Page 86 of Brazen Mistakes

“This is the third.”

“I’m assuming you didn’t use gloves? That your fingerprints are all over all three of them?”

“Yeah. Mine and guys.”

“Why didn’t you let me know? Reach out?”

“What could you have done? How would it have helped? As you said, he didn’t sign them. And you’re the one who let the scumbag back out.” My voice is loud, echoing over the snowy street, but I can’t even pretend to keep my cool. The anger that I thought I didn’t have, that Trips has been slowly coaxing out? It’s found a target.

Sorry, Officer Tom Reed. Your system is fucked up. And you get to hear about it.

“Clara, that wasn’t me. He’s helping us get to the ringleader of the shared group. We might shut down this cell with his help. People a hell of a lot higher up the food chain made the call.”

“Well, that call was bullshit. And now I’m the one who has to sit here covered in it.”

RJ slips behind me, his palm warm on my waist, and the creak of the front door tells me my yelling has brought reinforcements.

Officer Reed slaps the collection of paper against his palm, not meeting my eyes. Not absorbing the anger I’m throwing around. “You said there were more. Could I see them?”

“No,” RJ grumbles from behind me.

Twisting, I see the same anger I feel amplified on RJ’s face as he stares at the officer, the same intense look that scared me before I knew him. Up at the front door, Walker’s standing in his slippers, his hand gripping the doorknob so tightly his knuckles look ready to crack, his own mask of fury evident.

“Why?” I ask.

“To build a case. Stalkers always escalate. He’ll mess up, and then we’ll catch him.”

“You mean, when the stalker you let out of jail physically harms me, you will at least have a bunch of vaguely threatening notes to show to the judge when you aim for the stricter sentence?”

His lips twist. “Clara, I want to help. There’s a reason I ended up on this task force, and it’s because sex crimes need to be policed harder, differently, than other crimes.”

“I thought it was so you could get a shiny new promotion. Get your name in the paper?”

He finally meets my anger, his own gaze tired. “It was. But… I’ve only been there a few months, and the shit I’ve seen? It’s bad.”

“Not so bad you’d keep a pedo stalker in jail, though.”

He taps the papers against his thigh, staring over my shoulder at the party house next door. “Please, Clara. Show mewhat he sent. At least let me know how worried I should be, how closely I should monitor him while he’s out.” When he looks back at me, there’s actual sincerity. None of his cop-lie-bullshit. Just a tired man with a shitty job, knowing he’s fucked up, but not sure how to make it right.

I can’t meet his gaze. It’s too pleading, and the urge to bend flares. Instead, I stare past his idling green sedan, watching a New Year’s bar crawl flyer caught in the wind as it’s buffeted down the street, lost to the whims of the breeze. A gust catches it, forcing it to take a hard right and cartwheel between two houses.

My anger whooshes out, resignation taking its place.

“Okay. Fine.” I turn to Walker, and he nods, disappearing inside.

We stand in silence, RJ’s hand still warm against my waist. I lean back into him, and after a moment, his arms wrap around me.

I ignore the question in Officer Reed’s eyes. The photos will explain well enough why he’s so confused about who I’m dating.

The longer we wait, the more my mind wanders, and I imagine what it would be like working on a sex crimes task force, the FBI acceptance I refuse to address popping into my mind before I force that thought away.

Policing sex crimes would be terrible, hours spent looking at videos of the worst things people can do. Those poor kids.

I wasn’t a kid when Bryce entered my life. I was legally an adult, if only by five months.

But to see small kids in the same kinds of situations I was in? Hellish.

RJ’s been tracking the same problems, the same videos and heartbreak. How long before he’s as worn down and jaded as the officer in front of us?

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