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CHAPTER25
The closer Gabe got to the office, the less he thought it was plausible the surviving daughter tried to erase the case. If she wanted it gone, she could have petitioned the court to have it completely expunged. Back to square one.
He returned to his office to find Madden waiting for him.
“Where have you been?”
Gabe frowned; Madden had adopted the tone of an irritated mother. He walked around his desk but stayed standing. “Lunch.”
“For two hours?”
“I did some work on a couple of cases.”
“The file under your arm?”
“No. What is this? Are you going to micromanage me to death?”
She folded her arms and pursed her lips. “I’m trying to save you from yourself. I benched you to keep you out of trouble.”
Thoroughly confused, Gabe struggled to keep a cop face. “Trouble? You got me in trouble for doing my job.”
“Right now, your job is here, working on the cases I assigned you.” Madden spoke through clenched teeth, face red and getting redder. “I heard the scanner. I know they found a body. If I find out you were there on scene, I won’t have to micromanage you. You’ll be out of a job.” She punctuated her last sentence with her index finger, then turned on her heel and stormed out of his office.
Jaw tight with anger, Gabe realized the PD must have found a body related to Jess’s shooting. He had a scanner as well but hadn’t turned it on since his “benching.” Madden thought he was out working on the shooting.
Gabe put the accident file down on his desk. He sat and steepled his fingers, resting his chin on his thumbs, thinking.
Forgetting all about the cold case, he wanted to know about the body. He did the only thing he could do and called Danni on her personal phone.
+++
Yen had called for backup and saved the day. When the bomb went off, the crowd at the end of the alley exploded as if they were all primed with energy drinks. Officers in riot gear were able to contain them until the body could be loaded into the coroner’s van and removed from the scene. Since they believed the body had been dumped, there was no need to keep the area locked down for a long period of time. But getting all the officers and vehicles out of the area was tricky. Current policy said they couldn’t do anything other than contain the threat and retreat.
“I can’t believe this!” Danni vented at Matt. By the time they were clear of the area, she was furious. “We’re cops, not firefighters; we don’t contain and retreat. We disperse and arrest.”
“Not anymore.”
“I can’t believe this is Chief Estes.”
“It’s not. It’s Elise Whiteout.”
“But doesn’t Estes fight for us? This is crazy. Two black-and-whites were damaged and we’re lucky no cops were. We ran away, Matt. We. Ran. Away.”
“Yep, we skedaddled for sure.”
“Doesn’t it bug you?”
“’Course it does. Just nothing I can do about it. Don’t you remember the circle of influence? Control, influence, conce—”
“Stop, please stop.”
“Just trying to help, partner.”
Danni’s phone rang.
“Calm down before you answer it.”
She shot Matt a glare and looked at the phone. It was Gabe. Danni suddenly felt as if he was the one person she most needed to talk to at the moment. Except she didn’t want to talk to him in front of Matt. She let the call go to voice mail and then sent him a text.
