Ramsey Miller’s gaze left the road. His silent scrutiny sent her insides trembling.
Face your fears.
“I respect most of the cops I work with, male and female. And the men and women who serve who I don’t know, as well,” she said.
There was no fear attached to either statement.
“I have faith in my accountant, who is male. And in most other men I meet on a professional basis, unless they prove that they aren’t trustworthy.”
Good common sense. Normal. No fear there.
The jail complex was fifteen miles ahead. Wakerby had already been notified of the meeting. He knew she was almost there. He knew that, shortly, he would be alone with her.
He didn’t know that she had backup. That Ramsey Miller would be on the other side of the glass.
“I assume you’re going somewhere with this?” Ramsey asked, still watching her, and she realized that she’d been silent for a while.
“Personally, I don’t have time for men,” she said, blurting again. “It’s not that I don’t like men, or have a thing against men, I just don’t have time.”
“Okay.”
Twelve miles until the jail complex.
Fear.
“No, that’s not completely right.” Frowning, Lucy swiped back her hair, welcoming the second’s worth of cool air to her heated forehead.
She couldn’t rely on Ramsey to help her with Sloan Wakerby. Not like this…
“I…don’t…trust men.” The words were damning. Ugly. Cold. “Not in my personal life.”
Her companion’s attention switched back to the world outside the car.
“It’s okay, Lucy.”
“What is?” Where? She needed something to be okay.
“You have no worries where I’m concerned.”
She glanced his way. He glanced hers.
And she knew that he was one hundred percent completely wrong.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
R amsey was alone in the viewing room, with the exception of one officer at the door behind him who was also watching the proceedings between Lucy Hayes and Sloan Wakerby. Another guard stood outside the door that Lucy had just passed through.
Foregoing the row of hard-backed seats, Ramsey stood at the window, holding in both hands the portfolio he’d brought in with him as Lucy got a verbal agreement from Sloan Wakerby that he’d agreed to speak with her without the presence of an attorney.
At the prisoner’s acquiescence, she proceeded to nod at the guard who closed the door, leaving her alone with the man who’d raped her mother.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Wakerby.” Her tone told all witnesses to the conversation that she didn’t think there was anything nice about the man seated, hands cuffed behind his back, at the table she stood before. It also conveyed, quite clearly, that she was not the least bit intimidated by the man who’d brutalized her mother and abducted her older sister.
Not that Wakerby had any idea who Lucy was, other than a cop involved in his case.
Wakerby’s grin was there, but not as apparent as it had been the first time Ramsey had had the displeasure of meeting the sorry excuse for a human being.
The fifty-five-year-old was also sporting a fairly recent bruise over his right eye.