“It’s not Messina,” I said to Villiers. “I swear to God, sir. Iknowit’s not him.”
He went over to his desk and sat heavily in the chair, elbows on the armrests of his chair and fingers steepled in mock-prayer. “Please don’t tell me you had anything to do with that fracas in Central Park last night.”
“Uh…”
Villiers gave another sigh and dropped his face into his hands, taking a deep breath. “Tell me,” he said into his hands.
So I slid into the chair in front of his desk and I told him everything. Well, almost everything. I told him how I’d been following Messina the last few nights and rushed on to explain what had happened last night in particular. How Messina had forced me down at the sound of shots, protecting me. And then how he’d run with me, led me back to his place, brought me upstairs while we waited to see if there was any fallout.
I skipped the part about Messina ordering me to undress.
“Then I left,” I finished simply.
“Then you left,” Villiers repeated, still looking down at his desk.
“So the point is,” I said quickly, because I could feel his wrath about to bear down on me, “that Messina couldn’t have killed Bachman. Because he was with me. Or I was watching him, before then. And he definitely wasn’t firing off rounds in the middle of Central Park without me noticing. I mean, I didn’t see whowasshooting at us, but whoever it was, they might have killed Bachman, too. Unless Bachman was the shooter. But that doesn’t make as much sense. Anyway, I haven’t figured that out yet.”
There was a long silence, and I tried not to fill it with self-defensive words. I just waited. I knew it was going to be bad.
“You were not assigned here as a field agent, were you, Special Agent Flynn?” Villiers asked at last, his voice cold.
“No, sir, which is why I don’t get how the Captain could have ordered Bachman to tail Messina, since he made me his partner, and—”
Villiers spoke over the top of me. “And did I or did I not instruct you to stay away from Angelo Messina?”
Shit. “You did, sir.”
“And yet you ignored the instructions of your superior officer.”
“I—I was off duty at the time, sir, so—”
His head snapped up. “You areneveroff duty, Special Agent Flynn. You are on call twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week, because the psychopaths and killers that we hunt are also on the job twenty-four/seven.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, although I didn’t entirely agree that it meant we had to be constantly alert, or didn’t get a private life. But maybe if Ididjust agree, maybe if he saw how valuable my information was for the ongoing investigation, I’d get a pass. If I was lucky.
I wasn’t lucky.
“I want your official identification and your firearm on my desk,” Villiers said calmly. “Now.”
“What? But sir, you can’t—”
“Oh, yes I can.” For the first time, his voice rose. “Yes Ican, Flynn. You’re on administrative leave, effective immediately, with full pay and benefits until and unless I find out that I should charge you with something yourself. You understand me?”
I got to my feet, took out my ID, and placed it on the table.
“Gun, too,” he said. “Don’t make me ask again.”
“Sir, I—I don’t have it with me.”
Villiers, if possible, looked even more furious. “You are required to have your firearm with you at all times.”
“I know, but…” There was no good explanation, so I changed the subject. “Sir, if Captain Walsh finds out I was—”
“Let me stop you right there,” he growled. “I am not going to hide information from a colleague just to keepyourass out of trouble. You’ve been compromised. Even worse, you compromisedyourself. I told you, Flynn. Itoldyou to stay away from Messina. One way or another, he drags people down with him.”
He stood, leaning heavily on his desk. He looked older, somehow, the lines in his face more etched than I’d seen before, exhaustion clumped around his shoulders.
“You’re off the task force. Whether you’ll still have a position with the FBI at all remains to be seen. Now get the hell out of here while I see how much of this mess you’ve made will have permanent consequences.”
