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“I just hate seeing her dragged through this shit.”
Quietly, Hammer worried what all this upheaval would do to her emotional progress, but he didn’t speak the words. He simply had to believe in her and support her as best he could for as long as he was able.
A knock on the front door interrupted his musings. He and Liam frowned. Neither were expecting company, especially near midnight. His heart stopped for a moment. Were the police coming back to…what, arrest him? Already?
“I’ll get it.” Liam stood.
“I will.” Hammer beat him out of the kitchen, knowing he had to face his own mess. “I’m sure it’s for me.”
With a sigh, he wrenched the front door open, braced for more uniformed officers and a pair of handcuffs not intended for play. Instead, he found Dean Gorman standing on the porch, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low, along with a ratty leather jacket, T-shirt, and jeans. The car parked at the curb didn’t belong to him.
“Hey.” The cop’s voice sounded grim.
Hammer understood instantly that Dean had taken a huge risk by coming here. “Can you come in?”
The officer looked over his shoulder, then nodded, peeling off his shades. “For a minute.”
Stepping back to admit him, Hammer’s guts twisted. Dean couldn’t have good news.
“Hello,” Liam welcomed. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks. I can’t stay long. I also can’t talk to you from my personal cell anymore, in case they subpoena your phone records. That’s why I dropped by unannounced.”
“I totally understand.” The truth weighed heavily on Hammer. He’d become the criminal. The courts might say he was innocent until proven guilty, but in the eyes of the force, he was dirty as sin. “Seat?”
Dean shook his head. “I just came by to give you what information I can. I’m sorry about what went down today. I didn’t get to finish giving you a heads-up earlier, but it wouldn’t have mattered. At that point, I didn’t know you’d become a suspect. I’d just seen River Kendall waltz into the station of his own free will with a briefcase and a lawyer, and I thought you’d want to know. Then I left for the armed robbery call. Sorry.”
Hammer shook his head. “You went above and beyond. Thanks for trying to help.”
“Raine okay?”
As okay as she could be, given the circumstances. “Fine. Getting ready for bed.”
Gorman nodded, all business now. “Here’s what I can tell you: Winslow and Cameron? Watch out. They’re ruthless. They feed off each other and they play to win. Years in Vice have warped their minds, and they’re convinced everyone remotely involved with BDSM, swinging, club sex—anything not ‘normal’—is a pervert or pedophile. They will never see your side of the story with Raine, so don’t try.”
“My lawyer advised against me opening my mouth in general.”
“Smart.” From the inside pocket of his leather jacket, he withdrew a manila envelope. “These are the pictures Seth slipped me of Raine, taken after the last beating her father gave her before she ran away. Detectives Bates and Sanchez put them in Bill Kendall’s file since they helped to establish that Raine acted in self-defense. Being from homicide, they weren’t so interested in the fact that you had photos of a minor. But Winslow and Cameron will flip their shit if they find out. I don’t know if anyone scanned these into our digital evidence system. They’re months behind, so maybe not. Just in case, I thought I’d remove the physical copies from the evidence room. But you didn’t get them from me. Thank goodness you had the foresight not to admit you’d taken the pictures. Saying that Raine had given you these images in case her father came after her again was perfect.”
Hammer snagged the envelope from Dean. He owed the man, who’d risked both his livelihood and his freedom to help, a huge debt. “Thanks.”
Dean nodded. “Get rid of them. They’re a liability you can’t afford.”
“Absolutely. Now that Bill is dead, Raine would feel better if they were destroyed anyway.”
“Do it fast. You can bet Winslow and Cameron will show up here and at Shadows in the next few days—maybe hours—with search warrants. It would be better for everyone if these copies and their originals disappeared. In fact, get rid of anything in either location that can incriminate you. Pictures or surveillance video of Raine at Shadows before she turned eighteen should be high on your list, too. If you have either saved on your phone, cloud, or computer, wipe everything clean. Delete old accounts. Start new ones. And you never heard this from me.” He peeled off his cap with a sigh. “It would mean my ass.”
A gong of foreboding resounded through Hammer all over again. Everything was happening so quickly, and he hadn’t seen the search warrants coming. Which overwhelmed him because he should have.
