You still with me? Great. Sorry for not posting more often - I kinda find it hard to focus lately. But here is another chapter.
"Where are they?" Danny could barely hold his emotions at bay.
All heads lifted up, glancing in his direction from where they were all gathered around the smart table.
"The cops. Where are they?" he repeated as he made his way toward them.
"Downstairs," Junior said.
Danny turned, ready to walk down into the interrogation room, but Lou stood in his way, gesturing for him to stop. He did, a frown lining his face as he did so.
"Hey, you're… upset, man," Lou said. "I get it. I really do, but remember where acting on impulse got you last time?"
Danny growled. "Get out of my way."
"I think Lou's right," Quinn suggested. "You shouldn't go down there. We've got anything we could have from them anyway."
"Those men could've hurt my children." He curled his hands into fists. "Damn it, they almost managed to… to lead them away."
"But they didn't," Junior chimed in. "And they are cooperating… well with a help of a few threats, but still."
Adam snorted. "Those two are easy to persuade. They were shaking like a leaf when they realized they might swap places with Steve. It didn't take long to make them spill the beans."
"So, you got something on them?" Tani asked.
"We do," Junior confirmed, eyeing Danny, who waited in anticipation. "They were both on the take. Swore they have never met the guy who paid them in person and they don't know the name, though. They were paid well to follow the instructions and to be his inside guys for the time being."
"What do my kids and Jamba have to do with this?"
"They said they got a call from this guy, asking them to bring the kids to him," Quinn explained.
"Where was that?"
"They were supposed to get an address by a text, but the man changed his mind and called again to leave them."
"Hoffman?" Danny asked, certain it must've been the smug agent.
Adam shrugged. "Maybe, but we can't rule out someone else."
"Okay, what else do we got?" Danny asked.
"That's all for now," Lou replied. "And I'm pretty sure they'd tell you the same they had told us. If you want to interrogate them yourself, fine. But not until you bring it down a notch."
That was easier said than done at the moment. He wanted to rip apart the men who were a threat to his family. But Lou was right. Maybe he should wait and calm down just a little bit before trying to talk to them.
"What about you?" Junior asked. "How did it go with Lynn's mom?"
Danny exchanged a sideways glance with Tani. "You wanna fill them in?" he asked.
"About the blackmailing or–?"
"Yes," Danny interrupted her quickly, ignoring the curious looks of his friends. "Just that part for now, please."
Tani nodded in understanding. After all, Steve deserved to know about the kid before Danny would share it with the world.
Steve was waiting for Odell in the visiting room, but it took him a moment to recognize the fearless head of Five-0. His face was bruised much worse than it had been the first time he had been here to see him. His right eye was swollen almost completely shut. There were abrasions beneath both eyes and around his nose, and his top lip had been split. The right side of his jaw was inflamed as if he had lost teeth.
He sat down opposite him.
Odell gestured up to Steve's face before he had a chance to speak. "I know," Steve said, the words mumbled around a swollen tongue. "I've made some excellent new friends."
"You look terrible."
"Yeah. But I'm fine."
Odell looked around the room. It wasn't private. The guards at the door were eyeing them with sour watchfulness. He felt vulnerable. "Who did this to you?" he asked.
Steve shook his head and grimaced as he did so. "Doesn't matter."
"The hell it doesn't matter!" Odell said, anger seeping into his voice. "I can't help you if you don't tell me, Steve. I can file a complaint – one look at you is enough evidence. But for that, I need to know what happened."
Odell didn't miss the guard's cold look as he shuffled closer to them. It looked almost as if he was there to make sure Steve wouldn't tell him the truth.
Steve ignored his concern anyway. "How is Danny? And the kids? Are they okay?" he asked.
"Why wouldn't they–"
"Answer the question, please."
"Well, Danny is a bundle of nerves, and he said your son misses you–a lot–but other than that, they're fine."
Steve exhaled in obvious relief. "Good. Thanks."
