Page 59 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

“IT’S CUED UP, Ms. Gordon.”

“Let’s see it, Hope.”

On-screen: Grainy black-and-white footage of Michael Hardy and Tim Dowd sipping coffee in the parking garage of the Beverly Center.

The footage was from more easygoing times, just nine months ago. Both Mike and Tim Dowd had been assigned to the LAPD’s follow-home-robbery task force. This was the high-profile initiative that gave Mike his big promotion—and ultimately caused Dowd’s career to unravel.

Mike used to tell Nicky funny stories about his long surveillance hours with Tim Dowd.

Most of the stories revolved around Dowd’s impatience, to the point where he’d be actively praying for a couple of thugs to follow some rich lawyer home to Bel Air or Beverly Hills.

Dowd craved action; he hated just sitting there staring at rows of fancy cars, eating dry turkey sandwiches, and sipping bitter lukewarm coffee.

Nicky could see that in Dowd’s body language.

The man was not just fidgety; he seemed to have some kind of internal beat throbbing at all times, and his fingers tapped in rhythm to it.

Mike told Nicky this drove him nuts. “Calm the hell down, man,” he’d always tell him. “When it happens, it happens.”

But that impatience was Dowd’s undoing. The way Mike told it, Dowd began to stake out the high-end malls on his own time, hoping to catch one of these thugs in the act.

And he did. Dowd followed an ex-con who was following an entertainment lawyer back to her condo on Doheny Drive.

Dowd claimed he’d seen the ex-con pull out a blade as he slipped into the building’s lobby, which was why he proceeded to tackle the guy into a glass coffee table.

According to Dowd’s testimony, he believed the ex-con planned to overpower his victim in the elevator, then force her at knifepoint to let him into her condo (where he would presumably take her belongings and possibly her life).

Dowd said he identified himself as a police officer, at which point the ex-con attacked him.

Dowd testified that he subdued his suspect, cuffed him, and read him his rights.

But another resident happened to be in the lobby at the time, and he’d captured the encounter on his cell phone. The video revealed a different story.

In the fifty-second clip, the ex-con’s back was still to Dowd when the big blond officer tackled him into the table, shattering it spectacularly.

Dowd then beat his suspect with his fists until the man was unconscious and bleeding from multiple cuts and lacerations.

There were no words spoken, and no knife was visible, nor was one recovered from the crime scene.

The LAPD rank and file thought Dowd was a hero, but the brass dismissed him from the force. Mike had stopped telling Nicky funny stories about Tim Dowd after that. In fact, he didn’t mention him at all anymore.

Which was why Nicky had kept him on her short list of dirty cops possibly involved in the Schraeder kidnappings. He had the experience and skills. He had the chip on his shoulder. And, most important, he needed the money.

But that’s not what worried Nicky the most.

What worried her was the image now on her screen—Mike and Dowd, in their surveillance car, thick as thieves. Was this still the case?

She remembered words of the anonymous caller:

You have a mole on your task force. Not only that, but this individual is intimately involved in the kidnapping plot you are investigating.

Intimately was the telling word in that sentence. Did Nicky’s mystery caller know about her relationship with Mike Hardy? If someone was watching Nicky, even from a distance, it wouldn’t be difficult to put it together.

Nicky supposed she could ask Mike directly. Though his answer could potentially break her heart—and she didn’t have time for a broken heart right now.

No, it would be better to simply watch him. Closely. If Mike Hardy was involved in this, he could be their best lead yet.