“I get that you don’t want to work with him,” he whispered. “But somebody has to keep him from getting shot.”
“Then you take him,” I suggested. It wasn’t meant as a joke.
He squeezed my shoulder. “You’ll do fine.”
My appeal had been in vain, as I should have known it would be.
With O’Connorin the passenger seat, I let the twin-turbo V-8 loose as soon as we turned onto the street.
Lucas’s Cayenne was already half a block ahead of us.
I caught him after the corner.
“Slow down,” Lucas said over comms. “We can’t afford to stop for a chat with any traffic cops.”
“Copy that,” I responded.
“He can’t help it,” Constance joked in my ear. “The Air Force wouldn’t take him and he still spends all his time trying to hit Mach one.”
Lucas laughed.
“Very funny,” I replied.
“What’s funny?” O’Connor asked.
I tapped my ear near my earbud.
The light ahead turned yellow, and I sped up to avoid getting split off from Lucas.
“It’s going to turn red,” O’Connor objected as he grabbed the door handle and braced.
I gritted my teeth. We were on the way to confront a murderer, and thefat jerk was worried about traffic lights. The sooner he was gone, the better.
“Give me one of those earpieces so I know what’s going on.”
“I don’t have another one,” I lied.
The guy had no training, and would probably lock up the comm channel. That kind of error could get somebody hurt.
The detective let out a breath. “You dislike me, don’t you?”
“That light was close,” Lucas said in my ear.
“Yeah,” I replied, then realizing what I said, turned to my passenger. “Sorry, I was answering Lucas. No, I don’t dislike you. I dislike that you let my girl get kidnapped.” It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been there.
“She had to go and was safe in the bathroom. I had to go too. How was I supposed to know some guy would infiltrate the building and get the drop on me?”
My hand clenched on the wheel. “You anticipate danger at any second, which is why you should have stayed in the hallway until she finished. That’s what protecting someone means.”
“I had to pee, too,” he complained.
What a whiner.
The next light turned red before we reached it, and I slowed behind Lucas. “You should have waited until Pete and I got back, or peed in a cup. The one thing you don’t do is go off in another room and lose sight of your charge.”
“I thought?—”
I cut him off with a yell. “You fucking thought wrong, and because of you, she’s in danger.”
