anyway. My mind was heading in a completely different direction. Any chance this is related to the cop killings?”
Nate blinked. The thought had never even occurred to him. “I don’t see how. Or why.” He shook his head. “It’s not widely known that Risa is helping on the investigation. Even the task force members aren’t sure of her role. She’d have to be seen as a threat of some sort in order for her to be targeted by the offender, and where would that perception come from?”
“Maybe from within the department.” Eduardo held up a hand to stem anything Nate might have said next. “I realize you didn’t know her then, but Marisa Chandler was making quite a name for herself with the PPD before Raiker snatched her away. Others might have been familiar with her reputation.”
Dryly, he responded, “Does that mean I need to install a few more smoke detectors, or am I to believe that my own reputation for ineptitude will be enough to save me from a similar fate?”
The man had the grace to flush. But his voice, his expression was serious when he said, “It means be damn careful. At least until we get an idea on how that house fire started. You’re the face of the investigation.” Nate supposed that was true, if standing next to the commissioner while he gave a few sound bites to the press counted. “Someone starts watching you, they see Risa. You’ve been paired for the investigation. It’s a stretch, but given our guy’s liking for matches, what happened last night makes me uneasy enough to warn you to watch your back.”
Nate rolled his shoulders. His house hadn’t burned down last night, but things had gone up in flames, regardless. If any of his sister’s friends knew where she was, they weren’t talking. At least not to him. He’d called the school and the babysitter this morning to let them know Tucker wouldn’t be there today. Given that he’d already pissed off Kristin’s boss and a coworker with his calls in the middle of the night, her work already had a heads-up she wouldn’t be in until further notice.
Whether his sister still had a job left when she returned was the least of his worries. If she returned.
Shoving the thought aside, he concentrated on the captain’s words. He needed to see Risa to assure himself that she was okay. The same way he had last night in the hospital, but this time he wasn’t going to be given that chance. And maybe that’d be okay. Especially if it allowed her to grab some sleep at her mother’s bedside. Or at Adam’s.
“There’s more.” There was a gleam in Morales’s eye that should have warned him. The man took an envelope out of his jacket pocket. “You have the still photos IT was able to enlarge from the man in the video you found at the scene. Of the man they called Johnny.” He barely waited for Nate to nod before going on. “For the last couple days we’ve been working on trying to match those pictures to department IDs.”
It took effort to keep his voice even. When he spoke, he realized he hadn’t quite managed it. “You’ve been working on that a couple of days?” Because this sure as hell was the first he’d been told about it.
“You have to understand the delicacy of the situation.” There was no apology in the captain’s tone. “You identified a man in the video as a cop. Not just a cop, but one of the victims.”
“I’ve since paired Johnny with another of the victims. He was found in a picture with Christiansen.” Because his fist had clenched, he consciously relaxed it. “There’s a damn good chance Johnny is a cop, too.”
“Which made it all the more imperative that it be kept as quiet as possible while we made sure. Hell, can you imagine the outcry from our ranks if word got out we were looking at one of our own being involved with this?”
He met Morales’s gaze. Held it. “I can more easily imagine the outcry in the public if the media ran with the rumor.”
The man lifted a shoulder. “Politics play a part in our job, and it’d be useless denying it. Whether you want to believe it or not, me taking the front on this meant I served as shit deflector if it got out we were trolling our own personnel photos to ID someone who might be involved with this case.”