by LENA DIAZ,
He drew a bracing breath and tried again. “What I’m saying is that Miss Westbrook isn’t simply a witness. And you know it. She’s a part of whatever’s going on in Mystic Glades.”
Drew flattened his palms on the desk. “You do realize that any rent-by-the-hour attorney will get her out within minutes. And they’ll just make us look heavy-handed to the press. Officer Scott told me she’s already contacted a lawyer. Heck, he’s probably already in the interrogation room with her by now. We’re going to have our heads handed to us on a platter.”
Colton rose to his feet. There was only so much he could take, and he’d about reached his limit. “Drew—”
“Don’t call me that. I’m too ticked off to be your friend right now.”
“Fine, Lieutenant Shlafer. But keep in mind that I’ve been deep undercover on this case for months. Rafferty is the closest to a true lead that I’ve gotten. And I don’t know where he is. And now he’s pulled a gun on someone, graduating from burglary to armed robbery. In case you haven’t noticed, this is escalating, fast. Someone’s going to get hurt or killed if I don’t get a jump on this. And right now my only chance is to interrogate and intimidate his guardian angel into spilling the beans on him. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to sit around on my...butt...waiting for something worse to happen. What if I hadn’t been on that boat? What if that kid hadn’t gotten scared off? Someone could have been killed.”
A knock sounded on the door.
Drew glared at Colton, letting him know just what he thought of his little speech. “Come in.”
The door opened and one of the uniformed officers stepped in. “Miss Westbrook’s lawyer spoke to the judge and the charges were dropped.”
“Perfect,” Drew muttered. “Now we look even more inept. All right. Put the paperwork through to release her.”
“Already done.”
Drew gave Colton a hard look. “At least someone around here is efficient and on the ball.”
Colton gave him the best comeback he could think of. He smiled.
Drew narrowed his eyes.
“Lieutenant?” the officer at the door called out again.
“What?” Drew yelled, then reddened. He cleared his throat. “Sorry. What else can I help you with?”
“Miss Westbrook wants to speak to you before she leaves.”
“Well, of course she does. And I’ll just bet her lawyer tags along with her, so they can tell us together that they’re suing for false arrest.”
Colton couldn’t help it. He rolled his eyes.
Drew jabbed his finger in the air, pointing at him. “As for you, Detective. I’m going to—”
“Sir,” the officer called out again. “Miss Westbrook is here, right now, to see you.”
“All right, all right.” Drew pulled on his suit jacket with quick, jerky movements. “Send her in.”
The officer moved back and Silver stepped through the doorway.
Colton and Drew rose to their feet just as two men in dark suits stepped in behind Silver.
“She needed two lawyers?” Colton grumbled beneath his breath.
He must not have been as quiet as he’d thought, because one of the men gave him a sharp look.
“No,” the man said, directing his comment to Colton. “She only has one lawyer—Mr. Stanton.” He waved toward the other man.
“Then who are you?” Colton asked.
“He’s my boss,” Silver said, drawing everyone’s attention back to her. “Lieutenant Shlafer, Detective Graham, meet Special Agent Eduardo Garcia. DEA.”
* * *
EVERYONE STARTED TALKING at once.
Silver tried to intervene, but her boss, Colton’s boss, and even the lawyer her boss had brought with him to supposedly ensure cooperation and make sure any charges against her were dropped, were all so busy arguing with one another that she couldn’t get their attention.
“I think this is where the art of a stealthy retreat comes in,” Colton whispered as he passed by her on his way to the door. He held it open in invitation.
After casting another irritated look at the other men who were steadfastly ignoring her, even though this whole situation was about her, she followed Colton into the squad room.
He led her to an empty desk well away from the few desks that still had detectives on phones or typing up reports. Most of the room was deserted, probably because it was well after seven in the evening and everyone else had gone home to their families.
Since she’d been sitting for over two hours—counting the trip from Mystic Glades, handcuffed, in Colton’s car—she turned down his offer of a seat and chose instead to lean back against the desk.
He joined her, leaning back beside her, arms crossed and his long legs spread out in front of him. They both stared at the far wall for a minute, a depressing gray decorated with an even more depressing collection of plaques. Above them were two simple, but poignant words. Our Fallen. She shivered and rubbed her hands up and down her arms.
“So,” Colton finally said. “DEA, huh?”
“Yep.”
“How long?”
“Eight years. What about you?”
He thumped his fingers against the edge of the desk. “About the same, I reckon, come October.”
The silence stretched out between them again. Or, rather, it would have been silent if it weren’t for the thankfully muted sound of yelling coming through the walls of Lieutenant Shlafer’s office behind them. It sounded like a war going on.
“Don’t let it bother you,” Colton said, jerking his head toward the office. “They’re probably trying to figure out whose is bigger.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
He sighed. “Apparently not. I was just trying to cut through some of the tension in here. You want a soda or something?”
She shook her head. “No, but feel free to leave. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Yeah. I kind of figured that once you introduced your boss. DEA, huh? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was undercover, just like you.”
“But after you found out that I was a cop, you should have told me.”
