Defending Bridget - P.J. Fiala Page 0,39

department and it'll likely be a while as we wait to be interviewed. I'll get back to you when I know what's going on."

"Oh, honey, I'm so relieved. Thank you for calling and hurry home."

"I will, Mom. I love you. Tell Aidyn."

"I will, sweetheart."

The line went dead, and she let out a long breath to calm herself. She handed the phone to Axel and pushed herself away from the squad car she leaned against to walk into the police station.

"I have a son?"

She froze. So, they were going to have this conversation now.

"Yes."

"You didn't tell me, and I'll assume that's because I told you my name was Robert Beckman."

"Yes." She ran her hands up and down her arms even though it was rather warm outside. "I looked for a Robert Beckman. I found you. You had a prison record and I figured we were better off without someone like you."

"I was undercover. The prison record was made up for that purpose."

"How do I know that to be true?"

"You can ask Gaige to pull up my records once we get to the compound."

"Won't he lie for you?"

He huffed out an irritated breath. "We don't lie about shit like that. What we do is dangerous. It's complicated sometimes. It's detailed all the time."

"You lied to me."

"Right. I'd just met you. What should I have said, ‘Oh, by the way, I'm undercover this isn't my real name.‘ Then, if you were an operative working for the other side, you could have shot me dead."

"I wouldn't have...I wasn't..."

His voice raised. "How would I know?"

She raised her voice in response. "Do you always sleep with secret agents?"

He boomed. "No."

Realizing how loud he was, he scraped his hand through his long hair, and she was immediately sorry it had gotten this far.

His voice softened. "I was mesmerized by you. Captivated. Enthralled. You bewitched me. Then you left me. I came back at 8:00 as I said, and you'd disappeared. No last name. No note. No way to find you."

26

He watched her eyes as he spoke, The fear was slipping away the farther they were from the cabin. The anger was slipping away, too. It wasn't all gone, but her eyes were softening to the eyes he remembered.

"I didn't..." She gently cleared her throat. "I didn't think you meant it. I didn't want to feel the fool and sit there and wait for you to come back. I thought you used that as an excuse to leave. I felt stupid for having slept with you."

"As I recall, we didn't sleep much."

She cocked her head, the overhead lights on the nearby lamppost shone on her reddish hair and created a halo around her head. The darkened area they stood in added shadowed effects to her face and her body, but still she was beautiful. Dirty but beautiful.

"Right. We didn't."

She ran her hands over her arms again and he decided this conversation could be finished later.

"Let's go inside. You'll need to be interviewed."

He stepped closer to her and she tilted her head up to look into his eyes briefly before turning and walking toward the entrance to the police department.

"Bridget, did you kill the dead captor at the cabin?"

"Yes."

Wow, that was impressive. She wasn't more than five feet tall, slender of build but capable as hell. As she turned he noticed the gun tucked in the waistband of her pants.

"You'll need to remove the magazine and bullet in the chamber from the weapon before you go in."

She stopped and pulled the gun from her back waistband with ease. Her nimble fingers easily removed the magazine, slid the rack back, as she tilted the weapon to the side and let the live round fall out. She absolutely was an expert with firearms, that much was apparent. She then held the pistol out for him to look down the slide and check for himself that it was unloaded. He looked down the barrel, slid his pinky in as far as he could and nodded. She then lay the pistol in her hand and held it out to him. He picked it up and carried it in with him, pointing it down to the ground as he entered.

Once inside, he lay it and the magazine on the counter of the desk, muzzle toward the wall, empty chamber up and nodded at the clerk.

"It's one of the Ukrainian kidnappers from the cabin these women were found at."

The clerk put on a rubber glove and catalogued the weapon, then lay it in an evidence