We walk toward a door to the right of the desk. “When Special Agent Montgomery comes in, tell him to find us in Interrogation 3,” Cooper tells the guard on our way by.

We march up a corridor and he stops at a door, scanning his card again. The door clicks open and he escorts me into a small white room with a metal table and four chairs. At the end of the table is a tripod with a camera. He drops me into the chair it’s pointing at and pulls off the handcuffs.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells me.

He slips out the door into the hall, and Jenkins leans his back against it, glaring down at me.

I fold my hands on my lap under the table so he can’t see them shake, because I get the pit bull vibe from this guy—if he senses fear, he’ll go for the jugular. “Are you ‘bad cop’?”

A self-satisfied smirk spreads over his ginormous face. “I am your worst nightmare. Give me five minutes and you’ll be spilling your guts.”

What do they think I know? I open my mouth to tell Jenkins there’s nothing to spill, but then close it again. Maybe, as long as they think there’s something I know that they don’t, I’ve got some leverage. I put up the bravest front I can despite my sweating palms and short-circuiting brain. “I’m not telling you anything.”

The doorknob rattles as someone turns it from the other side, but Jenkins doesn’t move to let them in. A prickle of panic flashes through me. Yep. He’s got “bad cop” down solid.

“Jenkins!” comes Cooper’s irritated voice from the other side of the door. “Move your sorry ass and let me in!”

Jenkins shifts off the door, giving me a menacing smile, and Cooper comes through with a thick manila file folder in his hand, a pad of while lined paper and an iPad on top of it. “What the hell is going on in here?” he asks.

“Just making sure we understand each other,” Jenkins says, settling into the chair near the camera.

Cooper lowers himself into the one across from me and fiddles with his stuff for a minute, opening the cover of the iPad and then the folder. “So, this is a pretty easy concept,” he says, his gaze lifting to me once he’s organized. “Tell us what we want to know and this will all go away for you. Don’t, and you’re looking at jail time.”

“What do you want from me? I’m not a hooker. I didn’t . . . I didn’t do anything wrong. I shouldn’t even be here!” I bite my tongue when I feel myself start to come unhinged.

Jenkins snorts out a laugh and mutters, “Just keep it up and see where it gets you.”

Cooper blows out a weary sigh. “How about we start with the easy stuff? Your full name is . . . ?”

I lean heavily on the table, fisting my hands in my hair and using it to hold up the weight of my aching, thousand pound head. “Samantha West.”

I sound totally defeated, and a smirk curls Jenkins’s mouth as he drums his sausage fingers on the table.

Cooper’s eyes flick to me from the page as he writes that down. “Middle name?”

“Erin.”

He makes a note. “And you’ve worked for Ben Arroyo for how long?”

“Two weeks.”

The pencil in Cooper’s hand flips into the air and clatters to the table in front of me as his eyes flash to mine. “What?”

I swallow hard. “What, what?”

“You’ve only worked at Benny’s for two weeks?” he says, exasperated.

“Yes.”

He plants an elbow on the table and rubs a hand down his face in a weary gesture. “Christ, Blake. What the hell were you thinking?” he mutters.

“I knew he’d screw this up,” Jenkins sneers from across the table. “Don’t know why Navarro thought she needed to bring that sanctimonious prick in from L.A. when I could have gone deep.”

Cooper pulls his face out of his hand and looks me over. “Shut up, Jenkins.”

Jenkins slams his palm down on the table, making me jump. “If Arroyo walks on this because of Montgomery, I swear I’ll rip his misguided dick off and cram it down his throat.”

“Jenkins,” Cooper warns, “why don’t you go see if Blake’s in the house?”

He jerks out of his seat and slams through the door, grumbling something I can’t quite catch, except it still has to do with this Montgomery person and his dick.

“Okay,” Cooper says, opening the folder. “First things first. Did you ever see illegal drugs on the premises of Benny’s Gentlemen’s Club?”

“No.”

His eyes flash to mine. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

His gaze hardens. “Did you ever hear of any transactions between Arroyo or his wife and the other dancers?”

“Never.”

He purses his lips and thumbs past a few pages before slipping a paper out and turning it to face me. “So, as you know, this is Benjamin Arroyo,” he says, tapping the end of his pen on the top corner. The page is a collage of candid shots of men’s faces, and the one he’s pointing to is Ben. In the shot, he’s standing on the sidewalk outside Benny’s, talking to Marcus.

