Page 99 of Torched Spades
His jaw tics seeing the bloodstained card lying in front of him. “What the hell’s that?” He knows exactly whatthatis… Knee-jerk reactions are hard to disguise even for the most skilled liar, and his is plastered all across his face. “Regardless, whoever thispersonis, they’re making false accusations,” he avows, the parenthetical lines around his mouth caging the lie. “Which is considered slander—something I could sue you both for.”
“You don’t need help in defaming your character, Chief. You’re doing one hell of a job all by yourself. However, as far issuing a lawsuit against my informant”—sliding my hand in my pocket again, I pull out Raymond Connor’s driver’s license and toss it on top of the playing card. “I’m afraid he’ll no longer be answering your calls.”
Clenching his fists, Reese cages them around the two damning visuals. “Are you admitting to murder?”
I cock an eyebrow. “Areyou?”
“Everything I’ve done has always been for Becca,” he insists.
“Was paying a psychiatrist to convince her she was delusionalfor her?” I bite out darkly. “Is that part of unconditional paternal love I keep hearing about? Stop kidding yourself, old man. You did it to protect yourself.”
His light blue eyes darken to cold steel. “Is that what she told you?”
“No. For some fucked-up reason, Becca’s misguided sense of loyalty refuses to expose you. Fortunately, I have none.”
“You don’t know anything!”
“Correction—I know everything,” I say, dropping my tone to a low, ruthless rasp. “It took me a while to figure out why the chief of police would want to sit on the board of a medical building. Then I did a little digging and found the medical practice our mutual friend Eli Cromwell works for is owned by Dr. Ruth Jarrett. You know that name, don’t you, George?” I wait for a response, then decide—fuck it—I’m enjoying digging his grave too much to wait. “Of course you do—considering you’re not just the on the board, you own it.”
“I don’t see how my real estate investments prove anything.”
“How about the fact that you bought the building twenty-two years ago—around the same time you forced Becca inside it.”
“I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”
“And I don’t like controlling, manipulative paternal fucks,” I seethe, swirls of red clouding my vision. “Especially ones who mind fuck their twelve-year-old daughter into believing she didn’t look her mother’s killer in the face. That she didn’t see a rose and dagger tattoo on his arm. That she didn’t hear him say bullets and blades before pulling the trigger.”
George’s face turns the shade of colorless ash.
Gotcha, motherfucker.
Ruth Jarrett handed me the keys to Reese’s downfall without saying a word. Luckily, some dipshit in her IT department was too busy snorting bath salts to be bothered to change the manufacturer’s default factory settings on her encrypted patient files. Once I typed “admin” and “12345,” I was in, and all the police chief’s dirty deeds spilled onto my computer screen.
I can feel Reese’s heated gaze drilling holes in my face, so I glance up, surprised to find his full of confidence rather than defeat. “You don’t know who you’re messing with.”
“Maybe not. Butyoudo, don’t you, George? It’s why you dangled the keys to the kingdom over that psychiatrist’s head. Becca had a clear ID and damning evidence, and the Rouge couldn’t have that.Youcouldn’t have that.”
He doesn’t confirm nor deny my allegation. Instead, he grips the edge of the table. “I know who youare.”
I lean in close. “Then you should’ve killed me that day at the pharmacy.”
“I’m an officer of the law,” he says, the panic in his voice rising as his pretenses fall. “Unlike you, I don’t wish people dead.”
“Not wishing for death doesn’t make you any less of an accessory to it. You of all people should know that.”
It doesn’t matter if he comes clean or not… Sins are an irreversible stain on the soul, and his is seeping through the cracks. When I didn’t play by his rules, he turned me from a liability to an asset. His affiliation with the Rogue is why I’ve been targeted. It’s why Becca was attacked. It’s the reason why two low-level disciples will never take another breath.
“You think you’re so much smarter than everyone else, but you’re wrong,” he says, his pride jumping him from one razor-thin line to the next. “I handle my own problems. I don’t like owing those Irish fucks any favors, but you forced my hand.”
And there’s the admission I’ve been waiting for.
“And you’ve forced mine. Counterplay, Chief. Your move.”
“They’re going to find you, you know. It’s only a matter of time.”
“That’s the first truthful thing to come out of your mouth.”
“You’re going to get her killed, then again, that’s what you do, isn’t it?”
