Chapter 7
MIA
“Why do you keep touching your lips?” Keith asks, narrowing his eyes.
“No reason,” I say, quickly shoving my hands back to my lap. A little too quickly, and Keith knows it too. Thankfully, he just rolls his eyes and goes back to his computer screen full of sweet stolen data.
I can’t believe we pulled it off.
Then again, I can’t believe I kissed him.
That wasn’t a part of the original plan. All I wanted to do was get Leo in a compromising position so Keith could catch us and I’d have time to swipe his phone. But Keith was taking his sweet time, and I knew it was going to take more than some witty banter to slip my hands into his coat.
The worst part is his lips were better than I imagined. I wanted to lose myself in those velvety soft pillows of pure seduction and I would’ve if Keith never showed up. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if I let things go a little further.
It all worked out in the end. Well, except for the lingering tingles I keep feeling all over every time I picture his body against mine.
“Find anything?” I ask, poking my head around my own screen.
He doesn’t answer right away. His fingers pause midair and his bottom lip falls open. My stomach rolls in either excitement or anxiety. I can’t really tell the difference anymore.
“What is it?”
Keith leans closer to his desktop, using his mouse to scroll back up and zoom in. His lips contort into a straight line, and his jaw seems to tighten in a way that makes my skin crawl.
“I found something weird,” he mutters, pulling his gaze away from the screen long enough to do a quick sweep of the precinct to make sure no one is listening.
I do my own scan, and the place is basically a ghost town except for a uniform escorting a very underdressed and intoxicated woman to our holding cell.
“Good, like we can nail this asshole, weird. Or bad, we’re both going to get fired, weird,” I say, getting up from my desk and dragging my seat next to his. When I look at his screen, there are lines of logs and timestamps that look like pure gibberish to me.
“Mic access events,” he says, hovering his mouse over a cluster of entries. “A lot of them.”
I frown. “You’re going to have to dumb it down for me.”
“I noticed it because these logs don’t match the others and some of them line up with the time of that valet ticket we have.
Basically, his microphone was activating when the screen was locked,” he says, hovering his mouse over one of the entries, “and based on the other data I looked at, there were no calls, no voice assistant or apps open during this period.”
“Could it be a system malfunction?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
Keith shakes his head. “It wouldn’t look like that,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “Also, there’s this,” he says, clicking into another folder.
Short audio cache files fill the screen. Each one is encrypted and lasts only a few seconds. “Those aren’t voice memos.”
“Nope,” he says, zooming in on the timestamp. His face twists up in pure confusion. An expression that I’m sure mirrors my own. “They go back months and months. Probably since the beginning of DeLuca’s appointment on city council.”
“Fuck,” I say, letting out a shallow breath. “Someone else has been spying on him.”
Keith locks eyes with me. “It seems that way.”
The room immediately feels cramped and hot. I twist my sweaty palms around the arms of my chair and straighten my spine. “Who the hell would want to spy on DeLuca?”
“Other than us,” he answers, giving me a silent shrug. “It could be anyone. But whoever it is knows what they’re doing. This isn’t amateur spyware.”
Shit. I suspected Leo was involved with the Caruso’s, but maybe their relationship is more volatile than I suspected. Maybe he isn’t cooperating. Maybe Vince had been hired as muscle to scare him into obedience.
And perhaps Leo saw it coming.
The thought settles deep inside my chest as a clear motive clicks into place.
“Can we listen to any of the recordings?”
A frown forms on Keith’s face. “Even if I could recover the files, I’d need the original listening server to decrypt them.”
“Fuck,” I say, bringing my hands up to my temples and applying pressure. “We can still salvage this. We just need to convince the captain there’s probable cause without telling him how we found it.”
Keith opens his mouth to poke holes in my master plan, but his interjection is interrupted by my phone buzzing on my desk. I quietly thank whoever it is for intervening until an unknown number flashes across my screen.
“Hello?” I say, answering the call.
At first, the other line is quiet. I almost hang up before a smooth voice fills the speaker.
“Emilia.”
My breath catches.
Keith’s eyes snap to mine, and for some reason I find myself forcing my face into a neutral position. I give him a gentle smile, cover the speaker, and say, “I’ll be right back,” before walking to the stairwell.
“Who is this?” I answer, trying to create an even yet professional tone.
“You know who it is, Cara,” Leo says, turning a term of endearment into a slap in the face. “Or do you usually forget the people you steal from?”
