Page 40 of Wicked Sin

“Is she crazy?” He whirls on me. “What if Taylor runs for it?”

Then I’ll track her down if she’s still got my GPS tracker on her bag.

But my captain is the opposite of crazy. I spread my hands wide. “You got me. That doesn’t sound like the captain, though. If Ms. Reid has walked, it’s on her. Not the LAPD.”

Ferdinand scowls at McBride. “When did they leave?”

“Just a few minutes ago.” She points to the door. “Why?”

The Feds all head out the door as one monolithic group of suits and frustrated scowls.

Ferdinand stops in front of me and shakes his head. “You guys need to work with us here if you want us to catch this guy.”

“Of course,” I say smoothly. “You’ll give me a call when your lab is ready to walk me through the evidence? I’m going on vacation, but I’m not leaving the city. I’ll come in any time.”

“Good.” He scowls again. “We’ll be in touch.”

I wait until they’re out of sight, then pull out my phone.

I do a double-take and laugh under my breath when I see where the GPS tracking app lights up Taylor’s location. Ducking out into the unit space, I double-check to make sure the Feds have left.

First I go to the locker where I left my Glock before we went to D.C. It feels good to put on my shoulder holster again.

Then I crack open the door to the captain’s dark office.

“Hey,” I say quietly.

Taylor doesn’t open her eyes. “This was your plan, right?”

“Sort of. I think the captain ran with it.”

“Hmm.” She cracks one eyelid open and looks over at me. “So now what?”

“We get the hell out of here.”

She doesn’t move.

“Taylor, time might be of the essence since you aren’t really getting tacos with my boss. Window of opportunity here. Let’s seize it.”

She has a white-knuckle grip on her bag. “You understand this is the stuff that dark thrillers are written about? Scruffy cop stalks you, sets a bomb, writes a threatening note, says he needs to protect you, and takes you off to parts unknown where he will chop your body into a thousand pieces and feed you to his pet swordfish.”

“Hey, whoa, I amnotscruffy.”

“You’re not denying the pet swordfish, Detective Vasquez.”

I grin. I can’t help it. She’s funny when she’s staring danger in the face. “I want to keep you safe. I promise I’m not going to chop you into pieces. And I think I like it better when you call me Luke. So what do you say? Want to do something reckless with me?”

“Will it keep me alive?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Then I’m in.”

“What just happened?”Taylor doesn’t ask the question until we’re up in the canyons, almost at my house.

For years, I lived closer to San Bernardino, where a lot of cops live. Out in the suburbs, away from where we work.

But two years ago I grabbed a sweet opportunity to move back into the city. A two-bedroom foreclosure that had stood empty for a couple of years, and needed a shit ton of TLC.

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