring at him with laserlike intensity, Curtis said, “You came here, to my office.”
“Well...yeah. I didn’t think you’d want me to use the phone. I mean, in case it was—”
“You burst in here, drawing notice. You know how important it is to keep business separate from pleasure.”
“Yeah, I do.” Saul didn’t understand. “But I thought you’d want to know where she lives.”
Curtis turned away. “I would have found the woman eventually, at the right time, when it suited me. But now I know that someone is daring to copy me, to mock me.”
“Oh, well...I guess.” Saul chewed the side of the mouth, backing up a little. “I can see where that’d piss you off.”
“And now.” His voice went gravelly and deep. “Now that bitch will be watched more closely. She won’t stay at her house or travel freely, giving me the opportunity to get to her. No, she might even go into hiding somewhere. It’s going to make everything very difficult.”
Saul looked behind him, but unfortunately Toby had pulled the door shut again when he left.
No escape.
Curtis’s hand curled around a heavy paperweight on his desktop. “Now, thanks to some f**king copycat, she’ll have protection all around her.” He turned suddenly and threw the weight with precision.
Gasping, Saul tried to cover up, but it bounced off his hunched shoulder, a solid hit that felt like it broke a bone. Better than hitting his head and cracking his skull, but still he cried out, cowering, closing in on himself.
“I know how to get to her, though. Because I always have a plan.” As Curtis advanced, he seemed deaf and blind to Saul’s panic, his pain. “The f**king whore is going to pay for causing me so much trouble! Do you hear me?”
But Saul couldn’t hear anything.
He was crying too loudly.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
RELIVING THE SHAME all over again, Margo forced herself to face one and all during her admission. “My father, along with a few others in supervisory positions, was involved in a nasty little game of using female informants for more than information.”
Logan and Reese, she knew, had heard the rumors. Who hadn’t? But true to her word, she’d kept quiet about those involved—as long as they left the force. None of them could be trusted to protect the public.
Not when they’d already breached that trust in the worst way possible. Not when they’d already taken advantage of vulnerable women under their protection.
“I knew there was some bad blood....”
She gave Logan a humorless smile. “You always know when something is happening. And no doubt Reese gleaned the whole story through his different sources.”
Reese didn’t look happy, but he shrugged an affirmative.
“I should have had them all prosecuted,” she said, struggling once again with her conscience. “Unfortunately, for some of them, it would have been very difficult to prove.”
“For your father?” Rowdy asked.
“Far as I know, he didn’t actively involve himself, but he did turn a blind eye to what was happening. That’s just as bad. I should have—”
“No,” Logan disagreed. “An investigation would have just dragged it out and divided the department more. The locals already had enough to chew on.”
“We’d all but lost their trust,” Reese added. “You took care of it without stirring up the muck more than necessary. And by doing so, you protected everyone else in the department.”
What they thought of her mattered, she admitted. It always had. They were good cops, good men, and as such she wanted—craved—their approval. It made her heart feel better to know they didn’t judge her harshly.
But what Dash thought mattered most of all. So many times he’d told her how she impressed him, how he admired her. She didn’t want to now see disappointment in his eyes.
She didn’t want to let him down.
It wasn’t easy, but she faced him.
He surprised her by taking her hand, then kissing her knuckles.
He said nothing, but then, he didn’t really need to. She let out the breath that had caught in her lungs and finally felt a little of the strain ease from her shoulders.
Earlier, when she’d realized how easily she could have lost him...
Rowdy interrupted those dark thoughts. “So how many got the boot? Besides your dad? Who else was involved?”
Leave it to Rowdy to take it all in stride. But then, he never had much faith in the police to begin with.
Dash didn’t give her a chance to answer. “You’re thinking someone else could have a vendetta against her?”
“It’s possible,” Reese agreed. “An ex-cop would make more sense than anyone else, because he’d possibly still have ties to people at the station. That’d give him access to current information. He’d know how to attack her in a way that just tied in with another case.”
“The world is overrun with idiots who do wrong, then blame others for busting them.” Rowdy realized what he’d said and turned to her. “Not to call your dad an idiot—”
Margo waved that off. “To this day, he doesn’t see the big deal in taking advantage of women who were trying to get their lives together. Believe me, I’ve called him worse.”
“So many people were shuffled around,” Logan said. “I’m not sure who retired, who left under duress, who was implicated.”
She remembered well. “My father, serving as the police chief, two sergeants, a lieutenant, a dozen officers and a civilian crime-lab tech.”
Rowdy whistled. “That’s quite a haul.”
In a protective gesture, Dash moved closer to her. “How many female informants were there?”
“Five.” It sickened her still. “One of them was only nineteen.” When she’d given her father his ultimatum, she’d been completely alone. Her department, as well as her family, had turned on her. Even West hadn’t entirely understood her position. Oh, he’d known it was wrong, and he was all for shutting it down. He even agreed that some reprimands were in order.
But to kick out “good” officers? Their own father?
No, that he hadn’t supported. After all, to him the women were criminals, prostitutes who’d been busted.
He hadn’t been alone in that opinion. Most everyone had seen them as “less” than the men involved. It didn’t matter that they’d been coerced into sexual situations, that they’d possibly been raped, demeaned....
She pulled in a deep breath, calming herself.
This time she knew she wasn’t alone. As she’d retold it all, she had Dash with her. And she knew 100 percent that he backed her—whatever she wanted to do—because he trusted her to do the right thing. Somehow that made it all so much easier.
But it was more than that. She now knew Logan and Reese well enough to know they would never turn away from that type of injustice, the abuse of others. They were honorable cops, through and through.
And Rowdy... No, Rowdy would have defended the women, the same as she had.
Reese folded his arms over his chest and studied her. “From what I’ve heard, the commander had some say in how it all went down.”
“Yes. Dan insisted on keeping things quiet,” she confirmed. “He and my father were close. Together, they had a lot of influence.”
“They pushed for you to take the lieutenant’s position?” Rowdy asked.
“Yes.” She shook her head. “I even had the mayor breathing down my neck. I think they had some misguided notion of controlling me through a promotion.”
Logan’s grin went crooked. “You’d damn well earned the promotion and you know it.”
Dash said, “That was probably just their way of getting you on the inside circle.”
“The boys’ club,” Rowdy added with disdain.
True, all of it. Except... “It didn’t work.”
“No,” Dash said, confident. “I’m sure it didn’t.”
She wouldn’t sugarcoat the truth. “I suspected others of being involved, but I couldn’t prove it. Not without going through an official, department-wide investigation.”
“What you did was cleaner and quicker,” Logan assured her.
Dash’s thumb moved over her knuckles. “You remember the names of everyone that was involved?”
“Yes.” She would never forget—and they all knew it. It was one of the reasons so much strife remained between her and the commander. And one reason she could ignore his edicts when she chose to.