“What about me?”
“You push everyone away. You have no relationship with your family. No partner, no kids. None of the guys in the department can stand you. And now you’ve lost Jane.”
Her fury crests, gets the better of her. “Oh, fuck you, Damien. She was going to leave you, before the accident, you know that? And besides, you think I’m going to take criticism from a sociopath who has been leaving dead animals on my porch?”
It gives her a hit of pleasure, to see him look taken aback.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.
“I have it on video. Luke was right. He was ribbing you about the drugs, wasn’t he? He was baiting you in front of me that night at your house. That’s what he meant when he asked about the last lie you told.”
Damien shoves his hands in his pockets, kicks at a rock, smiles a private little smile to himself that puts Callie on edge. “Did you know that Luke was a cop? Did you find that out too, in your little investigations? I know you’ve been keeping Janie in the loop. But even she doesn’t know that one. Good old family secret.”
Her mind falters for a second before she catches up. Luke? A cop?
An internal investigation, Lynne Hamilton had said.There were rumors that Sabrina was with an officer.It all snaps into clarity: the lighter in the glove compartment of her car, the one Annabelle gaveher. Same heft and shine as the one he used to smoke in the driveway all those months ago. But she makes the split-second decision to feign ignorance. Wants to see what Damien will say, waits for him to fill in the blanks. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It didn’t last long. He was always fucking up people a little too much when he’d arrest them. There was a lawsuit. Or he’d use it as a way to meet girls.”
He gives her a meaningful look.
What else had Annabelle said about the Coyote? Brown eyes, dark hair.
And Layla.He’s not dealing. He hates it when I’m high.
Luke was the Coyote. And Damien has known all along.
Luke is her father.
The woods around them are so very still, none of the creatures she’s learned to listen for making any sounds. She looks to the water to her left. That tree. Crooked, pointing like a finger out to the water.
She knows that tree. It’s Sabrina Riley’s drawing.
A shiver works its way through her. She takes a step backward toward the trail, hoping he won’t register it, and slides her hand to her hip out of habit, to where her gun usually sits when she’s on duty. But he catches it, her hand landing uselessly against her jeans.
Why has he brought her out here? Why now? It’s never a good thing when a man with secrets suddenly decides to start being honest. She doesn’t waste any more time. She pivots hard, breaks into a run.
She gets a good head start, screams through the trees. She’s never screamed like this before, Callie Hauser who can keep her cool in any kind of chaos. Who’s been on the chase in dark alleys, who’s stared down drug runners in investigation rooms, cuffed men more than twice her weight and shoved them into the back of a police cruiser, all adrenaline and righteousness. But now, she’s screaming like a woman in trouble. Screaming like a victim.
He’s breathing hard behind her, feet pounding. Closer, closer, too close. She’s fast, but he gets near enough to catch the sleeve of her coat, wraps his fingers are around her forearm. She growls like an animal,primal and furious, gets a punch in with her free hand, straight to the bridge of his nose. The crack of bone rings out through the woods and for a second she feels like that might be it, his grip loosening on her. But he jerks her wrist, pulls her in, and manages to get his right arm around her chest so that her back is pressed against him. The blood from his nose drips against the slick fabric of her down coat.Tap tap tap.
She has to keep him talking. If Annabelle and Jane have been forced to give up all their secrets, she’s not going to let Damien get away with keeping his. “We’re related,” she spits. “Do you know that?”
“Maybe. But you don’t belong to us. We don’toweyou anything.”
“Your dad agree? He helped me get this job. Why did he do that?”
“He never thought you’d go digging all this shit up. I thought he was out of his mind. But that’s what happens when you get sentimental. You don’t do the things that need to be done.”
She takes a deep breath, forces herself to be steady, even as her stomach bottoms out. “Damien, please. We will figure it out. All of it. We can work this out together but you need to let me go.”
He’s considering it, she feels it, something gathering in his silence.
“Be your own person. You don’t have to do what they want you to do. Frank, Luke. They don’t own you. And how will you look your wife in the eye if you do this?”
She had figured an appeal about Jane would soften him, but she knows this is the wrong thing as soon as she senses the slight shift in his weight and tightening of his muscles. His arm rears back.
“No!” she screams, right before his fist connects with her temple.
