Dead silence greeted this statement. Eve stared at him. She couldn’t go home with him. She didn’t know him.
Except, two weeks ago—an hour ago—she would have quite cheerfully gone home with him. Slept with him, in fact, then be-bopped on her merry way. And he was surely more qualified to protect her from whomever was trying to kill her—Lyle, a rival gang member, some random East Side kid making trouble—than an ex-surfer white-collar defense attorney.
“Is Luke real or did you make him up?” she asked, because right now she trusted nothing Matt Dorchester had ever said to her.
“Real.”
Matt Dorchester spoke no more than Chad Henderson did. “No,” she said flatly. “I’m not putting my family or yours in danger.”
“He’s out of town this weekend. After that we’ll figure it out.”
Initially flabbergasted into silence, Caleb rose to his feet and found his voice. “No way in hell,” he said, biting off each word.
“It’s not your decision to make, Counselor,” Detective Dorchester said, his voice even as he looked at Caleb. “She needs protection and I can give her that. I’m already undercover in the bar and people think we’re a couple.
“It’s possible that my presence triggered this,” he said to Eve. Matter-of-fact. Maybe he was used to people shooting at him. She wasn’t.
“All the more reason for the two of you to never see each other again,” Caleb said triumphantly.
“Your sister’s a target. Leaving her unprotected isn’t an option,” Dorchester replied.
Detective Sorenson spoke. “Ms. Webber, if you’re not comfortable with this, we will make other arrangements.”
Eve was beginning to appreciate Sorenson as the voice of reason. She thought about it for long moments, her eyes locked with her former bartender’s. During the entire discussion he hadn’t moved from his original position at the back of the room. He looked as impenetrable as a steel door, his entire demeanor subtly different. The way he held his shoulders, his stance, the way he not so much retreated as walled off, leaving only a shell.
The considerable physical presence couldn’t mask flashes of emotion flickering deep in those hazel eyes, as if someone she might know was locked away inside. One thing was clear. Anyone willing to go as far as he had for information took his job seriously. And if he wasn’t going to back down from this, then she wasn’t either. She’d come too far to do anything that would jeopardize her role in the operation.
“I’m not committing to anything other than a safe place to stay until I get the glass replaced,” she said, mostly to appease Caleb, then added, “I assume you have a spare room.”
“You can have Luke’s.”
“I’d sell my soul for a bed right now.” She looked at Detective Dorchester. “I can handle it if you can.”
He nodded. “Pack a bag.”
CHAPTER NINE
Caleb turned to Sorenson and looked her over from head to toe. Matt’s partner was dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a fitted zip-front running pullover, with her hair back in a messy ponytail and her gun on her hip. She returned Caleb’s stare without a hint of expression. “What about me?” Caleb said. “Is there a two-for-one special on this particular brand of police protection?”
“Caleb, for the love of—” Eve said, then grabbed Caleb’s arm and hustled him out of her office. Matt heard “Stand there and keep your mouth shut,” then the sounds of drawers opening and closing.
“That went well,” Ian said.
“I take it you know him,” Matt said.
“We went to high school together,” Ian said. “And if you think he’s an obnoxious, mouthy motherfucker now, you should have seen him then.”
Sorenson just rolled her eyes. It would take more than a snarky come-on from a defense attorney to ruffle her feathers, but Matt had a bad feeling he hadn’t heard the last from Caleb on this subject.
Twenty minutes later Matt watched from beside his Jeep as Eve walked down the stairs from her apartment, her brother at her side, and got into the backseat of a Crown Vic. Hawthorn and Sorenson waited until she was inside, then got in the front seat. Caleb leaned in to say something to Eve, then closed her door. The maroon car reversed out of the alley, executed a tight circle in the empty parking lot, and pulled out onto the empty street. A plain black suitcase was tucked in with the equipment bags brought by the crime scene investigators; someone would drop it off at Matt’s house in an hour or two. To all appearances it looked like Eve was going to the station to make a statement; her bartender/boyfriend, Chad, accidentally caught up in all the excitement, would get in his black Jeep and drive off in the opposite direction, giving both of them some protection in case anyone was watching.