ENRIQUE DE LA PEÑA
Shapeshifter
Posts: 65
Played by:
Julia
Last seen Mar 22, 2024 22:48:16 GMT
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Post by ENRIQUE DE LA PEÑA on Dec 13, 2022 18:50:36 GMT
━ if you support evil, you are evil ━ RICKY TRIED TO THINK ABOUT THIS LOGICALLY. His partner wouldn’t give up his position on the case, nor would he come forward with what he’d done, and Ricky didn’t have enough evidence to prove McGrath had done anything to compromise their investigation. He maintained that Dorothy Dennison was an old friend he was trying to help, not the woman who could either make or break their case against Hector Dacre. She could help them, but McGrath insisted on leaving her out of it.
In any case, Dacre was put on the back burner. They’d arrived in Mystic Falls hearing there was a tip that someone (Manny) involved in their investigation would be relocating there soon, but now Ricky had visual confirmation. And if anybody knew his name or his face and how it tied to the cartel, Ricky’s job would be under investigation.
Regardless, things had changed. If McGrath wasn’t going to back down, then they had to move forward. It was more important now than ever.
He’d specifically requested McGrath’s presence at the start of the day. They’d been dancing around one another in the last little while, using separate offices and never interacting unless it was imperative. Ricky didn’t want to share any new information about the case when he knew Joel could immediately run back to “Dolly” (as he called her), but Dacre had gotten cocky at Halloween and seemed to think he was bulletproof. Even if Joel did tell her, Dacre could do nothing. Ricky had reason to believe Manolo was there, as well.
When he entered━looking shaggy, as per usual━Ricky straightened up on the other side of his desk, rolling his shoulders back and taking note. Ricky had been at the auction, his face disguised as someone else’s━not the gigantic ginger━when he saw Joel’s bidding war with Hector over that wh*re. Joel lost, thankfully, but whatever they spoke about hadn’t made it into any official records. Regardless, that was months ago. Perhaps he’d press later if it came to it.
“I’ve received a tip that one of our main suspects━a man high on the cartel’s totem pole━has been spotted in Mystic Falls. Did you know about this?” He had to ask. Whether or not McGrath was truthful was an entirely different matter, but some part of him still hoped the kid strived for honesty and upholding the law. Ricky turned, pointing to the bulletin board he’d re-erected in their office since Joel’s exit. It had been put together when they first arrived, but was eventually shoved in the corner and forgotten about. He pointed to one of the pictures up there, the one directly below the top. The highest points of the triangle were simply faces with question marks on them, and he pointed to the question mark that would be Zach, not his brother. The bottom, thankfully, was more filled out with mugshots and names. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep this ruse up before they found their way to the top━back to his family.
“We need to put all our effort back into this case, McGrath. If you aren’t willing to put aside your personal life for work or cut them off when they intertwine, then… you’ll suffer the consequences when we obtain the answers we’re searching for. As long as you agree to that, we can continue.” Ricky sighed softly, his eyes sliding over to find McGrath’s face. He wouldn’t admit to missing the kid. “Were you anywhere near the Ruby Slipper on the night of October thirty-first? Have you received any information pertinent to this investigation?” It wasn’t an interrogation, but Ricky saw it as the only way back into their partnership while trust was still climbing its way out of the gutter.
JOEL MCGRATH | no notes.
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JOEL MCGRATH
Warlock
Posts: 59
Age:
32
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
Married
Partner:
Jolene McGrath
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Apr 30, 2024 17:44:38 GMT
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Post by JOEL MCGRATH on Jan 7, 2023 19:05:21 GMT
The face that stared back at him as he caught his reflection in the rear view was one that would’ve given his partner hives. From the start Ricky had been the most buttoned down guy he’d ever seen on the job. Suited every day, tie perfectly knotted, hair and moustache groomed – he probably carried one of those little kits in his glove box just to smooth down the errant hairs before he walked into the station, a millimetre clipped off of it every night with tiny scissors that were never used for anything else. His own beard had started to grow straggly, his hair hanging low enough over his collar that he could’ve gone straight undercover as some skell and pull the act off without any trouble. Shadows dusk thick under his eyes, the red rims to them just selling the look further.
