Page 6 of Fast Justice

“Just briefly. Hamilton and I tried to question her about Ruiz to see if we could get a lead on him but it was way too soon. She was in bad shape. Deep in shock, in pain and still scared as hell. The only person she seemed to trust was Hamilton. She wouldn’t let go of his hand.”

Oh, that made Rowan’s heart hurt. That Miss Gomez would reach out to a near stranger for comfort and reassurance after suffering so horrifically at other men’s hands.

“So he stayed with her while the medical staff treated her injuries, but had to leave before FBI and agency officials questioned her. I went in to get him when they arrived,” Malcolm continued.

“Did Miss Gomez say anything of importance to you before you left?” Val asked.

Malcolm nodded. “As we were walking to the door. She said Carlos Ruiz was the man responsible. She’d been investigating him and he’d gone after her to make a statement that he was untouchable. His men killed her entire family while they were having dinner at her parents’ place one night, then took her. She said he came to look at her a few days before we raided the property. And I remember her last words to us exactly. She said, ‘He should have killed me that night with my family. Because now I’m going to bury him’.”

Rowan stared at him, a shiver skittering up her spine. To have that sort of resolve and inner strength in the face of everything she’d gone through… Victoria Gomez was her new hero.

Even Val appeared affected by Malcolm’s words, a slight smile tugging at his mouth. “She said that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, good for her.” Val exchanged a glance with her. Miss Gomez hadn’t told them this. Maybe she didn’t think it was important, or maybe she didn’t remember that chunk of time in the hospital. That was understandable. She’d been medicated, so it was possible.

But it was more powerful testimony they could present to the judge, whether in a trial, or in a victim impact statement should Ruiz want and accept a plea bargain. Rowan and her office had to be prepared for either scenario.

They would check Malcolm’s story against Agent Hamilton’s when they interviewed him in a little while. Every eyewitness piece of information they collected on Ruiz was another nail they could use in the courtroom to pound into the lid of his richly deserved coffin.

They all turned when someone knocked on the conference room door. Rowan put a hand to the back of her neck, hid a wince as the tender muscles protested.

Commander Taggart poked his head in. He nodded at Freeman, then settled his gaze on Val. “Sorry to interrupt. Can I have a minute?”

“Of course.” Val stood. “Back shortly,” he said to them, and left.

As soon as the door shut behind him, an awkward tension took hold of the room. Rowan steeled herself and turned back to face Malcolm, meeting that dark chocolate gaze across the table. He had a way of looking at her that made her feel like he could see right through her. It made her squirm inside.

He folded his arms casually, emphasizing the thickness and power in his biceps as the sleeves of his dress shirt pulled taut across the muscles there. He looked amazing in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, but in a suit, he was irresistible. It made her imagine him tossing the tailored jacket aside, those long, strong fingers undoing each button on his shirt one by one as that dark, intense gaze locked on her.

She swallowed, trying and failing to shove the image aside. He’d been wearing a suit the night she’d met him, too, at the veteran’s charity event here in D.C. last summer. She’d noticed him from across the room as soon as she’d walked in, and when her brother had introduced them soon after, the mutual attraction was undeniable.

Looking at him right now, recalling the way he’d touched her, kissed her, it was hard to remember all the carefully thought through reasons why she’d decided to end things with him. She’d enjoyed his company, and she’d had fun with him too. Dates where they’d gone to see the latest action movie, late night dinners that had cost her sleep but had been so worth it, and of course braving the coasters he loved so much.

She’d thought breaking it off early would be easier for them both, had been as gentle about it as possible, but she’d still hurt him. She was sorry for that.

She searched her mind, trying to think of something to say that would dispel the unspoken tension simmering between them. “So—”

“You gonna cut a deal with Ruiz?”

The abrupt change in topic took her aback for a second. She couldn’t read his expression, or his tone. “Maybe. There are a lot of variables to consider.”

He studied her a long moment. “A guy like him, he’ll want a deal.” This time there was no mistaking the disdain in his voice. Whether it was aimed at her or Ruiz, or both, she wasn’t sure. It stung to think he might think badly of her and her job now.

“It depends on how strong a case we can build against him, and what he’s willing to give us in exchange.” Malcolm understood how this worked. And that she couldn’t divulge any details about it.

Sometimes her job meant doing things she didn’t like to protect the greater good, but she’d known that going in and had learned how to put aside her personal feelings. In this case, if Ruiz could give them something solid that would lead investigators toEl Escorpionor even give them something to take down the other lieutenants in the cartel, Rowan would view it with the hard-nosed professionalism that was expected of her and cut a deal that would reduce Ruiz’s sentence. Even though she’d rather see him serve a long sentence before dying behind bars for what he’d done.

Malcolm shook his head slightly, his eyes burning with an almost merciless light. “You weren’t there that night. I was. I saw what he and his men did to women. Just… Whatever happens with this whole thing, promise me he won’t walk.”

An answering anger smoldered inside her, the need to see justice done. “No. He won’t walk.” She and everyone else working on this case would make damn sure of that.

THE FIRE IN her sapphire blue eyes when she said those words triggered something deep inside Malcolm. A tingling, bone-deep awareness he couldn’t ignore no matter how much he wanted to.

She wanted Ruiz to pay for what he’d done. It must turn her stomach to offer deals to pieces of shit like him. It would Mal’s.

He’d never seen her in work mode before that meeting a few weeks back. She was so different here in her professional element, even that tailored pencil skirt suit hugging her lean curves like a suit of armor, concealing the true woman from the rest of the world.

---