Page 114 of Stella
“Say what?” Harlem snaps. “Callaghan is your… kid?”
Cash palms the back of his head. “Yes.”
“Holy fuck,” Hawk mutters behind him.
“Just found out, so excuse me if I’m not dealin’ with that as well as everythin’ else right now.” Cash starts to pace.
Suddenly my phone rings. It’s Willow.
I press a kiss to Stella’s head. “I have to take this.”
Stella nods, wiping her eyes as Calli follows me to the far end of the room.
Everyone erupts with questions as Cash paces with his head in his hands.
“Willow?”
“Oh, boy, Cale, you’re not gonna believe what Sawyer dug up.”
“Sawyer?”
“Never mind that. I looked into your mom’s case, and it’s been reopened.”
“What the fuck?”
“This is gonna have my badge, but they’re pinning her murder on Cash Hudson.”
I turn to look at Cash, who’s having an argument with Tag and Harlem. “Her murder?”
“You said yourself, whoever did it covered it up, and someone wants blood.”
“It can’t have been Cash.” Then again, he claims he didn’t know about me, but what if that’s a lie? And it wouldn’t explain why he kept me alive if he did kill my mom, or does he have some moral compass after all? “I can’t see him doing that.”
“Me either, and this is where it gets interesting…” She takes a breath. “Dougie.”
I wipe a hand over my face. “What about him?”
Her voice lowers. “He signed off on the DNA results. He was also the person to bring the first package to you at your desk that day, remember?”
I think back. He was, but him bringing the mail isn’t exactly a crime.
“Doug and I are friends,” I say. “There has to be some mistake.”
“Hey, I’m just telling you the facts, now it’s up to you what you do with it.”
“Does the Captain know?”
“I thought that too because we all know he lines his pockets with bribes all over this city, and he would be aware, but the order came from above.”
The only person bigger than the superintendent is the mayor. “Fuck,” I mutter. “Dougie’s a pawn.”
We were friends, and he’s been playing me all along? How deep in this is he, and why? There has to be some end goal here, not just taking Cash down. It feels more like revenge, but what does Dougie have against Cash?
“Watch your back,” Willow warns. “If they find out we know, they’ll have us arrested.”
“Get out of the office now. I’ll deal with this tomorrow.”
“Be careful,” she says.
