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  Captain Riggs stopped outside of the interrogation room and unlocked it for me. “You need anything, let the duty officer know at the front desk.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” I answered with a smile. He nodded at me, then gave Martin a stern look before walking away. I glanced at him as well, noting the arrogant smirk on a face. I hesitated in front of the door as Martin stepped aside for me.

  “After you,” he said, gesturing for me to go ahead of him.

  I rolled my eyes and led Martin into the room, shutting the door with a quiet snick. Once we were alone together, I stood still for a moment, staring at the steel locks, trying to gather myself. I was in a complicated situation, but I had to push forward. I kept telling myself I could do it as I walked to the table and pulled out the files and my digital recorder. I looked down at the machine, running my finger over the button as I gathered my courage.

  “Before we start, let’s be clear. Anything you say in this room will be recorded for investigative and possible prosecution purposes,” I informed him, looking him in the eye. “Understood?”

  “Understood,” he replied with a succinct nod.

  I pressed record and sat down to face him

  Martin

  The cold metal chair numbed my ass as I sat in the interrogation room, waiting for Detective Cole’s questions.

  Fucking hell. I was screwed and I knew it.

  Of all the agents in the department, I had to answer to Rene Cole, the girl I’d slept with before I left for college. I’d managed to deeply upset her in the process, or possibly after, and judging by her current attitude, she carried the mother of all grudges.

  I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure what I’d done wrong that night. I had had her consent. I had made sure she had enjoyed it. I had even called her multiple times after to make sure she was okay, even though she’d never answered. I’d gone over the whole thing over and over for years afterward to no avail. Maybe she was pissed that I’d left to stop the fight? But I couldn’t let a bunch of drunk idiots trash my friend’s house.

  My thoughts were spiraling out of control, thinking about the stupid interrogation, the whole evidence-room issue, my career, Rene, and everything in between. I’d worked hard to become a cop after my baseball career had ended abruptly, and now all that effort was about to go whirling down the shitter. I had wanted to make my dad proud and follow in his footsteps. If I couldn’t play ball anymore, I could at least be an honorable man who upheld the law just like he had been.

  The worst part of it was I hadn’t committed the crime I was being accused of, but I couldn’t exactly prove it just yet. I would be the first one to admit I was a wild card and could push the envelope, but I wasn’t a thief. I would do anything I could to protect my career.

  But how the hell was I going to do that when the investigator they’d sent was clearly a woman scorned? Especially one who could get my dick hard even now, in the most uncomfortable goddamn circumstances possible?

  When she’d first entered the captain’s office, I’d known who she was immediately. The years might have taken the innocence from her eyes, but not their beauty or soft depths. With her stern face, though, I hadn’t been sure at first if she recognized me. However, after shaking her hand and seeing her reaction to our skin touching, I realized she knew exactly who I was, maybe even before walking into the room.

  I leaned back in my chair and stared across the table at Rene, who was making notes in her file. She was just as beautiful, if not more beautiful, than she had been thirteen years earlier. She had filled out, especially those smooth, luscious breasts I remembered sucking on so fondly. Before that night, I’d never realized how gratifying it could be to hear a woman moan and beg for more underneath me. Now, watching her more womanly curves push rebelliously against her demure outfit turned a sedate business look into something sinfully sexy.

  The way her hair was pulled back tightly, her form-fitting skirt suit and heels, and the way she rubbed the back of her pen against her lips was hot, hotter than I would have expected. The sexual attraction I felt for her bothered me almost as much as whatever lingering grudge she had against me.

  And she definitely still hated me. And she still wanted me, too, I was almost certain. Her body’s reaction to touching me wasn’t the only thing telling tales. The hard glint in her eye showed me that she already thought I was guilty of stealing that money from the evidence room. Or maybe she assumed my guilt because she was clouded by her hate for me. Either way, it wasn’t a very good sign for my future with the police department, or for my freedom.

  She would be a challenge to win over, thanks to our history if nothing else, but I wouldn’t give up. I was innocent. I would never steal from the department, or from anyone else, for that matter. My captain knew that, and the guys in my squad knew that, but they weren’t the ones I had to convince. I had to convince Rene Cole, and she was going to be a bit harder to prove that to than the guys I’d known during my five-year career as a cop.

  She had no reason at all to trust me, and probably had every reason not to trust me. Or thought she did. Either way, her little grudge was on the brink of fucking up my entire life.

  “Please state your name and rank for the record,” she said blandly.

  “Detective Martin Ferrel, homicide unit.” I had just received my detective’s badge that year. I had no desire to relinquish it over this charge. But how the hell do I get inside this woman’s head so I can get past her grudge against me?

  “Who’s your captain?” she asked.

  “Captain Daniel Riggs,” I replied. “Before him, it was Captain Michael Avery.”

  She nodded once and jotted down more notes. The scratch of her pen irritated me. She lifted her eyes, her expression emotionless. “Do you understand the crime you’re being accused of?”

  “Yes.” I sighed, not wanting to hear the gory details again.

