“Umm. Uhh, well… Noah.”
The slamming of a door has her fractured sentence coming to a stop. Simultaneously, we glance back, gazing at our captain emerging from her office. Rooney searches a bit, surveying each officer before setting her sights on me.
“Dane, my office, please.”
Fuck. What did I do?
Sharing a concerned gaze with Rachel, I follow her back into the office. Rubio is already there, seated beside another colleague, Laura Winslow.
“Yes, Captain?” I ask, standing with my hands folded in front of my midsection while Rooney eyes me behind her desk. Just like the others outside, they all look at me with trouble in their stares. It’s really starting to piss me off.
“Good morning, Noah. I want to start off and say that you are an excellent detective, and this has nothing to do with your work ethic or ability to follow the rules, but um… I am dropping you from the Ellis case. You and Detective Winslow will switch assignments, and you will take over the missing Johnson case.”
Taken aback, I glare in confusion, staring down at the other detectives before asking, “May I ask why? Rubio and I were making progress. The warrant came through. I spent my entire morning interviewing her coworkers. We were going to have a team at his house later today. I-I don’t understand.”
Inhaling a forced breath, Rooney stares down at her desk, fingers tapping the black screen of a tablet, while my partner looks uncomfortably down at his shoes.
“New evidence has come up, and it would be a conflict of interest for you to continue working this case.”
“Conflict of interest?” I question, throwing my arms out to my sides. “I’ve never met this man or his wife, nor had any type of contact or connection with either of them until a few days ago.”
“No…” Rooney drags, pinning me with regretful brown eyes. “But your daughter has.”
Heart faltering, I grow silent, wavering slightly on my feet as my brain screams warnings. “Scarlett? What are you talking about? She’s his student, but that’s it. That’s nothing that would prevent me from handling this case.”
Somehow, the atmosphere in this room becomes worse. The air is stolen from my lungs as the group exhales a remorseful sigh. None of them are able to make eye contact. Instead, the floor captures their attention while Rooney starts up her tablet.
As it powers on, she finally meets my glare, and I know whatever she’s about to show me is going to be really fucking bad.
“Your daughter is more involved than you could have anticipated,” she shares before extending the pad forward.
I take the tablet from her outstretched hand, keeping my eyes on hers. I don’t look down. I can’t. Whatever is on the screen, I won’t be able to forget it, and if it’s my little girl, it may just kill me.
After a minute, I bring my gaze down, flinching when I see my baby wrapped in a grown man’s arms.They’re hugging, that’s all,but experience has taught me better. Their faces are too close… bodies too tight.
“Is this it?” I gasp, battling for breath as my lungs shrivel and die. Rubio and Rooney exchange a stare. A world of emotion passes through my body in that brief second.
I beg and plead for there to be no more, but when Rooney returns her gaze to me, I know those prayers go unanswered.
“No… but those aren’t for you, Noah… no father should.”
“With all due respect, Captain, I don’t think it’s your place to tell me what I should and should not do when it comes to my daughter. I want to see what you have. Now.”
At that moment, Captain Veronica Rooney doesn’t look at me like a cop. She sees me as a parent, just like her, and we would do anything for our children, including break for them.
Respecting my wishes, she takes the tablet from my hands and scrolls to a new file. She hesitates much longer than before, unwilling to hand over the device until confirming it's what I want.
“Yes,” I grit out, extending my hand. Alarmingly, the tablet weighs much more now than it did previously. It drags down my palm while the weight becomes a burden on my shoulders.
Don’t do this.
You don’t want to see what’s on this video.
Ignoring every instinct, I press play, immediately falling into a seat while tears fill my eyes. Choking back a sob, I watch as my daughter gets violated, her body… defiled by a man my fucking age!
Gagging, I drop the tablet and storm from the room. Shouts and demands follow me out the door, but I don’t fucking care what my boss says. Her threats to place me on leave fall on empty ears because the only thing I can hear is my daughter's soft, sweet voice and her cries for this man. His fucking disgusting tone ordering her to…
I don’t hear a thing but the fucking rage commanding me into my car. That is the only voice I listen to, and it takes me all the way to the school.
