So I explained. Trey refused to sit—he stood as rigid as a marble column, arms folded—and listened as I told him about Kenny’s visit, and my web-message conversation with White Wolf, and what I’d learned about Lucius and Dexter and the whole sordid affair. When I was finished, he set his jaw and stared at me.
“This is what you did this morning?”
“It is. Yes.”
His voice stayed soft, but his eyes hardened. “What made you decide this was a good idea?”
I felt the first prickle of annoyance. “You should be happy. I put the final puzzle piece in your big damn unsolved case.”
“By consorting with a known criminal.”
I folded my arms to match his. “I exchanged information, that’s all. Cops do it every day.”
“You’re not a cop.”
“Neither are you.”
His head snapped back, and I immediately regretted the words. He turned away from me and began gathering up the paperwork from the counter.
I reached out to touch his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
He avoided my hand with a neat sidestep. “No need to apologize. It’s the truth. But it doesn’t change the fact that you quite possibly jeopardized the entire investigation and endangered your own safety.”
“I thought this White Wolf was just some libertarian nut job! I didn’t know he was a freaking Russian mobster!”
“If you had suspicions, you should have talked to the authorities.”
“You mean the ones who have been trying to blame me for this whole mess? The ones staking out my shop as we speak?”
“Their job is to find the truth.”
“Their job is to close the case.”
He looked annoyed. “That’s the same thing.”
“Bullshit.”
His expression hardened to match his eyes. “We operate under the rule of law.”
“Well, I operate somewhere a little fuzzier with, yes, known criminals. My family tree is crawling with known criminals. Smugglers, moonshiners, thieves—”
“Yes, I know. One of them kidnapped me and then assaulted me and then locked me in the hold of a boat four months ago.” He flung a finger at the computer. “This criminal, however, is not related to you and will kill you without hesitation if you get in his way, which is probably what happened to Lucius, which is probably why he’s dead. And now you’ve…you’ve…”
Words failed him. He gave up trying to explain and stacked the papers, his movements quick but methodical. He stayed silent, but it was the silence of a volcano before it erupts, a silence of ash and smoke and gathering.
“Talk to me, Trey.”
“I have nothing to say.”
“Oh no, you started this, you’re not backing out now.” I planted myself right in front of him. “You can go around thinking in black and white—you can do it literally and you can do it metaphorically and nobody will say boo to you about it because that’s your thing now—but I don’t have that luxury.”
He kept his eyes on the paperwork. “That’s not—”
“Yes, it is! You think I like hiding things from you? But I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t, and I will not stand here and be lectured by you, yet again, when the only reason I keep anything from you is because I’m trying to protect you!”
He switched his gaze on me hard and fast, raked his eyes across my mouth. I let him see it, the whole truth, and his expression shifted to astonishment laced with potent, rising fury.
“You believe that,” he said incredulously. “You really do.”
And my sensible voice was yammering in the back of my head—shut up shut up shut up!—but there was another voice—a shriller, louder voice, red-eyed with an equal fury—and that was the voice that started coming out of my mouth.
I popped my hands on my hips. “Screw it. You’re not getting protected anymore. You can deal or don’t deal or lock yourself in your apartment, I don’t care, because I have had it with you, Trey Seaver, and the ATF, and the cops, and the fucking Kennesaw whatever-the-fuck commission, and every other goddammed—”
“Stop talking.”
“—overbearing, head-up-their-ass authority trying to be the boss of me—”
“I said, stop talking!”
“And another thing—”
He moved like a lightning strike, sweeping my computer off the counter with a backhand blow. It crashed into the fresh plaster, where it shattered with a crack of glass and plastic. The screen went black as the drive died, and then there was only Trey’s rapid ragged breathing, and the hornet-like whine of pure rage singing in my head.
And then I saw it in his eyes—the SWAT cop stare—and I knew he could do whatever he wanted at that moment, that not a thing could stop him. Not me, not the rules, certainly not the scrambled circuits of his brain. He clenched his hands to fists, and I remembered the coyote, the howl, the wild edge of the night.
I felt the chemical floodgates open—adrenalin and cortisone, fight or flight, tooth and claw—and with a sickening flash, I took an inventory of the weapons around me—the board on the floor, the wrench on the counter, the gun in the drawer—before I remembered I wasn’t dealing with some random bad guy—it was Trey standing in front of me—but my body and brain didn’t see any difference. All the training he’d insisted on kicked in, and my feet moved into neutral stance, and my hands opened, and I tried to make my mouth form his name, but my throat had closed.
Trey blinked. And he transformed right in front of me, like melting. He looked down at his hands, then at me. And he saw my fear, saw it clearly. He went pale, and the tremor started. And I wanted to go to him, I really did, but I couldn’t make myself move forward.
He exhaled in a burst. “Tai…”
“You need to go.”
“I—”
“Now.”
He hesitated for only a second, then he averted his eyes and headed for the door. Quickly, without looking back, without taking his things. The stupid bells jangled behind him. And I didn’t budge until I heard the roar of the Ferrari, the kick-up of gravel, the screech of tires.
And then I sank to the floor, put my face in my hands, and sobbed.