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AT THE ER, STAFF WAITED by the helo landing pad. They rushed Rambler inside.
Manny thwarted Fish’s efforts to fly back to the river with the rest of the team. “You might need stitching up, and the goose egg on your forehead is shouting concussion protocol to me.”
Fish fingered a spot above his left brow, a place that hadn’t throbbed until Manny mentioned it. He winced.
After passing the doctor’s concussion tests, cleaned and bandaged, Fish sought Manny in the ER waiting area.
At Manny’s lifted eyebrows, Fish proclaimed himself concussion free and took the vacant seat beside his leader. “No stitches, just butterfly strips. Good to go. Any word on Rambler?”
“Cracked ribs, gash in his leg they’re stitching up. They want to monitor his lungs as well. He won the concussion lottery, though. Once he’s in a room, we can see him.”
“What about T-Bone? And Ace’s smuggling gig?” Craving a cup of coffee, hoping the caffeine would counteract his not-a-concussion-but-it-hurts-like-a-mother headache, warm his still-chilled bones, and keep him awake, Fish scoped out the waiting room for a vending machine.
“Around the corner, to the left,” Manny said. “Fill you in when you get back.”
Fish shook his head—ow! Stupid move—at how well the man knew him. He eased his way to his feet and trudged in that direction.
“You done good.” Manny’s words followed Fish, warming him more than his sought-after coffee.
Sipping his weak but hot brew, struggling to keep his eyes open—and not successfully, judging from the way his head jerked upward every few minutes—Fish longed for a bed. Seemed like forever since he’d been in one.
Which brought thoughts of Lexi. How was she doing? How had Sofia taken the death of her mother?
The next thing he knew, Manny was shaking his shoulder. “Rise and shine. Rambler’s been admitted.”
Fish snapped to attention and trailed behind Manny to the elevators. Would Rambler be able to tie the Falcon to the smugglers? Would they have enough to expose him? Stop him? Would Lexi be safe at last?
The hospital corridor smelled like disinfectant. Lights were dimmed—what time was it, anyway? What day was it, for that matter?
Manny opened the door to a room, where Rambler lay propped up in bed, hooked up to an IV pole. Machines bleeped at a steady rate.
Fish stood at the foot of the bed. Rambler’s face looked like someone had splashed blotches of red and blue paint against a floury-white background. One scary-ass clown.
“Hey, Chief,” Rambler whispered. “Come to drag me to the PT field?”
Manny flipped the bedside chair around and straddled it. “You’ve got today off, but I’ll expect you there tomorrow. Zero eight hundred. Sharp.”
A brief motion of Rambler’s head passed for a nod. He shifted his gaze to Fish. “They say I owe you.”
Fish gripped the footrail. “Nah. Drew the short straw.” He glanced at Manny. “If I hadn’t grabbed you, I’d be stuck with triple PT.”
“Easy choice.” Rambler’s speech was labored, but the heartrate monitor showed a steady display.
“Doc said we have to keep it quick. Can you give us anything we can take to the authorities?” Manny pulled out his cell phone. “I’m going to record this. We saw Border Patrol footage, so you can start after they took your clothes, which is where you went out of drone range.”
Rambler paused, as if collecting his thoughts. Or strength. “Gave Ace the drugs. Thought they’d made me. Didn’t look for a tracker. Balled up my clothes. Must have ... drugged me. Don’t remember. Tied up, I think. Jammed ... between rocks. In the water. Cold. In a boat, then the river.”
He coughed, then grabbed his middle. “Don’t know what’s worse. Coughing or laughing.”
Fish went for the water glass on the bedside table, but Manny beat him to it, tilting the straw so Rambler could drink.
“Be glad it’s Manny and not Fozzie doing this interview. Everything’s a joke to him,” Fish said.
“Take it easy,” Manny said to Rambler. “If you remember anything, it will help us.”
Rambler took the glass from Manny, sucked on the straw. Closed his eyes. Opened them. “I’m okay. Ace said he had a new buyer. New rules. I was going to have an accident. That’s when he drugged me, I guess. It’s fuzzy.”
“He happen to name the new buyer?” Manny asked.
“Called him Bird Man.”
“Bird as in Falcon?” Fish said.
Rambler studied his arm, as if seeing the IV for the first time. “I tried to pin him down beyond that. He said the less I knew, the better. Obvious he wondered why I was pushing. I backed off.”
“Anyone else in the tour group ping your radar?” Manny asked.
Rambler closed his eyes. “No.”
Manny stood. “You get some rest. Blackthorne’s following up with Border Patrol and DEA. Ace is going to have an unexpected welcoming committee when his tour is over.”
