Page 59 of The Last Close Call

She caught the bitterness in his voice.

“In other words, the victim was a junkie, so your limited resources got channeled elsewhere,” she said.

His jaw tightened. “That’s the way it works. Budgets are strapped, and the squeaky wheels, the high-profile cold cases, get the grease. But I’ve never been able to let this one go.”

She watched him, trying to read whether this case haunted him because it was his first and he’d failed to solve it. Or because he truly cared about a seventeen-year-old whom society considered a lost cause before he even hit adulthood. Based on what she knew of Jack, she figured it was both.

“What do you have?” she asked.

“Touch DNA,” he said. “Off the murder weapon.”

“The brick.”

He nodded. “Skin cells. It was a spur-of-the-moment crime, we figure. Whoever killed him didn’t wear gloves.”

Rowan watched his face, easily reading that look in his eyes. He was determined, once again, to convince her to help him.

And once again, she wanted to turn him down flat. She was done with police work.

Except for that one case for Ric, which was supposed to be a one-off.

And then that one case for Jack.

And now another case for Jack again.

What the hell was she doing? She’d gotten herself out of this. Disentangled herself from all of it and lost the respect—not to mention friendship—of her former coworkers in the process. She’d broken free of all of it, but then this dogged, stubborn cop walked into her life and lured her back in again, and now she felt worried because she could feel her resolve slipping.

What if she threw everything away—her business, her clients, the network she’d been so diligently building—what if she threw all of it away and just went back to helping detectives track down rapists and murderers?

And what if everything up to now—the dinner, the drinks, the kiss in the parking lot, the I want to see you again—what if all that was just him laying the groundwork to get her to help him again?

He stood up. “Think about it.”

She blinked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“I know this isn’t what you do anymore, so... take your time deciding. If you’re not up for it, I’ll understand.”

Not up for it. That annoyed her, which was probably his point.

“If you’re up for trying, I can put in a request to have the sample analyzed.”

She glared up at him. “So, that’s it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You want me to agree to help you, and then you’ll run it up the flagpole and—what?—try to scrape up some budget to hire me?”

“Basically.” He paused. “I told you what I want. It’s up to you to decide.”

She stood and put her hands on her hips. He was just going to show up here and dump this request in her lap and then take off?

He moved for the door.

Evidently, he was.

She followed him across the room. She couldn’t pinpoint what, exactly, she was so upset about, but her chest was tight.

He pulled the door open and turned to face her. “Sorry to interrupt your thing with your friends.”

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