Initially, the guilt had chewed on her. He’d begged her to return. Said he loved her. But as much as he pleaded, she understood their marriage was over. There were moments, generally after she’d reached the bottom of her fourth or fifth beer, when she could admit she still loved Tyler. But the next morning, when she woke sober and clear-eyed, she realized the decision to leave had been the right one.
Then he’d started following her. Calling her. Sending flowers. Coming by the station. Generosity gave way to desperation. More than anything, she just wanted him to leave her alone. Stop with the late-night calls. Stop sending her e-mails laced with profanity and threats.
Six weeks ago, he’d completely stepped over the line. He’d approached her while she was in the produce aisle of the grocery store. He’d come up behind her as she filled a plastic bag with apples. He’d scared the shit out of her, and she’d dropped the apples, sending them rolling over the tile floor. When she’d told him to back off, he’d threatened to expose her secret. He had no reason to remain loyal if she didn’t. He’d stalked off, leaving her to pick up the bruised fruit. She’d known then what needed to be done. Tyler would bring her career tumbling down. The threats had to be nullified.
Talking to Leah had hit a nerve. They were more alike than she’d ever want to admit. Yes, she was a cop who wasn’t afraid to go balls to the wall when chasing a suspect, but right now, her world, as Leah’s had been, was a house of cards.
She hated using Leah, but, deep in her gut, she believed that one day she would look at her and know in her heart she’d done the woman solid.
One day. If this little game of Russian roulette didn’t backfire. “Damn.”
She signed the evidence log and grinned at the officer. “Cold enough for you out there?”
“I’m not a fan of winter. I dream of floating down the Cumberland in an inner tube and drinking beer.”
“Oh, man, don’t tease me with those images. I think it’ll be July before I thaw.”
He laughed. “Heard about the bust you did. Ray Murphy is a Grade A bad guy. Nice work.”
“I love what I do.”
“It gets noticed.”
“Nice to know.”
She made her way along the rows of file boxes until she found the one she needed. From her purse, she pulled out an envelope full of worn twenties, tens, and fives and tucked it into the familiar file box. She’d sold her wedding bands and all her mother’s jewelry to raise the cash, and though it stung parting with her mother’s pieces, making the box whole, paying back the money she’d borrowed last week, had been a necessary first step. The second, a more critical step, would come tonight.
She closed the box, locked it, and walked toward the officer as if she didn’t have the sword of Damocles hanging over her head. She dug her keys from her purse. “Here’s to inner tubes and beer.”
“Amen.” He rose and nervously tugged on his belt, glancing around to make sure they were alone. “Someone was checking behind you last week.”
She tightened her grip on her keys. “That so?”
He cleared his throat. “I could get busted if anyone knew this came from me.”
Deidre shook her head slowly, wondering why he placed trust so easily. “No one will ever know.”
“Alex Morgan was poking around.”
“The TBI agent.” Leah’s date.
“That’s right.” The officer wrinkled his nose. “Didn’t say a word, just scanned the times you checked in and out of Evidence.”
A knot clenched in her gut, but she smiled as if she were floating down the Cumberland sipping a cold one. “Ah, he’s just on a fishing expedition. He does that from time to time. Likes to keep people guessing. He say anything?”
“Nope. Quiet as a statue. Kinda unnerving.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Sure.”
She waved and left the evidence locker. She got in her car and sat for a long moment as she considered this latest twist. What the hell did Alex Morgan want? He was tenacious when on the scent. Never got emotionally attached. Didn’t care who he pissed off.
She started her car and, instead of driving home, drove in the opposite direction, across the Memorial Bridge toward the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation offices.
A few male officers had said she had big balls, and she’d always taken that as a compliment. Now she hoped she could summon those balls.
At the front window, she found a thin older man with graying hair and thick glasses sitting behind the thick glass reception window. She leaned toward the speaker. “I’m here to see Alex Morgan.”
The man nodded. “I’ll call him down.”
“Thanks.” She moved away toward a bank of chairs. She wasn’t sure what Morgan thought he knew, but she needed to figure it out. He was one sharp son of a bitch, and if he smelled trouble, it was only a matter of time before he dug it up.
She considered sitting on the lobby couch but found she was too wired. The ten-mile run this morning should have taken some of the edge off, but she was juggling too many swords right now.
A door opened and closed, and she glanced up to see Agent Morgan exiting an elevator. A subtle tension snaked up her spine as he approached.
A tall, lean man, who moved with a precision some described as robotic. Every muscle twitch, word, or turn was judiciously chosen and parceled with machinelike efficiency.
Morgan wore his dark hair brushed back off his lean face, accentuating blue eyes that reflected a keen intelligence. Dressed in his dark suit, he had the look of the perfect agent. Crisp. Buttoned up. And a legacy from a family of cops. Poster boy for the TBI, she’d once joked.
No doubt he had no pang of conscience, nor did he worry about what it took to get the job done. His world was black and white, and he didn’t worry if the ends justified the means.
He rarely smiled and could be a humorless son of a bitch. Nice enough when it suited him, he could easily turn ruthless as a snake when the situation demanded. She’d gotten a glimpse of his coldness when he’d arrested a cop three weeks earlier. Officer Jim Fellows had been selling drugs. Alex had accumulated the evidence he’d needed and gone in for the arrest a few days after Christmas. She’d heard that Fellows, just months from retirement, had panicked and taken a swing. Alex had ducked, grabbed the man by the hand, and jerked back his wrist until the cop had dropped to his knees. He’d never raised his voice, never sworn, but he’d brought the hulking man down in front of his peers.
Fellows had not only lost his pension but also faced serious jail time. She shuddered when she thought about a cop caged behind bars. Fellows wasn’t a choirboy but, all in all, he’d been a really good cop. That had to count, right?
Time to grab the bull by the horns. “Agent Morgan.”
His gaze shifted toward her. “Detective Jones. What brings you here?”
“I hear you’ve been asking around about me.”
Most would have reacted to the bold move. There’d have been some tell to tip their hand. Alex’s face only registered mild interest and curiosity. “Who told you that?”
“Doesn’t really matter, does it? I know you’re gunning for me, and I want to know why.”
He cocked his head and looked almost amused. “I’m not gunning for you, Detective. Though I’ve heard you’ve been distracted lately. Forgot to issue a subpoena and missed a qualifying test at the shooting range last week. What’s that about?”
Who the fuck had been talking to Morgan about her? “Minor mistakes happen.”
“Not to you. At least not until about five weeks ago.”
The video cameras recorded a visual image but, if she kept her voice low, the audio wouldn’t pick up. She pressed harder. “I saw you at Rudy’s last night with Leah.”
He didn’t respond.
“She’s a friend of mine.”
Silence.
Last night, when she’d seen them talking at Rudy’s, she hadn’t thought too hard about it. But after the evidence officer’s c
omment, she realized it was a critical piece of the puzzle.
He wasn’t going to jump to any bait. And the more she talked, the deeper a trench she dug. “Like I said, doesn’t matter.” She enunciated each word as if she had a right to be outraged. “My point is simple. Dig all you want, but I’m clean.”
“Good to know.”
She rested her hands on her hips. “I know how you operate.”
“How’s that?”
“You’ve got a thing for tearing into good cops. You’re too afraid to work the streets, so you lurk in the shadows and find problems where none exists so you can justify your existence.”
His dark gaze glinted. “That so?”