“Really? Just like that, I should have trusted you?”
“Of course.”
She glanced around the room to make sure no one was paying them any attention before she replied, “Tell me, Detective.”
“Call me Colton. I’ve been calling you Silver all this time. The least you can do is use my first name, too, so I don’t feel like quite as much of an idiot for being in the dark.”
She couldn’t help smiling at that. He was obviously feeling put out that he hadn’t guessed she was in law enforcement. “All right. Colton. If you’d spent months deep undercover and you met an undercover police officer who could blow your cover if he didn’t believe your story, would you have leveled with him and risked everything?”
“No way.”
“Thank you.”
He frowned. “Okay, so you moved to Mystic Glades, what, a few months ago?”
“Six.”
“Only six?”
“Yep. Why does that surprise you?”
He tapped the desk again. “In that bar, you seemed pretty cozy with everyone, like you belonged there. And you knew all about that Freddie woman and the guy she liked.”
“Labron. And that’s because I do belong there. It’s where I grew up. I left to go to college, and then to start my career. Mostly I worked out of the office down in the Keys. But I always went back every summer, kept up on everything going on. Since I couldn’t risk word getting out that I was DEA since I mostly work undercover, I told everyone I paid the bills with my art. They always knew me as that flighty daydreamer who’d rather paint than go shoe shopping anyway.” She shrugged. “The ruse worked. And when tourism finally came to Mystic Glades, I thought it was a sign that it was finally time to take all the money I’d saved over the years and chase my dream.”
“The bed-and-breakfast? It’s your dream?”<
br />
She nodded. “I put in notice at my job and hired a contractor to start the work on that plot of land my grandfather had passed down to me.”
“You said you put in notice. Obviously you didn’t end up quitting. What happened?”
“Eddie Rafferty.”
He gave her a curious look. “What do you mean?”
She tried not to let it distract her that his shoulder kept brushing against hers whenever he talked, or that he smelled so clean and masculine—probably his soap. Whether they’d said it out loud or not, the minute he found out that she was a fellow law-enforcement officer, his demeanor toward her had changed. He was now treating her like an equal, a comrade in arms.
And without the hostility bubbling between them, she could finally let her guard down. But that seemed to have been a green light for her hormones, too. Because she kept getting distracted by little things about him—like the sexy rumble of his deep voice in his chest, or the way he’d held the door open for her earlier, or that he was asking her questions instead of making more accusations. He was all good hot cop now. And she was more than relieved to say a permanent goodbye to bad cop.
“Silver? You were going to explain about Rafferty?”
She looked away, focusing on a painting—a poster, really—hanging on another wall, just outside of a conference room. It wasn’t to her taste. The colors were too muted. But she couldn’t seem to pull a coherent thought together when he turned the full attention of those gorgeous baby blues her way.
“Eddie was busing tables at Gators and Taters last summer when I was staying with some friends who run the Moon and Star.”
“Moon and Star? I think I remember that. It’s across the street from Callahan’s?”
She nodded. “Faye Star, well, Faye Young now that she and Jake got married, owns the shop. It’s a mystical kind of thing with potions, fragrances, even some clothing you wouldn’t find anywhere else.” She waved her hand in the air. “Anyway, I was staying in their guest room above the shop while on vacation. When I was having lunch at G&T, I met Eddie. I guess I...noticed a kindred spirit, saw the way others treated him, like he was invisible. Like just because he didn’t have a family, and didn’t fit in, that he wasn’t worthy of their time. So I made time, made the effort to offer him friendship. I even helped him with his homework.”
She could feel his stare, but she didn’t turn to face him.
“Kindred spirit,” he said. “Because you focus so much on your art? Because people can’t understand your world so they don’t go out of their way to welcome you into their circles?”
This time, she did look at him. “Most people would say I’m unfocused.”
“They’d be wrong. I’ve always thought of artists as having a sixth sense, the ability to see another dimension, another plane of existence that others don’t. That ability, to see, really see, and to find joy in everything and everyone around you is your superpower, while the rest of us are handicapped.”
She blinked back the unexpected hot burn of tears at the backs of her eyes. “What an amazing thing to say.”
“Yeah, well.” He cleared his throat, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “Just calling it like I see it.”
“You really do have a sister who’s an artist, don’t you?”
“Yep.”
“And she lives in Atlanta?”
“Right again. I’m not the one who told a passel of lies since meeting you. Most of what I said was the truth.”
“Ouch.” Those tears weren’t burning to be shed anymore.
He lightly bumped her shoulder with his in a show of camaraderie. “No worries. I get it. I’d have done the same thing. To some extent.”
A moment of awkward silence passed between them. She didn’t need him to tell her exactly how she’d bungled her job. She was well aware of that.
“Finish your story,” he said. “How did meeting Eddie change your plans to quit the DEA?”
“I saw him arguing at the edge of the woods with a couple of other guys—one of his foster brothers—Charlie Tate—who’s Eddie’s age, and Ron Dukes, a troublemaker in his midtwenties who has no business hanging out with high school kids. And their argument didn’t strike me as typical, either. They were far too serious, and they kept glancing around, like they were looking for someone, or maybe worried that someone might see them. A few seconds later, Ron led the other two of them into the woods.”
