“Instinct. You might blame yourself, but you didn’t do it. Am I right?”
“You don’t understand. She was in my protection.”
“When you were working for the Detroit PD?”
“Yeah. She was a witness in a drug hit. Wrong place, wrong time. She had nothing to do with any of it. She agreed to testify, disagreed with protection of any kind.” His focus turned inward, and for a moment a ghost of a smile crossed his lips. It was bittersweet and tugged at Scottie’s heart. “She was a pretty self-reliant type,” he said. “Didn’t need anyone.”
“What happened?”
“They killed her little brother.” His expression turned to stone. “She agreed to protection then. She got her mother and her sister out of town. She stayed to testify. We were really shorthanded, and I ended up getting the baby-sitting assignment. It was my case and I was pretty upset, I could see the whole thing going down the toilet because she was too stubborn to stay safe.”
“So you were more than happy to take the additional job.”
“Sure was. We, uh, didn’t get along real well, so I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it. I just wanted her on that stand.”
Scottie suppressed her smile. He was getting more uncomfortable by the moment, but not so much by the outcome of the story, which she could pretty well predict at this point. He was fidgeting because he was embarrassed.
“It’s not a crime to fall in love, you know,” she said, letting him off the hook.
He went stone still. “It is when you let your emotions cloud your judgment.” When he looked at her this time, his eyes were so cold and empty, she shivered. “I got her killed as surely as if I’d held the gun to her head myself.”
“She was a grown woman. She knew her life was in jeopardy. If she took a stupid risk and got herself nailed, you can’t hold yourself responsible.”
“The only stupid risk she took was falling in love with me. I knew my objectivity was shot, and I didn’t call for a replacement. It was three days before she was scheduled to testify. We were in a safe house, and we got kind of, uh, involved. I got a call to move her. I thought she was safer with me.” He looked her cold in the eyes. The emptiness she saw there chilled her. “She wasn’t. By the time I realized how far wrong the situation had gone, she was dead and I was in intensive care.” Hollow-eyed, he asked, “So you tell me. Who killed her?”
“You must have had a pretty good reason for not moving her.” Scottie saw the argument coming and jumped defensively, not giving him a chance. “No, I don’t buy the sex angle. You two could have been together whenever, wherever. There was another reason.”
Logan looked away, then down at his hands. They were clenched in white-knuckled fists, the only outward clue to how deeply his emotions still ran.
“There was, wasn’t there.” It was a statement. His silence had answered the question.
After a moment, he said, “I was pretty sure I knew who the leak was, and I thought he was part of the team that I would have handed her over to. When he contacted me, that confirmed it. He wasn’t the signal man. I knew it was a setup.”
“So she was dead either way.”
“No dammit!” he exploded. “I shouldn’t have stayed where I was either. I should have gotten the hell out and gone on the run.”
“Gone renegade? That’s never a safe bet.”
“That’s what I thought. I didn’t think he’d make a move on the safe house we were in. No time to set it up, and the team moving us didn’t know where they were contacting, just who. I was wrong. He wasn’t working alone. I was very careful, vetting everyone else out. I’d eliminated everyone but him. I never even suspected the other two. When I didn’t move her, they contacted Renaldo’s guys and it went down that night.”
“You were lucky to survive.”
The look he gave her made it clear he didn’t share her assessment. “I woke up about two A.M. Something didn’t feel right. I ran a thorough recon, but there was nothing. Still, I woke Sarah up. I wanted to move her right then. She, ah, didn’t.”
The light dawned. He didn’t have to spell out the rest. Scottie could pretty much figure it out. Sarah had persuaded him to stay in bed a few minutes longer, and it had proved a crucial mistake.
“We were moving out when they hit. I sent her ahead, thinking they were coming in from the front. I’d hoped to pull them off of her, let her get away. They got me. Tried to make me talk, tell them where she was. When force didn’t work, they switched to chemical persuasion.”
“Logan, no.” His aversion to needles. “I’m so sorry.”
He went on as if he hadn’t heard her.
“I have no idea what I said after a while, but I didn’t know where she’d run to, so I couldn’t have told them much. I could only hope that she stayed wherever she’d gone to ground until someone figured out that things had gone wrong and came looking for one or both of us.”
“She didn’t stay safe,” Scottie said.
Logan shook his head. “She came back. To save me. She never had a chance. I saw her cut down not fifty yards away from me.”
“They didn’t try to kill you, too, at that point?”
“Nope. Left me there to go through withdrawal. I was pretty bad off at that point. I’m sure they thought I’d be long dead by the time anyone found me. But I’d sure as hell suffer first.”
“You’d think they’d be afraid if you somehow survived that you’d talk about the conspiracy, give up the dirty cops.”
“I had no way of proving my theory. I saw no one I could identify. If I lived, I’d be the target of a massive investigation. Either way, their goal had been achieved.”
“You didn’t stay and fight it, did you?”
“I gave a statement, told them my suspicions. By the time I got out of the hospital, the preliminary investigation had been completed and I’d been cleared. But they had also failed to prove my allegations. The other three officers remained on the force. My father’s health was beginning to decline. I took early retirement.”
