Page 44 of The Bones in the Yard

“Weare not fucking okay,” I answered. “Weare having issues with disappearing evidence on old Ordo cases.”

Beck had been with us for the shitstorm in the underground chamber at the Harrod estate—not upstairs with Dan. She’d been right in the middle of the fire and blood and dead people, so she knew just how fucked up the Ordo was.

“Uh oh.”

“What, ‘uh oh’?” That was Ward, who had been rolling by on his way down the hall.

“Missing Ordo stuff,” Beck told him, scooting out of the way so he could take up the doorway, but poking her head around the frame so she could still see me.

“What missing stuff?” Ward wanted to know.

I had not meant to turn this into athing. Which should teach me not to go on cursing jags when in places where other people could hear me. “Specifically? The journal.”

“Wasn’t that in evidence?” Ward asked.

“It was,” I confirmed.

“And it’s missing?”

“Yep.”

“That is… not good,” Beck observed.

“Nope,” I agreed. “It sure fucking isn’t.”

Ward’s eyes were wide as he studied my face. “Hart?”

“What?” I know I’m trying to be a better person, but I needed him to actually ask the question. Just in case he wanted to know something else, and I didn’t have to answer what I thought he was going to ask.

“What does that mean?” He was stressed.

I was stressed, too, but please see previous comments about his husband having been nearly killed by the Ordo. I was stressed, but Ward wasstressed.

I sighed heavily. “It fucking means that there’s someone who is leaning on the brass—maybe Villanova, but probably higher up, honestly. Andthatfucking means that there’s some Ordo fucker in the government somewhere.”

“And what doesthatmean?”

I ran my hand over my braid, tugging on the end. “It means that if we try to go through normal channels, we’re fucked six ways from Sunday with a paddle up shit creek.”

“That is… a lot of mixed metaphors,” Beck observed dryly.

I shot her a look. “It’s a lot of mixed bullshit, is what it is,” I retorted.

“And what do wedoabout it,” Ward demanded.

I sighed. “Nothing legal,” I replied, darkly.

“I didn’t ask about legality,” Ward said, his grey eyes meeting mine steadily, despite the fear I could see in them.

I nodded once. It had apparently taken six months for me to go from law enforcement to law breaker. I’m sure if my erstwhile colleagues could hear this conversation, they’d have nodded knowingly, telling one another they knew that I’d been weak and corrupt all along.

Well, fuck them.

Because I wasn’t the problem.

When the law becomes meaningless, when the cops are the ones hiding evidence and keeping criminals from being prosecuted and allowing murderers to keep walking the streets, then I wasn’t going to worry about breaking the law. I was going to worry about beingcaughtbreaking the law.

“Well, it means that I’m probably going to owe Dan my non-existent first-born, and I might have to pay his exorbitant lawyer fees if he gets caught…” I stopped. “You know. I’m going to stop talking now. Because you people need some plausible fucking deniability.”

---