Above the Law (21 page)

Lindsey took her hand and held it as they walked back to the restaurant. She wanted to ask more questions, but all she could think about was the kiss. She shouldn’t have done it, but now that she had, she wanted another. Maybe she could invite Dale back to her room for a drink. No, that was a bad idea. If Elaina saw them, she’d go ballistic. They could go to Dale’s place. Her mind whirred with possibilities, but they all ended with more kissing.

They were back at the valet stand. Dale handed her ticket to the valet. “Do you need a cab?” she asked.

Now was the moment. She started to say, no, I want to go home with you, but Dale’s phone buzzed again. She watched while Dale pulled it out of her pocket and her eyes moved across the screen. “Is something wrong?”

Dale looked up, and her face was an unreadable mask. “I have to go.”

Lindsey saw the valet pull up in Dale’s truck, and she felt the tender passion of their evening slipping away. She reached for Dale’s arm. “Take me with you.”

Dale stepped back. “Not a chance,” she said, and this time her voice had a distinct edge.

Lindsey watched helplessly as Dale climbed into her truck and sped away. She had no idea what had just happened. She replayed the last few minutes in her mind, over and over, but all she came up with was a few key facts—Dale was pissed off, she’d begged Dale to stay, and Dale had refused—none of which boded well for whatever was going to happen the next day.

“Is everything okay?”

Lindsey looked up to see the valet standing next to her. She asked for a cab and prayed it came quickly. Whatever had happened between her and Dale tonight was over. It was time to stop wanting things she couldn’t have and focus on doing her job.

*

Dale sped away from the restaurant, more angry with herself than Lindsey. She’d lost her focus, and she needed to know what kind of damage she caused. She glanced at the text she’d received again.
The car you asked about was rented by Spotlight America
. Damn. She punched a number into her phone. Andrea DeJesus picked up on the first ring.

“Dale, you got my text?”

“I did, but I wanted to hear it directly from you.”

“Okay, well, I did some checking around about that plate you called in.”

“And?”

“Enterprise rented it to Elaina Beall. She’s the producer for that piece I gave the interview for earlier this week. You know,
Spotlight America
? Remember, down at the police station earlier this week?”

Dale remembered all right, but all she cared about now was why a car rented by the producer who was working with Lindsey had turned up at Peyton’s ranch. “Do you have a copy of the paperwork?”

“No, but I’m sure I can get it.”

“Don’t. I was just curious,” Dale said, struggling to keep her voice even. “I appreciate the heads up, but I’m sure it’s nothing.” She was lying, but she had no desire to involve Andrea more. She was certain she’d led Lindsey and maybe her entire crew, to Peyton’s doorstep no doubt looking for a juicy story. Several events from the last few days flashed through her mind stoking her suspicion, including Lindsey showing up at her apartment the night she’d spotted the car outside the ranch and Lindsey poking around the federal courthouse the morning Gellar was in court on Cyrus Gantry’s case. For all she knew the coverage of tomorrow’s Take-Back event was a cover to allow Lindsey and her team to poke around and see if they could find a salacious scandal to garner higher ratings.

She could barely contain her anger, and most of it was directed at herself for putting the task force work in jeopardy. Whatever this was between her and Lindsey had caused her to drop her guard, but it wouldn’t happen again. Not a chance.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

Lindsey stared at her face in the mirror and wondered if there was enough makeup in the world to cover the bags under her eyes. She’d finally given up on sleep at five a.m. and ordered coffee from room service which had only served to make her jittery.

The programming portion of the Take-Back event was scheduled for three o’clock, so she had all day to dread it. Most of her interviews were already in the can, and today was mostly about capturing some live moments for the show, including the cornerstone interview with Dale. Any time now, Elaina was going to knock on her door to go over the questions she’d prepared, and Lindsey would have to admit Dale wasn’t going to show up.

As if she’d summoned it, she heard a few sharp knocks and looked through the peephole to see Alice standing outside. She swung open the door. “Come in. Thank God it’s you.”

“You look like hell.”

“You’re supposed to tell me you can put some special gel on the camera to make me look amazing.”

“I can only do so much.”