  “Detective Ferrel, you have waived your right to counsel but are aware that you may answer or refuse to answer any questions asked. If you answer, you’re swearing that your testament is true to your best knowledge. Do you agree?”

  “Yes,” I said. I just wish I could get you to take me at my word.

  “How long have you worked for this precinct?”

  “I have been with the 33rd for three years.”

  “And where were you before?”

  “I was with the narcotics division across town,” I answered. That had been my first assignment after quitting baseball and finishing the academy. I had transferred as quickly as possible, thinking that dealing with murders had to be easier than dealing with what addicts did to themselves and to others. “I work homicides now, or I did until a couple weeks ago.”

  “And what did you do in narcotics?”

  More of that incessant, irritating scratching. The corner of my eye twitched, so I rubbed it. “Assist the evidence team in collection and documentation, guard the crime scene boundaries,” I listed. “We worked major city cases and at times assisted the Feds in larger cases with drug trafficking.”

  “And now?” She turned her steady gaze on me as I answered, as if watching and waiting for a screw up. I hoped she missed the eye tick, which could be interpreted as a sign of guilt rather than irritation.

  “The same, only with dead bodies,” I replied. “We’re a bit busier here in homicide.”

  She turned a page in her notebook. “Who’s your partner, and how long have you worked together?”

  “Detective Jordan Lopez is my partner, and we’ve been paired since I started in homicide,” I replied. “We trained together when we were rookies, started in narcotics together, and then she transferred to homicide a month after me. We’ve known each other for about seven years.” I paused and laughed, thinking about it. “She knows me better than my own mother.”

  I grinned, trying to coax a smile from her, especially since I assumed she remembered my mother was dead. It didn’t work, though, and I found myself in an even more awkward position. S
he was almost impervious to my charms, and it was more than a little frustrating since I had to sit there all day and talk to her.

  She stared at me for a moment before opening my file and sitting back in her chair. She looked down at it, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully as she read the notes on my colorful career.

  “Your file is a mile long, considering you’ve only been a cop for five years,” she commented dryly. “And it’s not filled with accolades. Two years ago, you were cited for destruction of public property while representing the SLPD.” She looked up at me, a question, almost an accusation, in her eyes.

  Annoyance filtered through my brain, but I tried hard to hold on to a passive expression. “That was a car accident.”

  “You crashed your department-issue vehicle into a public fountain,” she replied, deadpan, her eyes saying she thought I was a piece of shit.

  I shrugged and tried for levity. “Some accidents are more spectacular than others.”

  She stared at me across the table for a few moments. I stared back, smirking; she sighed softly and continued in the same bland, remote voice as she read the contents of my file. “You’ve been investigated for injuring witnesses. You’ve been placed on strict paperwork duty twice for insubordination to a superior officer.” She glanced up at me, smirking

  “Oh, and here’s something interesting. While you were benched for insubordination” –I stiffened slightly at the intentionally sports metaphor— “you were disallowed unsupervised access to the evidence locker because evidence went missing after one of your visits.” She lifted an eyebrow as she looked up at me.

  I stared back impassively. Her attempt at intimidation was almost laughable. “If you read a little further into my file, you’ll notice I was cleared of that charge,” I pointed out.

  “That time,” she commented calmly, sending a surge of irritation through me, mostly because she was right. This time, the accusation might stick. Then they would look at the last case of the same type and start questioning whether it was a false accusation after all.

  I threw up a hand in exasperation. “Look, no one in this department has a crystal clean record. You’re not a rookie—you must know what it’s like in the pen and out on the streets. We work under duress most of the time.”

  I sighed as her expression remained skeptical, but she didn’t speak. “I won’t lie. I get passionate, that’s always been my way. I hate when a murderer walks free because I know he’ll do it again. My job is important to me. Solving cases is important to me, and doing the best job is important to me.” I licked my lips, staring back at her as she watched me quietly. “Following every damn rule and regulation? Kissing the ass of superiors I know are corrupt or not worth shit at their job? Worrying about public property when I’m chasing some fucking guy who kidnapped a kid? Not so important to me. And aside from the ones who actually know me, that doesn’t make me popular among the brass. But that doesn’t mean I’m not a good cop.”

  “Following the rules makes a good cop,” she retorted simply. “The rules are there for a reason.”

  “I sometimes bend the rules, but I never break them,” I said with a shrug. “If roughing up a perp a little saves a bunch of lives or finds the twelve-year-old victim’s body to take back to her parents, then I do what I have to.” I stared at her, suddenly disgusted with this perpetual innocent, this silly idealist. She had been an idealistic, by-the-book little girl at eighteen, and she hadn’t changed a bit. “You ever work the streets, Detective Cole?”

  “I’m not here to discuss my service record,” she responded, her tone bored. “I’m here to discuss yours and the possibility that you’ve been stealing from your own precinct. As well as the way you handle your business with this force.”

  “You think you’re above all of that? You aren’t.” I chuckled mirthlessly. “You feel righteous calling us bad cops. You forget what we did saved lives.”

