Page 37 of Midnight Coven

That time, a whole crowd of people walked in.

In front strode the two asshole detectives who collected Nick from Wynter’s house.

The same two with the stupid mustache and the pompadour.

Nick wondered what they were still doing here. Truthfully, he’d assumed they worked up in the Northeastern Protected Area homicide precinct, and they just did the NYPD a favor by collecting him and bringing him down here.

They had that kind of small town vibe to them, somehow.

Maybe it was the fucking cattle prod.

Either way, Nick had been thinking both were pretty damned good reasons for Nick to reconsider any transfer thoughts he might have from New York to the precinct closer to Wynter.

He couldn’t imagine having to share an investigation with these bozos.

He would commute twice as long, both ways, to avoid that.

Now he wondered, though.

If their precinct only sent them over to collect Nick as a favor to the NYPD, then what where they still doing here?

Why hadn’t they gone back home?

Directly behind them walked in three uniforms Nick also recognized from Wynter’s house. Four other agent-looking types in street clothes entered the interrogation room after them.

They all looked like cops.

Some had to be I.S.F.

The two guys in the more expensive-looking suits were possibly H.R.A.

Racial authority still had the air of cops, if somewhat more menacing cops. Nick wondered if they might have some Home-Sec or other feds pulled into this, too.

Whoever this family of victims was, Nick guessed they were rich.

Rich, or famous maybe… or well connected.

Likely some combination of all three.

Maybe that’s why Morley hadn’t wanted to tell him their name.

The woman lawyer with the blond bouffant hairdo folded her arms as they all walked in. She returned their marginally hostile stares with an impressively icy stare of her own.

Nick couldn’t help but feel a whisper of unease at how angry all the cops looked. Most seemed to be aiming their anger at the lawyer, not at Nick, but he knew how quickly that could turn. It wouldn’t do him any favors if the whole damned racial authority, not to mention a good chunk of the N.Y.P.D., got made to look like fools because of him.

He needed to see this evidence they had.

He needed to see what they got off surveillance.

If these jokers were convinced Nick was their guy, and they got it in their heads he was being protected by higher ups, or “got off easy” on a murder charge due to who he was, Nick didn’t like his chances out on the street.

Even if they thought nothing blatantlycriminaloccurred, any hint of preferential treatment might ruin Nick’s life inside the NYPD. If enough cops got it in their heads that Nick got off on some technicality, due to a fancy lawyer some bigwig fight promoter hired for him, or because of his so-called “celebrity” status, that was it for him here.

His life as a Midnight in the NYPD was done.

Morley and Jordan couldn’t protect him.

Worse, Nick’s closeness to them would put their own positions at risk.

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