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“As noisy as the press when I need the secret damn service.” She glares at the tech who spoke up. “Stop announcing my presence.” Henderson beelines for us. She pulls up short when she sees the dead body. “Well, fuck me. Fucking hell.”
If she wasn’t my superior I might have cracked a smile at her cursing.
“I know who this is. I recognize the face.” She slides her manicured hands, tastefully done, into the pockets of her black slacks. “It’s the senator’s son. He’s a party boy, by all accounts, but he’s well-known. His face is all over social media. Huge following on one of those platforms,” she finishes.
Devan must have been the one to call in the chief because it sure as shit wasn’t me. I step aside to give her some breathing room as she bends over to examine the body.
Chief Inspector Henderson is a middle-aged badass who lets her hair grow out into its natural salt-and-pepper state. No one has ever accused her of being beautiful but her features are striking, handsome. Her rounded no-nonsense chin and wide-set eyes give her an air of dignity.
She’s earned her respect, though, through her actions and deeds.
“The press are going to create a damn circus with this shit.” She clucks her tongue at the corpse like it’s his fault he wound up here. And dammit, but it might be, if he wanted cheap drugs. “What brought him down to this area of town? This is going to be a nightmare for everyone.” She narrows her eyes at me, her cap shielding her face from the dull glow of the sun.
“We found him here while following a lead on another case. A blood trail led us right to him,” I say.
“Finish up and report straight back to me with whatever you find. I’ve got to make some calls and see if I can get ahead of this thing. There is no good way to handle it, though.” Henderson straightens, shaking her head, tongue clucking. “Shit.”
She’s pissed off and has every right to be. We’ve got a senator’s dead son in the middle of a case that links him directly to drug deals and dead hookers. That isn’t going to look good for the father’s re-election campaign, is it?
“Things keep getting more twisted,” Devan muses out loud as we finish up. “You think it’s drugs?”
“I do,” I tell him with a firm nod.
“You got everything you need, L?”
I’m staring at the chief rather than giving Devan my full attention. Henderson has got her cell pressed to her ear and an angry expression twisting her face, speaking in tones too low for anyone to hear.
“Yeah, I think we’ve got enough info to get the hell out of here.” I’ve got my own cell in hand and belatedly remember that I’ve got to text Taney back.
I’ve missed several more messages from her and a handful from Big Daddy.
Sorry, been a crap day, I text Taney.What’s up?
Three dots in a text bubble show up on the screen immediately but the message is far from what I expect as a response.
Meet me ASAP at Clydesdale Park. I’m serious.
No emojis. Nothing outside of a desperation that comes through even in the text, mostly because Taney never uses punctuation and yet a period marks the end of her sentences. She always tells me that punctuation is passive–aggressive.
No matter how many times I argue that it’s simple grammar, she never listens, practically sticking her fingers in her ears and la la la-ing me to death.
I debate showing Devan the text but he’s already reading it over my shoulder.
“I’m not letting you go alone because Clydesdale Park is nowhere near the club,” he says. “Or near where Taney lives. It’s not the place you go to meet your friend for a chat.”
“The locationisseriously odd,” I agree out loud.
A niggling sensation tickles the back of my head and my immediate thought is to text Gabriel. Rather than questioning myself, I do, asking him his thoughts on the choice of meeting place.
Devan stares at me strangely but says nothing about my focus being glued to the phone.
It’s not a special place for us. The park used to be home to some kind of megastore that went out of business and instead of inviting another business into the space, the city decided to demolish it and set up greenspace for the neighboring apartment complexes. Nothing too fancy to draw in a crowd. Mostly it’s grass that’s either half-dying or in desperate need of a mow, and a single merry-go-round. Sad, really.
They could have done so much with it, like a community garden.
“If you’re not going to let me go alone, then hurry.” I stuff my cell in my pocket and stride off toward the car. “I don't want to keep her waiting much longer.”
“I’ll stay in the car while you meet her but make sure it’s within viewing distance. Got it?” Devan falls into step beside me.
