The Rogue
Chapter 27

Ryan had paced the same swath of linoleum conservatively six thousand times, and he still had enough antsy energy to fuel him for a month. Logic had dictated that he was in for a long wait, and Sergeant Riordan had indicated as much when he’d stopped by to offer Ryan some coffee a while ago. But the longer he waited, the harder it became, knowing that the Intelligence Unit had a suspect in their sights, and with him, Bishop, too. That the answers—and Chloe’s safety—were all suddenly within reach.

That, even for all her caution, Addison was stepping directly into danger, and damn it, how much longer could this really take?

The echo of footsteps filtered in from the hallway outside of the meeting room Ryan had been pacing, sending his heart into third gear. It kicked into full overdrive at the sight of Addison and Maxwell in the doorway, and wait…was that b***d on her shirt?

He acted on pure instinct, pulling her close and wrapping his arms around her for a brief second before stepping back to examine her more closely. “You’re hurt. God, Addison, what happened?”

“I’m fine,” she promised, but nope. Ryan’s heart wasn’t buying it.

“The b***d on your shirt says otherwise.”

She pushed up the torn and bloodied sleeve to reveal a snowy-white bandage spanning from her wrist to just below her elbow. “It’s a scratch. Nothing more.”

His brain sent the all-clear to the rest of him before jumping forward. “Please tell me you got this guy.”

Maxwell cracked a grin, and funny, Ryan was certain he’d never seen that before. “Oh, we got him, alright. Hale chased him down and tackled him to take him into custody. It was pretty f*****g spectacular, actually.”

Holy shit. “Really?”

“He fled the scene, and I only used the force necessary to apprehend him,” Addison said. “He’s one hundred percent unharmed.”

“Good,” Ryan said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Then, you can charge him, right?”

Maxwell and Addison exchanged a lightning-fast glance, and oh, no. No way.

“This part is a process, too, Ryan,” Addison said. “This guy—Jimmy? We need him to give up information so we can replace Bishop, and he’s not going to want to say a damn thing.”

“Giving a client to the cops is bad for business in Jimmy’s line of work,” Maxwell added. “Not to mention, it’s a pretty big health hazard. A lot of the people he deals with wouldn’t hesitate to turn him into Swiss cheese if they knew he’d ratted Bishop out.”

It made sense. Not that Ryan’s gut gave a shit. “Do you think you can get him to tell us where Bishop is?”

Another pause, during which Ryan tried not to go ballistic. “Here’s what I know,” Addison said, her tone softening and taking his tension with it. “I know we have him in custody. We have enough evidence to give him a choice he’ll have to think really hard about, unless he wants to spend the rest of his life in a federal prison. And I am going to do every single thing that I can to get him to tell us how to replace Bishop so we can end this, once and for all.”

Ryan took a breath, then nodded. “Okay. I know you’re telling me this stuff as a courtesy. Thank you for letting me know you got him.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Addison said. “I still have to get him to talk.”

“You will.”

Ryan trusted her. She’d gotten them this close.

Now, they just had to hope this guy, Jimmy, would break.

Addison reviewed allthe information she’d learned in the past few hours. Coupled it with everything she’d already uncovered. Lined up the facts. Measured the probabilities and all of the paths she could take in response to each one.

No matter the threat, your calm is your power,whispered Master Ah-lam from deep inside her mind. The words eased the tension knotting her shoulders, allowing her to visualize the best strategy. Her resolve solidified, and with one last nod from Sinclair, who would observe

from the other side of the privacy glass, she headed into the interview room.

Per protocol, Jimmy was seated at the stark rectangular table in the middle of the room. His hands were restrained in front of him, his scowl just as firmly in place as it had been for the past twenty minutes that Maxwell had been sitting with him. They hadn’t exchanged so much as a grunt, although Jimmy had slid enough covert glances around the room to let Addison know his bravado was manufactured. She’d let him percolate long enough, though. It was time to get this party started.

“Thanks,” Addison said to Maxwell, who lifted his chin just once in acknowledgment before getting up from the seat across from Jimmy. Wordlessly, Maxwell slipped through the door, letting her have the room.

“Hi, Jimmy. My name is Detective Hale. Can you state your full name for the record, please?”

“If you already know it, why are you asking?”

“Humor me,” she said, reaching across the table to remove his handcuffs.

“Fine. Whatever. Jimmy Boone.” He tilted his head, examining her warily. “So, what? Are you supposed to be the ‘good cop’, then?” he asked, making a show of rubbing his wrists.

