I figured he’d head back to the station. You know, loop in his boss. Maybe even Gordon himself. However, that isn’t where he went. He missed the turn for the police precinct, and that piqued my interest.
“Where are you going, you squirrely motherfucker?”
I reached down and turned off the music. I needed to focus. Dogma had already deviated from protocol, which meant that the information my lucky girl had provided for us wouldn’t work for shit.
Which also meant that Ranger’s theory might be right.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
I saw Gordon before I saw where his partner turned into. They weren’t at anyone’s house, or in anyone’s neighborhood, or anywhere near their place of work. Instead, they were at a café across town, sitting at a wrought iron table sipping fucking drinks.
I scrambled to get my surveillance equipment out so I could listen in on what they were saying.
“All right,” I murmured as I set up the recording equipment to capture everything, “let’s sink these bastards.”
“So, I was right,” Gordon said.
I settled in for the conversation, keeping my head low as I pointed my listening dish toward the windshield.
“You were right, yet again,” the older man said.
Right about what?
“God, this is going to make our careers, Barker. You know that, right? Fucking taking down the Twisted Metal? They’ve practically tortured our Captain his entire career.”
A bit overboard, I thought. But, it wasn’t good that they knew our crew. That meant we were all targets.
Every single one of us.
“Should we tell the Captain? You know, get our resources together?” Barker—or Dogma—asked.
“Nah,” Gordon said before he damn near slurped his entire drink down, “we need more information first. You said you saw her? With your own eyes?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re sure it was Naomi.”
“It was her, all right. You’re not gonna like the other tidbit I have, though.”
Oh, boy.
“What?” Gordon asked, his voice a bit curt.
Barker sighed. “It looked like she was being pretty sweet on them.”
“The hell does that mean?”
My eyes widened with his tone of voice. I mean, I say tone, but what I mean is a damn demon started inhabiting his body. It was almost as if someone else had started talking. Someone maniacal. Someone with a vendetta.
His anger was more than prevalent as well.
“I mean, she didn’t look to be in any sort of duress. They had their arms around her, but not controlling her, right? Not tugging her around. Not throwing her about. She didn’t look like she was captured, Gordon. She looked like she was…”
“Don’t say it,” I whispered.
“Like what?” Gordon glowered.
“Like she was happy, man,” Barker said weakly.
