“Knight Sebring. He owns a club downtown. And he has a…” Fuck, how did you describe Knight? “Unique sense of right and wrong, and if someone is doing what he considers wrong, he’s the kind of man who wades in.”
She took that in before she stated, “Brett didn’t kill Corinne.”
Nope.
And the frame angle takes a finer point.
“Those cops are bad guys,” she went on.
Boone lost interest in his phone because she’d demonstrated her keen ability to read people and he was more interested in that.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“I hesitate to share, considering you’re not a big fan of this aspect of my job description, but do enough lap dances for skeevy guys, you can spot a skeeve from a thousand paces.”
He could totally buy that.
“Bogart was an easy read, your take on Mueller?” he asked.
She shrugged. “He’d never get a lap dance. He’d never even go into a strip club.”
“So you didn’t get a bead.”
“I didn’t say that. He’s the brains. In other words, he’s smart, sharp, in control and isn’t about to expose a tell. If this is bigger than those two, he’s the boss. If it’s just those two, he’s the mastermind.”
“Yeah, that was my take.”
“Boone.”
She said no more.
“Baby, I gotta call Hawk,” he prompted her to say what she needed to say.
“Brunch is off, isn’t it?” she asked.
“C’mere,” he muttered.
She came there.
He pulled her into his arms.
And then he gave her the bad news.
“Yeah.”
She held his eyes, lifted a hand and rested it at the base of his throat.
“You need to be careful,” she whispered.
He took in and blew out a breath.
And then he said, “Yeah.”
Chapter Seven
Flashback
Boone
Boone was taking the stairs up to Hawk’s office two at a time when his phone went with a text.
He kept moving as he pulled it out of his back pocket.
He stopped when he saw a text from Ryn.
Out shopping for teddies.
Keep me informed.
Sweet.
Hot.
Brat.
He grinned and took the stairs slower as he texted back,
Teddies?
He started jogging again, and by the time he was in the hall, heading to the door to Hawk’s suite, she’d answered.
With her own single word.
Red.
So, before he punched in the security code to get into the suite, he smiled and answered again with one word.
Spanked.
He gave that a second before he sent his next.
About to go in. I’ll text when I’m done.
He shoved his phone in his back pocket, hit the keypad and pushed in the door.
He looked immediately right.
And he knew how serious this was, even when he already knew it was serious.
This because a number of the players hadn’t fucked around with getting there.
Hawk. Hawk’s top lieutenant, Jorge. Boone’s colleague and bud, Mo. Mitch Lawson. And Ally Nightingale, officially a Rock Chick. Also officially a badass. Hank and Lee Nightingale’s baby sister. Ren Zano’s wife. And a woman who ran her own detective agency and she did it well.
Hawk gave him a chin lift and Boone moved to the conference room.
They were all standing in a huddle, but Boone caught Mo’s eyes first, before he focused on Hawk and stopped.
“We’ll get the full story when everyone is here,” Hawk said.
“Got it,” Boone replied. “You call Rush?”
Hawk looked to Mo.
Boone looked to Mo.
Mo nodded.
Mo had called Rush Allen, president of the Chaos Motorcycle Club, which was one of the factions Bogart had named as trying the patience of some of the brothers on the force in what Boone was translating as a veiled threat.
“Knight?” Boone went on.
“Knight’s in New York City with his girls,” Hawk said. “Not back until later today. Rhash is coming.”
Rhashan Banks, Knight’s right-hand man.
But it was pure Knight to take his woman and daughters to NYC, probably to shop, see shows, go to museums, and generally do a variety of shit Knight had zero interest in doing, all this over a school weekend.
But one of his girls mentions it, and they’re on a plane.
There was a lot to debate about how Knight Sebring lived his life.
The way he took care of his family was not part of that.
Hawk’s attention went over his shoulder and Boone looked there to see Lee Nightingale strolling in.
This started the flood of arrivals, which included another Nightingale, Hank. Then came Eddie Chavez. Brock Lucas. Rush Allen. Rhashan. Mag. Luke Stark, Lee Nightingale’s top guy. Malik, another cop friend and Hawk’s office manager, Elvira’s husband. And Carson “Joker” Steele, Boone’s bud in Chaos.
They all began to take seats, and to start them off, Hawk, standing at the head of the table pulling out his chair, announced, “Elvira isn’t here, and even if she was, she’d invite me to fuck off if I asked her to make everyone coffee. The machine is in the corner. Help yourself.”
Ally already had a coffee.
Boone had a white tumbler in his car that said FORTNUM’S USED BOOKS on the side, it had been filled by Ryn before he took off, and on his drive he’d discovered she had a heavy hand with scooping coffee, another indication they worked.
He’d downed it on the way there.
So he was set.
Eddie and Brock were still at the Nespresso machine when Hawk suggested Boone start it, running down Ryn’s convo with Cisco the other night and what happened that morning.
Everyone was seated, and he was not liking the looks on the faces of the cops at the table by the time he was done, so he finished by asking Mitch, “What?”
“Both Bogart and Mueller were Denver PD,” Mitch said. “Mueller moved to Englewood first. Bogart, his partner at DPD, moved a few months later. And when they were gone, there was a sigh of relief.”
