The Rogue Element (Scott Priest Book 1)

by John Hardy Bell

  He gave me one more good stare down before walking away. “So much for the apple.”

  More than happy to disappoint you, was my thought as he disappeared into the stairwell.

  I’d barely had time to process the encounter when Hitchcock’s office door opened. Kimball and the lieutenant walked out together, their expressions equally solemn.

  Kimball was the first one to make eye contact with me. He held my stare as he said his last words to Hitchcock. I was just out of earshot of the conversation, but I could tell it hadn’t been a particularly comfortable one. It rarely was with Hitchcock.

  The lieutenant gave me a brief look before going back into his office and shutting the door.

  My stomach tightened as Kimball approached.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I had to get a little distance,” I answered.

  “From what?”

  “My own fucked up thoughts.”

  “Did it work?”

  “No.”

  A look of resignation settled over Kimball as he nodded.

  “So how did it go in there?” I asked.

  “Apparently, the media is already on the story and they’ve started camping out downstairs again. The lieutenant seems more worried about the department’s press release than he is in helping me get through this.”

  “The department’s in a tough spot, Nate. Has been for a while. This is only going to make things worse. Part of me can’t blame him for being worried.”

  Kimball looked at me with distant eyes. “What about me?”

  I felt a momentary surge of guilt as I stared back at him. “Of course I’m worried about you too.”

  “That’s why you took off without saying a word to anyone? That’s why you didn’t answer my calls? That’s why you still haven’t given your official account of what happened? Because you’re so worried about me?”

  I brought my hands up to my temples to massage away the pounding in my skull. “Look, I’m sorry that I disappeared on you. There’s just a lot going on right now. More than you can possibly realize. Brandt is dirty, Nate.”

  “Not this shit again.”

  “Just look at everything happening around here right now. Detectives Graham and Sullivan. Marisol. Arturo. What’s the common thread in all those cases? Brandt. At some point you have to ask yourself why that is?”

  Kimball buried his face in his hands. “Jesus, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation right now.”

  “When are we supposed to have it?”

  “How about after you go into the lieutenant’s office and vouch for the fact that I’m not a goddamn murderer, something that, as my friend, you should have done hours ago.”

  The pounding in my skull intensified. “I didn’t see what happened in there. You know that.”

  “So what, Scott. That shouldn’t stop you from saying what you need to say.”

  “Same shit I heard from Brandt five minutes ago.”

  The look in Kimball’s eyes suddenly hardened. “So that’s what this is all about. You don’t trust me either. Makes sense now.”

  “Nate, just hold on a sec-”

  He stood up before I could finish.

  “You know what I think, Scott? I think it’s time to start asking some questions about you. But I’ll save that for another time. For now, you just make sure you go in the lieutenant’s office and do right by me.”

  With that, Kimball walked away, taking the last remaining guidepost I had with him.

  CHAPTER 17

  The last thing I expected today was a return trip to Lieutenant Hitchcock’s office, but that’s exactly what happened. Only this time, I was the initiator.

  The nerves that I felt prior to the first meeting were gone, replaced by a feeling of stark resignation. I was about to do something I never thought myself capable of doing. But if I wanted to stop the department I loved from drowning, as Hitchcock put it, then I couldn’t hesitate.

  The lieutenant’s eyes lit up when he opened the door. It was clear he had been expecting me. He was silent as he stepped aside to let me in.

  I quickly took a seat in the same chair I’d sat in this morning. The seat was just as hot as it was then.

  “So where do you want to start?” Hitchcock asked as he sat behind his desk.

  “Not where you think, sir.”

  “So you’re not prepared to offer a statement on the Sandoval shooting.”

  I had to swallow hard before I could respond. “Not if I have to lie about it.”

  Hitchcock put his notepad and pen down on the desk. “Obviously I don’t want you to lie about it.”

  “But you also want it to go away.”

  “We all do.”

  “You also know that it’s not going to go away.”

  Hitchcock looked irritated as he sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Get to it.”

