Secrets of Mine (Of Mine #2)

28. Oz

28

OZ

I climb into the back of the car and shoot off a quick message to my mom, letting her know I’m safe and that Lexi, the latest victim, is still hanging in there.

She’s always worried about me, but having Maxwell kill so close to home has her even more on edge.

I wish we’d gotten to stay there longer. Watching Freya with my family had me feeling things I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to feel. By the time I signed up with the FBI I was all too aware of the dark underbelly of our world. Any dreams of settling down with a wife and kids never seemed to sit right alongside the intimate knowledge I had of just how evil people could be.

How could I bring a child into this world after intercepting messages from a trafficking ring when I was only seventeen?

Except now all I can picture is a little girl with Freya’s eyes and curly ginger hair.

For the first time in probably ever, I want to give my mother grandbabies. There may be darkness out there but any kid of ours will have all five of us there to protect them. It feels… possible. Hopeful. Even if right now Freya is hundreds of miles away and hope is the last thing in the air.

River pulls onto the highway, his hands tight around the steering wheel.

Jude’s stones click together as he fiddles with them in the passenger seat.

This is going to be a loooong few days.

I may not like being apart from Freya but I’m for sure handling it better than those two.

We’re on our way to talk to Captain Roques but I’d bet the new iPhone prototype my Silicon Valley friend sent me, that neither of them are thinking about the captain.

Jude’s stones stop clicking. “Do you know what’s wrong with Eli?” he asks River.

River takes one hand off the wheel and runs it over the bottom half of his face. “I’ve got a pretty good idea. Which is why I sent him back home.”

“You not going to tell us?”

River sighs. “He needs to sort it out with Freya first.”

Jude rocks his head. He looks out the window and I see him poke his tongue into his cheek in the wingmirror. “And what if he can’t? What happens then?”

I lean forward and place my hand on the shoulder of Jude’s seat. “They’ll figure it out, Jude. They just need to talk.”

“Eli’s shit at talking.”

I smother a smile. Jude’s right and it’s not his fault he sounds like a petulant toddler when he’s stressed.

I understand now why River sent Eli with Freya. If it’s just the two of them, he won’t have any choice but to talk to her.

“You’re kind of an evil genius, you know that Riv?” I say.

His eyes stay stone cold but his lip twitches. “Everything will be fine, Jude. Now stop thinking about Freya and concentrate. I need you focused. We’ve got to deal with a corrupt police captain.”

Most of the beat cops are still out searching for Maxwell so the precinct is fairly quiet when we arrive, just a few detectives milling around their desks.

Captain Roques leans out his office door and waves us over. “Let’s talk in my office.” The lines around his eyes are strained, a dark teak against his tan skin. His mustache mirrors his frown.

We follow him into his office and he turns to face us, leaning against his desk. His large hands curl around the edge of the cheap metal. “Now, I know you all have jurisdiction here and I’m not trying to step on any toes but I’m going to need you to explain to me what the hell happened last night.”

I share a look with River. Pretty sure this was not the greeting any of us were expecting.

“Funny,” River says. “We’re here to ask you the same question.”

Roques’ frown deepens and the desk creaks under him as he crosses his arms. “Listen, I’ve got two of my best officers worried they’re going to lose their jobs purely because they followed my orders. Orders I got from you. ”

I stiffen. The hairs on the back of my neck prick as Roques’ keeps talking.

“If they’d have stayed at their post, we might not have another woman fighting for her life right now.”

River looks back at Jude and I before facing the captain. “We didn’t give the order to pull away from Lexi’s place.”

Bushy eyebrows shoot up. “You sure as hell did.”

I frown. “Who exactly did you talk to?”

Roques throws up his arms. “You!”

“Me?” I take a step back.

He nods. “Well, you and your boss. We got the report through about the robbery in progress, I called you to see who we could divert without causing problems. You said you couldn’t talk and patched me through to your chief. She said your team had sighted Maxwell across town so it was fine to spare my men but clearly, she was wrong.”

“She?” I ask.

River looks over at me. “Oz?—”

I shake my head and that’s all he needs to know the conversation Roques is talking about never happened.

“Why didn’t you call me? I was running point, every decision should have come through me,” River says.

“I was talking to the Unit Chief of the SCU! There was a robbery in progress, and she’d given me the all clear. The Unit Chief of the SCU gave me the all clear,” he says again, hammering the words home.

“Except there was no robbery and I never spoke to you.” My mind is whirring.

Behind me, Jude swears because he’s already reached the conclusion my mind is struggling to put together. I never got a call from Roques which means someone has to have hacked my phone.

“Could have been someone pretending to be Farrah,” River says to me, clearly following the same train of thought as me.

“What?” Roques deflates against the desk, his face turning gray. He shakes his head. “It was an FBI number.”

I rub the back of my neck. It would be a more complex hack but it’s still technically possible. We’ve worked with Chief Syed for years and she’s as far from dirty as you can get.

Silence falls in the office for a moment, broken only when River’s phone rings. He answers and brings it to his ear. “Now isn’t a great time, Eli,” he says. Then his eyes flick to the captain and his brow furrows. He holds the phone out and puts it on speaker. “Okay, go ahead.”

“Angelica is gone,” Eli says.

My stomach lurches. I still have the cross she sliced into my chest but it’s nothing compared to the scars she left on Freya. The thought of her being out there, near Freya again, has my heart palpitating. We should never have sent her back without all of us.

“What do you mean, gone?” River asks, his voice dark.

“She was transferred this morning.” Eli sighs. “River, the forms were signed off by Farrah.”

Silence falls again. Captain Roques’ gaze darts between the three of us.

“Where was she transferred to?” Jude asks.

“The Prince William prison but we’ve already called, and she never arrived.”

River’s free hand curls into a fist. His jaw tightens. “You’re sure Chief Syed signed off on this? She’s supposed to be away on business.”

“It’s her signature, River. I’ve seen it too often not to recognize it.”

My mind has gone from racing through thoughts, trying to rationalize answers, to just plain stopping. It’s like my brain’s hit overload and needs a moment just to crash and reboot. We thought we were dealing with a corrupt cop. Maxwell having a mole in the LAPD was bad enough but if his contact is our unit chief, we’re screwed.