It was true, Drew had promised the DEA he'd play nice, but not at any cost.
Ty's eyes narrowed as he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. The room was silent, the air heavy with humidity from the sun glaring down through the glass.
And something shifted in Drew's assessment of the detective. Ty was like the others, but there was something a bit different, too. There was a quiet intensity about him, not like the frantic concentration of the others. He looked like a man who wasn't out to prove anything. He wouldn't have a life checklist; the thought had probably never even crossed his mind. Drew had seen Ty's type before, worked with a lot of them. He was the kind of man who wouldn't do anything because it was expected of him; he would do it because it was the right thing to do. Which meant that any interest he showed in Dani was genuine. He would be interested in her.
“Tell me, Sir, have you ever heard the sound of a mother's voice when she's just watched her child get blown to pieces?” Ty let his arms fall to his sides.
Drew blinked. He wasn't sure what kind of answer he'd expected, but it wasn't this. The rhetorical question went unanswered.
“I have,” Ty continued, looking a lot older than his thirty-six years. “Over and over again,” he added.
He took a deep breath and stared at something beyond Drew's shoulder. “I entered the service right out of college and left eight years later. Do you have any idea how many dead bodies I saw?” His eyes sought Drew's. “It was the kids that got to me the most. I know some people can compartmentalize,” he paused and shook his head. “I'm just not one of them.”
Ty shoved himself off the wall and paced to the other end of the sunroom. “And then, when we were blamed over and over for all the devastation,” he paused, searching for the right words, his eyes fixed on the sea. “Well, there is only so much hate I could take. I wasn't effective anymore, I started to identify with people I shouldn't have. The lines became too blurry for me. I needed to leave before I put myself, or my men, at risk.”
Drew found himself more than interested in the answer. It wasn't an unusual situation, but still, he knew there had to be more.
Ty shook his head and picked up the binoculars again. He didn't look through them, but rather adjusted the settings, again and again, giving his hands something to do. “I knew who the enemy was, don't get me wrong. But it was the innocents that I started to identify with, the parents who'd lost their children, the wives who'd lost their husbands. I couldn't stop thinking about how what we were doing played a role in so much pain.” He paused again and then gave another shake of his head, unable to explain everything.
“I know the difference between right and wrong. I guess I wasn't sure if what we were doing was always falling into the right category.”
Drew considered this, considered the man in front of him. No, he was not a bit like the other men in Dani's life. And Drew wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not.
* * *
Ty wasn't surprised when he spent the next four hours without so much as a glance from Dani. Rather than moon over it, he'd spent over an hour with Cotter learning the details of the visual surveillance and about the same amount of time with Spanky. The fourth time he walked into the room where she sat, oblivious to everyone around her, he considered taking it personally, but the intense energy surrounding her, the way she talked to her teammates, the way she focused on the information before her, all told him that her concentration on her job was absolute.
And he had no doubt the information she was reviewing, the pieces of the puzzle she was playing with, were significant. Both the team and the equipment appeared to be top notch. Almost too good for the DEA. Granted, he didn't know all that much about the inner workings of the DEA, but there was something about the quality of the equipment that raised red flags—front, back, left, and right—about its origin. But, putting aside those thoughts, he felt confident that any information floating around the house was relevant to the task at hand, or would become