Page 76 of Call Back

“What did you tell him?”

“I haven’t told him anything. There wasn’t anything to tell, but now there is, and I need his help. I can’t do this alone.”

My alarms were going off again. “What do you mean you can’t do it alone? Isn’t there a whole team of police working on Emily’s murder?”

“Of course.” He sat back in his chair and groaned in frustration. “But at this moment, I’m the only one who’s tied all of these cases together, and I don’t trust everyone in the department. I need Owen to help me investigate.”

He didn’t trust his department to handle a serial murder? How corrupt were they? That sounded . . . wrong. “What about the FBI?”

“I’ll call them in, but I need Owen’s help too. I need to tell him everything.”

There was no way in hell I was going to agree to that. “Didn’t he pull all those case files for you?”

“I need to tell him what happened to you.”

I looked away. This conversation would not end well.

“Maggie, I think you’re letting his uncle’s involvement in your father’s case cloud your judgment. Owen’s a great guy. Sure, I think he’s gotten sidetracked by his own mission to clear his uncle’s name, but the whole thing ripped his family apart. The guy I know would have never lied on a report about a victim’s cell phone being stolen.”

“You knew all along?” I asked in disbelief.

“Of course I knew, but I also had no idea why Owen was lying about Frey’s phone, so I went along with it, hoping there was a method to his madness.”

That meant Brady had lied to me. “Why hide the reason I was at the bar from Owen?”

“The less he knew about your involvement, the better.” He shifted on the sofa toward me. “He blamed your family for what happened to his uncle’s reputation on the force. And in turn, I suspect he blamed you. But now that he knows you, he’s realized you have nothing to do with it. You were a kid when it happened. You’re an innocent caught up in the madness. You’re not responsible for your father’s actions.”

“But he didn’t trust me, which means he was watching me. That’s why he showed up at my apartment so quickly after I called and told you that Geraldo Lopez was trying to kill me.”

“And that’s how I know that Owen is still inherently good. He protected you.”

I almost told him I was sure he was wrong. Owen had shot Dr. Lopez to keep him from telling me something. Besides, Owen had made it pretty clear he didn’t think of me as an innocent.

I looked into Brady’s warm and concerned face. Would he believe his best friend was more crooked than he thought? All I knew was that, uneasy as I was, I still needed Brady’s protection, and the surest way to alienate him would be to tell him his best friend might be trying to kill me.

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