Protector - Laurel Dewey [37]
“You and your fuckin’ body language,” Chris said in a dismissive tone.
“Your shifting eyes and lip licking gave you away when you launched into that bullshit about Emily confessing her secrets to detectives. I’m the only one she’s willing to talk to!”
“You mean ‘whisper.’ What the fuck was all that about anyway? I asked Weyler when he came back up and he just blew me off.” Chris’ demeanor quickly turned ugly. “I’m lead on this case and suddenly you’re getting buddy-buddy with the kid.”
“If you weren’t such an asshole, I’d tell you what she said—”
“So, suddenly you and the kid are great buds, huh?”
“I want nothing to do with your case!” Jane started toward her front door. Chris stood up, preventing her from moving.
“Hey, Sherlock, maybe I stretched the truth with the media to create a certain amount of fear on the part of the killers. If they think that this kid is spilling her guts to us, they’re gonna get nervous. And if they get nervous enough, they might start making mistakes and talk to some people. And those people might just come talk to us.”
“What kind of screwed up reasoning is that? They might get nervous? How about if they get so nervous that they track this kid down and kill her so she permanently stops talking to us! Ever think about that?”
“‘Us?’ I thought you wanted nothing to do with it!”
“You know what I mean!” Jane tried to move around Chris but he grabbed her arm.
“And how would they find her? She’s in protective custody! Even I don’t know where she is half the time!”
“They didn’t have any trouble finding Amy Stover. And they sure didn’t think twice when they blew her up along with her parents!”
“Christ! Here we go again with the Stovers! You can’t let that go, can you? Don’t compare the two cases! Amy Stover and her parents were in protective custody until Mr. ‘methamphetamine’ Stover got the bright idea to go get ice cream! He got his family killed because he was ‘tweaking’ and didn’t want to stay put. There’s a load his mother should have swallowed! I don’t have any sympathy for that asshole.”
Jane looked at Chris, not quite sure what to think. “Jesus, Chris. You saw Amy Stover burning to death in that car just like I did. You saw her eyes. She was pounding her fist on the window and she knew she was going to die—”
“Jane, they all start to melt together after a while. All the bodies. All the weeping relatives. All the perps that get off. You gotta let it go.”
“I can’t let it go! It was so simple, Chris. All we had to do was sit outside in that goddamn car and watch out for them—”
Chris grabbed Jane by her shoulders. “Let it go, Jane!”
“Stop saying that!” She angrily jerked away from him.
“You are going over the fucking edge!” Chris said. “I’m worried about you. Weyler is, too.”
Jane felt exposed by the revelation. “Weyler said that to you?”
“He thinks you need help. So do I.” Chris let out a deep sigh. “Look, you and I are still partners. What happens to you affects me. And I’m telling you right now, I am not going to watch everything I’ve worked for all these years go into the shitter because you can’t move forward! Think of your career!”
“I don’t have a career! I have a day-to-day existence that the Department can snuff out like that!” Jane snapped her fingers to punctuate her point.
“The Stover case is over!”
“No, Chris!” Jane yelled, waving her bandaged hand in his face. “It’s right here every goddamn day! I look at this and I remember that I couldn’t save Amy Stover. The only way I have a career left is if I solve the Stover murders!”
A wellspring of rage engulfed Chris. He angrily yanked Jane’s wrist toward his body and spoke with vitriol. “You think your career is fucked? You don’t know what fucked is! I took it in the ass with the Stover case just like you did. But open your eyes, Jane! We caught the fuckin’ golden goose with this Lawrence murder! It’s our opportunity to rise above all the shit and make better than good. But I can’t do it alone. I need you and only you to help me on this case. We gotta work like a team . . . like the old days, right?