Page 98 of Rules of Engagement

Chapter Twenty-One

Lucas waited for us at the elevator as Maddox and I stepped out onto the agency's floor. Garrett was making a lot of noise about not leaving the station, but I couldn't stay still a moment longer. The hit man was in custody so Garrett's argument that I wasn't safe seemed to lose most of its power. "I got everything I could find on Damien Solomon," he said.

"Tell me the short version."

Lucas opened the file he carried and began to read. "His career was good. He's been a cop for eight years, made detective three years ago. He spent some time undercover a couple years ago and that's when things seemed to go wrong. His captain in New York thought he'd gotten in too deep, and was losing himself in his role so he insisted he be pulled out. He was offered therapy and the therapist later signed him off as fit to work. He has a good close rate, and no trouble. Then he transferred to Boston PD around a year ago, very suddenly."

"Was there any reason given?"

"To be closer to family," said Lucas, glancing down.

"We know that's not true! I haven't seen him once and Solomon never mentioned him either."

"It's a stock answer for not giving an answer," said Maddox.

"I think he's right," said Lucas. "Damien got into some financial trouble after the undercover gig. Poker mostly. Won a lot of money, lost a lot. Won some more, lost even more and he was on a losing streak after that. He's struggling to pay his bills. Took a loan out, and it looks like he lost that at the table too. Then the slate gets wiped clean. He's suddenly got lots of money in his account again."

"Did he win it?"

"I don't think so. I traced the deposit back to a shell corporation that is owned by the firm that owns those unoccupied but strangely financially successful buildings here and in Boston."

"A bribe!" I said.

"I'm guessing it is, but I'd like Maddox to take a closer look," said Lucas, handing the file over.

Maddox flicked through it, running his forefinger down the sheets as he hastily scanned the highlights. "I think that's a good theory."

"There's more," said Lucas. "I correlated gang activity with the payments Damien received and I found something interesting. There was a case against Eric Dutka, a gang boss in Boston. A murder charge. They had plenty of evidence except for the bodies but the police planned a raid of a property Copley owned. There was talk about a tip-off, however, because when the police got there, they found nothing. A day later, Damien got a big payment."

"Oh, no," I groaned.

"Yeah," said Lucas.

"But what does that have to do with the Copleys?"

"Eric Dutka's mother is the older sister of the Copleys' mother. It looks like Damien made a deal to get his payments cleared."

"But he's still in debt," I said, frowning.

"At least we know how he's probably connected to the Niners now," said Maddox.

"He was too stupid to see making a deal with the devil was a one-time only thing. Or maybe by doing that, it meant the Boston gang had something on him and he couldn't get out. They probably encouraged him into running up a new debt and then had him working as a mole so they could evade detection," said Lucas.

"He's not the first cop to get into something over his head," said Maddox.

"If he'd told all of that to Solomon, I'm sure Solomon would have helped," I said.

"Damien probably thought he could handle it, but his debt got too big, or he didn't want to do any more favors, and they called in the marker," said Maddox.

"And Solomon was the final warning. Do what we want, or we go after your family," I said. My legs felt weak and I reached for something to grab hold of, but barely managed to clutch a ficus tree before my hand connected with a wall.

"Solomon was the closest family member they could go after," said Maddox. "They had no idea what they did when they went after him."

"We need to find Damien before he does something else stupid," I told them. "He knows his time is about to run out. He already panicked when he picked up the file from you, Lucas, so he must be desperate for the cash if he thinks he's clean out of warnings. Any idea on how much he owes?"

"No clue. It's not like anyone writes a receipt for this stuff."

"I'm going to guess it's that figure," said Maddox. He flipped the pages and tapped the figure deposited into Damien's account, and now gone. It was an eye-watering amount.

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