Inwardly he shook his head.
In the past, he would have noticed nails like that.
He would have probably enjoyed the lengths that she’d gone to to apologize to him.
Well, not after her uncle had vacated her arrest and basically put a rather ugly target on his back.
“Let go.”
Veronica seemed to dig her heels in.
That, and her nails, too.
“Look, lady.” She’d turned her focus on Kate. “I don’t know where you get your nerve ordering him around! He’s a police officer!”
The whole room around them went silent.
Even the lookie loos who’d been pretending to be busy to listen in were suddenly, shamelessly staring at the developing scene.
“Yes,” Kate answered, “he is a police officer, but I am his commanding officer. Sergeant Kate Turner, Miss Catalano.”
Veronica heard the words but they didn’t seem to affect her at all.
“Who?”
Kate’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “Excuse me?”
Veronica seemed to take Kate’s question as a sign of weakness. “You,” she lifted her chin to look down her nose at Kate, “are excused.”
Crois heard more than one person suck in a breath.
Kate might be a petite woman in many ways, but she was by no means a pushover. “Everyone who wants to keep their jobs as police officers should get into the room for roll call.
The officers around the room left like rats leaving a sinking ship.
Crois hesitated because he wanted to be there to support Kate, but Veronica still had a hold on him.
Kate closed the space between them and squared up to the other woman. “Miss Catalano. You need to let go of my officer and leave. He has a job to do.”
Veronica didn’t seem cowed in the least.
She smiled at Kate as if she had discovered the answer to a secret. “Wow. Is this a cougar thing?”
Crois swallowed his tongue.
Kate narrowed her eyes at the other woman.
“You know what I’m talking about, don’t act dumb!”
Kate exhaled. “You are not welcome in the Precinct, Miss Catalano. Please,” Kate’s voice was hardly polite, “take your hand off of my officer’s arm. And leave.”
Veronica wrenched his arm up and he ground his teeth together to keep from making a sound even though he could see that Veronica hand drawn blood.
His blood.
“Just you wait until my uncle hears about this.”
Crois saw stars at that moment.
