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Fourteen

A couple hours later, Madison could almost squeeze out the stench of the garbage—almost. Her stomach, though, was aware of the lingering potency.

It was probably about time for her to get moving anyhow. A quick look at her phone told her it was just after one in the morning. Her eyes were getting heavy, but she’d been up since about eight yesterday morning. Troy had an incessant need to clean the house every Saturday first thing, and he would keep the noise down, but the aroma of cleaners still found their way to their room and her nose. Come to think of it, her sense of smell was highly attuned these days. Whatever that was about.

The back door of Club Sophisticated swung open, and she lifted her camera. Blake Golden and Jonathan Wright. Seeing them made her hesitate, though, she shouldn’t know why. Their presence here wasn’t a huge surprise.

Madison had dated Golden for a while—that is, until she found out he put his defense-attorney skills to work for Dimitre Petrov, the Russian Mafia don.

Madison took a few pictures of the two men.

Wright was holding the door and peeked into the club, as if waiting on someone.

Madison adjusted her posture, sat up a little more. Still poised to hit the shutter button.

A man came through the doorway. Officer Dustin Phelps. Picture taken.

And another man. Officer Garrett Murphy. Image captured.

Her heart was racing. She didn’t have the officers with a direct associate of the Mafia, but Golden and Wright could, by a stretch, be considered associates. It was disgusting to see her suspicions confirmed. Phelps and Murphy had taken an oath to serve and protect.

But things became even more difficult with Murphy. He’d been the best man at Cynthia’s wedding, a last-minute stand-in. Madison would make certain he was corrupt before raising her concerns to her friend.

Golden and Wright went west, and Phelps and Murphy moved at a crawl in the opposite direction. Neither was saying anything, which was unfortunate.

The door swung open again.

“Are you coming or what?” Phelps called out to a man who’d just exited.

“Yes, Mom.” The man’s face, even in the dim lighting of the alley, mostly shadows, was familiar. It was Joel Phelps, Dustin’s brother.

Madison couldn’t see Dustin and Murphy, who were now blocked by the dumpster, but she no longer heard their footsteps. They must have been waiting for Joel.

Shortly after, their steps resumed, tapping off in an even rhythm, unlike Madison’s heart. She’d had her suspicions about Joel before now, but it would seem they were confirmed. He, too, was corrupt. He worked as a freelance reporter and often contributed to the Stiles Times. Madison had been curious if he had somehow found out about King’s poking around and been behind the threat on King’s mother.

She’d love to pay Joel Phelps a visit, really get in his face, but there’d be no advantage. He’d just tip off his little brother, who would also inform Murphy. It would either make them burrow further underground or invoke retaliation.

She waited things out until she heard nothing other than the bass of the clubs before coming out of her hidey shithole. She started to move and stopped cold.

A scraping noise. What the hell—

She found the source and slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. A rat, the size of a small groundhog scurried out, its nose twitching, its beady eyes staring, and its throat making some dreadful squeak.

She flew from her hiding spot and performed a full-body shimmy. She wouldn’t be able to shower long enough to wash tonight off, but before she’d have the luxury of even trying, she had a stop to make.

The storage building housed a couple hundred units of varying sizes. Madison had leased a small one. She walked through the maze of hallways; each section was motion-triggered to turn on lighting as she moved along. It put her in every spy movie ever written, and she felt like she might be getting in over her head. But she couldn’t bring herself to turn her back on the corruption in her city, and she couldn’t exactly come out with her mission to Troy. She just didn’t think he’d fully understand her need.

She stopped outside unit 135, slipped the key into the padlock, and pushed up on the garage-style door. She pocketed the padlock. Thanks to common sense and those previously mentioned movies, she wasn’t going to be careless enough to make it easy if a baddie was tailing her to lock her inside. They’d have to bring their own lock anyway. That thought did little to comfort her.

She stepped inside, facing the flood of guilt she always experienced from deceiving the people she loved. She worked to offset the chastisement with the justification that she was keeping them safe by housing anything related to her little side mission separate from them.

She flicked on a light and lowered the door, leaving it open just about a foot from the ground—another precaution.

The unit was about function not beauty. She had a shelving unit, corkboard, desk, chair, computer, and printer. She’d paid for all of it in cash, not that Troy was in the business of snooping through her purchases. But the money had come from her grandmother, which Madison felt was fitting. After all, if it wasn’t for her grandfather taking down one of the Mafia’s bookkeepers, he might still be alive today. Instead, Madison had never met him, and she’d lost her grandmother five years ago to a cancerous brain tumor.

Madison plugged her camera into the computer and transferred the pictures she’d taken. If anyone ever got ahold of it, they’d find nothing on the data card. She was quite sure coming up with a story to explain a camera in her trunk would be far easier than explaining why she had pictures of people coming out of Club Sophisticated, including fellow officers, depending on who was asking the question.

She brought up the images one at a time, zooming in and studying them. She paused on the photo of Blake Golden and Jonathan Wright. Wright had tailed her and Terry during the investigation into the murder of Randall’s son, and she was quite certain that he was in cahoots with Petrov’s right-hand men at the time. She’d also been quite sure that relationship had resulted in the murder of Ryan Turner, a friend of Randall’s son, who was a threat to the business tycoon and possibly the Mafia. Ryan had died of an overdose—accidental, was the story—but Madison had never bought that. To her, though, Wright hanging out at Club Sophisticated was all the proof she needed that the guy was dirty—former Marine or not.

She stared at her photos for a while longer, then slumped in the chair. She was exhausted and frustrated. Really all these pictures proved was these men kept company with each other at a club, at least formerly haunted by the mob. She was going to need better if she was ever going to nail Phelps and Murphy.

But, if she could prove those cops were keeping company with the mob, that would be more than enough probative cause for an IA investigation. Maybe instead of trying to dig dirt on the officers directly, she should focus on the mystery woman.

She brought up the picture that Leland King had taken. She would have had another photo of the woman tonight if it hadn’t been for Claws showing up. Madison zoomed in on her face. Beautiful, delicate features and brown eyes. But she was nameless. And it wouldn’t matter how much staring Madison did, she couldn’t conjure one up out of nowhere. She didn’t have the “gift” Claws did.

She shut down her computer. It was time to call it a night and get under a showerhead.

Maybe when she woke up tomorrow morning, she’d have some grand epiphany about how to identify the mystery woman without involving Leland King.