She moved as commanded, watching him warily.

“This is no game, understand? There’s two hundred kilos of Colombian heroin stashed somewhere in this room. I’m not talking about stepped-on shit either. I’m talking pure. You know what that’s worth? Twenty million wholesale!”

Her eyes went wide. This was even bigger than she thought.

“Yeah, that’s right. Don’t look so surprised. You think I’d risk myself for small-time shit?” She didn’t answer. “Huh, Melanie?”

“No. Of course not.” She needed to calm him down. Drag things out. Keep him talking until help arrived.

“Everything you know, and you hadn’t figured it out?” He eyed her skeptically.

“I knew Jed Benson’s murder had something to do with corruption, with drugs. I figured it was related to Delvis Diaz and the old Flatlands murder case. I knew that much. But that you were involved? No. I never guessed,” she said. Until I learned your fingerprints put you at the scene, you scumbag, she thought.

“Yeah, I was pretty careful, wasn’t I?” A boastful smile crept across his face. This wouldn’t be so hard after all.

“You covered your tracks pretty well, Rommie. How did you manage it?”

“I guess I can afford to tell you now, huh?” he asked, gesturing meaningfully with his gun. “How’s that saying go? ‘If I tell you, I gotta kill you’? So anyway, it was like this: Jed and Slice teamed up years ago. They locked Diaz up for those kids Slice bodied, and then they took over the candy store. Threw me a piece of the action now and then, enough to support me and all my alimony payments in fine style anyway, though not near as much as I deserved. Slice was the front man, Jed laundered the money, and I kept the cops off. Pretty good scam, huh? It woulda kept going, too, but Jed started holding back. There’s a major shipment stashed in this room somewhere he didn’t want to share. He figured Slice wouldn’t find out, but he didn’t count on me. See, Jed took my loyalty for granted. A lot of people did.”

So that was it. All those years, when Rommie was the butt of jokes, he’d had a chip on his shoulder.

“Jed didn’t respect you?” she prompted.

“That’s right. And he found out how wrong he was, the hard way.” He smiled savagely.

“There were four or five guys in the room when the murder went down. I take it you were one of them?”

He shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Don’t go there, Melanie. Don’t be stupid.”

Knock yourself out, you scumbag, she thought. I know you were in on it. I have your prints on the kerosene can. You’re dead in the water. If I get out of this room alive, that is.

“Whatever you say,” she said aloud. “So who did kill Jed, then?”

“Just some mopes from Slice’s crew. Blades.”

“Any insiders? Law enforcement?” she asked.

“You mean like Randall Walker?”

“Randall was involved in Jed’s murder?” she asked. So it was true. But at least he hadn’t mentioned Dan. Yet. Had her call for help been in vain?

Rommie chuckled mirthlessly. “In the murder? No way. Guy’s fucking useless. I had to practically hold a gun to his head to get anything out of him.”

“Then why did you bring him up just now?”

“I thought that’s who you meant when you said law enforcement. Randall did only, like, low-level shit for me. Mostly tell me what you were up to, so I could keep tabs on the investigation.”

Jesus, who could you trust? People really sucked. She had liked Randall, liked him a lot.

“Why? Why would he do that?” she asked.

“He didn’t have much choice. I had something on him-we’re talking ancient history now, but it was major. We were doing an undercover deal, years ago. The buy money disappeared. Twenty large, to be exact, not chickenshit. I pinched it, but Randall didn’t know that. He signed it out from the vault, so his ass was on the line. I convinced him his only option was falsifying the reports. So we both said the perp pulled a gun and stuck us up. Swore out statements and everything. Once Randall lied under oath, I had his pecker in my pocket. Simple as that.”

“Did he set up my witnesses? Did he give you Rosario Sangrador? Or Amanda Benson? Is that how you got to them?” She felt sick to her stomach at the very thought.

“No, he wasn’t in that deep, and I didn’t need him for that anyway. I had an in over at your office, remember? With your boss? Show up a few minutes early for a date. Wander around. Take a peek. No telling what you could learn. I had the run of the place.”

“You killed them?”

“You think I’m stupid enough to get my hands dirty like that? No way. I gave Slice the locations and took care of the doors. Like, I sent Randall Walker off on an errand. But Slice did the rest. That’s why I’m gonna get away clean.”

Rommie giving up those innocents to be slaughtered by an animal like Slice. Who ever knew a cop could be so twisted?

“But it was you who stole the bank records and fingerprint reports from my desk,” she said.

“Can you blame me? I asked nicely first, but you wouldn’t share.”

“And down in the file room the other night, when the tape was stolen from my bag? That was you, too, wasn’t it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Bernadette didn’t know anything, did she?” Melanie asked.

“Nah. Nothing. She never would’ve gone along with it.”

“So you used her.”

Rommie shrugged. “You could put it that way. She’s all right, your boss. But not really my type, if you know what I mean.”

And Bernadette was so far gone on this guy! ¡Hombres desgraciados! Men were such dogs! Speaking of, it was time to ask the question she’d been dreading. Even if the answer wasn’t the one she was hoping for, she had to hear the truth, if only to better estimate her own chances for survival.

“What about Dan O’Reilly?” she whispered. She held her breath, waiting for his answer.

Rommie stared back at her in surprise. “O’Reilly? You’re fucking kidding me! He’s a goddamn choirboy.”

The relief she felt at that answer was greater than when she’d opened her eyes to find herself still alive and Slice dead on the ground. Dan was clean! And that made her happy for a lot of reasons.

But her exultation was short-lived. A cloud passed across Rommie’s face. She’d come to the end of his patience.

“You got me fucking wasting time here!” he shouted suddenly, his face reddening. “Just stand there and shut up, or I’m gonna decide I don’t need a hostage, if you see what I mean, Melanie.”

He looked down at the blueprints. After a few minutes, he walked over, nearly tripping on Sophie’s legs, and pressed a small switch set into the wooden bookshelves behind Jed Benson’s desk. With a fluid glide that spoke of Sophie’s talent, a section of the shelves slid inward, opening a narrow doorway to the hidden room beyond.

“Shangri-fucking-la! And so easy! Only that moron Slice coulda missed it the first time. I’m going in, but don’t you move, you hear me?” Rommie waved his gun at her, then disappeared into the opening.

After only a few seconds, he stumbled back through the opening to the trap, looking almost drunk.

“The drugs!” he shouted, coming over to her, searching her face desperately. “The drugs are fucking gone! First the money in the bank account, now the drugs!”

He pulled out a cell phone and dialed frantically, his hands, covered with now-drying blood, shaking violently.

“Disconnected!” he shouted, pitching the phone across the room with all his strength. “Fucking bitch disconnected her phone! She took the drugs, the money, everything! She double-crossed me!”

“Who, Bernadette?” Melanie asked, confused. Hadn’t he said Bernadette knew nothing about this?

“No! No! Nell!” He slumped against the desk, burying his face in his hands, pulling at his hair. “Fucking bitch! I did all this for her! The way Jed treated her. A fine woman like that, and he’s doing every stripper in town. She said she loved me, wanted him dead so we could be together. Just pinch one shipment, she said, and we’d be set for life, get a big villa in the Caymans right on the beach. All I needed to do was bring Slice down on Jed. All this for her, and she stabs me in the back!”