even as he was trying to do the right thing?
He opened his eyes and straightened. When he’d done the job he was supposed to do, he told himself. When Rapture, the same drug that had killed Rory, Justine’s brother, was taken out of the equation.
But despite telling Neil Christoffersen to do his job and take care of Linda, Tony knew he couldn’t leave it at that.
He said nothing about his intentions to Justine, but he had to make sure Linda was safe. He was going to learn the identity of the Rapture supplier, but he wasn’t going to sacrifice Linda’s life to do it.
Justine drove him back to the house where they’d been staying before Tony had been arrested, a dingy dive where Guapo’s less loyal acquaintances hung out. There, Tony took a few hours to make the rounds and brag about what he’d done to the man who’d made the mistake of messing with him. Then he went for a walk, bought a disposable cell phone and called Ash Yee, a Sacramento P.D. detective who used to work with Dominic Jeffries, his sister Mattie’s husband.
Though Mattie, Dom and Tony had been in WITSEC in Texas, Dom had temporarily come out of hiding to arrange for Tony to work undercover with the Sacramento Police Department. Weeks before, Tony had just graduated from the local police academy, but despite missing Linda desperately, he’d had no intention of ever returning to Sacramento.
Then he’d heard about Rory Maverick’s death.
At one time Tony had been close to Rory—at least, as close as anyone could be to a street kid, which wasn’t very close at all. The boy had looked up to him and, despite knowing the kid smoked pot and ran drugs for Guapo, Tony, quite simply, had liked him. Had even started to steer him straight. Talk about college.
When Tony had stopped buying drugs from Guapo, he’d likewise cut off any contact he’d had with his associates, and that had included Rory. Again, before he’d moved to Texas, he’d often thought of tracking Rory down, but he hadn’t kidded himself. His qualifications as any kind of mentor hadn’t improved. Keeping off the drugs was a constant struggle for him and he’d barely been holding things together even before he’d lost Linda. Who was he to interfere in someone else’s life and tell him what to do?
Then, just when Tony was set to begin his career as a cop, he’d learned about Rory’s death.
And he’d known what he had to do.
He’d talked to Dom, who’d been working as a sheriff’s deputy. Dom had made some calls, not to anyone at the Sacramento P.D., but to a few friends of his with the FBI.
It turned out that despite his obvious inexperience, the FBI had been all for Tony going deep under cover in Sacramento, not only to bring down Guapo’s organization but to determine if there were any other corrupt cops in the police department. According to the FBI’s contacts, someone on the force was still dirty and they suspected someone in the courts was, too. Maybe even the D.A.’s office. It seemed to be the only explanation for how Guapo’s men were managing to elude capture or prosecution time and again.
Right now Tony was placing bets on Neil Christoffersen. But he also knew that was probably his jealousy guiding him more than anything else.
So far Tony hadn’t caught a whiff of corruption, certainly not from Yee. As far as the Sacramento P.D. was concerned, Yee, his partner, and their boss were the only ones besides Tony who knew he was working undercover and trying to shut down Guapo’s operation, but he only kept direct contact with Yee. Yee worked undercover, as well, except he was posing as a Rapture user and, like Tony, was trying to find out the identity of anyone with any connection to Rapture manufacturers, suppliers or dealers.
Tony had no clue what Yee thought about Guapo’s death or his participation in it. He hadn’t tried to contact him while he’d been in jail, but he was betting they’d had something to do with his grant of bail.
“Where are you?” Yee asked as soon as they were connected, which confirmed he knew Tony had gotten out.
Tony was standing across from Linda’s house. He wanted to make sure she’d gotten home all right and it appeared she had. Her car was in the driveway and even now he could see glimpses of her moving around inside. Of course he didn’t tell Yee that.
“I’m