Page 23 of Seduced By the Billionaire
Someone had stolen Mercer’s phone—his mother had confirmed he had one. And that cell had been at the library today. Huh. Were they trying to figure out how to open it? He’d have to stop over there, get the feeds from the library cameras. But first…
He shoved himself to standing.
The main elevator was on the far side of the bullpen, opposite the direction Paddy had vanished. There was also a freight elevator that went from one end of the morgue to a dedicated bay in the garage where funeral homes picked up the deceased.
Ronan tapped the button on the wall, wishing he had a cigarette. He’d quit ten years ago, replaced that particular vice with weight lifting, but damn if he didn’t miss it like an amputated limb on days like this.
The elevator binged. Ronan stepped in and punched the button for the basement.
“Afternoon, Detective.”
Ronan glanced over. The woman who’d followed him into the lift wore a smartly tailored navy suit, a string of pearls around her throat—a lawyer, based on her Jimmy Choos. Not defense attorney heels either. High-priced criminal law was her game.
“Afternoon.” He couldn’t remember her name. Olivia? Octavia? She’d sat beside him once at a posh hotel bar where they served gold-infused Negroni spheres—alcoholic Jello covered in gold leaf. He’d walked away before she could say more than, “What are you drinking?”
“Got anything new on the Sandabal case?” she asked now.
Ronan’s hackles rose. Julius Sandabal. Child trafficker. Killer, though he farmed out the homicide. He was currently looking at sixty to life, which meant he’d be out in thirty… or less. Ronan needed to ensure he’d never see the outside of that prison.
“You’ll know when we know,” he replied.
But she wouldn’t, not until such disclosures were required by law. He despised criminal attorneys, especially ones who tried to keep kidnappers out of jail. Ronan himself had been kidnapped when he was four, but the kidnappers had overestimated what he’d be worth. His father had told them to go to hell. They’d discarded him, bloody and cold, in a gutter like the trash his side of the family had always been.
Charles was the only one who’d seemed to miss him.
Guilt pricked in his chest—he’d been hard on his brother earlier. Ronan was the one with the gun, but Charles was still trying to protect him. He suspected this was the main reason his brother didn’t want him working with the police. This job came with the very real risk of death.
Ronan finally turned to meet her gaze. “Are you heading to the morgue to look into the eyes of your client’s victims?”
“I came here to see you, actually.”
“Well, you can fuck off then,” Ronan said.
Her smile fell. Her eyes tightened. “We aren’t enemies, Detective. Your own family is known for toeing the line between legal and illegal.” His jaw clenched, and she amended, “I don’t blame them—just business, right? And I want this to be more of the same. I hoped we could speak about what it would take for you to cut a deal with my client. There’s no need to be impolite.”
The elevator slid to a stop. “Oh… sorry about that.” He touched the first-floor button and stepped into the basement, then turned to meet her gaze. “You can fuck off… Ma’am.”
He smiled at her furious eyes until the doors slipped closed, then headed up the hallway. The cold hit him three steps in, twenty degrees cooler here than upstairs. The chatter hit him next—barking from the exam rooms at the end of the hall.
Ronan frowned—it was almost always quiet down here. Had there been a huge pileup? Had someone unearthed a serial killer’s mass grave? Something had happened for the medical examiner to call in reinforcements.
“Ortega! Where you at, brother?”
The medical examiner was one of the nicest people Ronan had ever met—downright jolly, friendly even when he was cracking open someone’s rib cage. He was also the only one who ever called Ronan’s cell instead of his desk phone. And Ronan had asked to be notified immediately about anything related to Jason Mercer.
He’d also asked Ortega to call him about any bodies with brands on the feet—Sandabal’s calling card was a dollar sign burned into the pinky toe. Maybe that was why the lawyer was here.
He hooked a right into the first office, the one Ortega usually worked out of, but stopped short in the doorway.
Ortega stood behind a long stainless table, a brain balanced in his gloved hands. As Ronan watched, he lowered the glistening mass onto the scale.
“Brain’s little light,” Ortega said, squinting at the numbers. “Must have been a racist.”
Normally, Ronan would have smiled—gallows humor was par for the course in a police station, ditto in the morgue. But Ortega wasn’t the only one in the room.
Jennifer Crandall turned slowly from her spot opposite Ortega, her hazel eyes wide, her platinum hair pulled back in a tight bun—not a hint of those blue tips in sight. A white sweater that one might mistake for a lab coat if they were in a hurry. She looked like another person entirely.
Because she was—he was almost sure.
