Dan's Mess Of An Interrogation.

                                        

                                              
Chapter: 17
*


Angel.
My gaze drifted to the bedside clock. Almost 9PM. I had been in my home office since I returned from Enchante. 
And a thought occurred to me. Mask knew who I was, probably from the first time we met. 
Because how did he recognize me with Max? How did he know where to send the finger to? How did he know my name?
I wasn't just dealing with a fling, I was dealing with a stalker.
The bourbon was still sitting on my desk from this morning, but I didn't pour a glass this time. I needed a clear head.
Because if I wanted to go after Mask—the right way—I needed a warrant.
But how the hell was I going to get one?
Cyrus would never sign off on a search warrant for Enchante based on... what? A bad feeling and a hard-on?
No, I needed a justification. Something real and tangible.
I leaned back in my chair and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to piece it together.
Max is missing. Last seen at the club. Unaccounted for. Finger mailed to my office with his ring. No return address. No direct evidence tying it to Enchante.
Hell, even the owner of the club I talked to, had played it smooth as fuck.
I needed surveillance, testimonies and evidence that someone saw Max last night and that he never left.
But the footage? Off limits.
At least, for now.
I chewed the end of my pen and flipped my notepad to a fresh page, scribbling two headers in bold:
1. Excuse for Cyrus
2. Balancing the Mendez Case
I stared at the first line.
What could I say?
"Hey, boss, I need a warrant to dig into a high-end club where I may or may not have gotten off against my will, because I think a missing man may have been abducted there by a guy I slept with once."
Yeah, that'd go over well.
I could frame it around Max, turn it into a missing person's case. Say he was last seen at Enchante. 
That's believable. 
But that was not in my job description and it would raise eyebrows if I was presenting the case. As far as the FBI is concerned, it's not a federal case so it would be handed over to the CID.
But the evidence that was needed in the investigation was emailed to me.
I groaned again and stood up, pacing. I would need to be involved in this case. I wouldn't want it to be buried under the endless case files the CID is working on.
Maybe I should just tell Cyrus about it. I'd need to separate it from myself, pretend I wasn't involved, push it like I was just trying to help with an open report.
Okay, that could work. Barely.
But the Mendez case was another beast entirely.
I was already behind. Reclaiming the lead from Dan meant expectations were sky-high. CID was watching my every move. Cyrus was watching my every breath.
And now I had to juggle a murder investigation and a stalker-turned-lover-turned-threat who might have just killed someone I used for comfort.
Perfect.