“I don’t know anything more than you do,” he said. “I’ll keep in contact with Houston, make sure they fully understand that I will have everyone’s head if Sean is injured. I have to go. I’m sorry.”
He hung up.
She wanted to throw the phone across the room, but didn’t. Why was Rick so … ambivalent? Yes, he was an assistant director in the FBI and he had to follow rules, but he could have said that he knew Sean was innocent.
If.
There was no if. Sean wouldn’t kill anyone in cold blood.
Not like her.
She put her head on Sean’s desk and closed her eyes. She had killed before. In the line of duty, but she didn’t count that. To protect the boys in Mexico, she had killed those who held them captive. And she didn’t count that.
But nearly ten years ago, she had killed her rapist in cold blood.
He was unarmed.
No one blamed her for killing Adam Scott. He’d killed dozens of women and eluded the authorities for more than twenty years.
But she didn’t have to pull the trigger six times.
It haunted her.
No, it doesn’t.
What haunted her was that she didn’t regret it. Adam Scott had stolen so much from her. He’d facilitated multiple rapes. Humiliated her. Hurt her. Tortured her brother Dillon. Put her brother Patrick in a coma. Expected her to come with him, to replace a woman he had killed years ago.
She was glad he was dead. No regrets.
It had taken her years to learn that she wasn’t broken. Years to accept that she was worthy of love, worthy to love. Her brothers had trained her, helped her heal, taken care of her, but it was Sean who gave her a future. Melted her icy interior so she could love.
A man like Sean would never kill in cold blood.
She had to prove it. If the evidence was overwhelmingly against him, she had to prove who really killed Mona Hill.
And someone took Nate and Brad off her team. So you’re alone. Isolated.
Yes, it was connected. And maybe that would be their downfall.
Whoever they were.
Chapter Twelve
HOUSTON, TEXAS
The booking process was hell.
They’d taken his belt and shoelaces, though he wasn’t put in prison attire.
They’d taken his phone, his wallet, his wedding ring.
They’d photographed him front and side. Printed him. Took a sample of his DNA.
He was demoralized, reduced to a number. But even after all the humiliation, the worst was when they walked him down the hall to talk to his attorney. He overhead one cop say “That’s Banner’s collar, the john who whacked a prostitute. Wife’s a fed.”
A john. Killed a prostitute. The narrative destroyed him inside. It was untrue, and he was usually good about not caring what others thought of him.
But not today. Not here. Not now.
He was cuffed to the table. “Your lawyer is here, she’ll be brought in momentarily,” the guard said, then left.
He hadn’t been allowed to call Lucy. They said later. When was later? He needed to explain to her, tell her everything. He hated that he hadn’t told her about Mona on Monday night. He should have. Why didn’t he? Why didn’t he just say something?
Because you weren’t sure this wasn’t a trick, a trap, a scam of some sort.
Yet Sean believed the note was real. Which meant that Elise either killed Mona herself, or had someone do it for her.
To frame him. To destroy him—and destroy Lucy.
The guard brought in a woman. She was petite and wore four-inch heels. Still wasn’t tall. Dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes … and walked as if she was an Amazon, not a leprechaun.
“Sean Rogan, Felicity Duncan,” she said in a Texas accent. Not too thick, but definitely native Texas.
“Take the cuffs off him, Benny, will you?”
“Policy is that murder suspects require—”
“Take the cuffs off.”
Benny complied. Sean’s eyes burned.
He would not cry, but he hated the cuffs even more than he was going to hate the cage.
“Thank you,” he said when the guard left.
“He’s following procedure, but he knows I can go over his head and get my way, why fight me on it?” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She put a folder on the table in front of her and sat down.
“What happened, Mr. Rogan?”
“I was arrested for Mona Hill’s murder. I didn’t kill her. I need you to believe me.”
“No, you don’t. You need me to be the best damn defense lawyer on the planet, and I’m close to it, understand?”
He told her everything, beginning to end. He had to—only then