“I’ve already told you,” the cool, crisp voice of Dolores cut through the relative quiet of the hallway, “the young man’s identity is considered classified. Not only would it be a horrible breach of privacy if I were to reveal it to you, it is illegal. I don’t care how many cuss words you spew at me, the answer is, and will remain, no.”

A frustrated noise made its way up Damon’s throat. Almost like a growl. “Surely you can at least tell me what hospital he’s being kept at?”

“I can do no such thing.”

A fist hit the top of Dolores’s desk so harshly that from where he hid in the hallway, Micah could hear the dish of butterscotch candies she kept there rattle. “How much?” he demanded forcefully.

“What?”

“How much to tell me the victim’s name?”

Micah could only imagine the amount of cash Damon flashed the woman right then. (Though judging by Dolores’s offended gasp, it was quite the lump sum.)

“Excuse me?” Dolores cried. Micah winced at the sound of her shrill voice, shocked no one had intervened yet considering the commotion she and Damon were making. “Might I remind you that you’re at a police station? Bribery is a crime punishable by law.”

Damon snorted. “Like you pigs aren’t corrupted from the top down,” he snarled. There was a shocking amount of venom in his voice, and Micah couldn’t help but feel stung by it all things considered.

“If you don’t leave right this second, you will be escorted out – or thrown in a cell to cool off. Your choice.”

Damon didn’t immediately respond, and Micah didn’t know the man well enough to know whether he would continue his belligerence and push Dolores to make good on her threat or simply turn tail and walk out.

He was surprised when instead of doing either, the man slumped against the woman’s desk, his tone desperate as he implored her. “Please, just… can you tell me if his name was Micah?”

Micah’s heart stuck somewhere in his throat. Damon sounded miserable. Not just guilty for chasing him off. His voice was filled to the brim with some other emotion Micah didn’t dare name after the man’s clear rejection of him only a handful of days ago.

He wanted to go out there and assure Damon he was fine, of course, he did – he wasn’t a monster. But his feet felt glued to the floor, and it was all he could do to internally beg Tessa to do something. It wasn’t like she didn’t know exactly who Damon was.

Somehow, Tessa seemed to pick up on his telepathic pleading because that was enough to get her to (finally!) step in. “Like Mrs. Fuller has already reiterated to you, we absolutely cannot reveal any identifying information about the Hooker Hunter’s latest victim.”

Come on, Tessa, please…

“However-”

Thank God.

“-I can share with you that his name was not Micah. He was a young African American whose family has already been notified of what’s transpired and are with him at the hospital. Does that sound like whoever you’re worried about?”