Page 12 of Pulse

Though they did holster their weapons, neither detective left the room, probably to goad her or get a sense of her technique. To see how she’d react if they pushed a bit. That was fine. She had no problem asserting herself or being a bitch if the situation called for it.

Talia cleared her throat as she set her bag on the metal table that separated her and Vargas from the detectives.

She stared straight at Detective Wallace. “I wasn’t asking. Clear out. I need five minutes.”

Wallace’s eyebrow arched, but she stood, and Talia swore she saw a glimmer of respect in the female detective’s gaze.

“Keep your ass in that seat, Vargas,” Wallace said as she motioned for her partner to leave Talia alone with her client.

“Turn the cameras off,” Talia called before they shut the door.

As soon as they exited the room, she glanced at the camera in the upper right corner. Once the recording light disappeared, she turned her gaze to Vargas.

“What the fuck is going on?”

CHAPTER THREE

“YOU KNOW IF there is any deal to be made, it has to happen now. With every minute that passes, our generosity fades.”

As he’d been doing for the past thirty minutes, Pulse stared Detective Wallace down. He’d uttered exactly four words since being cuffed and shoved in the back of a patrol car.

I want my attorney.

That’s it.

When they first showed up at the clubhouse tossing his name around, he’d assumed they knew his history as a DEA agent. He’d been wrong. These idiots thought he was nothing more than a lowlife who’d beat a hooker on the street. They weren’t aware, but he knew every tactic in the book to get a perp to talk. Getting his lips to part would take much more than basic psychological tricks.

Another five minutes passed in a silent visual standoff. McGee hovered in the corner, arms folded across his broad chest. They’d yet to establish who’d play good cop and who’d get the role of bad, but it didn’t matter. They could threaten or sweet-talk him until he hit old age, and he wouldn’t utter a damn word without an attorney present.

A sharp rap against the interrogation room door had McGee frowning. He opened it and muttered back and forth for a few seconds before looking over his shoulder with a frown. “Wallace, step out with me for a minute.”

Her brow wrinkled, annoyance clear in her tense posture, but she listened, and a few seconds later, Pulse was alone.

He exhaled pressure from his lungs and rolled his shoulder as he stared into the two-way mirror.

Who watched on the other side of that glass? The district attorney? Police chief? Other cops? The police have had it out for the club since its inception, though Curly did a fantastic job of keeping the MC’s less-than-legal activities on the down-low.

The door opened, and his eyes narrowed as a tall, slender woman with slicked-back hair strode into the room. Her basic black pumps clicked on the linoleum. Everything about her screamed government employee, from the cheap black pantsuit to the minimal makeup to the I-don’t-get-paid-nearly-enough-for-this bland facial expression.

What the fuck was going on?

“Hi, Max,” she said as she slid into the seat Wallace vacated. “Long time no see.”

He quickly scanned his memory before recognition hit him like a ton of bricks. “Jesus,” he whispered as the woman smiled a predatory grin.

“Nah, just Agent Dixon. Jesus was busy tonight.”

He could talk all he wanted now. Dixon wouldn’t give a shit about his request for an attorney. She’d have a fancy way of justifying whatever she was about to do or say, and the law wouldn’t matter.

He knew it because he’d done it.

“You were a rookie when I left.”

“I was. Now I’m a veteran agent, and you’re a criminal. Crazy.” Her light brown eyes sparkled as she spoke. She loved every second of this, thinking she was so superior to him. She knew nothing. Understood nothing.

“How’d you find me?”

Her sharp burst of laughter made him jump. She’d been annoying as hell as a rookie. Dixon was a classic suck-up who did anything to get the approval of her superiors. Rumor had it she’dsucked more than a few dicks to make up for failing the entrance exam. At the time, he’d dismissed it as typical sexist bullshit, but then she’d offered to drop to her knees for him when she wanted a more critical role in the cartel takedown.

---