Page 99 of The Secret
Vince gave me an assessing glance and whatever he saw on my face made him say in a placating tone, “Everyone calm down. Mr. Bloom, Trent is still very upset by what happened. His…derogatory language… in no way reflects his actual beliefs or opinions.”
Trent snorted.
“Wow. You reallyarea lawyer, aren’t you?” I collected my case and walked around the table.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Vince demanded.
I ignored him.
“Charlotte.” I turned to the woman whose cheerful attitude seemed to have deserted her, and she raised her troubled eyes to mine. “Under the circumstances, Blooms won’t be able to accept this contract.” I looked directly at Trent as I concluded, “I don’t work with homophobes.”
“Homophobe?” Trent gave an exaggerated frown. “Nope. Just one particular cocksucker I don’t like.” His half-lidded eyes glittered. “Though I heard he was really good at it.”
“Trent.” Vince’s voice was laden with warning.
Trent didn’t heed it. “Little prick got what was coming to him. Dad took them for practically everything they had.” He smirked. “Justice is a beautiful thing.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Sometimes it really is.”
And then I punched the arrogant asshole in the mouth.
Chapter Fourteen
Constantine
January
“Hey, Ross!” Mitch’s bellow rang through the squad room just as I was about to shut down the computer at the little desk I shared with Grace Ferdinand, O’Leary’s other part-time auxiliary officer. “Come in here before you head out?”
I stifled a groan as I looked around the empty room. It had been a long,coldnight shift, with not one butthreeseparate callouts that had kept Carmen and me busy until sunrise. Hell, Carmen wasstillout. I’d been counting down the minutes to seven AM when I could finally get out of here,but it looked like that was going to be delayed.
“What’s up?” I asked as I walked into his office. “Problem with my report?”
“Huh?” Mitch scrubbed a hand over his short cap of silver hair. The haircut was new, and based on his expression, not his idea.
I smothered a smile and nodded at his computer screen, where he’d been reviewing my work.
“Oh. No. Report’s solid. Troubling, though. Who vandalizes what’s basically an empty lot?”
It wasn’t an idle question.
I sat down heavily in the chair in front of his desk. “When that lot is the remains of Parker Hoffstraeder’s bar? A bar that mysteriously burned down, like, four weeks ago? It’s not random.”
“Exactly.” Mitch sighed. “Insurance company’s still not paying?”
“Nope. Which isridiculous. They’ve got that fire investigator guy poking around, trying to get people to say shit about Parks. And you’ll notice he was the fourth person on the scene, after me, Parker, and Jamie. Hanging around like a bad smell.”
“Parkerand Jamie?” Mitch raised an eyebrow. “Is there something there?”
“Who knows?” I shrugged. I couldn’t handle my ownsecret relationship. I sure as fuck wasn’t in a place to speculate on anyone else’s.
“Maybe someone was trying to help Parker out,” Mitch suggested. “Clear him of suspicion.”
“I dunno. If someone wanted to throw suspicion off Parker, I think they screwed up.”
“You think?”
I shrugged again. “Officialcause of the fire at Hoff’s is undetermined. There was plenty of speculation at the time, given how quickly the building was consumed, but it was under renovation, and there were a lot of valid reasons for chemical traces to be present in the debris, so there’s nothing to prove it. Insurance company is doing their investigation, but there’s no reason to believe they’ll find anything more than Gideon and his guys found. So why vandalize the lot? Why give this fire investigator something else to turn over? Why give him another reason to put Parker under a microscope?”
