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“And after?”
Her throat bobs on a hard swallow. “I’ll transfer out. Like I should’ve done after we closed the last case.”
I lower my arms, moving away from her. Away from the thick air threatening to strangle me. “Fine. We’ll see this to the end. Only because of Avery. I’m doing this for her.”
“I know,” she says. “You’re doing the right thing. No matter if your mind wants to argue with logic.”
A knock sounds at the door, and Sadie hurriedly tucks the journal pages beneath her jacket as a uni pops his head inside. “Oh, sorry. This room hasn’t been cleared yet.”
“We’re working it,” I tell him.
The officer acknowledges my rank with a solute and leaves. “Dip shit,” I mutter, then track back to the other side of the office. I sigh out my frustration. “Okay. After Wells was…removed,” I hesitate, still struggling to admit aloud that Sadie killed him, “the Alpha then needed another source. Let’s say Larkin couldn’t be bought or bribed. Even blackmail wasn’t a strong enough persuasion to force Larkin to hand over the keys to his kingdom.” When I look at Sadie again, we’re in sync. “The Alpha needed some reassurance on the inside that The Firm could be accessed for the auction. Maddox.”
She nods encouragingly. “But now that Maddox has been connected to the murders, he’s a risk. Can’t chance the lawyer rolling over.”
I crouch down, prop my head in my hands. The logic is there, but something’s missing. “The Alpha doesn’t handle his affairs in person. We saw that at the warehouse bust.” I glance up. “If the Alpha is too well hidden within the system, he’d send in a proxy.”
“Alex King. The anonymous source that blackmailed Larkin, got Maddox in place, and who abducted Avery to correct the Trifecta drug.”
There it is. “The Feds want us to believe King is an alias for McGregor. But records were altered after McGregor’s arrest. I saw that.” I chew on the idea a moment before I’m able to voice it. “Larkin was approached by King once before. He’s the only one who knows what this fucker looks like and might be able to draw him out again.”
Only he’s refusing to cooperate.
Sadie takes the pages from her jacket and slips them into an evidence bag. “Wells’ trophies might be of interest to the Alpha if he believes Wells left a trail.” She steps closer. “We can use them. We don’t necessarily need Larkin on this.”
I stare at the door, as if I can picture Larkin sitting at his chessboard on the other side of the building. He’s plotting his own way to protect his queen. “All right,” I say, finding Sadie’s eyes. “We’ll work that angle. But I’m still going to find out what the hell the Alpha has on Larkin. I want answers from him.”
Her eyebrows hike. “You’re getting ruthless in your old age.”
All I have to do is recall the fear in Avery’s eyes every time we train. Every time the Alpha is mentioned. Every time she glimpses my gun. And I know there’s no other choice. If I have to take down every player in this sordid game, I will. Myself included.
I head toward the door. “Just don’t misplace those trophies. We need to send the Alpha a message.” One he can’t ignore.
She thinks it over a moment. “The two perps,” she says. “We need to get them inside The Lair.”
I huff a clipped laugh. “Because that’s simple enough.”
She smiles. “Method of persuasion. It’s not hard to know how to bend a weak mind to your will.” With that, she leaves.
Right. If anyone can bend a weak mind, it’s a profiler with a vendetta.
8
Dead Weight
Avery
There’s always this looming sense of tomorrow. The unreachable finish line at the end of the case, where Quinn apprehends the Alpha, and suddenly—like magic—I return to the person before.
Before.
I’ve studied enough psychology in college to know that concept is a deception. Search hard enough for it and it could even become a delusion—one that will drive me crazy.
Tomorrow doesn’t exist. Because the old Avery doesn’t exist. I can never go back to that place before the dread. The timeline has been disrupted. There’s a break in the continuity of my life, and when I chose a different path, when I hopped the rails, my destination forever changed.
My hands shake as I enter data into the report. I don’t know how Quinn and Sadie do it. How they look at a victim’s life and detect that one incident that disrupted the vic’s course. I only serve the facts. They have to link all the decisions, the little insignificant choices and details that led the vic to their demise.
I would go insane questioning my every thought and move. When you know that a choice as simple as what coffee shop to stop at in the morning could result in death…how do you live?
