“Someone from inside the department was leaking information to Arroyo’s people. Internal Affairs is on a witch hunt. They think it’s Blake.”

My jaw is gaping and I close it. “You’re joking.”

“I wish I was.”

“If Blake wanted to give me up to Arroyo’s guys, he would have just let them into the house.”

He juts his chin. “Only if he wanted everyone to know it was him.”

“You’re crazy.”

He shakes his head again. “Look, Sam. I don’t believe it either, I need you to tell me exactly what happened. Unless we can come up with a better alternative, I’m afraid they’re going to pin this on Blake. His code is the only one that was used to access the house on the morning you were attacked.”

I rub my forehead to stave off the headache that’s forming there. But then I think about what he said. “In the morning? What time?”

“Seven-fifteen was the last time his code was entered.”

My eyes widen. “It wasn’t him.”

“And you know this because . . . ?”

“I just do,” I say, panic and the memory of exactly what I was doing to Blake at seven-fifteen that morning kicking my heart into overdrive. “He was with me.”

His lips press into a grim line. “They’re not going to take your word for it, especially when Montgomery refuses to corroborate that.”

My hands fist at my sides. “It wasn’t him,” I repeat through a tight jaw. My brain scrambles, trying to decide what would be worse for Blake, admitting he was in the shower with me or letting them think he let Marcus in.

He tips his head, giving me a wary look. “No one else would have had that code. We both chose our own and programmed them into the security system. We didn’t even know each other’s.”

I rub my forehead again. There’s something caught in there that feels important, but my brain won’t spit it out. “If they decide he did it, what would it mean? What would happen to him?”

His frown creases deep lines into his face. “Prison time.”

“Oh my God.” Tears press at the back of my eyes. “He was with me, Cooper. I woke up at seven and climbed in the shower with him. Marcus was in the bedroom when I came out at least forty-five minutes later. Blake didn’t let him in at seven-fifteen. We were in the shower together.”

His lips purse and he scrutinizes me before turning up the sidewalk.

“What do I do, Cooper?” I ask, moving beside him.

“That’s up to you. You can sign a statement to that effect, if you want. It will save Montgomery jail time. But you know that alibi isn’t going to keep him out of hot water.”

I look at him, searching his face for what he thinks I should do. “He’s already in trouble for that, right? I mean . . . he was naked in my bedroom when you got there.”

He flicks me a look. “But not when Navarro came in.”

My eyes widen. “The department doesn’t know?”

He shakes his head and traps me in his severe gaze. “Only me, you, and Montgomery know what state he was in when he contained the suspect. If he was with you at seven-fifteen, that would clear him, but he’s not going to be the one to tarnish your good name. Believe me, I already tried convincing him. So the choice is yours, Jezebel.”

This is the very least I can do for him. Blake has done so much for me, including taking a bullet. I shudder as images from the night Blake got shot flash through my mind: the blood, and Blake being carried away on a stretcher. “Nichols!”

Cooper lifts his head and gives me a guarded look.

“Nichols brought me home the night Blake was shot. He gave her his code and told her to flush it when she got to the house. When she left in the morning, she had his key. He told her to give it back to you because he had yours.”

In the next three seconds his gaze shifts from guarded to stunned to enraged. And the second after that, his phone is in his hand.

“Where is Nichols?” he barks into it, spinning on his heel.

I follow as he hoofs faster than I even knew he was capable of, moving back toward the house.

“Lock her down,” he says after a pause. “Interrogation 3. I’ll be there in thirty.” He shoves me through the door in front of him. “Jenkins!”

Jenkins comes loping up the hall.

“Don’t let her go anywhere until you hear back from me!” And then he’s gone.


IT WAS NICHOLS. Cooper came back later that night to tell me and bring me home.

She broke down and confessed when they questioned her. When she was under cover at Benny’s, she apparently let things go a little too far. I remember her saying she and her husband went through a rough patch when it took so long to get pregnant. She and Ben had an affair, and it turns out the dressing room wasn’t the only place Ben had cameras. He had pictures of them together in his office that he used to blackmail her to bring him information from inside the department.

And the worst part, she thinks the baby is his.

