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“He offered to beat him up.”
“His usual way of solving problems then.”
They get to the car, and Cara looks at Deakin over the roof.
“I know you two don’t get along, but if one of you just made the effort, you might realize you’re more alike than you know.”
Deakin shakes his head as he gets into the passenger seat. “I think that’s unlikely, Cara. I just can’t stand the way he is. Like he thinks normal rules don’t apply to him. The rest of us have to follow procedure, and that’s how we get convictions. Why should he get a free pass?”
“Well, will you just please try?” she begs. “For me?”
Deakin sighs. “Anything for you, Cara—you know that.”
They both sit in Cara’s car. She knows neither of them wants to head to the station. Back to nagging the lab, chasing Ross for more postmortem results? To crossing their fingers and hoping they get something they can work with?
They need this time, this space. Even if it’s just for a moment.
Cara reaches across Noah and opens the glovebox, finding two cookies, left for the kids one time. She’s not sure how old they are, but passes one to Deakin and he opens it. She eats her own, enjoying the abrupt sweetness.
“Have you ever thought you could kill someone?”
The words come out before she’s thought about them. She glances anxiously to Noah, but he’s not judging. He takes another bite of his biscuit and chews thoughtfully.
“I’d like to think I couldn’t. But if it came down to it, maybe. Yes. If my life was in danger, something like that.”
“Is that the line for you? Someone threatening your life?”
“Or someone I loved.”
Cara wonders who that is for Noah.
“Did you have to do anything like that for SO10?” she asks.
“What? Kill someone?” Deakin asks. She nods. “No. It was usually me getting beaten up. And stabbed once.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, here.” Noah takes his coat off, Roo’s raincoat, and throws it on the back seat, then pulls up the edge of his shirt. Cara peers at the small, jagged scar down the side of his stomach, then gets distracted by the line of dark hair disappearing into the waistband of his jeans. She looks away quickly.
“Did it hurt?”
“Nah.” He grins, pulling his shirt back down. “What about you? Who would you kill?”
Cara thinks about her family.
“I’d kill this guy,” she says, almost whispering. “For what he did to Libby. And Mia and Griffin.”
“How?”
“How?” Cara hadn’t thought about it in that way. How much pain would she inflict? Would she want this guy to suffer? “Perhaps something quick,” she mutters. “Gun. Poison. Plastic bag over the head. Something like that.”
“Could you, though?” Deakin asks. “If someone gave you a gun? Could you pull the trigger?” He pauses. “And you trust Griffin?”
“Nate? To have my back, yes,” Cara replies without hesitation. Noah shakes his head.
“That’s not what I mean. In the face of the man who murdered his wife, do you trust him not to kill him? We’ve both seen what he did to Mia—and to him. It’s a big ask—that faced with your wife’s rapist and killer you won’t do the same to them.”
Cara chews her lip.
