Christ.

Why had she sent him that awful invitation? He’d never taken her to be spiteful. Not the Eve he’d known then, and not the Eve he knew now. Unless…perhaps she’d thought it would be a signal for him to come crash the party? Perhaps she’d thought—

“Then again,” Mac mused, his lips pursed in consideration, “sounds to me like she might have been manipulated into the marriage. After those articles ran in the papers, perhaps she felt there were expectations placed on her. You know, from friends and family. Maybe she thought she didn’t have another choice.”

Bill wanted to tell Mac he was wrong. That she’d had another choice, goddamnit, because she’d had him. But the wide set of double doors connecting the elevator bank to the bullpen burst open, revealing the deep frown of none other than Chief Washington himself. Directly on his heels were Blake Parish and Patrick Edens.

At some point, Blake had changed his blood-soaked shirt for a fresh button-down and a linen sport coat. But the getup looked a bit ridiculous considering the man’s nose was three times its normal size and both of his eyes were swollen and turning a painful-looking purple. Bill didn’t even try to hide his gleeful smile. And it only spread wider when he discovered Patrick Edens, freshly attired in a light summer sweater, was trying to stare holes through him.

“You better redirect that gaze, cocksucker,” he called to Edens. “Or else I might just decide to jump up and put a limp in that Jimmy Stewart swagger of yours.”

“Can it, Reichert,” Washington barked, just as the doors belched open again, admitting two gentlemen wearing pinstripe suits, shiny handmade loafers, and carrying briefcases.

Ah, yes. The ambulance-chasers. Although, Bill would bet a dollar to anyone’s dime that these two overdressed, and no doubt overpaid lawyers had never chased an ambulance, or anything else for that matter, in their entire lives.

“Thank God you’re here,” Edens said to the men, studiously avoiding Bill’s gaze as Washington led the group on a circuitous route through the desks in an attempt to bypass Bill and Mac’s position by the wall.

Probably a good idea, Chief, Bill inwardly admitted. Because the reality was it wouldn’t take much, maybe just a whiff of Edens’s overpowering cologne, for him to follow through on that threat he’d just made.

Of course, he was careful to make sure none of this showed on his face when Washington glanced at him over his shoulder. Instead, he lifted a brow, letting his eyes drift to the lawyers before returning his gaze to Washington and calling, “What was that I mentioned earlier about me being able to say I told you so?”

Washington thrust out his lower lip all pugnacious-like and glared with those black eyes that seemed to see straight into a man’s soul. Bill had always kind of figured the role of Sergeant Foley played by Louis Gossett Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman was modeled after Washington.

“What did I just say, Reichert?” Washington bellowed.

He grinned cheekily. “About what, Chief?”

“About canning it,” Washington barked.

“Um,” Bill twisted up his face like the IQ fairy had passed him by on Extra Points Day. “That I should do so?”

“Exactly,” Washington said, holding the gray door leading to the interrogation wing wide so his train of murderers, manipulators, and, worse, lawyers, could precede him. “But don’t you leave,” the police chief added before following the group. “After I see these, uh, gentlemen in for questioning, I’m gonna want to have a word with you.”

“I’ll be right here, Chief,” he promised.

The detective pecking at his keyboard spared the group a brief glance before they disappeared behind the door. Then he went back to glaring at his computer screen. And when Bill turned to Mac, he found the man’s expression was as amused as Washington’s had been irritated.

“I dealt with a lot of police chiefs during my time as a fed,” Mac drawled. “But I never came across one with quite the…eh…what is that particular aura that hangs around our intrepid Chief Washington? I can’t quite put my finger on it?”

“It’s one part don’t fuck with me,” Bill supplied helpfully.

“And the other part?” Mac queried.

“Don’t fuck with me.”

Mac chuckled. “Yeah, I think you nailed it.”

For a couple of minutes, the police station was silent save for the monotonous tick, tick, tick of the clock on the wall above their heads, and the intermittent clickety-clack of the detective’s keyboard. Then Washington burst back onto the scene with the force and vigor of hurricane.

Bill and Mac both jumped to their feet. “How much longer will Eve be in there?” Bill asked before Washington finished crossing the room.

