The cop watched as the two men walked briskly down the corridor of the warehouse towards the source of the noise then turned back to the woman in front of him, too cocky for her own good.

"Friend of yours?" he asked smugly, circling her again.

Valerie chuckled, "Maybe it's the cops!"

Her comment made Josh laugh just a little bit too hard, and she knew that he was mocking her, "Honey there are no honest cops left in this city, unfortunate for you."

"Like Sid Bromwell?" she asked, watching the man's face carefully as she spoke the name.

"What do you know about him?"

Sid Bromwell was the detective in charge of investigating Nick's death. Valerie knew better than anyone the type of cop that Bromwell was, and he definitely wasn't an honest one.

"I know the only reason he was lead on that murder was to keep things going in circles, I know that about him. The honest cops that ARE still out there, that I know are out there, are onto him, I know that too. I know he's involved in some kind of drug operation, which I'm willing to bet you're involved in also," Val theorized, knowing perfectly well exactly what was going on though she would never let on to the man what all she did know.

Josh's eyes narrowed and Val knew that she had pushed his buttons, "Who the fuck are you?"

"You know who I am," she challenged, "You knew me before today!"

"No, I pretended to know you because you acted as if you knew me!" he corrected, "You walked around with a badge on your shirt, sneaking around, and seeming like you were checking up on me! Of course I pretended to know you! I wanted to know why you were checking up on me and what you knew! The thing I could never figure out is why you had that kid's evidence box that day. How did you link me to him?"

Valerie nearly smiled, "I had no idea you had anything to do with Nick Carter's death until just now. I just knew you were involved with Sid Bromwell, and Tom Cane. I know you from a different case."

"Can't say I've ever met the guys," he avoided with a shrug of his lean shoulders, eyeing Valerie carefully.

Valerie did smile this time, and laughed, "I know for a fact that you know them. I think you can tell me a lot about them."

"Now, now," Josh turned away from her, his attention drifting to the corridor where his partners were checking out the noise, "If I told you anything... I'd have to kill you."

"I'm game," Valerie said casually and Josh turned around in surprise.

"Yeah right," he scoffed, "No amount of information about those two creeps would be worth dying over. Why do you care so much about them?"

"Because," Valerie explained, pulling slightly against her restraints, "There's only one reason that Bromwell was in charge of that case. He's one of the dirtiest cops on the force nowadays, and they give him something as huge as a celebrity being brutally murdered? I don't think so; someone else was running the show. My best bet is that Tom Cane was behind all of it. Cane gave the order to kill Nick Carter that night, to cover his own ass, because he was worried about being caught. What he didn't know is that Nick didn't know anything, so his little henchmen tortured and murdered an innocent man. That's all he ever does though is cover is own ass... he did the same thing when he killed my father."

“Your father?” the officer asked, acting as though his interest was piqued, “And just who was your father?”

“Bromwell’s old partner, Joe Torres,” Valerie answered simply and watched with curiosity as Josh’s eyes widened just a fraction of an inch. Enough for her to know she’d just hit a nerve.

He laughed it off and glared at her, “Sorry, that’s just not possible. Try again.”

 ~*~

If there was one thing Brian hated about trying to be quiet, it was how easy it was to make a lot of noise when trying to work in absolute silence.

He could hear everything from the sound of his sneakers lightly squeaking against the damn cement floor, to his own deep inhales and exhales as he breathed quickly.

He had expected that getting into the warehouse would be difficult. He was anticipating some kind of super-spy moves to get around security but he quickly discovered that there was none. There was no one outside and no one inside as far as he could see.

 Brian crept along the high shelving units lined with pallets. The wooden skids were lined with wooden crates and Brian found himself drawn to one that was ajar. He wanted to see what was inside. Peering over the top he just saw bottles. Olive oil, he determined after checking out the box as well as the bottles that were strewn on the ground. Someone had definitely been there, he could tell from the destruction of the crate. He was about to move on when something caught his eye.

Brian picked up the decorative bottle and turned it over in his hands. It was pretty typical - the type of traditional bottle you'd buy as a gift. The dark green, corked bottle was decorated with painted olive branches and was held on the bottom by a wicker cup. It was the cup that caught Brian's attention. From one of the broken bottles he could see that the bottle ended short, and didn't go all the way down to the bottom of the wicker.

He yanked the cup off the bottom of the bottle and nearly jumped when something fell out. The bottle, which had the appearance of being rounded, was flat on the bottom and merely glued to the wicker. What really filled the cup was a small, tightly sealed package of fine white powder.

Brian wasn't naive enough to not know what was probably in the bag, but for his own reassurance he started going through the bottles, checking many of them only to get the same result. He wished Nick was there for the discovery. Nick had been killed because he held the key to what appeared to be an incredibly large drug shipment. This was bigger than they'd thought!

Hearing a noise his head snapped up and he saw shadows approaching him from the other side of the warehouse. Quickly he stuck one of the bags into his pocket and ducked down behind a pile of boxes.

 Brian carefully listened, his ears again filled with the sound of his breathing as he tried to remain undiscovered.

"What the fuck..."

They'd found the crates and the olive oil spilled all over the floor. For a split second Brian panicked, worried that maybe he'd tracked oil on his shoes right over to his hiding spot behind the boxes. He took a chance and quickly poked his head out to check, looking for any shoe prints he may have brought over.

"Go look over there!"

And in a snap he was flush against the wall, breathing quickly. Had they seen him?

It was quiet for a few moments, and he wasn't sure if the two men had left or if they were merely waiting for him to make the first move, first mistake, by exposing himself again. Brian nearly smiled at that thought. He knew that if Nick was aware he'd just been thinking about self exposure he'd never hear the end of it.

"Santino! Get over here, I found something!" a voice yelled and Brian cowered lower, not sure if they were coming to see him or if they'd found something else.

"Holy shit! Oh my God!"

"What's going on over here?" This voice sounded far more authoritative, as if he were the fellow in charge of the operation.

Brian heard the new man's footsteps rushing in the opposite direction of his hiding spot and he breathed a small sigh of relief.

"Santino... isn't that your girlfriend?"

Suddenly Brian's interest was piqued, and he listened to the three of them discuss what they'd found... it was a body.

He had just been out there, and hadn't seen a dead body lying on the ground! You'd think that would be something a person would catch when looking for a decent place to hide.

He thought about what they were saying, and realized that the only mob girlfriend he knew of was Toni. It couldn't possibly be Toni, could it?

~*~

"When I left my house, she was alive," Santino stressed to his superior, still in shock after the discovery of his girlfriend's expired body lying on the floor of the warehouse.

"Is it just me or..." the other man, in the blue jacket, paused as he looked over the corpse, "Does she not look very fresh to you?"

Josh eyed the man sceptically as he crouched near the body on the floor, "What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Well I've seen plenty of dead people. And usually when a person is alive in the morning and dead by afternoon they're not so... juicy."

"What do you mean?" Josh asked, raising an eyebrow, "Wouldn't the "fresh" ones be the... juiciest?"

"No," Blue jacket scoffed, "Can't you smell that?"

"Yeah, but she is dead after all."

"Dead people don't smell instantly, are you sure you're a cop? She's been dead for a while... she's decomposing for crying out loud!"

Santino immediately interrupted the argument, "Look buddy, I was with her this morning. There's no way she was dead! If she was how would she have gotten here?"

Josh was pulling on the ends of his hair at this point, "Why the hell are we standing here arguing about this? How did she get here and who the fuck killed her? Find out! Someone else is obviously here!"