“You’re a big help.”

Alice made a show of looking around. “So, I guess your hot date went well. She still here?”

Lindsey threw a towel at her. “No hot date and no one was here last night.”

“Right.”

“I’m serious. In fact, serious is all I have right now. I’m pretty sure Dale isn’t showing up today.”

“We don’t need her to cover the event,” Alice said, her tone unconcerned. “It sounds like it’s going to be a glorified school assembly.”

“I’m talking about for the exclusive interview after.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure. I took her to dinner and I started asking questions I should’ve held for the interview, but I didn’t want to catch her completely off guard. Maybe it was too much. Anyway, I thought everything was going great, but then she got a text and she couldn’t ditch me fast enough.”

“She got a text? Duh, it was probably work.”

Lindsey knew that was the easiest explanation, but she couldn’t help but think it was something more. Dale’s tone, her entire demeanor had signaled she was angry, and the anger was directed at her.

She’d let her personal feelings get in the way of her reporting, and now she had no story. Not one with any meat anyway. When Elaina found out Dale had bailed, she was going to throw a fit. She could deal with Elaina’s anger, but she wasn’t in the mood for a call from Larry and threats to her autonomy to investigate other stories.

Maybe there was a solution to this. “Hey, you have time to do a little digging with me before we head downtown? I still think there’s another, more important story, based on what we saw at Peyton Davis’s ranch, and I want to run down some leads. See if you can get Jed to run interference with Elaina while we check it out.”

“Sure. I don’t have a lot of setup to do because the local studio is doing most of the legwork for the event. My only job is to get you on tape. I’ll go get my stuff and be right back.”

Lindsey smiled. She was back on track. She’d get her story in spite of Dale.

*

“I’m not doing it.” Dale paced Diego’s office and slammed her fist into her palm to emphasize the point.

“Look,” he said. “I get it. You’ve sacrificed more than most. If it wasn’t really important, I’d say to hell with them, but I need you to do this interview. Do it and you’ll get a letter in your jacket.”

“Since when does the agency offer bribes to get agents to talk to the press?”

“It’s not a bribe. Can you sit down for a minute? You’re giving me a headache with all the walking around.”

Dale compromised by standing still, but she had too much pent up energy to take a seat. She’d been keyed up since she’d left Lindsey the night before. Instead of going home, she’d driven out to the Circle Six and done a couple of loops around the property in her truck. She didn’t have a clue what she expected to find, but she needed some reassurance that no one was spying on Peyton. The exercise had been in vain because she didn’t feel better for not finding anyone. The absence of a threat didn’t mean it wasn’t real.

She’d finally managed to get a couple of hours of restless sleep, and she’d woken up resolved to take control of things. She called Diego to let him know she had to meet with him this morning, and she’d shown up with a head full of questions and a heart full of mixed emotions. “I don’t get why this interview is so important.”

“It’s a trade-off.”

“Come again?”

“You give them some heart-wrenching story about your life, and Operation Discreet is off limits. They won’t ask about it. They won’t mention it. It’s like it never happened.”

And just like that, she realized she was being sacrificed for the good of the agency, and her lifetime of duty meant they expected her to go along without question. Once upon a time, their expectation would have been spot-on, but she was beginning to tire of the politics that got in the way of good police work. “That’s bullshit. That story broke months ago. Why would they even want to resurrect it now? If you’re going to sell me out at least get something good in return.”

“Dale, it wasn’t me. I’m just passing along the directive. If you decide not to go along, I get it, but I can’t promise I can protect you from the fallout.”

The only fallout she cared about was the pain of having to sit across from Lindsey Ryan and bare her soul. Last night when she’d been on the precipice of asking Lindsey back to her place, but the text from DeJesus had erected steel walls around her heart. Now that she knew Lindsey had her own secret agendas, Dale wouldn’t trust her with a grocery list.

She glanced at her watch, eight o’clock. DEA agents and local cops were staked out at various community centers around the metroplex getting ready to collect prescription discards. The ceremony commemorating the event was scheduled for three p.m. If she gave in, her interview for
Spotlight America
would take place immediately after. The time would fly by, but the reality was she had hours to make her decision. “I’ve got some stuff to do. I’ll see you downtown.”

