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“Yeah,thanks,” Beck shot back, her voice thick with sarcasm young people thought made them sound so smart. “This investigation isn’t going away anytime soon, Sadie.”
“It’s gone on for long enough without any leads, wouldn’t you say? Maybe they ought to put someone more capable in charge.” My raised brow sent her nostrils flaring in barely restrained anger. She’d looked as if she’d liked to throw a punch if not for that badge attached to her hip.Interesting.
Her bark of laughter let me know just how much I got under her skin. “You can’t buy your way out of this, and as soon as I find that one little mistake you forgot about, I’m going to cuff you myself.” Beck smacked the heavy dining room table with both hands before she sent me and then Jasper a withering glare and stomped off in a huff.
As soon as we had the room to ourselves, Virgil said, “Well, that was interesting.” His low laugh added some levity to the moment.
But even that couldn’t stop the shiver of unease that went through me at Agent Beck’s words. I thought back to the murders.
I didn’t make any mistakes in that room that night. I was sure of it. I didn’t make mistakes, period.
CHAPTERTHREE
Sadie
“I know you and Bonnie have been meeting.”
Dietrich Mueller sat back in the bistro chair with a sigh and gave me a reluctant nod.
Both Bonnie and Mueller were so confident that no one knew about their clandestine meetings, they weren’t appropriately secretive. Mueller was, but Bonnie went straight from the mansion to her meeting spots with Mueller, making it easy for Thomas to track her when I asked him to.
“In fact, you’ve been seeing her since shortly after she gave birth to my granddaughter.”
“At first, she came for intel on The Crusaders,” he admitted. “She wanted to find anything she could that would end this war without risking the lives of her husband and child.”
I rolled my eyes. “She was willfully naïve, that girl. Bonnie knew what she married into and when the reality of it became too real, she wanted to change things.”
It was why I set up this little meeting with the kinky priest in the first place because I needed a favor.
“Maybe, but she was struggling. Asked for painkillers several times.”
I laughed. “And you didn’t give them to her?” I shook my head and took a sip of wine. “What a missed opportunity, Bishop. You could have gotten her hooked and sold her to one of your perverts for a pretty penny.”
He didn’t appreciate my joke. His nostrils flared and his eyes darkened in anger. He couldn’t stop that chiseled jaw from grinding his teeth into dust, either. “Maybe that was part of my plan.”
“Doubtful,” I snorted and took another sip of wine. “That’s the one thing Bonnie wouldn’t have done, and we both know it. So tell me, Bishop, what did you do for her?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Mostly, I listened.”
“Really? And what did you learn, Dietrich?”
“Not much, Sadie.” He swirled the last of the burgundy wine in his glass before pouring it down his throat with a satisfied sigh. “Only that your son, Calvin, was hacking into some of the alphabet agencies which could get him serious time in federal prison. She wanted to know how to get out of town without you knowing.”
“That bitch.” I shook my head. I knew she was up to something, but I would never have guessed she had it in her.
“Oh yeah,” he replied, suddenly all smiles. Very fucking amused. “She had a big hate-on for you in particular. Besides Calvin, she wanted the whole family to go down so she and her family could be free of the Ashby syndicate. She wanted my help, and in exchange, she was willing to give me some clandestine info on your family’s operation.”
I scoffed. “Bonnie didn’t know shit about my business.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Coy doesn’t suit you, Bishop.”
“Doesn’t it?” He flashed a sexy smile that I felt in places I shouldn’t, momentarily distracting me with a burst of…something. “I know a lot, Sadie. More than you want anyone outside your organization to know, and worse? I have proof.”
Proof. That word had echoed in my head for a full sixty seconds. Proof. What the fuck kind of proof did he have? How did Bonnie get access to anything concrete? Not even Calvin was dumb enough to trust her with intel that private. Was he?
Shit. It was that moment of doubt, of uncertainty that would lead to Mueller’s downfall.
