Chapter One
Eric
Sergeant Eric Parker did not appreciate anonymous texts that hinted he should show up at court hearings when he wasn’t actively involved in the investigation. Eric had just wrapped up his own testimony regarding a case which had brought down a gunrunning gang that had terrorized Winnipeg for the better part of a decade. He’d made the streets a little safer, but he’d lost a lot of good men and women. Although the fight was always worth it, the price he’d paid was more personal this time.
He really didn’t like being blindsided by his ex-fiancée, who was about to take the stand, testifying against a former brother-in-blue who had been indicted in the federal arm of the same case. Bree Collingswood should have nothing to contribute. She was a translator, for fuck’s sake, not a cop. He’d done his best to keep her out of it. Obviously, since she was here, he’d failed worse than he previously knew.
Bree was one of the people he’d lost.
She looked good. Different, but good. Her chestnut hair was tied back in a half-ponytail in an attempt to tame her unruly curls. Her clothes, jewellery, and make-up were flawless in the ice-queen style she’d adopted after their breakup. He preferred her a little wilder, less refined, but he didn’t get a say anymore. Mostly he noticed her eyes. They were still amber brown, but not the same. Harder. More distant. Definitely more less open.
She raised her hand to be sworn in, and Eric saw her bare finger. Not even a tan line remained from where his ring had sat for two years. He hadn’t seen Bree in months but it still shocked him.
Then again, he’d told her to move on. He couldn’t bitch that she’d listened.
He sat up straight when his partner elbowed him in his ribs. He hadn’t been paying attention to the proceedings, but something had caught Adam’s attention.
“Miss Collingswood, can you recount for the court how you became involved in the case against former Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Zane?” the prosecutor asked.
Eric wanted to know that himself. After all he’d done to keep Bree away from his corrupt colleague, he didn’t understand how she’d ended up in the middle of the internal affairs case that had cost him so much.
“I was fulfilling a contract with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, translating phone intercepts on a classified investigation regarding gun smuggling from the United States into Canada. The RCMP listed the person arranging receipt of a shipment as an ‘unknown associate’. I recognized the voice. It was Constable Zane of the Winnipeg Police Service. I forwarded the speaker’s identity to the officer in charge of the investigation,” Bree said.
“How did you recognize Mr. Zane’s voice?”
“I’d met him socially several times. We were introduced through my brother, Constable Adam Collingswood, and my former fiancé, Sergeant Eric Parker, both of whom worked with Constable Zane at the time.”
Bree had known Zane. Bree had known everybody in Homicide, some of them longer than he had. That’s what happened when kids grew up with a life-long firefighter as a dad. With all the interaction between the Winnipeg Police Service and the Winnipeg Fire Department, she had friends and connections that would make a reporter jealous.
“What did you do after you reported Constable Zane to the officer in charge?” Tyson Grey, the Crown prosecutor, continued with his interrogation. Grey didn’t look like a typical government employee. His brush-cut and the tattoo peeking out from his starched shirt collar screamed badass, and the man made it work for him.
“I completed my translations.” It was such a typical Bree response, answering the question Tyson asked, rather than what he meant. It was even funnier knowing how sensitive she was to subtext. Eric had learned a few interview techniques after watching Bree choose her words while she was interpreting. If the Zane’s lawyers thought she was giving the Crown a bad time, the defense was in for a rude surprise once they started asking questions.
“What did you do about Constable Zane?” Tyson rephrased.
“Nothing.”
“Why not?”
“It wasn’t my job.”
“You didn’t contact him?” Tyson pressed.
“No. I didn’t contact him,” Bree parroted, annoyance growing with every word. Grey was going to have to back off or face the consequences. Backing off was the smarter play. The other lawyer sitting at the prosecution’s table, Courtney Fournier, had worked with Bree before and knew it too. She got Tyson’s attention and whispered shortly in his ear.
“Please tell us why you didn’t say anything to anybody,” Tyson said, rephrasing his original request to get the answer he wanted.
“I didn’t say anything because signed a confidentiality agreement. Whatever I heard or learned during the course of the contract couldn’t be mentioned outside of the investigation team. Besides, for all I knew, Zane could have been an undercover WPS operative. All I did was identify him.”
“Surely you told your brother. Or your fiancé?” Tyson asked.
Eric could answer that one for her.
She didn’t.
Bree hadn’t said a word. She’d never even hinted she knew a cop in his unit was suspected of running guns. She should have. She’d put her own fiancé and brother at risk.
“Miss Collingswood, I asked you if you told your brother or former fiancé.” Tyson repeated.
