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At that moment, the door opened and Detective Brennan came in, two Styrofoam cups in hand. “Here you go.” He placed mine on the table and motioned to my phone with his elbow. “You’ll need to put that away.”
He wasn’t taking it away. That was something.
I slipped it off the table, but not before hitting the call button and placed it on the top of my bag, out of view of his gaze. I was hoping my brother was just being extra cautious, but I’d been in another police station when there’d been others plotting to go against my crew. One never knew how careful was too careful.
“Okay.” He had a file tucked under his arm and he grabbed it, opening it on the table. He took a picture from the top and turned it around, sliding it in front of me. “You know who that is?”
I looked. It was a woman.
Dark hair. Cardigan sweater. Pearl necklace. A pleated skirt, one that looked trendy a decade ago, and I couldn’t believe I just thought that. Aspen and her friends must’ve worn off on me more than I thought. She had a purse in hand, in mid-step off a curb and going toward a limousine. A phone was to her ear and she was looking off in the direction of whoever took this photograph, but not seeing them. She was looking at something or someone to the side, just in the same direction.
“No. Who is that?”
“That.” He pointed at the woman. “That is Meredith Harper, the wife of Timothy Harper, Sr. and the mother of Timothy Harper, Jr.”
I frowned. “Why am I seeing her picture?”
“Because she’s the reason you’re sitting here.”
I was confused. “Huh?”
He grinned before taking the picture back and sliding another one in front of me.
It was Harper’s dad. Same smirk. Same bone structure, except this guy had half the hair Harper did and a bigger gut. Harper didn’t have a gut, but he would in twenty years. He was also in handcuffs, his head down, and his pants undone. Whoever took this picture had perfect timing.
Harper, Sr. was being led out of a building, two cops beside him, and right behind him a woman was stepping out. Long legs. Tight dress. Hair hanging down. She was also in handcuffs.
“I’m just going to educate you here. This is Harper, Sr.” He pointed to the woman. “This is the hooker we arrested him with.” That picture was taken away and he laid out three more. Different men. Different women. All in handcuffs. “And this is the prostitution ring that Harper, Sr. participated in and was arrested during. How we found out about this—” Meredith Harper’s image was laid on top of them. “—was because Mrs. Harper here got tired of the cheating, the hookers, the drugs, and when she found out her husband impregnated Harper, Jr.’s high school girlfriend, she decided enough was enough. She came to us, and we pulled him in.”
I sat back, chewing on all this.
I wasn’t liking what I was feeling.
“What does this have to do with me?”
He took Meredith’s picture away and put Harper, Sr.’s picture back on top. “This guy didn’t like being arrested. This guy decided that he had information on the Red Demons, and he wanted to use it to get immunity for this shit.” He pulled away the top picture and used it to wave at the others. “Harper, Sr. was stupid because what we found out today is that all the evidence we thought we had on the Red Demons was bogus. All of it. Not the information itself. That was real, but Harper, Sr. can’t be used as a witness anymore because what we weren’t told is that Harper, Sr. is also in bed with the cartel.”
A phone started ringing in the room, and it wasn’t mine.
Detective Brennan stared at me, his eyes hard, and he clenched his jaw. “If I look at my ringer, am I going to find out that it’s coming from your brother?”
I swallowed. This guy was the most cop-like cop I’d ever met or seen on television. He was emanating frustration, exhaustion, but a ring of danger. And right now, the frustration was only slightly edging out the air of danger, and so I swallowed. Again.
And I didn’t answer that question.
He grunted before leaning back and pulling out his phone. He turned it off, then indicated my own. “Pull it out. Call your brother back—”
I reached for the phone, but it was still in use.
Channing’s voice sounded from it, “I’m here. I’m listening.”
Brennan gestured to the table. “Put it there.” He raised his voice. “But you listen, Monroe. Not a word.”
My brother, for once, was quiet.
I was also now impressed by this cop. As cops went, he might do.
“So, we have an issue. One, the case fell apart. We can’t bring forward a witness who will never testify, and we’ll know he’ll never testify because what cartel would ever let one of theirs enter the court of law. A dead witness. That’s who they’d let in. In a body bag, but cartel aside, last night Harper, Sr. and Harper, Jr. were both taken. And your sister here was a witness to Harper, Jr.’s kidnapping. Witnesses said that two of the men stopped and stared at you. Witnesses also said that you seemed like you recognized one—”
