Page 109 of Monk

New email [email protected]

I clicked it open immediately.

Lina,

You always did know how to pick the interesting cases. Give me two hours. I’ll call you.

—M

I exhaled slowly, some of the tension in my shoulders easing.

Two hours.I could work with that. I spent the next hour and forty-five minutes building out my defense strategy, drafting motions to suppress evidence, and preparing questions for Ruby’s deposition, if we ever got that far, but my mind kept drifting to John. To the way he looked at me, like I was the only thing keeping him tethered to the Earth. To the way he whisperedI love youagainst my skin, over and over, like a prayer. To the way he promised me that no matter what happened, I was his.

I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe him, but I learned a long time ago that wanting something didn’t make it true.

My phone buzzed on the table, jolting me out of my thoughts, and I answered immediately, putting the call on speaker. “Mischief.”

“Lina.” Her voice was sharp and clear, with that faint edge of amusement she always carried. “You weren’t kidding about this case being interesting.”

I leaned forward, my heart pounding. “What did you find?”

“A lot,” she said. “And none of it good for your client.”

I grabbed a pen and a notepad, ready to take notes. “Talk to me.”

“Ruby Cooper,” Mischief began, her tone shifting into the clipped, professional cadence she used when she was laying out evidence. “Twenty-nine years old. Works part-time at a bar in Lawton. No criminal record. No history of filing false reports. On paper, she looks clean.”

“But?” I prompted.

“But her bank account tells a different story.”

I felt my pulse quicken. “What kind of story?”

“One week before your guy was arrested, Ruby received a deposit of ten thousand dollars.”

I froze, my pen hovering over the notepad. “Ten thousand?” I repeated, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Yep. Wired transfer. I traced it back to a shell company registered in Delaware. One of those generic LLCs that exists solely to hide the real source of the money.”

“And?” I prompted, my throat tight.

“And I kept digging,” Mischief said. “Took me a while, but I finally cracked it. The shell company is owned by a man named James Roberts.”

The name hit me like a physical blow.James Roberts.

John’s WITSEC handler. The man who’d been threatening him, blackmailing him, interrogating him at the courthouse andwho was also trying to force him back into witness protection. “Are you sure?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“Positive,” Mischief said. “I pulled his financial records. Don’t ask me how, and the payment to Ruby Cooper came directly from an account he controls.”

I closed my eyes, my mind racing.

Roberts paid her. He paid her to accuse John of rape.

“There’s more,” Mischief continued, her tone darkening. “I pulled Roberts’ personnel file from the U.S. Marshals Service. Your guy’s family case? It’s been closed for years. There’s no active threat. No reason for him to still be in WITSEC.”

“Then why?—”

“Because Roberts isn’t working alone,” Mischief interrupted. “He’s been coordinating with a woman named Sylvia St. James. Lina, that bitch is bad news. She’s untouchable. Has connections everywhere, and I mean fucking everywhere. She has a hard-on for the Biker Federation.”