CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It would be over twenty-five minutes before Grant finally made his way into his office. The way he was looking at her as he closed the door told her everything she had feared was true: He was just as pissed with her as was the mayor.
He walked over to the sofa and sat beside her. She hadn’t even noticed that once again his suit was pristine, his beautiful hair was well-groomed, and his bright-blue eyes were clear. He looked even more gorgeous than he’d ever had to her. It was like twisting the knife.
When he sat on the sofa, he leaned all the way back and folded his legs. She was seated upright on the edge of her seat because that was how she felt: on the edge.
“You sent in a report already?”
“Yes, but it was before we had . . .” She almost said the word sex , but she couldn’t pull herself to go there. He looked so upset with her that that might make it worse.
“Why would you send a report already?” he asked her, his handsome face in a fixed frown as if he didn’t understand her at all.
“When I fired my weapon at the Karney shooting, I had to file a report. It was standard procedure. And part of the report was to give my impressions of what was going on.”
“Dooney said it was scathing. Was it?”
Marti didn’t want to go there, but she was going to own what she wrote. “Yes.”
“About the mayor and my department?”
“Yes.”
“About me?”
She frowned as well. She hated to admit it. “Yes.”
Grant was never a man who gave a damn what people thought about him, but he gave a damn what she thought about him. “What did you say about me and my department?”
“What I’ve already told you to your face.”
“Which is?” He needed to hear it directly from her.
“Your officers aren’t well-trained,” she said. “They leap to conclusions without doing any investigations.”
She paused before adding, “You don’t seem to be well-trained, either.”
She hated to say it, but knew she had to because it was also in her report. “I made clear that it was my early observation that this entire department is very poorly run.”
Grant let out a harsh exhale as he stared at her with a look that bordered on rage. But it wasn’t rage. It was adject disappointment. In himself!
It took him several minutes, but he ultimately spoke up. “I let my men down,” he said.
He said it in a way so heartfelt that she could feel his pain. She continued to stare back at him.
“Because you’re right,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m doing. But I keep doing it because it gives me something to live for. To hold onto. Even if I’m choking the life out of everybody under my command.” He could see the pity in her eyes. “And don’t tell me it’s not my fault because it is.”
“Yes, it is your fault,” Marti agreed. She was never going to whitewash that kind of truth. “But you can get better. You have to.”
Grant looked at her. He never felt more vulnerable in his entire life. “Will you help me get better?” he asked her.
It warmed Marti’s heart. And she smiled. “You bet cha,” she said, causing him to smile too.
She leaned back, against him, and he wrapped an arm around her.
They stayed that way for nearly a quarter of an hour until his office door burst open and RJ hurried in.
Marti attempted to move away from Grant really quickly when RJ walked in, but Grant hesitated before releasing her. As if he didn’t give a shit with appearances anymore. “What now?” he asked his captain.
“That report leaked to the media,” RJ said.
“Who leaked it?” Grant asked him, upset.”
“I’m willing to bet it came out of the AG’s office.”
“It had to,” Marti agreed. “They’re the only ones who would have that level of access.”
RJ grabbed the TV’s remote control from off of Grant’s desk. “It’s all over the media already,” he said as he pressed on the TV that sat on the wall.
They watched as the breaking news report referred to it as a scathing indictment of the BPD. “A police consultant’s report doesn’t hold back,” an anchorwoman was saying on the TV, “as she decimated the BPD for their incompetence at every level. She was especially brutal to Chief McGraw and Mayor Rickter.”
Grant got up, snatched the remote from RJ and turned the television off. He ordered him out of his office. “That’s all you got time to do? Get back to work!”
RJ began leaving, but not before giving Marti a nasty look.
Grant exhaled and pulled out his keys. “Go to your hotel room,” he said to her, “and pack your bags.”
Marti stood up. “Why?”
“You’ll be safer at my place,” he said as he removed his house key from his chain of keys.
But Marti frowned as she walked over to him. “Safer? What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean? You think they’re going to take this shit lying down?”
“What shit?”
“That report!” He reached his key out to her. “Just do what I told you to do. Pack your bags and get to my house. They won’t bother you there.”
“I can take care of myself, Grant. And you don’t even want anybody at your house.”
“You aren’t anybody. Now take this key,” he said. “Go to my house and park in my garage. You’ll find the button overhead inside the car.” But when she continued to resist, he was blunt: “It’s an order, not a suggestion.”
She didn’t like the implications of it. It felt as if she was running away. Besides, how would it look to her bosses in Tallahassee if it ever got back to them that she was staying with the man that she was there to observe?
But she saw that concern in Grant’s eyes. This was the big leagues. He wasn’t playing. “Yes sir,” she said and took the key.
They stared at each other longer, with both of them feeling as if their relationship didn’t stand a chance, and then she walked out of his office.
But she wasn’t gone ten seconds before RJ was walking back in.
“Didn’t I tell you to get back to work?” Grant began walking behind his desk, although his voice sounded drained.
“We’re fucked if the state takes over,” RJ said. “You’re out the door and probably all of us right along with you. All because of that bitch.”
Grant hurried back around his desk and jacked RJ up and ran with him until he slammed him against his file cabinet. “You and your lapdogs had better stay away from her,” he warned RJ, “or you’ll answer to me. Do I make myself clear, Captain?”
RJ frowned. “Man, she really got you twisted around. She that good in bed?”
The chief slammed him against that file cabinet again. “Do I make myself clear?” he yelled at him.
“Yes!” RJ yelled back, in pain. “Damn. Yes sir!”
“And call her bitch again and you’ll become my bitch,” Grant added.
“Yes sir!” RJ said again, but even louder.
Then the chief, realizing how unhinged he was, let his captain go. And RJ straightened his suit as if he was the one in control, and left the office.
Grant leaned his head back and closed his weary eyes. He couldn’t even begin to unpack how devastated he felt on every turn. But especially about his relationship with Marti.