Joel pushed his hair back as he slipped out of the truck. At one time Jo would’ve noticed, starting carding her fingers through his hair and threatening to get the scissors out herself for a trim, but there hadn’t been a single second look when she’d taken the travel coffee mug from his hand that morning and walked out. No thank you, no brush of perfectly lined and painted lips against his cheek – subtle, of course, there was no place for thick red gloss in court – no acknowledgement of him as anything more than an extension of the coffee machine.
Doll would’ve noticed. He could practically hear her clucking her tongue as he pushed in through the front door of the station. Her fingers in his hair, those low crooning tones chastising him for not looking at himself, the promise that she’d do it for him. It left his chest feeling tight as he buzzed his way through the door and deeper into the station. She didn’t have to do that for Dacre, of course, the man was a walking GQ cover. Swanning around the auction in a suit that probably would’ve cost a month’s wages, that slick comment about keeping his wallet in his pocket rolling out. Yeah, the guy could afford it, dealing was a profitable game, until someone came along to end it. Like Ricky.
Blue eyes, gritty with a lack of sleep, narrowed at the doorway ahead. The investigation hadn’t stopped when Ricky had thrown his accusations in his face. Maybe he’d been shuffled closer to the outskirts of it, but he was still there, watching Ricky continue to worry at it like a dog with a toy, teeth latched, head shaking while he snarled, no surrender coming from the silent creature he had locked in his jaws. If Dacre did have a clue about who was coming for him then it wasn’t losing him any damn sleep. Doll hadn’t dropped any hints about it either, although, unlike what Ricky believed, they weren’t indulging in pillow talk over the attempt to put her boss in a cell.
Alone he hadn’t exactly cracked what was going on, but now he shared Ricky’s interest in the whole thing, in getting Dacre the fuck away from Doll. She needed to get the shackle of that ring off of her finger, find her own feet again in a world that didn’t stink of corruption. Afterwards he’d questioned whether or not Ricky had seen what had gone down at the auction, now Joel felt those doubts roll in his stomach again. If he had, then this summons might really be the nail in the coffin of his career.
The office hadn’t changed much since he’d cleared out, Ricky was still sitting up in his chair, behind his neatly organised desk, like he had a stick jammed up his ass. The big difference was the desk opposite was almost entirely clear, like he didn’t have a partner at all. All of his own stuff was locked up in the office he’d started using down the hall, the one barely bigger than a filing cabinet – but it was enough, to be able to work on this without de la Peña crawling up his ass, trying to insinuate that maybe he’d gone on over to the dark side.
He tugged the chair out as Ricky launched straight in – of course the pleasantries, if there’d ever been any, had ceased the minute the suspicions had started – sank down in it. Joel slumped back, his eyes narrowing as Ricky started right in on his interrogation. ”You think I’d have found out that a suspect’s turned up in town and wouldn’t have told you?” Joel snorted wearily, shaking his head at his partner, well the man who had been his partner. That title meant trust and Ricky obviously didn’t have an ounce of it in him at the moment. ”No. I didn’t know one of them had poked their head up here.” There hadn’t been a peep from Doll about someone new turning up at the club, although maybe since she knew he was poking around there, she wouldn’t say anything to him, wouldn’t be allowed to by Dacre.
Joel lapsed back into silence staring at the board Ricky had put back up. It’d been shoved aside after the first couple of weeks here, gathered dust, until he’d moved out and then obviously there was room for it again. Pictures scattered the board, some without names, just anonymous faces, blank cut outs that did nothing. ”That’s who you think is here?” he asked, the point Ricky had indicated closer to the top than the scatter of small time players on the bottom, the dregs of the operation.
Keeping his poker face in place, Joel stared back blankly as Ricky’s eyes finally met his. Months of dancing around it, barely spending five minutes in each other’s company to share information, and suddenly the door had been opened for him … at least far enough for the interrogation to start again. ”So, if we get to the end and you find I had any part in it I get the slap on the wrist then. Same with Doll, you find out she’s involved and you come down as heavy as her on any of them.” Consequences he could live with on one part, but not on the other. No matter how he promised it now, he wasn’t gonna let Doll take the fall for that asshole. ”Yeah,” Joel rasped, nodding, even as he knew this was just gonna mean Ricky continuing to look at him like he was gonna see some sign of that internal, moral rot.