"Danny wanted to come in to visit you, but they didn't let him in for some reason," Odell said.
Steve wasn't sure it was a bad thing. No matter how much he wanted to talk to his best friend now, considering the situation, it was probably better for both of them if Danny stayed away. "It's okay," he said. "I don't want him to see me like this."
"Steve, you–"
"I've got something to tell you," Steve interrupted him. "Before you say anything else."
"Go ahead."
Steve sucked in a shaky breath. "I know what happened to me. The murder–I can explain it now. I remembered what happened."
"Great. I'm listening."
It took Steve a few long seconds to continue. He eyed the guard at his side for a split second, an almost invisible motion of his eyes, then shifted his gaze back to Odell.
"I… I've done it," he said eventually. "I've killed Lynn."
Danny's phone rang. He picked it up.
"Williams."
It was Lei, from the reception. "Detective, you got a visitor," she said.
"A visitor? Uh, okay. Send him upstairs, please."
His teammates threw him curious glances. He shrugged, not having a clue who was about to walk through the door.
A man in his fifties soon marched into the room and all the eyes locked on him in anticipation.
"Which one of you is Williams?" the man asked.
Danny made his way forward. "That'd be me."
"I have a message for you."
"I'm sorry. Do I know you?"
"You don't. But you want the message or not?"
The man was clearly uncomfortable surrounded by cops.
"What is it?"
"My son, James, he is in federal prison here on the island. And James knows another man there. Aydan. And Aydan says he has a message for you from a prisoner he knows. Steve, I think."
Danny's heart rate sped up. "Go on."
"So, Steve says—whatever it's supposed to mean—that prices of the cocoa aren't what they used to be. And that not everyone likes it."
"That's it?" Lou creased his forehead.
"I know," the man said. "It's weird. But I don't care. I just promised to deliver the message."
"Is there anything else?" Quinn asked.
The man shook his head.
"Thank you," Danny said.
The man shrugged and, without another word, turned and retreated quickly down the hall.
Frozen in place, Danny watched him disappear, his mind working overtime. It wasn't weird at all. Not if the man knew what they knew.
Junior was the one who dared to speak up first. "Do you guys think what I am thinking?"
"I'm pretty sure I am," Tani said. "I mean, cocoa? There's only one reason for Steve to think it's important to share it with us, right?"
She was right. "He wants us to know this has something to do with what had happened in Africa," Danny said. "The cocoa plantations we've shut down."
"But…" Quinn started. "How?"
"Danny, you remember what Diane said about the man who had been blackmailing Lynn?" Tani said.
"A foreign accent. European."
"Well, how about Switzerland?"
"But Iwu is dead. And the Swiss police had arrested Dietrich and Roederer during the merger. We've seen it on our own eyes," Adam chimed in. "Did we miss someone?"
Danny shook his head. "I don't think so."
"I think you're right," Junior said. He typed something on the smart table and in a few seconds, a file appeared on the screen for everyone to see. "According to this, Dietrich is still behind the bars, but Roederer got released the next day after the arrest. His lawyers got him rid of all the charges. There's an article about him. With an interview. He says he wasn't aware of anything shady going on, otherwise he'd have never agreed to merge his company with Dietrich's. His company bankrupted soon after the trial, though."
As Junior was reading, a wave of anger surged through Danny's veins. "Sounds like a reason for revenge to me," he said.
"Yeah, maybe," Lou agreed. "But how does Hoffman fit into all this?"
"If someone like Roederer really is behind this, I wouldn't be surprised if he had Hoffman on his payroll," Adam said.
"But we've run his financials. There was nothing suspicious," Tani opposed.
"Well, then we'll have another look," Lou said.
Danny's phone rang again. It was Odell this time. He answered the call and put it on speaker. "Odell, any good news?"
"I've just left FDC," Odell said, pleasantries forgotten. "But no, there isn't any good news. In fact, pretty much the opposite."
