by Jane Hinchey
"I could do that," he agreed. "But if we go down that road, I'd be subpoenaing everything. The entire contents of his office. Is that what you want me to do?"
My cup wobbled and I almost spilled the contents. I steadied it with both hands and quit fiddling with it. "Actually that would be a pain," I admitted. "I kinda need his stuff." For despite what he'd just told me about me not being legally qualified to be a PI, I still had every intention of investigating Ben's death. Oh, and closing the cases he'd been working on.
He grinned again. "That's what I thought. So in the interests of strengthening relations between the force and Delaney Investigations I propose to you the same deal I offered Ben with some minor adjustments. You give me access to Ben's files and I'll teach you how to be a private investigator."
Ben was being suspiciously quiet in all of this. Usually, he didn't shut up, but now, when I could really use his input, he remained annoyingly silent. I wanted to twist around and look at him over my shoulder so badly, but that would look super weird. Instead, I kept my gaze on Galloway, ignoring the cold presence at my back, knowing Ben was hovering there, as intrigued as I was by Galloway's offer.
"Take it," Ben whispered, making me jump. Yes, I'd known he was there. I just hadn't expected him to speak directly into my ear.
Galloway noticed me jerk but didn't say anything, just waited for my response, sipped his coffee as if he had all the time in the world.
"This isn't illegal, is it?" Because it reeked of underhanded subterfuge.
"It is not. But it is classified. And I will need you to not say a word about it. To anyone."
Narrowing my eyes, I studied him. "Okay, I'll give you access to his files on one condition."
His eyebrows rose. "I hardly think you're in a position to negotiate."
Ha. He didn't know me at all. Just because I was clumsy didn't make me stupid. "That's where you're wrong. Sure, you can subpoena Ben's files. But that's going to take time and you'd need a judge to sign off on it. You could probably swing it as part of his murder investigation—that'd speed things along. But you and I both know you met with Ben before he was killed, so whatever it is you're looking for isn't related to his death. Not directly. Also, you want this kept quiet, so I doubt you're prepared to subpoena his files. Your offer to help me with PI training is tempting, I admit, but I have other options in that regard too." I could move to the city for the duration of my training. It wasn't ideal but it wasn't out of the question either. Or I could nix the whole thing and close Delaney Investigations. A little piece of my heart shriveled at the thought.
He regarded me silently for a full minute. I swallowed and tried not to be intimidated. "What are you proposing?" he ground out.
"It's simple really. You tell me what this is about."
"Not going to happen."
"Then no deal."
"Audrey," Ben warned. I shot him a glare. He didn't remember what he'd been doing before he died, he didn't remember his cases, he sure as hell didn't remember what sort of deal he had going on with Galloway. And if Galloway wasn't going to tell me, then I wasn't going to play ball, pure and simple.
"You've got balls, I give you that," Galloway said, a hint of admiration in his voice.
"Well yes, only mine are on the inside." I nodded in agreement.
Galloway blew out a sigh, his face resigned. "Okay. But this goes no further. I'm taking a huge risk telling you and I cannot afford to have word of this getting out." He glanced up at the ceiling and muttered something to himself about pushy women.
I couldn't believe he'd caved. I'd fully expected him to leave without either of us getting what we wanted. Of course, now that he had, I had a twinge of concern that maybe I didn't want to know this big bad secret. What if it's what got Ben killed? Would it put a target on my back too? Although to be fair, any of his cases could be behind his murder and I may already be a target.
"You're overthinking," Ben whispered near my ear. I lowered my head and willed my brain to stop spinning. It didn't.
"I'm part of an undercover task force," Galloway said, voice devoid of emotion. "To investigate—and put a stop to—corruption in the force."
My head snapped up. "You should have led with that," I told him.
"So you know about Ben's case?"
I snorted. "Of course I know what those assholes did to him. I'm his best friend. I was by his side throughout the entire debacle. I saw what it did to him!" I poked Galloway in the chest, hard. "Why has it taken this long, huh? Three years. That's a pretty shitty response time."
