“And take her…where?” Bryant just had to ask.
“That’s not any of your damned business, Naylor. How’s your brother? MacNamara was wanting an update.”
She had never been more relieved to see her friend than she was in that moment. “Brett’s still out. Nurse said he probably won’t wake tonight either. Maybe in the morning. I plan to be here when he does.”
“Remember…no more secrets, Kara Jeyne. I’ll bewaiting.”
The two words she shot at him just had him smirking. “Maybe someday, babe. Maybe someday real soon. We’ll break that little no-sleeping-with-coworkers rule of yours. I’ll be looking forward to it.”
K.J. wanted to scream.
What an asshole. And if he was dirty—she was going to prove it.
81
He didn’t wantto think that Bryant Naylor was involved in this shit. No matter what K.J. Miller had just told him. It was speculation, and she’d been churned up. She’d said she and Bryant had had an altercation—and told him what Brett had said to her a week or so before the attack by Wilson and Costovia that night. Brett’s suspicions.
Bryant Naylor had been spending a hell of a lot of time in Wichita Falls. They just had to confirm that. Bryant Naylor had come from Wichita Falls to begin with. His ownfatherhad worked out of the Wichita Falls post for fifteen years before his death line-of-duty. And someone hadn’t wanted what Bryant’s brother knew getting out there.
Bryant could be involved. No matter that Dom considered him a friend.
A part of him didn’t believe the other man would sell out his own brother that way. Unless it had been his own conspirators who had turned on Brett? Maybe both brothers were involved in it? Knowing those two like he did—he would believe that before one brother turning on the other. Just not those two.
Dom got back to work. He wasn’t going to let whoever was gunning for him win—and he wasn’t going to be stupid out there. He was always with Jake or Lake now. Someone to keep an eye on him, apparently. His goon baby-sitters.
Major Crimes couldn’t afford for him to be out now. Period. But that meant he was more house-bound than he wanted to be. He was used to being the one out there knocking on doors and rattling the trees to get information.
Now, he was just going over shit in the bullpen. Trying to put together what that gremlin had found when she’d been digging. The idea that she had found such damning information onsomeoneand they hadn’t come after her yet—that didn’t sit well with him at all. People who did this kind of shit for four decades didn’t get to where they were by being stupid. Or by letting cracks in the wall grow. No.
Hope was in danger now. Dom would bet his left arm on that. She very well could have been the scientist digging into things she shouldn’t that Tony had told him about. It was a very short list.
Miguel had K.J. tracking down the so-called list of ‘missing’ cops Hope had compiled, while K.J. was lab bound with Madison today. So far…K.J. hadn’t been able to find a single one on that list having simply relocated, as was listed in their HR jackets as their reason for end of employment or transfer.
It was like they had just disappeared off the face of the earth. Funny, that. And strangely enough—Gordon and Rhonna Harris, Haldyn’s parents, seemed to haveleft on vacation,before anyone could ask them any more questions.
And no one had put it together. Well, they were starting to get some names now.
He had a list of six names now. Including Wright, Winkler, Newcomb, Stillman, and two others. Wright had just been arrested—for assaulting a man and woman and abduction inValue recently. A family connection of Murdoch’s—and Charlie’s younger sister. Based on a need for vengeance after Charlie had arrested Wright’s younger sister.
Wright wasn’t controlling anything now. Not from his cell. Wright wasn’t talking. He had claimed the fifth on everything.
But Dom didn’t like him as the ringleader of Hope’s missing cop ring. For one thing, Wright wasn’t sophisticated enough. Nor intelligent enough to pull it off, coordinate everything he’d need to, and then keep it quiet this long. And the man was too impulsive. Not to mention—if this went back the forty-five years Hope believed it did, Wright would be too young.
Same for Winkler. Both men might be involved in the ring—but they weren’t the ones who had started it—nor were they the ones in charge. They just didn’t have the brain power to organize something like what they were dealing with and keep it quiet for so long.
That left Melvin Stillman or Ernie Newcomb as his best bets. Both had started with the TSP around the ages of twenty-one or twenty-two. Both were over sixty-five. Both should have retired years ago. Both lived in Hughes Heights—and didn’t come from inherited wealth. No. Stillman had a so-called documented lottery win twenty years ago that he had supposedly invested wisely. Newcomb had married a wealthy woman. Neither had truly needed to work—especially for the TSP—but they had worked their way into positions of authority. And stayed there.
Newcomb had handled homicide cases going back at least forty years. Both at Finley Creek and Wichita Falls. He had bounced between the two posts, and Austin, for years. Stillman had worked IA just as long.
If the two were in on it together—wasn’t that just convenient?
It would explain how Newcomb just conveniently ‘lost’ the Ahumada case, after all, too.
Dom just neededonecase to get things rolling in the right direction. If a gremlin could find this and put it together, Dom could, too. Just…probably not as quickly.
Now, Hope was at her house—guarded by Miguel. That was Miguel’s main priority at the moment—keeping her safe and going over what she had found one inch at a time. That many dead cops—it was the head of Homicide’s case. Until they had enough to bring in the FBI or something.
This was bigger than just the TSP.
