“The kind who doesn’t care what happens to other people,” I tell him. “I mean, there are kids who live on that street. What if one of them had grabbed the bottle?”
“Exactly.” He moves closer to me, his fingers tucking a lock of hair behind my ear and sending my pulse into a gallop. “We have to look out for each other. Sticking together is the only way to deal with these commandos.”
“Good enough,” Liam says over my earbud. “Get out of there.”
Frank’s fingers grip my chin, the hold tightening when I try to pull back. I draw a quick breath, my mind racing my heart.
“It’s all right,” Frank whispers. “I know you’ve wanted this since you walked into Denton Uncovered. There’s no reason to fight it any longer.”
“If you want us to come in, clear your throat,” Liam says over the earbud.
Frank’s breath tickles my skin, his bug-spray scent making bile climb up my throat. But I don’t clear it. Because the last thing I need is more flying fists and splattering blood—and that is exactly how the Tridents’ version of backup is going to play out if I let them in here just now. Pinching the corner of my eye with two fingers, I wipe some black smudge along the bottom lid and jerk back hard, holding the makeup toward Frank’s face like garlic before a vampire. “Oh my God! I must look like a hot mess. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
Frank blinks, indecision playing across his face.
“Do you mind helping me construct my statement after I get cleaned up?” I press on, getting to my feet. “I’m not up for doing it myself just now. I know it’s an imposition.”
“Of course.” By the time Frank finds his voice, I’m already halfway to the washroom. More importantly, I’m yards away from the man. “I’m here to help.”
“Thank you, Frank.” For once, there’s nothing fake about the sincerity in my tone, because I mean every word. “Thank you so much for talking me through this.”
“Yes, I appreciate it as well,” Chief Arnie Jackson booms, walking in as if he owns the place, his salt-and-pepper mustache defining a strong upper lip. Frank, who was still leaning against the table from which I escaped, stares at the chief like a deer caught in the headlights, blinking only when the door opens again, this time to admit Cullen and Liam.
Cullen holds his arm out to me, and I walk gratefully into his embrace, while Liam holds up a cell phone—a recorder app already pulled up. A flick of Liam’s finger, and Frank’s voice fills the newsroom once more.
“All raw truth, Sky.” Frank’s breathing on the recording sounds even more intrusive than it had in real life. “I replaced his prazosin with a placebo two weeks back.”
Liam throws the recording onto what passes for a conference room table in Denton Uncovered’s newsroom, the chief pulling a chair out for himself. “Take a seat, Frank.”
Moving with impressive self-possession, Frank walks over to his desk, stows away the blank sheet he’d handed me for my “statement,” and reaches for something deeper inside the drawer. For one insane second, I imagine he’s somehow planted a gun inside the drawer, but what he retrieves is nothing more hazardous than a sheaf of papers.
“Good morning, Arnie.” Ignoring the Tridents altogether, my editor pulls a chair out for himself beside the chief. Settling in, Frank motions me to a free seat as if I’d walked in on a companionable chat instead of having just set him up for criminal charges.
My stomach tightens. Frank is sleazy and two-faced and vindictive. But he’s also a coward. Which does not at all jive with the self-possession oozing from him now.
I glance at Cullen, but the man’s stony face gives away nothing of his thoughts.
“Frank,” says Arnie. “I’m pretty disturbed by what I just heard. Trespassing, theft of a controlled substance, mail tampering. We’re talking federal offenses here—and I haven’t even talked to the prosecutor yet to get a comprehensive list. I’ll level with you—it’s a bad situation. But I’ve known you for a long time. I think maybe you had your reasons. You don’t have to talk to me just now, and you can get on the horn with your lawyer, if you’d like, but I wouldn’t sleep right if I didn’t at least offer you a chance to help yourself out of this mess.”
“Help myself out?” Frank parrots. His eyes narrow on me and Cullen for a moment, but then return to the chief with too great an inner confidence. “What did you have in mind, Arnie?”
Arnie reaches between his legs to adjust his chair, then leans forward. “Accept responsibility, give me some names, and we can talk about a plea deal.”
“Mmmmm. I see,” my editor drawls. “I had something different in mind, though. I’m an extraordinarily careful man, you see. And I like information. It’s what keeps the world moving. You want to know things, I want to know things, the public wants to know things.”
“What are you blathering on about?” Palm on the edge of the table opposite Frank, Liam manages to loom over everyone without even trying.
Frank holds up the papers he pulled from his drawer. “I’ll let Arnie here tell you.”
As he slides the papers over to the chief, I glimpse the front page of notes and feel the blood drain from my face. These are my papers. The story I’ve been working on for weeks about the response times of the Denton Valley PD by neighborhood. I’d gone through several drafts of the piece, and the copy in the police chief’s possession is an early version exploring a possible corruption angle. Since gathering more data, I’d started a second piece that cast doubt on my original assumptions, but that’s not what’s on the table now.
It’s not what Chief Arnie Jackson is reading, his face darkening with every word.
Every word that I wrote, dragging his whole department through the mud. Shit. I can’t look at Cullen, can’t even think of any of the Tridents. In two minutes’ time, I’ve just plummeted from being a star evidence collector to becoming a Denton PD persona non grata. That has to be a damn record. More to the point, it makes everything I touch radioactive. Including that recording Liam tossed onto that table.
“I like the idea of helping each other out, Arnie,” Frank says, leaning back in his chair as the chief leafs through one page after another. “I personally think the DVPD is doing the best it can with the resources it has. There’s only so much ‘more with less’ that anyone can do. But you know how the public likes to rush to conclusions. Still, maybe there’s a way we can help each other, like you said. A win-win.”
41
Sky
“Ms. Reynolds.” The chief of the Denton PD turns his stern pale eyes to me, making the heat of mortification surge to my face. “Were you planning to print this?”
“No, sir,” I stutter out.
He raises a brow. “Your name is on the byline. Is this a forgery?”
My hand closes around the edge of the table, but there’s nothing I can do except tell the truth. It’s who I am. As a person and as a journalist. “It’s my first draft, sir. Based on preliminary statistics and interviews. But those don’t form a complete picture. I like having an angle when I draft, but then assumptions often get disproven. That isn’t a finished draft, sir. It isn’t even the most up-to-date draft that takes into account actual calls made to the police.”