“Wait a minute,” Jeff protested. “You just told us Brooks is on admin leave. He can’t work the streets, especially not in a narcotics case.”
“You’re right. I know that’s not our job.” Di backpedaled, but Jarek sensed she was only doing that to convince the narcotics officers they wouldn’t infringe on their turf. “Sorry, I was falling back on my previous role.”
“That’s understandable,” Ray Bond said with a grin. “You can work with us if you’d like. I’m sure Brooks will understand.”
Jarek narrowed his gaze, understanding Bond was basically warning him away from Di and investigating the case. And the problem was that Bond had every right to insist Jarek sit this one out. His being there would only compromise the situation. Especially if they found drugs being moved on the water.
In Jarek’s humble opinion, that held true for Di’s presence too. She was a civilian, which was even worse. The upper brass didn’t like using innocent civilians as bait to draw the bad guys out of hiding.
“Oh, it’s okay. You guys should do your thing. Jarek and I will look at the case from another angle.” She made it sound as if they had plenty of other avenues to investigate when he knew for a fact they did not. “But it would be nice if you guys would keep in touch, especially if you learn anything useful about Hernandez.”
Ray Bond looked disappointed but nodded. “Yeah, sure. But the same goes for you. We didn’t know about the two guys you mentioned being involved in the drug business. Do you have any other names we should look into?”
“Not yet,” Jarek said, feeling ridiculously relieved that Di hadn’t dumped him to tag along with the narcotics officers. “But I’m a little surprised you didn’t know about Stewey. He was arrested two years ago on a possession with intent to sell.”
Jeff Schnor shrugged. “We don’t get involved in every drug bust. We tend to focus on those higher in the food chain.”
“Understandable,” Di agreed. “Gilbert Levine only had a weapons charge. Nothing related to drugs. But we were able to confirm they shared an apartment. Stands to reason if one was involved in selling, the other was too.”
“Makes sense to me.” Ray glanced at his partner. “Okay, we’ll agree to keep in touch.”
“Thanks for meeting with us.” Di waited for the two officers to head off, before turning to him. “I think we need to come back to the riverfront tonight. Okay with you?”
“Sure. We’ll walk the area, see what jumps out as a good place to hold a stakeout later tonight.” He had to resist the urge to sweep her into his arms for a tight embrace. There was no reason for him to be so happy that she’d chosen to stay with him.
Quite the opposite.
Spending time with Di could very well end in heartbreak, if he was foolish enough to give it to her.
7
Walking the riverfront was a good idea. Di fell into step beside Jarek, silently admitting she preferred working with him over Ray Bond and his partner, Jeff Schnor. Nothing against either of the narcotics officers personally, but somehow, she’d managed to establish a rapport with Jarek. Maybe because they’d served overseas together. Although she hadn’t much liked him back then. Especially when he’d nicknamed her Di, as in a diamond with rough edges.
How she’d gone from seeing him as an adversary to accepting him as a friend and co-investigator, she had no idea. Part of their connection was the way Jarek had put his career on the line for her. She’d truly felt bad about swiping the cell phone from the scene of the initial shooting. Thankfully, he’d gotten over his anger about that.
Now they just needed to figure out the truth without risking his promotion to detective. Jarek certainly deserved his gold shield. Now that she thought it through, it may have been better for Jarek if she’d agreed to work with Ray Bond. That way Jarek would be in the clear no matter what went down. The problem there was that Ray had made it clear he wanted to see her on a personal level, despite the fact that she had absolutely no interest in him.
To be fair, she shouldn’t be interested in Jarek either. Cops were cops no matter what types of cases they worked.
It was too late to call Ray Bond back, so she decided to stay the course with Jarek. If things got dicey, she could always slip away to work on her own. After all, she was the one in the line of fire.
She scanned the riverfront, noticing that more people were out on the water now.
“What do you think of that boat?” She nodded toward an obviously older model vessel with a badly faded decal on the port side. “Could be the gangs are using older boats to move their product.”
“That would be less noticeable than using newer flashier ones,” Jarek agreed. “I’d expect them to stay in gang territory, though.”
“Me too.” She watched as the boat cut through the water. But instead of slowing and turning toward one of the many piers, the boat continued heading up the river. Maybe she was wrong about it being used for drugs.
Maybe the gangs weren’t using boats at all.
“What did you learn when you infiltrated the gang to rescue Caden Avery?” Jarek asked. “You mentioned getting evidence against the leader, Terance Warren. Seems like that would have been difficult to do unless Caden was considered one of their leaders too.”
“Caden wasn’t that high up the food chain. He sold drugs for the gang, but he also worked at one of the cafés part time. I managed to get a job there, too, so I could befriend him. He was happy to hang with me and even confessed about how he wanted to go back home. I told him I could help make that happen, then pushed for him to allow me to meet his supplier. He balked at the idea, then eventually agreed.” She thought back to those tense few weeks she’d walked the line within the K2 Bloods gang. “The supplier was Rico Neuhauser, and he was very interested in me working for him, until I insisted on meeting with Terance.”
Jarek reached out to grasp her arm, his brow furrowed with concern. “I can’t believe you didn’t get hurt or worse. Insisting on a meeting with the leader of the gang was pushing it.”
“It was.” She had taken the risk with her eyes open but knew the situation could have ended very differently. Maybe it was her scar, but she’d been able to come across as a tough chick determined to make her way up in the organization. “I just needed enough intel to get the guy arrested so that he couldn’t come after Caden once I got him out of there.”
