No Rep (Madd CrossFit #1) - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,66

to keep an eye out. Come on.”

I reluctantly started to pull on my pants that I’d left on the floor beside the bed.

“Sorry, I was sleeping, and didn’t realize that I’d turned my phone on silent,” I said as I pulled them up over my hips.

“No worries,” he said. “But get here.”

After giving Fran a kiss, who sighed as I said I had to go, I grabbed a t-shirt, my gun, a pair of shoes, and walked out to my car.

When I arrived at the station, it was to find everyone up and much less perky-eyed than I was.

“Nice Crocs,” Schultz said.

I looked down at my American flag Crocs and shrugged. “I was in a hurry. Normally I only wear them to the gym when I’m working out.”

Schultz grinned, then jerked his head toward the board at the corner of the room.

I went with them, staring at the face of a stone-eyed man that looked perpetually pissed off. Even though he was eating ice cream next to a beautiful woman.

“This is the assistant to the hair chick,” Schultz said.

“Why do y’all keep calling her that?” I wondered.

“Because that’s her name. Or her company’s name. The Hair Chick. This is Raymond Pasqual. He’s a thirty-eight-year-old man.” Easton paused. “Look familiar?”

I frowned as I studied the man. “No. Should he be familiar?”

“Maybe not,” Chief Wilkerson said. “But this guy should.”

He moved to the chalkboard where he pinned up a photo of another man.

This one that was very familiar.

A man that, until recently, I’d done very good at shutting out of my every thought.

“Monk.”

“Monk,” Chief Wilkerson confirmed.

“Son of a bitch,” I hissed. “And how are they related?”

“Monk is Raymond Pasqual’s brother-in-law,” Easton said as he twisted the board around with all of the writing, pictures, and diagrams on it.

That’s when I saw all of Monk’s information, there for all to see.

Monk was my case. My career-defining case that set me on the path to being known as the best detective there was in the area.

Monk had, for lack of a better word, gotten off scot-free for three murders until I was able to find information on him. And that information I’d found had put him away for close to life without the possibility of parole.

What was that information? I’d found a woman that was willing to testify to some things that she’d seen while helping Monk perform certain tasks for a particular clientele base that wanted to off their spouses.

He’d helped kill what we thought was hundreds of people, all for men and women that wanted their spouses dead for one reason or another. And the informant had been unwilling to the nth degree.

In fact, the only thing that’d kept that informant in line was a child that Monk had control over. A child that I’d saved from a car wreck. A child that, it’d been found, had brain cancer, after a routine CT scan of his head.

A child that was immediately flown to children’s hospital in Dallas where he was ‘safe.’

The mother had heard of me and had broken down and told me everything about her boss who’d been holding her and her son hostage, forcing them to do things they’d never wanted to do.

After finding her a place in witness protection, she’d finally been able to testify against Monk, and Monk, as well as almost all of his employees—those that were willing—went to jail for a very long time.

Only, it looked like we’d missed one, if the feeling I had was true.

And usually they were.

“Pasqual spent eight years learning. He has a doctorate in Criminal Investigation. Worked at a crime lab for two years. And all of a sudden, he’s now working as a menial driver for the Hair Chick,” Chief Wilkerson said.

And it all made a sick sort of sense—how he was able to do everything so perfectly to the point where zero evidence was left behind.

“Fucking sick.”

Chief Wilkerson nodded at my assessment.

“We’re bringing him in now,” he said. “Lucky for us, they’re in Paris this week.”

I nodded. “I’ll be here for the interrogation.”

• • •

Sixteen hours later, I was exhausted, ready to crawl back into bed, and pissy because I’d have to do it by myself.

Unless I could talk Fran into going to bed at seven in the evening.

Though the way I’d have to convince her would take energy, and I was quite low on that right now. Even after downing eight cups of coffee over the last few hours.

Arriving home, it was to find it empty.

No Fran in