Rogue Alliance (34 page)

             
“Yes, Sir.”

             
There was a moment of heavy silence. She waited.

             
“When are you coming home?”

             
“What do you mean?”
she asked, her brow furrowed.

             
“I pulled you off the case last week. When are you coming home?”

             
Shyla
plopped down into the office chair.

             
“I had assumed that since my cover was no longer a
n issue, I would return to duty. O
n this case. I should still be on the case. There’s a lot more work to be done here, Sir.”

             
“Yes, there is, Shyla, but not by you. You’re on suspension. I want you to get your stuff together, make whatever arrangements need to be made, and come back to LA.”

             
It felt like the breath had been knocked out of her. Suspension? How could he do that to her? This case was nowhere near finished and she had no intention of walking away until it was. She was already too emotionally invested.

             
“No, Sir, I can’t do that.”

             
“You can, and you will.”

             
“No, I can’t, because…I quit. I’ll turn my badge over to Hal today.”

             
Not waiting for his response, she hung up the phone. She sat staring at the worn wood of Hal’s work desk, feeling…she didn’t really know what she was feeling.

There was a soft knock at the door. Hal poked his head in.

             
“Victor’s all settled in. I doubt his arraignment will be before Thursday, maybe Friday. Hey, are you okay?”

             
She stood up and rounded his desk. Pulling her badge out, she slowly set it down.
             
“Actually, I think I am. I just resigned.”

THIRTY-SIX

             
“The money was transferred this morning,” Brennan said into the phone.

             
“Fine, fine, that’s good. I should have Victor’s paperwork filed by this afternoon. Then I’ll have a meeting with the judge and
vio
la, he’ll be home within forty-eight hours. Piece of cake, he’ll get a slap on the wrist, maybe some community service for assaulting a police officer, but that should be the extent of it.

             
“But that’s this time, Brennan, and
I’m going
to tell you what I told Victor. H
e’s got to keep a clean record after this. I’ve bailed him out twice in just the last couple of weeks. I can’t keep working miracles here.”

             
“You don’t have to wo
rry about Victor,” Brennan said, “h
e knows full well the consequences of his actions. He’s going do what he wants to do. As for working miracles, whatever you can’t do, I’m quite sure we will find someone else who will.”

             
“I…I didn’t mean…what I meant was…”

             
“Thanks for your time, Mr. Garrett, I’ll let Victor know where we’re at and I’ll contact you if anything else comes up.”

             
Brennan hung up the phone and stared out the window. Fall was in full swing. The colors were turning vivid hues of gold and reds. After ten years in the institute he’d forgotten how incredible the season was.

             
He stood and lifted the window until it was fully open. Leaning out, he pulled in a deep breath and held it, loving the pungent, crisp air. Freedom; it was vital, imperative to the soul’s journey. Without it, one lost the ability to understand their place in the world, to be a free-thinking individual. He understood this on a fundamental level. After many years without contact from the outside world, he had learned to believe in only what his masters had exposed him to, trained him for.

             
Now that he was re-integrating with society, he found that
,
al
though he was free in the sense that he was no longer incarcerated against his will, he was just as stifled by those around him who he’d made allegiances with. 

             
Shyla had said that he wasn’t like Victor and questioned his loyalty toward
him. What she didn’t know
was how turbulent his own emotions where over their dynamic. He was more like Victor than she wanted to believe, and he grappled with that. Especially since he’d witnessed the way he’d treated Shyla. When he’d barged into the room and seen Victor’s strangling Shyla with her own scarf, he’d nearly blacked out from the rage.

             
The instinct to kill Victor had been three-fold. It hadn’t been loyalty in t
hat moment which saved Victor, i
t had been a brief glimpse of clarity and logic. Th
e aftermath of killing Victor
would ha
ve plagued him with a guilt from which
he fe
ared he would never recover
. Despite his failings, Victor had saved him, allotted him his valued freedom and brought him to this very point in his life. He owed him, whether he liked it or not. And if he killed Victor, real freedom would never be a part of his future.

             
He closed the window and sat back in the chair, thinking of how Shyla had stood in the doorway earlier that morning, her badge in hand, the expression on her face stoic and resilient. He could only imagine how much it had cost her to face Victor again. But true to her nature, she did it calmly and armed with only her gun and dry sarcasm.

             
The night he had saved her he’d seen the softer side of her that he’d always known existed when she allowed him to pull her into his lap. As he’d held her, he had felt her walls of bravado crumble away, her illusion of infallible strength withering as she succumbed to the trauma of her near death experience.

