Page 53 of Cipher

“What about Smoke?” I asked.

“Gonna see if he can locate Pritchard.”

“Okay.”

There was a knock on the bathroom door, and Corbin murmured, “Wraith is there. Be careful, baby.”

“I will,” I promised.

Wraith didn’t say much as he escorted me straight down to my father’s office. Dad had his phone in hand when we walked in, but he put it on speaker as soon as the door closed behind us.

Corbin’s voice came through. “The mirror caught Pritchard accessing a fuck ton of shit he shouldn’t have. Including Nina’s restricted incident index and Bex’s sealed original statement. All from a dispatcher workstation shortly before he approached her.”

“I haven’t assigned him any cases connected to those files,” my dad growled.

My unease was growing. “And I don’t see why he’d need to access any of that as the communications liaison.”

The easygoing deputy who I’d known since I was a kid had been digging through records he had no reason to touch. I’d been hoping for a lead but never expected it to point toward Seth.

“I’ll call Pritchard in.” Dad raked his fingers through his hair. “He can try to explain why a communications liaison needed information on a restricted incident and my daughter’s sealed statement.”

“I’ll keep digging on my end,” Corbin promised before he ended the call.

Twenty minutes later, Pritchard was in my dad’s office while Wraith and I waited in a conference room down the hall. When it was over, my father did one of the hardest things a man in his position could do. He stripped a deputy he had trusted for years of his badge, department weapon, building credentials, and system access. Effective immediately.

Seth was on administrative leave pending an internal investigation.

Pritchard left the building angry, with an unmarked unit following him. I didn’t need anyone to tell me the club would pick up the surveillance the moment the undercover tail became too obvious.

When my dad called me into his office, he stood at the window with his back to me, his shoulders rigid.

“Did he have a good reason for accessing a dispatch terminal?”

Turning to me, he shook his head. “The bastard tried saying he was checking whether the new security measures created problems for patrol. As if it’s his fucking job. Or your personnel file had anything to do with his bullshit reason.”

I could see what this was costing him, but there wasn’t much I could do to fix it. “He made the choice. Not you. You trusted a deputy with a clean record. That’s not a failure. The betrayal is his.”

“I know.” He let out a long breath. “But it stings that I don’t have enough to arrest him yet. All I can prove so far is unauthorized access. I need more evidence to connect him to the rest.”

“You and Corbin will get it.” I had no doubt about it.

“At least with Pritchard out of the building, I feel a little better about you working dispatch.”

“Good.” I crossed the room to give him a quick kiss. “Because I’m headed back up there now.”

I still had two shadows during the rest of my shift, but I had no complaints about the driver swap when it was time to go home since Corbin picked me up. He didn’t push for conversation on the way, just kept one hand on my thigh like he needed the contact as much as I did.

When we were inside the house, he suggested, “Go change. I’ll handle food.”

It’d been a long and emotional day, so I didn’t argue. I stripped out of my work clothes, pulled on one of his T-shirts, and came back down. He was pulling ingredients from the fridge, and I slid onto a stool at the island.

“It’s too bad I don’t drink.” I propped my chin on my hand and watched him. “I have a paper due Friday on trauma-informed interviewing. The professor wants sources that aren’t just the usual journal articles everyone cites. I might need to pick your brain later for ideas on where else to look since you can find just about anything online.”

He glanced at me, and something shifted in his expression. His eyes were heated, but there was also recognition there. As though he’d realized something important.

After shoving the food back in the fridge, he came around the island and stepped between my legs. “I love you.”

It wasn’t what I’d expected him to say, but it was exactly what I needed to hear. “I love you too.”