“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I like this take-a-day-off Morgan.” Sheila helped unload Brandon’s soon-to-be-assembled BMX bike from the backseat of Morgan’s Mustang. “Where are we putting this?”
“We’ll hide it under the stairs to my apartment for now. I knew I should have changed my clothes.” She kicked her three-inch black pumps into the grass, wished she could do the same for the tight red skirt and matching blazer, but she had to get this box out of sight before Nico got home with Kelley. The kid could sniff out a present like a bloodhound chasing a fox.
“Well, would you look at that?” Sheila stopped helping, leaving Morgan to struggle to keep the box from hitting the ground.
“Look at what? Oh.” Morgan wasn’t sure what to think about the image of Drew and Gina walking toward the house together, Drew carrying his wadded-up J & J Markets apron in his hand, Gina in her parochial school uniform.
“Romeo and Juliet: the Next Generation,” Sheila joked, and picked up her end of the box again.
“Because that ended so well for everyone. Wait, grab our purses.” Morgan grunted and walked backward down the driveway. She pried open the small gate underneath her staircase, waved a bunch of cobwebs out of the way, and she and Sheila shoved the box in. Sweaty, grimy, and exhilarated, Morgan grinned at her sister. “He’s going to go nuts.”
“Only if you get it assembled in time. Maybe Gage can help?”
“Maybe.” It wasn’t the first time today Sheila had tried to talk to Morgan about Gage. Hopefully it would be the last time Morgan would have to deflect the inquiry. “I need a drink.”
“Works for me. Besides, there’s a little boy in there who owes me a Monopoly rematch.” Sheila rubbed her hands together, then dropped her purse on the top of the washing machine as they entered the house.
“Lydia doing better today?” Morgan asked Angela as she removed her blazer.
“A little bit.” But Angela’s smile wasn’t as full as usual. “She slept most of the day and her fever’s down.”
“She’s back in the wheelchair, isn’t she?” Morgan’s throat tightened as Sheila wrapped her arms around herself and set her jaw, looked away. This was the fear battering the back of Morgan’s mind—that Lydia was rallying before the end.
“Yeah.” Angela blinked, but not fast enough to stop the tears from falling. “I know. I know it’s inevitable. Doesn’t mean it hurts any less.”
“We fight until we can’t fight anymore.” Morgan grabbed her hand and squeezed, wanting to cry along with her, but once she started, she might never stop. “It’s all we can do.” The front door banged shut. “Drew and Gina,” she said. “Brave-face time.”
“I don’t have one,” Sheila muttered as she headed into the hall. “Hey, guys. Who’s up for some Monopoly with my little guy this afternoon?”
“Could be the best medicine for all of us, right?” Morgan reached for the dish towel as Drew and Gina ambled in. “Well, hello, you two. Drew, weren’t you supposed to work until five?”
“Stephen sent me home early.” He grimaced at the mention of Gage’s manager brother, as if he didn’t know what reaction he was going to get.
“Oh, God.” Morgan nearly dropped the plate she’d been drying. “What happened?”
He looked at Gina, his sour expression turning more dour before the two of them grinned.
“He got a promotion,” Gina announced.
“Well, not a promotion, really,” Drew said when Angela gasped. “Stephen asked if I’d be interested in working the deli counter for a while.”
“Drew, that’s great news.” She started forward, hesitated. “Can I give you a congratulatory hug?”
He shrugged, which in Drew-speak may as well have been a backflip with fireworks.
She wrapped her arms around him, squeezed hard, and felt his hands on her shoulders. “I am so proud of you,” she whispered so only he could hear. “So proud.”
“Thanks,” he mumbled, ducking his head when she let him loose.
“My turn,” Angela cried, and repeated the gesture with far more enthusiasm.
“And what brings you by?” Morgan asked Gina.
“I missed the kids,” she said simply. “They’re fun to hang out with. Is that okay?”
“More than okay.”
“Morgan!” Sheila’s scream sliced through the house and Morgan’s heart.
