“Because I’m going to help you find the real culprit.” They’d been over this. Why rehash? “Then you can take that information to the cops and hopefully clear yourself.”
“Won’t we cross paths with some of the cops while we are doing this investigation of yours?”
She let her eyebrows rise. “That is a possibility. I am sure I can deal with it when the situation arises—” Her phone beeped. A discordant, rough note. Chole pulled her phone from her bag. “Excuse me. That’s my brother texting.” She read the quick text and fired off a response. When she looked up, Kingston had a pensive expression on his face.
“There a problem?” he asked her.
“At least a dozen of them, but I’m trying to work them out.” She shoved the phone back into her bag. “Shall we?”
“Where is our first stop?”
“Honestly, I’d like to take a look at the Serpent again, but that’s not happening.”
He shook his head. “Cops have it completely blocked off.”
Because the investigation there would be quite lengthy. “So how about, instead, you take me to the facility you use to house your blackmail material?”
Kingston didn’t so much as blink. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”
Chloe sighed. “And I’m afraid you’re wasting my time.” Her gaze darted around the house. “I’d thought that perhaps the material was here, but no such luck.” Her attention returned to him. “I know you video the high stakes matches in your VIP rooms. I know that you have security on your security. You watch everyone who enters your domain. You find secrets that are useful, and you make those secrets work for you.”
“Interesting ideas you have.”
“The bomber didn’t know. If he or she had known, there would have been an attack at the secondary location. Instead, the VIP rooms were destroyed, and the security footage room was destroyed.” She glanced down at her watch. Burning daylight. “Don’t play, Kingston.” Her stare returned to him. “You have security footage. I want it. After Lucia was killed, someone at the Serpent drugged my brother. They took him and they put him in her bed. When I went to retrieve information from the Serpent—when I went to see which staff member had talked to my brother or what patron had been spending time with him—bam, the place exploded.”
He swallowed.
“Inside job,” she told him smoothly. “You were right on that. But this inside person doesn’t know you like I do. This person doesn’t know that you trust no one. That you have security on your security and that secrets are your business. So let’s cut through the lies. Take me to a place where I can see the footage. I need to know who set this in motion.”
***
“I remember you from last night.” The woman in the hospital bed stared straight at Joel. “You saved my life. You and your girlfriend.”
Joel had slipped into the hospital room of Kelly Addams moments before. He wasn’t even sure why he was there but…
I didn’t hurt her. Gordo was wrong. I saved someone. And if he had saved someone, then maybe he didn’t have to leave Chloe. He was trying to think past the shock and the rage and figure out what the hell to do next.
“Are you a doctor?” She tried to push up in the bed. The machines around her immediately began frantically beeping.
“Take it easy.” He lifted his hands toward her in one of those automatic, soothing motions. “You don’t need to do anything to stress your body.” Her legs were immobile. He moved closer to the bed so he could get a look at the work that had been performed so far.
“They put screws in the left leg.” She scrunched her nose. “I heard one of the nurses saying that I’d have to do physical therapy, but that I was lucky I hadn’t lost the leg.”
His lips thinned.
“I don’t remember what happened. One minute, I was at the Serpent, and the next, that woman with the dark hair and bright eyes—your girlfriend, I guess?—was there. She was trying to get a cabinet off me.”
Chloe. For a moment, he remembered how absolutely terrified he’d been when he realized Chloe had gone back into the club. “Why do you keep saying she’s my girlfriend?”
“Because I…I heard the two of you.” A ghost of a smile lifted her lips and briefly lit her eyes. “You argued like a couple.”
He glanced away.
“Thank you,” she told him quietly. Her voice had slurred a little.
His gaze slid back to her. “You’re on morphine, aren’t you?”
She drifted back against the pillows. “The good stuff,” she murmured.
He shouldn’t be there. “Rest.” Joel turned for the door.
“I…would have died in there. If you hadn’t gotten me out.”
“I’m glad I was able to help.” His words came out sounding hoarse. “Do you…did you work at the Serpent?” Asking her questions when she was drugged up was wrong. “Never mind.”
“Yeah. I help with security.” Even more slurred. Her lashes were sagging. An IV dripped into her arm. “Started…last…”
She didn’t get to say more. She’d drifted away. Joel figured she must have recently gotten her dosage. His gaze swept over her once more. “I’m glad I was there,” he said again. Very glad.
She’d made it. Survived. A monster wouldn’t help people to survive. He was more than that. Maybe…could Chloe have been right? Could the freak out there who’d attacked Joel—had he failed in his plan?
No, he didn’t fail. You fucking killed the wrong man.
Squaring his shoulders, Joel strode for the door. He wished he could look at Kelly’s file, but it was at the nurse’s station, and he doubted they’d just hand it over to him. Though maybe he could bullshit his way to—
“What do you know? Chloe was right.”
He stilled in the corridor. Turned his head slowly. And met the watchful gaze of Detective Cedric Coleman.
“She said you’d be here. That you would probably be interviewing the witness even though no one is supposed to be talking to her.” Cedric’s annoyed gaze drifted down the hallway. “Where the hell is the uniform I put on her?”
“No clue. Never saw a uniform.”
Cedric shook his head. “You need to get out of here. Come on.” He turned, obviously expecting Joel to follow him. “Let’s get outside and—”
“I killed the wrong man.”
Cedric’s shoulders straightened. “Not now. Not here.” He kept walking.
Joel gaped after him. Had the detective not heard what he’d just said? “Cedric—”
Cedric spun to face him. “The first time you met Chloe, didn’t I warn you away?”
Yes, he had.
“But you didn’t listen. Like a moth to a dumbass flame.” He pointed at Joel. “Not now. Not here. You got me?”
“I got you.”
“Good.” Cedric whirled and started double-timing it down the hallway. As he hurried past the nurse’s station he paused only long enough to say, “Make an announcement to get that uniform back at his station. If he’s not there in five minutes, you call me, got it?”