Kneel

Case 33

  "So, you worked here for two years. It's still not ringing a bell?"

  "No, but your backside is ringing-"

  "Oh, you poor forgetful thing. Thankfully, all we need is your fingerprint." Lucifer cut the woman off as we were walking through the building.

  "My finger goes wherever the lady tells me it goes."

  "Ma'am, do you wanna maybe chill with the innuendos for a bit?"

  "You need not worry, guard. I won't touch your mistress without her say." Bree smirked at Chloe. "Though, I question where her rich blood must come from to afford a bodyguard."

  "....What? She's not my mistress."

  "Oh? Indentured servitude? My, what debt has she given for you to repay?"

  "Are you larping or do you need a psych eval?" I furrowed my brows as Chloe pulled out her phone to answer it.

  "Hey, Dan, did you have any luck finding Bree's phone?" Chloe paused. "That's odd." The blonde stopped by the filing cabinet. "She knew the bomb was coming."

  "Who knew?"

  "Alexa."

  "What, the Bolivians warned her? Why?"

  "Put it on speakerphone."

  "Okay, maybe the Bolivians were working with Alexa, not Bree." Chloe said after setting her phone down. "Maybe Bree found out what they were up to and wanted to blow the whistle."

  "Well, that would explain those incoming wires in Bree's account. Cartel tried to pay her off." Dan's voice came from the phone. "Silence her."

  "And when the nice way didn't work, they tried the not-so-nice way."

  "Well, hopefully, the proof is behind drawer number one." Lucifer waved his hand at the filing cabinet with the fingerprint lock before going to get Bree as she was wandering around the office.

  "Wait a minute. Why would Alexa send us straight to the place where we'd find proof of her crimes? Makes no sense." Dan said.

  "Unless...."

  "It's a trap."

  "Bree, wait!" Chloe held out her hand to stop the woman, but she already had her thumb on the scanner, and the top drawer popped open.

  "Ah....fuck." A blinking light came from under a cluster of wires right in front of me. There was a bomb shoved between the files in the drawer.

  "Don't move. Misha, what do you see?"

  "Definitely a bomb. Doesn't look like a dummy."

  "Alexa knew Bree would need proof to turn her in, so she must've rigged the file cabinet that contained it. We walked right into her trap. If they move, the whole thing blows."

  "Call the bomb squad." I heard Pierce's voice in the background of the call. "Decker, Sobieski, you need to get out of there, stat."

  "I'm not going anywhere, Lieutenant."

  "What do you mean, you're not going anywhere?"

  "You need to get out of there, now!"

  "Don't worry. I'm staying right here." Chloe looked up at Bree while holding her hand on the fingerprint reader.

  "Oh, woman, your loyalty touches me."

  "What happened to 'You're the Lieutenant. You call the shots'?"