On His Honor (16 page)

“You can’t.” He snatched her phone out of her hand. “I shouldn’t be revealing even this much to you. The only reason I said anything is that you’re not safe around him. There are…things going on right now, serious things. People could get killed. You can’t say a word to him.”

She stared at him. “Does this mean…” Her expression was dawning horror. “Are you saying you’re involved?”

He hesitated too long.

“No.” Her face lost all color. “You are, aren’t you?” She took a step back from him, her hand rising to her throat. “You— That’s why you spent time with me? Why you…”

“No—that’s not it. You have to believe me.” He closed the gap between them.

“You’re a cop.” Never had those words sounded more like a curse to him. “But…you said you taught at the Academy.”

“I do…occasionally.”

“But that’s not why you’re with me. I was only a means…”

“That has nothing to do with why why we’re here, you and me. I mean, yes, the task force was looking into Avery, so when Sophie asked me—”

Her beautiful eyes went dark with pain.

“Violet, it’s not what you think. I didn’t—you have to let me explain.” He reached for her.

“No!” She yanked her arm from his grip. “Don’t touch me!” She crossed her arms over her middle. “I…I trusted you. You knew what I’d been through. Knew how hard it was for me—” She doubled over.

“It wasn’t a lie, Violet, what grew between us. I—I’ve never felt about a woman like I—”

“Stop!” Her face was white as parchment now. “Don’t say another word. When I think of how we— And how I thought…” Tears rolled down her pinched white cheeks, and he wanted so badly to hold her, to protect her—

His goddamn phone rang again. “Shit!” There was no way he could avoid answering again. “Violet, please…just give me a second. Please…I have to explain to you.” He held his phone but didn’t answer. He took a step toward her and nearly landed on the kitten, who screeched.

“Answer your phone,” she said, in the coldest voice he’d ever heard. “I have nothing to say to you. We’re done.” She bent and scooped up the kitten, then ran unsteadily up the stairs.

“Violet—” The phone started up again. “Goddamn it, what?” he barked into it.

“I don’t care what the hell you’re doing, you’d better be on your way here, JD,” Doc said in a voice nearly as cold as Violet’s. “Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

“Violet knows.”

“What?” The quieter Doc’s voice got, the more dangerous things were. “How the hell did that happen?”

“Look, call me on the carpet later. Right now, I have to keep her from calling Lofton.”

Doc cursed vividly. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to finish the conversation you interrupted.”

“Make it fast. I need you here to talk to Candy. She may be able to tell us where to find Hector. We can bring Violet to the station, if necessary.”

“Oh, yeah. That’ll go over great.”

“If you can’t control her, I will.”

“Screw that. You leave her alone.”

“Are you threatening me, JD?”

He didn’t care that he was bordering on irrational. All he could see was the devastation on Violet’s face. With great effort, he brought himself under control. “I just…she doesn’t deserve how this hurts her, Doc.”

“That can’t be our priority right now. You know that.”

“Yeah.” But it didn’t make his heart ache any less. “Can you keep Candy under wraps a little longer?”

“I guess I’ll have to.”

“You’ve got a tail on Lofton, right? I think he’s getting shaky.”

“Any more good news for me? You’re going to explain to me at some point exactly how my best undercover agent got outed, right? And it better be more convincing than just sex fogged your brain.”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” he snapped.

“Don’t act like you’ve forgotten who you are. What your job is.”

Violet was so much more than a job, but he couldn’t begin to make Doc understand, not if he had hours. He didn’t understand himself exactly how, in the space of a couple of days, he’d lost an edge that he’d spent years honing. But now wasn’t the time.

Suddenly he felt old and weary. And what he’d lost…he couldn’t think of it. He had to focus solely on keeping Violet safe.

“I want to hear back from you in an hour or less. Preferably less.”

“I’ll do my best.” He looked up the stairs, wondering how in the hell he was going to convince Violet to trust him and not Lofton after what he’d seen on her face.

Then he remembered the kitten. Much as it grated to have to detour like this, he’d better make arrangements for the cat before he talked to Violet so that nothing got in the way, however this worked out. He made a quick call to his neighbor, then jammed his phone in his pocket and started climbing the stairs.

* * *

V
IOLET
DISCONNECTED
HER
PHONE
after calling the taxi. An unnatural calm seized her, the calm of someone who can’t bear to think about what she’d lost.

But she hadn’t lost anything, really, had she? What she’d thought was between her and JD had never actually existed.

What was wrong with her? Didn’t she know better?

’Cause you’re a romantic…the world needs more romantics.

Not anymore. She was done with that. Her heart was empty now, a dry, dusty chamber littered with the ashes of a faith and an optimism that once was second nature. She’d always believed—even after Barry, she realized—something in her had clung to a hope that out there in the world, love still waited for her.

But not now. She glanced at the bed, was immediately bombarded by memories of the fun, the sighs, the bliss—

No. She couldn’t bear thinking of it. Only a few short days, but those days had burned so brightly. Succored her, sustained her…

Gone. All gone. The man she’d thought had genuinely cared for her, the real her, not the fantasy woman millions adored…he was a mirage, the cruelest of illusions. There
was
something wrong with her.

She’d wanted to believe she could have the dream, that true love could still be hers, that she’d found the man…

But not anymore.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. No. She couldn’t be with him in this room again. Swiftly she grabbed the bag she’d thrown her belongings into after dressing in haste. No makeup, hair scraped back in a ponytail—what did it matter what she looked like?

But suddenly she wanted her makeup. Longed for the safety of her protective coloring, the careful disguise her glamour gave her.

Patience. In a few minutes you’ll be gone, and you’ll never have to see him again.

