Chapter 15
Falling
Adam
Asexual, my ass. He was a sexual deviant, and I was probably a bottom. Well, not really. I loved giving it as much as I liked taking it, but last night Jordan fucked the last brain cell out of me, so no wonder I was confused.
“I like getting it in the ass,” I told him as we were brushing our teeth in the morning after a shower.
Jordan choked and spat the toothpaste out.
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah, yeah. Great stuff.”
“You could have told me that last night, asshole,” he exclaimed, wide-eyed. “I couldn’t sleep because I wasn’t sure if you liked it.”
I gave him an incredulous look. “We spent half an hour scraping my cum off your mirror, and you weren’t sure if I liked it?”
“Well, I… I guess I didn’t think about it that way. I was nervous because I hadn’t had sex in years. I guess I had performance anxiety. Incidentally, we forgot to use a condom, and not just this time around.”
“Oh, I didn’t forget,” I stated, looking at him. “I chose not to. I trusted you, and I could feel that you trusted me, too.”
Jordan grinned and wrapped his arms around my neck when my phone started to ring from somewhere in the apartment. I headed to the living room with his lips glued to mine, so I could barely see where I was going.
“Lose the towel,” I mouthed before answering. “Markland.”
“Hmm… I prefer Mr. Mayhew.”
At first, I thought my ears were deceiving me, but apparently, my streak of bad luck was endless.
I looked at Jordan, motioning for him to stay silent.
“Santiago,” I said into the phone. “How the fuck did you get this number, and what do you want?”
Jordan’s shocked expression mirrored my feelings.
“We need to talk,” Santiago said curtly. “In person.”
“What about?”
“Bull tried to kill me, but he’s dead wrong if he thinks I won’t go down with a bang. I want to make a deal.”
“Will you testify at court?”
“In exchange for immunity, yes.”
“I’ll need some time to arrange this. Are you in Smitsville?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll text you the time and place. Meet me there.”
“Where is there?”
“Someplace safe. Is Skull Crusher with you?”
“Yes, but I will come alone. He has nothing to do with this.”
“Santiago, if this is some kind of setup—”
“No setup. Speaking of, I want you to come alone. If I see anyone else at the meet, the deal is off.”
Jordan was shaking his head adamantly, but I ignored him.
“You missed me that much, Santiago?” I mocked him. “I’m flattered.”
“Not as much as Skull Crusher missed your pretty partner. He keeps mentioning his ass.”
His words made me see red, clouding my judgment.
“No deal!” I snapped. “Fuck off.”
I almost hung up when Jordan stopped me. At the same time, I heard Santiago speak.
“I was just joking. Sheesh. Calm down, cop. Where’s your sense of humor?”
“I don’t have one,” I bit out. “Wait for my text and lie low.”
Jordan took my phone from me and hung up before I could say something that would make Santiago change his mind.
“I hate this son of a bitch,” I growled, raking my fingers through my hair, exasperated. “How the fuck dares he?”
“Do you trust him?” Jordan asked me a legitimate question.
“I wouldn’t go that far. He’s a psycho, but he’s a wounded animal. Bull is out to get him, we are out to get him, his lawyer is dead, and he’s a wanted man. He doesn’t have much choice.”
“They’ll never give him immunity,” Jordan mused. “Reduced sentence, maybe.”
“I know, but he’s our best chance to get Bull. Can you call Chief Bibb and fill him in on this while I change?”
“Of course.”
One hour later, the plan was set in motion.
Chief Bibb pulled some strings, and we got the approvals to start the negotiations.
I texted the address of a safe house to Santiago, with instructions on how to get there.
By the time I was ready to go, the only thing I didn’t know was if Santiago was really going to show up.
I got the answer to that question two hours later when I came to the meeting, which was at Smitsville National Park.
We had a safe house there, a small cabin in the middle of the woods, just behind the Eary Lake.
I left Jordan a mile before the meeting point because he refused to let me go alone.
I even threatened to withhold sex, but he was adamant about coming with me.
When I finally arrived at the rendezvous point, Santiago was nowhere to be seen, and it set off the alarm bells in my mind. Either he changed his mind, or it was a trap, and I was about to be ambushed. I disliked both options equally, but there was only one way to find out.
I circled the cabin, keeping myself partially hidden as I surveyed my surroundings.
Gravel crunched under my boots when I paused by the window to look inside, but the cabin was hauntingly empty.
I scanned the backyard, only to spot a blue minivan parked by the edge of the forest. With my gun raised, I slowly approached the car, only to spot the man in the driver’s seat. It was a man I knew.
And that man had a bullet in his forehead.
Jordan
I had a bad feeling about this. Nothing I could pinpoint, but the sickening pressure in my gut kept intensifying with each passing moment.
Ever since Santiago called Adam up to our drive to Eary Lake, that ominous feeling grew.
Adam wanted to go alone, but I told him it would happen only over my dead body, so he yielded, to my everlasting surprise.
Things went from bad to worse after Adam found Santiago dead in the car.
When I got there, he was exasperated and itching for a fight, to little or no surprise.
We called it in, and the backup arrived, but nothing could improve the fucked-up situation.
Still, things couldn’t be worse, right? Wrong!
“DO YOU KNOW HOW THIS LOOKS? IT LOOKS BAD, MARKLAND! IT LOOKS AS IF WE’RE DIRTY! THIS MAY BE THE LD, BUT NO ONE HERE IS DIRTY, NOT UNDER MY WATCH!”
We could all hear Chief Bibb yelling at Adam, even through the closed door of his office.
“WHO KNEW ABOUT THE MEETING, MARKLAND?”
I buried my face in my hands, unable to listen to him any longer.
