CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Michael rapped on the window outside the detective’s office. John Winston sat in his chair with his back to him, talking on the phone. He swiveled around, holding up a finger to ask Michael to wait.

As John wrapped up his call, Michael jammed his hands into his pockets, tension curling his muscles tight as the sounds of the police department filtered from behind him—the crackle of the radio, phone calls about cases, the shuffling of papers.

John nodded, then laughed, and at last hung up the phone. He rose, opened the door, and let Michael in.

“How’s everything?” John asked, clicking the door shut.

“It’s fine.” The two of them weren’t known for their small talk, so Michael took a seat in the wooden chair offered him.

“What have you got?” John asked. After Sanders didn’t pick up, Michael had called John to tell him he had some details to share.

“Are you any closer to getting Luke? Closer to getting T.J?”

John sighed and scrubbed a hand across his jaw. “We’re working on it every day. We’re doing everything we can.”

Frustration slid through Michael’s veins at how goddamn easily Luke Carlton had glided through life, avoiding arrest, covering his tracks, operating as a criminal so far undercover. “I don’t know if it’s a long shot, but I think”—he stopped, pausing before he said his mother’s name because it tasted acrid—“Dora Prince met Luke at a work party,” he said, then showed the detective the photos.

John nodded several times. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

“You think I’m right?” Michael repeated, because he was hoping for something more.

“I’ve got similar information.”

“So this isn’t news to you?”

“I’ve been working leads on this case for a long time. This is one of them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that’s how they met?”

“Because it’s not my job to tell you every detail. This is a police investigation. I’m grateful for all you do—don’t get me wrong. But I’ve got to be able to investigate, and sharing every detail with the family can slow me down on the way to answers.” He took a beat and then leveled his gaze at Michael. “The answers we both want.”

“Fine,” Michael said, reminding himself that even though John was the gatekeeper, they had the same end goal. So he tamped down his annoyance. “Let’s put our heads together, then. I’ve got some thoughts.”

John nodded. “What’s on your mind?”

Michael took his time before he spoke, carefully weighing each word so that he could extract something from the detective. There was so much on his mind, so much he wanted to know—like why the Royal Sinners were so goddamn powerful, why they were stronger than any average street gang, and why they were smarter, nimbler, and had more firepower. But those were broader questions, and they wouldn’t necessarily get him any closer to the answers he needed. Like the depth of the connection between his mother and the head of the gang.

“The question we both want to know is why,” he said. “We know my mother’s lover is the head of the gang. We know the shooter was in the gang. We know the other accomplices are part of it, too. What I’d like to know is how my mother got involved with the Sinners, and did it somehow start at my father’s work? If she met Luke at a work party, was he a regular there? Luke operates undercover, and that makes me question everything about where he’s been and what he’s done. Were the other guys in the gang involved in these work parties? Did they know my dad?” Michael held out his hands. “Maybe I’m reaching. But what if there’s something to it?”

John met his stare straight on. “That’s what I want to know, too. I want to know if work is where they met, and if so, if it sheds new light on the accomplices. Luke played piano at a handful of these parties at your father’s company. What does that tell us?” he asked rhetorically. “Not enough on its own, but now that we’ve learned he’s part of the Sinners, we have reason to believe he has knowledge about a number of gang-ordered hits over the years. That’s why we want to know if your father’s murder had a deeper connection to the gang. Was this just your mother’s hit, or a part of something bigger? And did Luke know about it?”

“It seems likely that he knew. Doesn’t it?”

* * *

Yes, it would seem like Luke had to have known about the hit. It would seem, too, that Luke was deeply involved in the planning of the murder. It would sure as hell seem as if Luke fucking Carlton had gotten away with several other murders over the years, based on the information John had obtained from his informants.

But evidence was evidence, and it needed to be hard.

John and his men were getting closer to Luke, but there were things he simply couldn’t share with Michael—details he couldn’t speculate on with a witness or family member. Things like how the shooter’s son, Lee Stefano, had started singing. They’d nabbed him a few months ago on grand theft of iPhones, of all things. The kid was trying to follow in his dad’s footsteps, living a life of crime. But several weeks in jail had softened him up, and Lee had started talking. He’d shared more about the two men who’d looked out for him after his daddy went to the big house—Kenny and T.J. Nelson, his father’s accomplices in the murder of Thomas Paige.

Turned out, Lee knew some details about T.J.’s whereabouts these days, and John was hoping to piece together enough information to find that slippery bastard and take him into custody, too. John clenched his fists, thinking of the rap sheet on T.J. Nelson, and the long trail of evidence linking him to other crimes over the years. Some of John’s colleagues had gathered insight into the gang as a whole, and the way the Royal Sinners had expanded in power, operating a lucrative drug ring throughout the city of Las Vegas and across the state.

Connecting the dots was proving more complicated than he’d expected. Did the hit have anything to do with the gang, or with things Thomas might have learned about the Sinners? Or was this simply what they’d thought all along, a crime designed so a woman could be with the man she loved?

Those questions kept John up at night, but he had witnesses to talk to and leads to chase down, which might bring him answers. As soon as he had the details, he’d get that fucker.

“Listen, I appreciate you doing everything you can,” John said, dragging a hand through his dark blond hair, taking his time with each word. “You need to be careful, but I can’t tell you not to ask around. What I can tell you is I’ve heard that T.J. had words with Thomas Paige a few weeks before he died. That conversation took place at your father’s work.” That was why it mattered to the investigation that Dora had likely met Luke at West Limos. John needed to tie Luke to T.J., and if he could just pull those threads a little tighter together, he’d be able to do it. “I’d like to know why, and what was said.”

Michael nodded, an intense look in his eyes. “If you’d like to know, then I’d like to know, too.”