“Duffy here was just telling us his theories about the case,” Morales said, cool as can be.
Her gaze moved from Morales to Duffy and to me, as if trying to see the lies on us. Finally, she turned on Duffy. “I promised your captain we wouldn’t interfere in the investigation. If you need help, you’ll need to find it elsewhere.”
I bit my lips to hide my smile at the way Gardner maneuvered the conversation to leave Duffy no wiggle room.
“Understood,” he said, his voice tight. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to go take my seat for the ceremony.” With a final nod to Gardner, he turned on his heel and walked away without so much as a glace toward the rest of us.
Once he was out of earshot, Gardner said, “What was that really about?”
There was no point in lying to her. “He’s planning on launching an IA investigation for the Parsons case, and he’s using statements from the Chinese to indicate we mishandled this one, as well.”
“Why’s he going after Kate?” Mez demanded.
“Because she’s still BPD,” Gardner said. “This way, he gets around me because the IA investigators will go straight to my brass.” She put her hands on her hips and looked down at the floor for a moment, thinking over her options. “Why now?” she said.
It was the perfect time for Morales to come clean. Once Duffy’s report happened, it would only be a matter of time until the L.A. incident came to light. I looked at him, pleading with him silently to tell her. But he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “He said he thinks I have a vendetta against the Fangshi so we were pushing the investigation in that direction so I could harass them.”
It was only part of the truth.
A string quartet started playing in the theater’s lobby. It was almost show time.
“All right,” Gardner said, “we’ll deal with this later. Prospero?”
I nodded.
“Don’t worry about this. We’ve got your back.” Behind her, Mez nodded emphatically.
“Thanks, sir.”
I chanced a glance at Morales. He looked like he wanted to be somewhere else. Duffy’s voice echoed in my head: Murderer.
A new version of the story he’d told me had started to take shape in my head. He’d claimed he’d covered up the murder, but had he actually killed that cop?
“Kate?”
I pulled myself out of my thoughts and looked up to find that Gardner and Mez were already gone.
“You okay?” His hot palm branded the bare skin of my shoulder. I resisted the urge to pull away, to get away from him long enough to get my head straight. “I need your head in the game right now.” He leaned down and forced me to look him in the eye. “You trust me, right?”
I froze. Did I? If he’d asked me thirty minutes earlier, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But now? I felt like maybe I’d fallen for the Morales he’d wanted everyone to see. The handsome hero, the good guy. But I’d just watched the good guy lie so easily to someone who trusted him.
He shook me a little. “We’ll get through this, okay?”
“Did you do it?” The words were barely above a whisper.
“What?”
“Did you kill that cop?”
His expression hardened, like a door slamming shut between us. “How can you ask me that?”
“Because now my ass is on the line too, and you just lied to Gardner.”
He ran a hand through his hair. Finally, he sighed, surrendering. “He was about to out me to Yü Nü. Said if I didn’t pay him off, he’d blow my cover.”
I swallowed that and let it sink to the pit of my stomach like an anchor.
“He was dirty, Kate. Fangshi were paying him off to protect them. So, I killed him and told Yü Nü that he was stealing from her.”
“Was he?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
I shook my head. “How could you do that?”
“How could I not?” His voice rose. The music coming from the theater was loud enough to drown it out. “Do you have any idea what people like that would do to an undercover cop?”
My Uncle Abe had had his own sister—my mother—murdered because he thought she was defecting to another coven. It wasn’t hard to imagine the torture he would have put a cop through if he’d been exposed as a mole.
“Look,” Morales said, “I know I didn’t tell you the whole truth. I’m sorry. But I never thought it would go this far. I thought once we arrested Hung and Yü Nü, we could put it all behind us.”
“Only, now they’re still free and I’m about to be the one thrown to the wolves at IA,” I said. “And here you are, still lying to Gardner to save your own ass.”
He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me as if I’d betrayed him. I resisted the urge to back down because I knew I’d be betraying myself.
“When you’re ready to tell her, I’ll be there. Until then, I’m going to need some space.”
With that, I walked away with as much dignity as the high heels allowed. He didn’t try to stop me.
Chapter Twenty-Six
As I stormed away from Morales, I realized I didn’t have many choices when it came to escape routes. I could either go to the lobby, where guests were waiting for the doors to open into the theater, or I could find access the backstage area.
Since I didn’t really feel like mingling with the who’s who of Babylon Adept society at that moment, I went with the latter option. Luckily, I found an unguarded door tucked inside an alcove.
Inside the dark hallway, I stopped and leaned against the wall. My indignation was burning off fast, and taking its place was a cold, creeping dread.
Duffy was going to report me to Internal Affairs.
The irony would have been rich if it hadn’t been my ass on the line. Ever since I joined the MEA, I’d been the one warning my teammates to follow protocol. I’d been pretty self-righteous at times, if I were being honest. But in the end, trying to do the right thing hadn’t protected me. The political currents of law enforcement in Babylon had a strong undertow that could suck anyone down without warning. And there I was, without my water wings.
I took off my heels to give my feet some relief. I realized that I could just leave. Walk out of that theater, go home, and put on some sweats.
But, try as I might to convince myself otherwise, I wasn’t the kind of person who hid when things got tough. I had a stubborn streak that saw trouble and dove in headfirst. Prosperos were like sharks that way—we never quit swimming.
With a sigh, I pushed myself off the wall and put the shoes back on my feet. But just before I turned to go back out into the reception area, someone down the hall began shouting. I followed the dark corridor toward the noise.
Up ahead, the hall opened onto a room to the left of the stage. When I walked in, I found the wedding planner smacking his assistant over the head with a handful of tulle. “I told you to use a square knot!” he shrieked.
“Yo!” I called.
The planner stopped and turned, the tulle raised high. “What?” he snapped.
“What the hell’s your problem, buddy?”
“What business is it of yours, bitch?” He tossed the final word out like a dare.
I smiled. If he’d known me better, he might have recognized it as my oh-you’re-fucked-now smile.
“Well, for starters, you’re assaulting that man, and since I’m a cop, it is my business.” I pulled my badge out of my purse. “What’s your name?”
The guy under the tulle made a whimpering sound.
“I’m Stefan” the wedding planner said. “And I’m pretty sure this tulle isn’t hurting anyone.”
He lowered the fabric to reveal his assistant’s face. I’d seen the pair earlier from far away, but now that I could see them up close, I realized that the assistant was Asian and he looked awfully familiar.
“Your name’s Leon, right?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Can I see your IDs?”
Stefan huffed and put his hands on his hips. “This is ridiculous. We don’t have time for this.”
“Then I guess you better hurry,” I said sweetly.
As they each complied, I pulled out my cell and pulled up the picture from earlier just in case. But I shouldn’t have bothered. Stefan thrust his wallet at me. I spared it a quick glance.