Moment of Truth by Maggie Price

Author:Maggie Price
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-12-03T05:00:00+00:00

“’Atta boy, Warrant.” Chuckling, Ben Stone wrestled a tooth-pocked Frisbee from the jaws of his two-year-old golden retriever. “One more throw, then I’ll go in and rustle us both up some grub.”

Under the pale light of the moon, Ben’s tidy backyard was subdued shades of gray and black, with occasional patches of white. The fragrance of night-blooming flowers hung in the air. The roomy workshop Ben had proudly built himself from the ground up squatted in the shadows in the yard’s far corner.

With the retriever jumping in frantic circles around him, Ben flicked his wrist and sent the Frisbee sailing. Warrant vaulted after it. Just as the dog clamped its powerful jaws onto the Frisbee, Ben’s cell phone rang.

“Never off the clock,” he muttered before answering.

“Ingram here. Guess what I just saw.”

“That’d be a hard thing to do, Yance, since I don’t even know where you are.”

“At the Lone Star. I’m just walking into the security office.”

“That doesn’t give me much of a clue.” When Ben joined the MCPD, Yance Ingram had served as his mentor. The older cop had shown Ben the ropes and protected him from the political potholes that could have sidelined Ben’s rise up the ranks. After Ingram’s wife died of a long illness that wiped out their savings, Ben had taken care of his former mentor by offering the then-retired MCPD captain a cut of El Jefe’s action. When a vacancy occurred for the director of the Lone Star’s security operation, Ben had sent the board a glowing recommendation that had assured Ingram the job. In exchange, the retired cop ran things at the Lone Star the way Ben wanted. Everything had gone smooth until the day the bomb went off.

“I give up, Yance,” Ben said as Warrant dropped the Frisbee onto the toe of one of his uniform boots. “What did you just see?”

“Your girlfriend and O’Brien. They’re eating dinner together at the Yellow Rose Café.”

Ben thought again about O’Brien’s reaction to the mention of Joan’s name days ago in the task force room. Then there was the report Ingram had given him about the run on Esmeralda made on the computer in Joan’s office at the spa. Despite the name’s glaring connection to El Jefe, Ben had wanted to believe that had been innocent on Joan’s part. He had told himself that Esmeralda could be a brand of pricey beauty products sold in the spa. Or the name of some foreign masseuse Joan planned to hire to tend to wealthy, pampered clients. More than anything, Ben had wanted no connection to exist between Joan and Hart O’Brien.

He had managed to keep that hope alive until last night when the tap on the phone in O’Brien’s suite recorded the conversation between the bomb tech and an FBI agent based in Denver. From what was said during the call, it was obvious O’Brien had found papers that had been overlooked at the bomb site. Papers documenting the money laundering operation that had once run like a well-oiled machine.

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