Your Favorite Crime

9. Get In

Tim's ears were ringing, so he barely heard anything else Lucy said.

She put the hit on him? He was confused and unnerved, so he navigated on autopilot to the FBI safe house where Garza welcomed him.

"How did this happen, Bradford?" Garza asked.

"Chen found out I'm a cop," Tim explained.

"Or did you tell her?" Angela asked as she barged in from the back door. "Grey told me everything."

"What am I missing here?" Garza asked.

"Can I talk to Tim for a second?" Angela asked, casting her eyes towards the FBI Agent.

Garza nodded and went upstairs to make a call to check in with his team.

"So, you fell in love with a criminal and didn't tell me?" Angela asked inelegantly.

His best friend is definitely not tactful. "L-Lucy is an ALLEGED criminal," he corrected and crossed his arms defensively.

"Whatever. You told her you're a cop, and then she put a hit out on you. Seriously, what did you expect when you told her the truth?"

"I thought she could accept that I'm more than my job. I want to quit being a cop if it means being with her."

She laughed mirthlessly. "So, you love a woman and want to change your whole life for her, and she wants you dead?"

"It's not like that...before I was greenlit, we were good. Really good. I mean, she makes me happy, and I know that I make her happy, too. I just know it. Lucy loves me."

"She has a funny way of showing it."

Before Tim could reply, he heard Garza bound down the stairs, "Two cars are approaching. We gotta get out of here through the secret tunnel right now."

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Grey had no idea there were so many different safe houses in the greater Los Angeles area until Tim was on the run and had to be moved pretty much every single day for two and a half weeks.

"We're putting you in witness protection," Grey reported at the 15th safe house.

"I'm not going into witness protection," Tim refused.

"The Marshals can safely relocate you far enough away that your life won't be in danger anymore. Besides, you'll be a witness when we press charges against Lucy Chen," Wes explained.

"Press charges?" Tim questioned.

"She put a hit out on a police officer. Of course the D.A.'s Office wants her to answer for that," Wes replied.

"But, there's no proof Lucy did it. The bounty was posted on the dark web with zero traceability. You can't make anything stick," Tim pointed out. He had yet to tell anyone that Lucy had admitted to him that she had in fact greenlit him. After being so careful for so long, he had wondered why she would blatantly state that she committed a crime to a man that she knew was a cop. It seemed sloppy and unlike her.

"It's circumstantial, but Al Capone went away for tax evasion. If we can't get her for multiple counts of robbery, we can get her on this."

"Which hinges on me testifying against her. I would have to say that I admitted to her that I'm a cop and in retaliation, she put a bounty on my head."

"Exactly. We think we can make a compelling case even if you're the only one that takes the stand," Wes said confidently.

Tim worried at his lip. As frustrated as he was that he was on the run from countless armed people trying to kill him for 500 million dollars, he did not want to see Lucy go to prison.