To prevent Samuel from hearing Macy’s relieved sigh, I take the lead on our impromptu interrogation. “And waste disposal?”
He doesn’t hide the shame in his eyes when he agrees with my assumption.
“Where do you collect them?” Macy asks, restarting her interrogation, her voice tinged with optimism.
“I don’t?—”
Macy’s knife digs into his flaccid cock firm enough to nick him.
“I’m texted when needed. The location changes every pickup. I’m not lying. I swear on my baby sister’s life.”
“Leave your sister out of this.” Macy’s sneer picks up with anger as her eyes bounce between Samuel’s wet pair. “I know you know more than you’re sharing, Sammy. I can smell the deceit on you.”
“That’s because I’m married.”
Another lie. Another nick.
“I only transport the girls… but I overheard one of the men talking about a Lamaze class in San Diego.” I don’t understand his expression when he says, “I assume that’s where they get the recruits from.”
“Where?” Macy barks out, more clued on than I am. “We need an address.”
“I don’t know…” His words are screams, the pressure of Macy’s knife enough to sever. “Honestly, I don’t know the exact studio, just that it’s run on Wednesdays, and that one of the boss’s girlfriends runs it.”
He’s telling the truth, but Macy still struggles to remove her knife from his cock.
I meet Macy’s gaze, have a private conversation, then pull my badge out of my jacket and flash my credentials. “Samuel Ezekial, you are under arrest for multiple counts of transportation and disposal of human bodies, interference with a corpse, trafficking, and whatever else I can pin on you between now and your hearing.”
With Macy’s knife still pressed against his junk, he sings like a canary. “There’s nothing else. That’s all I did. I just transferred the women. They were already dead. I swear.”
He sucks in a full breath when I pluck him from the floor, cuff him, and then walk him to the detectives waiting in the hallway.
Detective Montrose reads Samuel his rights in full while guiding him toward a commandeered elevator, like his dick isn’t hanging out of his boxers and nicked up.
I wait for the commotion to settle about the department’s “big fish” before I spin to face Macy. She looks incredibly guilty, but nothing will control my anger. “What the hell were you thinking? You could have been seriously hurt.”
My eyes fill with disbelief when she replies, “I know.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “But I had to do it. This date has been in the works for weeks. It took four months of sexting for him to agree to a phone conversation, and another seven weeks for him to agree to meet with me. He only set a date an hour before you arrived on my doorstep.”
“Then you should have run it through me.”
“And have you pull me off the scent?” Although she is asking a question, she doesn’t wait for me to answer her. “I had to do this, Grayson. It was the first time we had a chance to see this outfit in person since I arrived here. I couldn’t risk getting you involved and then having the bureau trample all over it.”
“So you put your unborn child in harm’s way instead?”
Though my words hurt her, she stays resilient. “Don’t act like you wouldn’t do the same if you were within sniffing distance of whoever you’ve been seeking for the past thirteen-plus years.”
“This isn’t about me!” I shout, hating how easily she can read me. No one has ever had that ability—not even Cameron.
“Bullshit!” Macy retorts. “You’re not good at understanding the pain of the victims’ families because you studied psychology. It is because you’re one of them.”
She dominates the bullseye, but I act ignorant. “I could take your badge for this.”
She plays me at my own game when she replies, “You could. But you won’t, because just like Alex knew you were the top agent to solve this case, you know I am too.”
Since everything she said is true, silence reigns supreme for the next several minutes.
It is highly uncomfortable, and I fucking hate it.
I’m not solely angry that she kept this from me. I am also furious that she endangered her life and that of her unborn child.
