Free Deep Dark Secret by Sierra Dean Page B

wove through the sea of desks until they both stood in front of me. I remained seated with my hands clasped in my lap, trying to look as innocent as possible.
    “Come with me,” Tyler instructed.
    The poker face Mercedes was wearing told me nothing, but she gave a slight nod, so I got to my feet and followed Tyler back to his desk. Cedes stayed where she was. Detective Nowakowski’s desk was the opposite of Mercedes’s. His papers were all in neat piles, and there were no empty Doritos bags or week-old cups of coffee on it.
    I didn’t know if Tyler would be able to stomach coffee anymore, considering the last time I’d seen him with a cup it ended up being seasoned with a hell of a lot of blood.
    “How long have you known Gabriel Holbrook?”
    “We dated for about a year. And that was almost three years ago. He and I broke up awhile before I met you.”
    Tyler ignored my reference to our ill-fated date. “Have you been in contact with him since?”
    I snorted.
    “That’s not an answer, Miss McQueen.”
    “No, Detective. Gabriel broke up with me on a note stuck to my fridge. I woke up one night to find all of his stuff moved out of our apartment, and I can’t say I had much interest in talking to him again after that.”
    “So if you and the suspect aren’t close, why would he call you?” Hearing Gabriel called a suspect rankled me a bit. I may not have the warm fuzzies for the guy, but he was my first love. Even if he was an asshole, that still meant something to me.
    “You know what I do for a living.”
    “Yes.”
    “Who would you rather call if you got arrested? Your mom, or someone who might actually be able to help you?” I didn’t mention that Gabriel’s mom had run off with a carnie when Gabriel was seven, and he’d been raised by his ultraconservative grandmother. I wondered if Ellen was still alive.
    “That doesn’t answer the question.”
    “How the hell should I know why he called me, Tyler?” I shrugged. “I haven’t talked to the guy in years.”
    “Do you want to talk to him now?”
    My back stiffened, and I focused on the wall behind his desk. There was a corkboard with a map of the area around the precinct and several arrest reports pinned next to it, along with mug shots of some of NYC’s most wanted. I couldn’t picture Gabriel’s face as a mug shot.
    “Not really,” I admitted. “But I came anyway, didn’t I?”
    Tyler’s expression softened. He might have his problems trusting me, but I think deep down he still liked me. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
     
    The holding cells were all located in the basement, and Tyler led me down a long, dimly lit gray hall. Most of the cells were empty, a few had grim-looking drunks waiting to be bailed out, but a beige door at the end of the hall led to a different annex. When he unlocked the door, there was a desk inside with an officer seated at it watching a closed-circuit monitor of the four cells beyond. A door behind him marked Restricted Access Only had a little picture of stairs under it. Guess it was a more direct route for the cops upstairs to get to the serious offenders. I’d been taken on the scenic public-access tour.
    The desk officer had a clipboard and a pen in front of him. “Sign in and check your weapons,” the officer instructed, like Tyler was too stupid to know the rules.
    Tyler signed the sheet and left his gun with the officer. I played innocent and was about to follow him to the door when the officer coughed loudly and tapped the clipboard.
    “Sign in and check your weapons,” he repeated.
    Well, it had been worth a shot. I signed my name on the next empty line, then unzipped my boot and placed a sheathed dagger on the desk. I took off my jacket and put my SIG next to the blade. The officer eyed me suspiciously.
    “I’m licensed,” I told him, daring him with my eyes to doubt me.
    He put my weapons in the top drawer of his desk along with Tyler’s and buzzed us in.
    “Nice collection,”