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“We haven’t found anything and there’s no point in keeping you in there and I don’t consider it safe.”
My head jerks back slightly. “Not safe?”
He sighs, scrubbing his hand over his face. “How long have you been sleeping with Annika Wolfe, Harvey?”
I blink at him and shuffle in my seat. He’s good. Too good.
“I know you,” he continues. “I’m aware of your relationship with the fairer sex. I know how you get and when we met last, I saw something in you. You’ve fallen in some deep shit.”
“Captain—”
“I don’t blame you, Harv,” he says, the disappointment evident in his voice. “It was a solid plan to seduce her in an attempt to get closer.”
I keep my lips tightly sealed, not telling him that no matter how I tried to convince myself that was exactly what I was doing, I was never sleeping with her for the case.
“But Annika Wolfe is a highly skilled seductress and manipulator. I’m worried about you, Harv, I don’t want you to get in too deep to find your way out.”
I want to argue but I stay quiet.
“So, you’re off the case.”
I nod, thinking on everything he’s said. “What does this mean for me, moving forward? I guess I don’t have a job still.”
His smile returns and he leans to the side and the rumble of his desk draw opening, loud in the room. Gary places a familiar item in front of me and my mouth goes dry, my heart pounding hard enough to be felt in my stomach and making me feel sick. My badge stares back at me, gleaming.
“You’re back in, Campos.” Gary smiles at me with a pride in his eyes that I most certainly do not deserve.
“What?”
“You are Detective Javier Campos once more.” He chuckles.
I just shake my head not understanding any of this. “But why? I failed.”
“But you tried, took on the task at high risk and went for it. You might not have been able to give us anything useful, but you spent time in the company of some of the most dangerous criminals in this city and for that, the Chief and I want to reward you. You’re back with us, Harv.”
His excitement should be fuelling my own, but I feel like I’m plummeting off a cliff’s edge with nothing below but a stormy ocean and no life jacket.
“I-I don’t know what to say.”
Gary laughs again. “Then don’t say anything. You have a week to take some time away, decompress and unwind. Then you’re back here bright and early the following Monday.”
I swallow, my head nodding even though my heart is screaming loudly at me that I don’t want this.
“Come on, I’ll walk you down to your car, maybe we can stop at the vending machine and get a god-awful coffee on the way.”
The captain leads me from his office, my badge that he bestowed back on me burning at my hip through my jeans and sending a blinding pain to my chest that I can only ignore in present company. It feels…wrong. Heavy and uncomfortable.
“Come on, son, there’s a new machine on the first floor that does the fancy coffees.” Gary’s voice is louder than normal, piercing my brain where a migraine is steadily forming. I nod and follow him through the door, stopping dead in my tracks when I see the woman being lead through the desks from the direction of the interrogation rooms. Annika is in her standard brightly coloured suit with her white-blonde hair set in perfect waves cascading over her shoulders. Her face is in that neutral but cold expression I’ve come to know as her mask to the world. She’s followed by an older guy in a suit with a briefcase in his hand, he screams lawyer. When she sees me, she comes to a halt in front of Captain Marks and me. To a stranger, her expression never changes but I see it. I see the surprise flash in her eyes and when they dart to where my badge is gleaming, the emotion is thick for a fraction of a second before she composes herself.
“Miss Wolfe,” Marks greets her with a polite smile. “Thank you for taking time to answer our questions.”
What? Questions?
“I wasn’t given much choice, Detective Marks.” Her disdain for the entire force is held in the way she looks at my superior.
“Miss Wolfe,” the lawyer guy says quietly in a pleading tone.
Gary widens his smile. “It’s Captain Marks.”