Dread clings to my back like a thorny sidekick. He knows. Of course he fucking knows. He’s Leo DeLuca.
“I’ll take your silence as admission of guilt,” he says, his voice like a hot poker in my side. “We need to talk. In person.”
“No,” I answer without skipping a beat.
Dead air weighs down the line. The silence stretches long enough for me to imagine his wicked smile on the other end, tormenting me from miles away. I can feel him savoring the disobedience, and for some reason that makes my stomach flip.
“I apologize if I gave you the wrong impression, but I don’t ask. I tell.”
I lean into the cold concrete wall of the stairwell, letting the bitter sting sink through my blouse. “This isn’t a negotiation, Mr. DeLuca. If you need to talk to me, I can set up an interview, and you can come into the station.”
A low chuckle floats through the speaker. “You’re adorable when you pretend you have the upper hand. And call me Leo.”
I clench my jaw. “You called me, Mr. DeLuca,” I say, wishing I could see his face when I openly defy him. “If you want—”
“You stole my phone,” he cuts in. Any lingering humor in his tone is gone. “You seduced me to do it and then you inserted yourself into a situation that is quite frankly none of your business.”
My head feels like it’s on fire. “Are you threatening me?”
“No,” Leo replies quickly. “If I was threatening you, you wouldn’t have to ask.”
My grip tightens on my phone. “Please enlighten me then.”
“Listen, Emilia,” he begins calmly, “I don’t want to go through all of the trouble of contacting your boss, so I’m simply giving you the chance to right your wrongs before I have to take a lot of extra steps that are completely unnecessary.”
“I didn’t steal anything,” I snap. “I’m conducting an investigation, and you’re a suspect.”
“You conducted an illegal operation.” He sighs, almost sounding bored. “No warrant. No authorization. And I’m sure the commissioner will be thrilled when he finds out you ignored his request.”
Nails poke at every nerve inside my body. I’m being backed into a corner and I don’t like it, but I refuse to let this rich prick make me feel small. “Do it, then.”
He’s silent again, and I’m starting to accept these pauses as tiny victories. “Emilia, don’t be like this. We can both get what we want if you just cooperate.”
I shouldn’t go for the bait, but I do. “And what do I want?”
“You want to find your brother’s killer.”
Time stops and blood rushes to the surface of my skin.
A million different questions run through my head and the only one with the answers is the man breathing in my ear. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
A loud sigh sounds off from the other side of the phone. “We’re not doing this, Emilia. I know Vince Russo is—was—your brother, and judging by the way you quickly denied it, I now know that I have something else to hold over your head. Aren’t detectives supposed to be good at keeping secrets?”
The firmness of the wall against my back is the only thing keeping me standing at this point.
“You don’t know anything,” I say, forcing the words out even though my throat feels like sandpaper.
A soft exhale slips out of his lips. “I admire your fighting spirit, but you need to pick your battles. If you work with me, then I’ll help you get the answers you need about your brother’s death. If you work against me, then this conversation and your career are over.”
It’s a good offer, but dangerous. He still hasn’t told me what he wants, and I’m no stranger to men with ulterior motives. Plus, I have a feeling he isn’t the type to let things go, and by his standards, I embarrassed him. Men like this need blood in exchange for disrespect.
“That was a threat.”
“Good job, Cara. That was a threat,” he says. “Now, are you going to be smart and make the right decision?”
I swallow hard. “You said cooperation. What does that mean?”
“Meet me and I’ll tell you,” Leo says, each word feeling like a trap.
“Fine, but I want to pick. Somewhere public.”
“Finally, a sensible move,” he says, bitter humor layered between breaths. “Text me when and where, but it has to be tonight. I’m not a patient man and I have plans for you.”
Before I can respond, he hangs up. I stare blankly at the dark screen in my hand and my reflection stares back.
I look pale, exhausted, and scared. It’s all the traits I worked hard to leave behind me, and yet, here we are again.
I shake off the nerves, pressing my palm flat over my sternum and willing my breathing to calm down. I am going to get through this. I won’t let the darkness pull me in.
When I finally feel my pulse start to slow down to a normal beat, I straighten my blouse, force my facial features back into neutral, smooth lines, and head back toward the bullpen.
When I get to our shared desk cluster, Keith looks up, and I feel my right hand shaking, but I steady it. “Everything okay?”