And there it was.

They were being played.

And Axl bet there were eyes on Laszlo Kovack’s house so they could get caught in the middle of handing a man his ass.

But now, they couldn’t look for those eyes because, in how they needed to look, it was very illegal, so they couldn’t get caught trying to find the means set up to catch them out.

“Onward from that,” Lee continued, “Brody confirmed Kovack’s computer was also hacked. He sometimes takes pictures of his partners. And those are the shots that were sent to Hattie. So as Axl figured out, it was a setup.” Lee looked to Boone. “He’s bi, he sometimes does multiple partners, but there aren’t any shots of your woman.”

Some of the tension shifted from Boone’s shoulders.

“Part two,” Lee carried on. “We finally got something interesting on the ME that reported the Mueller/Bogart double murder was a murder-suicide, before he changed his findings in the official report. He’s been laying low, keeping his nose clean. Though, it seems the high stress of his job had to be addressed. And he did that by sorting a vacation on a houseboat on Lake Powell, something he and his wife like to do once a year. Thing is, this time, he bought the whole fucking houseboat. And two jet skis. And to round that out, a powerboat. All with cash.”

And there that was.

He’d been bought.

“At least he didn’t sell his soul on the cheap,” Shy noted with open disgust.

“Yeah,” Lee replied.

“That needs a follow-up, he needs someone leaning on him about that,” Tack noted. “And since Eddie already got up in his shit about it, it can’t be a cop.”

“When’s he going to Lake Powell?” Knight asked.

“Next week,” Lee answered.

Knight nodded. “I’ll talk to Sylvie and Tucker. They can plan a family vacation. Head up from Phoenix, track his ass down and finesse a conversation.” There were nods of assent all around that was the way to go.

“Now for another break,” Hawk said then he focused on Jorge. “Jorge?”

“With Brody hung up, but the diagnostics run, we picked shit up on Ryn’s laptop. She had three hacks. One to download her web search history. One to download her email. And one to download all her documents and pictures.”

Boone already knew this, since it was one of the things they were following up yesterday, but Axl still looked at Boone to see his face hard, his jaw clenched.

He wasn’t over that violation of Ryn.

Not surprising.

Jorge kept going.

“These originated from three different Internet cafés. We followed up at the cafés. They got records that show three different bogus IDs were given when he bought time. We ran them. One was from a dead guy. One from an incarcerated guy. And one from a guy who doesn’t exist.”

“Another dead end?” Ally asked.

Jorge shook his head. “Nope. Checked in with some boys I know who deal fakes. One of them remembered the name that the guy asked for him to use for an ID, since it’s apparently some famous porn star’s name, Phil Charismo.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Knight muttered.

“Yeah, pure class,” Jorge agreed through sarcasm. “He remembered the name, remembered the guy and remembered the guy visited him with another guy. He thought it was a sting. Patted them down. Asked if they were cops.”

“He sold them an ID when he thought they were cops?” Rush asked.

Jorge shook his head. “Not Phil Charismo. But the guy with him, my dealer says he’d lay money on that guy at one point having been a cop. This guy does good fakes. He’s also greedy. What I wouldn’t call him is smart. He thinks if he asks a cop if he’s a cop, the cop has to say.”

The mood in the room lightened a fraction as they silently shared humor about a criminal committing a crime and being this stupid.

“He give a description?” Brock asked.

“Not exactly. Though, he says he wouldn’t forget him. But he won’t play unless he’s paid.”

“We’ll handle that,” Hawk said and looked between Axl and Aug. “B needs another visit. She knows more than she said, and I don’t pay to get jacked around.”

“She’s moved again,” Rhashan informed them.

“You got a location?” Hawk asked.

Rhashan shook his head.

“I’m on that and I’m on Brandi,” Ally declared.

“It’s not you she fucked over, Ally,” Hawk pointed out. “Wearing my money and knowing my boys walked out of her place with an operation already underway to take them out, and that operation was using their women, when she specifically said the women were not involved, I’m not okay with that.”

“Let’s just say I got a way with girl talk,” Ally replied.

Hawk didn’t argue that.

He nodded.

“Brandi and I need a conversation as well, I work with you,” Cisco put in smoothly.

“When I work, I’m a loner type of girl,” Ally told him.

“Trust me,” Cisco said on a smile. “We’ll have fun.”

Ally studied him, saw whatever women saw in him, and smiled back.

Jesus.

That was when Hawk went back to Jorge’s news.

“We’re lookin’ into the other two fake IDs to see if either of them have ties to cops. Obviously, the incarcerated one does, but he’s from Maryland and doing his time there. Doesn’t mean this doesn’t have that reach, cops know cops. But that’s going to take awhile.”

“I can get Brody to help with that,” Lee offered.

Hawk nodded again then looked around the room. “Everyone’s computer needs a hefty firewall. You don’t have a source who can do that for you, get them here. We’ll handle it for you.”

Axl made a mental note to get his and Hattie’s laptops into the office.

He then said, “We need to fuck up without fucking up.”

Hawk looked to him. “That was my take.”

“I’m not comfortable with that,” Mitch put in.

“Nothing that will stick,” Hawk returned.

“They can make shit stick, Hawk,” Mitch shot back.

“It’ll out some players and we need some threads to pull to unravel this, brother,” Hawk replied. “We’ll be careful that the fucking-up part has a stronger not fucking-up part.”