He nodded but didn’t say anything. What could he say anyway? she wondered. She knew enough to realize that a lot of cops weren’t good about investigating rape even in civilian life.
“And finally you stepped on the wrong toes?”
“They were all wrong,” she admitted. “But when I brought in an indisputable case against a young officer who’d actually committed the rape against an enlisted woman, my days were numbered. I get that being at war for long stretches can turn people into animals, but...” She shrugged and finally said, “If you don’t insist on some rules, all you have is a mob. Justice.”
“So why did this guy turn out to be so problematic?”
“General’s son. You’d have thought I’d taken a dump on the family escutcheon. They wanted me to bury it and I wouldn’t. JAG brought him up on charges. And that’s when I got the killer performance report.”
“One report was enough to ruin you?”
She sliced off another piece of steak. “That’s all it takes. But there never would have been another good one after that. No more promotions, either. I had a reputation by then and that was it. I could either resign my commission and get out honorably or I could wait for them to find an excuse to ruin the rest of my life. And they’d have found it.”
He was silent for a few seconds. “That stinks.”
“Well, I’m here now, still doing the kind of work I want to do, and I’m more interested in catching this killer than worrying about my former career.”
“But it left scars.”
She could feel her eyes go hollow. This was an area she wasn’t comfortable discussing. Emotions. They were tenuous and dangerous. “I really don’t like men,” she said flatly.
“I can see why.”
She gave him points for not saying he was different. She’d heard that countless times, but saying it didn’t make it so. A guy needed to prove it to her, and few enough had.
They were silent through the rest of the meal, leaving DeeJay entirely too much time to ponder the unhappy fact that there was one man she wanted to like and he was sitting right across from her.
Despite having been raped during her first year in uniform, despite having watched her superiors sweep it under the rug and even threaten her—and she’d been young enough then to be scared by those threats—she didn’t have a hang-up about sex. Sex and rape were very different things. No, she had a hang-up about men. She lived with wanting something from a man and being afraid to even try for it. Not that it mattered. They were on a job and had to remain strictly professional. Nothing else could be allowed to muddy the waters.
* * *
Cade had cooked, so DeeJay washed the dishes. Just as she was finishing up, the wall phone rang and Cade grabbed it. Holding a dish towel, she turned around and waited. Once again in the middle of the table was the thick envelope, and added to it was the file they had brought with them. She had a feeling they’d be poring over it again before the night was over. On a case like this, the only break you could afford was for sleep and a meal. Too much hung in the balance.
“Okay, see you then,” he said, and hung up. “Well, that was the old sheriff. Nate Tate will be here in about thirty minutes.”
“I hope we can learn something from him.”