The Devil Among Us by Ramsay Sinclair (easy books to read txt) 📗

dirty can. “No more of our money will be wasted on my wishful gambling, cheating or trying to scrimp and save pennies to make her happy. This was the only way of ensuring such a big sum of money without losing it. She won't spend it all at once, not if it’s the only thing left of me.”

“As much as I despise you, in some sick way Iona loves you, not the money she lost. She gave up her family for your sake out of love. Not only will you break her heart when she finds out what you’ve done, but you’re prepared to leave her in this world all alone for the sake of some money?” I struggled to see the point.

“Nobody will tell a grieving woman that her husband wasn’t a good man. They’ll speak kindly of me and remember me for all the positive things I did. The cases we solved, the galas we organised,” he listed. “The charity man. That’s the DCI Reid they’ll remember. I can’t live with myself after this, Cooper.” DCI Reid blinked up at me openly. His approach was softer and deep down I understood that this time he was being honest. Perhaps the only time. “This was the way it was always going to end. I can’t go to jail, they’d treat me like scum. I’ve worked too hard to end as a DCI to end up that way.”

I couldn’t contain my spiteful laughter. “You betrayed our entire team. What part of that is working hard?”

“Thirty-five years I’ve worked for the police, Cooper,” he said proudly.

“You helped to kill three innocent people and ruined two officers’ lives, including McCall’s. You corrupted our station, our evidence and our trust as a team, so tell me why your measly thirty-five years would impress me?” I snapped and my lungs filled up with the damp air. I took it in while I could before the entire place was set ablaze.

DCI Reid grunted with effort as he lifted up the full can. “I wanted you here to see this. It had to boil down to me and you. You were the one person who would understand my reasons. I never wanted to be this, you have to believe me. I was a good man once.”

“I don’t believe you,” I confessed. “Why would I, after everything you’ve done?”

“Because you’re a similar man to me. You’d do the same if it meant helping McCall for the rest of her life or Abbey. I know you would.”

“For the first time in a long time, you’re wrong,” I held my own, even as Reid tried to drag me down to his level. “I’m not a good man. I’m a horrible man, and I’m too selfish to get involved in corruption for the sake of other people. I have my pride, and I have my morals.”

There were only two of us to hear me admit my faults, and one of us was a madman with a can full of lighter fluid.

“I won't let you do this,” I warned when he started spreading the liquid by our feet. Too many people had suffered at his hands, and he deserved to rot in a prison cell for his crimes. The clunking canister full of liquid wasn’t how I’d pictured my final minutes. “This isn’t the way we do things.”

“Oh, but I disagree,” DCI Reid informed me and turned his wrist over to read his watch amidst the warehouse gloom. “You’ve got two minutes. Starting… now.” With that, he and got to work with flicking the liquid everywhere in sight.

I looked at DCI Reid and slowly lost hope that this event could end well in any shape or form.

“I gave you your warning. One minute fifty. I’m not stopping you,” DCI Reid muttered whilst coating the industrial flooring in his oily dregs. “You can go. This isn’t your crime... I just wanted you to know my reasoning first. My final secret.” His large body moved around the room. “Do with it what you may. But eventually, your guilt will overtake the need to share my wrongdoings. We all make mistakes. That’s all this was. A mistake.”

I wanted to run for the hills. To get out of the building as fast as my legs could carry me. Away from him, away from the canister and the liquid. But for some reason, I couldn’t leave DCI Reid alone like this.

“But then again, I should’ve known you’d enjoy playing the hero, Cooper.” DCI Reid smirked.

“Not the hero. An idiot, maybe. Even after all you’ve done and the trust you have betrayed in me, I can’t stand by and let you do this. Think of Iona,” I begged.

This man, despite his faults and wrongdoing, had meant a lot to me once. He was a man diseased by corruption and morbid desperation. This was his twisted way of providing for his wife and to make up for what he believed had ruined her perfect life.

“You’re sick, you’re not thinking straight. Iona doesn’t care about how much money you have,” I repeated and prayed on the one person that could make him weak or sway his decision.

“I am. She wouldn’t want to see her husband behind bars. She’d lose everything. I’d lose everything, My integrity. My title. This… is necessary. A necessary measure. Everyone will remember me as the officer who tragically lost his life amidst a messy drug case. I know you’ll make sure of that for me,” he admitted and itched his scruffy, greying eyebrows. He smothered it in oil by accident.

“One minute ten,” he carried on the regular updates.

“Don’t tar yourself with this legacy,” I warned him with balled fists. I didn’t know what else to do or what to say that would change his determined mind.

“I’ll be a hero.” DCI Reid slipped his tailored jacket off and threw it into a bundle in the soaking corner.

“You always did have a superiority complex,” I managed to emit a scoff that hinted towards a sense of normality.

“Find