into a fine powder. “Apparently during the time those stories were running in the papers, I was cut off from the world.”

Mac lifted a brow.

“I was drowning—sometimes literally—in the third phase of SEAL training,” he explained. “And by the time I was able to come up for air, I discovered Eve’s phone had been disconnected, and her letters had stopped.” Of course, now Bill understood it was because she’d been caught red-handed out with another man, and she undoubtedly didn’t want to have to come face-to-face with his anger and betrayal. She’d likely thought it was easier just to cut off communication altogether. Make a clean break as opposed to dealing with the drama.

Damnit, Eve! Why didn’t you at least try to talk to me? Why didn’t you give me a chance to listen to an explanation? Didn’t I deserve that?

Of course, coulda, woulda, shoulda. It was all water under the bridge now. Or was it? Did this change things? Change the way he thought about her? Felt about her? He looked inside himself, at all the years of hurt, at all the years of wondering, why, goddamnit, why? And realized he didn’t know. The truth of the matter was she betrayed him and the vows they made to each other the moment she agreed to go out on that date…

Shit on a stick. Why the hell does life, and matters of the heart in particular, have to be so craptastically complicated? Seriously. That wasn’t a rhetorical question. He was really throwing that silent inquiry out into the ether, waiting for the universe to answer him.

A couple of seconds ticked by, but he heard nothing but radio silence. Go figure. In his experience, the universe was, more times than not, a total wad when it came to replying to the big questions.

“And then two days before I was due to finally get leave—I’d planned to fly to her university to figure out just what the hell was going on—I received an invitation to her wedding,” he finished the story in one long, weary breath. Once again, he glanced across the expanse of desks to the gray metal door leading to the interrogation rooms.

“Harsh,” Mac muttered, and Bill snorted.

“Yeah. You might call it that.” Or you might call it friggin’ heartbreaking. Lord knows his ticker had damn near exploded inside his chest cavity when he opened that envelope. To this day, he could still see that red and white invitation, still quote it word for word: With a joyful heart, Patrick Alastair Edens requests the honor of your presence at the marriage of his daughter Evelyn Rose Edens to Jonathon Blake Parish. The ceremony will take place at half past two o’clock on the afternoon of blah, blah, blah…

Christ.

Why had she sent him that awful invitation? He’d never taken her to be spiteful. Not the Eve he’d known then, and not the Eve he knew now. Unless…perhaps she’d thought it would be a signal for him to come crash the party? Perhaps she’d thought—

“Then again,” Mac mused, his lips pursed in consideration, “sounds to me like she might have been manipulated into the marriage. After those articles ran in the papers, perhaps she felt there were expectations placed on her. You know, from friends and family. Maybe she thought she didn’t have another choice.”

Bill wanted to tell Mac he was wrong. That she’d had another choice, goddamnit, because she’d had him. But the wide set of double doors connecting the elevator bank to the bullpen burst open, revealing the deep frown of none other than Chief Washington himself. Directly on his heels were Blake Parish and Patrick Edens.

At some point, Blake had changed his blood-soaked shirt for a fresh button-down and a linen sport coat. But the getup looked a bit ridiculous considering the man’s nose was three times its normal size and both of his eyes were swollen and turning a painful-looking purple. Bill didn’t even try to hide his gleeful smile. And it only spread wider when he discovered Patrick Edens, freshly attired in a light summer sweater, was trying to stare holes through him.

“You better redirect that gaze, cocksucker,” he called to Edens. “Or else I might just decide to jump up and put a limp in that Jimmy Stewart swagger of yours.

“Can it, Reichert,” Washington barked, just as the doors belched open again, admitting two gentlemen wearing pinstripe suits, shiny handmade loafers, and carrying briefcases.

Ah, yes. The ambulance-chasers. Although, Bill would bet a dollar to anyone’s dime that these two overdressed, and no doubt overpaid lawyers had never chased an ambulance, or anything else for that matter, in their entire lives.

“Thank God you’re here,” Edens said to the men, studiously avoiding Bill’s gaze as Washington led the group on a circuitous route through the desks in an attempt to bypass Bill and Mac’s position by the wall.

Probably a good idea, Chief, Bill inwardly admitted. Because the reality was it wouldn’t take much, maybe just a whiff of Edens’s overpowering cologne, for him to follow through on that threat he’d just made.

Of course, he was careful to make sure none of this showed on his face when Washington glanced at him over his shoulder. Instead, he lifted a brow, letting his eyes drift to the lawyers before returning his gaze to Washington and calling, “What was that I mentioned earlier about me being able to say I told you so?”

Washington thrust out his lower lip all pugnacious-like and glared with those black eyes that seemed to see straight into a man’s soul. Bill had always kind of figured the role of Sergeant Foley played by Louis Gossett Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman was modeled after Washington.

“What did I just say, Reichert?” Washington bellowed.

He grinned cheekily. “About what, Chief?”

“About canning it,” Washington barked.

“Um,” Bill twisted up his face like the IQ fairy had passed him by on Extra Points Day. “That I should do so?”

“Exactly,” Washington said, holding the gray door leading to the interrogation wing wide so his train of murderers, manipulators, and, worse, lawyers, could precede him. “But don’t you leave,” the police chief added before following the group. “After I see these, uh, gentlemen in for questioning, I’m gonna want to have a word with you.”

“I’ll be right here, Chief,” he promised.

The detective pecking at his keyboard spared the group a brief glance before they disappeared behind the door. Then he went back to glaring at his computer screen. And when Bill turned to Mac, he found the man’s expression was as amused as Washington’s had been irritated.

“I dealt with a lot of police chiefs during my time as a fed,” Mac drawled. “But I never came across one with quite the…eh…what is that particular aura that hangs around our intrepid Chief Washington? I can’t quite put my finger on it?”

“It’s one part don’t fuck with me,” Bill supplied helpfully.

“And the other part?” Mac queried.

“Don’t fuck with me.”

Mac chuckled. “Yeah, I think you nailed it.”

For a couple of minutes, the police station was silent save for the monotonous tick, tick, tick of the clock on the wall above their heads, and the intermittent clickety- clack of the detective’s keyboard. Then Washington burst back onto the scene with the force and vigor of hurricane.

Bill and Mac both jumped to their feet. “How much longer will Eve be in there?” Bill asked before Washington finished crossing the room.

The chief didn’t deign to answer, the confounding sonofagun, until after he’d sidled up beside them, all the while eyeing Bill in that deeply disturbing and blatantly considering way he had. He took his time loosening his red and blue tie, shrugging out of his suit jacket, and unbuttoning and rolling up the sleeves on his white dress shirt. And Bill knew the chief was being purposefully annoying, proving to everyone that in this place he was the big, swinging dick. But finally Washington relented, throwing his jacket on the bench and saying, “I suspect she’ll be out soon. Normandy was

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