“No. But expect a call from my lawyer. You’re going to pay for this.”
“Understood. We’ll leave now.”
Sinead couldn’t move. The two officers were starting to leave and she knew she was supposed to follow them, but she couldn’t make her feet work. If she took a step, then another, it would take her out of this bedroom where she and David had made love for weeks.
If she left this house completely, then realization of what had happened to her would hit her. She would have to accept that this was exactly as it looked. That she’d been played.
By a professional.
By David. Who maybe wasn’t David.
The agony that rushed over her was a physical thing. It almost brought her to her knees. He didn’t just leave her. He didn’t just go and not ask her to go with him. He took everything. Everything that had been these last three weeks and shredded it.
Shredded her.
“Officer O’Hara. Now.”
She looked to her sergeant and nodded. She couldn’t process the pain she was feeling. She couldn’t think beyond each second because if she did she would have to think about the future. The future where there would be no David. The past where a man named David Whitmore didn’t exist.
All she could do now was follow orders. She was supposed to report to the station. That was a place to go. A thing she had to do.
She would focus on that, and that was how she was able to finally move. One foot in front of the other. Walking instead of on the ground in the fetal position, howling.
She was not allowed to drive her squad car. Instead, Sergeant Neil asked that she ride with him. Another set of officers would be sent to pick up her car later.
She nodded at this information and wondered if she would be placed in the back of the car like any other criminal. However, he opened the passenger door as if somehow he sensed she wasn’t capable of handling that task.
All she could do was sit. Buckle her seat belt. And stare straight ahead so she would never see the house where she fell in love with David Whitmore again.
* * *
“Report.” The sharp order came through the phone.
Flynn sat in his car, the windows tinted, about a block up from the ranch where the activity was happening. He watched the officers leave the house. Saw the female cop get in the squad car and take off. Flynn considered the angry clipped voice in his Bluetooth.
Yeah, he thought, this wasn’t going to go well. He’d told his partner it was better to leave and not look back. A clean break. After they evacuated the house, scrubbed it down, restored it, Flynn had offered to be the one to continue surveillance. Alone. Make sure it all went down as expected.
His partner had looked almost relieved. As if the thought of having to watch it play out was too much.
Only now his partner was calling and he wanted a report. Flynn gave it to him.
“Cops were already in place when Huntley showed and started freaking out. I’m telling you I could almost hear him from down the street. Your girl showed up maybe twenty minutes later. She was inside the house for about five, ten minutes. She just left in a squad car with another officer.”
“Could you see her from your vantage point?”
Flynn had binoculars with him in the car.
“Yes. I could see her.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line and Flynn was shaking his head thinking don’t ask it, brother.
“How did she look?”
Flynn debated the answer for a second. Why make his friend feel shittier than he already did?
“I’ll know if you’re lying.”
“Wrecked,” Flynn told him. “She looked wrecked.” There really had been no other way to describe the completely shell-shocked look on her face as she walked out of the house.
A soft sigh. Flynn knew that sigh.
“It’s done. You know what you need to do now.”
“Yep,” Flynn said.
He removed the ear piece, placed it in its case, started the car and drove away.
* * *
Garrett waited until everyone was out of the house. Then he ran down to the basement again to check that it was actually gone. As if he would have left anything behind.
Fuck, he was so screwed.
His hand shaking, he picked up his cell and called his father.
“We’ve got a problem.”
“What?”
There was no point in trying to hide what happened. “It’s gone. The bastard broke into my house and stole it while I was in Shanghai.”
Calm, nonplussed, always in control. His father was always predictable like that. “That is a problem. You understand what’s at stake? I’ve already made the necessary communications.”
Garrett absolutely knew what was at stake. It pissed him off that he was even involved in something this big. All he’d wanted was his damn wife back. His father, as he often did, took it to the next level.