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“What was her name? His girlfriend?” Max asks.
“Sherrie Jackson.” The name trips easily off Hayes’s tongue, like he’s never forgotten it. “She’s married with three kids now. I hope she doesn’t think about that night as much as I do.”
Relief that it wasn’t Mia washes over me in a wave, but the fury doesn’t dissipate completely. It may not have been someone I care about, but no woman deserves that shit. “Pretty sure she thinks about it every damn day,” I snap.
“I thought she was into it!” he insists. “I mean, what kind of animal allows their girlfriend to be raped?”
My clipped fingernails dig into my palms as I fight against the urge to punch him in the face. If I start, I’ll never stop. “What kind of animal doesn’t establish enthusiastic consent before he engages in a rape scene?”
Covering his face with his hands, he sobs into them. Max gives me a warning glance, and I nod my head, giving my assurance that Hayes will live.
Seemingly satisfied that I’m not about to start a war with the Chicago PD, Max takes his hand off my shoulder and turns his attention back to Hayes. “And you said Mulcahy recorded all of this?”
After several moments of sniffling and scrubbing his face, Hayes finally answers. “Yeah. He has it all on video. I’d lose everything. My career. My wife and kids. Everything.”
I sit back in my chair and motion for Max to keep going.
“Why would he do that to you? You were partners? Buddies, right?”
“We were. But I guess he saw me as a way to get to the top. I was always going places. Youngest sergeant in my precinct.”
“Or maybe it was more about Sherrie than you?” I suggest, knowing what a twisted fuck Brad Mulcahy is. “What happened to the two of them after?”
“They split up. I heard later that he’d caught her cheating on him.”
I snarl. “So he had his girlfriend raped as punishment for cheating on him?” I’m going to kill that sick fuck if I ever see him again.
Hayes shrugs. “I guess.”
“So, how does this work? Mulcahy just comes to you when he wants a favor?” Max asks, his face furrowed in a frown as his mind ticks over.
“That was how it worked, but I hadn’t heard from him in years. Not since I gathered enough information that could hurt him too. I told him that we were done.” Hayes runs a hand through his sparse hair and sighs. “Then he showed up last week with a final ask. He wanted me to ‘ruffle the Moretti’s feathers.’ I figured sending my men on a few raids would satisfy him without causing too much trouble.”
“Why give into him when you’d told him you were done?” Max asks.
“He seemed different.” Hayes stares at the window for several moments. “Frantic. Like he’d lost his mind. He threatened to show my wife and the superintendent the video, even though I could bring him down just as easily as he could me.” I sit forward in my seat, but I don’t interrupt. “He didn’t give a shit. Said he was happy to take us both down, so I did what I could, while…”
I narrow my eyes. “While?”
He rolls his neck. “I have enough information on him to get him kicked off the force for good. I just need to get that tape.”
“But you haven’t yet?” I ask.
“No. Prick up and disappeared. I spoke to his captain back in Boston, and he’s been on sick leave for three weeks. Apparently his wife left and he went completely off the rails.”
“But you’re looking for him?” Max says.
Hayes nods.
“Officially?” I ask.
He shakes his head and avoids my gaze.
I lean forward, my interest piqued. “So, you plan on recovering the tape and thenwhat?”
“Don’t get excited, Mr. Moretti. It’s nothing quite so exciting as anything you’d have in mind. I’ll turn over the evidence I have on him to Internal Affairs.”
My mouth curls into a grin. “And exactly what evidence do you have on him, Deputy?”
