Chapter Nine
Eric
She looked like she belonged. Like she’d never left. How many times had he walked into Pierson’s and found her dressed in court clothes after testifying, drinking some top-shelf liquor from a heavy crystal glass? He wasn’t a fan of the bar, but after he’d picked Bree up from it, he got to take her home, strip off her suit, and rediscover the free spirit she kept under wraps for her job.
“We need to talk.”
“Hello, Eric. How are you? Lovely spring weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
Bree was a translator who spoke French, German, and God knew what else by now, but her mother tongue was sarcasm. She could leave a trail of broken and bleeding egos without using a single vulgarity. Her specialty was insulting somebody in a way that they didn’t get till she’d moved on, leaving them feeling both insulted and stupid.
“We need to discuss a couple serious topics,” Eric specified before she could inquire about his parents’ health.
“No, we really don’t.”
There were a dozen things he needed to ask her, but only one mattered. “We do. I should have talked to you about this a year ago before my head got stuck in my ass.” Eric saw her stiffen, then take a breath. He watched her shoulders relax as his words penetrated, and she heard what he’d actually said, rather than what she assumed he say.
“Do you really think this is the place for this conversation?” she asked.
“Will you come back with me to my place to talk?”
“No.”
“Then this is the place.” He could deal with the stares if they came, because he knew Bree was not the third chance type. Besides, it was all on the record now anyway. He wasn’t violating any confidences.
“I shot a guy. Killed him.”
Her jaw dropped. “What? When? Today? Adam didn’t say anything.”
“About a year and a half ago. We were going to arrest a known gunrunner. Zane and I were the first two through the door. Zane yelled gun and I pulled the trigger.”
There had been no gun.
Eric still dreamed of it sometimes. His unit had been after Martin Raines, a two-time loser who’d gone down on weapons charges both times. Somebody called in an anonymous tip that Raines was the shooter behind a gun deal gone bad, which had left one person dead and another wounded. After tracking him to a hotel off Main Street, their four-man team—him, Zane, Adam, and Dutch—cornered him. Raines was no lightweight, so they had prepared accordingly.
When they breeched the room, he and Zane were through the door first, in full gear. Zane yelled, “Gun!”
Eric saw something in Raines’s hand, and pulled the trigger. Hadn’t even hesitated. Head shot. When he approached the body on the floor, he saw it had been a cell phone. Any cop’s second-worst nightmare.
It was one gigantic clusterfuck. Shooting an unarmed suspect had immediately triggered an investigation. Then Zane denied he’d been the person who shouted the warning, and the story became Eric’s word against Zane’s. Nobody liked internal investigations at the best of times; usually officers protected their own. The split loyalties made an ugly scene even worse when neither Adam nor Dutch had been able to definitively say who’d done the yelling.
Knowing how often Bree worked with WPS, Eric had decided some distance between them would be best to protect her. That way if he went down, he wouldn’t take her with him.
Since he couldn’t discuss the case, he’d made up a reason to keep them apart. It wasn’t supposed to drag on as long as it had. Bree wasn’t supposed to be even more stubborn than usual, forcing him to get more creative about keeping her away. He’d never intended it to become permanent, but things had started to spiral. He could save his job, put away a dirty cop, and try to make it up to Bree later, or save his relationship. He’d chosen badly.
“And?” she asked when he finished.
“That’s why I pushed you away. To protect your professional reputation. I’m sorry,” Eric said.
“Great. Can I go now?”
Her tone gave him frostbite. No invitation for him to grovel more? Nothing? “Is that it?” he asked. This had been the first chance she’d sat still long enough for him to even broach the topic, and she was ready to walk away? She’d fought like a tiger to hold onto their relationship. At the very least, he thought she’d be interested in knowing why he’d shut her out.
“You’re sorry, that’s great. You decided the best way to protect me from a dirty cop was to withdraw your protection altogether. Do you have any idea what happened to me after we broke up?” Bree leaned closer and lowered her voice. “I got pulled over at least a couple times a month for ‘random’ police stops by your buddies. I stopped drinking when I went out because I had to take a breathalyzer every time one of them saw me come out of a restaurant. My neighbours were questioned about suspicious activity in my house and about my visitors. It tailed off a little, but it’s never stopped. Now you say “sorry”?”
He wanted to proclaim his innocence. But he didn’t have any. Eric may not have asked his brothers in blue to have his back, but he wasn’t surprised they had. “I’m sorry for that too.”
“You know what? Fine. I forgive you. Now you’ve gotten that off your chest, feel free to move on,” she said.