“Just after seven,” I answered.
“I’d better get going. I’ve got a meeting with a supplier at nine.”
Leaning forward, he placed a quick kiss on my lips before hopping out of bed. His swiftness caught me off guard, and I began to wonder if he’d been faking sleep, if he’d been listening to my entire conversation with Tony. It hit me suddenly that I’d been about to tell him everything, and it completely sobered me. I’d been about to warn a criminal that his business was going to be searched, and I’d barely even had to think twice about it. What the hell was happening to me? Being with Lee was changing everything, and I was one-hundred-percent sure I didn’t like it.
He dressed like normal, and there was nothing in his demeanour that made me think he was anxious to leave. He acted just like any man who had a meeting to get to; hurried, but not overly so. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe he hadn’t heard the call. I sat up in bed, watching him dress, and when he was done he came toward me, kissing me one last time. Again, it was on the tip of my tongue to warn him, but I couldn’t seem to find my voice. Lee hovered for a second, his eyes flickering between mine, almost like he was waiting for me to say something, but that couldn’t be right.
As soon as he was gone, I got up, showered, and dressed, all within the space of half an hour. I had just enough time to grab a large coffee from Starbucks on my way to the station in lieu of a breakfast. When I arrived, I found DI Jennings in the briefing room, heading the search team. Steve had a list of the cars suspected of being stored at the garage, including all of the makes, models, and vehicle identification numbers.
All of a sudden, everything felt a little too real, and though I hadn’t yet eaten a thing, I was struck by a wave of nausea. Tony drove and I sat in the passenger seat, with Keira in the back as we made the short journey to the garage. Keira prattled on about the fight she’d been having with her boyfriend, but I barely registered what she was saying. On the outside I might have seemed calm, but on the inside I was panicking.
Why hadn’t I warned Lee?
Yes, he was guilty, and I’d always believed that guilty people deserved to be punished. But now that I had very real feelings for a guilty person, the lines were starting to blur. I pulled my phone from my pocket, on the cusp of typing out a message, but it was too late, and what on earth would I say to him anyway? It wasn’t like you could flush a stolen car down the toilet or hide it under a rug.
A minute later Tony pulled up outside the garage, joining a number of other police vehicles. Jennings was standing by the entrance, her mouth moving as she barked orders at the assembled officers. Tony, Keira, and I got out and joined the others right before Jennings turned and banged three times on the door. My heart hammered as I waited, hoping like hell that it wasn’t Lee who answered. In the end, it was Stu who appeared, and Jennings immediately announced herself and her intention to search the premises.
“No chance,” said Stu, standing tall and crossing his arms over his chest. “This is private property.” I was suddenly aware of his size, his broad shoulders and muscular arms, and how scary he appeared when facing down Jennings, who was half his size but just as fierce. She took her time pulling out the search warrant before smugly waving it in his face. Stu scowled at her for a long moment, but eventually stood back and let her pass.
Jennings turned and motioned for the search team to enter. I was one of the last to go inside, and when Stu saw me he shook his head, letting out a hard laugh as he shot me a look of pure disdain.
“Oh, this is fucking priceless,” he said, not a hint of humour in his voice. I was thankful nobody else was paying attention to him.
I was about to follow the others when Jennings stopped me in my tracks. “Sheehan, stay here and make sure no members of the public try to enter.”
I nodded at the instruction and went to stand by the door. The search team was noisy, barrelling through the garage, pulling open cabinets and toolboxes in search of anything even remotely suspect. Jennings knocked loudly on Lee’s office door, and I went utterly still when I heard him saying something to her, the irritation clear in his voice.
Stu stood just a couple of feet away, leaning against the wall with his arms folded as he continued to eye me.
“I warned Lee about you, and now look. Knew you were going to be nothing but trouble for us.”
“This hasn’t got anything to do with me,” I said quietly, fervently, unable to prevent the hitch in my voice.
Stu rolled his eyes. “Likely fucking story.”
“I’m not lying!” I whisper-hissed, glancing around to make sure nobody was listening. “I care about your brother a lot.”
“Not enough to warn him about all this, though,” Stu responded, motioning to the search team currently rifling through the place.
“I never planned for any of this to happen, and if I could rewind the clock, I would. I’d try to make a better decision, but you should know that all of this would have happened whether or not Lee and I became involved.”
He didn’t say anything, just continued to stare me down, and I was surprised I managed to stand my ground. Stu was nothing if not intimidating, especially when he was angry. Eventually he turned and walked in the direction of Lee’s office. I heard the two brothers talking and grew nervous, wondering if Stu was telling him that I was there. I expected Lee to come and find me at any moment, but it never happened. Over an hour passed, and I had to turn away a number of customers who stopped by. Clearly, there was a legitimate side to the business; I just didn’t know what percentage it was compared to the non-legitimate side.
My stomach was rumbling loudly, a reminder that I hadn’t eaten yet today, when Tony came over. There was a crease in his brow as he stared down at the clipboard he held, listing the stolen vehicles.
“I don’t understand,” he said, confused, and I perked up suddenly. “Not a single one of these motors matches the ones on this list.”