Rocking forward in his seat, Joel planted his elbows against the edge of the desk. ”No,” he said honestly. ”There was some event there though. I figured Dacre would have an issue with me being there that night. We had a little talk at the bachelor auction. He bought Dolly Dennison and found out from her that the two of us were close as children. I went back to the club a couple of weeks later to try and talk to Doll, but I ended up talking to one of the other employees instead. You wanna share your information on your visitor? Give me some heads up on who I’m meant to be looking for.” Other than just a question mark, that was. Ricky obviously had some new cards and was clutching them to his chest again.
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ENRIQUE DE LA PEÑA
Shapeshifter
Posts: 65
Played by:
Julia
Last seen Mar 22, 2024 22:48:16 GMT
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Post by ENRIQUE DE LA PEÑA on Jan 31, 2023 23:04:55 GMT
━ if you support evil, you are evil ━ DID HE THINK JOEL WOULD LET HIM KNOW? Honestly, not really. It seemed the kid liked keeping things to himself nowadays, and Ricky wasn’t keen on trusting anything that came out of his mouth. But they had to power through this━drive forward━because there were no other options. McGrath was aware of this, though━if his snort and head shake were anything to go by.
Ricky sighed and waited for a real answer. No. Fine. He didn’t think so, but he had to ask to be sure. And if Joel decided to lie to his face? Well, then the guilt would sit on his shoulders. If the kid still had the capacity for it. Ricky couldn’t imagine stepping out on your wife with a cheap wh-re left one with many moral principles.
He nodded firmly to confirm, his stomach spiralling at the idea of Joel finding out far more than intended. Ricky could’ve easily spread names and pictures up there, but he wanted to first give Manny a chance. If he could turn this around, and change who his brother had become, then perhaps he could save him, too. The rest of the cartel would go down, but maybe he could figure out a deal for his little brother. Turning on everyone else wouldn’t earn him any points━to be a rat was perhaps the worst title in that life━but Ricky would protect him. He had to.
It was all he’d ever done.
“Dorothy Dennison.” Ricky corrected sharply, “While we’re in here, working on our case, you need to at least try to pretend you aren’t directly involved with a person of interest.” He puffed out a breath, “And I can assure you, it would be more than a slap on the wrist if I found out you were dirty.” It had been far more than that before━each time Ricky filtered rookies━and it was especially true with Grimes, his first partner.
“Great. Then let’s get to work.” Ricky nodded as if it was a physical cue to the proverbial veil falling.
He immediately launched into Halloween, as that was their newest and most concerning addition to the case. And it gave them a better wedge under Dacre’s nail, enough that hopefully they could begin to pry it up and see what kinds of disgusting depravity lay underneath.
Ricky regretted not being there. Usually, he was on top of things like this━of events━but it had been difficult to function as only half a team and, if he was being honest with himself, he would’ve rathered chopping off a limb than going out on Halloween. He didn’t like the club to begin with, but on a night when there would be a large party?
Ah, perhaps he should’ve known better.
Even though Joel (regretfully) wasn’t there, he seemed to have another piece to slot into the investigation. Ricky’s mouth formed a thin line, stilling at this news. “So, Dacre now likely believes he can get information from her about this investigation. Great.” He muttered, leaning in to jot notes on his pad. At least he knew now what they’d been talking about━again, if McGrath was telling the truth. However, he was very forthcoming with the information, and Ricky appreciated that━even if it didn’t seem like he did.
“Alternatively, that could be used to our advantage if you’d be willing to feed her false information.” Dark eyes flicked up to McGrath and down to his desk again. He doubted it.
After scribbling down a few more notes, Ricky pushed his pad to the side and met Joel’s eye again. “Just hold on a minute on my information. Did you speak to this employee about anything significant? Did you get his or her name?” He asked, his mind rattling through the list of people like a Rolodex, wondering which would’ve been dumb enough to speak to a detective under Hector’s nose.