He stiffened beside her. “You followed them?”
“I did.”
“Even though your instincts told you that something was off?”
She crossed her arms. “It’s not like I was out of my element. I know every inch of Mystic Glades. And I’m an officer of the law. It’s my job to investigate things that don’t look right.”
“Tell me you at least had your sidearm.”
“Are you going to let me finish this or not?”
He crossed his arms in an echo of her pose and gave her a curt nod.
“Okay, no, I didn’t have my gun with me. But it was because I was on vacation, in my hometown. I didn’t have any reason to expect something like that would happen.”
“Something like what, exactly?”
“I followed Ron, Charlie and Eddie about a mile in. Then Ron pulled a brick of cocaine out of a hollowed-out tree.”
He cursed beneath his breath.
“No one got hurt,” she said, knowing he was still upset that she hadn’t had her gun with her that day. “I knew a bad scene when I saw it. I didn’t confront any of them. Instead, I backtracked to town and then hightailed it out of the Glades so I could call my boss.”
“You should always, always, have your sidearm. Hell, I even take mine into the bathroom. And I sleep with it under my pillow. Even when I’m undercover I carry a gun. Hell, especially undercover. You should, too.”
“Yeah, well. Maybe I just suck at being a cop.” She echoed his earlier words back at him.
“No. You don’t suck at being a cop. You’re just too close to this, because you know Eddie, and Mystic Glades is your hometown. Your boss thought that would be an asset after you told him about that kilo, didn’t he?” He didn’t wait for her response. “He sent you in there to track down the supply of drugs. And then, what, you discovered Eddie was in deeper than you thought? And you found out he was involved in the burglary ring, too?”
She pursed her lips and stared at the opposite wall again.
“You don’t have to answer,” he said. “I can guess the rest, based on my own observations from earlier today. Instead of hauling Eddie in and getting him to roll on his friends, you covered for him and tried to figure out how to keep him out of jail and still catch the bad guys. But that’s where you went wrong. Because Eddie is one of those bad guys. You let your friendship with him cloud your judgment. That’s why you lied to me today about the holdup.”
The more he spoke, the angrier he sounded. It was as if all the pieces were falling into place and destroying any fellow law-enforcement empathy he’d had for her just moments ago.
She didn’t try to defend herself. What would be the point? Everything he was saying was true. She’d screwed up.
“You weren’t worried that I’d blow your cover like you probably told your boss,” Colton continued, sounding disgusted. “You were worried that if you told me the truth, I’d tell you that you’re too close to this. You had every opportunity to come clean. When the other officers interviewed you outside Mystic Glades, where we all had cell phone coverage and could have verified your story with one call to the DEA, you continued to lie. And the reason that you lied wasn’t so you could protect your case. The reason you lied was to protect Eddie Rafferty. Everything that you’ve done was to keep me from hauling that kid to jail. Admit it.”
She stared into a pair of stormy blue eyes that had darkened with anger, not sure what to say, or even whether she should say anything. After experiencing his support, and his thoughtful insight into something she’d struggled with all her life—the wa
y she viewed the world through her artist’s lens—she found it so much worse now to be the object of such hostility from him. As if she’d discovered a friend, or something...deeper, only to have it whisked away.
“Is all of that true, Agent Westbrook?” a voice demanded.
Her heart stuttered in her chest as she turned to see her boss standing beside a stunned-looking Lieutenant Shlafer. There could be no doubt. They’d heard every word, every accusation that Colton had just made. But what made her humiliation worse was that Colton had to have known they were standing there. He’d been half turned toward her, and her back had been to Shlafer’s office. He’d known they were there, the whole time, and he’d kept going, spouting off things that could very well destroy her career.
“Well?” Garcia demanded, his voice so sharp it could have cut glass.
She pushed away from the desk and stood ramrod straight, refusing to look at Colton. She fervently hoped that after today, she’d never have to see him again.
“I was trying to figure out the best way to extricate Rafferty from the trouble he was in, yes. But, as we previously discussed, I was also using him and his contacts to discover who was heading up the drug-running operation, and how they were bringing the drugs in and out of the Everglades.”
“Conference. Now.” Garcia whirled around and marched back toward Shlafer’s office.
Colton raised his hand toward her, regret mirrored in the tiny lines of tension around the corners of his eyes. “Silver, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
She pushed his hand away and straightened her shoulders. “My name is Special Agent Westbrook.” After making a wide berth around him, she followed her boss into the office and shut the door.
* * *
COLTON DROPPED HIS hand to his side, hating that he’d caused that hurt that had flashed across Silver’s face after his tirade. His anger had bled out as soon as he saw that look and realized what he’d done. But he’d been so upset that she’d made so many poor choices, mainly because she could have gotten herself hurt, or worse. As to why the idea of her getting hurt bothered him so much, well, he didn’t even want to go there. It didn’t make sense that he’d care so much, not after knowing her for less than a day.