“No.” She grunted as Oz caught her in the gut.
“I have to do this—”
“And go to jail? How does that help anything?”
Another low, pained sound. Closer to tears this time than anything else, Destin thought. Too close to tears.
“Back up!” Caleb shouted, his voice deep and booming, the authority in it carrying. He might as well have been shouting, “FBI! Freeze!”
At the sound of Caleb’s voice, some of the tension in Destin mounted, climbed. Had the boy gotten away?
Oz’s struggles renewed with a frenzy. Her elbow caught Destin in the cheek and as tears flooded her vision, Oz managed to get away.
Dashing the tears from her eyes, Destin shoved herself to her feet and looked around. They had a crowd, a huge one, but most of them had backed away from Caleb.
And Oz, it seemed.
Probably because Oz had her gun.
Shit.
“This,” Destin muttered, “is a clusterfuck.”
Oz’s hand shook as she stared at the boy Caleb had with him. With one hand gripping the kid’s neck, Caleb had the other hanging ready at his side.
Destin wasn’t fooled by that empty hand. He was holding back because of who he was, where he was. He still carried a badge and it mattered to him.
“Don’t, Oz,” Caleb said quietly. “The cops can sort this out. It’s why they are here.”
She laughed, a jagged, harsh sound. “And they’ve done such a beautiful job of it, haven’t they?”
“Oz…” Destin reached up and touched her boss’s shoulder. “This isn’t your way. You don’t want to do this. Not in front of your daughter. Not like this.”
“My…” She licked her lips and glanced around.
Monica took one shaky step forward. She darted a glance to the boy and that friendly, affable look was gone from his face. She flinched and went white, jerking her gaze back to Oz. “Mom…”
It was, Destin realized, about the only thing that would have gotten through to the woman.
Oz swallowed, the sound audible in the tense silence.
Then, slowly, she nodded and tucked her weapon away. “Have you called the cops?”
The kid in Caleb’s grasp jerked hard. “You can’t fucking call the cops. You can’t…”
Destin walked over to him and leaned in, dropping her voice low as she murmured, “We can. We will. We’re going to. And unless you want your dreams haunted every night for the rest of your life, you’re going to confess what you did, kid. Otherwise…”
She dropped her shields and shoved all the fear she carried inside him, watched as he sagged, screaming and crying, to the ground.
After a few seconds, she knelt beside him. “Do you understand?”
Chapter Thirteen
“Think it will work?”
They watched as the police led him away.
His name was Cory Larson and up until only an hour ago, Monica had thought he was her friend. He’d been the one she called to take her home, because she felt safe with him. They’d been study partners off and on for almost a year. They flirted with each other. She ate lunch and chatted with him all the time.
He’d been the one she called when she had nightmares. Because she trusted him.
And he’d been the one who paid some son-of-a-bitchin’ rent-a-cop to arrange her rape.
When Destin didn’t answer, Caleb bumped her shoulder with his and asked her a second time.
“Will what work?” she asked, frowning.
“What you did, telling him that shit to get him to talk.”
Destin gave him a sly smile. “Oh, I think he’s going to have nightmares anyway. Emotions and the subconscious are a fucked-up thing, Durand, don’t you know that? I went ahead and planted the seeds. Now he has to live with them. But he already gave the police the name of his partner that night. It’s enough to put weight on that one. Hopefully he’ll sing.” Then she shrugged. “If not…?”
They both sighed. If not, there was nothing else they could do. And if it didn’t work, she suspected Oz would find a way to get her own sort of justice. For Cory’s sake, he might be better off hoping he had his day in court. Jail would be kinder than anything Oz might do to him.
The crowd had finally dissipated.
Off to the side, Monica stood with her mother. Oz had her in awkward embrace and the two of them looked like they were trying to talk.
“You realize how much trouble she could have gotten the two of us in,” Caleb said quietly.
Destin nodded. “Yes.”
He skimmed a hand up her back, kept his touch light. And he was relieved when she didn’t back away. Instead she turned toward him and closed the distance between them, reaching up to touch his cheek. “I know what could have happened…and you stood more to lose than I did,” she said, stroking a thumb over his lip. “You need to let Jones know, in case this comes back to bite you.”
“Yeah.” He’d worry about that later. He had other things to worry about now.
Even as he was turning that over in his head and trying to figure it out, Destin said, “You know, I can’t blame her, not really. I like to think I would have been more careful, more in control…but if I had a way to track down somebody who’d assaulted my daughter, I’d have probably been all over that.”
Caleb said nothing. Because he understood as well.
Her gaze flicked his way, and once again, all those words passed between them. Unspoken, but understood.
Her throat worked as she swallowed and then she turned away. “You really think there are things there, don’t you?”
Curving a hand over her nape, he tried to figure out the right way to answer that. Was there a right way? A wrong way? “Do you know how you felt when you looked at the kid and just knew what the answer was? It’s the same way, Destin. The very same way. If you’d look, I think you’d see it. But you’re not ready to go there. You might never be. And that’s fine.” Leaning in, he pressed a kiss to her nape. “But I can understand what she did, because who knows…if I could have found who hurt you, I don’t know what lines I might have crossed.”
Destin’s body shuddered against his. “When it comes to those we care about, I guess we’re always willing to cross certain lines.”
“Care…” He caught her chin in his hand and tipped her head back. “Destin, do you think I’d do it because I care about you? Hell, I care about Oz, but I wouldn’t throw my life away for her. I care about a lot of people…but there’s only one person I’d give up everything for.”
Her lashes flickered.
Then she licked her lips and backed away. “Is this really the place?”
As she built the walls back around her heart, Caleb let his hand fall. With a tight smile, he said, “Perhaps not.”
Maybe there wasn’t going to be a place.
Chapter Fourteen
The hotel room was strangely quiet.
The curtains were open and Destin could see the gentle, golden light of the sunset falling in to paint lovely colors across the otherwise-bland, impersonal room.
“The police have my information,” Caleb said as he finished organizing the rest of the files. “They’ll contact me in D.C. if they need me.”
Destin nodded.
Something’s missing…
She still felt like some crucial piece of an important puzzle was missing. It wasn’t the case. When the police had gone to arrest the rent-a-cop, he’d refused to let them in. Then they’d had to bust the door down when they heard a gunshot. The son of a bitch had shot himself in the head with a Desert Eagle .357. That was going to be a fun cleanup job.
The good news was that he’d kept a journal documenting his “jobs”.