“On the last day of October, there was an event, like you said.” Ricky began, slowly gathering multiple files into a stack, organizing them, and then handing them across the desk to McGrath. “Here are several Missing Person files I pulled out of the heap. They were all last seen at or confirmed to be heading to Dacre’s club that night. None have returned to their jobs or families; there are at least fifteen names in there.” He motioned to the stack of files he’d relinquished to McGrath. “I attempted to gain more information by going through the club’s manager━Clarke, the violent offender,” He explained, hoping he’d jog Joel’s memory━unless, of course, the kid had simply put this whole thing out of his mind while they’d been separated. “━But he wasn’t working that evening. My theory is he’s getting smart about connecting himself to them, or perhaps Dacre is. Either way, something happened to those people that night, and Dacre is protecting himself.” He paused, not wanting to ask but desperate to.
Ricky squared his shoulders and watched Joel’s face, his entire expression going tight. “Did she work that night?” He said finally, feeling tense all over.
JOEL MCGRATH | no notes.
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JOEL MCGRATH
Warlock
Posts: 59
Age:
32
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
Married
Partner:
Jolene McGrath
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Apr 30, 2024 17:44:38 GMT
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Post by JOEL MCGRATH on Feb 25, 2023 17:05:35 GMT
How desperate had Ricky grown with his whipping boy out of reach? Had the irritation grown inch by inch until he had no choice but to rip it out and swallow his pride enough to admit that the case was more important than the chances his partner was dirty? Desperate enough to reach out to him at least. It was no wonder Ricky was sitting there, sighing his patience away as he waited to be reassured that he hadn’t spent weeks whispering all of the case’s secrets into Doll’s ear as she’d seduced him. Cause that had to be the only reason she’d want to reconnect after years spent apart. Dacre was twisting her arm, or worse, it was all off her own back. Flash the lonely guy a little flesh and he’d tell you anything – as though Ricky wasn’t more deprived out of the two of them. His marriage might’ve grown so insubstantial that anybody could see through it now, but there was still a ring on his finger, the warmth of someone else in his bed most nights. Could his partner honestly say he had either? Naw, the only thing keeping Ricky warm was that cloak of indignation he’d pulled around himself like a superhero’s cape. The lines bracketing Joel’s mouth deepened as he stared up at the board Ricky had nodded over. He’d never been one of those kids imagining himself that way. His dreams had rarely made it out of Cunningham. A ranch of his own if he was lucky, taking over for his dad if Vaughn didn’t tear himself out of there on that rip tide of wild that’d started working its way into him. Dusty boots and a worn saddle, callouses worked so deep into his palms there was nothing soft left to them anymore. Doll by his side, still walking straight into the kitchen on those hot summer mornings to grab a cold drink from the fridge, racing him out to the creek, knowing he was always gonna let her get a head start on him. That was his Dolly. Joel’s gaze barely flicked back to his partner as Ricky corrected him with that snap in his voice. ”Dolly,” he drawled slow, not playing those pedantic games anymore. ”You wanna get exact with it, how ‘bout you still in some of what’s missin’ up there?” Try to pretend like he and Doll weren’t involved, when he could still feel the press of her lips on his skin, the way she’d fit against him. His stomach twitched like the muscles were forever imprinted with the stamp of Dolly’s touch. He forced himself to let the breath out slower, any sign that he was knotted up about this was bound to catch Ricky’s eye. ”I guess it’s lucky for both of us that I’m not dirty then,” Joel said dryly. His gaze finally slid to his partner, unflinching. Ricky might’ve cringed at the sound of Dolly’s name off of his lips, but he wasn’t about to shy from it. If Ricky had been forthcoming from the start, maybe their direct involvement wouldn’t have come as a surprise for him.
Ricky’s warnings had been dropped, heard, even if they weren’t entirely agreed to. It was like he’d dusted his hands off, sweeping their little schism back under the rug with that nod. Let’s get to work, like they hadn’t been doing it separately.
