“Agent Johnson.”
“Detective O’Reilly. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” she said, wondering where Homeland Security was getting their information. She hadn’t contacted him yet.
“What’s the situation with my guy?” Johnson asked.
“Excuse me, sir,” Sean said, joining Erin and looking the Homeland Security guy over. “I’d like to see some ID, please.”
Johnson looked at Erin, who gave him her best poker face. He shrugged and flipped open his wallet.
“Homeland Security,” Sean said, whistling quietly and pretending to be impressed. “This guy a terrorist?”
“That’s classified, sir,” Johnson said. Erin saw the twinkle in his eye and half expected him to wink at her.
“Our guy,” Erin said, “is recovering from surgery. We’ve got him in protective custody. He’ll be charged in the morning.”
“With what?”
“Murder, attempted murder, resisting arrest, breaking and entering, maybe some drug charges.”
Johnson scratched his cheek thoughtfully. “That would not be the recommendation of Homeland Security.”
Erin’s jaw tightened. “He shot at cops.”
“I understand that, Detective. But you have to look at the larger picture—”
“He killed a man on a Manhattan sidewalk, in broad daylight,” she interrupted. “Outside a restaurant I was sitting in.”
“There’s bigger fish he can—” Johnson started to say.
“He sprayed automatic gunfire on a busy street,” she countered.
“I’m just saying, if I could talk to him—”
“I froze my ass off holding his dead weight out of the water in a damn storm sewer,” she snapped. “You can have your time with him once we’re done with him. Once he’s charged.”
Johnson’s teeth grated on each other. “I’ve been impressed with our interagency cooperation in the past, Detective,” he said quietly. “I’d be disappointed if that pattern didn’t continue. I’ll talk to my superiors and tell them the NYPD has the situation in hand. I assume you’ll reciprocate by keeping me apprised of any future developments?”
“Copy that,” Erin said.
“You think maybe you were a little hard on him?” Sean asked after the Homeland Security guy had left.
“He wants to turn that jerk loose,” she said. “After what he did!”
“He didn’t say that.”
“Read between the lines!” she snapped. “He wants to offer Rojas a deal. We don’t cut deals with murderers. Not in my town!”
Sean grinned. “You know what they say in The Godfather, right?”
She gave him a suspicious look.
“This is business, Erin,” he said, doing his best James Caan impression. “This is business, and you’re takin’ it very personal.”
“You know what else they say in that movie?” she retorted. This was the second time she’d had that movie line thrown at her that week, and she was sick of it. “You’re my brother, and I love you, but don’t ever take sides against the family.”
He laughed. “Okay, Don Erin. But if you hate this guy Rojas so much, why’d you go down a sewer drain to save him?”
“You’re one to talk. You stuck his leg back together.”
“That’s my job, Erin.”
“Mine, too.”
“But you still want to lock him up.”
“That’s different.”
He looked at her. “Yeah, maybe it is. You know what? Maybe you’d better talk to Rojas now, after all.”
Erin was surprised. “What? But you said…”
“I know what I said. But who knows what this Homeland guy will come up with overnight? You’ve got to take it easy on him, though. And one condition: I’ve got to be in the room while you’re talking to him.”
“To make sure I don’t beat a confession out of him?” she suggested, half joking.
“To make sure he doesn’t go back into shock and die,” Sean replied, not joking at all.
Rojas lay in the hospital bed, a bandage swaddling his head, an IV line in his arm, a rigid cast on his leg. A handcuff secured one wrist to the bedframe. The usual array of beeping medical machinery kept time with the slow rise and fall of his chest.
He watched Erin’s approach through half-open eyes. She came to a stop a couple of steps away and looked down at him, wondering how clear-headed he’d be.
“Buenos dias, senora,” he said. “I have seen you before, I think.”
“How are you feeling, Mr. Rojas?” she asked.
His lip curled into a slight hint of a smile. “I have been worse. What do you want?”
Erin considered the man. Sean was right. He was a tough guy, for sure, Colombian cartel muscle. There was absolutely nothing she could threaten him with that his employer couldn’t go one better. He might be buyable, and he might not. What approach might work best?
“What do you want?” she echoed.
“Nothing you can give me.”
Erin saw a chair in the corner. She pulled it over and took a seat close to the bed, staying just out of arm’s reach. He was weak and injured, but that was no reason to be careless.
“Mr. Rojas, I know why you’re here,” she said. “You got screwed, buddy. You came up to New York to do some business, and it didn’t go the way it was supposed to. I know who screwed you, too. I know about Liam, and the drugs.”
She was guessing, but she knew they were good guesses. One of the best ways to get suspects to give up information was to make them think you already had the answers.
Rojas said nothing. He was watching Erin from under his eyelids, measuring her. All interrogations were two-way streets. What was he learning from her?
“You can’t go back to Colombia,” she said.
He gave his slight smile again. “You think I am stupid?” He rattled the handcuff against the bed rail. “I am not going anywhere.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Erin took out her cuff key. They weren’t her handcuffs, but that didn’t matter. Police cuffs had universal keys. She leaned in and unlocked the cuffs. She was ready if he tried anything, but Rojas didn’t move. He kept watching her, confused now. That was good. Confused criminals let things slip.
“We’re not the guys you need to