“Why?” Hawk asked.
Mitch looked to Hawk. “Mueller’s a racist and a misogynist. He hides it behind good-ole-boy, it’s-just-a-joke bullshit, but there are very few who buy that and not many who can stomach it.”
“Word,” Malik, a Black man, grunted.
“The misogyny, though, was overt. Straight-up treated any female with a badge like shit. Notched it up for those without a badge who work for the department. Dispatch hates him,” Mitch went on. “He left, they put a picture of him on the back of the door. Last time I saw it, there were about fifty spitballs attached to it.”
“Let me guess, Bogart is worse,” Boone remarked.
Mitch looked to him.
“Not sure worse is the word. Worse at hiding he’s a dickhead though, yeah,” he replied. “Not the primary reason, those two are joined at the hip, but impetus behind him leaving…if Bogart had one more official complaint lodged due to harassment, he would have been out on his ass.”
“Sexual harassment?” Mag asked.
“In a big way,” Malik put in. “When the MeToo movement started, Bogart acted like it was a call to arms. He, in particular of those two, made it clear he wasn’t going to accept anyone telling him how to behave. Even if what they wanted was for him not to behave like a fuckwad.”
“This explains why they’re assholes,” Hawk pointed out. “But can the leap be made they’re dirty? And we’ll pinpoint this, do any of you know if Crowley was investigating them?”
All the cops at the table shook their heads.
But Brock also spoke.
“May be ways we can dig around, ask a few questions, find out if that was official. But Crowley had a reputation t
oo, and personally, I liked the guy. He was solid. But generally, in the department, that reputation wasn’t a good one.”
“How’s that?” Boone asked.
Brock turned to him. “If he was undercover IA, this would come as no surprise. That said, if he was, they should have rethought the undercover part of that. This guy was such a straight shooter, you’d show him a circle, and he wouldn’t comprehend the concept. By the book. Ironclad. I knew the man, but not very well. Though I knew his reputation a lot better.”
“Heard word, he did so many write-ups on other officers,” Mitch added, “he came in one day to see his desk covered in thousands of pens. Not a man or woman looked at him. No one helped him clear that shit out. Not a joke, if there was a rule on a way of sneezing that wasn’t regulation, and you did it, he’d write you up for it.”
“What you’re saying is,” Ally entered the conversation, “he could have taken this on himself without it being official?”
“If I thought a cop was dirty, and I had no evidence,” Brock began, “I’d get evidence.”
“Shit,” Mag whispered.
“We need to know if there was an investigation,” Hawk declared.
“And we’ll find out,” Brock said.
“You explained why Bogart left,” Rush remarked. “Is there a reason why Mueller moved to Englewood?”
“Honest to Christ, I was just glad he was gone,” Brock answered.
“Same,” Mitch said.
“I think I opened a bottle of champagne that night,” Malik added.
“Hank? Eddie?” Ally called.
“He don’t like Black, he don’t like Brown,” Eddie declared. “I had run-ins with both of them. You smell a bigot, you got my skin, that might mask a deeper stench.”
“Eddie had run-ins with them, so I did too,” Hank stated. “Though I would not be surprised even a little bit if they’ve turned to the dark side.”
“But no whispers of that shit?” Rush asked.
All the cops did head shakes.
“Right, so how does Cisco know this Crowley guy was investigating them?” Joker asked. “If he’s not lyin’, they didn’t show, ask for his gun and share why they wanted to use it.”
“We need to talk to Cisco,” Rush said.
Everyone looked to Boone.
“No fucking way,” Boone decreed.
In other words, no way in hell they were using Ryn to get them to Cisco.
Eyes shifted to Mag.
“Not on your goddamn life,” Mag growled.
And they weren’t going to use Evie.
“It’s not like the women got his phone number,” Mo pointed out.
“If we could manage to get word to him, he might feel safe with one of them,” Ally said.
“It’s not gonna happen,” Boone stated.
“We’d have them covered,” Ally noted impatiently.
“I’m not repeating myself,” Boone told her.
“Has it occurred to you that the permission we’d need would come from one of the women, not you?” Ally asked.
“Boone, Mag, keep tight,” Hawk ordered when the atmosphere in the room chilled.
“Ally,” Hank murmured.
“For God’s sake, you don’t have to have a penis to talk to an informant,” Ally clipped.
“Then you talk to him,” Mag invited.
“I will, I can get to him,” Ally retorted. “My guess, I can’t. But this guy kidnapped four women, dropped them off at Lee’s offices, made sure he returned their purses, and arranged a chat with one at a friend’s house. Never met the man. Only things I know about the guy are he’s a thug and a lunatic. Oh, and the small fact that Darius and Shirleen got out of the game, Marcus got out of the game, Benito was taken down, and there was a power vacuum of crime in Denver. And this man who gives the impression he’s got three functioning brain cells, and all of them are telling him to draw blood, usurped all that action. Just not the girls.”
Fuck, she was making sense.
Boone shifted in his seat.
