He looked at her hand, studied her face. “You’d give us another chance?”
“I don’t know. You and I both know I don’t belong here.” She looked down, back up. “I’m in motorcycle boots, for goodness sake!”
“I’ve heard the things you’ve told him, things about your past, your childhood. Stuff you never told me. Why would you tell him all that shit?”
“How did you hear what I told him, Mike? You know that’s a little creepy, right? That the police can just listen into my intimate conversations, listen to me having sex?”
He shook his head. “Wasn’t a police thing. I put audio sensors on your windows, piggybacked your alarm system. I did it Gen, no one else heard anything. It only went to me.”
“How did you do it? Especially my alarm?”
“Isaac changed the alarm code, but I have a friend at the FBI who gave me the override sequence for your system, so I didn’t need to know the new code.”
“He changed the locks. How did you get a key?”
He shrugged. “Camera designed to get a picture of your key when you used it. Simple enough to make a key with a 3-D printer, once you have the image.”
“Just audio? No video?”
He looked down, back up, and even though he denied it, she could see he had video, too. Rage shot through every nerve ending in her body, and as his hand came towards her cheek to caress it, she grabbed his wrist, twisted his arm, swept his foot, and followed him to the ground. She grabbed the hair at the back of his head and bashed his forehead into the floor as he hit, and then pulled it up and did it again.
The door flew open behind her, and she heard Duke saying, “It’s me, Gen,” as he pulled her off.
Gen turned and pressed her face to his chest, her arms around his neck. “God, Duke. You have to know I didn’t mean what I told him, I just needed to get him to talk.”
“I know, Beautiful.”
“I love my boots! I belong here. It doesn’t make sense, but I do!”
His arm caressed her back and he spoke into her ear. “Shhh, Beautiful. I know. It was an act, you don’t have to convince me, and I’m a little surprised he fell for it, but then I guess I know you better than he does. However, you just attacked a cop on camera, and if we’re going to use the confession you got out of him without facing your own charges, we need to deal with this. Brain’s coming out, I need the two of you to work together to make this work so we can use the video, okay?”
Gen took a deep breath, pushed all emotion to the side, and put her hand on Duke’s chest to push him away. She met his gaze and could tell he was a little alarmed she’d pulled herself together in a split second, but she couldn’t deal with his feelings right now.
“I’m sorry, Detective?” she said to the other plainclothes officer. “I didn’t get your name.”
He’d been talking to Mike, quietly, and he turned to her with a tight smile. “Johnson, ma’am. It’s Detective Johnson.”
“I’m assuming you heard as well as saw everything? I’m also assuming the RTMC can make a copy of the video available. I’d like to press charges and have Mike McPherson arrested for taking illegal audio and video inside my home without my knowledge. He admitted to the audio, but once you go in with a warrant I feel sure you’ll find video as well. Should any of this audio or video ever be shown to anyone outside of the immediate investigation, I’ll sue the CPD for millions. I may anyway, since his access to law enforcement knowledge is what made his activities possible.”
Mike looked at her and said, “Yeah, and I want her arrested for assaulting an officer.”
“No, Mike, sorry,” Gen told him. “That won’t fly. You may have walked into the clubhouse on official business, but your invitation as a police officer only allowed you into the first room. You came into this room as my ex-boyfriend, and you were very clear you hadn’t put surveillance on me as an officer, but as my ex. So, if you want to have me arrested for taking you to the ground and bashing you into it as your ex-girlfriend, that’s fine, but you weren’t in this room on official police business, and I wasn’t speaking to you as an officer, but as an asshole who’s been stalking me. I didn’t assault Detective McPherson, I gave Mike McPherson an idea of just how much he pissed me off.”
She’d been edging closer and closer to him as she talked, and Detective Johnson stepped between them. He smiled at Gen, then turned to Mike and said, “She has a point, McPherson, and I’m not gonna make that call. My bet is you’ll be strongly encouraged by the brass to leave her the fuck alone because our lawyers are gonna have a hard time getting the CPD out of this one without you making it worse. I need you to come with me, we’re going to take our leave, now.”