He hadn’t spoken overdefensively, if anything he’d been quite the opposite, yet she knew he was waiting for her to argue about his decision. Apparently she would be one of many who had done the same thing.
“I’m not too sure, in your position, I’d have done differently. In any of it. You still blame yourself, don’t you?”
“It was my fault she died, Scottie. There isn’t any way around that. I shouldn’t have become personally involved.”
Scottie looked at him, her mind filled with visions of what that night had probably been like, the horrific outcome, and went still. Hadn’t she been about to make that same mistake? Or was it already too late? Was she already personally involved? Was her judgment clouding?
“Do you really think you made the call not to move her based on your personal feelings? Wasn’t that a judgment call based on your suspicions on the dirty cops? Suspicions backed by research that ultimately proved true?”
He shook his head. “It was never proven.”
“But you still think you were right. To this day you know they were responsible.”
“They’re still on the force for all I know” was his only answer.
“And Renaldo?”
An unholy light flashed in Logan’s eyes. For the first time she wondered exactly what this man was capable of.
“He got off that time. No testimony, no conviction.”
“That time,” she repeated.
“He was taken down about three years ago.”
“By whom?” As soon as she asked, she knew the answer. “Grant Hudson,” she whispered.
“It was a team effort,” was all he said.
She didn’t bother asking him to elaborate. He wouldn’t. Anymore than she would or could about her own assignments or her affiliation with the Dirty Dozen. There was one other thing she wanted to know.
“Your team, Uncle Sam? Or private?”
He waited a beat, then said, “What do you think?”
“I think you wanted Renaldo dead and someone knew this and used it to recruit you. I think you received highly advanced training from this person or persons and, after successfully nailing Renaldo, decided to stay on. I think you enjoyed the freedom of having a bit more autonomy in enforcing the law. I think you enjoyed being part of a team that worked out of the limelight. I think you especially enjoy working alone.”
“Pretty thorough assessment of someone you hardly know.”
“Let’s just say I recognize the character traits.”
“Yeah, I got that part figured out already. You didn’t answer my question.”
“You mean, the question you answered my question with? Uncle Sam,” she said. “After what happened with Sarah and your department’s inconclusive investigation, I think you liked the outlaw appeal of working behind the scenes. But ultimately, you still believe in justice the American way.” She smiled. “You’re not a total renegade. Yet.”
He surprised her by smiling back. “Yet.”
It was as close to a confirmation as she was likely to get.
“What made you go solo?” he asked.
She’d known this was coming. It was, after all, only fair to expect her to give a pint after she’d forced him to open a vein. She’d expected it to be more of a struggle, but in the end, she spoke easily.
“It was a pretty dramatic situation, but very different from yours.”
“What force were you on?”
“Metropolitan D.C.”
He made a face. “And I thought Detroit was a rough deal.”
She shrugged. “It was my hometown PD, same as yours.” Their shared understanding and common experience warmed her, settled her in a way she could never recall feeling. “My father and husband were also on the force.” And she’d never felt any of this with either of them. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Logan raised an eyebrow. “I bet that was interesting. My dad retired right after I made sergeant.” He smiled. “Didn’t make things a damn bit easier, either.”
“I understand that.” More than he could ever know. “You and your dad were close, weren’t you?”
“Despite all the bluster and constant nagging, you mean? Yeah, we were close. We only ever had each other.”
“Was he happy when you decided to become a cop?”
“Happy? No. Proud? Oh yeah. I’m surprised his badge didn’t pop off, his chest was so swelled.”
“But not happy?”
“He worried. It’s not an easy life. But you know that.”
Scottie looked down. “Yeah, I know that.”
Lost in the midst of bitter memories, she didn’t feel him shift his weight on the couch, didn’t know he’d moved closer until she felt the touch of his hand beneath her chin.
“Your dad, he wasn’t happy or proud, was he?”
She simply shook her head. How had she ever looked into his eyes and felt chilled? she wondered. She couldn’t fathom it at the moment.
“And your husband? Did you marry before you were a cop?”
“After.”
“And he disapproved?”
“You have to understand. His dad and my father were old cop buddies. They made it their life’s work to toss us together at every opportune and inopportune moment. I’m not sure whose idea it finally was to get married, ours or theirs.”
“Did you love each other?”
Her smile was wistful and more than a bit sad. “I’m not sure I remember. Maybe. Maybe we thought we did.” She shrugged and pulled her chin from his grasp. “Maybe I just convinced myself I was in love to make my father happy.”
“And did it?”
Her laugh was hollow. “For about the length of the wedding ceremony.”
“What happened?”
“I didn’t follow the plan. They all, my new husband included, thought that now that I was married, I’d quit the force, stay home, make grandbabies, and revel in my domestic bliss.”
Logan’s laugh was full and deep. “Oh man, major mistake.”
Scottie just stared at him. “You know me better after a day and a half than they did during a lifetime.”
“Maybe that’s because I don’t have a vested interest in seeing you as anything more or less than you really are.”
