Harper, Sr.” He pointed to the woman. “This is the hooker we arrested him with.” That picture was taken away and he laid out three more. Different men. Different women. All in handcuffs. “And this is the prostitution ring that Harper, Sr. participated in and was arrested during. How we found out about this—” Meredith Harper’s image was laid on top of them. “—was because Mrs. Harper here got tired of the cheating, the hookers, the drugs, and when she found out her husband impregnated Harper, Jr.’s high school girlfriend, she decided enough was enough. She came to us, and we pulled him in.”
I sat back, chewing on all this.
I wasn’t liking what I was feeling.
“What does this have to do with me?”
He took Meredith’s picture away and put Harper, Sr.’s picture back on top. “This guy didn’t like being arrested. This guy decided that he had information on the Red Demons, and he wanted to use it to get immunity for this shit.” He pulled away the top picture and used it to wave at the others. “Harper, Sr. was stupid because what we found out today is that all the evidence we thought we had on the Red Demons was bogus. All of it. Not the information itself. That was real, but Harper, Sr. can’t be used as a witness anymore because what we weren’t told is that Harper, Sr. is also in bed with the cartel.”
A phone started ringing in the room, and it wasn’t mine.
Detective Brennan stared at me, his eyes hard, and he clenched his jaw. “If I look at my ringer, am I going to find out that it’s coming from your brother?”
I swallowed. This guy was the most cop-like cop I’d ever met or seen on television. He was emanating frustration, exhaustion, but a ring of danger. And right now, the frustration was only slightly edging out the air of danger, and so I swallowed. Again.
And I didn’t answer that question.
He grunted before leaning back and pulling out his phone. He turned it off, then indicated my own. “Pull it out. Call your brother back—”
I reached for the phone, but it was still in use.
Channing’s voice sounded from it, “I’m here. I’m listening.”
Brennan gestured to the table. “Put it there.” He raised his voice. “But you listen, Monroe. Not a word.”
My brother, for once, was quiet.
I was also now impressed by this cop. As cops went, he might do.
“So, we have an issue. One, the case fell apart. We can’t bring forward a witness who will never testify, and we’ll know he’ll never testify because what cartel would ever let one of theirs enter the court of law. A dead witness. That’s who they’d let in. In a body bag, but cartel aside, last night Harper, Sr. and Harper, Jr. were both taken. And your sister here was a witness to Harper, Jr.’s kidnapping. Witnesses said that two of the men stopped and stared at you. Witnesses also said that you seemed like you recognized one—”
“Bren, take me off speaker.”
I jumped. I’d never heard that voice from my brother.
I hesitated a second and he roared, “Right fucking now, Bren! Right NOW!”
I grabbed the phone, taking him off speaker and put the phone to my ear.
“Get up right now and leave.”
“Wha—”
“Get up! Grab your bag. Get up. Then leave. NOW!”
I bent for my bag.
As I stood from the chair, Channing added, “He can’t keep you there. You’re not being detained for anything. Don’t look at him. Walk out. Keep me on the phone as you go. Tell me where you are.”
I expected Detective Brennan to say something, but he didn’t. He stared at me, his eyes turning a mean shade, and I reached for the door. I half-thought it’d be locked. It wasn’t.
I narrated, “I’m leaving.”
I went down the hall, telling him as I moved throughout the precinct.
I went past the front desk, and I told him that.
As I went through the door, feeling the sun back on me, I told him, “I’m heading for my car.”
“Okay. Put me back to speaker. I want to be there as you drive to the house.”
My hands were shaking once I got in, and I dropped the keys twice before inserting them all the way. As I pulled out from the lot, I said, “You’re scaring me, and I don’t scare much.”
“I know.” He let out a breath of air. “Just keep driving. I’m going to hang up. I need to call Brock. Is Cross at the