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Gretchen met his stare.
“I could come back,” he offered.
“No.” Although a part of her still thirsted for the other woman’s misery, she had to let justice do the rest. Neil entered the room, and she moved away so he could take over.
The hall echoed when she stepped out of the room. The intel had been good. They’d been able to sweep in and take over in minutes. Now she’d have to deal with the aftermath. In the main room, the overhead lights were on, making the stage and dance floor look like scenery from a familiar TV show. In a corner, Amber cried. If the mascara tracks that ran down her face were any indication, she’d been at it since the team entered the club. Gretchen had started toward her, when two officers came out of Carlisle’s office with Grant cuffed between them. Blood covered the bouncer’s chest and Gretchen’s heart clogged in her throat. It didn’t matter that at the moment they were supposed to be on different sides, she couldn’t forget that he’d friended her and protected her.
“Grant,” she spoke calmly despite the conflicting emotions that rioted inside her. These people had been her friends once. Her name and profession may have been fabricated, but the relationships had been real. “Are you okay?” she asked.
He didn’t even blink at being addressed so familiarly by an agent. “It’s not my blood.” He looked away.
“Well thank God.” She smiled reassuringly at him. She didn’t want to see Grant go down for following orders. He may not have been innocent, but like Finn, he wasn’t bad either.
She moved closer, sure he’d recognized her, and lowered her voice so only he could hear. “If there’s anything—”
“It’s Jay.”
What?Gretchen grabbed his arm and forced him to face her so she could search his tortured gaze.
“The blood.” His voice cracked. “It’s Jay’s.”
It took her a moment to realize he spoke ofherFinn. When she did, she pushed past him and ran to Carlisle’s office.
By the time she charged through the door, a sheet had already been spread over the body. Blood had already soaked through the cotton.
She stopped short, gasping for breath. “Who is that?”
Grant was wrong. It had to be someone else, someone truly evil who deserved to die.
“I think it’s Jay Finley,” Carpenter spoke from behind her. “The other man called him Jay, and from what we can tell, he fits the description.”
She shook her head and pushed forward. They were wrong. She’d tell them it wasn’t Finn. She could identify even the smallest bit of him, like the small scar at his hip, or the freckles on his shoulder or the birthmark on his knee.
Carpenter stepped in front of her. “You need to get out. The two of you were too close. You don’t need to be here. Go handle things with Sinclair.”
She shook her head. Fuck Ronnie Sinclair. If Finn was dead, none of that mattered. “I need to see—”
“No, get out of here,” Carpenter ordered.
She didn’t comply. Her gaze went to the hand left uncovered by the sheet. There were calluses from Finn’s hours of woodworking and a scar across the palm from an errant saw when he and Brock had built their first fort decades ago.
“No.” Her chest squeezed too full and tight. She pushed against Carpenter, determined to get to Finn. “No.”
Neil stood behind her now. “Come on, Chris, let’s get out of here.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t leave. Finn needed her now. There had to be something she could do to erase this. “No,” she screamed and pushed Neil, lunging toward the body.
Neil caught her by the waist and jerked her back, tightening his grip when her hands tried to bat him away.
“No,” she repeated. Then she was screaming for Finn as Neil forced her through the club and the people she’d helped destroy.
Chapter 16
Gretchen had expected to feel such satisfaction at seeing Ronnie Sinclair behind bars. Not surprisingly, she didn’t feel much at all when her heart lay dead somewhere.
They hadn’t told her anything about Finn or what they’d done with his remains. From the bits and pieces of conversations she’d overheard, she’d gathered he’d been shot protecting Grant. Not surprising. Finn had been born to protect. Maybe he’d been right to fight the good parts of him for so long, giving in had gotten him killed. He’d finally proven to everyone what she’d known all along, he was a good man with a good heart. Only now he was gone, and she couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact she’d never see him again.
She stood with her arms crossed over her chest and watched Ronnie through the interrogation room’s one-way mirror. Ronnie’s nose and arm were broken, and although she’d spent the last forty-eight hours in the hospital as she and the doctors debated over how best to treat her, she didn’t appear any better off than she’d been when Neil had dragged her, handcuffed, from the room two nights before. Gretchen took a deep breath and pushed through the door into the interrogation room. A slight tingle of pleasure swept through her as Ronnie’s eyes widened when she spotted Gretchen.