Galloway had the grace to look remorseful. "The task force was only created this year. As I said, it's undercover. Secret. We can't have anyone finding out about it; otherwise they'll go into hiding and we'll never catch them at it."
"By them, you mean cops? Your fellow officers?" I needed to be one hundred percent certain clear we were on the same page. Galloway nodded.
"What if this is some trick? Get me to hand over all of Ben's proof that Firefly Bay Police Department is corrupt, then you destroy it and it was all for nothing."
"All I can give you is my word." Galloway shrugged. It was true. There were no guarantees I could trust him. There was a time when I would trust virtually anyone, but those days were gone. The department had nearly destroyed Ben. They'd kicked him while he was down. Not only had he been dealing with his father’s illness and the heartbreaking decision to put him into care, but they framed him as a bad cop. Falsified reports, tampered with evidence. They'd left him with no option. Be fired for misconduct or resign. All because he'd witnessed a payoff between an officer and a drug dealer.
"You've been in Firefly Bay a while. Why now?"
He looked puzzled. "I'm not sure I know what you mean? Yes, I've been here for two years. But the task force has only recently been formed."
"And no one in the Firefly Bay Police Department is involved in the task force? Just you?"
He inclined his head. "Just me." Then he elaborated, "The task force is statewide. Firefly Bay isn't the only station with problems, hence, the task force."
I chewed my lip. He could be spinning me total bullshit. "I believe him," Ben said. My most troubling thought was that I did too. I didn't want to—every fiber of my being was protesting—but my gut instinct told me Galloway was on the up-and-up. "Fitz, if we can stop the corruption that we both know is happening then we have to trust him. We have to take the chance." I liked how Ben said we. That I wasn't alone in this, he had my back.
I nodded my head. Once. "What is it you need?"
"Ben said he kept his own reports of everything that happened. That's what we were meeting about the day we bumped into you. I'd reached out to him, we had a conversation and he told me everything he knew."
"You know it was Ian Mills Ben saw, accepting a bribe from a drug dealer he was meant to be arresting?"
Galloway nodded. "I do. I'm also looking at Sergeant Dwight Clements and Deputy Police Chief James Clarke." I wasn't surprised to hear Dwight's name come up, he and Ian were as thick as thieves, both on duty and off. James Clarke surprised me, but then I figured someone high up in the department had to be involved; otherwise things would never have escalated as they did. "Remember," Galloway added, "not a word. This is strictly between us."
"Oh good. You're back. Feed me." Thor burst through the cat door and sat next to his temporary food bowl.
"You've still got food in there," I told him, pointing out the obvious.
"I can see the bottom!" Thor's outrage was real.
"Fine, fine." I slid off the barstool, scooped a measure of kibble from the pantry and topped up his bowl. "Happy now?" I asked.
He ignored me, the only sound the crunch of kibble between his teeth. And then I looked up and caught the amused expression on Galloway's face. Holy heck I'd forgotten only I could understand Thor—so now Galloway thought I spent half my time talking to myself and half my time talking to Ben's cat. Why he hadn't run for the hills was beyond me. Surely he must think I'm an absolute
looney tune by now. But he didn't say anything and I decided if he could ignore the fact that I was having conversations with a cat, so could I.
"You'd better follow me," I told him, jerking my head toward Ben's study.
14
Detective Galloway opened his mouth to speak when a loud "Yoohoo!" came from the sliding door behind him, followed by a tapping noise. Over his shoulder, I saw Mrs. Hill waving at me through the glass.
"Sorry," I muttered through gritted teeth. "You've met the neighbor, Mrs. Hill?" I asked as I breezed past on my way to the door.
"Indeed." I'm pretty sure I heard a hint of humor in his voice, but I couldn't be one hundred percent sure.
Flicking the latch on the door, I slid it open, moving my body to block her entrance. Only I wasn't fast enough and she brushed past me with a sharp nudge of her elbow. "Ow," I muttered, rubbing my rib cage and eyeballing the hellion from next door.
"Can I help you, Mrs. Hill?" I asked with forced politeness. She was in another floral dress, her hand twisting the pearls around her neck.