  “Stealing from the evidence room saved no lives,” she retorted, speaking quickly. She stared at me implacably until some of my bravado drained away. In a cold, quiet voice, she continued, “You’re not going to bully me into agreeing with your ‘Oh you naïve, inexperienced girl’ act. One, you’re two months younger than me, two, you’ve been with SLPD half the time I have, and three, we both know you’re an irresponsible idiot with no idea how to act in sensitive situations. So drop the bullshit, all right?”

  I sat back in my seat, eyes wide, somewhere between shocked, impressed, and horny. “Whoa, sheath the claws there. My point is that my actions were for the greater good.”

  “How is stealing from an evidence locker ‘for the greater good’?” she mimicked, scoffing as if I were a criminal claiming innocence when everyone knew he was guilty.

  “I didn’t do anything like that,” I insisted, squashing a surge of anger. Her condemnation of me, that little speech she’d given with her arms folded across those luscious breasts, had told me everything I needed to know about how unsuitable she was for the job. Bias. That was the word. She had a grudge against me, so she had a bias against me. I could ask to have her replaced on the case if I wanted to play by the rules.

  But like I’d just told her, that wasn’t really my bag.

  “We could spend all day going through that record,” I said, tired of the back and forth. “But your investigation is about the money stolen from the evidence locker. Money I did not steal.”

  “Yes, my investigation is about the missing money,” she conceded, but she pointed at me as she continued. “Yet you came in here thinking you could argue me out of taking key evidence into account. This record, by your own words, gives an incomplete picture of the case. And it’s a picture that condemns you. But you’re still insisting you need neither legal counsel nor witnesses.” She underlined something in her notes twice. “Are you certain there’s no one I should talk to, to maybe get a better understanding of who you are and what you’ve been up to?”

  My head was pounding, and the idea of her interviewing Riggs, my partner, the guys in homicide, just depressed me. “No. You leave my partner and them out of it. If you actually read through my file top to bottom, instead of just skimming it and asking me questions it already answers, you’ll get all the information you need.”

  She gazed at me unblinking. “Just the record?”

  “It says everything.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, you’re screwed,” she snapped. “Because looking at this file, you seem more like a reckless liability to the department than a cop whose proclaimed innocence I should believe.” Her voice was hard as she spoke. “You look like the kind of cop used to shit being swept under the rug because you saved some lives once. We all save lives, but most of us keep a clean record doing it.”

  “Yeah.” I chuckled, shaking my head. “That’s a bullshit lie. This is all part of the whole Internal Affairs political game.”

  “No game, just facts,” she said, closing my file. “Captain Riggs didn’t even want to call me down here. I didn’t want to come. You screwed up, Detective, whether you admit it or not.” Her eyes flashed suddenly, and her finger jabbed at me briefly, as if the theft was personal.

  I could feel the coldness oozing from her. Her glare, infused with antagonistic fire, pierced me from across the table. Chills ran up my spine, and for the first time I worried maybe there was no way to charm her into believing that I was innocent. And the idea that what she said was possibly true slapped me hard in the face.

  Slowly my grin faded away, and I sucked in a deep breath, starting to think that maybe counsel wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. She was even tougher and more together than she had been at eighteen, and she had the weight of all those rules and regulations behind her.

  But getting a lawyer was what every guilty person did. And I wasn’t guilty, no matter what kind of picture she wanted to paint of me. I had to make her understand that I hadn’t taken that money. And I wanted to be out of the mandatory suspension so I could help catch whoever had stolen the money a
nd was setting my ass up.

  “I know you’re supposed to press me hard, to make me feel like shit,” I countered. “I know you think that if you push me, you’ll get a confession. I want to go on record, again, and say that I am not guilty of this bullshit. I did not take money from the evidence locker. I was framed.”

  “You have to do more than tell me you’re innocent,” she informed me, her lips pressed into a thin line. “You have to prove it.”

  I leaned forward and looked her in the eye. “No, actually, you have to prove that I’m not.”

  A slow, wicked smile spread across her face. “Oh, don’t worry. I will.”

  “That’s fine,” I replied, sitting back. “But I can promise you that if you do a real investigation instead of sitting here pounding me for information that doesn’t exist, that investigation will prove that I’m innocent. Until then, I refuse to say anything else until I my union-appointed lawyer is here.”

  Fuck, I feel like a coward. But there’s really no helping it. The damn lawyer can at least buy me some time.

  She blinked in surprise. “You want a lawyer now?”

  “I do.”

  I watched as she stared at me before lifting both her eyebrows and smirking. She shut my file and shook her head, sitting back in her chair. I crossed my arms over my chest and looked toward the viewing mirror, wondering if the captain had been watching. I burned with humiliation and wondered if she knew and was enjoying it.

  “Note that the accused is requesting an attorney. I’m suspending the interview until counsel is provided,” she said before shutting off the tape recorder.

  She stood up and put her files back in her briefcase, closing it with a snick and lifting it swiftly. She turned and left the room without a glance. No final sarcastic comment, no goodbye. She almost seemed relieved that I’d chosen to lawyer up—maybe because now, she wouldn’t have to interview me alone. But why was she so angry? More than angry, she’d seemed wary of me. What the fuck?