White Night

Chapter 17

Connors' cell phone lit up as she sat down at her desk, but she didn't recognize the number.

"Connors," she answered.

"I just needed to hear your voice."

Crap.

"Jay, I can't do this now," she said quietly, depositing her lunch on her desk and turning away.

"Well, when would you like to schedule me in?" Jay snapped.

"Jay, I'll call you," she whispered and hung up.

Ross wasn't at his desk. She had no idea where the hell he was. But even with everyone else in the department busily working on their own cases, it was a safe bet that her colleagues knew something was up from her hushed tones.

Embarrassed but conflicted, she still missed Jay, remembering the weight of his arms wrapped around her as she lay on the couch exhausted from pain and effort during her recovery.

They'd celebrated the day she passed her fitness test, made love for hours and then collapsed together while he stroked her hair and told her he knew she could do it. She hadn't ever wanted to let him go that night.

Within two weeks of her being reinstated, any joy she'd found after almost a year of excruciating pain, crippling self-doubt, and bone-chilling nightmares was erased by the new gulf between them.

Initially, she'd tried to make it home earlier, driving like a carjacker when she was later than she'd said she would be, but it didn't make any difference. Each hour that passed after 7 pm, his expectation of when most "reasonable" people were home, he grew more furious.

Then one day, Catherine Argon put her two surviving children in the car with her in the garage and ran the engine in an attempt to end her constant terror that any more of her children would be taken from her. Her husband had come home for lunch and pulled them out of the car just in time.

Connors still remembered the look on Catherine Argon's face as she was led to a waiting ambulance. She was dead behind the eyes, staring through everything, coming alive only to release a wailing scream as her children were bundled into a separate ambulance.

The horrors it had taken to push a loving mother like Catherine Argon to attempt to kill her own children out of pure fear made Connors shudder. Thoughts of her own beautiful nephew living in Colorado just deepened the pit in her stomach.

When Jay blasted her for being late home that night, she'd thrown him out. He'd been stunned but her relief was overwhelming. Yet she still missed him, his smile, the feeling of his head against hers, his hands around her waist pulling her closer.

A reminder sounded on her phone, breaking into her thoughts. It was time for the deposition, where Redgrave's lawyers would take potshots at her for an hour before beginning a dissection of her every action that night which would last for the next few months in the run-up to the trial.

Captain Reyes appeared at her desk. "Glad you made it back in time, Detective. Thought you were going to miss the deposition."

"On my way now, ma'am," she said quietly.

It was a thirty-minute drive to the law offices of Fiebright and Radler in Brooklyn Heights—a ten-minute drive without traffic, but there was always traffic. After spending only slightly less time finding somewhere to park, she entered the law office, where a starchy receptionist took her name and invited her to come through into the conference room.

"Thanks, but I need to wait for my lawyer," she responded.

The receptionist's eyes narrowed. "Fine. Please take a seat in the reception area."