Page 42 of Forbidden Want

“Do you think it will be safer for me if I drop a dime on Ire?”

“You will always be protected in this city,” he said. “Your brother, me, and your grandfather—”

“That doesn’t give me the right to screw people over. What I do requires access. If my subjects can’t trust me—”

“What happens when your city doesn’t trust you?”

He spun around to stalk a few paces and slammed a hand on the opposite wall. The harsh thud ricocheted off the concrete up the chimney of the stairwell.

“What is going on, Dad? If there’s something wrong…”

“There’s something wrong when my own daughter chooses scum over her family.”

“This is not my father asking,” she said, hoping to calm some of the strain in his voice. “You’re the superintendent and anything I tell you—”

“I am your father,” he said, coming back around to bear down on her. “No one needs to know about this conversation. You can give me the information in confidence. No one needs to know.”

“That won’t stand up in court.”

“No, but we’ll know who to focus on. Who our enemy is.”

“Ire has ears everywhere,” she said. “You can’t think anything I say to you, anything you say to others, will ever be confidential.”

“Is that a hint?” he asked, peering closer. “Are you saying those close to me are involved?”

This was peculiar. His edginess was almost… “You’re paranoid, Dad. I can’t tell you who to trust or who to doubt. But I won’t divulge anything shared with me in confidence.”

The growl of anger in his countenance snapped, and he turned to march away, tossing the corridor door out of his way to leave.

Well, she’d disappointed him. Nothing new there.

EIGHTEEN

SHE KNOCKED ON STRAT’S front door and waited for him to answer. The moment he did, she went inside.

“Where have you been?” she asked, dumping her things on his kitchen counter and raising the Chinese food bag in the air before putting it down too. “I brought dinner.”

“You my mother or my wife?” he asked, yawning. “‘Cause if it’s the second, we should have a conversation about screwing around.”

“Ha-ha,” she said, moving around the kitchen to get plates and flatware. “So I spent most of the day elbow deep in old police files.”

“This Dorsey?” he asked, opening the fridge behind her.

“Yes,” she said. “Reports from the first night of her disappearance are thorough. The cops are called, as you’d expect. They document the scene, no obvious disruption, take statements…”

“From?” he asked, putting an open beer down beside where she dished out food. “Her father and uncle?”

“Everyone.”

Strat grabbed one box and a fork, ignoring the fact she’d just tipped food onto a plate. Oh well, at least she’d only dirtied one.

“And?”

She put the clean plate away. “Not much. No one saw anything, heard anything. No major clues. No extraneous fingerprints or footprints found. No real physical evidence at all… Of course, half the city was in that house before the cops were called.”

“I’m sorta surprised they called the cops at all. They usually keep these things in the family… in a family like that.”

“Right,” she said, taking her plate over to the chair by the window and climbing on, folding her legs under herself. “Except this is a kid in pre-k.”

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