Maybe he should’ve slipped into the club on Halloween, masked up like everybody else in town, watched Dacre while the place was heaving with partiers. In that mess there wouldn’t have been much chance of him being picked out by anybody but Doll, and he knew her, she wouldn’t have run straight to Dacre to tell him he was there. Hector’s ring might’ve been on Doll’s finger, but she was loyal.
Frowning as Ricky leapt on the one part of his story of ‘I wasn’t there, but…’ that made the least freaking difference to it all. ”Stop pissin’ in your own cheerios,” Joel chided. ”All Dacre knows if that I’m an old friend of Dolly’s. Even if she does go telling him I’ve got a badge, he’s got no idea that I’m using it to try and stamp out his little empire. She doesn’t know what I’m here doing. I’m a cop, that’s all.” Anybody from back home could’ve told her that, if Dolly had kept any of those lines of communication open. If she had, nobody had ever mentioned them to him, she’d vanished that day after she’d turned up and kissed him, like someone had taken scissors to all those connections, severing them, leaving the frayed ends of their friendship floating loose in his heart.
The laugh that rolled out of Joel was weary, but he nodded anyway. He dragged his hands through his hair, caught them there over his ears pulling the long strands tight as he met Ricky’s eye. There’d been a time when he’d rather have choked than tell Doll a lie. ”If it gets this wrapped, I’ll do it.” There wasn’t anything about it Ricky could guarantee, but Doll needed to be out of Dacre’s clutches before the son of a bitch could drag her down in this.
Unfolding his arms, Joel let out a sigh and shook his head. If it’d been Ricky walking in there he’d have had the guy’s shoe size out of him by the end of their little chit-chat. He’d gotten a name, had barely even followed it up afterwards cause how deep a dive was he gonna get with ‘Lawrence, sounds kinda Canadian’? ”We didn’t exactly share our life stories, no. I asked Lawrence, no last name, if Dolly was there. He told me she was due in later. I mentioned we were old friends from back home, trying to get a little trust so he’d open up.” And he hadn’t, although he’d been as twitchy as a cat on a hot tin roof.
Given whatever had gone down there, maybe he’d had a reason to be. Joel scooted closer as Ricky began to ferret about in his files, the creases between bis brows deepening as he began to flip through. Jesus. What kinda play did Dacre have going? ”He actually spoke to you?” Joel asked, flicking his gaze up as he flipped through the files. ”The kid’s gotta be an easier way in than Clarke. He’s soft, skittish. Probably more likely to be under Dacre’s thumb than Clarke.” If something was going down a guy who’d spent time in jail was probably gonna put his hands up and back out rather than risk a trip back there. Lawrence had seemed like the sort you could get to do anything with just a little pressure applied. ”You think he got a bad batch of something in? If they are dealing out of the club all it’d take was one asshole handing out party favours. Fifteen, twenty people don’t walk out of your place, you’re gonna start filling your shorts.” Which meant that either the basement of the club had recently had a makeover, or there was some body dump spot they hadn’t found yet.
Joel tapped his fingers against the files, slumping back in his seat as he stared at the board. He couldn’t believe that Doll knew all about this and hadn’t said a word of it. Maybe the ring on her finger was him trying to keep her silent. ”I think so,” he said, shrugging. ”She works most nights, Dacre seems to want to keep her close. You want me to ask her, see if she knows anything about went down that night?” Or was that just too direct for Ricky and his clandestine ways. Doll might’ve changed in the time she’d been gone, but there wasn’t a way in hell she’d ever hurt anybody.
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ENRIQUE DE LA PEÑA
Shapeshifter
Posts: 65
Played by:
Julia
Last seen Mar 22, 2024 22:48:16 GMT
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Post by ENRIQUE DE LA PEÑA on Apr 7, 2023 17:36:02 GMT
━ if you support evil, you are evil ━ HE WOULD LOVE TO FILL IN THE REST OF THE information up there if he could, and that was exactly what he told McGrath. He didn’t add the part (or any indication) that he knew the missing names and was unable to provide them, as he was still hoping his dr-g dealing, gang-banger brother would have a change of heart. Not only would it tear apart everything he’d tried to keep so safe, his whole plan crumbling like rotten flower petals, but it sounded crazy.
