“Aw, come on. We weren’t that bad.”
Arching a brow at him, she said, “We both asked for reassignment.”
He laughed. “All right. Fair enough. So what’s bugging you? I can at least listen.”
Roberts strolling through the office was just the distraction she needed. His mustache twitched when he spotted her. But she was ready for him.
“Palmer.” He waved her to his office.
Mila followed him inside.
Once they sat in their respective seats—Roberts behind his desk and Mila in front—he shuffled through a pile of papers in a folder. “I’ve got a dozen brand-new off
icers starting next week. It’s giving me heartburn. Please tell me something I want to hear.”
“I have good news,” she told him.
He let out a sigh of relief.
“I couldn’t find any link to the Larsons, but there’s been no activity for almost a month and word on the street is the real thieves have moved on. There’s been a string of thefts in LA . . . Same methods. I think we scared them off.”
She’d checked the Uniform Crime Reports earlier and found lookalike thefts in several major cities. LA was close enough to be plausible but far enough that she didn’t have to worry about following up. It was way out of their jurisdiction. And as long as Fox and Addison laid low, and there were no coincidental larcenies in the next week, she could probably close the case.
The chief stared at her for a while then nodded slowly. “It would have been better if we’d caught the perps, but that will do. Keep an ear out for the next few days then close the case. I need you working on something else anyway. We’ve got three assault victims all describing the same guy. Check in with Davis to get the details.”
“Okay.” That was it? It was over? The lie felt dirty and wrong but she surprised herself with how confident she sounded. She’d work extra hard on the next case to make up for it.
Even knowing she loved Atlas, she still wasn’t sure this had been the right decision. But not getting the chance to work things out felt worse. Whether there was something to salvage between them remained to be seen, but there was no way she could throw him in jail, even if their relationship was over.
She didn’t want their relationship to be over, but how could she fix it? She’d covered for him and his family—would she ever forgive herself for doing it? Would it taint her view of Atlas, and of right and wrong forever?
This was supposed to have been the hard part, but maybe it hadn’t been. Maybe losing her black-and-white view of the law had been the hard part. Or maybe learning to forgive herself would be.
Maybe the lies were done with, but she needed time alone to sort out her feelings—time without Atlas confusing her. She’d wait before she reached out to him—to see if there was even a hope of them patching things up. Chances were he was just as screwed up right now as she was—if he cared at all.
Or maybe his feelings had all been a lie.
Chapter 16
Fox and Addison were ahead on the four-lane highway, passing each other like two kids playing leapfrog in the schoolyard. They were usually cool and careful on the road, not wanting to attract police attention, but tonight they were acting like fucking idiots in love. Which they were.
God forbid three avid drivers go to a Vegas show in the same car.
By contrast, Atlas followed behind them at a sedate, responsible pace, not caring if they’d call him an old man when they got there.
He was still trying to be okay with being left behind, but the longer he went without stealing cars, the more he realized he hadn’t enjoyed that kind of adrenaline in a long time.
It was hard to figure out what he should be feeling about letting himself choose a different path than what he’d been raised to—excitement . . . regret . . . There were so many conflicting feelings that he’d been trying to avoid feeling anything at all. Numb. He’d done the stereotypical man thing and buried himself in work. Because it was the most interesting part of his business, he’d been taking more contracts as a professional hacker, showing companies where their security weaknesses were. He had so many new contracts he had to start looking for more employees. White-hat hackers, who did legal work, were more difficult to find than he’d thought.
Despite the growing pains his business was having, there was a lot of satisfaction in doing what he wanted with his life for the first time. His identity had been so wrapped up in being a thief from a family of thieves that he wasn’t quite sure who he was without it.
The computer business had started as a cover. It’d been a convenient way to launder some of the money they had coming in, pay some taxes, and look legit on paper. For years his official books had shown his brother and cousin, and then Addison as his employees.
Now Luke helped Ophelia manage her company, and he was damn good at what he was doing. The two of them had taken her father’s business and kept it thriving. Apparently, that wasn’t all they were doing on the clock, considering they were pretty sure he’d gotten her pregnant with the twins after tying her up in the company boardroom.
As for Fox and Addison, they’d spent the last four weeks in San Francisco to see how business was there, their employment with him also terminated. They were setting up their own front operation, leaving him to go completely legal.
With the money he was making now, he could maintain the house, but he wasn’t sure if he would stay, even though Fox and Luke had given it to him outright. It was too big for one person, and there was too much history in it. It would feel weird and empty with the others gone.