death between nine and eleven,” Mueller answered.
“Where?” Boone kept at him.
“Her master bath,” Mueller shared.
“How?” Boone asked.
“Back of the skull. She was on her knees.”
“Execution,” Boone murmured.
Mueller gave a short nod.
“Husband out of the house?” Boone asked.
Bogart spoke up.
“They’re perverts,” he sneered. “He was somewhere probably getting fucked up the ass by a bitch in leather and a strap on.”
“Kev,” Mueller muttered, then to Boone. “The Mortons have an open marriage. He had a date. He shares that Mrs. Morton knew about it and approved.”
This was a lot of detail to convey to a civvy, which part had to do with Mueller covering for Bogart being a dickhead and part had to do with the fact he knew they were going to leave, and Boone was going to be on the phone with Hawk, Mitch or Brock before they were out of the front vestibule, so he’d find out anyway.
“So he’s alibied,” Boone noted.
“He found her and called it in,” Mueller shared. “This happened around one. He fucked the scene. Open marriage or not, he came unraveled. Tried to give a woman without half her head CPR.”
“Christ,” Boone bit.
Mueller’s chin suddenly jerked up, his gaze going beyond Boone, and Boone turned to see Ryn coming through the dining room.
She hit him, her front to his side, and shoved the fingers of one hand in the back of his jeans, her other hand she set to his stomach, and he curled an arm around her shoulders.
“Coffee’s on,” she told him.
“Right,” he replied.
She turned to the cops.
“This is very upsetting about Corinne,” she declared.
“We can imagine,” Mueller mumbled, then, distinctly, he said, “It’s our understanding two nights ago you went to Mrs. Morton’s house and there, you met a client of hers.”
“Brett,” she confirmed.
Boone held her closer.
She pressed her hand in at his stomach.
“Yes, Brett Rappaport,” Mueller said.
He felt her eyes and looked down at her to see her looking up at him.
“Is that his last name?” she asked.
“Yup,” he answered.
“You didn’t know his last name?” Bogart spoke up again.
Ryn turned to him, shaking her head. “He kidnapped me and my girlfriends in March.”
“Yes, this is on record,” Mueller stated.
“So we weren’t formally introduced,” Ryn went on.
Mueller cleared his throat like he was hiding a laugh.
Bogart narrowed his eyes on Ryn.
“Can you tell us why, when he’d kidnapped you last March, you met with him at Corinne Morton’s house two nights ago?” Mueller asked.
“Corinne told me she was throwing a party. She lied. She was setting me up to talk to Brett because Brett wanted to talk to me,” Ryn answered.
“You didn’t know he was there?” Mueller pressed.
Ryn shook her head. “No.” Again she looked at Boone. “And I now feel like a bitch because she kept texting she was sorry, and I blocked her.”
“The texts,” Mueller mumbled, and the way he said it, it was not for Ryn and Boone, it was aimed at Bogart.
Boone shifted his attention to the cop.
They had Morton’s phone. They saw her chain to Ryn.
Puzzle pieces were slotting together.
“What did Rappaport have to say to you that was worth him making his attorney set you up for this chat?” Bogart asked.
Fuck.
He did not want her to answer that, to these guys, fully.
But he had no way to stop her from doing that.
“He likes my friend,” Ryn stated.
Boone looked back down at her.
“It’s all kinds of weird, but I think he feels bad he kidnapped her, and all of us, and he wanted to see she’s okay and…now here’s the super weird part, get me to tell her he said hey.”
“That’s it?” Bogart asked dubiously.
“No,” Ryn answered.
Fuck.
“He wanted to ask me about Evie’s boyfriend, Mag. If I liked him for her. Honestly, he gave me the impression he wanted to know if he had a shot. He doesn’t and I shared that. And it wasn’t fun sharing it because, you know, he might not have liked my answers, and he’d kidnapped me before, and I was the one in the parking lot when there was gunplay. So I didn’t want to know how he’d react if he didn’t like my answers. But even though he seemed kinda sulky, he also seemed to take the news all right that he wasn’t gonna get in there with Evie.”
“I hope you can understand, considering the kind of man Brett Rappaport is, and the fact he’s wanted for the murder of a police officer, this story is hard to believe,” Mueller noted carefully.
“I can absolutely understand that,” Ryn replied. “Try being