Cooper nodded. He tapped his thumbnail against the rim of his glass for a second. “That’s where it started,” he said. “He also did favors for some of the residents.”
“Like?”
“Guess.”
“Murder?”
Cooper didn’t bother to mug shock at the suggestion. “No. Thankfully, we didn’t have to cover that up.” He didn’t bother to pretend theywouldn’thave covered it up either. “A null spouse that was being difficult about a divorce got a scare on the road when her car broke down and got pulled out by Night Shift just in time. A few creditors that didn’t plan to pursue a payment plan through the courts were invited up, then hunted by Night Shift through the woods. Most of them learned their lesson after they lost a finger. Or two.”
“To traps?”
“I heard about your man,” Cooper said. “Is he okay?”
“He’s at the hospital. His foot’s still attached,” Cade said. “Tonight should set him right.”
Cooper rubbed his leg absently at the thought. “I can’t imagine being lamed like that. As far as I know, it was a step too far for Piper too. I don’t know if that was morals or just because everything else he did, he could, mostly, pass off as just Night Shift business as usual. Once it came out what Piper’d been up to, some of it, we fired everyone on our side who we thought might have been involved. And then the Reserve fired us. That’s the whole story. So unless you have better whiskey or a real job offer…?”
There was something Cade had missed. He could feel the itch of it in the back of his head.
“If it was real, would you entertain it?” he asked.
Cooper pursed his lips for a moment, then shrugged it off. “Old dogs don’t learn new tricks,” he said. “It doesn’t pay. Anything else?”
The pieces clicked into place. Some of them, at least.
“Any of those creditors after Macroy?” Cade asked.
Cooper chuckled. “Sure,” he said. “But he never dealt with them, or Piper. It was that woman he worked with, the one that runs his office. Fucked if I can remember her name…”
“That’s okay,” Cade said. “I think I can guess.”
That obviously intrigued Cooper, but he didn’t ask before he left. Cade finished his whiskey and turned the glass in his hand absently as he sat there. Then he picked up the phone to call Marlow.
The trill of the ring tone dragged out before it finally cut off without the courtesy of a voicemail message.
Cade snorted. It saved him from a recording of him being an asshole, he supposed. He hit redial and put the phone on speaker as he sat down at his desk. While he waited, Cade pulled up the Tracers’ database and logged in. Most of the time he delegated this stuff to Lem, but he was more than capable of doing it himself.
He’d just finished typing when the phone rang.
“What?” Marlow mumbled at him through a yawn.
“I thought you’d want to know,” Cade said as he scanned the screen. “Olivia Farnham knew all about Piper and his… extra-curricular activities. She did the dirty work—or commissioned it—while Macroy kept his hands clean.”
Silence. Cade was just about to ask if Marlow had fallen asleep again when the man groaned.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “And Farnham’s a null.”
So she’d have been up and around on the night in question.
“Pick me up at the office,” Cade said. “You know where it is.”
Marlow’s bed creaked as he, Cade assumed, rolled over. Cade wondered if he had boxer shorts on again or was naked this time. Either worked for him.
“You’re not a cop,” Marlow said. “And you said that we weren’t working together anymore.”
A thin smile tugged at the corner of Cade’s mouth as he reached the end of the report and found the bit of information he’d been after. Or at least, the shape of it.
“I changed my mind,” he said. “And I know something you don’t.”
