Spade shook his head.“Not yet.They’ll call him a ‘high-level suspect’ if they mention him at all.The cops will hit his lieutenants first.Work their way up.Same as us.”
Marci leaned on the bar, spatula dangling from her fingers.“Feels weird seeing our work on the six o’clock news.”
I glanced past the TV screen.Jade sat at a corner table with Casey and two of the kids.A coloring book lay spread between them.Riley babbled about dragons and glitter while Jade listened with a smile.Her left hand gripped a crayon while her right rested on the table -- relaxed, unguarded.
I’d watched men get put in cuffs on TV before.Never while the woman I loved sat twenty feet away, one step removed from the whole chain of cause and effect.
“Think Diaz is watching?”I asked.
“If he’s got half a brain, he is,” Spade said.
Spade’s phone buzzed.He checked the screen, mouth twitching.
“Hanley again?”I asked.
“Just sent me a picture of the warrant they used,” Spade said.“Purely by coincidence, it includes three of the shell companies Roth confirmed.And one we found in Jason’s scribbles that nobody else tied to Diaz yet.”
“He trust you?”I asked.
“He trusts the anonymous tipster who keeps making his job easier,” Spade said.“That’s enough.”
I turned my attention back to the TV.The camera caught a woman at the edge of the tape.Snarled hair, mascara streaks, hoodie zipped to the throat.She yelled something at the cops.
One of the officers guided her back, hand gentle on her arm.She looked pissed and scared and small.
Not Jade.
Could have been.
My grip tightened on the rag.
“When we raid these operations, at least some girls find a way out,” Marci said.“Burning down establishments forces them to make choices they couldn’t before.”
“You think they will?”I asked.
“Some,” she said.“The rest can make their own decisions without Diaz’s hand on their neck.That counts.”
Jade’s laugh floated across the room.I let the sound anchor me.
Roth was dead.Victor was still breathing somewhere.Diaz sat on his rotten throne, probably watching the same footage from some expensive couch.He had no idea yet how many of the cracks running through his kingdom had our fingerprints on them.
Good.
Let him learn slow.
* * *
By the time the news cycle moved on to weather, most of the guys had drifted toward their usual corners.Pool.Cards.TV debate about something dumb.
I found Jade in the hall, headed toward the kitchen with empty cups in hand.“Hey.”
She looked up, smiled.“Hey yourself.You see the bar?”
“Yeah.You okay?”
She hesitated.“Felt strange, seeing the place on a screen, I kept thinking about the girls still working there.”
“Most will land somewhere.Some won’t.Diaz doesn’t have a corner market on assholes.”