The chief didn’t deign to answer, the confounding sonofagun, until after he’d sidled up beside them, all the while eyeing Bill in that deeply disturbing and blatantly considering way he had. He took his time loosening his red and blue tie, shrugging out of his suit jacket, and unbuttoning and rolling up the sleeves on his white dress shirt. And Bill knew the chief was being purposefully annoying, proving to everyone that in this place he was the big, swinging dick. But finally Washington relented, throwing his jacket on the bench and saying, “I suspect she’ll be out soon. Normandy was wrapping things up when I looked in on them just a minute ago.”

Bill was able to drag in a deep breath for the first time since she’d disappeared through that door. “Good,” he said. “That’s good.” Because Lord knew he was completely wiped out from the day’s events, which meant Eve had to be dead on her feet. And, yes, the truth was he was worried about her.

There. He admitted it.

He shook his head. At himself. At Fate. At the goddamned, never-ending, roller coaster ride that happened to be his feelings for Eve Edens.

“And once Normandy’s finished with her, he’ll move on to questioning her father and her ex-husband,” Washington added.

“That’s good.” Bill hoped they were questioned until they squirmed holes right through their designer pants. Questioned until they sweated blood…

“And we’re in the process of pulling records to determine the locations of both men on the dates of Ms. Edens’s previous…uh…mishaps.”

“Good.” Bill nodded. “That’s good.” He realized he’d gotten himself stuck in a loop when Washington’s dark face pulled down a fierce frown.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” the chief thundered. “You swallow a parrot or something?”

“Sorry.” Bill shook his head, trying to wrangle his wayward thoughts. “My mind is all over the place tonight.”

“Yeah.” Washington’s big lips twisted into what Bill suspected was supposed to be a grin but looked more like the man had a serious case of gas. “And if I had to guess, right now it’s back in that interrogation room where a certain socialite is being interviewed. You got a hard-on for Evelyn Edens, Reichert? Is that why you’re all rolled up into this mess? I just thought you were helping her out because she’s your kid sister’s friend.”

A hard-on for Eve Edens? Yeah, that was one way of putting it. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell Washington as much. “Let’s just say we’re old acquaintances and leave it at that, huh?”

“If you insist,” Washington said, still eyeing Bill with blatant curiosity.

“I insist.” Bill mirrored the police chief’s stance by crossing his arms over his chest. And then, to redirect Washington’s line of questioning, he posed a question himself. “Did the…uh…did the wire help any?”

“It gave us enough reason to sequester Edens’s and Parish’s phone records.” Washington said. “We’ve got a request in to a judge right now. Currently he’s at a fund-raiser, but as soon as he’s done, he’ll sign the writ. Then we’ll send it to the respective phone companies, which probably won’t have anybody on staff until work hours tomorrow morning. So that means we’ll likely have the logs in our hands by noon at the latest.”

Noon? “Jesus Christ!” Bill gaped at the chief then glanced around, blinking. “Was I transported through a wormhole back to 1989? Isn’t everything electronic now? Don’t you just need the right geek to push the right button and voila! The information is yours for the taking?”

Where was Ozzie, BKI’s resident techno-geek extraordinaire, when Bill needed him? Oh, yeah. The guy was doing a four-month stint down in South America, trying to, you know, save the world or some shit. Goddamnit.

“I work in the real word, Reichert. Not some…” Washington glanced over his shoulder at the detective still working, then turned back and lowered his voice. “Not some dick-shriveled, government blow-job factory.” Despite himself, despite the horridness of this god-awful day, Bill felt a grin pull at his lips. “So if you think you can do a better job of getting that info ASAP, be my guest.”

Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Bill said, “What you said was be my guest. So why did I just hear go fuck yourself?”

“Maybe because you’ve got good ears,” Washington replied.

Bill chuckled. But the sound died in his throat when Washington continued, “Although, if you ask me, chances are slim-to-none the phone records will reveal anything. These guys might look like a couple of dandies, but I’m sure whichever one of them is behind this was smart enough to have covered his ass before calling in a hit.”

“You think he used a burner?” Bill asked, referring to the cheap, prepaid cell phones available in gas stations for a song.