Dark Justice (Croft Family Mob Series Book 1) (30 page)

“Did he have any issues with anyone? A neighbor? A friend? An ex?” she asked.

“His brother.”

That was news to them.

“Tucker?”

“Yeah, they didn’t really get along. All their lives, it was Seth, Miranda, and Tucker. Their dad passed away and their mom died when Tucker was eighteen. I think she was killed, but I’m not sure. Like his job, he didn’t like to talk about that either. In fact, Seth was a very private person. I realize that now.”

She got that.

She didn’t talk about her parents either, or her brother.

“Tucker got weird as he got older. He wouldn’t tell them when he would move, he wouldn’t call for months, and he didn’t really like that his brother was a cop. Let’s just say that if every family has a bad apple, in their family, it was Tucker. Seth tried to play surrogate father, but Tucker wasn’t having it. He’s got serious issues regarding authority.”

Emma kept making notes.

This was a treasure trove of information.

It seemed that Miranda left a lot of details out about her other brother. In fact, she’d left all of it out.

That was suspicious.

“Do you think he could be the one who killed the women?” Chris asked. “You were with Seth the most.”

“No way. He was gay. He wouldn’t even check out a boob, let alone dip his stick in that well. We would joke about how we’d rather be stranded on an island than do a woman. He meant it. If you’re gay, you get it. Honestly, I knew him. We dated two years and slept together almost every night.”

“Did he go out or have any weird habits?” Emma asked.

“When I’d get home, he’d be waiting. I check out the construction sites at night. It’s the only time, as an inspector, I can get in there before the crews arrive the next morning. I have to do daily updates on the high rises.”

“Did he personally know any of the women he is accused of killing?”

Adam laughed. “You know, that’s what the prosecution kept trying to prove. They wanted to show that he arrested one, was parked by one, and all that BS.”

“He was a cop in Vegas. He arrested twenty hookers a night. He was bound to cross paths with one who was going to die. It’s not exactly the best profession, know what I mean?”

Yeah, they did.

“And Seth never mentioned anyone who was bothering him?” Emma asked.

While they’d gotten a good lead with Tucker Bell, she wanted to cover all their bases.

Adam headed into the kitchen and grabbed the pot of tea. He poured as he was thinking.

“Mrs. Henderson upstairs accused him of stealing her dryer sheets when he was doing his laundry. She’s almost eighty, and I think she’s touched in the head.”

Emma smiled at his analogy. “Maybe someone more his age who might want to hurt him?”

“Corey Powell.”

Emma wrote his name down.

“That’s the only person who he ever mentioned, and really, it was in passing. I guess, he wrote faggot on his locker in lipstick. He had it in for him, but then he stopped.”

That was interesting.

“Faggot, huh?”

“Yeah, I hate that word, and so did Seth.”

She couldn’t blame him. She really hated it too. When people directed it at Steele or Dante, she wanted to hurt someone.

Emma sipped her tea. “Was Corey Powell a friend, neighbor, co-worker?”

“He’s the dispatcher for the police. Well, he’s one of them. He’d do shitty things like give him all the crappy calls, even if they were on the opposite side of the city. That night when he was almost shot, and his partner Jesse had to shoot that guy…that was one of the calls.”

Chris was curious.

“Did he report it?”

There was a rule that dispatchers couldn’t pull shit like that. They’d put out the call, and the cop, who was closest, would handle it. The only time it happened otherwise was if the caller mentioned that a specific cop had handled an earlier situation and it was happening again.

“Yeah, he did. Corey got the reaming, and the shit stopped. We thought it was over.”

Then it hit him.

“Do you really think that he might have something to do with this?”

Emma wasn’t sure, but homophobia was always a good motive, as was ratting out one of your coworkers.

Yeah, this was going to be a good lead.

She could feel it.

“I hope I’ve been able to help you,” he offered.

“Oh, you have,” Emma promised.

“If you see Seth, will you tell him I love him? He doesn’t want me there. I tried to see him all the time, but he wouldn’t talk to me. His sister is trying to get him to let me visit. I know I’m running out of time.”

Emma understood.

“You still love him, don’t you?”

He handed her his phone. On the screensaver, there was a picture of him in a hardhat, and Seth in his uniform.

“We used to joke around about how we could go to karaoke and do
‘YMCA’
.”

He wiped his eyes.

“I miss him. Please get him out of this. He’s a good man. I want to go on with my life. Since he’s been in jail, I haven’t dated. When you know that the person is the one, you just can’t get into it. How can I move on without him?”

That she totally got.

“Thank you for the tea,” Emma offered. “If we have more questions, can we come back?”

“For Seth? Absolutely. I’ll help out anyway I can.”

With that, they headed out.

In the car, Emma was thinking.

“You’re quiet. What’s going on?”

“Kane and Abel.”

“What?”

“The good cop brother and the trouble maker one. How many cases started out like that?” she asked.

“Too damn many.”

Yeah, that was the absolute truth.

It looked like they were going to be investigating a brother, and soon.

Miranda Bell was not going to be happy.

