“Thank you very much, Miss.” He turned a smug grin in Trace’s direction. “You see that? Complete strangers find my satchel intriguing.”
“Fuckin’ purse,” Trace muttered.
“Uh, yessir, Gavin Degree is here?” said the officer, as if he were asking a question of the commissioner instead of stating a fact. Gavin dropped his chin to his chest and quickly righted it again. The officer hung up the phone. “You guys can go ahead. End of the hall on the left.”
Gavin all but bolted away. “Thank you.” He knocked on a frosted glass door labeled Deputy Commissioner and forced himself to regulate his breathing. With a little bit of luck, Eva was still being interrogated and perfectly safe.Marina let them know she was here, ready to play her part in their scheme.
Now they just needed the mole on the task force to take the bait and go after Eva before she could share her evidence. Little did the mole know, it was actually Marina who’d be waiting for him, with Eva and Abby safe in another location.
The door opened, a wiry middle-aged man with pale skin and ruddy cheeks flashing a politician’s smile. “Gentlemen! I was just beginning to worry about you. Come in.”
Gavin was the first in the room, his gaze homing in on the TV screen in the corner of the room. Eva sat at a table in an interrogation room with a plainclothes officer sitting across from her. “How long ago did they start?” asked Gavin.
Commissioner Jacoby closed the door behind them. “About thirty minutes. As I said, I was getting concerned something had happened.”
“That’s a lovely cactus,” said Sloan. “Have you had it since it was little?”
“Who’s the officer interrogating her?” asked Gavin, pleased when Jacoby ignored Dvorak and answered, “That’s detective Perkins.”
“Is he on the task force?”
“No. He’s with special victims. I thought it best to keep the task force out of the interview itself.”
Gavin was beginning to calm down. He could see Eva on the screen, knew she was in the building, and believed she was safe. “Good. Where will she go when they switch?”
“A supply closet down the hall. It’s a decent sized room. Officer Johanssen will stay with her.”
Gavin crossed his arms. “Is he on the task force?”
Jacoby smirked tightly. “Johanssen is a rookie. Nomembers of the task force will be in direct contact with Miss Livingston.”
“Good,” said Gavin and Trace in unison. Sloan took a lollipop out of the candy dish on Jacoby’s desk, unwrapped it, and put it in his mouth.
“Listen, gentlemen. I understand your concerns about the possibility of a mole in my department. But I don’t agree those concerns reflect reality. These officers are some of the finest, most decorated professionals in the NYPD.”
Sloan took the sucker out of his mouth with a loud pop. “I find corruption exists at all levels of public service, decorated professionals and cacti lovers alike.”
Jacoby looked taken aback. He opened his mouth to respond, but Sloan walked in front of him and pointed to the TV. “Turn that up, would ya, Trace? I want to hear this.” Plopping onto Jacoby’s couch from some height, he put his feet on the coffee table and crossed them at the ankle.
Trace turned up the television while Jacoby pinched the skin between his eyes. Eva was talking. “…contest. It was thirty-five-millimeter film, not digital.”
“And did you develop this film yourself?” asked the interrogator.
“No. I don’t have access to a dark room. I took it to a shop.”
“What shop was that?”
She hesitated. “I’d rather not say.”
“And why is that, Miss Livingston?”
“I just don’t see how it’s relevant.”
“This shop had access to the film in question. Anyone who worked on it could have tampered with it in some way.”
“I don’t believe it’s been tampered with.”
“It’s important from an evidentiary perspective that we know who developed the film.”
