Except…
Well, except something wasn’t right. Now that her adrenaline was wearing off, now that time had been allowed to euthanize the fear that had savagely ripped at her heart like a rabid animal, she was beginning to wonder if she’d been wrong about something. None of Ozzie’s recent behavior made sense.
She was frowning, trying to figure it all out, when the door burst open and Detective Carver sauntered in. He was quickly followed by Chief Washington and…Ozzie and Christian. The latter two were uncuffed and carrying steaming cups of coffee.
Warning! Warning! A buzzer sounded in her head.
She gripped the edge of the table and blinked in mute disbelief.
“Seems there’s been some sort of misunderstanding between you and these two gentlemen tonight,” the chief said, hitching up his pant leg so he could perch on the corner of the table.
Samantha had interviewed Chief Washington on two occasions. Once during protests in the city brought on by a case of police brutality. The other for the quick write-up she’d done to commemorate his ten-year anniversary as police chief. She’d found him to be plainspoken and given to impatience with anything that whiffed of bullshit. In short, her kind of man.
But tonight, he seemed to have aligned himself against her. She narrowed her eyes as Carver, Christian, and Ozzie each took a seat opposite her. And then Ozzie had the gall to slide her one of the two cups of coffee he carried.
“Two sugars and a crap-load of creamer. Just the way you like it,” he said.
“Excuse me?” She glared at Washington. “How is it possible to misunderstand someone who threatened to shoot me in the back of the head and then piss on my corpse?”
“Saman—”
“No.” She pointed a finger at Ozzie when he tried to interrupt. “You may have everyone fooled, but I’m on to you. Big time. You prance around all suave and charming—”
“I don’t prance. I’m not a show pony.”
“But you can’t put flowers in an asshole and call it a vase,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken. It burned her that his expression was the only friendly one in a room full of taciturn scowls.
“I wasn’t talking to you when I said that stuff in the alley.” He looked for all the world like he meant it and expected her to believe him.
Ha! She was finished falling for his horseshit.
“No?” She cocked her head, narrowing her eyes. “Well, were you talking to Christian? If so, that’s no way to treat a coworker.”
“He was talking to the Basilisk,” Christian said.
“Huh?”
“The Basilisk who followed you out the back of the pub,” Christian clarified, his English accent making him sound condescending. Or maybe that’s just my imagination? “The one hefting this hunting knife.”
He lifted a plastic bag from beneath the table, slapping it down on the surface. She leaned forward to see that inside the bag was a blade that looked huge and razor sharp.
Her mind blanked. Just…full stop.
“Huh?” she managed again, proving her degree from Purdue was some sort of hoax.
“Maybe it’s best if you start at the beginning, Miss Tate,” Chief Washington said, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt to reveal muscular forearms and deep-mahogany skin. He’d always reminded her of a slightly leaner, determinedly tougher Idris Elba. A handsome man, to be sure, with a larger-than-life personality.
“The beginning of what?” she demanded, not liking this at all. A basilisk had followed her out of the bar. As in the mythological Greek monster? She must have misheard. Perhaps it’s Christian’s accent. “The beginning of my investigation into these assholes?” She flicked a finger toward Ozzie and Christian. “Or the beginning of this day? Or maybe the beginning of tonight, when I found out one of my sources had been shot and killed only hours after he gave me a vital piece of information pertaining to these assholes?” Again, she gestured toward Ozzie and Christian.
“She keeps going on about us being assholes,” Christian fake-muttered to Ozzie.
“I don’t know where she gets that,” Ozzie fake-muttered back. “We’re as sweet smelling as a summer breeze.”
Washington lifted a hand for silence, and both Christian and Ozzie obeyed, albeit with smirks on their faces. Samantha was sorely tempted to reach into her handbag, pull out her pepper spray, and give them both a squirt. That would show them.
“How about we start with this evening,” Washington said, “and work our way backward, see where the misunderstanding happened, and take it from there.”
“Fine. Good.” She crossed her arms, realized the gesture looked petulant, and forced herself to simply fist her hands in her lap. Then she told Washington about the text message she had received from Donny, her suspicion that Ozzie and the Black Knights had been involved in her source’s death, her fear that Ozzie had invited her to the bar to silence her, and finished by reiterating the threat Ozzie had yelled at her as she beat feet down the alleyway in back of the bar. When she was done, she lifted a brow that succinctly said, Now are you getting the picture? How about you put these two back in cuffs?
Instead of handcuffing Ozzie and Christian, Washington turned to Carver and said, “Go grab that POD footage from outside Red Delilah’s. Bring it in here for Miss Tate to see.”
POD footage? Samantha knew that stood for police observation device. The security cameras installed throughout the city, but particularly in high-crime areas, were just one more tool the CPD used to try to combat pockets of lawlessness.
Carver pushed up from the table and exited the interrogation room, and then there was silence. Deep, penetrating silence. Samantha’s stomach rumbled, and she realized she’d skipped dinner. The sound of Christian nonchalantly sipping his coffee was like nails down a chalkboard. And the clock on the wall ticked away the seconds, each one straining the atmosphere inside the room just a little more.
Samantha was tempted to look at Ozzie. But she knew what she’d see. Charisma and sex appeal and a blatant expression of innocence.
No, thank you.
She wasn’t sure what they hoped to show her on that footage besides Ozzie chasing her out of the alleyway, gun in hand. And truthfully, she didn’t look forward to seeing the moment of his betrayal playing out in front of her. After all, she’d already lived it. She was still living it.
Her stomach grumbled again, and she reached for the coffee Ozzie had brought her. Before she closed her fingers around the Styrofoam cup, a thought occurred. What if he poisoned it?