“Not the girls,” Ally repeated. “He doesn’t run women. He runs guns. He sells drugs. He dips into other shit. But he doesn’t peddle flesh. In a short time, he’s well on his way to building an empire. Some dumbfuck is not gonna be able to do that and then be stupid enough to kill a cop with his own gun and let that weapon float. He was framed, and I personally don’t wanna see this guy back in business, but if he goes down, he should go down for what he does do. Not what he didn’t.”
Goddamn fuck.
She was totally making sense.
“And just to say, we found out when Evie’s situation outed this sitch, there was a working girl killed in this mess,” Ally went on to remind them. “She came into possession of that gun and got herself dead. And I’m just gonna point out, that is not Cisco’s MO.”
“Rhash?” Hawk called.
Everyone looked to Rhash, who worked for Knight, who, as a side business to his nightclub, provided vetting and security for call girls.
“Doesn’t even dabble,” Rhash confirmed. “Not even to buy some action. And as far as I know, he doesn’t use pimps to move product. He could sell to them, they use, or they use what they buy to keep their girls in line. But that’s on his sales force.”
“We need to talk to him, and we won’t talk to him unless he feels safe,” Ally kept at it. “And the only people not his crew who have seen him in the last two months have been the Dream Team.”
Ally’s crew were called the Rock Chicks.
They’d christened Lottie, Ryn, Evie and their posse, including Hattie and Pepper, the Dream Team.
Boone looked to Mag.
Mag looked about as happy as Boone felt.
“I will personally have them covered,” Ally said.
“He’s got a soft spot for pussy, I could call Sylvie up here,” Rhash offered. “She’ll take your back.”
Sylvie Creed. Used to PI in Denver and moonlight for Knight. She lived in Phoenix now, but she and her husband Tucker had so many ties in the Mile High City, they were up in Denver almost as much as they were in the Valley of the Sun.
“I’m tiring of my role as gender relations coordinator, and I get you can break me in two, but if I hear you or anyone refer to women as ‘pussy’ again, I’ll have to find more creative ways to deliver my lessons,” Ally threatened Rhash.
He just shot her a big white smile.
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and blew out a sigh.
“I called Ava ‘pussy’ or referred to a woman like that in her presence, I wouldn’t get laid for ten years,” Luke muttered to Lee, referring to his wife.
“I even think that around Indy, that vasectomy I got would have been a waste of time. She’d have my balls,” Lee muttered back, also referring to his wife.
“Feelers to your women, Mag, Boone,” Hawk said low, just as Boone’s ass rang.
He looked to his boss as he leaned forward to take out the phone.
“A cop’s dead. Two women are dead.” Hawk turned to Boone. “And your woman’s got two cops in her living room on a Sunday morning who, at best, are bigots, and that’s a pretty low bar to achieve. Worst than that, we gotta know,” Hawk continued as Boone checked his phone.
It was Ryn calling.
His brows drew together.
She knew he was meeting, and he’d told her he’d let her know when he was done.
She hadn’t texted even to tease.
Now she was phoning.
“There’s no arguing Cisco landed them in this spot. But they’re the best chance we got to get to him, and we need to get to him to see how far we gotta wade into this shit if only to keep them clear of it,” Hawk finished.
Boone looked again to Hawk.
“It’s Ryn, she knows we’re meeting, and I don’t think she’d call unless she needed to,” he said.
Or at least he hoped she wouldn’t.
Contradictorily, he hoped this call wasn’t her needing him.
Hawk ti
lted up his chin.
Boone took the call.
“Hey,” he greeted.
“Well, I know you’re tied up, but I thought maybe with whoever is in your powwow, all of them might want to know I just chatted with Brett,” she replied.
Jesus fuck.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Sure,” she answered.
“You good to go speaker?” he asked.
“Sure,” she answered.
Cool customer, his Ryn.
He was going to enjoy getting her hot.
“She’s just talked to the Cisco,” he told the table, hit speaker and said, “You’re a go.”
“I just want you all to know I’m picturing this sit-down of hotties in my head and burning it there so I can take it out and savor it later,” she announced. “And I’m not even sure which selections on the smorgasbord showed.”
There were chuckles.
But Boone growled, “Kathryn.”
“Right,” she said, that one word a smile.
He was less and less committed to starting them vanilla, she was so earning a goddamned spanking.
“So Brett called,” she shared.
“And?” Boone prompted.
“He’s worried about me. I think he thought Corinne and I were tighter than we actually were. He offered his condolences and wanted to check I was all right. Oh, and he also feels bad that he dragged me into this mess, and he apologized.”
Ally tapped the table.
Yeah.
Point made.
Shit.
It was going to be Ryn who did this for them.
“That’s it?” Boone asked.
“Well, you know…”
He didn’t know and she didn’t go on.
“We know what?” he pushed.
“He and I did a little sharing at our tête-à-tête, and he just wanted kind of an update.”
They did a little sharing?
“What kind of sharing?” he asked.
“Take me off speaker, baby,” she said.
Jesus Christ.
He did that and put the phone to his ear.
“What?” he clipped.
“Well, I shared that I wanted you, and didn’t have you, and we’d gotten in a big fight, and he advised I say yes if you asked me out again, and he wanted to know if anything was happening with you and me,” she told him.
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