Page 8 of Out of Control

I saw a notification pop up on his phone with a very generous tip fromBadass Blonde—did she seriously change her name in the app to hide from me? But then she was climbing out of the car and Damien was pulling away from the curb before I could finish picking my jaw up off the floor.

“Sorry, Agent,” Damien said, taking me out of my thoughts. “But one-star reviews are a death sentence to newer drivers like me.”

I waved him off. He didn’t do anything wrong. I wouldn’t want the rideshare driver giving away personal details of my mom or sibling to someone without a warrant, so I could hardly blame him.

“How much to drive me back to the airport?”

“It’s on me,” he said. “I have to head back to pick up another fare anyway.”

I nodded, grateful, but knew I’d give him a cash tip anyway when he dropped me off. He was a good kid doing right by his riders, and I’d never fault someone who wanted to look out for a woman’s safety. Too bad more people weren’t like that.

Damien dropped me off at the airport parking lot so I could get my vehicle and head over to the local police station. I had someone to interrogate.

I'd arranged for Leo Lombardi to be taken back there while the mystery woman was unconscious, and he needed the tender, loving care of someone who already hated his guts to interview him after the shit storm that went down at the airport.

Mark Rosenberg, a homicide detective I’d known since we were kids, was waiting for me at the station. Since Leo hadn’t killed anybody—to our official and legal knowledge—Leo wasn’t technically his responsibility, but our positions had already overlapped a lot in the Morelli case and it just made sense to keep him on as my liaison to the precinct.

“Witnesses make it out of town okay?” he asked when he saw me. I nodded. “Good. Sorry you couldn’t go with; I know you and…person…had the hots for each other.”

I shook my head. Firstly, he was being none-too-subtle in trying to verbally redact Witness C’s name, though I appreciated the effort. We already found one dirty cop at this station. For all we knew there could be a dozen more.

Secondly, it wasn’t like that with her. “No, she just reminds me of…”

Any chance I had of having a good day—slim as it was—were instantly crushed the moment I thought of Dani. Mark just nodded in sympathy. He understood.

I cleared my throat, masking any emotions that peeked through. “Where’s Lombardi?”

He straightened up, putting the same mask on his face. “Just over here. He’s got a wicked shiner. Did you hit him?”

“No?” It came out as a question. I hadn’t even noticed that at the airport, but if it was showing already, it probably happened before we ever arrived. Besides, “He let TSA cuff him and came over with the locals willingly enough. It would be police brutality if I hit him unprovoked. Rules exist for a reason.”

“Okay, Dad,” he mocked.

I rolled my eyes but didn’t respond. Rules were rules, even if they protected the bad guys.

“We’ve been letting him sit and stew for a bit. Found this on him,” he added, pulling a generic-looking pistol out of his holster. A quick look showed me the serial number was shaved off. “Unfortunately, that’s not enough to hold him. He wasn’t in the sterile area of the airport, and he doesn’t have any currentcharges laid against him that would restrict him from having a gun. We can’t hold him just for being suspicious in a suspicious place.”

“Bullshit. We had him on a whole slew of charges yesterday. What happened to all that?”

Mark looked uncomfortable. “I looked into it, and his lawyer got him released last night due to a lack of evidence.”

“Bullshit,” I repeated. “I saw the goddamn evidence myself when he was brought in.”

“Maybe, but no one can find it now. It’s listed in the system, but none of it actually exists in the evidence locker. Without evidence it’s like there was no crime. They had to release him.”

“Who was on duty last night? Gates?”

Theo Gates was a known dirty cop who was currently being investigated by Internal Affairs. His dirty status was new information from this morning, provided by my two witnesses who just made it to safety. No one would have been keeping an eye on Gates last night when the evidence was stolen.

Mark shrugged. I was pissed, but tried not to show it. It wasn’t Mark’s fault that this case had too many things going belly up.

I was never going to get a transfer out of the Organized Crime unit if I didn’t knuckle down and get this shit taken care of. I wanted to be part of the CACHTU from the start. I couldn’t stop now. I had to get solid evidence for this case to qualify for a transfer.

“What about the text? He ordered Antonio Conti to kill a woman.”

Mark shook his head. “No proof thetext was from him.”

“I saw him typing on his phone right when Antonio received the text. It was him. Check his phone records!”

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