Page 62 of Zero Divergence

“What photos? I shot a video of the encounter, including when she clocked him upside the head for kissing her. If there are photos, Schultz printed them off to push whatever narrative he was trying to feed to his client.”

“You don’t know who the client is?” Royce asked.

Rocky shook his head. “Do you?”

“Sure do,” Royce replied smugly. “I’m not telling you, so don’t bother asking. Why didn’t you tell me about Vivian and Humphries? You knew they carried on an affair in prison, and you witnessed him grab her and force a kiss on her last week. You didn’t think I should know about it?”

“In hindsight, yeah. I should’ve told you, but Gross seemed to have it under control.”

As much as Royce wanted to continue calling Rocky out on his poor judgment, the surveillance detail Mendoza had put on Humphries made the same dumb decision. He could continue to rehash everything Rocky did wrong over the past few weeks, or he could acknowledge the sincere regret he saw in Rocky’s eyes and heard in his voice.

“Wait,” Rocky said suddenly. “Why am I groveling? I found the person who stole your evidenceandI gave you a suspect in Vivian Gross’s murder.”

Royce rolled his eyes. “It’s the same person.”

“Doesn’t make it less true,” Rocky said. “You should be thanking me.”

“Get out of here and take the rest of the bullshit pineapple pizza with you.”

“That’s all the thanks I need,” Rocky said, rubbing his hands together before picking up the box. “Seriously, I want to make things right about the recording.”

Royce nodded. “If your report to the FBP goes nowhere, let me know. We have to shut this down. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but we know a certain reporter who’d love to blow the whistle on corruption at the county jail. Sometimes the press can get justice when powerful people try to bury these types of things.”

“Agreed.” Rocky headed toward the front door, then jerked to a sudden stop. “Whoa! What the fuck is that?” he asked, pointing to Bones who’d come out of hiding to climb up on his cat perch to watch the birds splash around in the birdbath.

“Our cat, moron, and I’ll feed you to him if you don’t get the fuck out.”

Rocky didn’t stick around to find out if Royce was joking. A few minutes later, Sawyer and Jonah entered the living room.

“Damn, that’s a big cat,” Jonah said. “How much food does he go through?”

“Depends on which one of us is feeding him?” Sawyer replied.

Royce could only nod. He tended to spoil Bones too much.

Jonah grinned at Royce. “Have fun at The Cockpit tonight.”

“Not as much fun as you had over the weekend,” Royce countered.

“Touché,” the big man said on his way out the door.

“Well?” Royce asked Sawyer once they were alone.”

“Jonah said he and Kendall fooled around in his truck on Friday and Sunday nights, so we should expect him to be late getting back from dinner those nights. He stayed away from the club on Saturday night until it was almost closing time.”

“That helps.”

“He’s also going to do some digging to see if he can find anything connecting Blakemore and Bonita,” Sawyer added. “I don’t think Blakemore is involved in Vivian’s death, but we can’t afford to get careless.”

“Agreed,” Royce said.

“Ready to do this?” Sawyer asked.

Royce smirked. “I’m ready to doyou.”

“Later, dickhead. We have pretty boys to interview.”

Even though Sawyer had vividly described the uniforms and décor of the club to him, Royce was still stunned when they walked in. He was expecting a bar like any other he’d entered or maybe even a male version of The Alley Cat, but he was so wrong.