Page 98 of To Have and to Hold

“I have to tell you something.”

Knox’s weight lifted. “Okay.”

“I’m not a hero. I know that’s what people are gonna say.” I licked my chapped lips. “There was nothing more important than finding her. You agree with that, right?”

“Spence, of course. But you have to accept credit where it’s due. Sure, we could’ve discovered her eventually, but I’ll say it plain: Without your intervention, we would’ve found her body.”

“I did whatever it took,” I said, then said, “Including breaking into your house.”

“If it weren’t for your…Huh?”

I lifted off my knees. “Yeah. I got into your files.”

Knox’s response was to shove me. My temple banged against the wall. “Ow, man.”

“You son of a bitch.”

“I wasn’t thinking like a lawman anymore and had to know how far you’d gotten and if there was anything missing.”

“You weren’t thinking? You hacked into a government official’s computer, fuckhead!”

“You’d shut me out. Come on. You had to figure I’d cheat my way back in.”

“You’re lucky I don’t match that attractive purple to your other eye. Turn you into a symmetrical Picasso.”

“This was Emme, Knox.”

“You can’t even claim ignorance. But you will own stupid—”

“Emme.”

Knox deflated. “You love her.”

I didn’t answer. “I had to risk everything for her.”

“You lovesick moron.”

I said, “You gonna doll me out?”

“Fuck you. No.”

“I deleted everything off my computer. No trace exists at my house.” I pulled the USB out of my pocket. “Here.”

Knox accepted it with a grunt. “Clearly it helped.”

“You can take all the acclaim,” I said.

“Uh-huh. I have to get back over there.” Knox rose. “Wanted to make sure you were okay, first.”

I shrugged. “I’m all right.”

Knox held me in quiet regard. “You’ll tell me when you’re not?”

“I’m fine. Go. I’ll call you with any news about Emme.”

“Yeah. Sure. Good job, ADA Rolfe.” He pointed at me before he departed. “Keep it that way. You ain’t no detective.”

“True. I’d hate to replace your ass,” I said to his retreating form.

Once Knox was gone and I was alone, I leaned back and rubbed my eyes, grimacing at the residual ache. District Attorney Dex Abrams was dead. After the crack of Emme’s shot, which went wide, I’d torqued over to Abrams’s crouched form and went for his throat. Rage has a way of dispelling when air supply is cut off. The bloodthirsty beast becomes a kitten.

Abrams’s face, already so mutilated—with what, Emme would have to answer that—purpled and bulged, the burned, red tissue mixing with swollen sinew. His uninjured eye, bright blue and garish red, pushed out of its socket. His tongue flopped out of his mouth, pebbled with white and engorged like a leech. There’d been many pictures I’d scanned through more violent than his end, crime scenes I’d toured, injured witnesses I’d interviewed, but none of them were because of…me.

Not for years.

I stared down at my hands, palms up, and traced the faded blood patterns in the creases. Emme’s bullet, going wide, provided a chance to subdue Abrams, an opening for Knox to pull Emme out of the room while I held Abrams down, but the better man in me was nowhere to be found once I found Emme, naked, bloody, bruised, and trapped beneath Abrams’s brute force. My hands closed around his throat. The seed of rage that was planted the instant Emme was taken wasn’t a seed at all. It was a clot, primed to hemorrhage. And I burst.

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