“Walter Riley,” I said, looking at a politician whose face had been all over the papers for weeks and who we’d been to protect at the courthouse the day before.
The chief set his hands on his hips and turned to me.
I didn’t like the line that had formed between his eyebrows.
“I’m glad you know exactly who it is, Officer Sweeny, because he will apparently be brought to justice…by you.”
Oh, fuck.
I straightened my arms at my sides and resisted the urge to look at my team.
“This.” He flicked a switch and another image appeared on the large screen. It was a newspaper headline.
Female SWAT becomes vigilante. RILEY will face justice says female SWAT officer.
Beneath it was a grainy photograph of me, all in black, visor down, and holding a gun up to the ceiling. The shoulders of my team were hustled against me, the back of a few female heads at the front of the shot.
“You thought it was okay to blow a hole in the courtroom and promise justice to an angry mob?”
I swallowed.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He tipped his head and studied me. “Wildly unconventional crowd control.”
“I know, sir. I’m sorry, sir. It just seemed like the best thing to do at the time.”
“And it worked,” Balko added. “They were out for blood.”
“As is often the case with an angry crowd.”
“They were all women, all feeling the pain of the victims,” I said. “And let’s face it, that asshole is going to be found guilty.”
The chief sighed. “I dare say he will be, but that art deco mural is going to take a chunk out of our budget to repair, so you’re going to have to work super efficiently.”
“Yes, chief. Sorry, chief.”
Damn it.
“There was new evidence in court yesterday,” the chief went on. He fiddled with the projector.
“What kind of evidence?” Sean asked.
“The jury were shown some particularly nasty hardcore porn, clearly non-consensual, and in all cases horribly violent.” He paused. “Sick from what I understand and all on Riley’s computer.”
I wasn’t sure where this was going.
“But one good thing came out of it from the defence. A name and a face of Walter Riley’s supplier of filth.”
Again the screen flashed. Another image came up. Of a man—a man with a short brown beard and mean slitty eyes.
“Fuck,” I muttered, glancing at Jonathan. He was staring at it, his jaw set tight and his lips a flat, straight line.
“This is Mark Sands.”
“Mark Sands,” I repeated.
“What the fuck?” Jonathan muttered, stepping up to the screen.