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Benny considered her question longer than she would have liked. The clock was ticking, damn it.
Finally, he spoke. “How sure are you there’s no one dirty inside LVMPD?”
Jordan reared back. “What would make you say that?” It wasn’t something she’d seriously considered.
“Just what you’ve told me and what Abel Jones said when he was on speaker yesterday.” Benny spoke slowly, clearly working through it as he went. “He said you got pulled just when you were getting close. That there was another undercover officer inside who they were afraid would recognize you, right?”
At her nod, he continued. “Isn’t that at least a little convenient? You have a new power broker showing up in Las Vegas and nobody knows his identity. The powers that be are concerned enough to send you undercover to gather intel when they’ve already got someone inside. Then, because you’re Jordan Gonzalez, you kick ass and take names until you’re getting close to figuring out who the big bad guy is.” His expression tightened. “What if you got a little too close?”
Jordan considered his words. He wasn’t completely wrong. Every department had some measure of corruption inside it. That was human nature, and in Vegas, where obscene amounts of money changed hands every single day, the temptation to skim from one of those very shiny pots had always been real.
But what Benny was suggesting was something much larger.
The reason they’d sent her undercover to root out La Sombra was because of the amount of money that seemed to be flowing through his organization. Gangs were a fact of life in Las Vegas. Drugs coming across the border were nothing new either.
But the volume and quality coming through this particular organization had felt different.
“Plus, why would you tell IA about any of this?” Benny asked.
Jordan looked at him.
“They want to talk to you about the shooting of the U.S. Marshal, right? What does La Sombra have to do with that? Benedict’s death is a side-quest in this investigation. Focus on what they’re specifically asking you.”
The possibility that La Sombra had been the man in the limousine, much less the one who’d ordered Benedict’s death, was still speculation. And now Benny had introduced just enough doubt into her mind to make sharing that speculation with Internal Affairs feel reckless.
She stared at him for a moment, unexpected tears clogging her throat. “I miss doing this with you.”
His eyebrows drew together. “Doing what?”
“This back and forth. You always made me look at a problem from a completely different direction. I’d get too close to something, and you’d start poking holes in it.”
Something shifted in his expression. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’d do the same with you, when you had patients who were difficult or cases that were sad, or airmen who were problematic or just plain dumb.” A smile tugged at her mouth. “We bounced that kind of stuff off each other all the time.”
Before she could add anything, or he could respond, her personal laptop dinged with an incoming video call, and she knew, without even looking, that it was Internal Affairs.
Chapter Nine
Benny moved out of sight of the camera as she answered, tucking the other matter she’d alluded to away for later, concentrating instead on what was being said.
Sergeant Gates got right to the point. “I understand you can’t do this interview in person because you have a bounty on your head.”
Benny stiffened automatically, then relaxed. He didn’t hear an accusation in the man’s voice, just a statement of fact.
“That is correct,” Jordan said. “Andy Benedict outed me, and the cartel I was investigating recognized my picture even though I was pretty well disguised.”
“That is unfortunate,” Gates said dispassionately. “Why don’t you walk me through the events as you remember them?”
Benny listened as Jordan detailed the events from inside St. Michael’s Solutions headquarters. She explained that she wasn’t exactly sure what had happened on the street with Benedict because she’d been inside, but knew Undersheriff Jones had escorted U.S. Marshal Mark Turner through the secured entrance, believing him to be part of the responding law enforcement team.
Once inside, Turner had drawn his weapon and fired at Tate Lyons. Tate had been hit, but he’d been wearing body armor. They all had. Jordan and Undersheriff Jones had returned fire, killing Turner. She was unsure which of them had fired the fatal shot, or whether multiple rounds had contributed to his death. When she and Jones checked Turner’s vitals, it was clear he was deceased. By that point, the LVMPD officers and federal agents outside were dealing with the shooting that had killed Benedict.
It all sounded like a complete shitshow to Benny.
He knew it had to gall Jordan to lie by omission to Internal Affairs about Tate’s miraculous healing ability. About the gift, or curse, that the majority of the team shared.
But it wasn’t as if she could come right out and say the rounds had shredded Tate’s vest and pierced his heart. And she obviously didn’t mention Davenport landing a helicopter nearby and activating Tate’s nanites.
