“We’ve been over this,” Sinclair said, not unkindly. “If there was anything solid to go on, we’d investigate.”
“I know.” For a second, Isabella itched to tell him what she’d learned last Friday night from Carmen and Danny Marcus. She hadn’t been planning on keeping the truth from Sinclair forever anyway—the whole point in trying to turn up a useable lead was so she could tell him, and then he could tell Peterson. Sinclair would be pissed that she’d fractured the rules to nail down the intel, she knew. But he’d been pissed at her before, just like she’d worked cases outside of intelligence before. If it got them the proof they needed to help these women, Isabella would take the fallout.
And if she told Sinclair about the party before she got said proof, he just might pull the plug on her recon mission, which meant she had no choice but to ask for forgiveness later than permission in the here and now.
“I get it,” she said, biting her tongue so she wouldn’t add that while she understood the technicalities, she also thought they sucked. “There are only so many cases we can pursue, and without concrete evidence, this one is a shot in the dark.”
“Listen, Moreno.” Sinclair paused, the edge that normally filled his blue-gray stare suspiciously absent. “I know calls like these are tough for you.”
“They’re tough for all of us.” She’d never met a cop who didn’t get jacked up over a case every now and then, particularly when the details were brutal.
But Sinclair didn’t let up. “Yes, but they’re particularly tough for you. I just don’t want us passing on this investigation to turn into a banana peel for you.”
“I’m sorry,” Isabella said, her confusion and shock merging together to form a great, big tangle of what the fuck. “I’m not really sure what that means.”
Lifting a hand, Sinclair gestured around the intelligence office, all the desks still and empty and dark except for hers. “It’s ten-thirty on a Wednesday night, and here you are working.”
“You’re not really going to rattle my trap because I’m doing my job, are you?” Isabella let go of a soft laugh in an effort to lighten the tension thickening the air, but Sinclair didn’t laugh back, or hell, even slow down.
“Actually, I am. You were here last night at the same time. Night before that, too. You’ve been triple-timing it for months.”
“I have cases, Sam.” They’d caught a brutal assault/robbery just this morning that she’d spent four hours doing background on while Maxwell and Hale had taken statements and worked with CSI.
“So do the rest of your team, and they manage not to live here.” Sinclair leaned forward over the metal backrest of the chair, and hell, Isabella hated every shred of the honesty she saw in his eyes. “Look, you’re dedicated as hell, and you’re a great detective. Fierce. Smart. But you take on a lot, and you hold a lot in. I’ll be honest. Sometimes I worry.”
Her chin hiked along with her pulse. “Are you questioning whether or not I can do my job?”
“No. I’m questioning whether or not you’re okay after you do your job. With everything that happened to Marisol, it’s understandable—”
She held up a hand to put a quick end to the subject. “What happened to Marisol was a long time ago, Sam.”
“What happened to Marisol was a tragedy,” he corrected. “Eleven years ago or not, it’s understandable that things like those photos might upset you.”
Isabella nearly laughed at the irony. She wasn’t upset. She couldn’t be upset. There were too many cases that needed to be solved, too many victims who needed help for her to let her emotions get in the way of anything other than her job. “I appreciate the concern, but really, I’m fine.”
The edges of Sinclair’s mouth lowered in a frown that said he was unconvinced. “Your cousin was kidnapped, Isabella. She was sexually assaulted and murdered, and the case was never solved.”
“I know exactly what happened to her,” Isabella snapped, her breath tightening her throat upon exit. God, she would give anything not to know, to un-hear the details and un-see the photos that were there every single time she closed her eyes, even just to blink.
“And I know you’re not fine.” Sinclair straightened, sending his gaze over her paper-strewn desk. “You’re working seventy, sometimes eighty hours a week.”
“So I don’t mind the overtime. I like my job.”
“No,” he argued. “You’re in love with your job.”
Her patience slipped another notch. “And what’s so wrong with that?”
“No matter how good you are or how many cases you solve, this job is never going to love you back. And it’s sure as hell not going to have your back unless you start trusting the people around you.”