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I looked over at Taz, wondering how he felt about what my grandmother had offered. He smiled, pulling me closer to him. It seemed we had some things to discuss.
Grandma had prepared a feast for dinner. It was the first time ever that all of the people I loved were gathered at the same table. Grandma said grace, thanking the Lord for making her family once again safe.
When Taz and I got home, I knew it was time for us to talk. We had things to figure out. He was stretched out on his lazy boy with a game on when I came out in my pajamas.
I crawled up in his lap, cupping his chin in my fingers and kissing his lips softly.
“Can we talk?”
I felt him tense beneath me. He muted the television.
“Sure, babe.”
“Let’s start with your leaving the bureau. How is it that my mother knew about that and I didn’t?”
“It’s my decision to make, Lindsey.”
“I get that, Taz, but why didn’t you want me to know?”
“I wasn’t purposely keeping it from you.”
“Oh, bullshit,” I said. “What’s going on, Taz?”
He was angry now, not at me, but with the whole topic of the FBI.
“What’s going on is that I don’t think I can continue as an agent when my level of commitment to the bureau has significantly been affected.”
“Because of me?”
“Not because of you, per se, Lindsey, but because of what might have happened to you if I had followed procedure, which of course, I didn’t. You would have died.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t follow protocol. I took things into my own hands, representing the bureau while I did so. I obtained warrants by the grace of one sympathetic judge, and I didn’t alert my superiors as to my actions.”
“Superiors? As in Slate?”
“For starters, yeah.”
“So, are you telling me that you got into deep shit with Slate because you saved me?”
“More or less.”
I thought back to this afternoon. Slate had been quiet. There hadn’t been the normal banter back and forth between him and Taz.
“So, what does that mean?”
“It means I can accept a formal reprimand that goes into my permanent file, take a sixty-day, unpaid suspension and pretty much kiss my dream of going into the BAU good-bye or walk away. I am choosing to walk away.”
“I don’t understand this, Taz. The net result was that you saved my life, captured a fugitive from justice, arrested Kyzer and killed their plans to manufacture some sort of illegal amphetamine. I would think a commendation was more in order.”
“Baby, with the FBI it is black and white: the end doesn’t justify the means. It’s as simple as that.”
“But you believe in the FBI. It’s what you do, Taz. I remember you telling me the first time I was here about how much it meant to you.”
“You mean more,” he replied, simply.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I snapped, getting his attention. “You are not going to use me as your reason for walking away.”
