Caleb didn’t slide into his Mercedes. Instead he strode across the parking lot toward the Jeep. Matt straightened and squared up for the coming battle.
“Eve told me she’s practically been throwing herself at you, but I think that’s bullshit,” Caleb said in a flat, featureless voice that was more unnerving than emphatic posturing. Matt used that voice himself on a fairly regular basis. “She hasn’t had to throw herself at a man since she was fifteen years old, although why she’d protect such an unethical bastard, I can’t figure out. If she gives me the slightest indication anything, and I mean anything, happened that makes her even sniffle with regret, I will make so much noise you’ll never get another job in law enforcement again.”
“Think twice about that,” Matt said evenly. “I did my job, and this is bigger than what went on between me and your sister. Smart money’s on Lyle Murphy behind two attempted murders, one of a police officer, and the Feds have him pegged for some very bad shit. This isn’t going away. Right now I can still finesse the reports and downplay the personal side of the relationship. You go after me and I lose control over what becomes public and when.”
Caleb didn’t step back, but his energy switched from confrontational to calculating before he said, “Detective, I suggest you pray our paths never cross in a courtroom. I’ll make you wish you’d never been born, let alone met my sister.”
He spun on his heel and strode to his Mercedes. The most direct path to his car was straight through a cluster of uniforms, minus McCormick, who had zero patience for standing around bullshitting and was probably back on the street, heading for his next call. Tall and moving with a purpose, Caleb didn’t say a word, break stride, or turn to avoid them.
The group parted for him without a word.
It had already been a long fucking night, and it wasn’t over yet. Matt took a circuitous route home, the almost nonexistent traffic making it clear no one was following him, then rendezvoused with the Crown Vic idling outside his dark house. Luke was gone, so he parked his Jeep in the driveway, got out, and closed the door.
Hawthorn and Sorenson were waiting outside the car. Matt crossed the lawn and quickly looked in the back window. Eve sat staring straight ahead, her hair a gleaming black curtain against her cheeks. Hawthorn’s gaze was trained down the street, his jaw set. Sorenson, facing the opposite direction until Matt approached, looked at the bent figure in the car, then at Matt, lifting one eyebrow as she did.
This was his problem, his mistake. He’d fix it, because the department’s reputation and her life depended on it. He held out his keys to Sorenson. “Change Luke’s bed for me, would you?”
Without a word she took them, then crossed the grass to the front door. “She needs a minute, sir,” he said to his lieutenant. Hawthorn gave him a level look, but walked over to the driveway, giving them some privacy.
Matt scanned the street again, then opened the door and crouched down to put himself on her level. “Eve. Come inside,” he said, keeping his voice low.
She met his gaze, her eyes red-rimmed and shiny with tears but the same flat agate green as Caleb’s. “We can talk about this—”
“Don’t say another word,” she said. “I’m in no mood to talk about any of this. Detective Dorchester.”
His rank and name hit him like a slap. She wasn’t wounded, or destroyed. She was furious.
He shut his mouth and stepped back.
She unfastened the seat belt and got out of the car, her gaze taking in the one-story house, Matt’s Jeep in the driveway, the ramp covered in all-weather green turf. She looked at him, arms around her torso, iPhone in hand, shoulders hunched. “The accident … that was all true?”
He said nothing, just nodded. Without another word she walked past him, up the ramp, through his front door, everything from the ramrod straight spine to the controlled, even steps saying she’d never trust him again.
Inside the house Sorenson was adjusting the comforter on Luke’s bed. Eve waited in the foyer, as close to the door as she could stand without being outside. When Sorenson came out, the old sheets bundled in her arms, Eve turned sideways to slide between them, into the room. Then she closed the door in their faces.
Sorenson gave him a wry, eloquent shrug of her shoulders. Matt took the sheets from her and tossed them to the bottom of the basement stairs. They convened with Hawthorn in the kitchen.
“Strategy?” Hawthorn asked.