Page 30 of The Veteran

“No.” I should have seen this coming. She didn’t like taking a back seat. “It’s too dangerous. We need to leave you here with Sean, where you’re safe.”

Her expression grew determined. “You weren’t involved in the original case. No matter how much you read the files, you can’t possibly know as much about it as I do. I can offer insights that no one else has.”

My jaw clenched involuntarily. She had a point.

“Call Ronan,” she said. “Tell him what I said and ask if I can come. Please,” she added as an afterthought.

I scowled. I didn’t want to take Sage into a prison. They were sordid, dirty places—not the kind of environment she should ever be exposed to. But it also wasn’t my job to make that decision. She might be a client of sorts, but she could easily decide she’d rather have police protection and I didn’t trust anyone else to be in charge of her welfare.

“Give me a sec.” I grabbed my phone, found Ronan’s number, and called him back. “Sage wants to come,” I said when he answered. “She says she might have insight into Parrish that we don’t.”

“Damn, she’s right.” Ronan sounded as frustrated as I felt. “Bring her. But be very careful. Double-check everything. If Sage gets hurt, Willow will kill me.”

“You got it, boss man.” I hung up and eyeballed Sage. “You’re to do exactly what I say, when I say it. No arguing. No delaying. You hear me?”

She nodded. “You’re the expert.”

I huffed in gratification. “Damn right I am. All right, come on, before I change my mind.”

She grinned and hurried out of the kitchen, leaving me alone with my doubts. This was a terrible idea. I just hoped we weren’t compromising Sage’s hard-won safety.

When I strode back into the living room, Sage had her purse on her lap and had donned a sweater.

I crooked an eyebrow. “Ready to go?”

She nodded.

“Okay, I’ll just be a moment.”

I packed my gun and a couple of backup knives, then shoved a few items into an emergency go-bag in case we had to run and couldn’t return to the cottage. I made sure to add a change of clothes for Sage, then jerked my head toward the door. Outside, I explained the situation to Sean, who agreed to stay at the cottage to ensure nobody broke in while we were gone. I unlocked the car and checked the underside and the interior for explosive devices before giving Sage the go-ahead to get in. As we pulled away from the curb, I had a bad feeling in my gut. Something was going to go wrong.

SAGE

The prison was a tall triangular building with walls the color of sand and disturbingly small windows. As we approached, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the people trapped inside. They may be criminals, but did anyone deserve to be shut away in a place like that and forgotten?

Kade parked on the side of the street and we walked the short distance to the entrance. I shivered and unconsciously reached for his hand. It felt as though the walls themselves were drenched with human misery. He gave my hand a quick squeeze but then let it go to guide me through the first layer of security.

The interior of the jail was just as grim as the exterior, with blanched walls and hard-faced staff who seemed to speak only when necessary and never with kindness. I shrunk in on myself and stuck close to Kade, experiencing a pang of regret at insisting on coming with him.

While he explained why we were there to a receptionist, I closed my eyes, breathed in through my nose and imagined a shining white aura around myself, keeping me safe from the negative energy beating in at us. I opened my eyes when Kade touched my elbow, and he escorted me through another layer of security to a room with several small, rectangular tables that were bolted to the ground. Ronan sat behind one of them. There was a chair beside him and another a few feet away.

“You take this one,” Kade said, indicating the one further away. He sunk onto the one beside Ronan and they exchanged a few words of greeting.

“They’ll be getting Parrish now,” Ronan said. “I asked them to wait until you arrived.”

“Thanks,” Kade replied.

Ronan turned to Sage. “How are you holding up?”

She waved a hand back and forth. “Been better, been worse.”

“Well, hopefully it’ll all be over soon.”

Hopefully. But he didn’t sound convinced and neither was I.

The door opened and a thickset man with a scraggly beard and thinning hair was marched into the room, his wrists cuffed together. Even though I’d spent hours in court with Raymond Parrish, I almost wouldn’t have recognized him if I didn’t know who he was. He’d bulked up and looked even less hygienic than before. I supposed prison brought out the worst in people. He surveyed the room, his head back defiantly, and skimmed over me, but then something flickered across his face and his attention snapped back to me. His mouth curled in a nasty sneer. I tried to picture that soothing white light surrounding me, but the image kept slipping away.

“You,” he spat when he drew near. “Where’s the money?”

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