Page 158 of Sticks and Stones

Greyson sighed.

Here they went.

Gene was about to blow, and he knew it. So much for keeping his cool. The only thing that was saving Gene in relation to getting all of the upcoming cop cases was Greyson knew that he and Ethan would close them.

And make him, and the FBI, look good.

So despite the talk in the car, they were going to be theirs. Greyson wasn’t an idiot.

Gene went there.

“Oh, well, I don’t know,” Gene said. “Maybe he’s in hiding now after being left for dead in the alley outside of a biker bar. You know…after being pulled into something he wasn’t qualified to do.”

They didn’t move.

Instead, they both stared at him like the man said something so profound that it blew their minds.

Word wasNOTout.

“What are you talking about?” Rip asked, finally.

Gene was to the point.

“I think you heard me, Detective. Corbin Price was found knocking on Death’s door yesterday. He was chasing a trafficker and ran headlong into a bunch of asshole bikers. They beat the hell out of him and put him in the hospital. Oh, and that’s need to know, since he’s in danger and we can’t let the assholes know he lived.”

Gene hoped that worked. With Vice cops, who knew how important silence was, he assumed they’d keep their mouths shut.

It wasn’t lost on them that both men looked surprised, and upset.

“Oh, Jesus Christ. I’m sorry he was hurt,” Kip said. “Is he at the hospital?” he asked. “I want to see if he’s okay. I can swing by with my partner.”

The only thing that kept him from blowing his cool was the man seemed genuinely sorry about it.

“No, he’s not okay, and no, he’s not at the hospital. He’s been moved. Right now, Corbin is in protective custody because they got his gun, badge, car, and wallet after he took a little UC mission, alone to that shithole dive. They don’t know he’s alive, and we have to keep that quiet or he’s going to be hurt.”

Payton closed his eyes.

“Goddamn it,” he muttered, his worst fears coming true. Deep down, he didn’t want the cop working it, but the commissioner’s office demanded it. “We’re so sorry he was hurt. Why the hell did he go into that bar alone? He could have tagged us with the leads, and we could have watched his back.”

Well, Gene knew that answer.

It was because Corbin was delusional when it came to his skills as a detective. Oh, and that he’d become that way when people stroked his ego.

“I have a better question. Why didn’t you call the FBI to handle it?” he asked. “We would have pulled the case, and we would have worked it,” Gene admitted. “We’ve done undercover in there, and you had three bodies. That’s on the cusp of FBI intervention.”

Kip shrugged.

“When we found the remains, and the ME ID’d them as three of the missing men, we went to the commissioner’s office, and we were told not to use the FBI if we didn’t need to. The commissioner said keep it in-house. So we went to Captain Guy, the homicide division captain. Corbin was picked because he’d been itching for UC work.”

Jesus Christ.

The commissioner’s office fucked that up.

Big-time.

“The commissioner was impressed with his closures, and the attention he was getting as he climbed the ladder. He wanted to give him a chance.”

Well, he didn’t give him a chance.