I let out a breath, whether in relief or surprise, I couldn’t say. “Do you think somebody gave Jennings bad information?”
“Either that, or someone tipped them off that we were coming,” said Tony, his gaze drifting around the room, and all of a sudden I knew. There was no suspicion in his voice, only a statement of fact, and yet my stomach twisted like he’d just pointed an accusatory finger right at me.
“Has Jennings been told?”
Tony nodded. “I just informed her. She’s on the warpath. Probably best to steer clear of her today.”
“I hear that,” I muttered, rubbing my fingers over my tired eyes.
It wasn’t bad information. Tony had hit the nail on the head. They’d known we were coming, and it was all down to me. This morning had gone from bad to worse. First I felt guilty for not warning Lee about the search, and now I was fuming that he’d pretended to be asleep while he’d quite clearly been listening to a private phone call. Whatever way you wanted to spin it, he’d taken advantage of our personal relationship and jeopardised my job in the process. But really, I was even angrier at myself, because I’d jeopardised it too just by being with him. I was also dumb enough to think I could trust him.
Whatever happened to the woman who’d said she’d never let herself say yes to Lee Cross?
She forgot to use her brain, that’s what. The more minutes that passed, the angrier I became. At some point I saw Jennings stride out of the garage, a face like thunder, and several members of the search team left with her. Only a few remained, and I took the opportunity to go and find Lee. He was standing in a back corridor of the building, one side of which led to a break room and the other to a bathroom. He had his back to me as he and Stu spoke in hushed tones. Looking behind me to make sure none of my colleagues were nearby, I grabbed Lee’s arm and yanked him inside the bathroom before he could react.
“Hey!” Stu yelled as I slammed the door shut and flicked over the lock.
“What the fuck?” Lee swore, his expression furious.
I took a step toward him. “
Don’t look at me like that. I know what you did.”
He cocked an eyebrow and splayed his arms out. “Oh, yeah, and what’s that?”
“You took advantage of me, that’s what. You weren’t asleep this morning when Tony called, were you? You bloody well heard everything.”
Lee didn’t answer, just stared at me stonily. I let out a crazed laugh and placed my hands on my hips as I peered up at the ceiling. “God, how could I have been so stupid?” Suddenly, hurt began to mix in with my anger, a sharp pang shooting through my chest. “You and your brothers have probably been laughing at me all this time, laughing at the dumb cop who couldn’t see through your act.”
“You’re wrong,” Lee said firmly.
“Oh, yeah? Explain it, then.”
His expression softened by the tiniest fraction as he stepped closer. “I can’t do this right now, Karla. I’ll come over to yours later and we’ll talk, okay?”
His response made my temper flare as I pressed both hands to his chest and pushed him back. “You’ll do no such thing. I don’t want to see you after this, not ever. You’re just a little boy playing around with fire, only I’m the one who got burned.”
Before I could pull away, Lee caught my wrists, yanking my body to his as he glared down at me. “I was never a boy, not in this life. Even when I was a kid, I didn’t feel like one, so don’t give me that. And do you know how much I was willing you to say something this morning? Anything. But you didn’t breathe a word. Not one fucking word. I should’ve known you didn’t really give a shit about me after what happened with Liam. But no, I didn’t listen to my gut, I just let my cock lead me, thinking you were perfect. That makes me the stupid one, not you.”
His words cut me deep and I pulled at his grip, but he held me too tightly and I couldn’t break free. “Don’t you dare try turning this around.”
“Why not?” he asked, his warm breath hitting my cheeks. “Yes, I listened to your phone call, but you were going to let me walk out of your flat completely oblivious to the fact that I was about to be fucked over. You know this isn’t the life I’d choose if there’d been another option, yet you were going to let me go to prison, Karla. Let that sink in for a minute. It killed me when you didn’t say anything, and I waited. I gave you every opportunity.”
The hurt in his eyes was plain as day, and the wind went right out of my sails. “I wanted to tell you,” I whispered. “But I just…I just couldn’t.”
“Of course you couldn’t, because you care more about being a cop and saving all the people you perceive as innocent than you’ll ever care about me. You’ll never see that the world isn’t all black and white.” Anger and anguish mixed in his voice as it cracked around the edges, catching. “Sometimes the innocent ones are guilty only because the world didn’t give them a chance to stay innocent. Maybe I’m the one you should think about saving.”
Right in that moment my gut sank. His anger was too sad to be angry at in return, and for a second all I saw was a hurt little boy. When I spoke, I kept my voice gentle. “I’ve tried talking to you about going clean, but you won’t hear a word of it.”
His mouth twisted as he gestured around us. “Because I’m in too fucking deep, I told you that!”
“I can help you. There are things we can look into, procedures.”
Lee laughed harshly, shaking his head, “God, look at you, still a fucking cop. Always a fucking cop. Can you just be on my side for one bloody second?”
Any tenderness in my voice vanished, and my expression hardened. “I was a cop long before I met you, Lee, and I’ve barely even scratched the surface of knowing who you are, so how can you expect loyalty when it hasn’t been earned?”
