Jacked (Trent Brothers #1)(20)

“That confirms it was a diversion. Both calls were.”

Cap sort of agreed, though not as confident as I was. The Manley brothers were in it for the money and had been stripping and selling cars parts for years, but lately word on the street said they were boosting cars for one specific client. “Both were armed but there were no drugs on the bodies or in the vehicle.”

We’d called off the chase when things got too dangerous. “The Nissan is the only piece that doesn’t quite fit. Maybe he was off the clock and working his own deal.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But he’s too dead to ask now.”

That he was.

“I just briefed Commissioner Quinlan and he agrees that we want you to lead the investigation since you’re already working the Mancuso case. See what you can dig up. Hopefully you can tie something back to them.”

A guy in a dark suit popped his head out of Cap’s office at the end of the hall and waved, demanding our attention.

Cap’s exasperated sigh reflected my own. “We’ll discuss this later. Let’s go get this shit over with.”

I reluctantly followed him into his office, noting the small space was already occupied by three bodies, one of who instantly set me on guard. It was an automatic reaction to being sized up as if I were her next meal.

Long chestnut hair, expensive stilettos, a killer body clad in a dress meant for anything other than talking business—her motives for making this trip couldn’t have been any more obvious. Fuck, I hated surprises. Last time I saw her, she was trailing behind her father’s shadow, pouting and bored.

Apparently she was taking her father’s recent death in good stride.

“There’s our star! Mr. Trent! So good to see you,” the one suit gushed.

Harry, Herby something.

He was the one who originally lured us into this mess, promising all sorts of things along the way. I sure as hell didn’t want to shake the *’s hand but to avoid so would be rude. Instead, I gave the outstretched hand a squeeze until the condescending smile turned into a slight register of pain.

“Yes, of course,” his voice rose in pitch. I enjoyed watching him shake out his fingers at his side. “You remember Melissa Werner,” he said. “Please, sit.” He nudged the other suit I didn’t recognize to vacate the chair.

That would put me right next to a pair of long legs attached to nothing but high maintenance trouble.

I avoided looking at her.

“No, thanks. Say what you came to say and then I need to get back to work.” I crossed my arms over my chest. There was no way I’d let them talk me into something again this time. Didn’t matter how much money they wanted to throw at me. They had turned my life into a small circus and our unit into a joke amongst the rest of the force. That was enough damage as far as I was concerned.

Asshole was smirking like a shady used-car salesman, thinking he already had a chump on the hook. “We’d like to discuss opportunity and your future.”

And there it was. This was the same bullshit they spieled before, only this time I wasn’t buying it. “That’s nice. Not interested.”

That answer got the queen up out of her chair.

She stepped over the other suit as if he were nothing more than a pawn. “It’s good to see you again, Adam.”

Normally I would view a gorgeous, self-assured woman as a challenge—see if I could get her to give up all the power and heed to my commands, but this one was nothing more than a spoiled socialite looking for a play toy. Melissa Werner was the kind of pleasure I did not want to mix with business.

I gave her a nod. “Ms. Werner.”

“So formal,” she chided. “I’m here to make you an offer, Officer Trent. I hope you hear me out before making any hasty decisions.”

An offer? Before I could give her my firm “no” she handed a bunch of spreadsheets to me. They might as well have been written in Greek. “What’s all this?”

“Those are our ratings for the last nine weeks. As you know, the pilot for the show was highly successful. We had guaranteed a six-month season, renegotiating that for a year. Landing the new air time has had very surprising results. We need to reevaluate how we spend it.”

I tried to hand the paperwork back to her. “Honestly, Ms. Werner—”

“Melissa,” she corrected.

Yeah, whatever. “Honestly I can give a rat’s ass how you decide to spend your time. My job is to catch car thieves and criminals. If you want to film me while I do that, then you get what I signed on for.”

She slipped the papers out of my hand. “Do you see this number?”

I had to squint. Fucking printed numbers were small. Thirty-two years old and I probably needed glasses.

She pointed to another set of numbers. “The first number represents our ratings prior to October eleventh. This number, the bigger number, is our ratings after we aired the episode where you engaged in the hand-to-hand combat with Mr. Ortiz.”

Mr. Ortiz. Yeah, I remembered that night vividly, ending with a trip to the hospital to patch up a two-inch slice in my gut. Asshole caught me with a knife right under my Kevlar when I tagged the back of his jacket.

I was pumped on adrenaline and he was wasted on crack. Ortiz had ditched the Pontiac he boosted on Basin Street but I had him on the ground before he got to the end of the block. Cap made me strip off my vest and bloodied T-shirt while we waited for the ambulance to arrive. Ritchie never took the camera off me. I was surprised that he was able to catch up to me. Kid was f*cking fast with that camera.