Page 9 of Secrets and Lies

"Trouble," Alex murmured, "has a way of finding us and this is definitely trouble."

CHAPTER FOUR

GAGE

“NYPD! Open the door!” a voice yelled.

Gage bolted off the bed and started sprinting toward the front door of his apartment. The crack of the battering ram hitting the door greeted him as he reached the entry hall. The door flew open, and what seemed like a dozen cops burst in.

“Get on your knees! On your knees!” voices yelled simultaneously. Gage opened his mouth to ask what the hell was going on when someone kicked his legs out from under him and he face-planted on the floor. They had the cuffs on him before he could get the words out.

“What the hell?” he finally managed. “What’s going on?”

Two men in suits with badges suspended on chains around their necks stood among the men dressed in full tactical armor. “Gage Callahan, you’re wanted for questioning about a theft from the Met,” the taller man in a suit said.

Gage’s stomach knotted. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Gage?” Dani’s voice reached him. She was standing in the hallway wearing one of his big t-shirts and a pair of boxer shorts,her arms wrapped protectively around her belly. There were cops all around her, guns pointed.

“It’s okay, Dani. It’s okay.” Glaring at the cops, he said, “Stop pointing your weapons at my pregnant wife. No one is fighting you.”

One cop looked over toward Dani and gave a nod. In response, the cops aimed their weapons back toward Gage but kept their eyes on Dani. The message was clear. Make any sudden move and this would all go sideways.

“What the hell is going on?” Gage demanded again.

“Please go sit on the couch,” the tall detective said to Dani.

Dani glared at the cops and curled her lip, but Gage knew her well enough to know she was terrified. He needed to figure this situation out soon, or she would start being defensive, which would lead to her being smart-mouthed with the cops, which would be all bad.

“We’ve been warned about you. Armed and dangerous. Possible resisting. We’re not here to play games. Where is it?” the tall detective demanded.

The other cops had started searching the apartment.

“Where is what? Hey! Do you have a search warrant?” Gage demanded. His shoulders pulled as one cop dragged his hands behind his back and closed the cold metal cuffs around his wrists with a sharp zipper sound. Asshole made them tighter than was warranted since Gage wasn’t fighting back. And what did they mean, they’d been warned about him?

He’d been in the park when Alex was inside the Met. Is that why they think he was the thief? Then it hit him. Alex had said the guy she saw in the storeroom looked like him. This wasn’t good. Not good at all.

“The statue.”

“What statue?” He needed to keep up the charade that he had no idea what the cops were talking about while he formulated a plan.

There was a crash from the back of the apartment, presumably from his office. He glanced at Dani who opened her mouth, but he shook his head, and she clamped it shut again. “I want to see the warrant,” Gage demanded.

The detective’s eyes narrowed, but he pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket. By rights, he should have shown that to Gage or Dani first thing. This guy was old enough to know better. Gage guessed his age in the early forties.

The detective held up the warrant for Gage to see since his hands had already been cuffed behind his back. Gage scanned the items on the warrant. The only thing they could take was his laptop and phone unless they found any plans about the heist. Gage’s stomach unknotted slightly. Dani had serious security on his laptop, and there was no way anyone at NYPD was going to break that without at least a week to work on it. And he was smart enough to use his phone only for personal things. He didn’t even have his work email on it. He had a separate phone for that, and they were never going to find it.

“She needs to open the safe,” the other detective said as he entered the room again. “It’s in the office.”

Dani looked at Gage, who nodded slightly. She tried to get to her feet but was struggling. Her belly was so large and she was so short, it was hard for her to get up. Gage turned back to the cop. “I’ll do it.”

The cop shook his head. “You stay here.”

“Jesus, man, do you not see she’s struggling because she’s pregnant? Don’t be an asshole. Leave her on the couch, and I’ll open the safe. You have a dozen guns in this place. You can point them all at me if you want. Are you saying your men can’t handle me even when I’m in handcuffs? What the hell?”

The two detectives shared a look. “Fine,” the taller one said. “Get up. But you try the slightest thing, you misstep or even look sideways, you’re going down hard.”

Gage struggled to his feet, corrected his balance, and then the cops hustled him back to his office. He started to go behind the desk to open his safe, but the cop stopped him. “Just tell us the combination.”

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