All Chapters of Inspector Sloane Strikes Again: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

"She's got a knife in her pocket! I felt the handle! She's going to pull it on me!"The moment those words left Mona's mouth, the crowd of onlookers shrieked and scrambled back, tripping over themselves to get away. The young men who'd been ready to play hero a moment ago backed off several more steps.The whole scene dissolved into chaos. Someone's coffee spilled across the floor.Walsh seized the opening and threw up a hand."Security! What are you standing around for? She's resisting arrest—rough her up if you have to!"Four security guards, who'd clearly been staged nearby, closed in at once.They didn't care whether I fought back or not—they twisted both my arms behind me. One of them drove a knee into the small of my back hard enough to force me to double over.I turned my head and looked at Walsh."Manager Walsh, you're not even trying to sort out right from wrong. Have you thought about what happens after this?"Call corporate compliance right now. Or better yet, get t

"You've got no real position here, no badge, nothing—what gives a pickpocket like you the right to pull the internal security feed?""I said you stole it, so you stole it!"I let my expression go cold."Manager Walsh, thirty thousand dollars a month from Mona to look the other way. Does that money burn your hands yet? That's real blood money—hundreds of customers paying for real gold and getting garbage in return."Walsh's face went bloodless. He had no idea how I'd gotten into his private account statements.Mona had been hit right where it hurt, and her fear curled into a screeching, humiliated fury."Who do you think you are! You went digging through my accounts too?!""Break her wrist! I want to hear her scream something other than that smart mouth of hers!"Mona jabbed a finger at me, shrieking.The two guards closest to me raised their solid rubber batons and swung for my arm hard enough to shatter bone.Just as the baton was about to land, there was a crash. A deafenin

Only Mona wasn't ready to give up. She had no clue how corporate hierarchy actually worked and assumed this was just another one of my tricks to weasel out.Mona let out a scornful snort."Nice try! Keep it up!"A busted phone and a voice-changer app, some accomplice mumbling into a mic outside the room—you really think we're three-year-olds?"Derek, this is obviously a scam. Get someone to grab her already!"That one stupid sentence out of Mona's mouth was like throwing a thorny lifeline to a drowning man.Sharpe couldn't stomach the idea that he, a deputy general manager worth millions, was about to be brought down by some twenty-something girl dressed like a broke college student.He slammed the table and jabbed a finger at me, cursing."You almost had me fooled with that cheap trick! A voice-changer app, and you thought that would work on me!"Security! Smash that phone of hers!"I looked at him, cold."Mr. Sharpe, seizing and destroying a corporate-issued encrypted comm

Along with a sharp, acrid smell, a pale yellow stain spread down Walsh's slacks and onto the floor.Walsh had collapsed into a puddle of his own urine.Across the room, Mona sat crumpled on the floor, one whole side of her face swollen and grotesquely misshapen, her hair a wild tangle. Her nose implant looked knocked crooked, blood trickling from one nostril.She stared, unable to process it, at the man who used to melt at her every whim.She couldn't accept that her carefully engineered laundering scheme had just collapsed completely, and she couldn't stomach being tossed aside like garbage.Mona pointed at Sharpe, shrieking."Derek Sharpe, you dare hit me?!"What are you playing at, acting like some loyal soldier now?"You think I don't know how you're going to play the devoted employee? Your wife bought two beach houses overseas—where do you think that money came from?"I've been the one propping up your fake books down in this basement for years! And now that everything's

I walked over slowly and crouched down in front of Mona. I reached out one finger and gently tipped up her chin, streaked with snot and tears.I let something soft, almost persuadable, show in my eyes.Mona caught that flicker and took it as a sign I was softening. Wild, desperate hope lit up in her eyes. She started swearing oaths one after another."Ms. Sloane! Just let me go, and I'll be your dog for the rest of my life! Point me at anyone you want, and I'll bite!"Watching her drown in that giddy, premature relief, I let go of her chin.I stood, pulled an individually wrapped antiseptic wipe from my pocket, and, with open disgust on my face, wiped my finger clean one joint at a time in front of her."Sorry. I don't like touching filth. As for that dog act, save it for your cellmates. I hear they've got a real soft spot for pretty little things like you."The gap between hoisting someone up to the edge of hope and then shoving them straight into the pit—that particular cruelt