“If you’re asking whether or not I’m good at my job, then the answer is yes. As far as me being nice?” She lifted a shoulder a little less than halfway before letting it drop. “That’s really more my partner’s thing.”

Jimmy laughed for just a beat until he realized she wasn’t laughing with him. “Guess I should’ve known that by the way you tackled me to the ground.”

“You ran, even after I identified myself and told you to stop,” Addison pointed out. “Why is that?”

Jimmy took his turn with a shrug, his shoulders drowning in his oversized hoodie. “Must’ve mistaken you for a girl I dated.”

Addison let her brows lift coolly, when really, she wanted to throw up juuuust a little. “You run from the women you’ve dated on a regular basis?”

“Guess I just haven’t found the right one yet.”

“So, you’re not the tiniest bit curious why you’re here?” she asked, dropping a glance at the printout of the case file tucked beneath her folded hands.

“Nope. I was just sitting in my office, minding my own business when you came busting my door down. I want that fixed, by the way.”

Addison huffed out a laugh. “And I want your full cooperation. Let’s see which one of us is going to get what they want.”

Jimmy gave up a cocky smile. “Well, since you don’t have anything on me and you’re not gonna replace anything, my money’s on me.”

“Ah.” She sat back in her chair. “So you don’t know a man named Myles Bishop?”

“Never heard of him.”

Addison took a sheet of paper from the folder, turning it to face Jimmy before tapping the edge with her index finger. “That’s so weird, because you’ve been engaging in Bitcoin transactions with him for over a year. Big ones, too.”

Jimmy’s chest puffed with confidence. “Sorry to bust your bubble, lady, but that’s not my wallet address. You must have me confused with someone else.”

Addison smiled. Gotcha, dumba*ss. “Like, Peter Webb?”

Jimmy stilled, only a fraction, but oh, that surprise was there. “Not sure what you’re talking about. I don’t know anyone named Peter Webb.”

“Of course you do,” Addison said. She was done with pretenses. Now, she wanted answers. “Since you are Peter Webb, and I’m willing to bet there are dozens of other false identities linked to coinbase accounts that lead to you.”

Jimmy’s scowl intensified, the hard line of his mouth surrounded by overgrown stubble. “Whatever it is you think you can prove, you can’t.”

“You remember that warrant I told you about, right?” Addison asked, another piece of paper coming out of the file. “It wasn’t just an arrest warrant. We’ve got a team at your auto body shop right now, and they’re taking possession of everything in it—and I do mean, everything. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what we’re going to replace.”

“Good luck.” Jimmy’s shrug had grown stiff, as if it had outworn its welcome on his shoulders. “Everything on all of that equipment is encrypted—and I do mean, encrypted. It would take you a hundred years just to get past the first firewall.”

But rather than rise to the bait he’d probably flung in an attempt to piss her off as a distraction, Addison simply laughed. “Oh, that’s cute. I see what you did, there, mimicking me. But here’s the thing. We have a tech expert who lives for this kind of stuff, and he’s excellent at what he does. He cannot wait to get his hands on everything we take from your place.” She let her pause draw out for a beat before taking the shot she knew would land dead-center. “But since it’s going to be a big job, we thought we’d bring in help from a few friends from the FBI’s Fraud Division.”

Jimmy blanched, and although he said nothing, Addison knew she had him. “They’ve got even cooler encryption ciphers than we do here at the RPD. Really cutting-edge stuff.” She paused for a thoughtful look. “I’ve gotta tell you, though, they’re fighting us for jurisdiction. Those feds can be so uptight.”

“You don’t have any proof. None of you know anything,” Jimmy said, but his conviction was circling the drain.

“Jimmy.” Addison shook her head. “Who do you think told us you were Peter Webb? The FBI has you for those internet scams—bad form, claiming to be a cryptocurrency expert who rips people off for their Bitcoin, by the way—and as soon as we do a full analysis of your hardware, we’re going to replace evidence of a lot more. I could turn you over to them. Frankly, federal charges are what you deserve. Or you could help me replace Myles Bishop. It’s up to you.”

And there it was. As much as Addison hated it—and she really f*****g did—this whole thing was up to Jimmy. If he balked, they’d never replace Bishop, and despite what Roman or anyone else might say, that was the main objective.

The flash in Jimmy’s eyes said he knew it, too. “You want me to give you information on an alleged connection that I hypothetically have with this guy, Bishop, in exchange for…what, exactly?”

“That all depends on what you give me.”

“Ratting people out seems like a bad business practice. Dangerous, even, if you work with the sort of people who value their privacy as much as the people I might know,” Jimmy added, his stare turning predatory. “Which means I guess it all depends on what you give me.”