Unfortunately, Dacre likely knew too much. Joel underestimated him━and his woman━but Ricky was far too cynical. He also knew the dangers of assuming your enemy was too stupid or brash to gain the upper hand. Dacre was too well-connected to have no idea who Joel’s partner was. In fact, Manny could be here at the moment, wearing his partner’s face and gaining intel, though he imagined his brother would find this mundane conversation quite boring. He, too, wasn’t suspicious enough━apparently.
Surprisingly, however, Joel was willing to break that chain by reeling in Dorothy. Ricky added that to his pad, then commented idly, “It would make things run smoother. If she believes it, then she’ll convince him. You need a haircut.” The last was spoken plainly, as if he was saying something as commonplace as the sky is blue or your shirt is wrinkled. Which it was. Even if he’d tried to iron it, he’d missed a spot, or creased it on his way into work.
Ricky was able to smooth past the discussion of Zach, at least for a moment━if Joel’s detective skills were still anything of note. He mentioned a Lawrence, and Ricky paused before rifling through his stack of employee records, finding one in particular and pulling it out. “Lawrence Murphy, aged twenty-one, employed for approximately two years.” There wasn’t much information on the kid, among the fact that he’d recently been granted a passport to tag along on that “Work Trip” to The United Kingdom.
“I wouldn’t say he spoke to me. Threatening to call his parole officer now that he’s finished his time doesn’t hold the same weight it used to.” Not like when they had their first conversation and Clarke folded almost instantaneously. “However, he’s willing to cooperate━to a point━because he understands how the system works. I didn’t get much more from him than he, one, wasn’t working and two, knows nothing. I agree, though; pressure on the kid, Murphy, would be smarter.” He just hoped it wouldn’t backfire on them. There was Dorothy, and there was Lawrence━two ways in that had their potential downfalls. Dorothy seemed less worried of potential outcomes leading to her imprisonment, however━considering the company she kept.
A bad batch. Ricky thought it would be more intentional than that, like a massacre for fun━especially knowing his brother━but it all depended on what Hector was. Ricky was well aware that there was far more out there than what met the eye, but that wasn’t something he could begin to explain to McGrath. In any case, a bad batch was the most likely━most normal━cover he could think of.
“Exactly.” Ricky nodded curtly, “And either those bodies left the building to be discovered, or they’re secured in the lower level. As you said, there was an entrance in the hallway to get to it, which leads me to believe Dacre somehow faked the storage room he showed me. Perhaps a false wall, or another entrance. A type of labyrinth-like building only money can buy.” His lips twisted in an unhappy smile. He knew there wasn’t another door in that hallway apart from Hector’s office, and that a false wall wasn’t what he saw. He’d bewitched it somehow, as Ricky had gone down there before, and McGrath reported the same thing he saw.
“Yes, but I shouldn’t have to remind you to be graceful about it. I know you believe you can trust her, but if she finds out anything, our investigation will be stonewalled.” Leave it to McGrath to let out something paramount during pillow talk.
He sighed, shifting Lawrence’s file back to its place in the neatly organized stack, and then making eye contact with McGrath once more. “We have to make up for lost time, working efficiently but with incredible care. If we start pressing on the people around Dacre, we’ll be able to gain enough evidence to take him down, or wait until he feels like his world is caving in on him.” And Manny had until then to find the light.
JOEL MCGRATH | end here or w yours?
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JOEL MCGRATH
Warlock
Posts: 59
Age:
32
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
Married
Partner:
Jolene McGrath
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Apr 30, 2024 17:44:38 GMT
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Post by JOEL MCGRATH on Apr 20, 2023 18:57:54 GMT
Anybody who’d spent more than five minutes on the job would’ve agreed that innocent people didn’t get what they deserved most of the time. You got too close to a crime, even looked like you might have had some knowledge of what went down and suddenly all anybody saw was guilt. All it would’ve taken was Ricky opening his mouth to the Sheriff about his connections to the club and every set of eyes in the place would’ve been burning their way through his back. That sort of stain didn’t leave your career if you beat the rap, it stayed, haunting you until you either did do something to get yourself canned or you decided to pull the pin yourself. Ricky knew that as well as anybody else in here, and yet, even while he’d sat here stewing in his certainty, he hadn’t gone to Forbes. Maybe some part of him believed that Doll was innocent after all.
