CHAPTER SIX
By three in the morning, Leah had lost her cover, her handler and any illusion that the operation could be repaired.
Mia Carter sat wrapped in a blanket in the rear office of a North End haulage unit while Sam made tea she did not drink.
Gareth had gone from rage to a silence that frightened everyone more.
Drew stood by the window with his arms folded.
Leah stood opposite him.
"Tell me everything," he said.
"No."
His laugh was quiet. "We're past that."
"I'm not giving you names of undercover officers, informants or witnesses who have nothing to do with Venn."
"You still protecting the job?"
"I'm protecting people."
"Same people who handed your identity to kidnappers?"
"Maybe one person did."
"Your handler."
"Maybe."
Drew turned from the window.
"Mia named him."
"She said policeman."
"You reacted to Marcus in the yard."
Leah hated that he saw everything.
"Venn knew where I was. He knew Ben's assignment. He had access to both operations. That makes him a suspect. It doesn't make him the only suspect."
"You sound like a police report."
"Occupational hazard."
He crossed the room.
The anger in him had changed. At the clubhouse it had been personal: she had lied to him. Now it was colder.
Useful anger.
Dangerous anger.
"Why were you in North End?"
"Cocaine routes. Weapons. Financial links to Redmile."
"And Ben?"
"He believed someone in law enforcement was protecting Redmile's supply. His last report mentioned you."
Drew's expression did not change.
"What did it say?"
Leah hesitated.
"That you believed Redmile had protection."
"True."
"Why?"
"Because every time we hit one of their shipments, police arrived before we left. Every time they hit ours, police arrived after."
Leah stared at him.
"You never reported that."
"To the police?"
"Point taken."
Drew stopped directly in front of her.
"You came in because you thought I killed Ben."
Not a question.
Leah answered anyway.
"At first."
"And now?"
"Now he's alive."
"Not what I asked."
She looked at him.
Four months of pretending had stripped away too quickly. Without the cover, she felt strangely exposed even in jeans and a jacket.
Drew had known Leah Trent.
He did not know her.
The problem was that she was no longer sure the reverse was true.
"No," she said. "I don't think you took him."
"Why?"
"Because tonight you had three opportunities to leave Gareth behind and save yourself. You didn't. Men who run hidden police kidnappings usually have stronger self-preservation."
"That's your professional assessment?"
"It's three in the morning. Take what you can get."
He stared at her mouth.
She noticed.
Of course she noticed.
Tension tightened between them, absurd and badly timed.
Drew reached up and touched the bruise on her cheek with the back of two fingers.
Leah caught his wrist.
Neither moved.
"This is a terrible idea," she said.
"Which part?"
"Any part involving you standing that close."
"You stood closer upstairs."
"I was undercover."
"So that wasn't you?"
The question landed harder than she expected.
Leah released his wrist.
"Some of it was."
"Which part?"
"The part that thought you were arrogant."
"Good. Was worried I'd imagined the connection."
She laughed despite herself.
His hand shifted to the side of her neck.
Not forcing. Just there.
Leah should have stepped away.
Instead she kissed him.
It was not soft.
Four months of restraint did not know how to be soft.
Drew's hand tightened at her waist and he backed her against the wall. She caught his shirt in both fists and pulled him closer, angry at him, at herself, at Venn, at the entire night.
His mouth moved from hers to her jaw.
"Still a terrible idea?" he murmured.
"Catastrophic."
"Good."
She kissed him again.
A knock hit the office door.
Leah dropped her forehead against Drew's chest.
"I hate your club."
"Not my best night either."
He opened the door.
Sam stood outside.
If he noticed anything, he was too old and too sensible to comment.
"Mia's ready to talk."
The moment vanished.
Leah followed Drew into the rear office.
Mia sat with both hands around the untouched mug.
"I remembered something," she said.
Leah pulled up a chair.
"Tell us."
"The policeman wasn't alone. There was another man. Club jacket."
Gareth leaned forward.
"Which club?"
"I couldn't see the back."
"Patch on the front?"
Mia shut her eyes, trying to remember.
"A number."
"What number?"
"Nine. Maybe nineteen."
Drew's attention snapped to her.
Leah saw it.
"What?"
He did not answer immediately.
Gareth did.
"North End founding patch."
Leah looked between them.
"How many people have it?"
"Six," Drew said.
"Here?"
"Four."
Sam set his mug down.
Nobody looked at him.
That told Leah more than looking would have.
Drew took out his phone.
"Who are the other two?"
"One's in Spain," Gareth said. "One's dead."
"Dead people are having a busy week," Leah said.
Drew glanced at her.
"You joke when you're nervous."
"You notice when I'm nervous."
"Apparently I notice a lot about you."
Mia shifted under the blanket.
"There was something else."
Leah turned back.
"What?"
"They argued. The policeman and the biker."
"About what?"
"You."
Leah's skin prickled.
"Me?"
Mia nodded.
"The biker said they should kill you before the exchange. The policeman said no. Said you were worth more alive because..."
She stopped.
"Because what?" Drew asked.
Mia looked at Leah.
"Because your father would pay."
Leah stared at her.
For one second the room did not make sense.
Then it made far too much.
Drew frowned. "Your father?"
Leah could not answer.
Her father had been dead for sixteen years.
She had identified the body herself.
Mia reached into the blanket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
"They put this in my pocket. Told me to give it to Leah Quinn if North End found me."
Leah unfolded it.
A photograph.
Taken recently.
A man stepping out of a black Mercedes outside a hotel in Rotterdam.
Grey hair. Heavier than she remembered. Scar beside his left ear.
Her father's face.
On the back, one sentence had been written in blue ink.
HE NEVER DIED.
Drew read it over her shoulder.
"Who is he?"
Leah's hand had started shaking.
She looked up.
"The reason I became a police officer."