Page 67 of Wicked Devotion
“Samuel, that was confidential.”
“Sorry.” Sam sighs, scratching his neck. “Can’t keep anything secret from her,” he says, pulling his wife onto his lap. “Feels wrong.”
“And it’s not like you’ve got anything substantial yet,” Ruby adds.
Max tenses and squeezes my hand before he speaks up.
“What the hell is going on here? Who’s that guy?” he points at the mugshots, “and the more pressing question, what the fuck has all of this to do with me? Is this why you want to send me away?” he asks, looking at Rockwell.
“Two separate problems.”
“Well, then start with the one involving me.”
“I recommended you as the leader of a newly formed task force in Virginia—“
“But he’s not going to Virginia,” Logan interrupts Rockwell. “He’s not going fucking anywhere.”
“You don’t know when to stop, do you? I just want what’s best for Max; I want him to have the career he deserves without constantly having to worry about the next obstacle Sanders throws our way. But no, Cabrera has to be a self-centered prick. What a surprise.”
Max wants to get up, but upon seeing the nervous look on my face, he takes a deep breath and stays seated.
“Could you please stop talking about me as if I’m a kid? Only if it’s not too much of a hassle,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m grateful you trust me so much that you recommended me, really, but I’m not going. Not becausesomeonedecides for me,” he says, narrowing his eyes while he looks at Logan, “but because I don’t want to work anywhere else. My place is here as a part of Task Force Phoenix. With you, captain, with Sam, with Charlie—yes, even with you, Logan.”
Logan rolls his eyes, and Max continues.
“Sanders isn’t the first asshole crossing our paths, and he won’t be the last. We’ll get through this together, and if he takes it too far, we’ll just give Logan a machete and look the other way.”
“God, I’d enjoy that,” Logan mumbles to himself, and Ruby impatiently taps on Sam’s thigh.
“We still need to talk about the other problem.” She grabs the remote, and Rockwell’s jaw clenches as Ruby enlarges a few pictures.
One of them shows a group of five people in uniform, standing in the desert. If Rockwell looked at me like he looks at Ruby right now, I would hand him the remote and apologize for my existence.
In the group picture, a much younger Rockwell is leaning against a Humvee, his hand resting on the shoulder of a woman in front of him. Judging by the build, I’d say the man standing next to Rockwell is Sam, a black balaclava hiding his face. The next one in line is the guy from the mugshots, and the last one can only be described as massive, a black spot covering the part of the picture where his face should be, as if someone deliberately tampered with the file.
“Who’s the faceless monster?” Logan asks.
“Damon,” Rockwell answers. “He was our PSYOP specialist. Was a bit—eccentric, but this isn’t about him.”
Ruby pushes a button on the remote, looking pleased with herself when highlights appear around the guy standing next to her husband.
“Carter Delaney.” Rockwell sounds tired, as if simply saying the name brings back a lifetime of bad memories. “In 2019, he was arrested for espionage and was sentenced to twenty-five years. Sounds bad enough, eh? A few weeks ago, I was informed that they want to press fresh charges.”
“Why?” Max asks, and I am apparently uncomfortable enough for Ruby’s dog to notice because Mochi trots over and puts her head on my thighs.
“Allegedly, he killed an officer back then. Buried him in some place in bumfuck nowhere after he interrupted a meeting with his co-conspirators. At least, that’s what I’vebeen told. The local police station got an anonymous tip two months ago.”
“So, do you think he did it?”
“No, of course he didn’t fucking do it, Max,” Rockwell says, running his hand over his beard. “The day he was arrested, we were supposed to meet two of our informants. You know those days when you wake up with a bad gut feeling? Yeah, it was one of those. On my way to the meeting spot, a truck had an accident and blocked the street for hours. Carter didn’t pick up the phone, and when I finally arrived, the area was swarmed with police cars. I saw two covered corpses and got ready to identify Carter but was informed of his arrest instead.”
I want to go back in time to the point where the biggest mystery in my life was finding out which one of the kids brought mice to school after watching Ratatouille.
“They tapped my phones for years. I wasn’t allowed to visit Carter in jail, wasn’t allowed to attend the trial. I was treated as a suspect, and no one cared for what Carter and I had to say. Then Leah left, said it was because another job opportunity opened up, but she left for the same reason as Damon. The trust was gone, and I don’t need to tell you guys that our job doesn’t work without fully trusting each other. Sam was the only one who believed in Carter’s, and my, innocence.”
“Because that shit was a setup right out of the textbook, cleanly executed,” Sam says, holding Ruby a bit tighter.
“We spent two years being shunned by everyone. We weren’t allowed to leave the military, but we weren’t allowed to do our work either. It took a move across the country and a lot of effort from Cantrell until I was allowed to form a new task force.”
