there’s no one else in this detachment I trust more than Hale. We haven’t worked the same watch for a couple years now, but he’s still my go-to guy. I trust him with my life. Hell, I trust him with my kids’ lives.”
Ellie didn’t even know Tory had kids.
“But you need to understand that the media loves to nail us with shit—and some of it’s justified, no question—but because of that, we need to be very careful how we handle situations with our members, and we need to make damn good and sure everything is aboveboard, without any room for screw-ups.”
“Brett isn’t a screw-up.”
“Oh, hell, I know that. You think I wanted to ask you those questions? No, but we needed them on the record. If this dipshit Neill decides to plead not guilty and takes this case to court—which is within his rights—we need to be able to prove that there was no conflict of interest between the investigation and your relationship with Hale.”
When Ellie started to protest, Tory stopped her with a raised hand.
“I know, I know: nothing happened between you two, and if we need to prove that, we will. But he’s changed since this started, so I had to ask.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, like he smiles now,” Tory said, shaking her head. “I mean, he’s never going to star in a toothpaste commercial, but he’s smiled more since this started than I’ve seen in the last six years. What the hell’s up with that? And today…”
“Oh, God. What? Did he go after Kurt? I was worried that once you guys found him, he’d—”
“What?” Tory laughed. “God no, he didn’t go anywhere near him. It’s what happened after, the way he was at your place; that wasn’t the Hale I know. For a second there, when you said he’d need a doctor, I thought he’d hurt himself—then I saw him sitting up there fuming and you leaning over him in that towel, and I knew what was going on. Which reminds me: I’m supposed to ask you if you want to press charges against him for breaking in the way he did. They probably wouldn’t stick, but the fact is, we had Neill in custody, you weren’t in any immediate danger, and that Garner fella kept yelling that you were okay. But Hale was…I’ve never seen him move that fast.”
Head down, Ellie didn’t know what she was supposed to say, or if she was supposed to say anything at all, so she didn’t. Then Tory pulled her chair a little closer.
“So because Hale’s my guy and I can’t have shit going sideways for him, I’m going to ask you to answer all those questions again, off the record this time.”
It took Ellie a while to stop chewing her lip, and to look up at Tory, whose eyes were full of something Ellie had never seen on her before: empathy. And as soon as Ellie started talking, Tory leaned way back and grabbed the box of tissues off the shelf by the door.
“Everything I told you was the truth,” Ellie said, fighting to speak over the growing lump in her throat. “Up until this weekend, he never so much as held my hand unless I took his first.”
Tory huffed out a relieved sigh, then sat there tapping her fingers on the table as she studied Ellie’s face. “Well, holy shit, Palmer. You? And Hale?”
“What?” Ellie gasped. “No, I told you—nothing happened.”
“Yeah, I heard what you said, and I believe you’re telling the truth. But I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, either—you and Hale? You hate cops!”
Laughing over a choke, Ellie jerked a tissue out of the box just in time to catch the first tear. “Yeah, well, you guys sort of pissed me off before.”
“Okay, fair enough.” Tory ducked her head a little and lowered her voice, even though no one else could hear them anyway. “So between you and me, how bad is it?”
That made Ellie choke harder. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad.”
“Bad like you’re in love with him bad, or bad like you’ve got one of those man-in-uniform-hero crushes going on?”
Even with the tissue pressed over her face, Ellie knew she wasn’t hiding anything, especially after the burst of guilty laughter bubbled out of her throat.
“Both.”
“Nooo,” Tory groaned, burying her face in her hands, but she was laughing, too. “That’s the worst.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Ellie laughed.
“And he doesn’t know? You haven’t told him?”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure he’s got it figured out.” She