She shoved Gina out of the way and plunged toward the stairs as her sister bolted down. “Lydia?”
“Brandon.” Sheila’s face was vampire white. “It’s Brandon.”
“Call 9-1-1.” Morgan ordered Gina. Barefoot, she took the stairs two at a time, plowed around the corner into Brandon’s new room. He was lying on the floor, his tiny body convulsing, his neck arched as his hands twitched. Morgan fell to her knees. She couldn’t touch him, but he might hurt himself.
She placed her hands on Brandon’s shoulders, applied light pressure until his legs stopped moving. Morgan scanned the room, looked for blood. Had he fallen? Hit his head? Tripped? Drew raced in, and in the distance she heard the whirring of Lydia’s wheelchair.
“Fix him,” Sheila whispered, and Morgan knew her sister would be of no help. She was trembling so hard Morgan was afraid her bones might snap. “Please fix him.”
“Keep Lydia in her room,” Morgan told her. Nodding, Sheila backed away.
“Drew, come here.” Morgan grabbed for his hand and placed his palm on Brandon’s forehead. “Try to keep his head still, okay. Don’t force it, just gentle pressure. Angela, make sure there’s a clear path for the paramedics.”
Brandon’s skin had lost all color, his chest barely rose. Morgan leaned down, pressed her ear against his chest. Heartbeat. Faint, but there. “Come on, baby boy. Don’t you give up on me,” she whispered, refusing to let the fear in. “Gina!”
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. “Ambulance is on its way. Three minutes out. What can I do?” She stood over them, tucking her hair behind her ear over and over as she stared down at Brandon, her face a mixture of terror and panic. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Don’t know.” Morgan felt Brandon’s body ease under her touch. “Grab the blanket off his bed for me.”
Gina whipped it off, handed it to Morgan, who tucked it around Brandon. “I think the seizure’s stopped. Brandon?” She felt for the pulse in his neck as a rasping sound echoed from his lungs. Pink foam bubbled from between his blue-tinged lips, blood trickling out the side of his mouth. “No,” she moaned, trying to take hold of herself, unable to keep her mind from identifying the symptoms of an embolism. “Oh, God, no,” she screamed. “We need that ambulance now!”
***
“Looks like we’re too late.” Peyton’s voice came over Gage’s Bluetooth as he turned onto Tumbleweed Drive.
“God.” Gage’s entire body tingled as he hit the gas, plowing down the half block, and came to a screeching halt in the middle of the street behind the ambulance. He tapped his ear. “Peyton, keep an eye out for Kolfax. Delay him any way you can, then follow the plan. You got me?”
“Got it.”
Gage bolted out of the car and raced up the walkway, into the house. “Morgan!”
As he headed for the stairs he saw a paramedic back onto the landing, guiding a stretcher. Gage couldn’t breathe. The thought of that little girl, beautiful Lydia, with her big brown eyes and an even bigger capacity to love, pricked at his heart. Would he ever look at a Tinker Bell T-shirt the same way again? Hear a child’s laugh without thinking of her.
“Morgan,” he called again, and backed up, watching the stretcher pass and the tiny still form under the blanket.
Gage’s entire body went numb. “Brandon. What’s happened? What’s wrong with him?” He brushed his hand against the tiny cold fingers lying against a too-still chest. The oxygen mask covered most of his face. Gage couldn’t tell if he was breathing. This wasn’t right. Brandon was okay. Brandon’s cancer was gone. It was Lydia they had to worry about. Wasn’t it?
“Gage.” His sister ran down the stairs, threw herself into his arms as Morgan, Angela, and Drew followed.
Sirens blared a few blocks away, throwing Gage so far into hell he didn’t think he’d ever find his way out. Kolfax.
“Morgan, I need you to come with me,” he said, trying to console his sister as Morgan walked past him.
“I can’t.” Morgan’s eyes were pinned to Brandon as he was carried out of the house. “I need to be with him. I promised”—her breath hitched and tugged at his heart—“when he had his chemo, I promised him I’d never leave him alone. I can’t leave him alone.”
