Ross studied her, trying to see whether or not she was lying, most likely. “You do other things?” There was a wicked gleam to his face.
“Yeah.” Liv wasn’t going to defile their relationship by detailing it for the scumbag. “My Gram’s in the hospital so we haven’t talked a ton about the case lately.”
“What does it matter?” Veronica snapped. “Just kill her and be done with it.”
Liv’s eyes closed briefly, then she opened them again. She wasn’t stupid. She knew the only reason Ross was talking so much was that she was going to die. But it still struck close to home to hear Veronica’s statement.
She heard the smack of a hand against a cheek, heard Veronica gasp. Ross had hit her.
“You’ve spent more than enough time trying to scare her off,” Veronica muttered. That sparked recognition in Liv’s brain. The lights off, the rocks through the window – had that been them? It made sense. But why scare her?
“Shut your mouth,” Ross said, clearly irritated. Then he turned to Liv, and crouched down next to her. “Your girlfriend will come for you, won’t she?”
Liv tried to keep her face dispassionate.
“Oh, she will.” Ross smiled. “Good.”
“You killed Cairo?” Liv asked, not sure why she was asking.
Ross studied her. “No.” He smiled.
“We might as well tell her,” Veronica muttered, clearly across the room and as far away from Ross as she could get.
“I didn’t kill her,” Ross said amiably.
It was scary, how Ross could go between friendly to angry so fast. Was that how he had hid his facade, had managed to function as a bartender for so long? And where did Veronica fit into that?
“See, Cairo figured out who was helping me,” Ross said, his attention on Liv. “We had to dispose of her.”
“So you’re gambling?” Liv didn’t have all the pieces. She wished she did.
“We did at first.” Ross sat down cross-legged, but his back was to a wall and the gun was still in his hands. “Poker. Sports betting.” He exhaled slowly. “Then a friend of mine introduced me to this drug runner, Teep.” A feral grin slid over his face. “That made much more money than anything else.”
“Then why did you gamble?” Liv was drawing on all the hours she’d spent watching criminal TV. “Was it to hide the money?”
“Bingo.” Ross pointed a finger at her, like a fake gun. “Money laundering.”
“Using one illegal business to hide the other.” Liv realized she shouldn’t have said that, but Ross was nodding.
“You know why I’m telling you, right?” Ross asked.
Liv nodded. Her lips trembled but she wouldn’t let the tears course down her face. She was stronger than that. No matter what had happened in her life, she would hope until the end, and she would face death as strongly as she faced life.
“So have you killed people?” Liv asked, trying to draw out the conversation.
“Only the ones that could talk.” He chuckled. “I don’t like people that can talk.” He mimed cutting his throat. Then he laughed again.
Liv shivered in fear.
“Police!” Ryan kicked the door to Ross’s house open, Dane right behind her. Her gun was drawn and held in front of her, just in case they encountered someone. There was no one there. The house was eerily quiet.
She put the gun down, adrenaline fading. What was going on?
Maybe there would be some evidence. “Think we should go?” Dane asked, drawing her attention.
Stubborn as hell, Ryan shook her head. “I want to look around.”
Dane nodded, then headed towards the kitchen. Ryan picked the living room.
An hour later, they still had nothing. No papers out of sort, nothing that tied Ross to either of the crime scenes or the transactions in Cairo’s account, or Steven’s.
“Damnit.” Ryan hit her hand against the wall, frustration clear in her voice. Then she stopped. The wall felt hollow. A slight frown on her face, she started tapping the wall, listening to its echo. There was something behind it, where no door led to.
Seriously? A hidden room? What did she live in, a spy movie?
Then a small set of stairs, like to an attic, fell out of the ceiling, causing Ryan to scream.
Dane laughed.
“Jerk,” Ryan said, sticking her tongue out at him. “I’m going to go investigate.”
She headed up the stairs, crawling up over years of dust and insulation. Why hadn’t she brought gloves? She was going to have to scold herself later.
There were a few ceiling tiles she could move, and when she looked down, she could slide into the room that had been behind the hollow wall. It was much easier to find the door that way, and she popped it open, revealing Dane standing there with his eyebrows raised.
“You find the weirdest shit,” Dane said.
Ryan laughed, half giddy and half terrified. That was true. She headed further inside. It was a short passageway, with two doors that had padlocks. One of them, however, was unlocked.
Her heart racing, Ryan pulled the padlock off and heard the door start to open. Its creak was almost deafening in the near-silence.
“Help me,” came a weak, feminine voice.
Ryan’s eyes widened. It was her missing teenager, Jasmine, bruised and bloody on the bed. “I’ll radio it in.”
She heard the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Ryan froze. “What are you doing?”
“You just couldn’t let it go, could you?” Dane sighed. “Now you’re making me do all the dirty work.”
Ryan’s cheeks burned. She had been wrong. It wasn’t the Chief who had been protecting them, it had been her own damn partner. “How could you do this?”
“Money forgives a lot,” Dane said amiably. “Now give me your gun.”
Ryan took off both her gun and her Taser and kicked them backwards.
“I’ll take your radio and the rest of your equipment, too.” Dane sounded amused.
Ryan knew exactly what she wanted to do with that amusement, and it wasn’t going to end well for Dane.
“Shoes and socks off.” He waved the gun at her.
She stared at him. “Really?”
He tilted his head and
