“I know…” I start, “but…”
“You’re happy he’s back.” Maeve’s gaze is soft on mine, her green eyes shimmering in understanding. Stella’s words shatter the sympathy dancing across Maeve’s features.
“You’re playing with fire.”
“Would you give her a break?” Maeve shifts between us to face Stella. “It’s hard for people like us to find love.”
I twist the stem of my glass as it rests on my knee, readying myself to listen to the same argument I’ve heard between the two of them a hundred times before.
Stella leans forward so she can look me in the eyes while she delivers my first scolding. “Love?” She raises her arm to point in what I’m assuming isthe direction of Colin, and I can only hope he hasn’t spotted us yet. “That man put your mother inprison, Chloe. He wants to putyouin prison, too, if you forgot. And he’s going to if you let him get too close. He’s just like the men we’re desperate to destroy.”
“No, he’s not, Stella.” I crunch an espresso bean between my teeth.
It’s hard to explain if you’ve only been on the outside looking in, but I can see it in Colin’s eyes—he’s not afraid of me at all. Hell, he might not even entirely believe that I’m dangerous. But some part of himknowsI am, and he still wants me. I bet that’s what really scares the shit out of him. It’s not easy to come to terms with the fact that you’re a good person with a little bad blood flowing through your veins, but I’ve had years to do just that. I can imagine for someone like him, the supposed-to-be upstanding detective, it’s even more difficult. But, I will show him it’s possible. You can be a little goodanda little bad. It doesn’t make you rotten.
On the outside, he may look as bad as the men we relieve the Earth of. But something else is driving his obsession with me.
It’s not pride, or ego, or anything that any of these men are so desperate to prove when they harm women and children. It’s intuition; a desire todo right.
And his intuition is not wrong, he just doesn’t know it. Or rather, he just hasn’t found any evidence to prove it. And he won’t, because the three of us and our sympathizers have a trusty little system worked out between us.
“I don’t even understand why you want anything that man has to offer. He’s a pig.”
Maeve and I both snort at her unintentional pun, and Stella eyes us pointedly.
As harsh as her words are, I am not offended or hurt by them. Stella is the mother of the three of us, desperate to ensure we take every step and make every decision with the utmost caution.
Being a kidnapping survivor can do that to you.
And she’s not entirely wrong. How could anyone love someone like us?
Someone who kills and claims, even with good intentions.
Let alone someone like Colin Mills, whose commitment tojusticeandlawovershadows any chance of him seeing that sometimes two wrongsdomake a right.
He’s too caught up in his duty to be a public servant to even busy himself with trying to build a normal life and have some fun. He’s married to the job, with what appears to be no room for relationships or recreation. I don’t know that he even devotes time to friendships, outside of the seemingly simple ones he maintains with the people who work in his department.What ever happened to his family? And where has he been for the past year?
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I tell the girls, collecting our empty glasses from the table and carrying them toward the bar. I resist the urge to glance around, to see where Colin and his group have settled.
As I lean against the bar and wait for Mickey to finish with a customer down the countertop so I can order some food, a man slides up beside me, his cheek dimpling as he gives me a lopsided smile. I can’t tell if he knows who I am and doesn’t care, or wants an invite back to my place so he can offer The Peak some prime footage from insidethe murder house.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
I side-eye him. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
I make eye contact with Mickey down the way, urging her with my eyes to hurry, but she’s urging me with her eyes of something else—and it doesn’t take me long to realize what it is.
I’d know the feel of those eyes on me anywhere.
“Get the fuck away from her.”
I swallow the newly formed lump in my throat, leaning my elbow on the bar and turning back to Colin as he stands alone, five feet behind me. I force my lips into a smile.
“Detective,” I sing sweetly. “Welcome back.”
“Detective?” the man beside me mutters. His eyes trail to the badge clipped on Colin’s hip and then he ducks his head, rushing away without another word.
Colin glides up to the bar next to me, folding his forearms over one another like it’s the only place in the world he’s supposed to be.