  “That task force of yours.”

  “What about it?”

  No hesitation. “I’m in.”

  The lieutenant uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. His mouth creased with the thinnest of smiles. “Are you sure? Circumstances being what they are now?”

  “I’m sure because of the circumstances being what they are now.”

  “You still have until morning to decide if you need to.”

  “I don’t need it.”

  Hitchcock paused, as if he were giving me one last opportunity to change my mind. My continued silence prompted him to go forward. “I’ll get Robert Fitzgerald on the phone and the three of us will meet here tomorrow morning as scheduled. In the meantime, what do you plan to do about Kimball?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe that will come up in the meeting tomorrow.”

  “What exactly do you mean by that?”

  I wasn’t sure. I only knew that I instantly regretted saying it. “I’m not in a position to give a statement about the Sandoval shooting right now.”

  “I guess your case is in a bit of a tailspin.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  Hitchcock nodded as he stood up from his desk. He walked over to his file cabinet and pulled out a thin manila folder. “Probably not the best time to take on something like this, but I suppose there’s never really a good time.” He set the folder on the desk.

  I knew he’d put it there for me, but I didn’t want to touch it. “What’s that?”

  “A pre-briefing ahead of tomorrow’s meeting. We’re taking this thing in stages, scrutinizing every cog in the wheel independently. That file represents the first cog.”

  My breath caught as images of Brandt and Kimball darted around in my head. I blocked out the image of Kimball as quickly as it came, but Brandt’s face lingered, as did my fear of Hitchcock’s reaction to my intention of pursuing the commander as an accessory to Marisol Alvarez’s murder.

  The fear instantly went away when I opened the folder.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “Exactly what it looks like,” Hitchcock said bluntly.

  I had to look twice more at the name on the front of the file. It still didn’t register as being real. “What does Chloe Sullivan have to do with this?”

  “The state attorney general had been on Walter Graham’s ass for years. They were this close to plugging him on evidence tampering and several other charges when the case magically went away. Two weeks after that, Graham and Sullivan were shot. Given the circumstances of the shooting, the timing of it, and Detective Sullivan’s unwillingness to talk about it beyond her official statement, she’s found herself smack dab in the middle of the AG’s radar screen. Not the best place to be right now.”

  I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. “Is everybody forgetting that she was almost killed?”

  “No one is forgetting that, Scott. They simply want to know why she was almost killed.”

  “So because she was Graham’s partner and she happened to find herself in the wrong place at the wrong time, she’s suddenly a criminal? From what I know about the El
liott Richmond case, she was basically the one who cracked the damn thing.”

  “It doesn’t sound to me like you’re entering this with a very open mind,” Hitchcock contended.

  I closed the folder without reading anything more. “I just thought you’d be going in a different direction with this.”

  “And what direction would that be?”

  I felt my face drop as I stood up. “I guess it’s not really important.”

  I made it halfway out the door before Hitchcock responded. “Full briefing tomorrow morning at 7:30. Maybe you’ll have a better understanding of things after that.”

  My doubt could not have been more overwhelming.

  CHAPTER 18

  I enter my apartment building on a nightly basis to all manner of smells, from the stairwell that’s regularly used as a urinal to the peasant stew that is the staple of the Eastern European immigrants next door. But I’ve never opened my door to the smell of fresh pasta sauce and garlic bread. The aroma was as comforting after a long, miserable day as any I could have imagined, even though its presence made me put a hand to my shoulder holster. I live alone, and shouldn’t have smelled anything in my apartment other than the dirty laundry I was two weeks behind on.

  “Scott? Is that you?”

  I heard her voice before I saw her face. My hand dropped from the butt of my gun, just as my heart dropped from my chest. “It’s me.”

  When I entered the kitchen, she was standing over the stove with her back to me, steam rising over her shoulder. She was wearing the yoga pants and form-fitting tee shirt that had become the staple of her day-off wardrobe, and even though I couldn’t see her face, she seemed very happy to be here. Had this been any other day, I would have been just as happy. But because it was today, all I wanted was to run away from her and her surprise dinner as fast as I possibly could.

