“Good enough.” Rock glanced down at his notes. “Nieves Romero. She still hasn’t answered my calls, so I’m going to have someone in Montana go in.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Just someone I know who can get things done quickly. He’ll scare her into telling the truth.”

Riley’s lips trembled. “I don’t want anyone else to be hurt.”

“He won’t hurt her,” Rock said. “Just scare her a little. Look, sis, either we go down or someone else does. I’m all for it being the guilty party.”

Riley nodded. “You’re right.”

“I’m with you too,” I said to Rock. “That little bitch got her hands in this because she thought she and her sister could make a buck. Maybe they did. I don’t rightly give a shit. But if she knows something, she has to come clean. All our lives depend on it.”

Charlie’s phone buzzed on the table. She glanced down. “Great news. Detective Morgan has arrived.”

“I suppose we should be grateful he’s not dragging us all down to the station,” Lacey said.

“Are you kidding?” Rock guffawed sarcastically. “Free donuts here. Bagels too.”

“Christ.” I raked my hands through my hair.

Charlie stood. “I’ll go get him. I doubt he’ll go for questioning us together in here, but we can hope.”

“He’ll never do that,” Lacey said. “He can’t risk us communicating with each other in nonverbal ways.”

“No, he won’t,” I agreed. “But I will be in the room when he talks to Zee.”

“Zee isn’t a suspect—not yet, anyway—so he shouldn’t have an issue.”

“As soon as he hears her story, though…” Riley bit her lip nervously.

Lacey shook her head. “We’ve already gotten the flight logs. She performed the day before and the day after the murder. If she wasn’t on any flight, she couldn’t have done it.”

Although this wasn’t surprising news, a cement block seemed to float off my shoulders.

Zee was safe.

She wouldn’t be arrested or even implicated.

Thank God.

But fuck.

I cared way more than I thought I did.

I knew I cared, but now?

I was in love.

Fucking in love with a woman whose life my father had tried to destroy.

God help me.

31

Zee

I felt…useless.

I wanted to do something. Something to help Reid. Something more than just tell the story of what I’d been through long ago at his father’s hands.

The priest’s hands.

There were others there too, but I didn’t recall any of them chasing me. Were they chasing others? I tried to remember, but I couldn’t. I’d been focused only on one thing.

Survival.

Funny, how the mind works. The instinct for survival is greater than anyone can imagine. I didn’t know how strong it was…

Until I’d had to face it.