Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(4)

“She won’t be so lucky this time,” Lars rumbled. “She was driving the vehicle, the unlicensed firearm is hers—”

“The gun is mine,” I said reflexively, not even thinking. She would have done the same for me. If we ended up going down on these bullshit charges, she could do the car time and I could do the gun time. That felt fair.

“Yeah.” Gary nodded. “She said that too, that it was your gun. Said this whole thing was your idea.”

My eyes narrowed to slits. Rookie technique. Make me think Jennifer was in the other room, rolling on me, so I’d do the same to her. One problem: Jennifer was my sister. Not by blood, people like us don’t mark our family lines by blood, but she was my sister. She’d put a noose around her own neck before she’d put one around mine.

I looked at Harmony. Harmony looked at Gary. She knew he’d overreached and blown it. So did Lars. Only Gary himself was too dumb to figure it out. I cleared my throat.

“Agent Black? Maybe you could send this kid back to his mommy and daddy, so we could have an adult conversation?”

“Sure. Let’s have a conversation,” she said, sliding into a chair across from me. “Let’s talk about Nicky Agnelli.”

There it was. The real reason for the whole dog and pony show. I wondered if Nicky had forgotten to pay somebody off, or maybe his lucky streak had just run out. You don’t become the biggest racket boss in Las Vegas without making your fair share of enemies. I should know. Technically I was one of those enemies, though Nicky and I had come to an uneasy ceasefire a few weeks back.

“Nicky?” I said, nonchalant. “He’s an old poker buddy. We don’t see much of each other these days.”

“But you do have a history together,” Harmony said, opening the folders one by one. Crime scene photos. Police reports. Some were my handiwork, some weren’t, but the hits outnumbered the misses. I studied them, shaking my head.

“I’m not sure what these are supposed to mean. Some of these things aren’t even crimes. I mean, this guy here, it says he died of a brain embolism. You can’t think I had anything to do with that.”

“Can’t I?” Harmony asked.

“The only way I could imagine that being so,” I said slowly, holding her gaze, “is if I used, I don’t know…black magic? And we all know magic doesn’t exist.”

“Do we?” she said in the same even tone, her face an expressionless mask.

I offered her my wrists. “Well, if it does, then maybe you’d better arrest me for sorcery in the first degree. Oh, wait. That’s not really a crime, is it?”

My smugness lasted until she opened the final folder.

“Oops,” Harmony said, showing me a candid long-lens shot of me and Caitlin eating at an outdoor cafe. “How did this one get in here?”

I’d made a lot of mistakes in my life, left a lot of wreckage behind me, but Caitlin was the rose in the ruins. We’d walked through fire together. Literally.

“You want to leave her out of this,” I said, my throat tightening up.

“Let me be blunt, Mr. Faust. This is a joint multi-jurisdictional task force investigating the Agnelli crime syndicate. That means we’re researching everyone connected to the syndicate’s operations. Everyone.”

“Your pal Nicky’s going down,” Gary said. “And this time he’s not gonna walk. His days are numbered, get it?”

Lars held up a finger, looking down at me. “But there is still time to join the side of the angels.”

Curious wording. I wondered if the bulky Norwegian was the cambion in the room.

“You want me to rat him out,” I said.

“We want your cooperation.” Harmony’s fingertips drifted over the photograph of Caitlin and me. “Arrangements for your protection can be made, and needless to say, with the help of your testimony, the bureau would have no need to dig into the lives of your…acquaintances.”

Carrot. Stick. At least they weren’t being coy about it. Truth was, I didn’t owe Nicky a damn thing. Less than a month ago, he’d sold Caitlin into slavery and tried to have me killed, collateral damage in a political power play. His scheme went down in flames, but he still came out smelling like roses. Seeing Nicky in an orange jumpsuit would suit me just fine.

Nothing was that simple, though. Half the people I knew worked for Nicky on one level or another, and a lot of them would go down with him. Good people, people I owed loyalty to. Then there was the blowback to think about. I knew the kind of powers he could bring to a fight, because I used to be one of those powers. With Nicky out for payback, I wouldn’t be safe in this world or the next.

“I’ll think about it,” I said, though my mind was already made up.

“Don’t think too long,” Harmony said, putting her hands on her hips. “It’s a limited-time offer. You’re either on our ship or on his. One of those ships is sinking.”

She offered me her business card. No title, no FBI seal, just her name and a phone number in crisp black on cream. I slipped it into my pocket.

My little interview with Nicky’s would-be executioners didn’t make the other charges disappear. That would have been too easy. A uniform marched me to a holding cell, where I spent an hour shooting the breeze with a couple of tatted-up gangbangers who were there on a breaking and entering rap. Surprisingly mellow guys. Nobody had offered me a phone call, or lunch for that matter, and I was weighing my options when the uniform came back to escort me out.