She ducked around Mac, evidence clutched in one hand, and took a hard right down the corridor.
Morgan braced his feet on the floor and rocked onto the back legs of the chair. He scratched behind his ear where Pitt had pulled out a tuft of hair. “Someone will,” he said. “They always do.”
Mac closed the door behind him, and Morgan clenched his teeth against the itch of claustrophobia. He could deal with it, but he didn’t like it. Closed doors were only good news if you had the key.
“Is that why you decided to talk to Shay Calloway?” Mac asked. “Because I have enough to deal with without you making things worse. I’ve already had the great and good on the phone today, trying to use the weight of their office to make me spill the goods. Apparently anything to do with the Calloway case is a matter of public safety and private rumormongering. So if I tell you to do something, like avoid the family, try and cooperate.”
Morgan snorted his opinion. “Tell?” He brought the front legs of the chair down with a thud. “I’m not Officer Pitt. I don’t have to obey your ‘instructions.’ And I didn’t go looking for Calloway. He found me.”
Mac took off his jacket, laid it over the table, and pulled out a chair. He leaned back in it, one arm slung over the back.
“I take it that didn’t go well?”
Morgan raised his eyebrows. “He didn’t give you chapter and verse?”
For a second, Mac looked rueful. He glanced down at his hand and flexed his fingers so scarred skin stretched over his knuckles. “Shay and I can’t be civil long enough for that. He left a voicemail. Between the cursing, I got the gist. What happened?”
“He was an asshole,” Morgan said. He had no objections to dropping Shay in it, but he was pretty sure Boyd would. Since it was Boyd’s face involved, better to leave it to him. “He wasn’t wrong that this is screwed up. Look, I know I’m an asshole, but I don’t take any pleasure in stirring this shit for them. Okay?”
He pushed himself up and out of the chair. In the corner of his eye, he saw Mac tense, but ignored it and paced across the room. Movement helped distract him from the closed door and the question of what Mac would do if he tried to walk out of here.
“Talk to me, then,” Mac said. He spread his hand out when Morgan looked at him. “Tell me how this happened.”
Morgan reached the far end of the room, turned, and leaned back against the pale-gray plaster. He roughly shoved his hands in his pockets and hitched one shoulder in a dismissive, tense shrug.
“You did it.”
Mac raised heavy eyebrows and sat back in his chair. He looked interested. Morgan had expected more pissed off. “Why?”
“You killed the kid,” Morgan said. “Ditched him somewhere and messed with the DNA sample. So if the body was ever found, it wouldn’t be dropped back on your doorstep.”
Mac scratched his jaw. “How’d I get your DNA?”
“It was in the system,” Morgan said. “Back then. Around then. You didn’t know it was me, and you just swapped it out.”
Five seconds ago Morgan had just conjured the idea up to shit-talk the good captain. But now that he’d said it out loud, it sounded… possible, if not exactly plausible. He shifted uncomfortably.
“Except I was giving people tickets on the other side of town,” Mac said. “No way I could be writing up Luke Jeffers for speeding and be involved in what happened to Sammy. Besides, I know I didn’t do it. Any other ideas?”
Morgan wasn’t sure whether he felt more frustrated or relieved. He kicked his heel against the skirting in a steady tattoo.
“Someone else who had access, then,” he said. “I just know I had nothing to do with it.”
Mac nodded. He unfolded his jacket and hunted through the pockets for his phone. A swipe of his thumb unlocked the phone and lit up the screen.
“You were twelve when you were taken into foster care,” he said as he read something in small print.
That was a bloodless way to put it. Morgan chewed the inside of his cheek until it hurt. There was a picture of him in a social services file somewhere—a skinny, angry kid with a broken jaw swollen up like Popeye and a dislocated shoulder. He’d been okay until then, but the new boyfriend had a drinking problem, and Morgan had never learned when to back down.
“Morgan?” Mac prodded.
“Didn’t think it was a question,” Morgan said flatly. “But yeah.”
It was the truth. True enough.
“Where did you live before that?”
Morgan exhaled.