She thought about that for a moment.
“And, for the record, I like who you really are. Well, except for your penchant for needles. That we have to talk about.”
Scottie grinned and felt it reach way down deep. She didn’t think she’d ever felt so truly complimented. “Thanks.” She was afraid if she said anything more, she might get teary-eyed. As it was, her throat felt a bit tight. “I’ll make a note on the needle thing.”
“You do that.” Logan’s expression evened out a bit, though a light continued to warm his dark eyes. “So I guess things didn’t go so smoothly when you told them you were staying on the force.”
“Oh, you could say that. World War Three would have been easier to ride out.”
“Your dad really hated you being a cop that much?”
“Oh, it wasn’t just being a cop, something he was old-world enough to believe was a man’s job. He felt it was my duty to marry and raise a nice, stable family. As I grew older, I understood more about why he was always so hard on me.”
“Understanding doesn’t always make it easy.”
“Sounds like the voice of experience there.” She realized he might be talking about what happened with Sarah as much as about his own relationship with his dad.
“Yeah, but although my dad was a hardheaded SOB on occasion, I never doubted he loved me or that he was proud of me. I don’t know what I would have done in a situation like yours. I’m surprised you wanted to be a cop.”
“I actually thought that once I did it, and he saw how good an officer I was, he’d be proud. I was wrong. My mom died of cancer when I was four. My dad never got over being mad at her for that. It wasn’t right for a man to raise a daughter alone as far as he was concerned.”
“Why didn’t he remarry?”
“He might have been mad at my mother, but he was also religious. You only married once.”
“Until death do you part.”
“Well, he took that to mean both of them, I guess.”
“Not knowing the real story, I always figured my dad was the same way. You know, you only have one love in a life. He never talked about my mother. He never remarried either. He sure bugged me about it, though.”
Scottie nodded. “Exactly. He was so bent on me getting married and doing it ‘the right way.’ Then he could enjoy the family I created and be taken care of again.”
“You didn’t want children?”
She sighed. “It wasn’t that. I didn’t know what I wanted. I never really had the chance to think about it without all the added pressure. I did decide to be a cop because he was, but once I was in the academy, I knew I’d found something I truly loved doing. He never really understood that. Never. If anything, the fact that I was good at it made me even more of a failure to him. As a woman and as a person. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against staying home to raise children. Who knows, had I met the right man, I might have given my father his dream without him ever asking for it. I’ll never know. All I know is I found my niche, I found something that gave something back for what I put in.” She looked at him and smiled ruefully. “I’d been on the force for five years when I got married. I made sergeant eighteen months later. I knew it wouldn’t go over very well, so when I told them, I went ahead and dropped the whole bomb and told them I’d decided I wanted to go for detective.”
Logan’s eyes widened. “And you lived?”
Scottie smiled sadly. “Barely.” She sobered, her voice quieting as she continued. “By then my marriage was worse than lousy, which is saying something since it was never all that great. Jim, my husband, more or less took up where my father left off. Nothing I did was right, I was a constant disappointment, whether it was my cooking, my housekeeping skills, eve
n my police work.”
“Why didn’t you leave the bastard?”
She looked at him flatly. “Even though I hated how they treated me, and fought it constantly, I still deluded myself into believing that someday, if I just stuck it out long enough, they’d see that I was right and be proud of what I’d done. I know it sounds stupid, but when you’re in the middle of it, that’s all you have. I couldn’t just walk away from my family. And if I filed for divorce, I wouldn’t have had to worry about that. They’d have walked away from me.” She paused for a moment. She felt his fingers push the hair back from her cheek and smooth along her ear. He rubbed the back of her neck.
Simple gestures, yet they almost undid her. No one, not once, not ever, had thought of her comfort, much less taken it upon themselves to soothe her.
When she continued, her voice was shaky and subdued. “I got my gold shield on Christmas Eve, eleven years ago. I had a huge fight with Jim, who called his father and mine over to yell at me some more. Like I was going to give it back when I’d worked so damn hard—” She broke off as her throat closed over.
Logan immediately tugged her closer, pulling her gently into his arms. She should have fought him, but it felt too damn good. He was offering a sanctuary she’d never known existed, and she wasn’t strong enough to resist.
“I’m sorry,” Logan whispered. He turned her so she was cradled in his lap, her legs stretched out along the couch. He pulled her head to his chest. “You don’t have to—”
Eyes burning with emotion, she pulled back and looked at him. She had to finish. “In front of all three of them, I told him that I was filing for divorce and walked out. I ended up in a hotel. Twelve hours later my father and Jim were called out to a riot scene that broke out downtown Christmas morning.”
Understanding dawned in Logan’s eyes as he did the mental calculation. “The Christmas Massacre. I remember it. Your dad was—”
“Was one of the officers killed. Jim too. Jim’s dad survived. So did I. By the time we were sent to the scene, the National Guard had been called out. I was never in danger. Jim’s dad never forgave me. Said it was my fault, that my father and Jim were so upset that they couldn’t have been thinking clearly.”
Dark Knight: A Loveswept Romance Classic Page 13