An orderly came in, nodded to the group, and proceeded to make up the second bed. He handed Fish a hospital gown.
“What’s this for?” Fish asked.
“You’re going undercover,” Manny said, an unexpected smile curving at his lips. “Literally. I want a man with Rambler until we see what happens with Ace. The staff knows you’re on duty and armed.”
Fish glanced at Rambler, who seemed to be sleeping peacefully. “You think someone’s going to come after him?” As soon as he’d uttered the words, he knew what Manny would say.
He did. “It’s just a precaution.”
***
LEXI LET O’REILLY KNOW she was leaving.
“You coming back soon?” he asked. “To work, I mean.”
“Good question. A lot depends on whether I can have long-term custody of Cataline’s daughter, and more depends on what happens with the force.” She hadn’t brought up her concerns about corruption with O’Reilly, but she assumed Kalen had, and that the detective was aware of the problems.
“Grapevine says there’s a shakeup in the works,” O’Reilly said. “You’re a good cop. Think about it.”
“I will,” she promised.
She stowed the suitcase in her car. Next stop, DHS.
She swore under her breath at the number of people waiting to be seen. She signed her name on the clipboard and squeezed onto the bench, then complied with the sign and silenced her phone. Thirty-seven minutes later—but who was counting?—she was called to the counter by the same woman she’d seen when she’d picked up Sofia. The woman listened politely as Lexi presented her case.
“You’re still approved for temporary custody. I’ll do what I can to speed things up, Ms. Becker.” She leaned across the counter, her expression serious. “To be blunt, your job, and being a single guardian, could negatively impact your request. The inherent dangers and irregular hours don’t bode well for permanent approval.”
Lexi’s heart nosedived into her stomach, but the woman’s words weren’t unexpected. “I am fully ready to take a more conventional job, either behind a desk at the police station, or something different entirely. I hope you’ll relay that information to whoever’s in charge of making the final decision.”
“I will, but between the two of us, I wouldn’t wait. Saying you’ll do something and having specifics are two different worlds in here.”
Lexi didn’t point out the Catch 22 of taking another job before finding out whether she’d become Sofia’s guardian.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I have those specifics,” Lexi said.
Driving home, she tried to sort the thoughts whipping through her brain.
If she stayed with the force, but with a clerical job, could she switch back to cop work if things fell through with Sofia? Would she want to? She thought of O’Reilly’s words, and the pros and cons of being associated with the Burnside PD once the corruption was exposed. Rebuilding public opinion would be a slow, painful process. But the force would need good officers, and she knew she had something to offer.
Halfway home, she turned her car toward the station.
Lexi found O’Reilly at his desk. “Do you have a minute?” she asked.
He chinned toward a vacant chair, and she dragged it over.
“I was going to call you,” he said. “The techs pulled a good print from the nightstand, and it’s one more link in the chain. Nauck tells me you know Peter Luzzatto.”
Her pulse jumped. “Snake. I’ve never met him, but I know who he is. You’re saying he was responsible for the break-in? And the drugs? I thought he was in jail.”
O’Reilly shook his head. “Out on bail. Put up by the cleaning company he works for.”
“Which is a Merlin connection.” She mulled that over. “But no way to connect Gunther.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and Snake will talk.”
“Unless Gunther has him killed before he can.”
“He’s very much alive. He’s in interrogation, and he’s not going anywhere without an escort. Panzerra’s with him.”
Her eyes popped open. “Snake’s here? Already?”
He chuckled. “Sometimes the wheels move quickly.”
“May I observe the interview? I promise not to shoot him.”
“Fine by me.” He grabbed a large manila envelope from his desk and they went down the hall to interrogation.
Nothing fancy, only a table and two chairs—no two-way mirror or hidden cameras. Lexi took a spot against the wall. Snake gave no signs of recognition. Didn’t ask who she was or why she was there.
O’Reilly slapped the envelope onto the table. Officer Panzerra moved from the table and took a cross-armed stance five feet from Lexi. O’Reilly took the vacated chair opposite Snake. Lexi knew Snake’s chair had been altered so the front legs were slightly shorter than the back ones, leaving the man off balance physically, and O’Reilly would work on the mental side. He put a recorder next to the envelope, told Snake the session would be taped, and then proceeded to recite the date, time, and who was present. At the mention of Lexi’s name, Snake still showed no interest or recognition.
O’Reilly pulled a photo from the envelope and flipped it so Snake could see it. Lexi recognized it as one of the surveillance photos Kalen had shown her.
