With a smug smile, Jordan shrugged. “Like I told them earlier, I’m an art collector, not a drug dealer.”
“How’d the drugs get there?”
Another carefree shrug from Jordan. “I never saw the drugs. Still haven’t seen them. I wasn’t allowed back in my house. Forall I know, Dillinger planted them there. Maybe to make the serial killer case stronger.”
“Do you have receipts for your art?” Nikki pressed.
“Oh, sure, I do. I mean, probably. Depends on how long I’ve had the painting. I moved not too long ago, so some of those receipts might have gotten tossed before we left.”
What a load of crap.
Nikki asked a few more questions. Jordan kept his answers vague.
Let’s see whatcha got.
Rebel left the observation room, walked around the corner and into the interrogation room. He spun a chair around and sat. He wore no smile, didn’t glare at Krause either. He wasn’t playing the good cop, wasn’t playing the bad cop either.
In fact, Rebel wasn’t playing at all.
“Sorry for the delay. I checked in with the tech team,” he lied. “There’s a shit-ton of opioids hidden in those paintings. If I were you—and I’m just offering my personal opinion here—I’d start talkin’.”
Jordan crossed his arms. “Agent Jones, or maybe I should call you Joaquin Dillinger. Which is it, son?”
Fury jumped to the surface. No one—fucking no one—called him son, except his dad. But Rebel was too smart to fall for a lowlife like Krause.
“You want somethin’ to drink?” Rebel asked. “Water? Soda? We got nothin’ but time while we run your DNA through the system.”
Krause’s eyebrows jumped into his forehead. “I want a lawyer.”
Dammit. Maybe Nikki should have questioned him alone.
As he eyed Krause, his gut told him Jordan wouldn’t have told Nikki anything she didn’t already know.
Rebel pushed out of the chair, opened the door, and waited for Nikki to sail through. They entered the observation room where they watched Jordan. First, he tapped his fingers on the table, then he stood and paced.
After a few minutes, Rebel said, “About my name?—”
“I thought you might be undercover. At the end of the day, we’re just looking to pull the bad guys off the street.” After a pause, she said, “Unfortunately, he’ll be out by the morning, unless you can give me a solid reason to hold him.”
“I ran a background check. He’s got no past beyond showing up at a cult over a decade ago.”
“Not strong enough,” Nikki pushed back. “He’s in possession of the opioids, but we don’t have any evidence he’s selling it.”
“There’s an emblem on some of the prints.” Rebel held up his ring. “Looks like this. My dad was FBI undercover on a big-time fentanyl ring. He got killed and the leader got away.”
Sadness touched her eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss, but I need something that ties him to that case.”
Anger careened down his spine. “I got nothing.”
“I can ask that his passport be forfeited pending the results of our investigation,” she said.
Rebel opened the door. “Put a rush on the fingerprint check.”
Frustration fueled him forward. He had nothing but a ring that had been removed from his dead father’s finger. But Rebel trusted his gut, because it was never, ever wrong.
If you killed my father, I will make your life a living hell, Krause.
At four-thirty in the morning, Rebel left the police station. First stop, the Krause home. He called the crime tech lead on the way.