Gage cupped her cheek in his hand, tried to get her to look at him, but she was as stiff as steel, eyes glazed so thick he couldn’t see his Morgan any longer.
“Have to go.” She took a step out the door just as Gage saw Peyton and Bouncer’s car pull up to block Kolfax’s and the two patrol cars speeding toward the house.
“What’s going on?” Angela asked.
Gage moved Gina aside, saw Drew step in, take hold of his sister’s hand.
“Morgan, you have to listen to me.” Gage bent down, tried to get her to see him. “You need to come with me right now.”
Bouncer’s voice erupted in his hear. “Warrant’s in. Gotta do it now, Gage. We’re out of time.”
“What’s going on?” Sheila flew down the stairs as if Satan was nipping at her stiletto heels. “Gage, what are the cops doing here?”
“Sheila, call your father. Tell him to be ready to meet Morgan at the Twenty-first Precinct when he gets the call. You understand?”
Sheila nodded. “Yes, but—”
“Let go of me,” Morgan said, and Gage saw they were loading Brandon into the ambulance.
“I can’t.” Gage ignored the excruciating twisting in his chest. “Morgan, I can’t let you go with him.” No matter how much he wished otherwise.
“Get your hands off her!” Drew flew at him, but Gage blocked him, turned Morgan’s back to the door and grabbed her arms.
“Sheila, go with Brandon in the ambulance and call your father on the way,” Gage ordered.
“I can’t,” Sheila whispered as she brought a hand to her throat, shook her head as her eyes went wide with terror. “Angela?”
“Nico’s due home any minute with Kelley,” Angela said.
“I’ve got the house,” Sheila said with a shaky nod and too wide eyes. “That I can do.”
“I’m going with you.” Drew bolted out the door behind Angela.
“I’ll call Mom,” Gina said, her normally flushed complexion pasty white. “Where are you taking Morgan?”
“Inspector.” Kolfax bellowed as he crossed the lawn. “You’re interfering with a federal investigation.”
“You’re interfering with a local one.” Gage pulled out his cuffs.
“Gage,” his sister cried, diving forward.
“Don’t do this,” Sheila said, grabbing Gina’s shoulders and pulling her away from her brother. “Gage, whatever it is you think she’s done, it’s not her fault.”
“I don’t have a choice. It’s my job,” he said as he snapped the cuffs on Morgan’s wrists.
“Your job sucks.” Gina spat. Gage reeled at the loathing in his baby sister’s eyes.
Morgan looked down at her hands, then up at him, the glazed detachment turning to shock as Gage said, “Morgan Tremayne, I’m arresting you on suspicion of collusion with Nemesis and as an accessory after the fact.”
“To what?” Gina’s protest was drowned by the ambulance siren screeching to life as it pulled away.
“It’s okay,” Morgan whispered, as if Gage’s proclamation had cleared her head. For a moment he thought she looked relieved. In that moment, he knew she was guilty, and the truth crashed into him with the force of a bullet. “It’ll be okay, Gina. Just watch Lydia for me? Kelley will be home soon. Don’t let her get scared. I’ll be okay.”
“You won’t get away with this, Juliano,” Kolfax said as Gage tugged Morgan past him. “Your career is over.”
“What career?” Gage sneered.
The walk to his car was the longest of his life. Every step pounded into him like a nail in the coffin of his relationship with Morgan. All that was left now was to bury it.
He stopped to scoop up her shoes that were lying on the grass, tried not to worry about what she must be thinking, what she had to be feeling at the moment. The terror, the worry over Brandon. Not knowing what was wrong with him. He didn’t have the luxury to care, not when this was the only way to protect her.
He opened the back door of his car, pushed her inside, and listened to Kolfax bluster and scream at agents Marcus and Alice as they slinked into their unmarked unit.
