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“Don’t judge me. It was when I first came on board at the Bureau and my mother had died and I was…sad and vulnerable. Desperate for affection.”
“What happened?”
She turned toward him with crazy eyes that said,what the hell do you think happened?“Do we really have to do this? It’s kind of humiliating.”
“Women seem to be into him. Judith dug his vibe,” Grant said with a grin.
“Are you patronizing me right now? Because I swear I have tweezers in my duffel.”
“I can’t help but be curious. I mean, how does a woman who looks like you,” he said giving her the once-over. “Ever go for someone like Alpha Morales?”
“Did you miss the part about me being sad and desperate?”
He kept quiet, waiting for more. There had to be more to the story.
“Fine. I had just lost my mother, was new to the Bureau and trying to earn my way. It wasn’t easy. There’s a pecking order in the department that’s hard to describe. You are virtually nobody and treated as such until you do something monumental. Newbie agents groveled and pandered, including me, for the good cases as opposed to the grunt work. But it was nearly impossible to get a break and get noticed. We were all just invisible to those who mattered, you know?”
He didn’t know. It was a different professional dynamic in a small-town police department. Or the one in Wayward, anyway. When he became Chief, he was the one who set the tone moving forward and made sure everyone was treated with respect and highly valued.
“But then there was Morales. And trust me, he is as self-absorbed and as smarmy as they come. I’m talking used car salesman extraordinaire with a hero complex and bad comb-over.”
She took a breath. “Anyway. He didn’t care what other people thought. Did what he wanted to do on his terms. Later, I learned that was easy to do when on Daddy’s payroll and not financially tethered to the Bureau like the rest of us. He wined and dined me. Took me on his father’s yacht. A questionable businessman, by the way, who is nothing short of a caricature of a powerful mafia guy with a complex of his own.”
“Right, Les Grossman,Tropic Thunder.”
“Exactly. His crackerjack of a son, Morales, was a real dill hole but somehow, I dunno, likeable in a really weird and twisted way. It didn’t take long before I realized he was a man-child, playing video games at night, showing up to work in tight pants and jersey shirts with gold chains around his neck and telling everyone he was the next Johnny Utah. I came to my senses. He was not the person I needed or wanted, by a long shot, while I was mourning my mother.”
Grant watched Tati intently as she maneuvered the boat of a police cruiser through a right turn.
“But I learned something from the asshole, and that was to never sell yourself short. Not to let the brass bring you down and to live life on your own terms. Not that I planned to masturbate at my desk in a Dixie cup any day soon, but you get where I’m going with this.”
“After that visual, I’m doing my best to keep up.”
“Anyway, now he’s like an irritating little brother or cocker spaniel I want to strangle while also pat on the head. He has a certain joie de vivre and endless optimism that, I guess, to a very small degree, infinitesimal really, I envy.”
“When did you come to that conclusion?”
“That epiphany came at the same time when I was framed and asked to gather my things. I didn’t have any references or connections, so I went into P.I. work. Not glamorous, but it paid the bills. Thanks to Marshall.”
She reluctantly added, “Morales was the only one who believed me and had my back.”
He was done talking and thinking about Tati and Morales as a romantic couple.
“Did you reach out to Marshall or vice versa?”
“He reached out to me. Knew that I had won the DNA lottery as Ariana’s granddaughter and was ex-FBI turned P.I. and hired me.”
She pointed toward traffic. “There he is,” Tati said excitedly. “An Audi R8 Spider. Ooh, she’s pretty. Nice ride, Hillsboro. Too bad I helped him earn it by putting me under for four months.”
The gleam in her eyes began to worry him. Grant needed to take the reins. “Okay, if we’re going to do this, we’re doing it my way. Got it? This is no time for revenge or paybacks.”
“Got it,” she said with a dark twinkle in her beautiful blue eyes. “Just because I’ve literally dreamed of this moment every day for the last few months…dreamed of what I’d say to him, do to him, doesn’t mean I’m going to go rogue.”
