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“No.” Kara slowly smiled. “She should love me. She was my training officer.”
That surprised Matt. “A lieutenant?”
“She was a sergeant then. A total bitch half the time, and I thought she hated me. Lex said she could send me packing and to suck it up.”
“Clearly, you must have.”
“I wasn’t going to let anyone stop me from being a cop. We ended up riding together on and off for three years, between undercover gigs. I was her last trainee. We were effective together, and I learned more from Elena than anyone. Then she took over a squad, and a few years back was promoted to lieutenant.”
“Then why the skepticism? Did you have a falling-out?”
Kara shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
“Not nothing.”
“Command suits her.” That was all she said.
Before Matt could get more out of Kara, Craig Dyson walked in. He seemed preoccupied and irritated.
“What happened?” Kara asked.
“Defendant is dead, case closed.” He didn’t sound happy. And by the look on her face, Kara wasn’t happy about the turn of events, either. Dyson smiled wanly and extended his hand to Matt. “I’m sorry, you must be Matt Costa? I’m Craig Dyson.”
“Good to meet you. Have you heard anything more about the shooting?”
“No, you probably know more than I do. Chen had a lot of information about a lot of people. LAPD has their work cut out for them.”
“Then why not kill him before today?” Kara asked. “There are easier ways to take him out, without an audience and security cameras blanketing the area.”
“He has good security—”
Kara snorted. “One guy? Walking down the street? Rather careless if he thought he was in danger.”
Michael nodded. “One of the uniforms I spoke with said Chen had parked in the garage on the other side of the park. That’s nearly two blocks walking in the open. If he thought there was a threat, wouldn’t he have been dropped off at the courthouse entrance, or coordinated with his lawyer to park in the building?”
“Perhaps he didn’t realize there was a threat,” Craig suggested. “There were a lot of layers to his business model. The raid had repercussions across multiple avenues. I’m still working on untangling the threads, but we had him on murder and labor violations. That was the easy part.”
Matt glanced at Kara. She said, “Don’t look at me. I don’t have any answers. But it’s odd that a man like Chen didn’t see this coming.”
“Lieutenant Gomez promised to keep me in the loop,” Matt said. “But at least for the next day we need to be careful with you.” He turned to Craig. “Do you need Kara in court?”
Craig shook his head. “I’m prosecuting others involved with Chen, so at some point she’ll need to be available to testify, but it won’t be anytime soon.”
“I’ll be here,” she said. “Matt—it’s over. It’s finally over.”
His stomach twisted. He knew what she meant—the threat to her was over if Chen was dead—but he also took it another way. That their relationship was over. That she planned to come back to LA and reclaim her position in the Special Operations Unit and he wouldn’t see her again.
He’d told her in August that if she returned to Los Angeles, he would move here. He didn’t want to—but he could. He had a good relationship with the assistant director here, and while it would be uncomfortable once word got out that he was investigating one of their squads, he could make it work. He would do anything to be with Kara, even give up the Mobile Response Team.
But he loved what he was doing. He had built a great team. By the end of the year they would be fully staffed. Tony Greer said the Bureau might fund more teams based on Matt’s successful model.
The team wouldn’t be the same without Kara.
He wouldn’t be the same without Kara.
Craig’s cell phone rang. He answered, immediately frowned. “Where?” he said. Listened a minute. “Will...okay. I understand, but did she actually witness the shooting?”
Matt’s ears perked.
