Page 51 of Cruel Debts
There was nowhere to go.
Trin and Asher pulled up short, spotting us against the wall easily. My scowl set in, and I realized there was no getting away from this. I might as well settle in for the ride I was about to be taken on.
So I crossed my arms and leaned back, watching them as they approached us, Asher's eyes wide, his chest heaving.
"Where have you two been?" I ask suddenly, the knowledge sinking in that the only reason for them to be running down here, and have come from the direction they did, was that they were out, and were just now returning. A dangerous decision, all things considered. "Were you out in public in the daylight?"
Trinity scowled at me, her arms crossed as she hid her winded status behind a wall of anger. "Who the hell are you to ask me anything? What does it matter to you if I'm running around in public?"
I turned to Asher, who looked like he'd rather just disappear than have this conversation. "? What the fuck, man?"
Asher's face turns cold, and he glares at me. "I don't answer to you. We're a team, not a unit anymore. And even if we were, you sonofabitch, I'd outrank you."
He wasn't lying. But damned if it mattered here, now. "What's that got to do with anything? I thought we agreed?—"
"What wedidwas lock up a human being and deprive her of sunlight. Of life."
Oh no.Oh, no, she got to him."Did she put you up to this? You're usually so reasonable?—"
"Nobody put me up to anything. I just did some thinking on my own and decided that maybe she needed to get out of this damn place for a few minutes?—"
While we argued, Mistwood worked on inching himself away from the situation. He nearly made it to the corner, when I realized two things simultaneously.
My gun was conveniently missing from the back of my spine. And Trin was nowhere to be found.
"Shit, where'd she go?"
I glanced around, but didn't spot her—until, that was, I looked in Mistwood's direction again, and saw the flash of metal beside his head.
Fuck me, she was going to kill our informant.
"Trin, put the gun down." My hands were in the air, and I'd never panicked harder than right now. Did she even know how toshootone of those? "Let him go."
"Why? So he can keep running around, pretending to be Keehn?"
My heart sank. I turned to Asher, but he wore a twin look of defeat to Mistwood's. "How does she know?"
"She's known for a while," he admitted, putting his hands up in self-defense.
"He's right," she said, laughing a little as she shoved Mistwood back toward us, the gun still on his temple. "I met him months ago, in Nocturna Beach. He didn't get my name, though, but he gave me his. Or, well, he gave me the name he goes by." Her eyes were angry, narrowed damn near to slits, as she shoved him to his knees and pulled out her phone. "The same name that used to belong to the man in this picture."
She flashed him a shot of Keehn after discharge, when he joined the force. His smile was genuine, fresh, and so happy you could feel the sunshine radiating out of him. I watched with confusion as Trin lowered the phone and angrily shook it at him, brandishing the gun at her side as she waited for—something.
His eyes scrunched up in confusion. "Who's that?"
"He's mybrother,"she nearly screamed. The pistol fell forgotten on the ground, and I rushed to grab it as she sank to her knees and gripped Mistwood by the collar. "The man you took the ID off of."
"I hate to break it to you, girl, but that's not the body I pulled this badge off of."
I blinked in surprise. So did Asher, and Trinity, too. I couldn't believe, in all the time that we'd known about Mistwood masquerading as Keehn, we never thought to ask him to identify the body he stole the badge off of. The body of our dead friend.
Did that make us traitors? Were we really as loyal as we pretended to be if we missed such an easy mark? If we skimmed past the most obvious way to confirm the reality we bought so easily into?
"You mean—you mean the dead guy the ID was on isn't the same guy in the picture?" Trinity looked almost hopeful, but just because he wasn't the body Mistwood yanked the persona off of, didn't mean the man holding his life in a wallet hadn't ended him beforehand to get it.
"The guy I took this ID off of didn't look anything like the guy in your picture. Not even close." Mistwood inched away from her, turning to me with a frown. "I'm out of here. I'll send along the details you asked for in the morning. You just make sure this—" he gestured at Trinity, who still knelt on the ground, phone in hand, "—doesn't blow up in our faces."
"I'll take care of it," I told him, and with a nod, he disappeared around the corner, running the second he was out of sight, if he knew what was good for him.