Addison said, “I’m listening.”

“Good, because I want full immunity from the feds and the RPD. Take it or leave it.”

Addison knew she should bargain with him. Let Jimmy think he was in control until they reached an agreement they could both live with. It was the safe bet. But something dark and impulsive welled up from her chest, making her stand abruptly and replace Jimmy’s handcuffs in less than a blink.

“Sorry we couldn’t make things work, Mr. Boone. I’ll call the FBI and let them know they can come get you.”

“That’s it?” Jimmy asked, and Addison headed to the door.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

And with that, she stepped into the hallway and shut the door firmly behind her.

“Jesus, Hale,” Maxwell said, having clearly been watching the whole thing through the two-way mirror. Addison’s pulse skipped when she realized that not only was the whole team there, but Tara had also joined them. “Hell of a risk to call his bluff right out of the gate.”

“Yep,” she said, willing her voice not to waver. “I know.”

“Let’s see if it pays off,” Sinclair said. All eyes turned to the two-way mirror. Jimmy sat in his chair, his expression shocked but otherwise blank. He was entirely still, no fidgeting, no visible agitation, and oh, no. No, no, she could not have screwed this up.

“Come on, Jimmy,” she whispered under her breath. “Don’t be an idiot.”

“He was an idiot to ask for full immunity in the first place,” Tara muttered.

Despair trickled into Addison’s chest, filling her with dread as the minutes ticked by, first five, then ten, and oh, God. “It was impulsive to call his bluff. Maybe I should—”

“Wait.” Capelli shook his head. “For all his faults, Jimmy is highly analytical. He’s not indifferent right now. He’s thinking.”

Addison turned back to the glass, her breath knotted in her lungs. Jimmy’s expression had gone entirely unreadable, his brows gathered just slightly. Seconds dragged from the clock, each one making Addison’s pulse rattle. She hadn’t even thought, just acted on pure instinct when she’d left that room, and damn it, how could she have been so reckless?

“Maybe I—”

“Fine,” Jimmy bit out, staring at the mirror. “I might be able to help you. But you can’t turn me over to the FBI.”

Relief washed through Addison hard enough to make her knees want to buckle, and she forced herself to count to five—with Mississippis—before she returned to the room. “Start talking.”

“No feds, and no one can know I talked to you,” he said. “I’ve got what you need, but I’m not going down on federal charges.”

“You ripped off hundreds of people for tens of thousands of dollars in an internet scam,” Addison said.

Jimmy shook his head, adamant. “Allegedly. I mean it. If they arrest me for that scam, I’ll do hard time. I’m only going to help you if you help me, too.”

“I can’t ignore what the FBI has on you. But I can let them know that you cooperated with us. If we bring Bishop in based off intel you give up, that’ll go far with the feds,” she said, sitting back down in the chair across from him. “But how much leniency they give you is going to depend on how much intel you give me. And how much you give them to point them at the other players in that scam.”

Jimmy swore so roundly that even Addison learned some new words. “No one can know I’m the one who talked. It’s not just that it’s bad for business. These people are…let’s just say it would be a major health hazard for word to get out that I snitched.”

“I’m prepared to work with you on that,” she said. For all the shit he’d done, she still couldn’t expose the guy if he cooperated. “Myles Bishop. Talk.”

After one more curse, Jimmy said, “About six years ago, a guy reached out to me online. Before you ask, no. I don’t know his real name. He didn’t offer, and I sure as shit didn’t ask.”

Ugh, of course not. “Okay. What did he want?”

“He asked if I could get him a new identity. Birth certificate, driver’s license, social, the whole nine. I told him it’d cost him, but he was good for it. I set him up, curated an online presence. Made it so the Google searches all added up.”

“So, you fixed university databases to make it look like he’d gone to certain schools, for example?” Addison asked, and Jimmy shrugged.

“I might have. He said he wanted anonymity, so that’s what I gave him.”

“And it never occurred to you to ask why he wanted a new identity? That maybe he was—oh, I don’t know—doing something illegal?”

Jimmy surprised her with a laugh. “I was selling him a fake identity on the dark web, Detective. News flash—that’s also illegal. Anyway, I have a strict ‘don’t ask’ policy with my clients. They only tell me what they want, and I tell them whether or not I can get it and how much it’ll cost. That’s it.”

“Plausible deniability,” Addison muttered.

“Call it whatever you want, but I can’t be dragged down for what I don’t know,” Jimmy said. “I just sell the identities. Yeah, it’s illegal, but it’s not like I’m murdering anybody.”