O’Reilly tapped the envelope. “What would you say if I told you we have pictures of you breaking into Cataline Escudo’s apartment, tossing the place looking for drugs. What happened? She didn’t put them where she told you she would?”
“You got nothing,” Snake said with a sneer.
O’Reilly ignored him. “And what would you say if I told you we have pictures of you giving Ms. Escudo the drugs, telling her to hide them. That she willingly let us place cameras in her apartment in exchange for getting you and your threats off her back.”
O’Reilly would be killer at a poker table.
Lexi had never worked with O’Reilly, since she was patrol and he was a detective. She’d turned cases over to detectives in the course of her work, but following through was not part of the job.
Snake’s eyes darted around, his tongue moistened his lips. He was buying it.
“I don’t have to tell you nothing,” Snake said, but his words lacked their former arrogance.
“No, you don’t,” O’Reilly said. “But the Falcon won’t know that when he gets word you’ve been interrogated. Who will he believe? You, who he knows would say anything to save your skin? I doubt it. So, since he’s going to believe you talked anyway, why not tell us what you know? We might put in a good word with the DA.”
What if, O’Reilly had said. We might. He hadn’t actually lied to Snake, although Lexi knew the envelope, aside from that one photo, held nothing but blank paper.
“Okay, but you’ll get me off, right?” Snake said.
“I said we’ll talk to the DA,” O’Reilly said. “What we say depends on what you tell us.”
Snake stared at the ceiling for a long moment. His eyes were as cold as ones belonging to his nickname when he spoke.
“I go to work at the Merlin building. Sometimes I get called into one of the offices. A man tells me things I need to do, and I do them.”
“What man?” O’Reilly asked.
“His name is Jack, that’s all I know.”
“He works in the building, though.”
Snake nodded.
“Please speak for the recording.” O’Reilly pointed to the device.
“Yeah, he works there.”
“What does he tell you to do?”
“Different stuff.”
O’Reilly glowered. “Mr. Luzzatto, things will go a lot easier if you elaborate on your answers.”
He scowled. “He gives me prescriptions for drugs. I have a crew and they fill them, give them to me. Then I give them to Jack, and he pays me. I pay the crew.”
“Was Ms. Escudo part of your crew?”
Snake nodded, then added, “Yes.”
“What was your relationship with Ms. Escudo?”
Snake shrugged. “We was friends. She gave me favors, you know—”
“Sexual favors?”
Another shrug. “Yeah, but as a friend, you know, not a john. I didn’t pay her or nothing.”
O’Reilly kept his demeanor calm, but Lexi sensed he was the wolf, moving in for the kill.
“Why did you plant the drugs in Ms. Escudo’s apartment?”
“I didn’t plant them. I gave them to her to hold, because I got word I was gonna be picked up. Didn’t want nothing on me or where I live, you know.”
“She died. Do you want to explain how you managed that?”
Lexi stiffened, but schooled her features into a bored expression.
“My PD—”
“Public Defender?” O’Reilly said.
“Yeah, that. He gives me a needle, says to stick her when we’re in the courthouse. Said if I did, he’d get me off, so I didn’t ask no questions. Poked her when we passed. I thought it would make her sick, so they’d have to take her out of the courtroom, so she couldn’t rat me out. I didn’t know it would kill her.”
“Where’s the needle?” O’Reilly asked.
“I dumped it in the needle box in the men’s room.”
“You broke into her apartment—”
Snake interrupted. “I didn’t break in. She gave me a key a while back. You know, for coming and going for favors.”
“Very well. You entered her apartment to get back the drugs you’d given her.”
“Yeah, I had to get them to Jack to get my money. She never said where she was going to put them. Maybe I got a little mad and messed things up more than I had to, but they were mine, and she had no call to hide them like that.”
O’Reilly stood. “That will be all. Thank you for your cooperation. Officer Panzerra will take you back to holding.” To the recorder, he noted that the interview was over. He pocketed the device, picked the envelope, and marched out.
On shaky legs, fighting to remain calm, Lexi followed the detective.
“We’re getting there,” O’Reilly said, dumping the contents of the envelope onto his desk.
“We don’t have a connection to Gunther, though,” Lexi said.
“We’ll get it. One step at a time.”
“I think we just took five or six.” Lexi checked the time. “I need to get home for a FedEx delivery. Thanks for keeping me in the loop.”
O’Reilly promised to bring Nauck up to speed. Lexi’s emotions bounced from elated that they’d found the man responsible for Cataline’s death, to fury that he’d killed her so casually, to sorrow for Sofia.