The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“I’m not sure if you’re trying to cover for your buddy, or just stupid.”

“What are you talking about?” McFadden asked, genuinely confused.

“Patricia Walsh, my ass! That was Susan Reynolds!”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” McFadden exclaimed in an exhale.

“What do you know about Susan Reynolds?” Matt asked Martinez.

“Wohl briefed us just before he sent us up here,” McFadden said. “We know all about her.”

“You’re supposed to be surveilling her, not fucking her!” Martinez said. “I can’t believe this. Not even from you, hotshot!”

Matt looked at Charley McFadden.

“Charley, it’s not like that. I’m not just . . . fucking her!”

“What were you doing in there, then?” Martinez said. “Making another fucking bomb?”

Matt, his fist balled, took two quick steps toward Martinez.

McFadden, moving with surprising speed, stepped between them and put his hands on Matt’s shoulders.

“Cool it, Matt!” he ordered.

He maintained the pressure of his massive hands on Matt’s shoulders until he felt him relax, then let him go and turned to Martinez.

“What Wohl told us, Jesus, was that we have nothing to do with what Matt’s doing for the FBI. He said he was only telling us about that, those people, so that we wouldn’t fuck it up by saying something, doing something, that might fuck up what he’s doing.”

“What he’s doing is—”

“Whatever he’s doing is none of our fucking business, okay?” McFadden interrupted him.

Martinez shrugged.

“We’re here to do what Wohl told us to do, and nothing more. You got that?”

“I hear what you’re saying, Charley.”

McFadden looked at his watch.

“It’s ten minutes after seven. You’re meeting this Lieutenant . . . whatsisname?”

“Deitrich,” Matt furnished.

“At eight, right? Where?”

“Here.”

“That gives us fifty minutes,” McFadden said. “That ought to be enough time for us to tell you what’s been going down. And to have breakfast. I’m starved.”

“I think it would be better if we ate up here,” Matt said. “What do you feel like eating?”

“I’ve been up all night. I could eat a fucking horse,” Charley said.

“I don’t think they have any horse,” Matt said. “But they do a nice breakfast steak.”

“Sounds good.”