Aimpoint by Candace Irving (best mystery novels of all time .TXT) 📗

big one. Man should mind his own business and concentrate on pissing in there. But since he's refused, I'll tell you the same thing I just told him. Mira Ellis can fly over here and advise, but that's it. She will not be working this case. Nor will she be requesting a tap on Sergeant LaCroix's phone or asking for the manpower to tail him." His scowl deepened. "Nor will you."

"Sir, Agent Jelling says the sergeant—"

"I know all about LaCroix and his exploits. Yet another asshole who can't keep his dick to himself. Yeah, he likes them young and out of bounds. So what? The women were all senior to him. It was their job to maintain good order and discipline. Not his fault or mine if they were personally horny and professionally reckless. And, yeah, I know about the suicide. It stinks—but it doesn't prove squat, and you know it. Nor do those phone records you've got clutched in your hands. We need more."

"With a tap and a tail—" Christ, either one. "—we'll be in a position to get—"

"No."

"Sir, you—"

"—said no, and I meant it. And if you even think about going over my head and bleating to your mentor on this one, I'll have your badge. You bring me evidence—hard evidence—and then I'll risk a tail." The man's dark brown glare was as filthy and blistering as his temper had been for the past two weeks.

Regan focused her attention on the wall beyond the closely cropped silver dusting his temples as she jerked her own temper into line. The captain's office was as spartan as hers. Unfortunately, their mutual lack of decorating skills was about all she and Brooks had in common.

Especially these last two weeks.

She got it. His confidence had taken a hit. And, yeah, with cause.

Not only had the subject of their previous investigation turned out to be a victim of sour grapes, the entire case had blown up in CID's face when the lieutenant they'd been investigating discovered he had a tail. To the entire command's misfortune, the lieutenant had taken the discovery to his uncle—a beleaguered US congressman. To deflect attention from issues with his constituency regarding his ongoing crappy behavior, the congressman had in turn raised indignant hell with the Pentagon, who in their turn had duly rained that same hell back down on the beleaguered military police captain still glowering at her from the opposite side of his desk.

Brooks had been lucky to escape the resulting shitstorm with his career intact. And from the fear still embedded in the whites of his eyes, the professional wounds were far too fresh for him to risk drawing the Pentagon's ire again—along with his own commanding officer's.

Nope. Brooks wasn't about to attach a tail to LaCroix. She wasn't even sure he'd risk it with direct evidence.

The hell with it.

Regan slapped the phone records on his blotter and shoved them across the desk until they were flush with the lid of his laptop. "Sir, I know the situation's dicey, but we don't have a choice. These records prove it. The calls between Platt and LaCroix have been lengthy and consistent—occurring every other Saturday or Sunday for the past year. The latest call matches the timing of the conversation that stateside sailor overheard last Saturday. Furthermore, six weekends ago, the frequency and duration of the calls tripled, and they haven't let up. If LaCroix has been turned, he appears primed to pop. Oktoberfest would be a truly devastating target, and it's still a full two weekends away. If we can get a tap into place—"

"You think he's not ready for that? Expecting it? Dicey? The man's a fucking Green Beret. If he's plotting something, he's taking precautions. And he sure as hell's checking to see if some bumbling carrot top in a suit's attached to his ass."

Christ. It wasn't Jelly's fault he'd been made.

Not only had the lieutenant been tipped to Jelly's physical description, the information had been passed on while Jelly was following him. She'd told Brooks that at the time. Shown him the irrefutable proof. Not that she'd risk their current need for a tail on LaCroix by dragging it all up again. Let alone reminding her CO that neither she nor Jelly had believed there'd been cause to follow the lieutenant in the first place.

Not with Brooks' mood.

She clamped down on her own foul temper once more and kept a firm grip on it. Once upon a time, she'd hoped the prior-enlisted status she and Brooks shared as combat-forged sergeants would allow them to find common ground as they worked to cull the occasional rotten apple from deep within the Army's core.

She'd been wrong.

As much as it would burn, it was time to drag out the knee pads and commence the official begging. She didn't have a choice. "Sir, I know you're—"

"Save it, Chief. You don't know shit. Neither does Ellis. I neither want nor need that disgraced squid-cop here. All the two of you and that carrot sidekick have are hearsay and a bunch of calls. According to Agent Ellis' boss, Platt and LaCroix shared the same neighborhood in Shitsville, Alabama."

What? "Then—"

"No, that fact does not necessarily support you three. Those men could've been planning their fifteen-year high school reunion for all we know."

Except their source of hearsay had risked his career to report otherwise—and the sailor's timeline had been backed up.

Regan pushed forward, into the edge of the captain's desk. Into him. "That's why we need that tap. We need to know for certain. We can't afford to be gun-shy."

Wrong word to use.

Her boss' stare fairly smoldered as he leaned right back into her. "You got hearing damage from the firing range? I said, no. You want to make that a yes—go get me some goddamned probable cause. Something so juicy I can see, hear and taste it when I pass it up the chain. You said it yourself; you have two weeks. You're supposed to be some Second Coming savant when