Page 36 of Collide

Otherwise, he would have had a bullet in his brain by now.

"What do you know?" I ignored his question and glared at himexpectantly, hoping he had a damn good reason for taking my attention away from my girl. He sighed and leaned forward.

"There's no cop in Hollows Bay by the name of Anderson. EitherBlaze gave you shit intel or the cunt she claims told her gave her a fake name," he explained, his voice gruff. Danny sounded like he smoked 40 cigarettes a day, which was ironic because the man was vehemently against smoking.

"She wasn't lying," I told him confidently as Blaze's bloody bodypopped into my mind.

Surprisingly, it had taken longer than I thought it would to extract theinformation from Blaze. She had screamed like a banshee as I used the pliers to rip her fingernails out, followed by her toenails, but it hadn’t been enough to make her squeal. She was probably able to tolerate it because of the amount of drugs she had swimming through her veins.

It was when bones started breaking she eventually caved and gaveme the information I needed. I was one hundred percent certain she had been truthful.

"Maybe he wasn't even a cop after all," Danny added unhelpfully.

The truth was, we had no idea who the man was that Blaze had gother information from, he was like a goddamn ghost. She claimed she'd been entertaining a man who had been going to the club for a few weeks and had taken a shine to her.

On one occasion when she'd been sucking his dick, he'd taken aphone call, answering it as ‘Detective Anderson’ and Blaze had overheard him discussing the murder of someone whose throat had been slit and their body left at the docks. Blaze said she could only hear bits of the conversation but had distinctly heard the man on the end of the phone claim responsibility for the kill. The conversation ended with the Detective saying their plan was moving in the right direction.

Blaze said she didn’t give the conversation much thought until severaldays later when news of Theo’s murder broke. It hadn’t taken her long to realize the cop she was blowing had been talking about Theo Wolfe, and in her drug-addled state, she and her dealer concocted a half-witted plan to try to blackmail me.

Fucking laughable.

They thought they were being smart, telling me they had informationon Theo’s murder which they would share in exchange for $100,000, which undoubtedly, they’d blow on crack. The morons didn't consider for one second that as soon as I heard they had information, I'd extract it from them without paying a single cent for it.

They had learned the hard way.

“Did you speak to Griffin and get a list of all cops in the state?” Iasked.

Victor Griffin was the Chief of Police in Hollows Bay. He was also onehell of a corrupt motherfucker. Fortunately for me, that meant he was well and truly inmypocket.

I mean, he had little choice in the matter after I discovered his secret interest in male escorts, young ones at that, and I didn’t think Mrs. Griffin would have been too thrilled about it.

“He gave me a list of cops in the city but said it would take him longerto get the list for everyone in the state. I dunno, Boss, something was off about him, he was acting all kinds of shady.”

Danny was right, Griffin had been avoiding my calls this past week.

I’d been trying to track him down all week since Blaze had given me the nugget of information about Detective Anderson, but he hadn’t answered my calls and hadn’t returned them either. In the end, I’d instructed Danny and Hendrix to pay him a personal visit.

The Chief was playing a dangerous game.

"I think it's about time I paid Chief Griffin a little visit, remind him whopays his second wage," I said out loud, more to myself than to Danny. He hummed his agreement.

"What about the whore? You think she could give any moreintel now she's had a few days off the gear?" Danny asked.

As much as I'd wanted to end Blaze, I decided it would be prudent tokeep her alive until I could confirm her information. As much as I believed what she had said, I also wasn’t going to rely completely on the word of a crackhead.

She'd been locked in the warehouse for the last week going coldturkey which I’m sure had not been fun for her. I was also hoping that once she sobered up, she could shed some more information on the mysterious detective.

A little part of me hadn't wanted to kill her either because of herassociation with Riley. The two worked together and from everything Isaac told me about Riley, her only friends were the girls she worked with. If using Angel as bait hadn’t lured Riley in, Blaze was a backup plan. But now I had my girl right where I wanted her, if Blaze had nothing left to give me, there was only one thing left to do with the bitch.

"Leave her to me." Time had run out for Blaze.

Danny smirked but he didn’t make to leave, and I realized he seemedtense.

“What else?” I growled, a feeling growing in my gut that whatever hewas about to say was going to piss me off. Sure enough, a flash of concern washed over his face. I waited as he let out a frustrated sigh.

"There's been some rumblings on the street. Some of the workersare restless about Theo's killer not being found, and Little Nicky being able to pilfer from the warehouse for as long as he did yet still managed to walk away with his life. There's murmurings that you are starting to lose focus," he replied almost like it pained him to tell me.

I understood why. My mood could be unpredictable and news like thiswas bound to turn my mood sour. I stared at Danny as my brain repeated the words he’d just said.

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