Rake (Wolfes of Manhattan 4)

“Good enough.” Rock glanced down at his notes. “Nieves Romero. She still hasn’t answered my calls, so I’m going to have someone in Montana go in.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Just someone I know who can get things done quickly. He’ll scare her into telling the truth.”

Riley’s lips trembled. “I don’t want anyone else to be hurt.”

“He won’t hurt her,” Rock said. “Just scare her a little. Look, sis, either we go down or someone else does. I’m all for it being the guilty party.”

Riley nodded. “You’re right.”

“I’m with you too,” I said to Rock. “That little bitch got her hands in this because she thought she and her sister could make a buck. Maybe they did. I don’t rightly give a shit. But if she knows something, she has to come clean. All our lives depend on it.”

Charlie’s phone buzzed on the table. She glanced down. “Great news. Detective Morgan has arrived.”

“I suppose we should be grateful he’s not dragging us all down to the station,” Lacey said.

“Are you kidding?” Rock guffawed sarcastically. “Free donuts here. Bagels too.”

“Christ.” I raked my hands through my hair.

Charlie stood. “I’ll go get him. I doubt he’ll go for questioning us together in here, but we can hope.”

“He’ll never do that,” Lacey said. “He can’t risk us communicating with each other in nonverbal ways.”

“No, he won’t,” I agreed. “But I will be in the room when he talks to Zee.”

“Zee isn’t a suspect—not yet, anyway—so he shouldn’t have an issue.”

“As soon as he hears her story, though…” Riley bit her lip nervously.

Lacey shook her head. “We’ve already gotten the flight logs. She performed the day before and the day after the murder. If she wasn’t on any flight, she couldn’t have done it.”

Although this wasn’t surprising news, a cement block seemed to float off my shoulders.

Zee was safe.

She wouldn’t be arrested or even implicated.

Thank God.

But fuck.

I cared way more than I thought I did.

I knew I cared, but now?

I was in love.

Fucking in love with a woman whose life my father had tried to destroy.

God help me.

31

Zee

I felt…useless.

I wanted to do something. Something to help Reid. Something more than just tell the story of what I’d been through long ago at his father’s hands.

The priest’s hands.

There were others there too, but I didn’t recall any of them chasing me. Were they chasing others? I tried to remember, but I couldn’t. I’d been focused only on one thing.

Survival.

Funny, how the mind works. The instinct for survival is greater than anyone can imagine. I didn’t know how strong it was…

Until I’d had to face it.

I’d been ready to do anything—absolutely anything—to prolong my life for one more second.

If I’d had a weapon, I’d have used it. I’d have maimed or killed to save my own life.

I’d have spread my legs and let the two of them rape me.

But they weren’t interested in rape. Only in the hunt.

The hunt to kill.

Strange that I hadn’t thought about it in so long. After rehab, I’d gotten therapy and trained myself to compartmentalize.

I’d done pretty well until now.

Now, when my feelings for Reid Wolfe brought it all together in my mind. He was Derek Wolfe’s son, which blew the compartmentalizing thing into outer space.

It just wasn’t possible anymore.

Yet I couldn’t bring myself to feel too sad about that. I wouldn’t trade my time with Reid for anything. It was so special, and I wanted it to last as long as it could, which wouldn’t be long.

Once this murder was solved, he and I would never cross paths again.

I kept to myself, despite having four roommates. I was closer to Mo than the other two, but though Mo shared some deep stuff with me, I’d never reciprocated. I was happy to be there for her, but I never felt the need to divulge anything.

I didn’t have a lot to share, other than my story, and until now, I’d never shared that with anyone. Not even my therapist. She didn’t know the whole truth.

I needed to share now, though, and with someone other than this detective.

I wanted to vent.

To explode.

But who could I trust?

When I was younger, I talked to a pastor sometimes. My mother and I weren’t overly religious, and after my first communion at St. Andrew’s in Manhattan we never went to that parish again. I went to a protestant church with a neighbor every now and then and talked to the pastor there. He used to say the Lord’s Prayer with me. I got into the habit of saying it nightly, until I prayed it that fateful day…and then stopped praying altogether.

A pastor would be trustworthy. A pastor should be trustworthy.

But one of my hunters had been a priest. A priest who mocked his collar by wearing it while tormenting another human being.

The priest who gave an innocent little girl her first communion, and ten years later, hunted her.