Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

“It’s hard for me to talk about this kind of stuff.”

I looked at my watch. “We have eight hours. If necessary, we can continue at my place.”

“Stone, you are the first and only person I have ever trusted, apart from my parents. I was a weird kid from a weird family growing up in a tough neighborhood where weird kids were not welcome. I learned early, real early, not to trust people. Not to trust anybody but my mom and my dad. I made an exception with you.”

She paused and made a few more interlocking rings, like she was trying to link her thoughts. When she spoke again, she was staring at the table.

“Stone, my mom and dad were murdered, destroyed body and soul, by a bent cop. Not just a bent cop, a cop who was sadistic and cruel and violent. When I met you, when we were partnered, you were everything that Mick Harragan was not. In your own, dinosaur way you were honorable, decent, good…”

“Stop, you’re going to make me blush.”

She didn’t laugh. “It’s not a joke, Stone, it meant a lot to me. I felt I could trust you. I never got that close to anybody before.” She looked back at the table for a moment, like she had her thoughts laid out there. “You were tough, you had attitude, you could be as mean as the next guy when you had to be, but the bottom line, I always knew you were going to do the right thing. You were honorable.”

I took a pull of my beer. “All of this is in the past tense.”

She gave her head a shake, but it wasn’t a denial. It was a shake of reluctance. “I don’t recognize you, this you I have seen in the last couple of days, this you that fed Conor Hagan information that would get Sadiq killed, that exposed his daughters to a trauma from which they will never recover. And now you have set Bellini up for the same fate. You’re not taking him into protective custody, you’re not arresting him. But you know Hagan is going to come after him. Suddenly, I don’t know you.”

I smiled and rubbed my face with my hands. It was ironic and I let that show on my face. “Couple of days ago, you made me promise that I would not dump you, or ask the captain for a change of partner. I did promise, and I will stick by that promise, because, though I am fallible, like any human being, what you said about me is basically true. I try to be honorable, and I try to do the right thing where I can. Now, ironically, it is you who are going to dump me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t need to. It’s written all over you. I may as well have been alone back there in Bellini’s office. I didn’t get his prints, but neither did you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Dehan, if you want me to, I can explain what I did and why I did it, but I am not going to justify it, apologize, or beg you to stay. I want you to stay. You’re the best partner I ever had and the best friend. But you have to make your own choices according to your own conscience.” I paused and took a deep breath. “I just hope if you do decide to transfer, you know why you’re doing it.”

She looked hard at me. “What do you mean?”

“Ever since you saw those two girls, when you look at me, you don’t see me, you see Mick Harragan. You partner with somebody else, you’ll be trying to walk away from Harragan, but you’ll be breaking up a damn good partnership, and maybe a friendship with it.”

“That’s blackmail, Stone.”

“No, it’s not. It’s reality. And that’s the difference.”

“The difference with what?”

“What Mick did was abuse and brutalize weak, vulnerable people so that he could exploit them for money and sex. And because he was cunning and had no inhibitions, he escaped the law. Remember, Dehan, the justice he received in the end was unlawful. It was Maria who killed him.

“What I do, Carmen, is to try to see things as they really are—not how I want them to be or how the law says they should be, but as they really are. And I saw thirteen girls—more, as it turned out—who had been raped and murdered by this gang of sadistic monsters who felt entitled, because of their power and their privilege, to take these girls’ lives. And I saw that they were going to get away with it because all our evidence was either decayed or dead.”

Her eyes were locked on my face, but her expression was one of fear, anticipating that I was going to destroy the trust she had put in me, in my care.

“But I did not hand Sadiq—or Bellini—over to Hagan for him to execute them. God knows I would have been justified in doing so. But I didn’t. I had two options: shelve the case, file it as unsolved, and betray the memory of those children, your cousin, and Sean O’Conor, or investigate. And investigating meant two things, finding out if I was up against Hagan or not, and exposing Sadiq and Bellini to the risk of being executed by Hagan.” I shrugged. “Maybe I am not as honorable as you would like me to be, maybe you are misguided in your idea of what honor is, maybe both are true. But if Sadiq had not raped and murdered those children, or at least colluded in their murder and rape, Conor Hagan would not have gone after him.” I picked up my glass. “And besides, I don’t see it as any part of my job to protect creatures like Sadiq and Bellini from the consequences of