Free Tumbledown by Cari Hunter Page A

eyes, uncertain exactly what she had seen before her head smacked into the wall, or how to interpret it.
    “He tried to stop me from bleeding,” she said. She remembered that much, remembered Tobin being useless in the background while Emerson pressed his bare hands against her wound. But that could have been tactical as well; the wound obviously wasn’t going to prove fatal, so he had to be seen to be helping his fallen colleague. Didn’t he?
    When she opened her eyes, the tray was gone and Sarah was rearranging the pillows behind her.
    “Come on. Lie down,” Sarah said, and her voice was like a balm, kind and lovely.
    “Did you get enough to tell Castillo?”
    The pillow was soft beneath Alex’s head, urging her deeper into it.
    “I got enough.” Sarah pulled up the sheets and tucked her in. “I’m going to call him now. You need anything?”
    “’M good, thanks.”
    “I’m right next door,” Sarah said, and clicked the room into darkness.

    *

    Given the late hour, Sarah was surprised to catch Castillo on his office number. He answered by stating his official title, but he sounded as if he were chewing a mouthful of food. The familiarity of his voice, and the sense of security that it evoked, made her feel calmer.
    “You eating a load of bloody rubbish again?” she said in as broad a northern English accent as she could muster. She heard him chuckle in recognition and then slurp something that was probably a milkshake.
    “Who are you, my mom? Sorry, mum ,” he countered cheerfully, before his tone became more serious. “Good to hear from you, Sarah. Everything okay up there?”
    He already knew the answer to that because he was always the one who phoned them. They were only supposed to initiate contact in the event of a problem.
    “Alex got hurt,” she said, and all of her preparations, her notes, and her carefully constructed arguments were lost in the aftermath of that short statement.
    “Is she all right?” He sounded closer somehow, as if concern were making him speak more directly into the phone.
    “She will be.” Sarah managed to steady her voice. “Something went wrong on a raid at a warehouse. She got slashed with a knife and ended up with a concussion.”
    She could hear him breathing, but he didn’t interrupt so she continued.
    “There’s a sergeant she works with. He…We don’t know. He screwed up, caused Alex’s injuries—”
    “And you don’t know if he acted intentionally,” Castillo finished the thought for her.
    “Yeah, it crossed our minds,” she said. “He’s been really weird with her since she started. He could just be a homophobic prick…” Castillo snorted at that. “But something about it doesn’t feel right.”
    “Yeah, no point being a homophobic prick if your target doesn’t know that’s why you hate her.”
    “Exactly.” She found herself smiling. “We’re so bloody eloquent, darling,” she said affecting the clipped tone of a BBC newsreader.
    There was a pause, during which he seemed to be blowing bubbles into his milkshake.
    “Okay, that’s less eloquent, more disgusting,” she said.
    “Helps me think.” She could practically hear him shrugging. “What details do you have on this guy?”
    She gave him everything she had gleaned from Alex and extrapolated on the events at the warehouse. He seemed to be typing the information directly onto his computer; keys clacked rapidly as she spoke.
    “Two problems with this,” he said once she had finished. “One: there’s not a lot to go on. Two: once I track this guy down, a thorough background check is going to be tricky. I’ll have to disguise the origin and purpose of any file requests, or I’m going to have the Avery PD wondering why the hell I’m investigating one of their men.”
    She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. They felt gritty and swollen with exhaustion. “Can you do it?”
    Castillo’s answer was laden with caution. “Yes. It’ll just take time. We could be