He bent his head to look me directly in the eye, his lips mere centimetres from mine. “Don’t pretend like you can’t feel what’s between us.” He paused, his voice dropping low. “I’ve been deep inside you, Karla. I know who you are and you know who I am. You’re just too scared to admit it.”
I shook my head, refusing to listen to him rationalise so irrationally. “Lee, we need to be smart. This thing we’re doing is going to destroy us. Look what’s happened already. I love being with you, but all this” — I peered at him despairingly — “it’s not worth it.”
He shook his head. “You don’t believe that.”
“I do. I believe it. I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but so long as it stays the same, we can’t be together. I’m sorry.”
I took a step back and he let me go. Tears prickled at my eyes, but I refused to let them fall, not wanting to look weak. Lee’s features turned hard, his eyes thin slices of blue. We stared at each other for a long time, until the tension in the small room became unbearable.
“I have to go,” I said, turning on my heel and unlocking the door. Stepping out into the hallway, I found it was empty, the garage quiet now that most of the search team had left. Lee didn’t call for me to stay or come after me, and as I walked away from him, I brought my fingers to my cheeks, wiping away the tears.
Fifteen
Back at the station that afternoon, it was a rare occasion that I saw my dad. My emotions were still a little off kilter after what had happened with Lee, so I wasn’t sure I was fit to deal with my father. Luckily, he was there in a professional capacity, to debrief the team after the failed search. Not surprisingly, Jennings was nowhere to be seen, and I had to admit I was slightly disappointed. There was some weird part of me that wanted to see them interact, perhaps do something to prove that Jennings had been lying about their affair.
I sat at the back of the room in between Tony and Keira, listening to him talk about how the search was connected to a much larger case, the one he’d been working on to take down Tommy McGregor.
I could barely breathe as he clicked through a series of projected images, all displaying pictures and evidence on the powerful crime lord. It was suspected that the Cross garage was one of his main sources of high-end stolen vehicles, and they had pictures of all the brothers. My heart stuttered when a surveillance shot of Lee came on the screen. He was crossing the street, his phone held to his ear as he took a drag out of a cigarette. Tiny pinpricks tickled at my palms, and my mouth felt dry as a bone.
They’d misjudged the setup, though, suspecting that Stu was heading the operation since he was the eldest. Everything fell into place. Lee’s boss was McGregor; that was why he’d been at the warehouse the night of the rave.
“Unfortunately for the investigation,” my dad went on sourly, “information was leaked that the garage was to be searched today, which as you all know, resulted in the place being cleaner than a priest on Sunday.”
Little did he know, the source of that leak was me. I’d never felt more conflicted in my entire seven years on the job. When Dad finished up the debriefing, I stood on shaky legs and made my way to the front of the room, where he was talking seriously with one of the sergeants. I waited until they were done before approaching him.
“Dad,” I said, and his eyes came to me.
“Constable,” he replied formally, refusing to use my actual name. We never really spoke to one another at work, but it still hardened me inside that he couldn’t even bring himself to acknowledge that I was his daughter in front of colleagues. It was perplexing that I’d approached him at all, but for some reason I had the sudden urge to talk to him.
“Do you have time for a quick cup of tea?” I asked.
For a brief moment he looked disgruntled, put out by the idea of actually spending some small amount of his precious time with me. A few moments went by before he finally nodded, glancing at his watch. “Yes, but not long.”
“There’s a café across the street,” I suggested and got another nod.
We walked in silence out of the station and over the road, not speaking until the waitress had brought us our beverages. Dad studied me curiously, and a little impatiently, waiting for me to speak.
“I spoke to DI Jennings the other day. She told me some stuff,?
?? I began, and Dad’s posture stiffened.
“That woman has no business telling you anything,” he practically grunted.
“I’ll take that as confirmation that what she told me is true, then, shall I?”
He turned away, staring out the window as he brought his teacup to his mouth and took a sip. I clasped my hands together, my stomach in knots.
“I can’t believe you’d do that to Mum,” I said, breaking the silence. “She’s never been anything but loyal to you, more loyal than you deserve.”
“It was a long time ago, Karla. I’ve put it behind me,” he answered, dismissive.
“Well, Jennings certainly hasn’t. Have you any idea what it’s like for me working with her? She literally goes out of her way to fuck with me every single day.”
Dad bristled at my use of language, but he didn’t reprimand me for it. “Katherine’s always been volatile,” he said, and if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a note of affection in his voice. Was he shitting me? I’d never heard him sound like that before, not even with Mum.
“You let the men who beat her go free,” I said, and the vein in his neck began to throb.
“Don’t try to act like you understand any of it, Karla. You were only a child when it happened.”
“I understand that you could have easily given a witness statement describing the men who broke into her home, but you refused.” What I really wanted to say was left unspoken, but I could see he knew what I was thinking. It was a cowardly act.
“Do you think I don’t regret what I did?” Dad asked after a long stretch of silence. His question surprised me as I levelled my eyes on him.
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“Of course I do. I was young, afraid of damaging my reputation. Why on earth do you think I’ve been putting all my energy into the McGregor case? What we had is in the past. It’ll never been rekindled, but I’m trying to do right by Katherine by finally putting that monster away for good, even if it might be years too late.”
“McGregor’s the one who beat her?”