Page 85 of Wilde In His Arms

“He wanted me to know that he’s been watching me and Aria.I’ve submitted the note and details of the call into evidence.”

“Perhaps you should be officially off the case, since you are so personally involved in it.”

“Whether I’m on it or not, Javier Lopez has fixated on me and the people closest to me.He will not stop.His threat is as real as it gets.”

“Yes.I know.That’s why the FBI has provided protection.”

“Exactly.Now if we’re finished, I’d like to get the update my brother came to deliver regarding the case.”

“Do you feel remorse for shooting Julia Lopez?”

“I wish it didn’t have to go down that way.She gave me no other choice when she came at me with a knife after she’d already stabbed me.”

“Her mother feels that you could have disarmed her.”

“Her mother forgets that her son had a gun on me as well.I didn’t have time to disarm either of them.I had him at my front and her at my back.There was nothing else I could do but defend myself.She would have lived if she’d simply let me take her brother into custody.Instead, she tried to kill me so he could get away.”That’s what happened.That’s what he had to live with.

“Thank you for your time, ASAC Gunn.I appreciate your candor.I’ll file the report and my findings.You’ll be advised of the official standing of the case soon.”

The process sucked.

“Thank you.”Nick mashed his finger on the mouse to click the End Call button and sat back in his seat, taking a second to breathe and let go of all the feelings swirling inside him about the shooting, his job, and fucking Javier Lopez, that asshole who kept getting away.Not to mention being questioned about his actions.

He hated having his decisions second-guessed.But the checks were in place to ensure he did things by the book and innocent people weren’t hurt in the course of him doing his job.

But having to relive it was another kind of trauma that he’d have to deal with and learn to live with.

He was a good agent, he reminded himself.He’d done what was necessary to defend himself.

Lopez wanted his revenge.Nick wished he and Mrs.Lopez knew how sorry he was for taking Julia’s life and that he wished it hadn’t come to that in the first place.He understood their anger and upset.He wished they could see things from his side, too.

A cold beer appeared in his line of sight.

Nick grabbed it and took a deep pull.“Thanks.”

Mason dropped into the seat next to him.“I know that sucked, but we have business to discuss, so I need your head back in the game.”

Nick took another deep sip, then met Mason’s cold eyes.“What did you find out?”

“Hell is too good for people like Javier Lopez and Dr.Pike.They deserve the worst kind of punishment for the atrocities they’ve carried out.And yet, Dr.Pike is only getting half the years he should spend in jail and losing his license to practice medicine.Not that it will stop him after he gets out.I doubt anything will stop him from doling out his brand ofhelp.”

“It’s that bad, huh?”

“Worse.When we met with him, he arrived in a van that he’d converted into what you’d assume was like an ambulance, except his vehicle was equipped to help Lopez’s victims.He uses the van to follow the circuit, basically a circle from Montana to Wyoming, through Utah, back up through Idaho, and back to Montana.Lopez has about fourteen stops along the way.He’s got people below him taking groups of kids from one place to the next.The doctor is brought in when kids are beaten, have broken bones, get sick, or need an abortion.”

Nick’s eyes went wide.

“Yeah.Kids getting abortions in some dump of a motel or in the back of that fucking van.The good doctor also admitted that Lopez ‘put several kids down.’”Mason cringed.“Those were his callous fucking words, not mine.”

Nick’s stomach knotted.“How many is several?”

“Seven.Some were hurt too severely to be helped without being in a hospital, a couple had threatened to go to the cops, and one the doctor killed to keep Lopez from finding out that he’d been fucking her without paying.She was fifteen.”

“Fucking bastard.I can’t believe we gave this guy a deal.”Sometimes to get the evidence to put someone like Lopez behind bars, you had to use people like Dr.Pike.It still made him sick.

Mason gripped his beer bottle so tight, Nick wondered if it would shatter soon.“Yeah, well, he knows where all seven of the bodies are buried.”

That was good news.“How does he know that?”They could return the remains to the victims’ families.

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