Emma looked over at him.
“Do we tell her?”
“Tell me what?”
“It’s not my call. Greyson would have to decide that since he’s working that case.”
“Case?” Poppy asked. “He’s the mob. What case does he work?”
Emma knew they had no choice. It looked like she was going to have to make the decision, and fast.
“Tell me. One lie and this goes on record.”
Well, since she put it that way…
“We help people in Vegas. We take the cases the cops can’t, or won’t, solve—more the latter since Commissioner Raye came along.”
She told her about the last few cases.
Poppy listened.
“I help him. We let the world think we’re bad. We’re not. We’re trying to clean up this cesspool.”
“That’s the job for the police.”
“Mace Bristol was a plant. Heath Spencer was on Raye’s payroll, and there are more. Thomas Christ murdered my brother in Philly. He had him cut apart and I was nearly raped.”
She moved her shirt and showed her the scar from the knife wound.
“You can check it all out. It’s all on record.”
She didn’t need to.
Poppy already did that. She covered her bases. She wanted to see how much they’d tell her. That was why she’d been at work before the ass crack of dawn. She’d already called Philly.
“Okay, and?”
“We help people. Dimitri too. He’s not a bad guy. He’s helping to save women, and we’ve stumbled across a case.”
That was shocking.
And it pleased her.
Poppy prayed this wasn’t a lie. Already, she respected him that much more. It appeared her gut hadn’t been wrong.
“Which is?”
“Sex trafficking. We think there’s someone at the Fed level who is on the inside.”
She stared at her.
“You can verify?”
Emma picked up the tablet on the table and pushed a button. It buzzed Ethan Blackhawk.
When his face came on the big screen on the wall, he was in the morgue.
“Yes, Emma?”
“Ethan, we have Detective Poppy Wayne here. Can you please verify that we’re helping the FBI? She’s not buying it. She thinks I’m shoveling a whole lot of BS.”
Poppy stared at the man.
Holy shit!
Emma Croft just dialed up the deputy director of the FBI with a push of the button.
“Hello, Detective Wayne. I will confirm that off the record, they are assisting myself and my wife. Do you have questions?” he asked.
She’d seen Elizabeth on the news. She knew she was on the ground, but the Crofts and Dimitri helping them?
Now she wished she’d made out with the sexy Russian a whole hell of a lot more. Clearly, he was one of the good guys.
“Yes, is there’s really a sex trafficking ring?”
“Yes, we’ve claimed some of the Jane Does on your desk, and our ME is in your morgue right now,” he said, turning his tablet to show her Doctor Stone beside their ME.
“Well, shit.” It was going down right under all of their noses, and no one was the wiser.
“My brother is buying those women, and we believe he is putting them in the morgue. Not only is he trying to kill me, he’s trying to stop us from ending his fun.”
And that made more sense to her.
Fuck.
“I want in.”
Ethan laughed.
“Uh, I can’t let you have your wish,” he stated. “No offense, Detective.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know who to trust. My wife was nearly shot and blown up. The commissioner had her dragged in. You’re a cop.”
Well, she hadn’t seen this coming.
Poppy was focused.
She wanted to help clean up the city.
“I didn’t arrest Dimitri, I’ve been forthright, and I can help. If there are women being raped and…”
He stopped her.
“Detective, I have a call from my wife coming in. Emma, handle it.”
She would.
They turned off the tablet.
“Now, there’s my proof, and why would we have direct access to Ethan Blackhawk if we were lying?”
They got her there.
This was huge.
“So, he’s killing women? You are one of the good guys, and Vegas is really a shithole?”
“Yes, yes, and yes,” Emma stated.
“Well, we have to stop him before anyone else dies. They’re innocent!”
“We’re working on that now. My husband is out trying to find the people selling the women to him, and Elizabeth Blackhawk is trying to get to Viktor Marchenko.”
“I saw her on the news yesterday.”
“Watch much news?” Dimitri stated. “You didn’t seem like the type to stay home at night and relax by the TV.”
She laughed.
“I’m getting a cold from being in the mountains in February,” she stated. “You know…sightseeing for crazy Russian landmarks.”
He laughed.
Dimitri loved her sense of humor.
“Find anything?”
“A suspiciously large pain in my equally large ass.”
Emma couldn’t help herself.
“He is troublesome.”
“Emma!”
“Ya lyublyu tvoyego brata.”
He cuddled her.
Now Poppy was getting it. It was more a brother-sister relationship. There was love, but it wasn’t sexual. Well, that was good. She would have felt horrible for picturing him naked.
Because she was.
Nonstop.
“Anyway, yes, I watch the news. I like to know what’s going on in the world. My job is my life. I don’t really have ‘fun’. I work. Besides, everyone saw how she got the shit kicked out of her by two cops, and then the explosion was near where I live.”