             
He’d gently stroked his hand down her soft braid then down her back. Having her there, in his arms, he felt connected to her, bound to her. When she kissed him, his belly burned with a new kind of fire. It was the first time in years that he’d embraced a woman in such a way. The one night stand in San Francisco had been executed out of need and desperation, fraught with only hunger.

             
That moment with Shyla had been something more and whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was just as tied to her, as he was to Victor. The fact that they were two equal and opposing forces only complicated the matter.

             
The phone trilled and broke into his thoughts.

             
“Hello?
”

             
"Hey, Brennan.”

             
Her voice was welcome to his ear.

             
“Hello, Shyla.”

             
“Since I didn’t have to time to chit chat this morning, I was wondering if we could meet later this afternoon. I have some questions for you.”

             
“Should I contact my lawyer?”

             
“No, no. It’s not like that exactly. Listen there have been some changes on this case. I can’t talk about it right now, but I think you and I have to talk.”

             
He ran a hand through his hair.

             
“Fine,” he said, “d
o I need to come down to the precinct?”

             
“No. This is off the record. There is a little diner on the far edge of town, just before you drive out of city limits on the south end. Meet me there around five o’clock.”

             
“Sure.”

             
He hung up and sat back in Victor’s office chair. What exactly did changes on the case mean and why was it off record? He had a feeling things were about to get much more complicated.

THIRTY-SEVEN

             
The diner was bustling with people who’d had another hard Monday at work and wanted to forget it over a plate of meat and anything slathered in gravy. The hum of conversation and the clanging sounds of a busy kitchen kept everyone’s attention within earshot. It was the perfe
ct place for Shyla
and Brennan to blend in.

             
It had only been hours since she’d made the arrest, but it was a small town and the news would surely get around fast. If she had hoped to stay under the radar before, now she knew that she would be under scrutiny as all eyes and e
ars learned the facts and
digested the rumors. Her job on the force, the arrest, and any other information that journalists managed to
dig up would lead to one thing:
her past. The horrors of her childhood were sure to raise their ugly head. It made the decision to stay in Redding that much harder.

             
She chose a booth toward the back by the window so she could see the front door. When Brennan walked in, his carriage was stiff, as if he sensed that he would be challenged. A vision of the way he’d torn into the hit man’s throat and draine
d the life away in only moments
whipped through her mind. It suddenly occurred to her that she should be
terrified of him. Yet, she was
n’t.

             
Sitting back against the vinyl seat, she stared and waited until his eyes found hers. When they did, the air between them hummed. He crossed the room in deliberate strides, their gaze never faltering
and
slid into the seat across from her.

             
“Hello, Shyla.”

             
“Thanks for coming, Brennan.”

             
They were being so civilized. The waitress approached.

             
“What can I get you two to drink?”
she asked, and
Shyla had to suppress a laugh as she watched the young woman size up Brennan’s good looks. He seemed oblivious to her appreciation.

             
“I’ll have a coke, please,” he said.

             
“I’ll take an iced tea.”

             
As the waitress walked away, Brennan folded his hands on the table and gave her a pointed expression.

             
“I see that you’re wearing a turtleneck today. And the make-up helps, but it’s clear you still have a wicked shiner. ”

             
“Yeah, well, it’s what I get for lying to a psychopath. But that guy is right where he should be now; sitting in a cell.”

             
“You and I both know he’ll be out in a week.”

             
“Yeah, well…sometimes it takes a while to meet an objective. I’m patient. That’s not why I asked you to meet me, though.”

             
Brennan
sat back and cocked his head.

             
“Okay, so why did you?”

             
“I quit my job.”

             
Only a
small
flicker of surprise lit in his eyes.

             
“You quit or you were fired?”

             
“I quit,
” she said,
suppressing a smile, “
when they tried to put me on suspension and take me off the case.”

             
“And?”

             
“You don’t think I could just walk away, do you?”

             
“No, I don’t suppose so, although I do think it would be a good idea.”

             
“Well, as much as you and probably a few others would like that, I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to continue with the case on my own time, with my own rules. Victor’s going down one way or another.”

             
Th
e waitress brought their drinks and
Brennan waited until they were alone
again
.
             
“So why are you telling me this?
” he asked,
“
I’m on the wrong side of this matter.
I’m with the bad guys, remember?
”

             
“Exactly.”

             
The insinuation was thick and hung in the air like fetid, rotting meat. He shook his head and looked out the window.

             
“No,
”
he said.

             
“No? Just like that?”