“Gage, I—”
“Not a word, Morgan.” Gage slammed the door and set it in reverse, saw the FBI car do the same in the other direction. “You haven’t been Mirandized. Until you are you, keep your mouth shut.” He looked into his rearview mirror in time to see her flinch. He tapped his ear. “Peyton? You ready?”
“Whenever you are.”
Gage glanced at Morgan, who had pressed her lips into such a thin line they’d disappeared. She stared out the window, looking like a lost little girl without hope. When he pulled in behind Peyton’s car at Lancaster Park, he saw Morgan blink, frown. She looked around as if she were coming out of a trance. “What’s going on? What are we doing here?”
Gage pulled her out of the car and unlocked the cuffs before walking her over to Peyton’s blue Buick. With a confused expression, she got in, gripping the open window with trembling fingers as he closed the door.
“Keep driving around until you hear from me,” Gage said, leaning down to talk to Peyton and Bouncer. “Shouldn’t be more than an hour or two.”
“Gage,” Morgan said in a tone that told him she was emerging from the shock. “Gage, I’m sorry.”
“For what, exactly?” Gage moved to her window, staring into the face of the woman who meant more to him than he’d ever believed possible. The woman who, despite her own dedication to her work, had shown him there was more to life than a job. The woman he loved. “Forgive you for what? Not trusting me? For putting me in the position of having to arrest you?” Sorrow crossed her face like a shadow at sunset. “Or for lying to me from the moment we met?”
Her silence was all the confirmation he needed. Gage slapped his hand on the hood of the car, signaling for them to go.
***
“Where the hell is she?” Agent Kolfax stormed into Evan’s office with the force of a category 4 storm barreling across the Pacific. His beady brown eyes targeted Gage like an out-of-control machine gun firing blanks. Gage didn’t move as he watched maintenance replace the glass window with a splinter-infested panel of plywood.
As if covering the empty pane would make it whole again. As if Morgan’s apology made the lies disappear.
“Miss Tremayne is in police custody,” Evan said, without looking up from the notes he was making.
“Bullshit. I was just at the precinct—”
“I said police custody, not precinct,” Evan corrected.
“My federal warrant trumps your local one,” Kolfax seethed. “I can have you brought up on charges—”
“Do it.” Evan stopped writing long enough to glance up. “Please. Let’s put all this on the record so everyone can see exactly what’s going on.”
“I know what’s going on. That woman has information I need.”
“We agree.” Evan clicked his pen shut. “Trouble is, we don’t like your way of trying to get it.”
“If you mean I didn’t fuck it out of her—”
Gage snapped the pencil he’d been twirling in two.
“I kept him from hurting you once,” Evan told Kolfax. “I won’t do it again. Things would have been so much easier if you’d been up front with us from the start. Instead, well . . . Don’t expect an apology from either of us once this is finished.”
Up front from the start. Gage inhaled, counted to twenty, but couldn’t quite rid himself of the bitterness circling him like a blood-addicted shark.
Gage’s cell buzzed and the shark settled. From Rojas: Got it. In writing. All four. Now Gage could breathe easier.
“Ready?” Evan asked, and hit send on the email he’d finished composing before Kolfax’s arrival.
“Yep.” Gage stood and dialed Peyton, who picked up after the first ring. “Anytime. Interview five. Make the call.” Then to Evan, “Let’s do this.”
“Do what?” Kolfax looked more rabid by the minute.
“Question the suspect,” Gage said. “That is what you wanted to do, isn’t it? Just one thing. This time you get to observe.
“I’ve filed a formal protest with the court along with a motion to transfer custody—”
“It’s under review.” Evan grabbed his jacket and they headed across the street. For once, Gage had anticipated Kolfax’s egotistical behavior and wasn’t surprised to find the media beginning to swarm outside the precinct.
“I’ll make a statement within the hour,” Kolfax snapped at an overzealous, barely-out-of-college reporter who stuck a cell phone in Kolfax’s face as they passed.
Gage made it a point to take his time on his way to the interview room. But with Kolfax hovering nearby, the agent’s frustration increasing like a missile about to go nuclear, Gage watched for Peyton and Bouncer to escort Morgan in through the door by the break room.
