“So, you really want me on board?” Cooper asked as he picked up the whiskey and tossed half of it back. “Or you just poking the bear? No pun intended.”
Cade sipped his whiskey. It wasn’t good whiskey, but it was the best bad whiskey you could get. It reminded him of home. They weren’t good memories, but they were a pointed reminder of why he liked who he was now more.
Most of the time.
“I need your help.”
Cooper snorted, drained his whiskey, and set the glass back down neatly on the coaster.
“I expected at least some subtlety,” he said. “But I appreciate you saving my time. I’ll show myself out.”
He stood and headed for the door. Cade took another drink of whiskey and licked the tang off his lips.
“It’s about Piper,” he said.
Probably. Maybe? It didn’t matter. Even if Cade wasn’t being entirely honest, the name still stopped Cooper in his tracks. He stood there for a moment, in front of the door, one hand stretched out to grab the handle.
“Now there’s a blast from the past,” Cooper said. He turned around and studied Cade for a second. “He out?”
“No, but he’s come up in regards to the Reserve.”
Cooper twisted his mouth into a sour smile. “Sounds about right.” He scratched his jaw as he thought about it, then finally grunted and sat back down. He nudged the tumbler toward Cade. “I’m not a cheap date. I need more than one whiskey to loosen me up.”
Probably not more than two, though. Cade refilled both glasses. The liquor might not be top shelf, but it packed a punch.
“You’ve seen the news,” he said. “The body found at the Reserve?”
Cooper’s eyebrows twitched. “I did,” he said. “Couldn’t miss it.”
“It doesn’t look like Piper was directly involved,” Cade said, “but the body dump came out of his playbook, or that’s what I heard from the local cops.”
Cooper raised eyebrows that had only faded lightly down from the brick red he’d started with. “Sounds like you’ve had the whole story, so what do you need me for?”
“The version that tells the whole truth,” Cade said. “Instead of the one worried about its reputation.”
Part of him balked at the suggestion Marlow had lied to him, but that was sentiment taken too far. The truth was Marlow’s loyalties were with the SDPD, along with his next paycheck. It would take more than one heady, sweaty encounter to change that.
Not that Cade wanted that to change, he reminded himself.
“Nobody wanted the lawsuits that would have fallen out of Piper’s pockets if he was prosecuted for everything he did,” Cooper said. “Short and sweet version is that Piper made things go away, and no one wanted them to come back. Not the LEOs, sure, but the rest of us were glad when Piper went away quietly too.”
“Not sure that Officer Marlow would agree,” Cade said.
Cooper looked blank for a moment, then lifted his chin as recognition dawned. “The kid who got shot? Yeah, well, not like Piper did that without cause. Just because Marlow didn’t have blood on his hands didn’t mean they were clean.”
That shouldn’t have bothered Cade. He kept to the straight and narrow these days—most of the time, officially—for the sake of the company’s reputation. That hadn’t always been an option. He’d done things he wouldn’t want people to know about. He’d done things he wasn’t proud of.
None of that mattered. He still felt the sharp sting of disillusionment at the thought Marlow wasn’t the good cop he seemed, even though it shouldn’t have been a surprise. Marlow had told him himself; Piper hadn’t shot him to keep him from blowing the whistle.
“That’s the SDPD’s problem. Or was,” Cade said. “What I want to know is what Piper did for the Reserve.”
Cooper sipped his whiskey and frowned. “Favors,” he said. “Ones we paid for under the table. But nothing… unseemly. You’ve probably got a few moonlighting cops on your payroll?”
He raised his eyebrows as he waited for an answer. Cade acknowledged the point with a nod. That was enough to satisfy Cooper.
“We didn’t bother with null staff during the full moon,” he said. “Cost-benefit analysis said it wasn’t worth it; what the fuck was going to go wrong? Of course, sometimes things did anyhow, and Piper dealt with it. It was his job,anyhow. Even though the Reserve pays for private security, they still fall under the local’s jurisdiction. So, if Piper detoured a few patrols to keep an eye on the Reserve, well, what’s the harm? Our ‘donations’ went directly to support the local police, after all. It just turned out that we should have kept a bit of a better eye on him.”
“The bodies he made disappear.”