Cooper loaded up my things, and when he asked me “Where to?” I called Izzy and asked if I could stay with her for a few days. He dropped me off at her apartment. “When agents cross the line, it never ends well,” he’d said just as he was leaving, and from the look he gave me, it was clear he wasn’t just talking about Nichols.

And that’s when I knew.

No matter what happens, Blake isn’t coming back.

I’ve been at Izzy’s for a week, and I still haven’t been able to bring myself to call Jonathan. I’m sure he hates me for throwing him under the bus. But it’s time.

The Astray website says Hell’s Gate is playing there tonight. For better or worse, I have to know if I’ve lost Jonathan’s friendship.

Izzy and I take the bus downtown and push through the door of the packed club just as Jonathan is tearing through his rendition of a Disturbed song. We grab drinks at the bar and luck into a booth that a group of drunk college guys is just vacating to the right of the dance floor. I scan the crowd and catch sight of Ginger’s white hair as she thrashes up near the stage.

Izzy presses her shoulder into mine. “I’m going to get Ginger,” and before I can decide if I want her to do that, she’s already weaving through the crush of bodies toward the stage.

I alternately chew my cuticle and sip my drink as I watch Jonathan seduce the room, and I wish with every fiber of my being things could be how they were before I ruined everything. Will he forgive me?

“Holy fucking shit,” Ginger says as she steps out of the fray on the dance floor. Her arms are crossed over her chest as she looks me over, and I can’t tell if she’s pissed or just surprised. “Jonathan is going to shit his pants. Where the hell did you come from?” she says, launching herself at me and giving me a one-armed hug.

“I’m sort of back, I guess.” I start to open my mouth to ask if Jonathan hates me, when Izzy wrestles her way out of the crowd and slides into the booth across from me.

“She wanted to surprise Jonathan,” Izzy offers, and I realize how much better that sounds than what I was going to say.

Ginger looks around. “Where’s your secret agent man?”

“Um . . . I’m on my own. They let me go.”

She grabs my hand, dragging me out of the booth and back through the writhing bodies to the front of the stage just as Jonathan is swinging his mic by the cord to the last pounding beats of the pizza song.

When he looks down from the stage and sees me, his eyes widen and my heart stops. It feels like the rest of my life later that a grin breaks over his face.

“We’re gonna take a short break,” he says into the mic, hopping off the stage and landing right in front of me. “Don’t go anywhere.”

He flicks the mic off and tosses it onto the stage, and then he just looks at me with those incredible eyes. “Long time no see.”

It’s only as the first tear leaks over my lashes that I realize I’m crying. “I’m so sorry, Jonathan.”

He tips his head at me with a question in his eyes. “For what?”

“I thought you—” The words choke off on a sob and I drop my face into my hands.

“C’mere,” he says, and I feel his strong arm wrap over my shoulders. He moves us through the jostling crowd as everybody tries to get their piece of him, tugging on his clothes or grabbing at his arms. He manages to break through and guide me up the stairs on the side of the stage. He leads me backstage and turns me to face him, a hand grasping each of my upper arms. “What’s up, Red? Why the tears?”

“Do you hate me?” I ask, my voice thick as I rub at my wet cheeks.

His face scrunches. “What?”

“I thought you . . . might have . . . with Ben . . .” I stammer, fully aware that I’m making no sense.

“Hey,” he says, giving me a little bit of a shake. “I was afraid you’d never forgive me for being so fucking stupid. You have every right to hate me.” He lets me go and hangs his head. “I got you shot at, for fuck’s sake. I’m never going to forgive myself.”

I wipe my eyes again, and as our surroundings come into focus, I realize the entire stage crew is staring at us. I haul a shuddering breath, trying to get my shit together. “I’m so sorry I doubted you.”

He looks up at me, then opens his arms. “I’m a moron. I deserve to be doubted.”

I step into his arms and they close around me.

“Jon,” someone says from behind me.

“Yeah, I’m coming,” he answers, but he doesn’t let me go. “So, Red. I gotta get back out there, but we need to talk, okay? After the gig, if you’re still around? Or tomorrow?”

I nod and pull back, stretching up on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “I love you.”

He gives me his signature crooked smile and cocks a pierced eyebrow as he backs toward the curtain. “I know.”