His back was to us, broad shoulders filling the doorway as he crouched over the hog-tied body. From this angle, I couldn’t see what he was doing. Couldn’t tell if the man on the floor was breathing.
I couldn’t tell if either of them was.
Sapphire started to move, and I caught her arm.
“Wait,” I breathed into her ear. “Just wait. See what he does.”
Crouching shoulder to shoulder behind the lemon tree, we watched.
Bob was still stooped over the hog-tied man, doing something with his hands we couldn’t see from this angle. Then he stood, pulled a rag from his back pocket, wiped his hands slowly, and looked down at the kitchen floor as if taking inventory.
It didn’t look to me like he was doing anything that a cop would do at a crime scene.
Sapphire pulled out her phone.
I scowled at her and shook my head.
She glared back, pressed a button, held it to her ear, and pointed at the house.
Through the kitchen window, Bob’s hand went to his hip. He pulled out his phone and looked at his screen. Then he pocketed the phone and went back to wiping his hands.
His expression hadn’t changed once.
Sapphire lowered her phone.
She didn’t speak. Didn’t move. But her expression shifted to something I’d seen on her a decade ago. Pure rage.
She hadn’t known Bob was crooked. She’d trusted him completely, and clearly, it had never occurred to her that she shouldn’t. She was seeing it now, and it gutted her.
She turned to me and gripped my arm hard. The look she gave me was unmistakable.
Stay here. This is mine.
I nodded.
I lied.
She rose into a crouch, watched the house for a few beats, then moved fast along the side fence. Once she reached the house, she darted across the grass and pressed herself against the side of the house, weapon up.
I went after her, matching her moves exactly.
Frank’s voice was in my head the way it always was. Don’t trust a cop. Never trust a cop. I’d carried that my whole life like a scar I’d stopped noticing.
Fuck that.
Sapphire was nothing like Bob, and no way was I letting her walk into that house alone.
I didn’t have a weapon.
I had rage. And I had every intention of using it.
Chapter 9
Sapphire
* * *
Holding my service weapon two-handed in front of me, I raced along the back of William Branson’s house and dropped into a crouch at the base of the stairs, breath shallow and controlled, every drill I’d ever done at the academy running at high speed in the front of my mind.
