Page 48 of His Lovebug

“Your car was a gem in comparison. I’m sorry for your loss.” He grabbed his mug and slurped up the foam from the bottom.

“And you still have the footage?”

Derek tapped the empty mug on the table. “I’ve held that particular card close to my vest, waiting for the right time to play it. But I haven’t had any bullshit with Hanlon. No, it’s always O’Neill. Maybe we can get Hanlon to help us by putting some pressure on him.”

“I see you’re sayinguslike you’re not dumb enough to assume I’ll stay here and do nothing while you go off to save the world.” I wrinkled my nose at him.

Derek winked at me, stood, and held out his elbow. I hopped to my feet and took his arm.

“How are we going to find him?”

Derek shrugged. “I’ll put out the word to my guys.”

He texted as he walked me to his car, and I was a tad nervous as he opened the door and I slid into the passenger seat. I knew exactly what Matt would have to say about this,andI knew what he would do to Derek if anything happened to me, but I couldn’t stand the idea of sitting around doing nothing while he went off to play cowboy and “handle things.”

In less than fifteen minutes Derek had an address for a small bar on the outskirts of the city’s west side. “The Precinct is run by a man named Tubbs, who retired twenty-five years ago from the NYPD. Now most of the cops in town go there to drink.”

The sign for the bar was yellow neon in the shape of an oversized police badge.The Precinctflashed in bold white letters at the center. Derek pulled his car into the parking lot, and I swallowed hard. There were a lot of trucks taking up spaces, and most of the cars were high-end. Well, high-end for normal people. The bar itself was a squat ugly brick building with windows full of lights advertising different beer brands, but there was a wooden patio that was packed with people laughing and drinking. Twinkle lights had been strung around the umbrellas that were still raised over every table, despite the chilly night air.

“There he is,” Derek said, pointing out a man slouched at a table.

“Yes, I remember him from earlier.” I smoothed down my skirt. “You can’t go over there, can you? Someone will recognize you.”

Derek stared at me with a tight jaw. “No. Matt really will fucking punt me into the sun if I let you go over there alone and something jumps off. He won’t think twice about dropping me into a sewer to rot.” He cleared his throat, then smiled. “We’ll go together.”

“How?” I raised my eyebrows at him.

“Hmm. Well . . . .”

“Stay here,” I said, opening the door. “You really have that footage?”

“Yep. Wait.” He fiddled on his phone, and when he handed it to me, there was a black-and-white video cued up and ready to play. “The passcode on my phone is 3030.”

“Thanks for trusting me, Derek.”

“Play it carefully. Hanlon isn’t too bad, but he’s still a cop. And he’s not just a man in blue, he’s a detective. He’s not stupid.” Derek scowled.

“Okay.” As I got out of the car, I smoothed down my skirt again, a nervous habit. I set my sights on Hanlon and walked toward him with my head up. Happily, I didn’t see O’Neill. But it didn’t take long for me to have the attention of every man on the patio. Hanlon’s body was curved over his phone where it lay on the table, a beer in front of him, not unlike the way Matt and Derek had been sitting around earlier.

I stifled a nervous laugh.

“Hello, beautiful!” a man called.

I twiddled my fingers in his direction at a table full of men. A few were smoking. There was a loud “aww” as I pulled out the chair in front of Hanlon and some laughter as the guys elbowed each other and jostled around their table.

When Hanlon glanced up, his mouth fell open.

“Hello, Detective. We meet again.”

He gulped and glanced around at the guys, who were staring without any sort of guilt. “Did you remember something aboutthe incident today?” I could tell he pitched that question loudly for a reason when a chorus of “boos” went up.

“We thought you finally got yourself something fun to do!” someone from another table called. More laughter followed.

Hanlon stood up with a pained smile and gestured toward a table farther away from the other men. I followed and was a little amused when he pulled out a chair for me. I nodded and sat down, and he went across from me and took a seat but fumbled with the chair in the process.

“What’s this about?” he asked, and even though his cheeks were flushed, I could see he was doing his best to pull on his professional face. “Do you need help?”

“Of a sort,” I murmured.

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