Hey, Daddy: Chapter 7

Do you skateboard or snowboard? Neither, I charcuterie board.

—Nastya to Haze HAZE “I’m sorry, what?” I asked.

“You heard me.” John sighed. “Fuck.”

Fuck was right.

The woman in the box, hacked up by some sort of hatchet or similar object, had been a senator’s mistress.

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “One, he wants us to keep the fact that she was his mistress on the down low. As if that’s going to be easy. But he also wants us not to investigate him?”

“His alibi checks out because of the Department of Homeland Security meeting he was in, which was super top secret. In addition, his wife has an alibi as well,” our boss, Sergeant Daniels, grumbled.

Sergeant Daniels was a good cop. I liked him a lot.

What I didn’t like was how he let people in position of power have leniency when he wasn’t willing to give that same leniency to anyone else.

Like, what did him being a fucking senator have anything to do with us investigating this case the correct way?

“What about their adult children?” I asked. “They might have an issue with their mother getting cheated on.”

“They have alibis, too.” Daniels replied.

Of course they did.

“So how do you expect this to play out?” I asked carefully.

Daniels did not disappoint.

He stood up and walked to a board that’d been set up across the room.

On the top was the victim’s photo.

She was cute.

A twenty-five-year-old female with flowing blonde hair, bright-green eyes, and a set of fake ass teeth.

I could see why the senator had gone for her.

The perv.

What had my heart beating inside of my chest like a jackrabbit was the photo of Nastya Semyonov.

“What’s going on?” I asked carefully.

“Senator Kennedy wants around-the-clock surveillance on the woman,” Daniels replied.

“For what?” I asked.

“Because he believes that she might’ve had something to do with it. He thinks that it’s because of the organized crime bill that he’s sponsoring,” Daniels said.

I snorted. “I’ve already followed all of the protocols here. I’ve investigated her purchase history. You can literally corroborate everything that she said to us. Even down to the defective ice maker she purchased.”

“We investigate her,” Daniels ordered.

That’s when I knew that I was done.

I couldn’t do this job anymore.

I didn’t fucking like getting to the point where I hated this job, but that was where I was at.

Though, I’d finish out this case first.

“Whatever you say, boss,” I said carefully.

Hopefully neutrally.

John’s snort had me realizing that I hadn’t quite accomplished it.

The fact that I thought he was a dumbass likely came through my voice.

Daniels shot me a look, but he didn’t say anything, because he and I both knew he needed me.

Maybe my earlier thought of him being a good guy wasn’t very warranted.

Or maybe his hands were tied.

Whatever the reason, I didn’t like this, and I no longer trusted my boss.

“The judge approved around-the-clock surveillance on her place,” he said. “He also approved wiretaps and cell phone records. I want to know everything there is to know about this woman.”

Of course he did.

“Anyone find out where she lives yet?” Daniels asked the group.

“Actually, yeah,” John said, shooting me an apologetic glance. “She lives in the apartment next door to Haze.”

“Then we’ll set up surveillance at your place,” he said, eyes happy as fuck.

I narrowed my eyes. “Then you’ll pay my rent until we get this case solved.”

“Done,” he exclaimed, though he didn’t sound happy about it.

But it did work out for me, because I didn’t like the idea of anyone else having that close of an eye on her but me.

“You’ll let me and John handle it, because there’s no way in hell I’m letting anyone else into my apartment when I’m not there,” I added.

I could see that he wanted to argue, but all of them knew that I was a private guy.

None of them had been to my apartment, and I really didn’t want to change that now.

“That’s fine, as long as you share whatever you find relevant with us,” he agreed. “I want her followed everywhere. I have a few cops that I was considering pulling up into the detective ranks anyway, so we can get their feet wet by allowing them to play babysitter duty.”

“I want to know when she goes to her brother’s place. Her sisters. The coffee shop her sister owns needs to be under surveillance. Any place that she goes, pull all camera feeds if they’ll cooperate. I want to know what she buys. What she eats. I want it all,” he finished.

This wasn’t like Daniels.

He didn’t usually jump on a suspect like this.

It had to be the senator orchestrating all of this.

There was so little evidence that pointed to her it was a glaring, bright red beacon.

Yet, he was acting like it wasn’t.

Why?

I asked John that when they released us to “get to work.”

“This isn’t sitting well with me,” John muttered.

“Agreed,” I said. “There’s something more at play here. I want to find out what the fuck is going on, and I can’t do that if I’m playing twenty-four-seven babysitter.”

“I’ll set it up and forward it to our phones…” he said.

“My phone,” I suggested.

His eyes narrowed. “Why just yours?”

“Because you got a kid you’re trying to get access to,” I pointed out. “And I’m about to do something crazy.”

“You’re not playing by the rules?” he guessed.

John and I never had.

Never would.

We saw the world in multiple shades of black and white.

We knew there were certain circumstances that things—illegal things—needed to be done to make this world a better place.

And my hunch on this case was blasting me in the solar plexus every half a second, letting me know that I needed to look into it.

The ways I’d have to look into it were going to be questionable…