Bradley Walsh wasn’t entirely pleased with the way he’d handled the traffic stop. That citation was pretty bogus. Anyone else would have been let off with a warning, if he’d bothered to pull them over at all. He didn’t like being unprofessional just to prove a point.
It had been his choice, too, just as he’d said. He wasn’t much good at lying and did it only when he had to. He really had seen the Jeep first, noticed the illegal turn, and called the play before Dan Maguire could say a word. And he had done it entirely for the chief’s benefit. He wasn’t proud of that fact, but there it was.
“You’re thinking about our girl, aren’t you?” Dan Maguire said from the passenger seat.
“Yeah, I guess.” He never had to ask who our girl was. Other than his wife, Chief Dan Maguire had only one female on his mind. And he liked talking to Brad about her, because Brad was the only one of his men who knew the full story of what had happened in February, when Bonnie had escaped a long-term prison sentence by the narrowest of margins.
“You don’t really like giving her the business.”
“The traffic stop was my idea,” Brad said defensively.
“Yeah, I know. You still don’t like it, though. You’re a Boy Scout, Walsh.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Me, I enjoy our little encounters. Tonight’s was the second one this week. I saw her last Wednesday, I think it was. In the morning. She was showing up for work. I stopped her in the parking lot by her office.”
“What for?”
“Nothing, really. There wasn’t anything I could cite her for. I just wanted her to know I’m keeping an eye on her.”
“She knows.”
“You bet she does. Got a little worked up about it, too. Says she’s seen my guys running the tags of all the vehicles that park in the lot.”
“Did you deny it?”
“Nope. Told her I just want to know who her clients are, in case anyone close to them should come to harm.” He chuckled. “She called it harassment. Said she ought to sic the ACLU on me.”
“Maybe she will.”
“Not a chance. Those shitheads are too busy chasing manger displays out of public parks. Besides, they wouldn’t take her as a client.”
“We don’t know she’s still … doing what she does.”
Dan surprised him. “I don’t think she is. Not right now. No fatalities in the area that would match up with what we know about her. She’s keeping her nose clean for the time being.”
“Okay,” Brad said warily. It wasn’t like the chief to ever cut Bonnie a break.
“But it won’t last,” Dan said. “She’ll revert to form. They always do.”
“It could be she’s not as bad as we think.”
“She’s not. She’s worse. That’s why we need to keep after her. Either she gets so tired of it she leaves town, or she gets rattled and makes a mistake.”
“You think she’s feeling the heat?”
“I know she is,” Dan said complacently.
Brad wasn’t so sure about that. In his experience, Bonnie Parker didn’t exactly wilt under pressure.
He turned the black-and-white Chevy Tahoe east on Birch and kept going until he hit Ocean Drive. Slowly he cruised north, past rows of Victorian mansions on the left and the boardwalk to the right. Some kids were bicycling on the boardwalk—breaking the law, but in the off-season no one bothered too much about enforcement. A sea breeze blew a breath of mist over the windshield; he ticked the wipers a few times to clean the glass.
“She’s had three moving violations this year, prior to this one,” Dan said, picking up the conversation as if there had been no interruption. “And her business has fallen off. You can tell by the number of clients she gets.”
“Okay.” Brad really didn’t want to talk about this.
“Some people say I’m a little bit obsessed with her. My wife, for one. Maybe you think so, too.”
“No.” Yes, Brad thought.
“What those people don’t understand is that it’s my job to keep this town clean. That means scrubbing out the dirt. It means spraying the roaches. Parker is a fucking tumor, and she has to be excised.”
He seemed to have mixed his metaphors there. “Harsh, Chief,” Brad murmured.
“No more than she deserves.” Dan studied him with a cool, squinty gaze. “You’re feeling awfully chivalrous tonight.”
Brad shifted in his seat. “Not really.”
“You don’t need to defend her. It’s not like she’s your girlfriend. Or is she?”
The question caught him off guard. He felt his gut tighten. “What?”
“You and her are about the same age. You could’ve hooked up.” Dan was smiling.
“Come off it,” Brad said with a nervous shrug.
“Why not? Some people might say she’s a sweet little slice.”
“She’s a criminal.”
“Maybe you like bad girls.”
Brad blinked. Bonnie’s voice came back to him, a teasing whisper: Don’t kid yourself, Walsh. I’m a bad, bad girl …
She’d said that to him in February, just before everything between them had fallen apart. At the time he’d taken it as a joke. Then he’d found out just how true it was. The reality had struck him like a slap. She’d made a fool out of him. She’d lied straight to his face. And he’d hated her for it.
He still did. He always would. And yet …
Even hating her, he hadn’t been able to forget her.
He’d met some girls, of course—he was always meeting girls—but somehow they just hadn’t done it for him the way she had. They’d been … ordinary. They’d held regular jobs. The biggest risk they took was navigating the traffic circle on 35.
Bonnie, on the other hand … her whole life was a risk. All she did was take chances. She lived for danger, and she was dangerous herself, and though he knew it was crazy, there was something about her that he just couldn’t shake free of.
And now here was his boss, making cracks about her being, you know, his girlfriend.
But Dan couldn’t know anything about that. No one did. Right?
When Brad let his gaze slide sideways to the passenger seat, he saw a sly smirk puckering the corner of Dan Maguire’s mouth.