CHAPTER 30

Quinn walked out from her hearing about Davies' and Veld's shootings and Luke Barton immediately walked up to her.

"Hey, how'd it go in there? Did you tell them all how heroic I am, saving you and your partner's life?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I told them." She replied, sarcastically. "It didn't cross my mind to tell them that I think Davies pdi you to break him out, and then you killed him when you thought we were too close."

"Do I look worried?" Luke smirked.

"You look guilty." Quinn spat.

"Well, in that case, I might need to get myself a good lawyer, huh? Hey, do you think you can get me a sit-down with your sexy sister? I heard she's very expensive by the hour but worth it."

Quinn really wanted to punch him in the face at this point but she forced herself to stay calm.

"You know, I can't help but think about how a former sheriff's deputy is gonna fare in prison." She giggled. "What kind of bonds you're gonna have with your fellow inmates. You'll let me know."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"Technically, what he said wasn't a threat." Santana remarked. That night, the two of them were sitting and drinking wine and Quinn was telling her friend about what happened earlier.

"Wait, are you his attorney?" Quinn asked. "I don't care how you parse it, he invoked your name and that's not okay."

"I'm just saying…"

"No, no, no, stop it. You're fearless, I get it. I love it. Quite frankly, it's a little hot. But these guys aren't just corrupt cops. They're killers."

"And you will catch them. I'm not worried, Q." Santana said, gently. "So how's everything else, other than it?"

"It's good." Quinn replied. "Good. Good. It's good. Pretty good. Good."

"One more and I'll believe you." Santana laughed. "So what's up?"

Quinn sighed.

"I mean, I'm not lying. Everything is good. It's just… recently, I've kinda been starting to to have feelings for someone… romantically."

Santana clapped her hands together excitedly. Quinn hadn't shown interest in a guy since her divorce a year ago.

"Ooh, who?" Santana asked.

"Ff-f-f-f-f-n." Quinn inaudibly murmured.

"Who?"

"Finn." Quinn murmured a bit louder. Santana's eyes widened.

"Wow. That's huge!" Santana exclaimed. "Look, just… be careful. He's not in a great place emotionally and the last thing we want is for him to get scared off and move."

"That's just it. He's in a much better place now than I've ever seen him." Quinn replied. "He's sober, he's happier and he's just an all-round much better guy to be around and in case you haven't noticed, he's pretty hot too."

Suddenly, the doorbell rang and Quinn and Santana looked at each other, confused. It was pretty late at night for anyone to be stopping by. The two of them walked to the door together and opened it to see Kurt standing there.

"Hi, Quinn." He said. He looked extremely nervous. Quinn raised an eyebrow.

"Hmm. I would have thought it'd be Finn. He usually intrudes on my evening."

"We need to talk." Kurt murmured.

"Let's go to my office." Santana nodded, assuming that he was talking to her. Kurt shook his head.

"No, Quinn and I need to talk."

Santana raised an eyebrow.

"As your lawyer, I would strongly advise you against that." Santana murmured.

"As your lawyer?" Quinn stated, extremely confused. "You hired my sister?"

"Remember Azimio Adams…"

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"You framed a guy for murder?!" Quinn shouted.

"She was ten years old, Quinn!" Kurt responded. "He had to go away."

"I don't disagree. But by framing him? I would have turned your ass in!"

"I know! And then Azimio would have walked."

"NO! I would have found another way to get him, legally!" She spat. "How many others were there? HOW MANY TIMES DID YOU BREAK THE LAW TO ENFORCE IT?!"

"He was the only one." Kurt snapped.

"Oh, he was the only one? How noble." Quinn spat. "And you're only telling me this now, why? Because you just got blackmailed?"

"I'm gonna resign, Quinn." Kurt stated. Quinn's eyes widened.

"Damn, that actually is noble." She murmured, taken aback. "But if you think this is the time when I'm gonna say, 'hey, don't do it, man, it's not worth it,' you're wrong."

"I'm not asking for that." Kurt replied. "And I'm not asking you to forgive me."

"And I appreciate that because I can't."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Luke Barton was taking the trash when he noticed a beat-down pickup truck parked outside his house. Luke smirked.

"Detective Riggs. Any reason you're waiting outside my house?" He asked, walking over to Finn's window.

"Well, there was a string of burglaries in the area, and I just wanted to make sure that, you know, you and your family were safe."

"Aren't you the perfect gentlemen?"

"Well, just returning the favor, really. You know, after you showed an interest in the Fabrays. His sister in particular, I understand."

"Boy, you LAPD guys are so sensitive." He chuckled. "Not so surprising coming from Fabray, but from what I understand, you've got a thicker skin. You're not such a… team player over there. Isn't that right?"

"Well, thing is… the Fabrays are my team."

"Like your foster family?" Barton smirked. "'Cause you don't have one of your own?"

"Well now you're just trying to charm me." Finn chuckled.

"Look at you, camped outside of my house, doing this, trying to scare me a little. You know, if I think about it, I'd say that you and I, we're not that different."

"Well, you know, there is that one thing that's different. I ain't ever killed a cop. Well, not yet anyway." Finn said, not losing his cheery tone and looking Barton right in the eye as he threatened him. He then drove away into the night.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The next morning, after Quinn had time to mull over what had happened the day before, she stormed downstairs to see Santana working on her laptop.