I nod.

“These pictures are of his known associates,” he tells me, sweeping his hand over the rest of the page. “Do any of them look at all familiar to you?”

“What if I say yes?” I ask, knowing if I do, it would be a lie.

“Then I’ll see what I can do to make this all go away for you.”

“And, if I say no?”

He shrugs. “Then there’s nothing I can do to help you. You’ll be held until your hearing, and you’ll go to trial.”

I haul a deep breath, then give the photos a cursory glance. “I’ve never seen—” But my gaze catches on a face in the middle of the page. It’s the guy who was flirting with Nora. The one who had Ben all uptight.

“You recognize someone?” he asks just as the door is flung open behind me.

“Montgomery’s in the house,” Jenkins’s says. “But he’s on the line with Special Agent in Charge Navarro.”

Cooper ignores him, sliding the pictures closer. “Which one, Jezebel?”

“None of them. I told you, I only worked there for two weeks. I don’t know anything. And I didn’t prostitute myself. Harrison Yates is a manipulative asshole. Can you say ‘entrapment’?”

Cooper just looks at me, but Jenkins breaks out laughing.

“Harrison Yates,” he guffaws. “May as well have called himself Prince fucking Charming.”

I look between him and Cooper, confused.

Cooper cuts him a glare then levels me in his sharp gaze. “Providing a perpetrator opportunity to commit a crime does not constitute entrapment.”

I think about all of our encounters. He told me he wanted to touch me. I’m pretty sure he kissed me first tonight. Is that enough? At just the memory, my skin prickles into goose bumps, my heart races, my breathing gets shallow, and a thin sheen of sweat breaks over my whole body.

Damn. How can I still want him?

Behind me the door clicks open, and I don’t have to turn around to know it’s him, as if my thoughts summoned him.

“Find anything?” Cooper asks, looking over my shoulder.

“The evidence team is going through it now. Hopefully we’ll have something by morning.” That warm honey drawl causes me to shudder and I want to slit my wrists. “How’s it going in here?”

Cooper scrapes his chair back. “Excuse me for a minute, Jezebel.” He looks past me to where I know Harrison is standing. “I need to talk to Agent Montgomery in the hall.”

“Don’t call me Jezebel,” I grumble, but I don’t turn around as he passes me on his way to the door. I can’t look at Harrison. My body’s reaction to just being in the same room is totally unacceptable, and that’s without even seeing him. I won’t let him know he still affects me.

“Your boyfriend’s looking a little rough around the edges,” Jenkins tells me with a smirk after the door clicks closed, and that’s when I realize Harrison must have gone outside with Cooper and that Montgomery person that Jenkins seems to hate so much.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say, turning and finding the room behind me empty.

Muffled voices come through the door, Cooper’s and Harrison’s, as best I can tell. The door opens a minute later, and the chair next to me scrapes back. I don’t look as Harrison lowers himself into it, but I feel the weight of his gaze.

Cooper finds his seat across from me and sets my bag on the table. “This is your purse?” he asks me.

I nod.

He reaches in and pulls out my phone. “And this is your phone?”

“Can I have it?” I ask, holding out my hand.

He flips it in his hand and looks at the screen. “What would we find if we went through your texts, I wonder?” he muses.

I think about that for a second and realize there would be nothing incriminating. I didn’t even text anyone about Harrison. “About a hundred raunchy texts from my friend, Jonathan; a couple of conversations with Katie and Izzy; and, I suppose if you go back far enough, you’ll find a thousand to-do lists from my mom.”

“Nothing from Ben Arroyo?”

“It wasn’t like we were friends.”

He sets the phone down. “Jezebel here was just telling me that she recognizes someone on this page,” he says to Harrison, sliding the collage in front of me again.

I blow out a weary breath and hang my head. “No. Actually, if your hearing wasn’t so selective, you’d remember I said I didn’t know anything. And you’d also remember I told you not to call me Jezebel.”

“Sam,” Harrison says, too close to my ear. “If you work with us, things will go a lot easier for you.”

I spin on him and find he’s leaning his elbows on his knees. He’s so close I can feel the heat of his skin and I scoot my chair back. But he gives me a focal point for all the fear and anger and betrayal. The cyclone of chaos tearing my insides apart spirals into a sharp point, and all I want to do is stab him with it. “You know what? Fuck you.”