Page 16 of Tortured Hearts
He wastes no time in leaving. Maybe when this is all over, I’ll have my father run a background check on him. There’s definitely something there worth tucking in my back pocket.
But right now, I have to get Gianni out of the corner he’s shoved him in.
Exhaling wearily, I cradle the phone in my hands and dial the only person I can think of.
It only takes her two rings to pick up. “Hello?”
“Meredith, it’s Becca…”
“Dr. Brennan!” she screeches, her monotone voice pitched high enough to break glass. “Oh my God. How?—?”
“No time for questions. I need you to bring a change of clothes to Providence Hope Hospital, room three twenty-eight, and then I’ll need a ride downtown.” I close my eyes and sink onto the bed. “Please, hurry.”
Chapter Five
BECCA
I’m running on fumes of hysterics by the time I charge through the doors of the Providence PD and sprint to the front desk. “I need to see Chief George Reese.”
The blonde behind the counter looks me up and down while smacking her gum. “The chief is busy.”
I slam my palms on the counter. “I don’t care if he’s having tea with the royal fucking family. I want to see himnow.”
“Lady, I don’t know who you think you?—”
“Becca?”
We both turn to see Marvin Hooper, the department’s captain and one of my father’s oldest friends, standing in the doorway at the heart of the building, a bewildered look on his face.
“What are you doing here this late?” I ask in what I hope is an even keeled and not at all panicked voice. “Aren’t you supposed to be off duty?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in the hospital?” he quips, walking toward us.
“Yeah, about that…” While I’m fairly certain he’s oblivious to the stain on my father’s badge, the fewer people drawn into this mess, the better. However, flat out lying to him after waving my morality card in Gianni’s face makes me the worst kind of hypocrite. So I tie strings of truth around a lie and hope for the best. “I need to see my father. It’s about the arrest he brought in. I have information.”
His warm expression cools. “It’s an open and shut case.”
“According to who, the law or my father? Because there’s a personal vendetta fueling one of them. It’d be a shame if someone went public with it.”
He stares at me with a mangled look of surprise and disgust. I don’t blame him. I’d say I don’t know where that venom came from, but it’s the second time I’ve threatened someone today. I appear to be on a hot streak of doing out-of-character shit.
It’s a different experience to be on the outside of the corner for once. To wield power instead of wither under its weight. After a lifetime of keeping my head down and eyes lowered, I feel the tables finally turning.
And when Hooper’s sour expression turns to stone, I know he does, too.
“I’ll get someone to take your statement,” he says curtly.
“No!” I blurt out, inwardly cringing at the echo that follows. What the hell was I thinking?Manipulating situations is Gianni’s area of expertise, not mine. That man could strut out of Hell with the Devil’s crown armed only with his confidence in his own bullshit.
Wait, that’s it.
Coercion doesn’t always require anelaborate web of deceit. Sometimes, all it takes is a simple game of chicken.
Exhaling, I meet Hooper’s hesitant gaze. “Let me rephrase that. You can take me to my father right now, Captain, or I can call the U.S. Marshal’s office, and you can explain to them how you single-handedly destroyed their high-profile RICO case.”
Luckily, he doesn’t call my bluff. After his ruddy complexion turns the color of curdled milk, he makes a stiff motion for me to follow him. I do, silently basking in my victory as we maneuver our way through the empty hallways. The longer we walk, I question what I’m doing, only to come to an abrupt stop. I look up at Hooper, who already has his palm extended.
“Wait here.”
