Page 237 of Broken Daddy
“I’ll see you later, dear. Are you back for good?” Mrs. Dearsley asked.
“Uh, no, I’ve got an exhibition of my pottery this weekend. I’ve come back for that.”
“Oh, how lovely. I better go. Bye!”
“I can’t believe that Aaron went out of business,” she said. “And so quickly.”
“He deserved it. The asshole. Come on, baby. Let’s go.”
They headed back to his truck and they drove to the Tavern. As they walked in, she was hit by a whirlwind. Hayes had to brace her and moved his arm over her injured one to protect it.
“Devi!” Silla cried.
“Silla,” she said, hugging her back with her good arm.
“Oh shit, sorry! Did I hurt you?”
“No, no, I’m good.”
Silla put her hands on her hips and ran her gaze over her. “You look fucking amazing. Whatever the big guy is dishing out, I need me some.”
Oh, dear Lord.
Thankfully, Mac came up to hug her before she could say anything.
“Where’re Gwen and Dominic?” she asked, looking around.
“Not here yet. Michelle said she’d see you tomorrow at her place,” Mac said.
“I have news!” Gwen yelled as she walked into the Tavern.
Dominic shook his head behind her.
“What is it?” she asked. “Is it my brother? Is he all right?”
“Better than all right, babe!” Gwen said. “We found evidence that Detective Brown deleted. Evidence in the form of one text message that lured your brother to the scene of the crime.”
Holy crap.
“W-what?” she asked, feeling dizzy. “Is that . . . is Rohan going to be freed?”
“Oh yes, he is. As soon as the wheels of justice move. Unfortunately, sometimes that’s slow but a few threats here and there will help. I’ll get Reuben to help with that part.”
“Good idea,” Dominic told her.
Devi wasn’t following. “What happened?”
Hayes sat and drew her onto his lap.
“All right, so I didn’t like that Detective Brown,” Gwen told her. “And I really didn’t like the way he treated you. And when I discovered that the person who took charge of your brother’s phone was one Detective Brown, well, I got suspicious. And I started digging, until IA tapped on my shoulder and told me to back off.”
“IA?” she repeated.
“Yep, turns out he was already under investigation and they had evidence that he’d tampered with a number of cases. I handed over what I’d found to them, not that they can likely use that. Two days ago, they pulled him in for questioning and he confessed to several things, including deleting a text message off your brother’s phone. They had their tech guy do a deep search into the phone and history and he managed to retrieve the text message that came from the victim.”
“Oh my God,” she said.
“I expect the judge to overturn the case and dismiss it,” Gwen said. “The evidence against your brother is weak. Plus, Detective Brown gave IA the name of the person who paid him to delete that message.”