"I was wondering what you were doing here," she replied, not taking her eyes off of Galloway who had stood at her entrance, giving her a little nod.
"Feeding Thor." I glanced down at the grey cat who hadn't lifted his head from his bowl. "Who's going to get fat at this rate," I added.
"Hey!" he grumbled. "Back off. I've had a trauma. I'm comfort eating."
Mrs. Hill sniffed. "Yes. Well. You told me that before. I just don't think it's appropriate that you're here at all."
Galloway didn't miss my eye roll, not by the way his lips twitched.
"Yes well, I have some news for you on that front, Mrs. Hill." Oh, I was going to enjoy this—and for a nanosecond I felt bad about it, but that feeling soon vanished. Mrs. Hill gave me nothing but grief and it was clear as the nose on my face that she didn't like me. She was going to like what I had to tell her next even less.
"I'm your new neighbor!" I announced, rocking back on my heels, a fake smile plastered on my face as I watched her reaction. As anticipated she couldn't hide it. She did a good job of trying to, but I was watching for those telltale signs I knew so well. The flaring of her nostrils, the stiffening of her spine, the way her tongue shot out to touch her upper lip. All signs that she was pissed off. Usually at me. There was something about my mere presence that got on her nerves, and despite me trying on countless occasions to befriend her, we'd never gotten past me being that annoying friend of Ben's. The one that wasn't good enough.
"What do you mean?" Her voice came out three octaves higher than usual and the hand that had been fiddling with her pearls, clutched them in a death grip so tight I feared they'd break and scatter across the floor.
I made sure my following words were not as gleeful as they sounded in my head, hoping I was injecting just enough somber introspection into them. "Ben left me his house in his will," I explained. "Actually he left me everything."
You could have heard a pin drop. Well, you could have if Thor would stop crunching the damn kibble. Instead, his noisy little jaws continued to work away, crunch, crunch, crunch, as Mrs. Hill stood ramrod straight, a look of utter disbelief on her face. Then she left. Without a word. She simply walked out, leaving the door open in her wake. I pulled a face and slid it closed.
"That was odd." Galloway said.
I sagged with relief. "Oh good, you think so too? Because sometimes with her I think it's just me."
"Ugh, yeah." He nodded, his gaze thoughtful as he looked toward the gate in the fence separating the properties, the one Mrs. Hill had just disappeared through. I could faintly hear Percy barking in the distance.
"I'm predicting she'll make herself a nice cup of tea, calm down, and then be back with a million questions laced with disdain about how Ben could be friends with someone like me, let alone leave me all his possessions."
"She seemed really shocked about that." Galloway was still looking at the gate.
"I'm going to check on her," Ben said. He'd been quiet for so long that I'd actually forgotten he was with us.
"Sure." I shrugged, then caught the sharp look Galloway darted my way. Damn it. Busted talking to a ghost. Again. I scrambled to cover my ass. "I mean, she sure did. Anyway…" I clapped my hands together. "Back to business. Follow me."
He did. I sat at Ben's desk, jiggled the mouse to wake up the computer and typed in the password.
"You know his passwords?" Galloway asked, dragging up the old wooden chair from the corner and making himself comfortable by my side.
"Uh-huh." I nodded, fingers flying over the keyboard. "I set up most of his systems."
"Did you help him with recording his case?"
I ground my teeth, remembering it oh so well. Ben had been preparing to go to internal affairs, blow the whistle on Mills, when an assault charge had been laid on him. He'd arrested a guy, one of the street thugs for vehicular theft, only that thug had claimed excessive force and was suddenly sporting a black eye. A black eye he hadn't had when Ben brought him in.
"I set up a spreadsheet for him to track things, yes." I pulled up the spreadsheet in question, leaning back in my chair while Galloway leaned forward to read the screen.
"This is very detailed. Very thorough." I wasn't sure if Galloway was talking to himself or me. I may have set up the spreadsheet, but Ben had entered the information. Every precise detail. Dates, times, every exchange, he recorded it. He had photos too. He'd had the sense to snap a photo with his mobile of anything and everything that tied the corruption back to Mills. What I hadn't known, and I assume Ben hadn't known either, was how high up in the department it went—he had no evidence to support Galloway’s theory on Deputy Police Chief Clarke being dirty.
