I jumped the car over the curb of Brooke’s driveway and yanked the gearshift into park. Callie and I rushed out of the car to find Cameron rocking quietly on a chair in the house, and Brooke in tears on her hands and knees, grabbing what looked at first glance like black and white photographs up off the floor. She had a pile of them clutched to her chest.
Callie tapped me with the back of her hand, “You get FBM, and I’ll go through the house.”
“FBM?” I asked, confused.
“Future Baby—”
I waved my hands for her to shut up, “I got it. Right. Just go.”
Kneeling down next to Brooke, I stilled her grabbing hands, and tilted her face up to mine. Her eyes were rimmed red, and tears fought to tumble over her lashes, but she tried her best to hold them back. “Brooke, it’s okay. It’s—”
The words died lifelessly on my lips when I noticed what she was holding. Pictures—hundreds of them, maybe more—all of Brooke, all in some kind of provocative or pornographic situation. “Brooke?” My own voice sounded foreign to me. I struggled for a clear breath as a burning sensation exploded deep inside my chest. A sharp pain in my jaw stabbed down my neck until I realized how hard I was clenching my teeth looking at the pictures of her with someone that wasn’t me.
She stumbled up, a sob wrenching from her chest, and raced into the bathroom. I scrambled after her, catching her just in time to help hold back her hair as she emptied everything she’d eaten that day into the toilet.
Collapsing back against the wall of the bathroom, she grabbed the towel that hung over a small circular ring, and wiped her mouth. When she moved the towel away her face was pale and her eyes wide, staring up at the mirror that had “Whore” written across it in red.
This was a personal attack on her—so was the break-in at the dentist. I didn’t know how it tied in with the murders, but Brooke was in the middle of it. Was it a jealous boyfriend?
“Come here,” I said, pulling her into me. She was trembling, her entire body convulsing with small, violent, uncontrollable shivers. All I could do was hold her.
Outside the bathroom door, I heard other officers entering the front rooms. Dean’s voice was loudest. Callie must have called everyone else.
I ran a hand over her hair, trying to calm her. In the other hand, I held some of the pictures. The pictures were erotic. It was hard not to look at them that way. Hard to see them with an objective eye or as evidence. They were so alluring. Her smile. The curves. The way she looked on another man. Anger tore through me, and I gulped back a roar. Everyone outside, crunching over the broken glass and all her belongings, were seeing the rest of the pictures, and I could physically feel her humiliation suffocating her.
“Everyone is going to see them,” she whispered, and sniffed. “And the only thing I did wrong was love him.”
“Brooke, babe. You have to tell me who he is.”
She shook her head against my chest. “I can’t.”
Why did she feel like she couldn’t? What would make her not be able to? “Shit. Brooke,” I held her at arms length, searching her eyes. “It’s someone we all know, isn’t it?”
Tears poured out of her eyes.
“Someone in the office?”
She looked away. The noises and voices outside got louder and louder.
Sliding over the glass and debris in the hallway was Dean, Captain Anderson right behind him. She flinched in my arms the minute their faces appeared. “Brooke? Brooke? Is she hurt?” Anderson yelled. “Get your hands off her, Cage!”
She burrowed deeper into my chest.
Dean held Anderson back. “Is she okay, Cage?”
“Yeah, now that I’m here,” I growled, glaring at Anderson.It was him?That’s why she couldn’t say anything. She was too scared. What the fuck was he doing? Using his rank to scare her? She lovedhim?They had a relationship? That’s impossible? It couldn’t be him. He was at least twenty years her senior.
Dean pulled Anderson out of the doorway. “Get her out and get her talking,” he snarled at me.
Anderson shouted back with his own demands as I closed the door on them.
I pulled her face up. “It’s Anderson?” I whispered.
She didn’t deny it—just looked at me with those big doe eyes and cried.
Anger ripped through my chest.What the hell was she thinking?“And you were okay being his mistress? You were okay fucking a married guy?” I asked, losing every ounce of respect I ever had for her. “I would have never thought you hadthatin you.”
“What?” she cried, and promptly vomited again, all over me.
