Shit! Bob had killed them.
He had to have. He was destroying the evidence. That was the only explanation that made sense.
My stomach turned over.
Kayden’s hand gripped my shoulder, and I held up one finger. Wait.
“A hundred grand is more than fair for one old man.” Bob’s voice dropped further, angry and lethal.
One old man? Had to be Frank. So Frank was still alive.
“You find him, you bring him to me breathing, and you get paid. That’s the arrangement.”
Bob had a bounty on Frank’s head.
My mind was moving fast. Was that why Bruce and Wayne were dead? Because they’d failed to deliver?
“I don’t care. Find him.” A beat of silence followed, then footsteps headed back toward the kitchen.
I pressed flat against the wall, gripped my weapon, and stopped breathing.
Bob’s shadow spilled across the door threshold when he crouched down with his back toward me. I peered around the doorframe. Bob was crouched beside Wayne. He pulled the rag from his back pocket and wiped the floor in front of Wayne’s face.
Is he wiping away fingerprints?
Every doubt I’d been carrying for the last twenty-four hours hardened into one cold, undeniable piece of certainty. Bob was a crooked cop.
He’d put a bounty on Frank Branson.
Bruce and Wayne Henderson had been his hired muscle.
When they’d failed, Bob had killed them.
I glanced at Kayden over my shoulder. His jaw was set, his eyes hard and steady. He gave me one short nod.
I pushed out a breath, shoved the screen door open with my boot, and stepped into the kitchen with my weapon aimed at my boss’s face.
“Hands where I can see them, Bob. Step away from the body.”
He froze. Just a beat. Then he turned, slowly and deliberately, hands rising as he came around, and I clocked the latex gloves on his hands.
“Stand down, Delaney.” He didn’t look surprised. He didn’t look afraid. He was just assessing me like he did in every meeting.
“Put your hands up.”
“Sapphire.” His voice was gentle, the same voice he’d used on me a hundred times at the station. “What are you doing here? Put the gun down.”
“Turn around, Bob. Hands on your head.”
“Sapphire, listen to me.”
“Hands on your head!”
He didn’t move. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Hands on your head, Bob.” I kept my voice level. Professional.
“You don’t understand what you’ve walked into. Frank did this. He’s been hiding in this house for weeks. He butchered these two. Look at them. I came here looking for Frank and found this mess.”