She didn’t wait for his protests. What was he going to do—threaten her more?

Back in her car, she dialed Mary’s number.

She answered on the first ring. “Hey, Nelson, aren’t you supposed to be babysitting today?”

“Today and every day. I’ve got some free time this morning. Can we meet?”

“Sure, but you may not want to make the drive. I’m staked out on Sophia’s ranch—just relieved one of the local cops I bribed into helping. Still not a word from her.”

A stakeout sounded like exactly what she needed to pass the time. “Text me your location and I’ll see you there.”

The drive to Valencia Acres took the better part of an hour. Dale zoomed by the turnoff from the highway and drove a mile down the road, following Mary’s directions, almost missing the second turnoff that was surrounded by a dense thicket. She drove the rocky, dirt road about fifty feet before she spotted Mary’s SUV and parked right up against it, cursing the tree branches that were scraping the sides of her truck. She jumped down and was looking for the bridle path Mary had told her to follow when she heard a loud whisper and looked up to see Mary standing a few feet away.

“I thought I was supposed to meet you near the horse stables.”

“I got tired of waiting on your sorry ass. Besides, Sophia’s out riding so I doubled back here to meet you.”

“I wish we could put a real team on this job. She might be meeting someone about Sergio. Hell, she might be meeting Sergio.”

“Or she could be just going for a ride. Pretty sure she does that most days.”

“I know you think I’m being overly suspicious, but I wish you could’ve seen her with Arturo yesterday. There was some connection there. One he didn’t want anyone to notice. If nothing happened then why didn’t she show up at the diner or return any of our calls?”

Mary shrugged. “I don’t know, but I can tell you that it’s been a dead zone around here. Aside from a hay delivery, not a lot of action here at the OK Corral. If you stay here long you’ll probably fall asleep before your big interview.”

“Not too sure that’s going to happen.” Dale kicked some dirt with the toe of her boot. “I had a meeting with Diego this morning. Basically, he told me if I don’t give the interview it could be bad for the agency and there might be consequences.”

Mary put a hand on her shoulder. “Fuck him. Pretty sure you’ve already suffered the worst consequences. He can’t make you do it.”

He couldn’t, but he had appealed to the one thing she’d always been able to rely on. Duty. Her whole life she’d let the obligations of duty invade her personal life, but she owed no duty to Lindsey and
Spotlight America
, and she was beginning to wonder how much allegiance she owed to the job.

“I bet she’s back from her ride now,” Mary said. “You ready to check things out?”

“You bet.” Work, real work. That’s what she needed to get past this feeling that she didn’t have control over her own destiny.

Dale followed Mary along the wooded path until the barn rose into sight. She’d been at the property the day Arturo had held Sophia and Lily at gunpoint. Based on what she’d seen then, she found it hard to believe Sophia would willingly conspire with Arturo outside of the job they’d sent her to do, but she’d seen stranger things. Family had a way of making people form strange alliances.

Mary pulled out a pair of binoculars and handed them to her. “You can get a pretty good view of the horse stables and the front porch of the house from here. If you look to the left, you’ll see her car. She’s got a pickup too, but she only uses it on the property.”

“How’re we going to know if she’s back from her ride?”

Mary pointed to the building that housed the stables. “She changed into riding boots outside and left her tennis shoes sitting right outside the door. They’re still there, aren’t they?”

Dale looked through the strong lens and confirmed the tennis shoes were still in place. “You should be a detective.”

“I’m thinking about it.” Mary leaned against a tree and folded her arms. “You know, if you were a good friend, you would’ve brought me breakfast. I’ve been up since—”

Mary’s voice became a dull roar against the backdrop of what Dale was seeing through the binoculars. The front door to the house opened and three people walked out. Sophia, Lindsey, and Lindsey’s cameraman, Alice. She made a zip it motion with one hand, pointed in the direction of the house, and motioned for Mary to look through the binoculars. Even without the aid of the lens, she could see that Lindsey and Sophia were engaged in an animated conversation, arms gesturing, but their voices didn’t carry.