Becoming Rain: A Novel

I’ve always enjoyed that moment when the target realizes who I really am. The predictable emotions that cycle across people’s faces—recognition, understanding, shock. Sometimes it stops short at anger; other times it finishes with resignation, because they know they fell for the ruse and they’re done for.

But I’ve never seen a target’s face filled with such hurt.

Not until today.

Doors close somewhere outside the observation room. Warner and I watch an officer stroll in and drop a brown bag and a Coke on the table next to Luke. I know that it’s from a certain food cart vendor without asking. Just another way for Sinclair to send a message to Luke.

We know everything there is to know about you.

The lump in my throat is making it difficult to talk, to swallow . . . even to breathe. I’m not sure who got kicked harder in the chest when I stepped into that interrogation room. Luke certainly looked like he had taken a swift boot.

For a moment, I thought I was going to leave a pile of vomit on the floor.

There was no time to utter a single word, or apology. Sinclair did it for impact, quickly ushering me back out and leaving Luke in the room by himself. To stew over every intimate moment we shared, every dangerous word he ever spoke to me, every way that I could nail him to the wall with what I know, while waiting for his lawyer.

He looked worried before. Now, he looks terrified.

All I can do is hold out hope that it didn’t work to scare him enough to talk, that he’ll remember my words, that the lawyer who shows up is good. Because I know they don’t have enough for a conviction and the second the lawyer pushes to see the charges laid and the evidence, they’re going to realize that too.

I feel Warner’s eyes on me. They’ve been on me a lot since we arrived at the station.

“What’s with the Alexandria Petrova angle?” I ask. “Why does Sinclair care about a late mobster’s wife?” Sinclair hasn’t mentioned digging up information on her since the night he called me on it. I figured that with all the other evidence trickling in, he had forgotten about it. Stupid of me.

“He doesn’t. But he’s going to try and use it to keep Luke on obstruction, leveraging what we got from your detail.”

“Will that even work?”

He shrugs.

“So, what’s going to happen then? Are they going to just show up to her ranch and interrogate her?” An image of police cruisers rolling up the driveway to dig up painful truths the poor girl has put past her hits me. I close my eyes.

“You look sick.”

“I feel sick.”

“Luke Boone is not an innocent, misunderstood guy, Bertelli.” He holds up a stack of case files. “Look at the shit he’s mixed up in. Did you forget that while you were sneaking around with him? Lying to me? Jeopardizing our entire case?”

There’s no small amount of judgment in his tone and I’m not in the mood for this. “Just say what you’re dying to say.”

Warner closes in on me, dropping his deep voice. “You did what you said you wouldn’t. What you laughed at when I suggested it. You got too close to your target.”

“No, I didn’t,” I deny, taking in Luke’s hunched posture, his fingers locked behind his head, his elbows resting on the desk. He won’t even look up at the glass. He won’t look up at me. “I did what I had to do.”

“So when were you guys meeting up? At night? In the park, while walking the dogs?” Warner pushes. “You weren’t even in your room, that night in the yacht, were you?”

I set my jaw firm.

“You don’t think that if I walk in there right now, he’s not going to hang you out to dry? You don’t think he’s going to tell his lawyer everything? You’re going to get crucified if this ever makes it to court. Your career is done!” Thank God these rooms have thick walls because Warner is borderline yelling. “You may as well stop protecting him and admit everything to me right now. Maybe we can contain this.”

Warner’s probably right. There’s no reason to protect what I had with Luke because it died the second I stepped through that door. Hell, it’s always been on life support, waiting for someone to pull the plug. I know that. I’ve always known that. Yet, I chose to ignore it. I chose to act with my heart and not my head. I chose to think that I could somehow change him.

Save him.

I need to try and save myself now.

And yet my jaw tenses at the very thought of divulging my most intimate moments with Luke. I don’t fight it, turning to level Warner with a hard stare. “Is this an interrogation?”

“Dammit, Bertelli.” Warner closes his eyes. “Don’t make me prove it to you.”

When I don’t answer, he pushes past me, out the door.

And into the room with Luke.