“It means I asked their permission to bring you up to speed about the investigation and about me.”
“Obviously, they said no.” She resumed eating.
“It was a bit more complicated. They threatened to take away my badge if I opened my mouth.”
“Jerks.”
“Yeah, Sunshine.” I huffed a laugh. “It pissed me off. So I got creative.”
“What did you do?”
“I figured out a way to give you all of me without breaking their ridiculous gag order. You see, the day I spoke with them was the same day I told you about my foster father.”
A look of understanding passed over her features. It had been a calculated risk, putting my real name out in the open. Even though the chances were smaller than small, if someone were looking hard enough, they might have been able to find a link between Rogan James and Duncan Palmer. As good as the FBI was at erasing a person’s past, they couldn’t redact the whole internet.
“Anyway, I spent the next three months keeping my ear to the ground and my finger on the pulse. We had moreintel than we knew what to do with, the problem was we didn’t have enough to make an arrest. Niall knew I was getting antsy, so he asked me to meet him.”
“Who’s Niall?”
Sloane took the last bite of her Hunan, placing her empty plate on the coffee table. I shifted sideways, bringing my knee up onto the cushion between us. She mirrored my position. Replaying the last chapter of our past would be difficult for both of us. No more secrets. It was the only way to heal the hurt.
“My handler, the person I reported to. He’s the one I went to see last night.” Something didn’t add up with the way he reacted to the news of the twins. A sick feeling came over me when I realized his betrayal may have run deeper than I originally thought. Praying I was wrong, I asked, “Did the police interview you after the accident?”
“Yes, although I’m not sure why. The guy didn’t seem to actually want my side of the story.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was like he wastellingme how the crash happened instead of asking me. The whole interaction was bizarre. He’d cut me off when I tried to correct him, then when I told him you were driving the car, he said my head injury made me an unreliable witness. I’ll never forget those words. Thankfully, Finn was there. He kicked the officer out of my room after threatening to file a complaint with the department.”
“Do you remember what the officer looked like?”
The sickness grew into full-blown nausea while I waited for her response.
“Reddish hair, kinda long and wavy on top, and he wasn’t nearly as tall as you. Sorry, that probably describes half the men in Dublin.”
Son of a bitch.
“I’m ninety-nine-percent positive the man you spoke with at the hospital was Niall.”
His name left my tongue on a growl. Holding the anger inside was no longer possible, not when new layers of his betrayal kept being uncovered. Apparently, I’d only breached the surface in the hotel room. Fucking with my life was one thing. Targeting Sloane, especially given the severity of her injuries, was vicious. She didn’t deserve any of the shit she’d been put through. Guilt by association wasn’t a crime.
“The guy didn’t even blink when I used your name, well, I mean I called you Rogan, but still. If he was your handler, why didn’t he say something? He knew who I was to you, right?”
“He most definitely did.”
“I’m so confused.” She pinched the bridge of her nose.
“He told me you died in the crash, Sloane.”
Her brows furrowed. “Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know, but I went to find out.” I reached out, lacing our fingers together and resting them on my knee. “Before I got to Finn’s, Niall called me from Virginia. It was the first time I’d spoken to him since I left Ireland. The conversation didn’t last long. He wanted me to rejoin the investigation, I hung up on him mid-sentence. An hour later, you opened the door. You standing in front of me, alive and breathing, was a shot to the heart, a triple shot when you told me about the twins. It was never my intention to hurt you by leaving the way I did. In my defense, my head was fucked up. All I knew was Niall had intentionally kept us apart and I had to know why. The fact he was only a short drive away was convenient because, right then,nothing would’ve stopped me from boarding the first plane to Dublin.”
“What did you find out?” She squeezed my hand reassuringly.
“According to Niall, he was given an order to tell me you didn’t survive.”
“You don’t believe him?”