Page 51 of Justice for Francesca

“Why would he be there?”

“If he killed Mila, he could be looking for anything that might incriminate him. They were sleeping together.”

“Mila? Sleeping with Michael?”

“Apparently, they hooked up a few months after you broke up with her. He claims they were in love. That he spent most of his nights at her house. The FBI found some of his things when they searched her house.”

Tripoli digested the news. He didn’t care that his bar manager was involved with Mila, but even he had to admit that it looked worse than the drugs in his bathroom. The FBI might jump to all kinds of conclusions about a McCabe being in bed,literally, with a principessa. “Did he say what he was doing there?”

“No. I didn’t ask. I was so shocked. So mad that I’d been proven right again about my family. He was searching her office, particularly her desk. I made the mistake of turning my back on him to go out in the hall to call Cruz. I heard him yell my name, then he hit me from the back, and I felt the knife go in. He pulled it out, and I passed out almost immediately.”

“Michaeldid this?”

She nodded.

“Did you see him at any point in time with you after you’d been stabbed?”

“No. Who else would it be? There wasn’t anyone else in the house.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Did you clear it before confronting him?”

“Well, no… I’d been sitting outside for several hours. No one else went in or out.”

“There are several entrances to her house. Someone could have snuck in while you were talking to him. Someone could have been hiding there all along.”

She frowned. “It had to be him.”

He decided to let it go. Upsetting her by insisting she was jumping to conclusions wouldn’t help her rest and heal. Instead, he chose to deal with the here and now. “You need to call Cruz or whoever you report to. I know you don’t want to report this, but you have to. It’ll be ugly. You’ll probably be suspended, but if Michael did murder Mila and Jessa, you can’t let that go. Especially if he’s responsible for your injury. I’m not kidding, Francesca. You could have died on my table.”

Her eyes closed.

“For what it’s worth,” he told her, “I don’t think it was your brother. He doesn’t have an alibi for either timeframe,which I get. But it goes against everything I know about your brother over the last two years. I also get that my intuition means jack with the FBI.” He brushed a lock of hair off of her forehead. “Think, Francesca. Your natural inclination was to protect your brother. You didn’t call Cruz after your attack. You’re not reporting me, and you’re not reporting Michael now. Somewhere in your heart, you know it’s not true.”

“I can’t go off of what I want to be true.”

“You already are though.”

Gray eyes opened, and to his surprise, tears leaked from them. Tripoli brushed them away gently. “What happened to me?” she asked. “For my whole life, I’ve played by the rules. Never bending them, let alone breaking them. Why now?”

“Maybe until now, you weren’t ready to accept that sometimes in life, the rules don’t apply. No matter what our family has done or how many times they’ve done it, we hold out for the best in them. We hope that they redeem themselves somehow.” His hand grasped hers. “As for me… do you remember what you told me before you passed out last night?”

She shook her head.

Placing a kiss on her forehead, he whispered, “No matter what you think I’ve done by having dangerous and illegal drugs in my home, you know in your heart that I’d never hurt you or anyone else. Your emotions are involved, whether you want them to be or not, Francesca McCabe. You admitted that you don’t like me an inch but that you like me a mile. I’m going to hold you to that statement.”

He pulled back, knowing that if he stayed where he was, he’d want to continue kissing her, and she was far too injured for that. “There’s no way you can move out of this bed for a couple of days. Four would be best, but I know you, and you’ll push it.”

She smiled. “Yes, I will.”

“Two days.” He held up two fingers to her face. “No movement out of this bed for one full day other than to the bathroom, and I will take you back and forth. One additional day’s rest before getting upright for any length of time. Go against any of those instructions, and I will call an ambulance and have you in the hospital where you should be anyway.” His thumb brushed back and forth across her knuckles. “You really should tell Cruz about last night.”

“I know, but I just can’t. I’ve got to keep him away from me somehow. Calder too. They’ll know in an instant I’m hurt.” Thinking for a minute, she said, “I’ll tell him I’m going to bury myself in transcriptions of interviews. He’ll gladly hand that over to me because he hates that stuff. Plus, he’ll assume I’m doing it so I can work in your office.” She confessed, “He knew where I was on my sick day.”

“Figures. Not much gets past him. Transcripts should keep you busy, as well as phone calls and follow-ups. Let him think you’re pushing the physical stuff onto him because you want to be with me. The sick day will lend credence to that. If he shows up here, we can always throw you behind my desk to work for the short while he’s here. If everything looks good with your wound at the end of day two, I’ll allow you to work at my desk. Day four,maybe, you can go back to work if you promise not to chase any bad guys or do anything strenuous.” The pause was tense. “What are you going to do about Michael?”

She closed her eyes, bringing her hand up to hold her forehead. “I don’t know. I should just confess what happened to Cruz, but something keeps holding me back. Michael was always such a sweet kid. I thought for sure he’d manage to escape my family’s grip. I want so badly to believe what he says about Mila, what everybody has said about him, but part of me just can’t. Why can’t I let them go?”

He delicately climbed over her body and curled into her uninjured side. “I told you. They’re family. Their moral compass has been at odds with yours all of your life. You’ve had to fight them every step of the way, even when you left and made your own life. Even when our families do terrible things, we can still love them and want their approval. The fact that Michael seems to have succumbed to their way of life—which I’m not convinced he has yet—hurts.”

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