“Your neighborhood is questionable,” Dimitri stated. “You had a serial killer.”
“Well, I’m a cop. We get paid shit, let people shoot at us, and bed down with killers. I like some excitement. I’m an adrenaline junkie.”
Dimitri lifted a brow.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Anyway, let me help.”
Emma gave her their names.
“Shit.”
“What?” Dimitri asked.
“The clowns who manhandled her are known Raye lackeys. They kiss ass left and right. It’s pathetic.”
Emma let her figure it out on her own.
“Well, there goes my pay raise,” she said, sighing. There was no way she could take that captain position. He’d been blowing smoke up her ass.
“I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t Emma’s fault.
It was better to learn now than later.
“He wants me off the street.”
“Yeah, because you’re a smart detective and in his way. He’s had enough people die already. Mace, Lester, Thomas. That’s all in a year. People will start talking.”
“Take it as a compliment,” Dimitri stated. “People who are trying to do good are either killed or called bad.”
He pointed at them with his good hand.
“Again, I want in.”
Dimitri glanced over at her.
“No.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Viktor Marchenko is a monster. He’s done some horrible things.”
“I’m sure…”
Emma pulled up the body cam footage that they’d seen last night. Poppy leaned forward and watched it all with cop eyes. When they found the young girl chained to a wall, naked, hungry, and blind, she couldn’t do it.
“I’m done. He’s bad.”
“If you can’t handle that, you can’t handle him,” Dimitri stated.
Poppy stared down at her boots. They’d shared, so she would too. Certain cases got to her.
That…
It got to her.
“I was at a sleepover when I was a child. I was dropped off the next day to find my sister chained to a radiator, raped, and murdered. She was badly burned because they turned the heat up when they left. It had to be an excruciating way to die. My mother was raped and drowned in her tub. So certain cases always bother me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do it. I don’t give up. I just choose not to look at it.”
He heard the demons.
He knew because they lived in him too.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m genuinely sorry. Monsters run free in the world, and they have to be stopped.”
It appeared they had a lot in common.
She fought every day to stop them.
“Please continue,” Emma offered.
“After I found them, I then went into the system.” She held up her hands and her pinkies were at odd angles. “The people who took me in weren’t kind. They repeatedly broke my fingers if I was bad.”
He softened.
Still…
“Because I respect you, Detective, the answer is no. Viktor is a monster. He will kill you for fun. I’m not saying no to anger you. It’s to protect you. Someone has to protect those who can’t save themselves. Run from this. Trust me. Look what it got me. Look what it got Natasha.”
She stood.
“My suggestion is for you to get an attorney,” she said. “Get Delilah Fleur here immediately.”
Dimitri sighed.
She’d changed her mind, and he’d changed his. He couldn’t trust her. That killed any attraction. If he couldn’t trust a woman, he had to let her go. After Marissa Pierce, he decided he wanted more what Greyson had.
He wanted peace—not to be shanked in the back.
“I see,” Emma said.
“No, you don’t. Put what you can on record, and have your attorney submit it to me. Leave as much out, Emma, as you can. You know how to have her word it. I’ll put that in the file as the official statement. As far as anyone is concerned, I’ll work the case, but I won’t really try. I’m sorry, but your sister’s death is going to be a cold case.”
She knew the woman was giving them one hell of a break.
“Have her file a cease and desist order against me. Tell her I’m harassing you. Tell her I tried to climb the side of the building. Hell! Tell her I sexually harassed Mr. ‘Also Has A Fine Ass’.”
He laughed.
Emma didn’t.
She knew the price of that.
“That will go on your record.”
She was aware.
“It’s clean. I can take a hit. For the record, Mr. Gideon,” she said, pulling back her blazer and tapping her gold badge. “That makes it my job to do the protecting. I can save myself, and I will save you. Someone has to dig your stubborn ass out of this mess and trust me, it won’t be you. It’ll be me.”
She grabbed the cupcake.
“And now I’m going to stress eat this all the damn way to the fucking gym.”
With that, she headed out.
Emma sat there, and finally, she spoke.
“You’re going to marry her.”
“WHAT? We don’t even like each other. She’s bossy, and we would argue nonstop. Where the hell did you get that?” he asked.
“What is one word to describe Greyson?”
“Bossy.”
“And another?”
“Stubborn.”
And then it hit him.
“Oh, Jesus!” he muttered, before cursing in Russian.
She was right.
“Detective Poppy Wayne is going to save you. I can tell. Buckle up, my brother. You are about to hit a wall—the woman wall.”
Sadly, he knew it.
And it scared the hell out of him.
Because he suspected that she was right.
He’d just come face to face with his future wife.
* * * G R E Y S O N C R O F T * * *
Heath Spencer was ready to kill Emma Croft. He was ready to gun her down, draw blood, and all to make her husband pay. He’d framed him with the drugs, cost him his badge, and gotten him tossed into jail.
