With one of his own weapons, Sam agreed silently.
“I thought all of his cases were drug related.” Chantel leaned over and, taking charge of his mouse, scrolled some more. “What was he doing on one of our cases?”
“The perp was a professor of psychology at U of C. The victim, his wife, was an associate professor he’d mentored.”
“The authority figure.” Chantel’s tone dripped disrespect. He knew it because it was a sentiment he shared.
Answering to a boss was one thing—having someone assume that they knew what was best for you better than you did, or thought that they had the right to force their will onto another—the idea pissed him off. Royally.
“So why were we on it?” Chantel, apparently finding nothing pertinent in the brief report, sat back. “U of C is out of our jurisdiction.”
“The couple owned a home here on the beach and commuted.” An hour and a half four days a week. He remembered the details. Every one of them.
“Still, doesn’t explain Banyon’s involvement.”
“The professor also had a private practice. He was a licensed psychiatrist. He’d been slowly drugging his wife.”
“He was killing her?”
“Nothing that kind.” Sam shook his head, feeling his lunch threaten to come back up on him. “He’d made up his own little cocktail. Just to dumb her down enough that she wouldn’t surpass him.”
“He drugged her to keep her in his control?”
“She’s genius-level intelligent,” Sam said, remembering the woman he’d spent two years trying to forget. Because forgetting was the right thing to do.
She’d been so vulnerable when he’d known her. Nothing like the person she’d been born to be. The person he hoped she’d become after she’d gotten her life back. “He was afraid she was going to take his job.” Chantel cut right to the chase. “Or surpass him in his field.”
“Yeah.”
“Did he hit her, too?”
“Hard enough to break her jaw.” And the crooked smile he’d left behind would be her constant reminder of what the man she’d adored, idolized and trusted had done to her.
“He’s due out next Monday. That’s four days,” Chantel said, frowning.
“I know.”
“When are you going to tell her?”
It was Thursday morning. He was thinking about...maybe...Sunday night. Give her as much peace of mind as he could.
Give himself some way to figure out how to get the asshole back behind bars before he’d had a chance to take a step out.
“With his conviction overturned there won’t even be a probation period.”
He knew that.
“What about a restraining order?” Chantel asked the question even as she shook her head.
“Not until he approaches her again,” he said what they both already knew. When a case went away, so did all of the painfully collected evidence. At least in theory.
“She needs time to make arrangements.”
She had a point. Maybe Sunday night was leaving it a little late. Still, he needed time to make a plan.
“Is she still local?”
“Yeah. She’s in private practice now. Has an office in that professional plaza across the street from the hospital.” Still living in the beach house she’d bought with the bastard. That was one of the first things they were going to have to fix.
They. As though she was going to want to have anything to do with him when she found out that he hadn’t been able to keep his promise to her that once she testified the man who’d hurt her so cruelly would spend the rest of his life behind bars. That if she testified he, Detective Sam Larson, would guarantee her safety.
Not that Banyon’s sins were on him. But the fact that the asshole professor’s wife had testified against him when everything in her had told her not to do so—that was on Sam. He’d ridden her hard.
He’d needed her testimony to make his case.
To keep her safe.
Well, he’d sure as hell screwed that one up.
Copyright © 2016 by Tara Taylor Quinn
ISBN: 978-1-474-05629-8
BECAUSE OF A GIRL
© 2016 Janice Kay Johnson
Published in Great Britain 2016
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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Because of a Girl Page 26