Her clothes were rumpled, her thick blond hair mussed from stress and restless fingers. Her color was better, but not by much. But she held her head high and held his gaze for a moment before she was guided into the interview room. His Morgan was back.
His Morgan could take what he’d have to dole out. His Morgan.
Gage took a deep breath of stale, burnt-coffee-infused air.
His Morgan.
“Observation’s this way,” he told Kolfax. “Did we thank you for that list of contact numbers you gave us?” Gage pushed open the door to the observation room.
“What are you—?” Kolfax looked as sick as a sailor after a weekend bender.
“Agent Dyson, thanks so much for coming.” Evan greeted the Supervisory Special Agent with a hearty handshake. “Agent Kolfax has been telling us how important this case is to the agency. As we told him from the beginning, we’ve been anxious to help.”
“Looking forward to a swift resolution to this case. You must be Inspector Juliano. Special Agent Nicholas Dyson.” If Agent Dyson were to ever quit the FBI, he could always play an agent on TV. Classic Mediterranean features made Dyson look as if he’d been sent by central casting. As opposed to Kolfax, who looked as if he should be selling cars in a late-night commercial. “I hear you worked with Sean Salcedo. Terrible loss to the agency. I recruited him myself right out of the Boston Police Academy. I’m not at all pleased about the rumors someone’s been circulating about him and you.”
“Sean was a good guy,” Gage agreed, wanting nothing more than to check to see if Kolfax was hyperventilating yet. “And thank you. You’ve been brought up to speed on the case?”
“On both cases, yes.” The sour look Dyson aimed at Kolfax was the best thing Gage had seen all day. “I’m thinking this woman has some interesting information to impart.”
Because Gage knew Kolfax would love nothing more than to discredit Gage by revealing Gage’s relationship with Morgan, Gage said, “So you’re aware, Agent Dyson—”
“Nick, please.” Dyson took a long drink of what passed as coffee at the precinct. “Oh, good God. That was a mistake.”
“Depends if you’d planned to blink again this week.” Gage said. “I think you should be aware I’ve had a personal relationship with Morgan Tremayne.”
“Recently?”
“Currently,” Gage admitted, and finally allowed himself to look through the two-way mirror at Morgan as she paced. She looked so lost. Alone. Part of him, the part that loved her, wanted nothing more than to fold her into his arms and hide her from the world. The other part, the cop, wanted to close the Nemesis case once and for all and forget any of this ever happened. “I realize there’s a serious conflict of interest—”
“You think?” Kolfax sneered.
“But you believe she’ll be more forthcoming with you than someone else,” Dyson said, giving barely a passing glance to his subordinate.
“I think we should use whatever we have to our advantage. If that includes an FBI presence during her questioning, I’m fine with that. And by presence, I mean you and not him.”
Dyson held up a hand to stifle Kolfax’s sputtering protests. “I agree. Keeps things aboveboard. But I will step in if I don’t like the way things are headed.”
“Understood.”
Gage left Evan and Kolfax and found his team huddled outside Morgan’s interview room. Rojas handed him the finalized information. Gage looked it over, made sure it was in the order he needed, and, angling his body away from Dyson, scribbled a note in pencil on the top right corner of one of the pages.
“This is either a Hail Mary pass or an end to your social life,” Bouncer said, looking over his arm.
No shit. “You guys did amazing work with this. It’s stellar. Couldn’t have asked for a better team.”
“You going somewhere, boss?” Peyton frowned. “We heard about what Kolfax said to you in Evan’s office—”
“Feel free to watch in observation,” Gage told them as he saw Jackson Tremayne entering the lobby of the precinct.
All the pieces were in place.
Gage closed his eyes, tried to forget how it felt to have Morgan in his arms, laughing up at him, kissing him. Surrounding him. Because it couldn’t matter. Not if this was going to work.
Her time was up.
Gage opened the door and stepped inside.