Opening a drawer, I pulled out a blank USB. Ben kept a stash to give copies of surveillance footage to his clients. Inserting the USB I copied the spreadsheet over, and the dozens of photos. Each photo's file path was recorded in the spreadsheet.
"This is helpful. Very helpful." Galloway nodded, clearly pleased. I ejected the USB and handed it to him. He took it, looked me dead in the eye and said, "Thank you. I know it doesn't mean much to you now, but this will help clear Ben's name." He stood and returned the chair to its spot in the corner. I followed him back into the living room.
"That's where you're wrong. It means a hell of a lot to me. That's why I'm taking a chance that I can trust you," I shot back. "Am I in danger? If Mills, Clements and Clarke catch wind of what you're up to, will it lead back to me? Do I have a target on my back?" Then another, more chilling thought occurred to me. "Did one of them kill Ben? Did they already know? Is this why he died?"
Galloway shrugged. "Until we find who killed Ben and why, I can't say. We're assuming it's related to one of his cases, but one thing about police work is you never make assumptions. You need evidence to back it up."
"That's not comforting," I said.
"Wasn't meant to be," he shot back. "Ben and I were discreet. We met walking along the street. To anyone else it would have looked like a casual conversation as we walked from one end of the block to the other. It had to be that way to avoid any suspicion. So no, I'm highly doubtful it was Mills or Clements. And Clarke wouldn't get his fingers dirty. He's pulling the strings from higher up."
"Right." My initial enthusiasm for the PI field dimmed just a little. I'd been excited about taking over Ben's business, of seeing myself as a super sleuth private investigator. But now I may have just put a massive target on my back.
"I'm telling you this so you can take precautions. Be mindful of your own safety. There's no reason to think that you're next."
I nodded. Heaven help us all if this got me killed, I'd be really pissed with him.
Ben returned with a gust of arctic air. "That's odd," he commented.
Galloway was at the sink rinsing his cup so I mouthed the word "Oh?" to Ben while jerking my head toward the detective.
Ben gave Galloway a glance and then slid onto the barstool the other ma
n had recently vacated. "I couldn't get into Ethel's house," he answered.
"What?" That got my attention. Ben could move through walls—how could he not get into her house?
"What?" Galloway said over his shoulder. "Did you say something?" Turning off the tap, he grabbed a tea towel and dried off his cup before returning it to its rightful place—the cupboard above the coffee machine. God, he was even house trained. He'd be perfect if it weren't for that one major defect. He was a cop. I sighed wistfully. Such a waste.
"Audrey?" he prompted when I didn't reply and I suspected I was eyeballing him with a rather dreamy expression on my face, for that grin was back, the one with the endearing dimple that was oh, so distracting.
"Nope, didn't say a word," I lied. Lies were falling thick and fast from my lips these days and I wondered if I should be worried about that. After all, we grow up being told lying is bad, yet here I was, dispensing them like candy on Halloween. For the greater good, I assured myself.
"I wonder where you go," Galloway said, more to himself than me.
"Hmmmm?" I arched a brow, still half lost in thought.
His grin widened, showing even, white teeth. He had very nice teeth I noticed, running my tongue over my own. My bottom teeth were crooked and I'd thought about having work done to straighten them, but all of that cost money that I didn't have. Correction, money that I didn't used to have. But now I did. Maybe I should make an appointment with my dentist.
"In that head of yours. I wonder where you go. You drift off, your mind miles away." He'd folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the kitchen cupboard looking all sexy cowboy—minus the hat—and hot detective. My ovaries were having a hard time keeping their minds on the job—and that was finding Ben's killer. The mental reminder was enough to snap me out of my fantasizing.
15
I was keen to get started on my PI school application, but two things happened. My phone rang and so did Galloway's.
Peering through the crack on the screen, I sighed. I couldn't ignore this one.
