Page 65 of Call Me Anytime
The bastard is shaking in his construction boots, and adrenaline vibrates through my entire body as I stare at him, breathing heavily.
“Sit tight, Waylon,” Shane says.
“I didn’t do anything!” Waylon shouts, and when I start to move back toward him, Shane grips me by my shirt and shoves me out the door.
“What the fuck?” I mutter as he shuts the interrogation room door behind us and pushes me into the wall.
“What the fuck?” Shane snaps back, though his voice doesn’t match the level of anger of mine. “What are you doing, man?” he asks and releases my shirt.
“What am I doing?” I repeat through a scoff. “I’m doing my fucking job.”
“Oh no,” he says, shaking his head. “You’re not doing your job, man. You’re just straight-up losing it.”
“I’m not losing it.”
“You are,” he disagrees, and his mouth is set in a firm line as he stares back at me from against the opposite wall. “You and I both knowthat interrogation is the exact way to get the suspect to ask for a lawyer and fuck any chances we have of getting the information we need.”
I shake my head.
“Tell me, what information did you get in there?” he challenges. “Besides the fact that you can make him cry and piss his pants at the same time?”
I just glare at my partner.
“The answer is you didn’t learn shit,” he keeps going. “You didn’t learn a single fucking thing. All you did was make him so scared he’s probably not capable of giving us anything we need.”
Deep down, I know what he’s saying is true. But fuck, sitting across from that scumbag after hearing the fucked-up shit he’s said to Hannah makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
“Take a walk, man,” Shane says, and all I see is disappointment on his face. “Take a fucking walk and cool off.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go back in there and see if I can salvage something from this guy.” The disappointment in his voice is enough to make my head fall back and my eyes slide closed. “Since you came in here on a fucking rampage, I didn’t get to give you the good news. The captain wants a rundown on all of the CMA callers we still need to interview. And if we don’t provide him with good enough evidence to keep this much manpower on the case, he’s going to pull the CMA tapASAP.”
“But we still have time on our warrant.”
“He doesn’t give a shit, Dom,” Shane argues. “The captain wants a meeting with us first thing Monday morning. So how about you get your head out of your ass and try to focus on the important shit? We don’t have time for you to lose it, man.”
The weight of his words hits me hard, but what really sticks is the realization that Iamlosing it. Not just because of the case, but because of Hannah. She’s not just a witness or someone we’re trying to protect. She’s ... someone who’s working her way into every corner of my life, whether I want to face that reality or not.
“I can’t fucking believe this,” I mutter, running a frustrated hand through my hair, but Shane just stares at me for a long moment. His eyes scrutinize my face, and his mouth is set in a firm line.
“That makes two of us,” he eventually adds before spinning on his heels and heading for the interrogation room again.
But I know he’s not talking about the possibility of our CMA wiretap getting pulled.
He’s talking aboutme. And the fact that I completely lost it back there with Waylon.
Son of a bitch.
I know he’s right. And I know I’m wrong.
I never let shit go to my head.Never.
Until now, apparently.
Until Hannah.
Two hours later, Shane comes out of the interrogation room, and I stand up from my desk. I’ve just been sitting here, watching the door like a hawk.
