Page 98 of Bad Habit
Fifteen
Marisol
“Listen!” I leaned onto the table between my suspect and me. “The faster you tell me, the easier this will go.”
“Is that how you like it?Fast?Easy?” Keagan Downey shot me a heated look as he lounged in the straight-backed chair that was too small for his well-built frame.
How did he do that? How could he seem so relaxed in this heated situation and in such an uncomfortable chair? This man was facing a ton of time. It didn’t make sense. Eventually I’d figure him out. Figure out what he needed to hear to confess. It was one of the things I did best.
“Mr. Downey, by stalling, you’re only making this harder.”
“Is that how you like it?Harder?”
This time his innuendo was blatant. His meaning hadn’t sprung from my mind—my mind that was having way more trouble than I cared to admit dealing with this undeniably sexy man—so different from the usual lowlifes I prosecuted as a San Francisco assistant district attorney.
“Look, Downey.” I regained control. “My boss wants to see you do the maximum, fifteen to twenty. But you seem like a good guy, so I’m trying to make this go—better—for you. We’ve got you on the theft, why add drug trafficking to the list?”
“Theft? What theft is that?” He tipped his head to the side, and his springy dark curls bounced with the motion.
Our eyes met, and I was captured, drawn in by their intensity, their color—ultra-light green in the center, blending out to dark green at the edges, completely full of sparkle and mischief, intelligence and confidence—and something frustratingly sexy.
I turned away, pulled my tongue off the roof of my mouth and dried my palms on the front of my skirt. This interview wasn’t going the way I’d expected. I’d been pleasantly surprised to hear that Downey was willing to talk to me without his over-the-hill joke of a lawyer. It was a rookie mistake, and Keagan Downey did not come off as a rookie.
Preparing for this meeting, I’d figured I’d have the upper hand. Like I almost always did at work. I was good at my job.Reallygood. I had the highest conviction rate in the office and was the youngest ADA in San Francisco history to have been assigned to a series of high-profile cases.
Like this one.
The container theft? That was no big deal. The kind of thing pawned off on the most junior or incompetent ADAs. But this case wasn’t about the theft; it was about the drugs.
And it wasn’t even about the drugs. It was about the man who’d shipped them. The man whose organization had put the drugs into that container and thousands of other containers destined for every port in the world. The man known only as The Tiger.
The China-based drug dealer had eluded DEA agents for nearly a decade, but they’d been tipped off that he’d have product on a particular container ship destined for San Francisco.
The DEA had watched the containers offloaded from that ship, and there’d been no movement for weeks—until last Saturday, when a group of bumbling idiots had tried to steal one of the containers, only to have it stolen fromthemat the gates.
At least, that’s what we believed had happened. But because all the security systems had been knocked out and the guards bribed, the police only had managed to arrest one man—Keagan Downey.
And frankly, the police had very little evidence that even he’d been involved. All they knew with certainty was that he’d been in the vicinity.
Me? I was sure he was guilty, but my gut didn’t count for anything in a court of law. The law required evidence and credible testimony. And those wouldn’t come out of thin air.
If not for the DEA’s interest, this Downey guy would have been released after a few hours of questioning. All I cared about, all anyone cared about, was that Downey give up information that would lead to The Tiger.
It was time to cut the pretense.
I drew a long breath to guard myself from all the things I’d been feeling, then turned back to face him.
My long breath hadn’t been nearly enough. Seeing him, I was assaulted by an onslaught of sexual tension I felt sure wasn’t one-sided. Still, I kept my cool.
“Look, Downey. I don’t give a shit about you. I don’t give a shit about your brothers.”That word—brothers—got a reaction. A weak spot?
“I don’t give a shit about petty criminals like you.”Petty got a reaction, too.
“All I care about is The Tiger. Give him up. Give up anything that leads to him, and I’ll ask the judge to lighten your sentence.”
Keagan studied me in a way that made me want to squirm. Every muscle in my body tightened to keep from writhing to relieve some of the tension.
But he stayed quiet. Revealing nothing—no change in posture, no change in those sexy green eyes, no reaction like the one I’d gotten when I’d mentioned his brothers or called his crimes petty.