Danny could feel his heart skip a beat. "Is Steve all right?"
"No. Far from it."
"Come on, man, tell us what happened," Lou encouraged the lawyer.
"I don't even know where to start." Odell paused, letting out a loud breath. "Something is going on in there. He's not supposed to be in contact with anyone but guards, yet someone beat him black and blue. I barely recognized him."
"What?" Danny snapped. He caught the brief glances of his friends, worried grimaces on their faces. "How did that happen?"
"He didn't want to say," Odell said, frustration obvious in his voice. "But he said something I didn't want to hear."
"What is that?"
"That he'd killed Lynn."
A tense silence stretched over the room.
"You guys still there?" Odell asked.
"Yeah," Danny said, trying to process the information, battling the sudden heat that washed over him. "What exactly is it he said?"
"What I'm just telling you. That they'd been drinking, got into a fight that got out of hand and he'd strangled her. Basically what they want us to believe."
"He's lying," Junior said. "According to the toxicology HPD had done there was zero alcohol in his blood."
"Of course he's lying. But that report is gone, isn't it?" Odell said. "If he insists on his guilt on his pre-trial hearing, no one will bother with the evidence that suggests otherwise."
Danny's mind was on a whirl. He'd known Steve for twelve years. He was like a brother to him. He knew his friend more than he knew himself. And there was only one reason he would lie like this. "He's protecting someone," he said, taking a pretty certain guess whom. "Someone must've gotten to him."
"Well, that's another thing I wanted to tell you," Odell said. "When I arrived, I had to sign my name into a book of visitors. And I noticed I wasn't the only one seeing Steve today. There was someone else."
Junior lifted his head to look up at Danny. "They didn't let you in," he said.
Danny shook his head. "No, they told me to wait till the visiting hours on Friday, so I doubt this person was a usual visitor," he confirmed. "Odell, do you remember the name?"
"I think… Marco, or… no, Marcus. Marcus Cooper. Any idea who that is?"
"Probably a fake name," Quinn said. "But we'll find out."
"Did you ask Steve about this guy?" Danny asked.
"Of course I did. He denied having seen anyone but me. Said it must've been a mistake or something."
"That's great. What the hell is he doing?" Lou snarled. "How are we supposed to help him if he doesn't let us?"
Rubbing his face in frustration, Danny spoke up again. "All right, so Steve lies to Odell about the murder, yet he sends us a message through a stranger. He must have a reason."
"Maybe he wants them to think he's given up and plays according to their rules," Junior said. "Maybe he thinks it's safer to send a message like that than say something out loud when there's someone listening."
"What message?" Odell asked.
"A little hint," Danny explained. "I think he just told us who's behind this."
"That's great news. Now we just need to prove it, right?"
"Right."
"So what are we gonna do now?" Odell asked.
"Now we'll get to the bottom of this, and get Steve out before it's too late," Danny said, determined to do so no matter what.
After all, he had a promise to keep. A promise he had to keep whatever it took, otherwise not only he would lose a brother, but two little kids would lose their only living parent at the same time. There was no way he'd allow to let that happen.
"Better hurry up," Odell said. "I don't think he will make it till the trial like this."
"Doesn't matter. Even if he did, it wouldn't be fair," Quinn said. "It's all fixed."
Danny couldn't agree more. Just an image of his best friend being locked up and hurt made him sick. Especially such a short time after he'd been tortured nearly to death just a few months ago. His wounds have barely healed up and now this. If they didn't get Steve out soon, he would die behind the bars, sooner or later.
"Thanks for the help, Odell." Danny's expression hardened as he said his goodbyes and ended the call. "All right, back to work," he said. "We don't have time to lose."
Danny's phone rang again just seconds after he ended the call. He glanced down at the screen and his gut twisted.
"Who's that?" Lou asked, probably noticing Danny's frustration.
"The Governor."
*to be continued*
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