Page 34 of Special Agent Murphy

Chapter Twenty-two

Kayti followed Murphy into the small observation room. Together they watched Alex fold up into a sorry specimen of abject male misery.

Kayti spoke first. “I believe him. He’s terrified. And I think he cares about Gina.”

“Yeah. I got that too.”

“You think those texts came from Gina?”

“Nope.”

“Think they’ll show unless Alex is there?”

“Doubt it.”

“And other than Draper, we have no idea how many there are and what they look like.”

“Yep. We’re royally screwed without him.”

“So, we set up a sting.”

“Looks that way. I’ll have to pass it by Kale, but I doubt she’ll put up any roadblocks. The Senator has a lot of pull with the Bureau.”

Kayti had a slight problem thinking of her supervisor as someone other than her aunt. As Murphy suggested, they’d need her permission. After all, they might be putting a man’s life at risk as well as their own.

In a short time, getting authorization and working with another division where the S.W.A.T. team joined in with the code name Eight Ball, they had Alex adorned with implicit instructions.

In the special vehicle that looked like an ordinary van, the officer in charge shook hands with Murphy. “Hey, Black. Good to be working with you again.”

“Hey, Frank. How’s the gout?”

Frank’s grin widened. “I don’t have gout and you know it.”

“You will if you keep eating that sweet shit you love.”

“Man, you’re the one could use more sweet shit eating. It might lighten your disposition.” Frank turned to Kayti and shook hands before he scrutinized the perp and got serious.

“We have you covered, Alex.” He handed him an ordinary looking black hoodie similar to the one he wore and gestured for him to put it on. “There’s a video camera in this zipper catch. All you have to do is make sure to scan the room constantly giving us a good view of who’s there, and how we can get in should we need to move fast.”

“If she comes, what will happen?” Again, Alex asked Murphy, automatically accepting his command.

“We’ll take her back downtown with us to Headquarters. Hopefully, she’ll be able to give us more information that would work in your favor.” Alex seemed uneasy with that proposal.

Kayti kicked in before he could change his mind. “You’re doing this for Gina’s sake as well as Misti Bond’s. Working with us will go a long way to righting some of the wrong that’s happened.”

Alex’s eyes grew larger, even more protruding than they were normally. He reached to touch Kayti’s arm until Murphy’s growl let him know it wasn’t such a good idea to lay his hands on her. “We just needed the money so badly. I lost my job at Walmart a while ago and Gina just lost hers. The bills were piling up. We didn’t know where to turn.”

“Maybe by looking for another job.” Murphy’s no bullshit attitude had Alex bristling. “I did, man. It’s not so easy when you got a record. And when you get fired for standing up to a prick boss who thinks he’s Napoleon, and you’re his serf. I put up with the asshole for as long as I could take it. But he got worse. Others quit and it made things even harder for those of us left behind.”

Kayti stepped in to smooth ruffled feathers. “What about getting retrained?”

“Sure. Sounds easy, but it takes money. And we were looking at getting evicted. You can’t know what ten thousand bucks could do for us.”

“Yeah, I know exactly what blood money does for you.” Murphy’s non-existent sympathy reared again. “It gets people in trouble with the law and in jail for the second time. Misti is a sixteen-year-old who never hurt anyone. She didn’t deserve to be kidnapped. Not for a day, not even for a minute, and bloody well not for ten thousand dollars.”

Kayti didn’t know if she agreed totally with Murphy’s harsh reality check, until he reminded them about Misti. Then her bleeding heart froze, and she flipped to his point of view.

“Alex,” Murphy sat across from the culprit and made sure he had his full attention. “I’ll be on you every minute. If Gina shows, things should go smooth. But if not, we’ll hang out until it looks as if there’ll be no one coming before we shut it down.”

Alex looked perplexed. “Who else would come?”

“Who has her phone?”

Alex’s face tightened and fear began building in his eyes. “You think she’s in danger.”

“You did earlier.”

He nodded. “I’ll do whatever I can to help her.”

“We know that. Just give us a signal if you recognize anyone you either met or even saw hanging around at Coopers.”

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