The detective’s gaze, wary and a bit defensive, traveled between Ben and Connor. “Anything you two want to tell me?”
Ben had loads of questions, and once he’d finished sizing the detective up, he might ask a few. Until then, he could only go on what he could see. Fortysomething and smooth. Maybe a bit too slick. If this Glenn had once been a beat cop, those days were long behind him. He looked more like television’s idea of a detective. Dress pants and a gold watch. Made Ben wonder what kind of car he drove.
He made a mental note to have Joel run a check. “Like what?”
“I’ve been on the job for three months and despite your business’s reputation and yours—” the detective shot Ben a quick look “—I’ve never met any of you until tonight, and now I’ve seen you twice in a few hours.”
Connor screwed up his lips. “Weird how life works.”
“Suspect,” the detective said. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”
Something they had in common. Neither did Ben. “They happen.”
“I’m going to need statements from everyone in the house. They answered some questions, but we’re not done here.”
If the guy planned to make his career on this case, Ben vowed to shut it down. He already had reporters looking to him for the next headline and former NCIS friends who wouldn’t take his calls. He vacillated between being invisible and being infamous, and he didn’t like either extreme.
If it weren’t for Corcoran, he’d totally lose it. Connor had taken him in when the NCIS case ended and Lara no longer had to look over her shoulder for danger.
The whole team knew the story about how his boss had turned out to be a killer and a liar, but none of the guys put that on Ben. He’d worried they would see his choice to testify against his boss as a breach of office loyalty and not trust him to back them up. But they’d all made clear their support and given him to understand that they would have played it the same way.
Loyalty was not the same as sanctioning corruption. They got that. It was a shame his dad, the admiral, saw it differently.
But there was nothing Ben could do about the divide in his family tonight. The immediate goal was to figure out if the attacks now related to his decisions back then.
And he would ferret it all out but he needed some breathing room away from this detective to do it. “This was a home-invasion attempt. Very straightforward.”
The detective folded his arms in front of him. “I’m beginning to wonder if any dealing with you is going to be that simple.”
Ben had to give him that one. “Probably not.” Since the distrust already ran pretty high, Ben decided they might as well add to it. “Did we mention there’s a guy in the garage?”
The detective’s head shifted forward. “Excuse me?”
“I’m sure I told the officers,” Connor said.
Ben would bet money he hadn’t. Delay was the only way to question the attacker without interference.
Corcoran ran under the radar. Part of their success relied upon being able to get in and out of situations without bureaucratic red tape. Not that the few minutes of questioning helped. The guy was not talking.
“One of the attackers survived.” And Ben was starting to regret that. “So far.”
If possible, the detective’s mouth dropped even farther into a flat line. “We’re going to have a talk about this.”
“What?” Connor asked.
“Your team’s decision making and protocol and how private companies aren’t equal to law enforcement or immune from the law.”
There was a time when Ben had bought into that kind of argument. Then he had stood on the wrong side of one of the “good guys” and realized the line between right and wrong needed to shift around sometimes.
“Your choice—a lecture or an interrogation,” he said to the detective.
“I plan to do both.”
Ben blew out a long breath. “Lucky us.”
* * *
IT WAS WELL AFTER two in the morning before Jocelyn saw Ben again. She’d sewn him up and insisted he rest. Naturally, he went outside. Headed right for that garage and the man tied up out there. The only thing that kept Jocelyn from crawling out of her skin as she waited was seeing that police detective come out with Ben on one side and the bound man on the other.
That was twenty minutes ago. She still hadn’t heard his footsteps on the stairs. And she listened for them. Kept her door open, careful not to wake Lara and Davis down the hall.
She paced the space between the chest of drawers and the end of the bed. Much more of this and she’d wear a hole right in the pretty cream-colored carpet.