"You really thought it was a good idea to represent him? My former partner, current captain."

"Good morning, Q." Santana chuckled. "And I did. He's your friend too and he needed my help."

"What he needs is a different lawyer. And considering his crime, the shadier, the better."

"So you never had to bend the rules?" Santana snapped.

"Bend the rules, yeah. Frame a man? Not even close!"

"Azimio? Azimio was a ruthless killer. Who knows how many lives… children's lives… Kurt saved by doing what he did."

"By cheating the system!"

"Oh, come on, Q! We both know the system is far from perfect. Now you are hurting because it's Kurt."

"It's principle." Quinn spat.

"What did you say the other morning?" Santana reminded Quinn. "Huh? 'At the end of the day, you either did it or you didn't do it.' Azimio did it. And he's not even in prison anymore. I checked. Out on compassionate leave. End-stage liver disease."

"So what? At the end of the day, San, Kurt did it too. We have enough cops out there not playing by the rules."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The next morning, Luke drove out of his house to work and as soon as he was a safe distance away, Finn jumped the fence to his house and kicked the door in. He then took out his phone and called 911.

"Hey, I'd like to report a break-in over on 28 Lynwood Place. Yeah, hope you're here in a hurry."

Finn then hung up the phone. That bought him around 10 minutes before the cops came. He started rummaging through every single drawer in the place, looking for any clues. He found what he was looking for just as he heard sirens approaching. He made it out of the house just as the cops pulled up and he slipped away unseen.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"These came from Barton's house?" Quinn asked, disbelievingly. Finn had just handed her a box of .223 ammunition that he had pocketed from Luke's house.

"That's the wrong question to be asking right now, Q. The correct question would be: are those the rounds that killed our ranger?"

"No. We're not doing it this way." Quinn snapped. Finn sighed.

"Okay. How about I return them after we make the arrest?"

"Look, you don't think I want this guy, too? He killed one of our own. But it means nothing unless we can prove that Barton was in possession of the murder weapon."

"Now we can." Tina said, walking over to them. "I checked the bar code. That box of ammo was purchased at the Temecula Gun Show about two months ago, along with four Mini-14 assault rifles. Guess who made the purchase?"

"Luke Barton." Finn and Quinn both said simultaneously.

"No. The L.A Sheriff's boys home."

"Assault weapons for a charity?" Quinn asked, confused.

"Right, except for it wasn't an official department charity. It was a personal charity, founded by your boy."

"Luke Barton." Quinn murmured.

"Let me guess, a large contribution was made to this charity right before Wade Davies' release?" Finn remarked. Tna nodded.

"More proof that Davies hired Barton to bust him out of custody."

Finn stood up.

"All right, let's tell Kurt." He said.

"And then we get a WARRANT." Quinn snapped. "We make a legitimate arrest. We do this by the book."

"You're such a stickler." Finn remarked. The two of them walked into Kurt's office but surprisingly, he wasn't there.

"Anyone seen the captain?" Quinn asked the bullpen.

"He hasn't been here all day." Puck replied.

"All day?" Quinn said, taking out her phone and calling him.

"You think Barton's got something to do with this?" Finn asked. Quinn put down her phone.

"Straight to voicemail. Tina, I need you to get a location on the captain ASAP."

TIna nodded and started typing keys furiously.

"I'm on it, just give me a few minutes."

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Kurt drank shot after shot after shot, sitting in the corner booth of a restaurant and thinking about how his life was pretty much over. Suddenly, a man slipped into the booth opposite him and Kurt looked up to see Reed.

"Looks like you started without me." Reed remarked.

"Yeah, well. Why not, right?" Kurt sighed.

"You know, it seems my request to back off fell on deaf ears." He said. Kurt shrugged.

"I tried to steer my guy away. But your man, Barton, didn't exactly cover his tracks very well."

"Were you really okay with him killing that ranger?" Kurt asked.

"No." Reed snapped. "But it's not like he asked. You know, he's got this thing for frontier justice. But Veld takes the fall for this and no one is the wiser."

"He killed a cop." Kurt stated. "How can you live with that?"

"Look, at this point, Barton is off the reservation. We both have guys under our command like that now, don't we? Guys who like to color outside the line, but who can be very useful. You can try to put them on a short leash on them, but at the end of the day you can't always control what happens."

"It makes me sick." Kurt murmured.

"Scotch helps." Reed responded, chuckling. "And so should the knowledge that your career can continue."

Kurt took a deep breath and sighed.

"You know, not a day goes by that I don't regret what we did to Azimio Adams."

"That's funny. I don't think about it at all." Reed replied. Kurt downed one more shot before stumbling to his feet. "Yeah, go home and sleep it off, Kurt. Tomorrow, wake up and go to work. That's all any of us can do in this city."

Kurt stumbled out of the bar and into his car. As he sat in the front seat, he pulled out his phone and saved the audio recording, providing him with evidence that Barton killed the Ranger. Suddenly, Kurt heard the unmistakable cock of a gun coming from behind him and Luke Barton sat up in the back seat.

"Hello, Captain Hummel." He said.