It sucked.
It was all their faults, and he wasn’t going to take it anymore. It was time for payback. So, as the event was being set up, he headed to the venue, picked out a waiter that looked relatively close to his features, and picked him off.
He grabbed him, slit his throat, and tossed him in the bottom of the dumpster under all the trash.
They wouldn’t find him until the garbage was picked up, and by then it would be too late.
He’d already have done what he wanted to handle. It was a beautiful thing too.
If he was lucky, he’d take out Emma, and that other bitch making Commissioner Raye angry.
Then he’d be out of there.
He couldn't wait.
Heath Spencer did a line of coke off his front seat, tucked the dead man’s credentials into his pocket, and headed home to get ready.
Tonight was the night.
Revenge was coming.
* * * G R E Y S O N C R O F T * * *
LVPD Morgue
Chris was working on the deceased FBI director as his compadre, Doctor Stone, was working on Molly Shepherd. It was helping take the stress off of him now that there were two ME’s doing the work.
Staring down for twelve hours a day was brutal, and he couldn’t handle it anymore.
He was getting old. Chris had just turned forty-six, and he was feeling it. Time had seemed to speed up at some point, and he didn’t like the prospects of what that meant.
It sucked.
It was silent in the morgue as everyone worked. Ethan had stepped out to handle a call from his wife, and it likely wasn’t going to be a pleasant one.
He knew Elizabeth.
She probably throat punched someone. God knew this was Vegas, and it was one mess after another.
To distract himself, he figured some small talk would work best. He needed to focus on anything else but his health and Elizabeth’s safety.
“So why Las Vegas, Jameson?” Chris asked as he worked on the samples of the dead Fed’s liver and heart.
“I needed a change. I had a bad breakup, and I wanted to get away. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He had.
When he’d first met Jameson, he’d been a young FBI medical examiner dating a sexy Federal agent.
Elizabeth.
“Are you married?” he asked him.
“Not anymore.”
“Divorced?” he asked.
“No, my wife was murdered.”
He gasped.
“Shit! I’m sorry.”
He heard that a lot. It was a constant. As of late, the pain had stopped. He’d stopped mourning Cyra. Time, and family, had fixed that.
“Are you seeing anyone?” he asked, digging into the emaciated girl’s body.
“Yes, actually, I am.”
He figured it would be a rumor all over the news, so he let them think what they wanted. The Blackhawks were hiding his illness beneath the guise of a relationship. They were taking the heat for him, and he appreciated it.
It was a relationship, but not the kind everyone thought. While he could lose his job from having HIV, he wouldn’t from some kinky sex.
Oh, the irony.
He was totally celibate.
And that was a good thing.
His fornication days were over. Chris needed to focus on staying alive and raising Bethe. He had something better than sex. He had a family who loved him. Let the media say whatever they wanted. He was safe.
That’s all Chris ever wanted.
“Well, I hope it works out,” he said. “Relationships are hard. People get freaked out by what we do.”
“Yeah, I know. My girl doesn’t.”
Again, funny.
Chris was more freaked out that Elizabeth was out there chasing a Russian serial killer.
When the
door opened, Ethan came back in and his face said it all. They had trouble.
“Uh oh,” he muttered, putting down the knife he’d been using. “What happened?”
Blackhawk sighed.
“I need an ME.”
“Who did she kill?”
He would have laughed if this didn’t suck.
“She went to go interview one of the Feds who had been involved in the investigation of the sex trafficking.”
“And?”
“He’s not able to tell her anything. He has one shot to the head. Dead as a doornail.”
“Recent?” Chris asked, pulling off his gloves.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll take it. She’s tough to work with. Jameson isn’t going to want to deal with her again. Last time, it was rough.”
That made Ethan laugh.
No truer words had ever been uttered. His wife was a menace to MEs everywhere. Why should this one be different?
“She’s going to head out as soon as you get there. She wants to check on Fed number two, Scott Downing. We’re trying to keep this low-key, but the media…”
Chris got it.
They were swarming.
He grabbed his medical bag and glanced over at Jameson. He hated to dump a body and run, but this was important.
“Can you finish him up? I’m to the samples. It’s just his skull and close him up.”
“I can do that.”
“Thank you.”
Chris walked out with Ethan.
“Techs?”
“On their way there from the field office. They will have it processed for you to get there, give her TOD, and send her on her body-finding way.”
“I hope she doesn’t find more. We’re racking them up,” Chris stated.
Oh, he was well aware.
* * * G R E Y S O N C R O F T * * *
Derk Utz’s
Home
When he rolled up with Riley and Heath, the place was beyond chaotic. There were people all over the place. It looked like a party, and every druggie in the neighborhood was invited.
It was a mess.
They tried to find Utz, and with each strung out person they met, they simply pointed at the house.
These people were insane.
True Justice Page 37
