They didn’t even want her walking back to the employee breakroom.
Mia took her belongings, slipped into her parka. She turned to Wu. “Can you give me a lift to the station? I’m not sure I can drive rightnow.”
Wu nodded. “Sure.”
Mia followed him out the office building and the front entrance to an unmarked police car, too numb to notice the staff staring ather.
4
Joaquin walked up to the front desk at the Denver Police Department’s main station. “I need to pick up a mugshot.”
The DPD hadn’t yet entered the twentieth century, to say nothing of the twenty-first. They still required newspapers to fill out actual paperwork for thisshit.
Without a word, the uniformed staffer, a young woman whose brown hair was pulled back in a tight bun, handed him a clipboard and apen.
Some guy had beaten his wife, locked her in the trunk of her car, and tried to drive the vehicle into Sloan Lake, apparently not realizing it would be frozen. Fortunately, an early morning jogger had seen and called the police. The husband had run off, and the jogger, who’d heard the woman’s screams, had broken the window and popped the trunk to free her moments before the ice broke. The cops had caught the husband an hour later when he’d used his credit card to pay for a cab to theairport.
Pendejo.
Joaquin had just handed the clipboard back to the staffer when Mia walked through the front door with Wu, a troubled expression on herface.
Joaquin stared. “Mia?”
His first thought was that she’d been arrested, but that couldn’t be true. She wasn’t in cuffs, and they’d brought her in through the main entrance, not through the rear doors that led to the holdingcells.
She glanced over at him, clearly surprised to see him, then shook her head, letting him know that she didn’t want totalk.
He watched her pass, his mind racing. Wu must have brought her in for questioning, which meant something hadhappened.
Had they found abody?
To hell withthis.
He drew his smartphone out of his pocket and typed a text message to Julian Darcangelo and Marc Hunter. Darcangelo headed the DPD’s vice unit, while Hunter was captain of the SWAT team. Both men were good friends of his. They were also Joaquin’s shooting buddies. They’d taught him how to use firearms, and now the three of them trained together at the police range once aweek.
A friend of mine is here for questioning. I want to know what’s going on. I’m outfront.
He hit send and waited. They would probably tell him to get lost, and he couldn’t blame them. He had no right to get involved in Mia’s business—or a police investigation, for thatmatter.
After a few minutes, Darcangelo stepped through the security door, a frown on his face. At six-foot-three, he stood a little taller than Joaquin, his dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, a shoulder holster resting against his black T-shirt. Before joining the DPD, he’d worked as a deep-cover agent for the FBI, bringing sex traffickers to justice. Last month, he’d helped storm the Christmas party, working with the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team to free all of them from terrorists at considerable risk to himself. Joaquin respected the hell out ofhim.
He glared at Joaquin. “You have to be fucking kiddingme.”
Trying not to be overheard, Joaquin explained. “She’s my friend. I think she’s in trouble, but she didn’t doanything.”
Could you be any less articulate,cabrón?
Joaquin tried again. “I just want to know what’s going on so I can helpher.”
“You know I can’t tell you anything,right?”
Joaquin let out a frustrated breath. “I know. I’m not trying to presume on our friendship,man.”
“Sure, you are. That’s okay.” Darcangelo gestured with his head. “Comeon.”
Darcangelo led him to the security door, swiped his keycard, and held the door open for Joaquin. Hunter stood in the hallway, wearing a black SWAT sweater, hands on his hips. Tall like Darcangelo, he’d served as an SFO sniper then worked for the DEA, before landing in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. It was Sophie’s investigative work that had exposed the truth and set Hunter free. The two had gotten married and had two kids. Hunter had saved God knew how many lives at last month’s holiday party and had taken a round to the side doing it. “What the hell’s going on,Ramirez?”
“That’s what I want to know.” Now that Joaquin wasn’t in a public part of the building, he could tell them the whole story. “Mia Starr was just brought in for questioning, I think. She’s a person of interest in the disappearance of Andrew Meyer, but she had nothing to do with whatever happened tohim.”