to the lab looking for you. By the way, your cell phone’s off. Again.”
Maggie scrambled from the car and handed Peggy her keys. “What does he want?”
Peggy shrugged. “Beats me. The real question is, what do you want? Better eat while you can.”
Maggie glanced at the station house. “I’m not really hungry anymore.”
“I’ll get you what I get,” Peggy decided in her raspy voice. “And I’m going to make sure you eat it, too.”
As Maggie strode back toward the front door of the station house, I followed—but stepped unexpectedly into a pocket of darkness so profound it almost brought me to my knees. I stopped, overcome with fear, unable to follow Maggie into the building.
Hayes had been there. I was sure of it. And though he’d left before I spotted him, I knew he had seen Maggie get into her car and that he may well have seen her crying and reveled in her despair.
If so, he’d know that Maggie had weakened. He’d know that no progress had been made on his case. He’d know he remained unstoppable.
It shook me to my core.
Chapter 33
I found Maggie in the commander’s office, sitting next to Bobby Daniels. Daniels looked pale and ill at ease. The jagged scar on his face had started to scab and the wound looked like a miniature red lightning bolt flashing down to strike his cheek. Two elderly people sat between Daniels and Maggie. They looked respectable and concerned, and I knew they had to be his parents. They also looked apologetic—though they were the ones who had been wronged.
The discussion about Bobby’s scar had apparently already taken place. I knew from the emotional distance that Daniels kept between himself and Maggie that the events of the night before remained known only to the two of them. The wound had been blamed on his last day in prison.
A cadaverously thin man named Robertson sat off to one side, evading everyone’s eyes. I knew him well. He was the department’s in-house counsel. He did not look hopeful. He was no doubt silently cursing my memory for having bungled the Daniels case and working out a million-dollar settlement in his head. The thought cheered me. I’d never liked the shifty little bastard.
I entered the room just as they approached the real point of their meeting, arriving in time to witness the commander’s profound surprise when the older Mr. Daniels said, “We have come to thank you.”
“Thank me?” the commander asked too loudly, betraying his astonishment.
Mrs. Daniels explained for her husband. “We want to thank Detective Gunn for what she did for our son.”
“What did she do?” the commander asked, perplexed. I knew then that Maggie had never told him of her earlier visit to the prison, the trip she had taken out of mercy for another man’s suffering, just as she had not told him about the Double Deuce. It appeared that my Maggie was a bit of a maverick.
Was it wrong that this behavior made me love her even more?
Bobby’s father grasped the situation in an instant. He was used to the intricacies that a chain of command created, I realized, as I noted his ramrod posture and neatly trimmed hair. Retired military, I guessed, and his precise, clipped way of speaking confirmed my impression.
“Detective Gunn visited Bobby in prison the second she realized he was innocent,” the old man explained. “We’d like to thank her for letting decency and compassion override standard protocol.” His implications were not lost on Gonzales. “We’d also like to thank her for speaking to the warden about having Bobby put in protective custody until he was released. His injuries could have been so much worse.” Neither Bobby nor Maggie could look at him. “She put my son’s safety first, instead of covering the department’s ass. For that, we are profoundly grateful.”
He had neutered the commander’s thoughts of retribution against Maggie with the skill of a master. I pegged him for at least a colonel.
Oh, how the afterlife has its delights.
The commander glanced over at Maggie and their eyes held, but he quickly regained his composure. “Of course,” Gonzales said smoothly. “We felt it was the least we could do, under the regrettable circumstances.”
Robertson coughed in a discreet lawyerly fashion, nervous at the reference to culpability. He was thoroughly ignored by all.
“I just wanted to let your son know that we were doing all we could to get him out,” Maggie said. “I wanted to let him know that he only had to hold