She looked over at him with a wry smile. “Her uncle is a CCPD Captain. It would be as simple as asking. Or just looking through his files. I doubt that the Captain guards his files around his niece.”
Crois sighed. “He should.”
Harmony walked along beside him in an easy rhythm.
“Family can be someone’s greatest strength, but it can also be someone’s Achilles heel.”
Her voice was soft but in the quiet of the stairwell, Crois could hear her easily.
“My family decided early on that I wasn’t worth much. Being quiet. Not hugging on everyone like my sibs did. They filed me away in the ‘waste’ and never gave me a chance to climb out.
“I’d like to say that deciding those kinds of things early on can make a family blind in the worst possible way. Veronica’s uncle might have decided early on that she was the best of the family, the shining star of the Catalanos.” They reached the bottom step together and she stopped for a moment before reaching for the door to leave the stairwell. “If he saw signs that she wasn’t that, some people acknowledge it. Some people dig their heels in and refuse to change or give up. It’s a crazy slide from one belief to another.
“Some people aren’t willing to course correct.”
Crois nodded. “It’s kind of a like a co-dependent thing, not that I studied the concept, but if he’s willing to spoil her and turn a blind eye to her faults-”
“Exactly,” she agreed. “She just gets worse and he just digs in.”
Crois turned his back to the wall and leaned against the concrete. “And you and I are in the middle of this.” He tugged onHarmony’s hand and brought her closer. “I would have just been me if I hadn’t brought you back to my apartment tonight.”
Harmony’s concern turned to sour and she poked him in the chest.
“Hey, I was the one who wanted to go back to your apartment.”
He nodded at her words. “True. But I could have over ruled you and asked to go to your apartment.”
“Then again,” she reminded him, “you were the one who said I could be bossy.”
He frowned at that. “I could always take it back.”
“Right,” she sighed. “You opened the can of worms, Crois St. Cyr. Good look putting them back in.”
He chuckled then. “I was never really okay with worms.”
“Too bad then,” she sighed and gestured at the door. “Let’s go give our statements and we’ll fight over whose apartment to go back to after that.”
Crois rolled his back against the wall and hissed.
Harmony froze and looked at him, her brow furrowed between her brows. “That sounded like pain.”
Crois blew out a breath through his clenched teeth. “Yeah. I think she got me with those nails of hers.”
He pushed away from the wall and she moved around behind him, lifting up the back of his tux jacket. She made it about half way up when he heard her hiss.
“Yeah, she got you with her nails.”
“This just gets better and better,” he shook his head. “I know they’re going to charge me extra money for the tux rental.”
Harmony looked deep in thought. “Well, then you might get a discount on buying it. We’ll just have to find another time for you to wear it.”
With that decided, she lowered his jacket. “After our statements, I’ll take you back tomyapartment and I’ll clean and dress your wounds.”
“Great.” Crois couldn’t find a problem with that idea. “And I might have a wound on my leg from her stiletto heels.”
Harmony reached for the door and pulled it open.
She stopped a moment later. “Does that mean that they could charge her with felony for attacking a police officer with a deadly weapon?”
