Fish Out of Water Read Online Free PDF

about that.” He circled around the back and held the photo out so they could both see.
    “Oh… Jesus. Looks like one of Rhonda’s pictures. Her damned….” Jackson met his gaze and nodded. “Her damned cell phone cover overlaps the frame.”
    Jackson met Ellery’s eyes with a gaze that could pierce steel. “We need to find out where this came from. See here?” Ellery had no choice but to look over his shoulder to see. “The reflection here? Those are jeans—this wasn’t taken by a cop, and certainly not by a forensics expert. This was taken by someone else. Why don’t we have regular crime-scene photos here?”
    Ellery frowned and pawed through the brief like it would suddenly sprout legitimacy. “I don’t know—I mean, we shouldn’t have anything yet.”
    “Yeah? Who was the tech?” Jackson thrust the brief at Ellery and paced, energy burning off his body like a lightning charge.
    “It doesn’t say,” Ellery muttered. “I’ve been looking for a signature, a chain of evidence, but I’ve got nothing. I mean, this is a cop , and I don’t even have a preliminary forensics report.”
    Kaden stared at him hard. “So doesn’t that mean no more case?”
    Ellery grimaced at him. “That’s what it should mean, Kaden, but we’ve got two things here that might screw that up.”
    Jackson and Kaden sighed in tandem and shook their heads.
    “A cop and a black man,” Kaden muttered.
    “A cop and a black man,” Ellery confirmed.
    Jackson’s jaw clenched, and Ellery spoke quickly to keep him from grinding his teeth.
    “Okay, we’ve got some places to start here. We’ve got Connie—because it’s awfully damned convenient that your guy calls in sick the night two cops come in for a shakedown.”
    “But they weren’t trying to shake me down!” Kaden objected. “I’m not stupid. A cop asks for money and you hand it over!”
    “Cops don’t ask for money,” Ellery said, feeling dumb. He felt even dumber when the other two men in the room grunted and rolled their eyes. “I mean I know there are dirty cops,” he defended. “But there’s not even any investigations into this area of the city. General consensus is corruption isn’t a problem here. I mean these guys don’t always follow procedure, but what you’re talking about is blatant—and widespread. How could they get away with this?” Oh God. Could he sound any more like an idealistic fifth grader?
    Kaden started to laugh, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Hey, Jacky, think this guy’s neighborhood can be seen from space?”
    “Yup, K—it’s just so white.” They bumped their fists together then, like it was an old joke between them, and Ellery was no longer part of the Hardy Boys.
    “I’m serious,” he said stonily. “I don’t know what happened here, but we cannot go into this thinking every cop is out to get us, or we’ll never get to the bottom of this.”
    Kaden looked bored, but Jackson didn’t—he looked furious. With deliberate steps, he strode into Ellery’s space, backing him up until he hit solid metal.
    “You listen to me,” he hissed, just as Ellery’s head made a painful thump against the door. “This man is my family , and if you can’t get him out on bail, he’s walking into a killing field, do you understand me? Prison is no good for Kaden—half our neighborhood went to prison, and they know he’s the friend of an ex-cop and they hate him. And if you can get him out on bail….” Jackson looked behind him, and he and Kaden communicated wordlessly. Jackson shook his head and turned that disturbing crystal-green gaze back on Ellery. “He’s going to be in more danger than ever. His bail hearing is tomorrow, and then we’ve got what? Three months? Four? Before the prelim?”
    Murder? Of a cop? “It could be a year or more,” Ellery admitted.
    “So if they go for a capital crime and there’s no bail allowed, that’s a year or more with him in a cell and his family out here trying to survive.