“Piper said that he’ll call you first thing tomorrow, Mr. Tanner,” she said as she worked the blade along the stitching. “To discuss your approach to his case. He said you might as well have these now, since there’s nothing you can do with them until tomorrow anyhow.”
The length of the strap gaped open. Maria peeled it apart between her fingers and used her fingernails to pry three memory cards out of the glue, one after the other. She stacked them on top of each other and then set them on the table to push over to Justin.
“What’s on them?” Justin asked as he picked them up.
“Enough to bury Franklin,” Maria said as she stood up. “Piper said there was something good from San Francisco, but I told him I didn’t want to know anymore. I’ve been a snitch enough times to know when it’s best to stay in the dark. Like I said, I’m a survivor.”
She let herself out, her butchered purse dangled from one hand. Cade let her go. His men could take her back to the hotel she was holed up in and make sure she didn’t make any bad decisions.
Chapter Eight
“GIVE ME THEfiles,” Marlow said.
Justin pinched the narrow wafers of plastic between his fingers. “I’m sorry,” he said, in a way that made it clear he was not. “This could contain evidence that implicates my client. I would beremissif I allowed anyone connected to law enforcement to view these before—”
“Remember those audits you used to run on our competitors?” Cade interrupted him. “That was a good idea. We still do it. Based on our last estimate, it would take five minutes for security guards to get to your office in the event of an incident.”
Justin smirked. “My office in particular?” he asked, but didn’t wait for Cade to answer. “But in case it slipped your mind, you had to surrender any weapons to security before you entered the building. I didn’t.”
He pulled his jacket back to show the gun holstered in an expensive tailored leather harness against his ribs. It looked black and dangerous against the crisp white of his shirt.
“Your move,” Justin said.
Cade laughed at him and leaned back in the chair, arms crossed. “Hell, no,” he said. “I’m not bad in a fight, but you don’t date someone in Night Shift and punch fuckers yourself. Marlow? How much damage could you do in five minutes?”
He glanced over expectantly. Marlow tried to think of a pithy, dangerous reply, but his brain had derailed on the “dating” mention, and it was hard to get it back on track. It wasn’t the time, but knowing that didn’t actually help.
Marlow gave up on clever and settled for blunt. “Enough,” he said as he stood up.
Annoyance lifted Justin’s chin in a pugnacious jut. Cade’s ex-partner—business, nothing else, Cade had assured Marlow on the way over—wasn’t someone who liked to be underestimated.
Justin’s jaw set. “I wear a nice suit, Officer Marlow, and I get paid a lot of money to be clever,” he said. “Please don’t assume that makes me soft or helpless. It would be a mistake.”
People always thought that.
“It wouldn’t,” Marlow said bluntly. “Everyone is soft and helpless compared to a wolf, and I face them down three nights a month.”
“With guns and silver bullets,” Justin pointed out. “You’ve got neither right now.”
That made Cade chuckle. He just smirked when Justin glared at him, sprawled and arrogant in the chair as if this was his office. “Inside joke,” he said with a shrug.
For a moment, the back of Marlow’s neck stung with heat. He was as awkwardly aware of the weight of the barbell through his cock as he’d been the first few weeks after he’d first gotten it. Marlow had done his job too.
“Okay,” he said. “Try me.”
Justin paused for a second. He had probably had a script for how this confrontation was going to go, and it most likely involved a good two minutes of posturing before they reached this point. It had left him flat-footed when Marlow skipped ahead.
People didn’t like it when they didn’t get what they expected, but it did tend to make them more reasonable. It also saved time, and they didn’t have much of that right now.
“You’re that confident?” Justin asked. “I’m a good shot.”
Marlow shrugged and held his hand out. “It’s been a bad couple of days,” he said. “Why not just give me the cards and stop pretending you’re going to shoot up your own office?”
“I’ve done stupider things,” Justin said. He blew on the memory cards like they were dice and dropped them into Marlow’s hand. “If you try and useanythingon this against my client—”
Cade sighed. “We’re the ones who hired you to represent him,” he said. “What makes you think we would try and backstab him now?”
“I told you,” Justin said. The chair creaked as he leaned back in it. “I know who Ned Piper is and what he did. He tried to kill Officer Marlow here. He might hold a grudge… And you always want to impress people you’re interested in.”