Anger burst through her veins. “Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night?”

“Look, Detective, I’m just telling it like it is. Do you want Bishop or not?”

Addison sent up a silent prayer that between Tara and Roman, they could still charge Jimmy with something that would get him behind bars. Or, at the very least, very far away from anything that plugged in or powered up. “Keep talking.”

“We did the deal and that was it for a while. I set him up in Kansas City. He reached out from time to time with some small asks—a deep-dive search on some woman, access to her socials undetected. Stuff like that. Easy money.”

Oh. God.“This woman. What was her name?”

Jimmy shrugged. “I don’t know. Started with an S, I think. Sandy? Sally? No”—he snapped his fingers—“Shelby.”

But Addison had said it at the same time, and Jimmy stared at her, confused. “How’d you know?”

Her stomach dipped as her mind replayed the memory of Bishop’s neighbor, telling them about the box he’d carried out of his apartment. If Bishop had stalked this woman as he’d done Chloe, why would she have stayed quiet about it?

Unless he’d silenced her.

“Anyway,” Jimmy continued, “he was quiet until about a year later, when he asked me for another new ID. Said he wanted a change of scenery.”

Addison’s heartbeat clattered. “And you set him up with another one?”

Jimmy nodded slowly. “Yeah. A bunch of times, in a bunch of different cities. The last one was Myles Bishop, here in Remington, a little over a year ago.”

That tracked perfectly with Bishop’s arrival in Remington. But it also meant there had likely been a victim in every city, and that Bishop was far more dangerous than they’d thought.

They had to replace him. Fast. “Did you keep a record of the identities you sold him?” Addison asked.

Jimmy looked chagrined, and Jesus, now he was going to grow some scruples? “I told him I wouldn’t. He’s pretty uptight about privacy and covering his a*ss. But…yeah. I like to cover my a*ss, too. Seemed smart to have some insurance, just in case.”

“How about this surveillance equipment? Do you recognize it?” She pulled a photograph from the folder and placed it right in front of Jimmy, staring him down until he nodded.

“Yeah. That’s a recent purchase. Maybe two weeks ago? He wanted to set it up in some apartment. He sent me the floor plan and asked for instructions.”

Addison tried to cage her anger, but nope. No joy. “And, again, you didn’t think that was strange?”

“Where I come from, everybody’s strange.” Jimmy rolled his eyes. “In comparison, this shit is tame. Maybe he just gets his kicks from watching. I told you, I don’t ask.”

Addison took her best shot at composure, but her shaking hands betrayed her as she slid a piece of paper with a schematic of Chloe’s apartment across the table. “And was this the floor plan?”

Jimmy looked at it for what felt like three centuries before saying, “Yeah. I remember the layout. This is the place he asked me to help him wire up.”

Oh, God. They had him. They had Bishop.

Now, all they had to do was replace him before he found Chloe.

“When was the last time he contacted you?” Addison asked.

“A couple days ago.”

Addison caught herself—barely—before her jaw dropped. “And you didn’t want to, oh, maybe lead with that?”

“You didn’t ask,” Jimmy said, huffing out a defeated sigh. “Fine. Yeah, he reached out two days ago. Asked me for another ID. Said after he took care of one last thing here in town, he was going to disappear for a while.”

A chill slithered up Addison’s spine. “One last thing?” It had to be Chloe. He was going to try to replace her. Or worse.

“I told you, I—”

“You don’t ask, I know,” Addison said, her words covered in frost. “How do you do the exchange?”

“In person,” Jimmy said, lifting a brow at her obvious surprise. “What, you think I’m the kind of dumba*ss who’d FedEx faked legal documents?”

“Well, you supplied a serial stalker with everything he needed to track his victims’ every move right up until he probably killed them to keep them quiet, so, really? I’m not thinking you’re too goddamned smart.”

Jimmy’s eyes flew wide. “Whoa, what? I thought he was just a harmless creeper.”

“That”—Addison spoke softly so she wouldn’t scream—“is because you. Didn’t. Ask.”

“You really think he’s a killer?”

“I think I need to get him into custody so I can replace out. Have you set up the drop yet?”

“Y-yeah.” Jimmy nodded. “Four days from now, in Montgomery Park.”

“Good. You’re going to keep that date.” Addison stood, her head already brimming with a plan.

She got all the way to the door before turning back to look at Jimmy. “One last thing. I’m going to need the names of all those women he asked you to do searches on, and the cities he’s lived in.”

Addison was going to get justice for every last one of them.