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No, she didn’t.
“In the parking lot of Delgado’s. Other cops were there and saw it. The only reason she wasn’t arrested is because Seth said it was a personal matter and that he didn’t want her charged.”
Six months? Valentine’s.“I bet she did it because of Rafe. The assault. It happened last February.” Maybe that was the final straw. What drove her to USD a few short months later.
“It doesn’t matter why. What does matter is that there’s evidence, with eyewitnesses on record, of Haley, an alleged abused wife, terrified of her husband, being violent. Being the aggressor. In public. While her demon of a husband defended her. Protected her. Kept her out of jail. The dots don’t connect. It’s not adding up.”
She heaved a breath.
This didn’t sit well with her. For one thing, the night Charlie had talked to Haley about the possibility of fake credentials, starting a new life somewhere else, Haley had been a quivering, frightened victim who’d gone through a box of tissues. The entire time she’d blamed herself for the beatings, worried about what might happen to her if Seth discovered her plan to leave and questioned whether it might be better to stay.
Was it possible that there was another side to Haley, a side Charlie knew nothing about?
She got up, strode to the railing of the deck, leaned on it. “Did you find anything to give you a grain of doubt about him?”
“I did.” Brian stood and joined her. “His alibi, being with Detective Colvin, can’t be verified. They weren’t on duty. No one else saw them together. They weren’t caught on traffic cameras, either.”
“Then he’s not free and clear,” she said. “His record might be clean, but maybe it’s because he hasn’t been caught yet. It doesn’t mean his hands aren’t dirty.”
“You’re right. It’s not cut-and-dried. There’s more to it all, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
“You do care about this,” she said. “About what happened to Haley.”
“Of course, I care. A woman has disappeared. Her husband, a cop, might be responsible. And if not for that, then possibly other illegal things. This matters to me, but you matter more.”
She drew in a deep breath, held it, exhaled relief that Brian wasn’t giving up. The part about mattering to him, she was quite sure what to do with it.
Easing in front of her, he closed the gap between them and pinned her with a long, steady look that made her stomach flutter. “I need to know what you’re keeping from me. What are you afraid for me to find out?”
“I’m not exactly a model citizen.”
“Are we talking dead bodies buried somewhere?” he asked, easy-breezy.
It wasn’t as bad as that, still, she grunted her frustration. This was serious. Life-changing. Career-ending. She wished he’d act like it. “What if I told you I had killed someone? What would you do?”
His dark brows knit together. “I’d ask you why you did it.”
His reasonable response, the best she could really hope for, didn’t make her feel any better.
He gazed down at her calmly. “Stop testing me. Tell me what it is.”
She gulped the rest of her wine. Why did he have to push this?
“Hey,” he said. “I want you to think of this deck as a safe space. A confessional. You share with me, and I’ll never violate your trust.”
She frowned at the monumental promise he couldn’t possibly keep.
“Give me a chance, Charlie.”
“For what, to let me down?”
He cupped her face in his hand and stroked her cheek with his thumb. “Have I disappointed you yet?”
No. He hadn’t.
“You’re no coward,” he said. “This isn’t the time to start acting like one.”
Now he was testing her. Pushing her. Right out of her cagey comfort zone.