She scooped up the kitten and fairly raced down the stairs.

He caught her halfway, but she thrust the kitten at him.

And ran.

“Violet!” He charged after her, grabbed her before she made it to the front door.

She quivered in his grasp, then, piece by piece, she rebuilt herself. “Let go of me,” she said tonelessly without turning.

He complied, but he didn’t move away. “I never expected to care for you.”

I am Violet James,
she told herself.
I am on top of the world, don’t you know? I don’t need you.
The words would be her shield, deflecting the pain.

“You know how much I hated deceiving you?”

Her head swiveled so fast it dizzied her. “Why? You’re so good at it.” He looked awful. She tried to derive satisfaction from that, but it slithered from her grasp. With effort, she straightened. Silently wished him to hell. “You were only doing your job, right?”

“What happened between us was no job, Violet. You felt it, too.”

“I feel nothing.”
I won’t let myself. Or it will kill me.

He gripped her arm.

She turned to ice in his grasp, staring straight ahead.

He swore, and there was despair in his tone. He released her.

She couldn’t care. He hadn’t.

“It’s your right to hate me. Just know that you can’t possibly despise me more than I despise myself.”

“I won’t think of you at all.”

“Well, that’s too damn bad. I’ll think of you every minute. Every second. And I’ll know I had a chance at something special, but I lost it—because I was doing my job, damn it. That’s what I do, I protect the innocent by bringing down those who would prey on them, like your buddy Avery. Do you realize what kind of evil he’s part of?”

She shook her head. “I don’t need to, because you’re wrong about him.”

“Well, you’re going to hear it, anyway.” He moved in front of her, six feet of angry, miserable male. “Because I won’t let you put yourself in danger.”

“You aren’t in control.”

A bitter laugh. “You’re telling me. I’ve been walking a tightrope, knowing every minute that no matter which way I fell, someone was going to get hurt.” He leaned closer. “But I had no choice because people were dying. They still are.”

Her gaze whipped to his.

“Yeah. Your pal is involved in a very nasty enterprise, the business of human trafficking. You know what sexual slavery is, Miz James? You understand about women and children being hauled halfway across the world in the hold of a ship, then jammed in the back of trailers and vans for hours in filthy conditions, with scarce water and little food—because they dream of coming to America where gold paves the streets? Only there’s a catch. The guys who truck them like cattle then turn around and claim that the women and children owe bills for their transport, bills they can only work off by being sold as prostitutes or sweatshop labor—and they’ll never be allowed to work off that debt. Some of them die before they ever make it.”

Her stomach roiled. “Avery’s a good man. He would never enslave another human being. You cannot convince me of that.”

“I won’t try to. No, he’s not the one stuffing them in container cars or selling them as slaves—but that chain of misery involves many links, and your buddy is one of them. He’s weak and he’s greedy—he didn’t get his lifestyle running a club, I promise you. He uses his club to launder the trafficker’s money. As a matter of fact, it’s their money that funded the Jag he’s driving and the little luxuries he’s been bringing you.”

Her head whipped to him. “What do you know about what he’s been…” Her voice trailed off. “You’ve been watching me.” Oh, God. Somehow that seemed to be the worst violation yet.

“Not me. And they weren’t watching you, they were tailing him.”

“Was Sophie part of…this?” She didn’t think she could stand it if Sophie was involved, though how that was worse than knowing everything between her and JD had been a lie, she couldn’t say.

“No, of course not.” His shoulders sagged. “She’ll be hurt, too, when she finds out.”

She would not feel sorry for him.

“Look, Violet, I get that you don’t want to believe me, and I don’t blame you—it’s a big shock. But it’s not a lie. You’re in danger.”

“You’ve told me so many lies. How am I supposed to know when you’re telling the truth?”

The smoky gray eyes she’d once found beautiful were bleak, dark holes now. “Fine, you don’t have to take my word on the crimes of your so-called friend—but you do have to believe this: I want you safe, and I don’t care what I have to do to guarantee that. I want you free and whole, able to fly back to your castle, to live your glamorous life. I even want you to forget me, if that will take away the pain of how I’ve hurt you. But to accomplish any of that—” he bent his head to her “—you have to be alive. That’s all I care about, Violet—that you’re alive and safe. People close to your pal Avery are dying. Remember his phone call? Remember how frantic he sounded? Right now he’s nervous and scared because someone he met with was murdered last night…and it’s setting off a chain reaction.”

“He didn’t do it.”

“No one’s sure who’s responsible yet. Regardless, his world is unraveling and more people are going to die. Avery’s in bed with some very nasty folks. The cartel that runs the trafficking pipeline doesn’t give one good goddamn who gets hurt in order for them to make a buck.

“Hear me and believe me, if you believe nothing else.” He gripped her shoulders. “I will not let you be one of the victims.”

Sincerity rang in his voice. Blazed from his eyes.

“Avery would never hurt me.”

“He wouldn’t mean to, maybe—but this situation is far more deadly than you can imagine, maybe more dangerous than he ever expected. You could simply be collateral damage, but you’d be just as dead. And I couldn’t live with that, Violet.” He swallowed visibly. “You’re important to me.”

“But your job was more important.” She looked beyond him. “There’s my cab. Let me go.” She shrugged him off, reached for the knob.

“I wasn’t supposed to fall for you, damn it.” He stepped in her way. “You weren’t supposed to be real and warm and wonderful. You were supposed to be a snotty celebrity.”

“I’m not real, JD. And, I realize now, neither was this.” Too tired to cry, though the ache in her chest threatened to burn though bone and flesh, still she couldn’t leave him so coldly. “It’s not your fault,” she said softly. “You were just doing your job.”