Page 87 of Stay in Your Lane!

“How did we make a mess?” I demanded. “All we did was point out that Ricky Leighton didn’t kill himself.” I set my jaw and glared up at him. “Or did we interfere with you and Reardon cleaning up that mess? Maybe trying to spare the chief embarrassment by people realizing who his daughter’s baby daddy is? Is that?—”

“You think the chief needed that miscreant hanging around his family?” Hansen scoffed. “He’s the next commissioner, and he’s?—”

“So… what? You and Reardon offed Leighton and tried to make it look like a suicide? Just to keep the chief on track to become commissioner?”

Hansen huffed a bitter laugh. “Listen, kid. This kind of thing is way above your paygrade—not to mention your brother’s or your daddy’s paygrade.” He rested his hands on the bedside rail and loomed over me. “And if you want that boyfriend of yours to make it through his first night in holding, I would suggest you work with us.”

My heart dropped. As much as I was trying to bait him into saying as much as possible for my phone to record, he still had the upper hand. If he really was working with Reardon, and Everett was in jail, then they had all the power here. All the leverage.

All the opportunity to hurt Everett, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do.

I pushed back a wave of nausea. “What do you want?”

“I want a sworn statement from you,” he said. “You say you knew from the start Rick Leighton’s death was a suicide, and you confess to fucking with the crime scene in an effort to make us investigate it. You fall on your sword, accept all the responsibility for everything that’s happened, and we’ll let your boyfriend go.”

Swallowing took a ton of work. “So you want me to admit to tampering with evidence, making false official statements, and?—”

“Well, and let’s not forget that Rick Leighton isn’t the only one who’s died.”

My teeth snapped shut. “I didn’t kill Meyer or Taylor. I didn’t kill anyone!”

He laughed almost soundlessly. Or maybe that was just my malfunctioning ears. “Son.” He patted my arm. “You made a stink about a suicide, and people got killed. That’s on you.”

“You just admitted you and Reardon wanted him dead in order to keep?—”

“Do you want your boyfriend to stay in jail?” he growled. “Because there are a lot of very nasty individuals down there, any one of whom could be assigned to be his cellmate. And if the COs can’t get the door open in time to help someone—well…” He shrugged, grimacing apologetically. “Sometimes there just ain’t much they can do.”

My stomach churned. I had him all but admitting that Leighton was murdered, but he had an ace up his sleeve. He didn’t have my back against a wall—he hadEverett’sback against it. If I pushed this, I might very well have enough to get him and Reardon to go down for their crimes… but at what cost?

I sat up a little. “You’re getting nothing from me until Everett is released and all charges are dropped.”

Hansen laughed and clapped my arm hard enough to jostle my sore body. “Son, I don’t think you quite understand who’s in charge here. Either you take the fall for everything you’ve done since you walked onto that crime scene, or your boyfriend spends the night with an inmate hand-picked and well-paid to make you regret your life choices. Those are the options, kid. And you have maybe another hour before Reardon decides to book him and put him at the mercy of one of this city’s best and brightest. So I wouldn’t dawdle on this, all right?”

Icy panic wrapped itself around my heart. I couldn’t let these assholes get away with murder, but God help me, I couldn’t leave Everett to the wolves either. I’d heard the stories of what happened in jail. Jail could be way worse than prison, and sometimes a low-level non-violent offender ended up sharing a cell with a murderer. Just last year, a college kid who couldn’t afford bail on a minor charge ended up permanently paralyzed by a cellmate who’d attacked him after the jail withheld his antipsychotic meds.

My moral compass was firmly fixed on“do the right thing and don’t let the cops get away with literal murder,”but I couldn’t let someone hurt Everett either.

“Clock’s ticking,” Officer Hansen taunted. “What’s it gonna be? Save your own ass? Or save?—”

“I think you might want to save for a lawyer,” my dad said as he stepped around the curtain.

In that instant, I felt like a little kid who’d been trying to stay stoic after skinning my knee, but upon seeing one of my parents, collapsed into tears. I didn’t cry this time—I think I was in too much shock—but holy shit. My dad washere.

And he was looking at Officer Hansen like he was about to rip out the man’s windpipe through his left nostril. “You want to tell me what the fuck you’re doing, Officer Hansen? Why you’re threatening my son and trying to compel him to make a false official statement?”

My heart slammed against my ribs. How much had my father heard? Because my phone recording would probably be admissible, but a witness statement from Detective Bowman would helpa lot.

Hansen blanched as he stared at my dad. “I… Sir, listen, I?—”

“Don’t you ‘sir, listen,’” Dad snarled in a voice I hadneverheard before. “These boys have been trying to sound the alarm that something was hinky with the Leighton suicide, and now here you are—an officer of the goddamned law—trying to compel a false official statement.” Gaze still fixed on Hansen, Dad took out his phone and speed-dialed someone. Then, “Sergeant Gonzales, this is Detective Bowman.” He rattled off his badge number. “There’s a young man, Everett Mulligan, in holding right now. I want him taken to Lieutenant Jarvis’s office, and I want you to stay with him until I get there. Am I clear?”

I couldn’t hear what the desk sergeant said. Everything was still too muffled.

Dad replied, “Do whatever you need to do, but I want your eyes on that kid until I get there.” He ended that call, then made another, ordering the person on the other end to release Colin from custody as well as Everett, and then to…

Holy shit.

“I want Detective Reardon placed under arrest, read his rights, and waiting for me in an interview room.” He paused. “No onetalks to that son of a bitch until I get there. Am I clear?”

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