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Mark
Mark went downstairs and pulled his comm out as soon as he reached the stairwell. “Yu,” he said when his colleague answered. “Let Anderson know that if Darby asks, you’re having me consult on whatever case you’re on right now. Make up something if you have to.”
“Problems with the missus, huh?”
Mark chuckled. “Something like that.”
“Sure, we got your back.”
“Thanks. I owe you.”
“You’d do the same for us.”
Mark went down to the evidence room. It took up nearly a quarter of the footprint of the building. He signed in, then used the computer in the locked area to search for recent drug busts, the volume, and whether the evidence had been accessed recently.
As he looked, he called Xander and asked whether he’d received the blood from Melinda. He had and had gotten a preliminary report even.
“It was some strong ecstasy, Mark,” Xander said.
“Have you crossed it to a vice case at all?”
“I was just getting ready to do my first search. Can you hang on?”
He did, waiting as patiently as possible.
“I’ve got three recent cases,” the head of the lab said. “I’ll send the case numbers over now.”
“Three cases with the same batch?”
“Yeah, it’s not as unheard of as you’d think.”
“Who are the investigators?”
“I’ll send that too.” Xander sighed. “I wish this hadn’t happened to her.”
Mark nodded. “Me too. I just want to figure out if it was someone from our department who gave it to her.”
“You think it could be?”
“I want to rule it out. With three busts...”
“Yeah. Good luck. I hope it’s not someone within the BPD.”
Yeah, me too.
Because if it was, she wouldn’t believe him capable of it. Mark would have to have a stack of evidence to prove it.
Mark got the message from Xander and found the cases he’d crossed. He had to smile when Xander warned him that it was preliminary only. Careful.
He checked the reports from the investigators. The first one had been from a user who’d had seven pills on him. The second was similar, but fifteen.
The third seemed to be from a larger bust—possibly the dealer? It had included nearly a thousand pills of ecstasy, as well as several other drugs guaranteed to either get you high or get you laid.
Mark looked that file over. Of the ecstasy, there had been twenty random pills sent to both the internal lab as well as outside lab to confirm the strength and whether they’d been laced with any other drugs.
Nearly 800 pills remained in the locker.
As it had been an older bust—about six months ago—and Mark figured the dealers would be onto another batch by now, he was hedging his bets he’d find some missing pills.
Then it would be a matter of proving to Darby that her wannabe boyfriend had been the one to deliver the drugs to her last night.
He wanted to be wrong. He wanted the suspicious bone in his body to just be jealousy.
But with what Xander had just told him, he couldn’t afford to ignore the possibility.
He checked the smaller busts and found the number of pills he’d expected.
But he sat down at the table with sealed hands to review the larger bust.
It took ten minutes to count the pills in all the bags, and when he was done, he sighed heavily. Six bags were missing pills for a total of fifteen missing.
He called Xander, had him send a tech over, and waited. Xander himself arrived in short order, and Mark told him what he’d found.
“Want me to check for prints?”
“He was probably too smart for that, but yeah.”
Xander sighed. “You got it.”
He took it away, leaving Mark to clean up.
Mark sent a message to the investigating lieutenant on the case and let him know some of his drugs had gone missing, that it crossed on one of his own projects, and that he was looking into how it had been lost.
He glanced at the clock as he finished his message and winced. He’d been down here nearly forty-five minutes. This was going to be longer than Darby was going to accept as “helping Yu and Anderson.”
It couldn’t be avoided.
Next, he checked the logs and found that Will Young had come down on Wednesday to look at evidence on a burglary case.
It happened to be on a neighboring shelf to the drug case.
Mark glanced at the time he’d come down, then went back to the officer in charge of the log. “I need to see surveillance from Wednesday.” He told her the time.
She pulled it up and leaned back for Mark to watch.
When Will walked in, he glanced around, and went straight to the box with the ecstasy, took it out, and began to carefully slip out a few pills from each pouch. There’d originally been fifty in each bag, and he went through six bags, which matched what Mark had given to Xander.
Will grabbed another package that wasn’t ecstasy and slipped a few pills out of that one as well.
Damn it. What did he take on top of that?
Quickly, Will shoved the lid closed and did a cursory glance through the burglary box, probably in case someone came in.
Mark sighed as he and the officer watched Will walk out of the room. “Get me a copy of that footage,” he said. “Send it to Captain Moustakas, too. Label it confidential.”
“You got it, Detective.”
Mark left, and as he waited for the lift to arrive, drew his hand down his face. He had a smoking gun. But how was he going to explain this one to Darby?
Right now, they had him on possession and theft—but what Mark really wanted was to prove the asshole had drugged her himself. There was no way even with this he’d admit to it. Given the fact Darby had been drugged at the SHS meeting, there was some plausible deniability that perhaps he knew someone and had given them to that person who had then drugged Darby unbeknownst to him.
He still didn’t want to have her in the position to be drugged again, though.
And he had no doubt it would be the case.
He shuddered.
Mark got on the lift but took it up to the main floor. He needed some air.
Outside, he took out his comm and did a public search for William Young in Orlando, Florida. After narrowing it down by age—he pegged the guy to be younger than himself, but older than Darby—he found a few things of interest. Murder conviction three years ago, but wrong guy.
Another guy had a drunk driving conviction.
A third had a news story about him for helping the homeless get jobs at the theme parks.
And the last was a short story without a picture: William Young cuts deal with prosecutor over alleged manipulation and rape of two women.
The date was four weeks earlier.
No details on what the manipulation entailed, nor what the points on the deal were.
If it was the same William Young, he’d have to do more digging.
Mark found the number to the District Attorney’s office in Orlando, then cursed. It was five-thirty there, which meant there was no doubt they’d be closed for business.
He leaned his head against the building. He would have to go through channels, but maybe it was something the captain could do. He needed to know if it was the same guy.
Mark went inside and went straight to Moustakas’s office. His boss was with someone else, and he had to wait. As he did, he shot a look over at his and Darby’s desks. Darby had her back to him, apparently unaware he was back. She appeared to be talking on her comm.
A plan began to form in his head. She was going to hate it when she found out. But if he wanted to keep her—and possibly other women—safe from a possible predator, it was going to have to be done.
If Young had dosed Darby last night, she’d thwarted his attempt by leaving early. Would he try it again tonight on their date? Mark tried to think like someone who would do whatever they had to in order to take advantage of a woman. Maybe it would be too soon to try, maybe she’d get suspicious.
Maybe it wouldn’t matter to someone like that.
He glanced back at her again.
He couldn’t bear it if something bad happened to her. Not just on a professional level—which they’d been through already a couple times between her being kidnapped two and a half years ago and getting shot three weeks earlier. But also on a personal level. They’d been doing the relationship tango for the last several days, one step forward, two steps back, then two steps to the side.
If she could forgive him for his indiscretion, if he could fully put aside the anger and hurt she’d caused him, if they both could trust the other a little more, they could have the beginning of something truly special.
And he’d be damned if he was going to let an asshole like William Young take that away from him.
“Mark?” Moustakas said from behind him. “You needed something?”
“Yeah. I think I have a lead. I need you to help me find out a key piece.”
Moustakas looked past him toward where Darby still sat. “Let’s take this in my office. Shut the door behind you.”