Arran’s Obsession (Body Count, #1)

Detective Dickhead, Chief Constable Kenney, gifted me a crocodile smile from across the brightly lit interview room. I’d drive that fucking expression down his throat.

In the same breath, I was relieved that it was him heading up the joke of an interrogation, because it only meant one thing.

The flash-and-bang raid on Divine.

The handcuffs on me and my staff, and the slow walking of us to the police transport vans with the cage inside.

The asshole needed a public takedown with as much fanfare as possible, no doubt courtesy of the mayor.

I’d not given him the satisfaction of putting on a show and had barely bothered reading the warrant he’d produced. Last time, it was Divide he’d raided, claims of drug dealing being the excuse. This time, the file read organised prostitution. Neither were worth the paper they were written on.

It was bullshit—they’d find no evidence of sex work in Divine, and the warrant didn’t permit them to search anywhere else in the warehouse, and the access routes to the floors upstairs would be blocked off. The brothel wasn’t a single organised business. It had no name, and the sex workers were all self-employed, contracting the different services they needed to share such as client vetting, security, room rental, and cleaning. Each individual paid her, his, or their own way. I knew the law and skated it with expert precision.

Hence why I knew this was a mockery of real police activity. It pissed me off that he’d taken in Alisha and some of the dancers, though.

“Let the others go,” I said, low and deadly.

He gave an easy shrug. “In time, they’ll all be sent on their way.”

“With nothing on their record?”

“That depends on you.”

Something in his eyes made my skin crawl. I’d been cuffed any number of times in the past but despised it. My father had done it to me as a boy ahead of beating me bloody.

This asshole, his puppet, knew it.

This was a power play. There was no way I was letting this motherfucker see it through. I leaned forward, putting every ounce of menace in my stare. “Let me make this clear. You’re going to release everyone else you took or I’ll pull a tooth for each of them. I’ll do it publicly, just like your little raid.”

His smile dropped. “I told you I would.”

“Now, Kenney.”

The chief constable worked his jaw then strode to the door. He disappeared for a moment then returned. “They’ll be home in an hour.”

“Safe travel, too, not in a fucking police car.”

He glared but tapped out the order on his phone.

Somewhat mollified, I sat back. Lifted my cuffed hands. “Going to remove these?”

Kenney snorted. “I will when I’m ready. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

“Coward.” I sneered, enjoying him being on the spot. There was a balance in Deadwater, and it wasn’t made by law and order. Same as any other city, money and secrets paved the way for business activity, and I had those in spades.

“I’m just trying to do my job,” the chief constable bit out. “If you want me to leave your warehouse alone, you can’t be out in the city visibly causing problems. People fear gang warfare. Two people ordered dinner this evening and ended up with a fight on their doorstep, their footage looking a lot like you. They called the police and the local authority. I had the councillors in my ear making complaints. You know I have to uphold those. Or at least be seen to.”

I already knew the reason behind the raid—an act that would make the local gossip columns and appease the conservative element of the town. It was why I’d been displayed in full view in the back of the police van with my half-naked dancers around me. I’d had them all hide their faces, but the pictures had been taken.

Yet he had a point. The minor scuffle with the Four Milers had been unfortunate.

“It couldn’t be helped,” I said.

Kenney dropped into the opposite seat. Set a meaty hand on the folder of papers in front of him. “Do me a favour and take it out of town next time, or I’ll be forced to press charges.”

“They won’t stick. The mayor will see to that. You can drop it with the explanation—he already told me he’d be doing this.”

He recoiled, then his gaze searched mine, hunger within. “What have you got on the mayor?”

Wouldn’t he like to know? I spread my cuffed hands as wide as they could go but didn’t answer.

“What else have you got for me?” I asked.

He didn’t have that folder for no reason. Typically, Kenney would drop off his cases at the home of a neutral party then tip me off that I had work to do. Looked like tonight he was killing two birds with one stone.

“Names for you to have fun with.” He opened the folder, revealing a prison docket. Rapid-fire, Kenney gave me the details of three men on probation. All sex offenders in one way or another, and all considered a danger to the public, even if the prison service had no choice but to release them.

We all knew the patterns, the paths that people like Bradley followed on their release from jail. We’d be on these men like white on rice.

Shade would be delighted.

Then the chief constable turned the page. I squinted at the thicker pack underneath, the title Post-mortem across the top.

Kenney tapped the first sheet. “The official report into the death of Miss Chelsea Gains. Cherry, as she was known. You wanted to see this, and this is the version that will go out to the public.”

Suggesting there was another that wouldn’t be widely shared.

“What’s being hidden?”

“The hooker was pregnant. Three months.”

I lifted my gaze. “DNA results?”

He gave a single shake of his head, his lips flattened. “Won’t be done. She’ll be cremated as soon as possible.”

“On whose orders was that information restricted?”

He flew a hand over his head. “Above my pay grade.”

“Bullshit. You’re top brass now.”

My mind sprinted over the possibilities. Genevieve’s friend had been killed in such a specific way that I’d taken it as a message to me, but this new evidence was a smoking gun. A motive for someone to take action then hide the evidence at the very highest level. I couldn’t make the link back to my world. That was the infuriating part.

The chief constable only shrugged. “Like I said, above my pay grade. If you’re smart, you’ll leave this alone. She was a nobody, and no one gives a fuck about dead hookers. Give me a couple of hours and a recorded interview, and you’ll be released without charge, and I can get to bed. Everyone’s happy.”

That was where he was wrong. I cared, and so did Genevieve and my crew.

This was yet another body to add to our count.