“WHO KNEW IT APART FROM YOU? THINK, MARKLAND! GOD DAMN IT, THINK!”
“No one.”
Adam’s voice was barely audible, but it sounded as if he’d shouted it.
I stood up abruptly when Maddox grabbed me by the arm, stopping me.
“Don’t do it, Slade. You’ll only make it worse.”
“I don’t care,” I growled, pushing him away and barging into the chief’s office. “Chief, none of it is Adam’s fault. I was with him the entire day. He found Santiago—”
“Enough!” Chief Bibb shouted. “How dare you barge in here, Detective?”
“Leave,” Adam hissed. “Have you lost your mind, Slade?”
“I won’t listen to this,” I growled, unable to stop myself. “Not when we did all we could to—”
I paused when Chief Bibb’s phone rang, cursing my luck.
“WHAT?” Chief Bibb bellowed. “Oh… fine, send him in.”
Both Adam and I looked towards the door, and then…
then my world came crashing down. My heart stuttered, reminding me of those adages about actions and consequences.
Truth and lies. Secrets that you let fester, instead of flushing them out.
I always knew this moment would come, no matter how much time had passed or what I did to postpone it.
The man who walked in gave me a curt nod, while I collapsed into the chair next to Adam because my legs gave out.
“Agent Corcoran,” Chief Bibb said. “Meet the two of my finest and dumbest. Markland and Slade. Boys, meet Internal Affairs.”
Adam laughed. “Oh, really? You guys are quick, huh?”
Agent Corcoran raised his hand. “I’m not here for you, Detective Markland.”
“I hope so,” Chief Bibb threatened. “Because I would vouch for Detective Markland with my life.”
That was our Chief Bibb. Loyal to a fault. Once you earned his trust, you had it forever.
“What I will say to you is confidential,” Agent Corcoran said. “But it concerns today’s events, and also certain events from the past.”
I swallowed a piece of my vomit, or it felt like it. I prayed for an earthquake, a nuclear blast, anything to make it stop, but my prayers fell on deaf ears.
“There’s been a mole in the police force,” Agent Corcoran continued.
“Someone who has been leaking confidential information to the highest bidder for years. We couldn’t identify him because he worked with everyone, and he covered his tracks well.
The only thing we knew about this mole was that his name was Adam. ”
At the mention of a name, I flinched, while Adam burst into laughter.
“Oh, wow. And you call yourselves investigators,” he said. “A mole named Adam. Breaking news.”
Agent Corcoran raised his hand. “Hear me out. Our awareness of this mole set off the biggest investigation in the history of the state. It was a massive operation that took a lot of planning and risk, but it paid off.”
“Let me guess,” Adam said mockingly. “Today, you discovered I’m your guy.”
“On the contrary,” Agent Corcoran said. “We found the mole, and it’s none other than Chief Adam Stensland from the New Mesa PD.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “Shocker.”
Rumors about Chief Stensland have been going around for years. No one could prove it, though, or at least until now.
“The evidence on Stensland’s burner suggests he was selling information to Dorian “The Bull” Dimitrou," Agent Corcoran explained. “We also found texts Stensland exchanged with the recently escaped inmate Rodrigo “The Skull Crusher” Douglas. We believe that Skull Crusher knew the location of the safe house and ratted Santiago out. That explains today’s unfortunate events.”
“Just out of curiosity, who did you send to spy on me?” Adam said, laughing bitterly. “No, let me guess. It was Trigger, right? I never liked that pompous, self-centered asshole.”
“Adam,” I said, swallowing with difficulty. “Can I have a word—”
“I can’t discuss the details of the mission with you,” Agent Corcoran cut in. “You know how these things work, Detective Markland. Let’s just say that our best agents handled it. They are too trained to have their cover blown, so don’t bother dwelling on it. Instead, I suggest that you...”
Agent Corcoran kept talking, but I stopped listening when the sky-blue gaze landed on me.
I froze on the spot, unable to move. I wanted to speak, but I lost my voice.
I wanted to defend myself, but there was nothing to defend.
I was gone… smaller than a pea, and more worthless than a grain of salt in the Dead Sea.
Still, the worst of it was the silence. Not the silence in the room, because Agent Corcoran kept talking, but the silence behind the stare.
When Adam abruptly stood up, his chair clattered to the floor. He stumbled out of the room, and I rushed after him, but Maddox stood in my way.
“No, Slade. Stop, before someone gets hurt.”
“Get out of my way,” I growled. “Adam, wait!”
“Markland, you have been played,” Buck said through laughter. “Little Jordie fucked you over. That’s hilarious. How the mighty have fallen.”
“Shut the fuck up, Buck,” Maddox bit out, glancing at him.
When Adam pulled a gun out of his holster, I swallowed back tears. I wasn’t afraid. I was just grief-stricken.
“I always found it weird that you liked me, but it all makes sense now,” he said, scratching his forehead with his gun.
“You’re mistaken,” I managed to say, my voice echoing oddly in my ears. “I do like you. Please put the gun down.”
Adam chuckled without mirth. “I can’t believe that you let me fuck you to keep your shitty job. You must really like it.”
“You know that’s not what happened,” I said, my throat tightening. “It’s just your excuse for —”
When Adam fired his gun, and the bullet hit the ceiling, everyone gasped, including me.
“My excuse?” he shouted. “Did you really say that to me, you lying piece of shit? Who the fuck do you think you are?”
After that, all hell broke loose. Buck hid behind his desk, calling security. Chief Bibb came out of his office, threatening to fire us all. Adam left without looking back, and I would have followed him if it weren’t for Maddox stopping me.
“Slade,” he said with a smile that should have alarmed me. “I’m doing this for your own good.”
It was the only thing I could remember before his fist hit my face, and the world around me disappeared.