But if she was going to be part of his life, she had to be part of all his life.
Lucy’s comments about Nick’s motivation for keeping her out of his personal life came back.
“Nick, I want to see you. Spend time with you. Talk. Really talk.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Do you have the idea that you’re somehow sheltering me or protecting me by keeping me out of the loop about your custody battle?”
“I told you, Max, I’m not talking about Nancy with you.”
“I know. And you know I don’t like these off-limits subjects. I’m a big girl, and I’ve been making great strides to keep my opinions to myself.”
“You don’t need to speak to make your opinions known.”
“I care about you, Nick. You need to be able to talk to me about anything. God knows I don’t hold back when something is bothering me.”
“Max, I know what you’ll say. You’ll tell me Nancy is manipulating me, using Logan as a pawn, and I know it. I know it, dammit! But I will do anything to be in my son’s life. Any damn thing. And if we talk about it, the conversation will just frustrate both of us. We don’t have much one-on-one time, so why do you insist that when we do it’s filled with conflict and arguments? Why can’t you just let it go?”
Why? Good question. Max was only beginning to understand why, and it went right to the heart of what she really wanted in a relationship. Trust. Respect. Honesty. How could there be any of those things when Nick shut her out of what troubled him the most?
“I don’t know, Nick.”
“Can we talk about it when you visit? I don’t want to fight with you over the phone. It’s much more fun when we fight and make up.”
And he nailed it. The crux of her problem with all her relationships. Nick was one of the longer-term relationships she’d had, other than Marco. And Marco fit the same pattern. Fight, make up, live in different states, so dealing with the day-to-day relationship commitment had never been a thing for her.
Before Nick, she didn’t care to be intimately involved in the personal lives of any of her lovers. But she recognized that if she was going to have anything permanent—if she wanted anything more than casual, long-distance affairs—she needed to be a real part of another person’s life. The good and the bad.
“Max,” Nick said quietly, “I promise. We’ll talk.”
She didn’t know if he meant it. Really meant it.
“I’ll call you when the trial’s over.”
“Call me before then—I miss our late-night conversations.”
Why? She wanted to ask. The conversations were superficial, sexy, fun … but nothing substantive.
Max wanted substantive. She wanted what Sean and Lucy Rogan had.
“Okay,” she heard herself saying. “I gotta go.” She hung up because she was feeling too melancholy and off her game. She needed to get it together before the meeting at SDPD later this morning.
She put her pleasure book aside and pulled out her notes on Danielle Sharpe while eating her cold omelet. Ten minutes later, all thoughts of Nick were pushed aside.
But not forgotten.
*
Lucy spoke to her boss, SSA Rachel Vaughn, at 7:00 A.M. Monday morning—9:00 A.M. San Antonio time.
She’d been dreading this call, and she knew that it would be worse when she returned and Rachel found out she was working on an investigation. But she didn’t want to share that information now.
“I have a family issue in San Diego,” she said. “I won’t be back for another day or two.”
“Does that mean you were lying to me on Thursday when you said you were sick?”
Lucy rubbed her stomach. She hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, but she felt nauseous. “I know I don’t have any vacation time.”
“You left two active cases that the squad has to now scramble to catch up.”
“I left detailed notes—”
“That’s irrelevant, Agent Kincaid. We are understaffed and overworked, and while I have sympathy for family issues, I don’t have sympathy for my staff lying to me. You need to decide whether you really want to be a federal agent.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Since you are not actually ill or caring for an ill child or spouse, I can’t allow you to use sick time.”
Lucy didn’t comment. Though technically sick time was only for illness, the squad had used it for what one of Lucy’s colleagues called “mental health” days. Since it was rare to use two weeks’ sick leave—which didn’t accrue year to year like vacation time—their former boss let them use sick time whenever they wanted.
“I’m new, and I understand that you and my predecessor were friends.” The way she said friends made Lucy angry—she implied far more in the tone. “You have become used to a certain level of autonomy and, if I may be blunt, freedom that I’m certain SSA Casilla would never have allowed. That ends now. When you return from resolving whatever family issues you have, we’ll have a discussion as to what exactly is expected of you should you want to continue working as a federal agent. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. I am writing this incident up for your file. It’ll be up to ASAC Durant as to whether you’ll be formally reprimanded, but I will be recommending such. Good-bye.”
She hung up. Lucy stared at the phone with a mixture of anger and frustration and guilt. Her boss was right. Lucy had operated fairly autonomously, even before Noah Armstrong took over when Juan went on paternity leave. She’d overstepped, she’d been put on administrative leave, she’d put herself in the crosshairs of a violent drug cartel that, risked the lives of everyone she worked with.
But the crux of the problem was that she didn’t regret the decisions she made. Every tough choice she’d made ultimately saved lives. She’d resolved herself to live with the consequences of her actions, but that meant that she may not have a long career in the FBI.
What else could she have done? Justin was her nephew. Andrew was still family. Three other little boys deserved justice. And she knew, in her gut, that they didn’t have enough information to turn over to the police.
Until now.
Lucy and Max had stayed up half the night putting together all the evidence—all of which was circumstantial. But it was certainly compelling. And Lucy knew, as soon as she was confronted with the evidence, that Danielle would incriminate herself. All it took was the right questions, the right focus, and Danielle’s guilt would make her break.