No one answers.
Reid’s jaw flexes. “Do you still have it?”
“No,” Tristan lies.
“If we run ballistics on that gun and it’s a match to the one that killed Connelly, it’s a done deal,” Reid insists.
I stare at the detective warily. “Hypothetically speaking, if that gun was sent to your precinct, anonymously, would it be admitted without tracing back to any of us?”
He matches my gaze. “Hypothetically speaking, I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”
“Tristan?” I whisper.
“We don’t know anything about a murderer’s gun. I gave it back to Abel myself.”
“Listen, Morra, give me one chance,” Reid continues. “Let me bring Abel in the right way first. If it doesn’t work—if I can’t make it stick—”
“Or if he gets off on a technicality or decides to enter an insanity plea and his therapist’s sessions backfires,” Tristan adds.
“If he slips through the system again in any way, then… Everyone’s gotta do what they gotta do.” The detective shrugs and backs away. “Just don’t let me catch you.”
“I don’t trust him,” Tristan mumbles as soon as the detective leaves to put out an APB on my husband. “Are you really gonna let him handle Abel?”
The idea is entertaining. A dirty cop captured by his friends, left to rot in prison with enemies he put away. The irony is poetic and cathartic. Except the second Blake is captured, he will talk about the past, all the secrets we’ve shared. Prison is one step closer to Shane. Together they will try to bring me down with them.
I can’t allow it.
“I’ve been a fool once. I won’t be ever again.” I secure the gun in the back of my pants. “The detective can’t take Blake down, but we will.”
“Good girl.”
“What did you just say?”
“You heard me,” he whispers in my ear, “but I can say it again, when I take you hard and fast on the corpse of Blake Abel.”
My pulse pounds, bleeding with hunger, not fear. The intoxicating darkness sends pools of heat between my thighs. “The Enzio to my Bianca.”
“I prefer the Mad Dog to your Vixen.”
A smile slowly creeps on my lips. Blake wanted to play games with his little bird? The butterfly he’s trapped in a jar on display? Time to show him what happens when butterflies develop a taste for blood. “I think I know where to find him.”
“Where?”
“The last place I’d want to be. The place we first met.”
Tristan’s face is puzzled for a second before recognition hits him. “Of course. Your old apartment.”
“Where he answered the domestic disturbance call.”
“Won’t it be rented to someone else by now?”
“A couple of years ago, I bought it.” So I won’t forget what happened there. A reminder of what should have never happened again. “It pissed him off. That’s how I know he’ll be there, hiding in plain sight. The last place I’d think he’d want to be.” I chuckle. “It wasn’t very smart of him to clue me in, though.The place where we first met.”
“He never thought you’d outsmart him and figure out it was really him. That works in our favor. The element of surprise.” Tristan rallies his men and gives them orders. One will go with me back to the hotel. The other will create a diversion in case the detective decides to follow, and Tristan will find Blake.
“No. I need to be there. I need to see him dead,” I say.
“I’ll call you to come when it’s safe. You’ll get your closure, Birdie,” Tristan promises. “Here’s your phone. I retrieved it from the school. Don’t ever pull a stunt like that on me ever again.”
