“I wanted to … I talked to Devereaux. He said Linda copped a plea and spilled everything. They’ve got enough on Gumm and the Breezeports to put them away for a long time. They’ve got a line on a handful of others, like Silbey, too.”

“I’m aware of all that.”

“Oh, well, I wasn’t sure.” She stuck her hands in her pockets. “It’s going to take some time to locate all the children, and get them back where they belong, but … It worked, damn it,” she blurted out. “I don’t know what the hell you’re so bent out of shape about.”

His voice was deceptively mild. “Don’t you?”

“I did what I thought was best.” She kicked at the ground, then strode over to the fence. “They’d already made plans to snatch another kid. It was right in the book.”

“The book you went in and found. On your own.”

“If I’d told you what I was going to do, you’d have tried to stop me.”

“Wrong. I would have stopped you.”

She frowned back at him. “See? By doing it my way, we saved a lot of heartache.”

“And risked more.” The anger he’d been struggling to hold back flared. “There was a bruise on your cheek.”

“A qualified job risk,” she shot back. “And it’s my cheek.”

“Good God, Sutherland. She had a gun on you.”

“Only for a minute. Hell, Donovan, the day I can’t handle a sap like Linda Glass is the day I retire. I’m telling you I just couldn’t take the idea of them snatching another baby, so I went with the gut.” Her eyes were so eloquent, some of his anger died. “I know what I’m doing, and I also know it seems like I was cutting you out. But I wasn’t. I called you.”

He took a calming breath, but it failed to work. “And if I’d been too late?”

“Well, you weren’t, so what’s the point?”

“The point is, you didn’t trust me.”

“The hell I didn’t. Who else was I trusting when I stood in that closet and tried to use the ring or whatever connection we had to get you and the feds up there? If I hadn’t trusted you, I would’ve slipped right out the door with the book.” She grabbed at his shirt and shook him. “It was because I trusted you that I played it out that way. Staying there, letting them catch me—because I knew I could trust you to back me up. I tried to explain it all to you before. I knew they’d tell me things Devereaux could use, and with the book as a backup, we’d have them cold.”