The temptation was there to stand and wipe Dolly’s name off of that board, putting the emphasis squarely on their question marks instead, but that wouldn’t have gone down well. Ricky wasn’t gonna back off of her until he could see the same thing his partner did – an innocent woman caught up in something she couldn’t have understood. A woman who deserved to be freed from all of this instead of forever tainted by it.
His stomach twisted as the thought of lying to Doll, of dragging her deeper into this, but it was the only way to get Dacre’s hands off of her. Frowning faintly, he watched Ricky scrawl down notes, like he was etching his partner’s willingness to lie in stone, ready to throw it back at him when his plan failed and Dacre put all those pieces together. Or maybe it was just an action point – give his partner a hair cut, just to make sure he looked the part he was playing with Doll. ”Doll’s gonna do whatever I need her to. No hair cut’s gonna change that.” Joel was already scrubbing his fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck though. Already far longer than usual, as though each thing he’d let go of in his marriage had been reflected by letting go of some part of himself.
Freshly shorn he’d stand out more at the club. Dacre was the GQ coverboy, everybody else looked just like what they were suspected of being – criminals. Murphy was probably the most clean cut of them, but a decent hair cut didn’t cover how squirrely the guy had been about Doll. Joel acknowledged the facts Ricky was spitting about him with a hum. He might be able to get more out of Doll about him, dropping in the fact that they’d run into each other when he’d come looking for her – if Murphy hadn’t already told her about that.
That hum turned into a snort. Joel planted his elbows on the desk, shoved his hair back behind his ears. He wasn’t about to agree out loud that it had got out of hand. ”You’re gonna have to find somethin’ new to go bad cop over.” Something Clarke would probably also tell Ricky to go fuck himself over when he tried the hard ass act. Had Clarke told the truth about Halloween? Joel puffed out a breath and glanced down at the file again. It probably didn’t matter that his parole was served, he wouldn’t want fresh charges sending him back to jail again, probably for far longer this time. ”It gives us options at least. Grind the thumb down on Murphy for now, swing back round to Clarke if he don’t work out.” By then they’d likely be grasping at straws anyway. It burned to consider it, but out of all of them Doll was likely their biggest leverage here.
Had Dolly ever figured out exactly what had killed Jeanine? The question twisted itself around and around in the back of his mind, the ache growing like it pulling at something vital in him. By the time they’d found Jeanine and figured out what had happened, Doll was already gone, only leaving behind that ghostly imprint of her lips on his. For him it had been the turning point in his life, but for Doll it might just have been some vague, sad memory from back home, a high school friend lost long before her time. Nausea clawed at his throat as he pictured her not coming to him if she knew something like that had happened. Joel swallowed it back, nodding slowly back at Ricky. ”However he did it, one of us needs to head back down there now. See if we can spot any sign of those bodies.” There’d been no false wall that he’d seen, no storage room, just that staircase that had always been waiting there for him, the last breathless rush down to where Doll always seemed to be hidden away. Maybe Dacre had known enough to hide all of that from Ricky, maybe he had someone hide it from him.
”Graceful?” Joel sneered at his partner as he looked up at him. No matter what he’d just sworn, Ricky still didn’t trust him half as much as he should’ve done. Warnings dropped from those thin lips, disapproval still evident in his little reminder. ”I told you, I’m not gonna go in there and whisper everythin' we’re up to. Our investigation’s safe.” With the wall Ricky had thrown up around it all – including blocking out his own partner – there was no danger in anybody finding anything out. Slowly pushing the files back towards Ricky, Joel stood. ”We’ll get what we need. Dacre’s spendin' life in a cell for all of this.” He lifted his chin towards the board, knowing that maybe he wouldn’t get exactly what he wanted, but as long as Doll was free … ”I’ll get my stuff. I’m not workin' down the hall anymore.” Ricky was gonna have to get used to sharing the office again, swallowing back at least half his complaints. Joel slipped out, dragging his hands over his face as he went. Doll just needed to hang on a little longer in the lion’s den.
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