Deadly Heat (Deadly #2)(85)

But Kenton wanted her there. Ramirez wouldn’t work for this one. If Malone had to face off against Kenton and Ramirez, the guy would have been too defensive. But Sam, with her soft eyes and nervous hands, well, Malone would think she was the good one.

Yeah, the good agent/bad agent game was played every day. Not just TV bullshit.

Only in this case, Sam wasn’t the good one. She was the one looking for some hard-and-fast vengeance of her own—like Lora. And if Malone was guilty, Kenton had a feeling that the guy would be seeing just how bad Sam could get.

Because unlike Monica, Sam’s control was weak, and he suspected her rage was very, very strong.

“What? Relationship?” Malone shook his head. “I didn’t have a relationship with any of them.”

Kenton tossed the files down on the table. “Really?” He flipped open Tom Hatchen’s folder. “Why didn’t you say you arrested him for domestic abuse?”

Malone’s eyes widened a bit. “Is that what this shit is about? Yeah, I arrested him, and he walked, so it didn’t make a difference. The wife changed her story, for the fifth straight time. A broken nose, broken ribs, black and blue all over, and the woman says she fell down the steps.” His hands slammed down on the table. “Do you know how many times she’s fallen in the last two years?”

Real fury burned in Malone’s voice. Because he was a cop who was tired of seeing a victim hurt? Or more? “Guess she doesn’t have to worry about falling anymore,” Kenton said.

Hit. He saw that on Malone’s face.

Kenton flipped through another folder. “And when we had Larry Powell right here in front of us, in this very room, you never mentioned that the two of you had… well, brushed paths before.”

“ ’Cause we didn’t—”

“Seven years ago, you were working the Narcotics division.”

“So?”

“You busted him then.” Kenton raised his brows. “How much did it piss you off when he was on the streets again just a few months later?”

The hands on the table balled into fists. “I don’t even remember that! Man, do you know how many drugheads I arrested back then? There’s no way to keep track of them all, not after all this time!”

Maybe. And if it had just been one link, Kenton probably would have let it pass, but—

“How do you explain Charlie Skofield?” Sam asked quietly.

“Who? Skofield?” Malone shook his head. “No, no way! You’ve got this wrong—”

“Do I?” Kenton let the doubt roll in his voice.

Malone’s fists pounded onto the table top. “I’m a cop! Not a damn criminal!”

Kenton crossed his arms and waited.

“Does Lora know what you’re doing? What you’re thinking?”

It’s not him. Her voice drifted through his mind. So sure. So very certain. But she didn’t understand. Sometimes it was really hard to see evil. Especially when it hid behind a friend’s smile and stared you right in the face.

Malone’s right hand lifted, and his index finger pointed toward the two-way mirror. “My captain’s in there, watching, isn’t he?” He heaved out a hard breath. “He’s pissed because I kept working this case. I didn’t get his permission so he’s letting you have a go at me. But I’m not a criminal, dammit! I didn’t set those fires!”

Kenton lifted a brow. “I never said you did.”

Sam eased closer.

Understanding lit Malone’s gaze. “This is about Lora, isn’t it? Man, look, that was one time. One time. Okay? The lady made it clear she didn’t want a repeat performance, so you don’t need to f*ck up my career just because you’re a jealous prick!”

Kenton just stared back at him.

Malone ran a shaking hand over his forehead. “That’s it, right? You called me in because—”

“Detective Malone,” Sam’s voice. Gentle and husky. “You were at the scene of Skofield’s car accident. The accident in which Rhonda Myers, a mother of two, was killed last spring.”

His gaze flew to her. “I was on my way home. I saw the lights. That was just chance.”

Kenton leaned forward. “Did you smell the alcohol on his breath?”

He flinched. “I wasn’t working the case! There were other units already there, and he was being loaded into the ambulance by the time I—”

“You smelled the booze. You knew what he’d done.” Kenton flipped open Skofield’s file. “And he got away, didn’t he? Got away with murder.”

“He was paralyzed, stuck in that chair, trapped in his house—”

“But he was alive.” Sam again. “That’s a whole lot more than we can say for Rhonda.” She crept to the table. “And you know it, don’t you? I bet you pulled his file as soon as you got back to the office. You saw all the DUIs. You knew what he was. He killed that woman. He should have been rotting in jail, and that ate you up, didn’t it?”

“The DA’s office had the evidence,” he snapped. “They’re the ones who take the cases. If they didn’t want to press for a murder conviction—”

“Then there wasn’t anything you could do,” Sam murmured.