Sweet Dreams Boxed Set

“Thanks, Zoey,” he said a bit dismissively. He’d smooth it over with her later.

She walked out and Matt turned his attention back to the files in front of him. What the hell was going on with his case? Maybe it had nothing to do with the shooting, but that both Cordell and Jim Perry were involved in the investigation, with Travis as the prosecutor and a known Russian mob lawyer as the defense, was suspicious. Could Jim Perry somehow be tied in with Cordell? If so, why did he hide that from Alex? If Perry was connected to Cordell, did that mean he was also connected to Rykov?

One thing that didn’t quite ring true for Matt was why Tommy shot Alex in the first place. She’d found him with the underage prostitute and told him she was going to their lieutenant, that his behavior crossed a line. And he’d shot her. He could have gotten off with a slap on the wrist, maybe a suspension, but to shoot his partner was so over-the-top that no one could overlook it. What had been going through his mind? Was he thinking he could frame the prostitute if Alex had died? Kill her as the witness, and say she shot at both of them? Matt didn’t know because Tommy Cordell hadn’t spoken to anyone since his arrest. He likely wouldn’t take the stand in his defense.

If Tommy was suspicious of Alex’s motives, he might have shot her out of a knee-jerk self-protective instinct.

He buzzed Zoey. “Can you come in for a sec?”

She came in and closed the door behind her. “Yes?”

“Can you discreetly pull Detective Jim Perry’s personnel files? Everything you can get without throwing up any flags.”

“Of course.” Again, she was curious, but didn’t ask questions.

Matt opened the file on the property. Wallace had owned the land for a generation, and built the physical business twenty years ago. After the burglary, he went bankrupt ... not uncommon in construction, except four years ago the market was slowly starting to rebound. Though he’d owned the land outright at one point, he’d heavily mortgaged it over the years and was upside down. The bank foreclosed, and someone else bought it.

As soon as he saw who now owned it, Matt began to put the pieces together.

His heart raced as he scribbled dates, names and entities on a yellow legal pad. This was exactly the information Dean Hooper needed for his investigation. It wasn’t everything, but it was far more than they’d had before.

He pulled an aerial picture of the property. They had docks, river access, and privacy. The business that leased the building paid an inordinate amount of money for the property—far more than they could make repairing boats. The whole thing reeked of money laundering 101.

And it all started when Wallace went bankrupt—which started with the burglary.

Matt called Alex. She no longer needed to check out the address, he knew exactly what was going on.

Her phone went to voice mail immediately.





Chapter Fifteen


Alex didn’t expect Tommy Cordell to meet with her, but she hid her surprise when, after waiting for twenty minutes, the guard returned. “Follow me, but you’ll have to check your weapon and cell phone.”

She turned everything over and it was locked in one of several small safes. The guard brought her back to an interview room.

Tommy was already there. He wasn’t handcuffed, which was against protocol. The guard said, “I’ll be right outside the door.”

Alex didn’t know the guard; he might hate her guts and Tommy could beat her to death without anyone coming to her aide.

But she sat across from her former partner and refrained from showing fear.

“You are the last person I expected to visit me,” Tommy said.

“I surprised myself,” she replied.

Tommy was forty, and his hair had turned almost completely gray since he’d been in jail. He’d lost weight, and looked like he was in better shape now than he had been nine months ago when she’d shot him. She refrained from looking at his hand, which was missing two fingers. She’d been in so much pain when she’d shot him that she’d hit him first in the right hand, then two bullets in the shoulder. He, too, had nearly died that day. He would have been dead if her aim hadn’t been off.

Looking at him, she realized she didn’t hate him. She felt sorry for him. She loathed his corruption. But Tommy himself? She had no feelings toward him at all. For months, when she was investigating him, and after he shot her, she thought she’d hated him. The anger was simply a mask for her own feelings of betrayal, inadequacy, failure.

She’d lost her job, but Tommy had lost far more. He’d lost his reputation. His daughter. His freedom.

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