 
                        
* * *
  G r e y s o n   C r o f t   * * *

Greyson and Dimitri had finished their shopping, and they were on the way home to meet up with Emma and Chris. They’d gotten some good information and couldn’t wait to inform the team.

Once back in the vehicle, Greyson immediately turned on the speakers so he could
‘eavesdrop’
.

“You miss being around her twenty-four-seven, don’t you?”

“Yeah, the last few weeks, not going to work every day made me more dependent on being near her. I miss Emma when I’m not holding her hand.”

“You’re such a sap.”

He tucked away the box he held his hand. It contained a new ring for his wife.

“Sap probably doesn’t cover it.”

And you know what?

He was more than okay with that. If he had to be addicted to something, it was better to be his sexy redhead than a substance.

She was the only drug he needed.

Leaning back in the leather seat, he let Dimitri handle the driving. It had become their routine. He needed that control, and more often than not, he was able to cuddle his wife.

There she was again.

Running around in his mind
.

Over the in-dash screen, they were able to listen to Chris and Emma talking about the case—what they’d found, and if they wanted to grab a coffee at the local shop off the strip.

He knew the place.

“Fifty bucks she gets me a blueberry muffin, even though she told me I had to eat salad for lunch.”

Dimitri laughed. “No way. She gave you the look. You’re eating lettuce with some fat free crap all over it.”

They waited.

As Emma ordered, the last thing she threw in was a muffin. Greyson held out his hand.

Dimitri dropped a fifty into it.

“Really? Like you need that fifty?” he teased.

“I’ll put it in the ‘hooker fund’.”

Dimitri started choking and Greyson glanced over. “Not that kind of fund, you deviant. It’s the one where I give them cash and our card. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

He started laughing. “I was worried there for a second. I thought bringing you to the strip clubs had finally broken you down.”

“Never. I like my kitten more than I like strange women shaking their asses at me. That’s a cesspool I have no intention of wading into.”

“If you did, I’d kill you.”

Greyson laughed. “Gee thanks.”

“I mean it.”

Greyson heard the change in his voice. “Hey now! You can have the fifty back. Don’t get cranky,” he said.

“You have the perfect woman. She looks at you as if you’re the best thing that ever happened in her life. If you ever cheat on her, I’m going to kill you and then marry her. I happen to dig redheads.”

He stared at him. “I think I’ll take that cigarette now.”

Dimitri laughed and dropped the silver case into the center console. “Smoke them if you got ‘em.”

Greyson had only been kidding. He wasn’t really going to light up. For that to happen, it would have to be huge. He went back to listening to his wife and thinking about having a quick bite to eat when they got home—
of the muffin
.

Well, then maybe her too.

Sue him.

He loved his redhead.

Listening, he was proud. It looked like they had each gotten a decent lead to further on the case.

And no one had gotten hurt.

That was the best damn part.

As Chris and Emma were pulling into traffic, after their coffee stop, Dimitri and Greyson could hear sirens. Only, they weren’t anywhere near them.

They were coming from the navigational system.

“Oh, shit.” Greyson knew what that meant.

His worst fears were coming true.

The cops were making their move on his wife and Chris Ford.

This was bad.

Emma and Chris were on their own, across town, and without any way to protect themselves.

“Dimitri?”

“I’ll handle it.”

He made the call.

And Greyson lit up…

 
         
* * *
  G r e y s o n   C r o f t   * * *

Emma saw the lights before she heard the sirens. It looked like they were in for their first run in with the LVPD.

She was sure it wasn’t going to be fun at all. This was a grudge match, and they were the main event.

“Here come the clowns. It looks like the circus rolled into town,” Chris said, making sure there was nothing around them that could be misconstrued as a weapon.

He’d pulled cars over.

He knew what he’d done to get a search of a ride. They could claim a hairbrush looked like a switchblade handle.

Yeah, this was going to suck.

“Don’t move fast and don’t provoke them, Emma,” Chris said. “Stay calm, let them convey the message from the commissioner, and then they’ll go after me. Just say nothing and I’ll be okay,” he promised. He’d take the heat for her to be okay.

Bullshit!

There was no way she’d stay calm if they started roughhousing the man she considered her brother. She could take down a couple of cops.

So could he.

She hoped he wasn’t carrying. “Please tell me you don’t have a gun on you.”

Now that his badge was gone, unless he had a personal carry permit, he was screwed.

“No, I don’t have a gun. I’m clean. I can carry a concealed, but I left my guns locked up at my condominium. I knew this was coming, and I didn’t want to spend my night in lock up as they claimed computer glitch.”

He’d done that too.

Karma sucked.

“You’re weapon free, right?”

“Unless you count my ever increasing bad attitude,” she admitted, finding a safe place to get off the roadway.

When she pulled over, it didn’t take long before she saw the two cops sliding down the sides of her Navigator. She was starting to get nervous.

This was going to be bad.

They had their hands on their sidearms as if there was a Navigator full of oozi-packing drug dealers waiting to kill them.

Shit!

Shit!