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“However,” Rhodes pitched in, “he claims Delilah never knew about Kristen or about The Flirty Sanctum. According to Justin, Delilah was never supposed to be there.”

My brows lifted in frank surprise.

Huh… That’s interesting.

“Do you believe him?”

“Unfortunately, we do,” Rhodes nodded. “We don’t think Justin’s our guy, but we can’t fully rule him out until we get the DNA results.”

“Kristen told me there’s a sign-in sheet and that all members are supposed to show their membership cards at the door upon entry.”

Both Rhodes and Hutch nodded. “Justin told us the same thing,” said Detective Hutch. “Apparently, the owner is known to be quite the asshole. I have a gut feeling he won’t let us anywhere near that list or the security footage without a warrant.”

I raised my brows then. “If that’s what it takes, then so be it. I can have one ready and signed by a judge within an hour.”

“Let’s just wait and see what happens first. If we need the warrant, we’ll call, so keep your phone close.”

I suppose that was Hutch’s way of telling me he didn’t want me hovering around them more than I had to.

That was perfectly fine with me because thanks to my overbearingly impatient lawyer going behind my back and reporting Karl to the chief, I had other matters to tend to, and fast.

My intuition must have been spot-on because my phone started ringing. I sighed as my boss demanded me to get back to the office as soon as fucking possible. She did not sound happy.

“Go handle business.” Detective Rhodes offered me a weak, sympathetic smile. “We’ll update you once we know more.”

I nodded and turned away, my heart sinking as I ambled toward my car.

Jesus fucking Christ, Peter. What the hell have you done?

six

Phoenix

Good fucking grief. Felix McMann was the most inconsiderate, egoistical fucking prick I’d ever met in my life.

“I can’t fucking stand him,” Spike groused, shivering out his irritation as we burst out the sanctum doors a few hours later and headed back to my car.

“I hope he chokes on the first dick he sucks tonight.”

“Easy, Spike. We got what we needed, so just calm down and let it go. We have a lot of work to do.”

As expected, Felix outright refused to cooperate without a warrant, so we ended up having to reach out to Harley’s office since neither she or Charlotte would answer their cell phones. It had taken a little over an hour to get to us, but it was well worth the wait. We had the list and copies of the security footage.

And man, did we have our work cut out for us.

“Let me see that,” Spike demanded just before we reached the car, pointing at the folder I was holding. I passed it over and then pulled out my keys, getting in as Spike quickly rounded the vehicle and claimed his seat.

We were back on the road in under a minute. I watched from the corner of my eye as Spike flipped through the pages and then blew out a stressful sigh before he leaned back in his seat and squeezed his eyes closed.

“Fuck, that’s a lot of names.”

He rubbed viciously at his green eyes and scoured his hands down his face, releasing the long breath caged in his chest.

“Captain won’t be happy about this. He may give you a slap on the wrist, but I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t take my badge for not coming clean about this sooner.”

He wasn’t wrong, and it was easy to understand why Spike was so perturbed over it. Not only were Spike and I faithful members of The Flirty Sanctum, but we were also there last night when Delilah was attacked. Our names were on that list and even though we’d never harmed a hair on that poor girl’s head, our attendance automatically made us suspects in this investigation. We both should’ve gone back to the precinct and marched our asses in the captain’s office after our interview with Delilah.

“He won’t take your badge,” I tried to reassure him. “Worst case scenario is he takes us off the case and gives us a two week suspension.”