  “I took the liberty of using the key you gave me once upon a time. I hope that’s okay,” she said as she dipped a spoon in the pot of red sauce.

  “Of course it is.”

  She was smiling as she turned and approached me with a spoon full of sauce. “Taste this. I figure it’s the first bit of real food you’ve had in at least a week.”

  It had probably been longer. “Delicious,” I said after she slid the spoon out of my mouth. “Four cheese and garlic?”

  Detective Sullivan nodded. “Your favorite if I remember correctly.”

  I took off my jacket and shoulder holster and went into the kitchen. “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Nope. Almost finished. It’s great that you’re here. I wasn’t sure when you’d be back so I just planned to leave a note.”

  I finally allowed room for the smile that should have naturally come over my face. “I appreciate the gesture. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  When she looked at me something in my chest fluttered, the same as it had every time she looked at me. Without saying a word, she pulled me into her space. Despite the heaviness that was about to enter our conversation, the world felt one hundred percent perfect as my hand moved up the fine contours of her back to her neck and finally through her mane of curly brown hair. As she brought her soft lips up to mine, I could taste fresh parmesan cheese and a hint of red wine. For a moment, I forgot about everything. Then she pulled back to allow me a long glance into her bright hazel eyes, and the awfulness came flooding back.

  “Do you want to get cleaned up while I get a couple of plates? I’ve had a three-day break away from HQ and I’m sure there’s a ton of craziness you need to catch me up on.”

  “That’s putting it very mildly,” I answered with a painfully uncomfortable smile.

  Chloe and I had only been seeing each other for three months, but she could already read me better than anyone else on the planet, Nate included. “Oh boy. Do we need something stiffer than Pinot with dinner?”

  “Probably.”

  “Is it concerning the Alvarez case? Last I heard she was formally identified on the news this morning. I’ve been holed up in your kitchen ever since so I may be a little behind.”

  “It started out being about the case. Then it became something else.”

  “What?”

  “Something more personal.”

  The brightness in her eyes slowly dimmed. My heart ached with the knowledge that I was about to darken them entirely. “Define personal.”

  “It became about you.”

  Nerves caused her slim frame to shiver as she walked to the cabinet and took out two plates. “Let me guess, our secret relationship suddenly became not-so-secret. Was it Nathan who finally figured it out?”

  “It’s not anything like that.”

  She put the plates on the counter and turned to me, her tolerance for the suspense clearly running out. “Then what is it about, Scott?”

  “It’s about me, you, and Detective Graham.”

  Without saying a word, Chloe abandoned the plates and took a seat at the dining table. She stared straight ahead, like someone in shock attempting to detach themselves from the terrible news they were about to receive. I’d seen the look on the faces of victims and their families a million times before. The news wouldn’t be any easier to deliver this time.

  “What about Walter?” she asked in a faraway voice.

  I sighed as I walked to the cabinet where I kept a stash of Jamison and my set of Glencairn whiskey glasses. “We absolutely need something stiffer than the Pinot. This is going to be a very long conversation.”

  A NOTE TO THE READER

  Coming Spring 2015

  THE ROGUE

  RECRUIT

  A SCOTT PRIEST NOVEL

  Thank you for reading The Rogue Element. I truly appreciate the purchase and hope you enjoyed the read. There’s nothing I love more than hearing from you (other than writing for you, of course). If you have any thoughts about the story or would simply like to say hello, please feel free to email me at johnbellwrites@gmail.com. You can also find me on Twitter @johnbellwrites, and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Author.John.Hardy.Bell

  If you have a few moments to spare, a quick review on Amazon would also be helpful.

  Finally, to get the latest on upcoming books, please visit my website: www.jhardybell.com

  Thanks again for your purchase. Detective Priest’s journey is only beginning, and I hope to see you back for the next exciting installment!

  Regards,

  John Hardy Bell