Page 77 of Final Approach
“No, I’ll catch an Uber.”
He frowned. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
“I’ll be fine.” She pulled out her phone and started to make the call, and he placed his hand over hers.
“Really,” he said. “I want to take you. Nathan can hold down the fort here until I get back.”
She hesitated, a light pink staining her cheeks, then shrugged. “All right. You can finish telling me your story.”
He frowned. “Story?”
“About the innocent man who died in the holding cell.”
Oh. That story.
Maybe he should let her catch that Uber.
SEVENTEEN
Kristine could tell he didn’t want to talk about it. At least that’s what he was apparently telling himself. But he’d opened up the topic, so there was something inside him that wanted to spill whatever it was he’d kept such a tight lid on. He’d told her the first part and mentioned something about an innocent man dying on his watch but hadn’t offered the details. She wanted the details if it wouldn’t traumatize him to tell her. And from his reaction to her asking, it very well might just do that.
The drive to the hospital would be about twenty minutes. She’d let him make the call as to whether or not he’d—
“Okay, fine,” he said, tapping the wheel. “I started, might as well finish it. Hank and I were undercover, as I said before. I had made friends with the leader’s son and asked him to meet privately. I had video evidence of him torturing a rival gang member and was going to try and turn him against his father for less prison time. I knew the two didn’t get along very well and thought he might be willing to save his own hide by giving me his father.”
“And?”
“Someone followed him. Neither of us realized it until too late and he shouted, ‘Traitor,’ shot Showbiz’s son in the head, and disappeared. I couldn’t take a chance on going back under at that point.My cover was busted. He was dead before he hit the ground. Hank said the guy filled Showbiz in and told him I was the one who shot his son.” He scowled. “I didn’t, but I feel like I got him killed anyway.”
“You didn’t know he was going to be followed.”
“I should have expected it. Showbiz has a lot of the members followed, but I’d never known him to have his son followed.” His eyes clouded, then he shook his head. “Anyway, about a month after that, Hank slipped us info about a deal going down at one of the empty buildings in the warehouse district. It was so cliché, it wasn’t even funny. I’m a firm believer that every empty warehouse should be searched at least once a week because nothing good ever happens in such a place. Really, it was just bad. But there were guns and drugs that we could take off the street, so we set it all up.” He drove, his eyes on the road. She kept hers bouncing between the mirror and his face.
“Set up the sting?”
“Right. Hank was determined this was going to bring out the top man because it was such a big cash deal. The warehouse was for sale. Big sign, everyone knew it. What we didn’t know was that someone was coming to see it that night. We didn’t find that out until later. So, when the sting went down, the Realtor and his client got swept up in the mess.”
“Oh my. Bet that wasn’t good.”
“To say the least. In our defense the Realtor had a jacket on that looked so much like the ones the Serpentines used that if you weren’t looking close, you’d never realize it was a different one. Anyway, by the time everything was sorted, the Realtor and his client were in separate holding cells. The client was loud and combative, yelling that we didn’t understand, that he was going to sue the department, but you know how it is. Everyone protests their innocence. Everyone is going to sue. It’s just par for the course. The Realtor was quiet and reserved. Now, I realize he was scared—terrified, really. He was in with a gang member—”
“What?”
“I know. I know. And there are no excuses, but nevertheless, it was crazy that night. Everything that could go wrong did. By the time the sting was over, the holding cells were packed. We were out of room and had to group them together. Members of the same gang went together. Others were kept separate. And we thought the Realtor was a member of the same gang as the guy in the cell, so putting them together shouldn’t have been a problem.”
“Only it was.”
“Yep. It wasn’t too long afterward that I could tell something was off. The Realtor started saying the same thing as his client, and there was no way they could overhear each other. It dawned on me that they might not be blowing smoke. That there could have been a real screwup. I was going to let him out and talk to him. And then ... for some reason we still don’t know, this gang member attacked the innocent Realtor. I was twenty feet away and ran for the cell to get in there, but I—” He shuddered and focused on driving for a moment while Kristine waited, dreading what he was going to say next. Which was nothing until he pulled into the police parking spot at the hospital.
She looked at him. “You weren’t in time.”
“No. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I didn’t have a key. I was yelling for one of the local officers to get it open, but he just wasn’t fast enough. No one could get a clear shot the way he was situated and with the other prisoners in there blocking a shot ... and the truth is, even if I did have a key, it wouldn’t have been fast enough. I know that now, but it still...” His hands clenched around the wheel, then released. “The gang member snapped the Realtor’s neck like it was a toothpick.”
Nausea swirled for a moment and she swallowed hard. “I’m so sorry.”
“The family filed a civil suit, but we were cleared of any wrongdoing, as were the others involved and...”
“And?”
