“He matched the description of a suspect in an armed bank robbery. I identified myself as FBI. I told him to keep his hands where I could see them. Instead, he reached into his jacket pocket.”
“You didn’t wait to see whether he had a weapon. You just shot him.”
“If I’d waited, I might have been killed. Or seriously wounded, as my partner was when I failed to shoot quickly enough four days ago.”
“So, you admit you failed to back up your partner?” Harrison said triumphantly.
Kristin let out a shaky breath. How easily she’d fallen into the trap Harrison had laid for her. She looked toward the Agent in Charge of the review team, who wouldn’t meet her gaze.
The truth was, her failure to draw her weapon—and to shoot it—was almost predictable. She’d been warned by the psychiatrist she’d been required to see after the shooting four months ago that she might hesitate to shoot in the future.
She’d been on administrative duty for months. After she completed counseling, she’d been asked if she thought she could go back to work and fire her weapon without hesitation. She’d said yes.
She’d been wrong.
“I hesitated before drawing my weapon. And I hesitated before firing—to make sure the suspect had a weapon. By the time I realized he had a gun, he’d already shot George.” Her brand-new partner, who was busy manhandling another suspect, who was unarmed.
“In fact, the suspect shot Agent Parker twice before you fired your weapon, isn’t that true?” Harrison said.
Kristin nodded curtly. “I fired, but the suspect darted around the corner out of the kitchen, and I missed. Once George was down, the suspect he was cuffing took off. He was unarmed, so I didn’t shoot. He knocked me down and fled, along with the other suspect, through the back door. I could tell George was seriously wounded, so I stayed with him.”
“Rather than pursuing the suspects, even though one of them had shot your partner.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kristin said. “I thought we had enough information to find them again. And I wanted to render all the aid I could to my partner.”
She’d visited George in the hospital yesterday, where he was in serious but stable condition. He didn’t blame her, but he no longer wanted to be her partner.
“You’ve got a problem, Lassiter,” one of the SIRT panel members interjected. “Better get it fixed, or no one will want to work with you.”
Most FBI agents didn’t draw their weapons during their entire careers. She’d drawn hers twice, with disastrous results both times. She’d shot too fast. Then she’d shot too slow. She supposed the fear was, the next time she’d be afraid even to draw her weapon.
Kristin wasn’t sure herself what she would do if the situation arose again. Which explained why Harrison seemed so determined to pin her wings to the wall like a butterfly in a lab experiment. Harry Lassiter’s invincible little girl was looking pretty damned vulnerable right about now.
“Do you have anything you’d like to say on your own behalf?” the SIRT Agent in Charge asked.
It could have happened to anyone, Kristin thought. But that argument wasn’t going to do her much good. Or maybe, After what happened last time, you can understand why I had to be sure he had a gun before I fired.
She didn’t make either argument. Nothing could excuse her behavior. So she simply said, “No, sir. I have nothing to add.”
“SIRT will consider the evidence and inform you of what disciplinary action it deems necessary—if any—within the next few weeks,” Akers said. “Until then, Agent Lassiter, keep your nose clean.”
Kristin rose and realized her legs felt shaky. She steadied herself and headed for the door.
“Oh, one more thing,” SSA Harrison said, stopping Kristin at the door.
She turned and waited for whatever barb Harrison had saved for a parting shot.
“You need to see Rebecca in the information office downstairs. The MFO wants to issue a press release about your lawsuit.”
Kristin stared at the SSA blankly. “Lawsuit? I’m not involved in any lawsuit.”
“A reporter from the Miami Herald has already contacted the bureau. I assumed you’d received the paperwork. After this second shooting incident, the parents of the boy you killed are suing you in civil court for wrongful death. Better get yourself a lawyer, Lassiter.”
A lawyer? She couldn’t afford a lawyer, not on top of the expenses for her father’s hospital stay and his rehabilitation and the cost of a nanny for Flick. Her father would hate the publicity a lawsuit would bring, and it would make Flick’s life a nightmare. Not to mention her own. What if she ended up suspended without pay? Or lost her job. That was a distinct possibility, considering how badly the hearing had gone. Then what?
Kristin felt her knees threaten to buckle. She curled her hands into fists and stiffened her legs. A lawsuit was just one more straw. One tiny little straw.
You can do it. Remember, you’re invincible.
To hell with that. Kristin yanked the door to the hearing room open and headed for the stairwell. She realized she wasn’t going to make it. There were no private offices on this floor, just cubicles connected with a lot of other cubicles in a large room. There was nowhere to hide and lick her wounds.
She felt the choking knot building in her throat. Her nose burned with the threat of tears. She blinked to clear her blurring vision. She wasn’t going to break down. She refused to give SSA Roberta Harrison the satisfaction. She felt a tear hit her cheek and angrily brushed it away. But she was losing the battle against the sob growing in her chest.
There was only one place she could hope for any privacy. She hurried around the corner and shoved her way into the ladies’ room, searching for feet under the stalls. With a lack of trust she’d learned from the bureau, she smacked open each stall door, letting the metal slam against the opposite wall, as though she were clearing a house.
When Kristin was absolutely certain no one else was in the room, she let the sob break free.
4
The knock on the door came at a very inopportune moment.
Max had just eased the last button free on his date’s blouse and was sliding the black silk off her shoulders. After his meeting with Kristin in Miami, he’d been irritated to discover that he was having difficulty getting her out of his mind. This seduction—of another woman—was an attempt to remove her entirely.
He ignored the knock.
Despite orders from his uncle, he hadn’t yet found a replacement for Kristin on the tennis court. As ridiculous as it sounded, he kept hoping she’d change her mind. He hadn’t wanted her as his partner, but once she’d refused him, no one else would do.
He kept wondering what he’d done wrong all those years ago to make her hate him so much. Considering everything, it was no surprise she’d said no to playing spy. He was lucky she had. He didn’t need her complicating his life—or the risky assignment he’d been given.
But he couldn’t help comparing the porcelain skin he was kissing with Kristin’s freckled shoulder. K had been self-conscious about her freckles. He’d loved kidding her about them. And kissing each and every one of them. Which had taken the better part of the one night they’d spent together.
“Max?” The perturbed female voice saying his name woke him from his reverie.
He realized he’d stopped caressing his date and was staring out the tall, mullioned windows of the bedroom in the north wing of Blackthorne Abbey where he’d brought her. The room, supposedly slept in by Henry II, had once been the lair of the Beast of Blackthorne.
Not