“Nothing,” she repeated. “Really? Don’t the police take these accusations very seriously?”
“We do. We are. But usually someone rolls, talks, gives up someone else in exchange for a deal. That’s what we’ve got to offer, a reduced sentence, time served, charges dropped. None of the usual fish are biting.”
“That seems odd,” Cady said.
“It is odd.” Conn stared at his hand, linked with hers, and thought, Not as odd as knowing I’m falling in love with you. Did he tell her about Cesar’s comment? Did he worry her more? How did people manage this relationship stuff? It was insanely complicated, and totally outside his experience. “Very odd.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Cady just being Cady, the firelight making her crazy hair gleam like old oak, turning the curve of her cheek rose red. Conn’s brain tried to think about two things at once: the way his heart was skittering in his chest and the extremely unusual show of solidarity from the East Side’s biggest gang. Why would they do that? Someone usually wanted out badly enough to give up a piece of information, or could be enticed into it. It took real leadership to enforce that kind of solidarity, and the Strykers hadn’t had that kind of leadership since Matt Dorchester took out Lyle Jenkins last summer.
Or so they thought.
Conn’s brain jerked into a gear he didn’t know he had. Maybe they were going about this the wrong way. Maybe there wasn’t an absence of leadership in the Strykers. Maybe an invisible hand was holding everything together more tightly than before. Maybe Lyle’s unexpected death didn’t cut off the snake’s head. Maybe it made room for a King Cobra to take over for a garden snake.
“Okay,” Cady said, a little smile on her face. “I recognize that expression of someone deep in thought. I’m going back to my studio.”
Conn tightened his grip on her hand. “No, wait,” he started. Then he stopped. What was he going to say? I’m falling in love with you? She heard that a dozen times a day from complete strangers. Even if he did say it, nothing changed the fact that she was Queen Maud, and he was a Lancaster cop who’d just made a decision that would end what was growing between them.
Her expression turned from amused to slightly quizzical, her brows drawing in slightly, the smile losing its gleam. “What?” she asked.
“Just keep your phone with you. I’ll be up here.”
“Sure thing,” she said.
She withdrew her fingers from his. He didn’t want to let her go, but he had to, so he held on to what he could, the sweet, electric slide of her skin against his, lighting his nerves on fire. The heat remained long after he heard the door to her studio close.
Finally he shook it off, got up and grabbed his laptop and his notebook from his duffle bag, and opened it. He signed in to the department’s secure database, and tried to think through how a detective would approach this. His detractors joked that Ian Hawthorn, the son of a loved and well-respected former police chief, thought he was the second coming of Jesus. What would Hawthorn do?
He wouldn’t start with Conn’s usual tactic: going out on the street and tracking down people he knew could give him answers, then threatening them until they gave it up. Hawthorn would gather data, analytics, metrics. Information, both detailed and bird’s eye. Conn started by cross-referencing the gang unit’s list of current and former Strykers, even the dead ones, with a list of arrests going back three years. Then he started looking at the results, which cases got dismissed or pled down, and which ones never went to trial because a witness recanted or evidence disappeared. The results matched both the official line when the city government wanted answers on the state of the East Side and the chatter in the department: the Strykers were slippery as fuck. This wasn’t news.
Frustrated, he got up and headed back outside to tackle the woodpile again. It wasn’t running full tilt after a burglary suspect, but it would have to do. Fifteen minutes in, his phone buzzed. Shane.
Got what you wanted. I also picked up her Christmas tree. What next?
Conn looked at the back of the house. Cady would probably be in her studio for hours yet, Shane could be here in twenty minutes, and Conn had no time to waste. He texted Shane her address. Park at the end of the driveway.
He stayed at the woodpile while he waited, but the physical exertion didn’t drive away the conflicted emotions swirling in a sick dance in the pit of his stomach. He had to do this. Had to keep her safe. She’d asked him not to. But in a short span of time she’d gone from a face in the glossy magazine rack at the end of the supermarket checkout counter to the woman he couldn’t bear to lose.