Chapter 49
Roman
Even with regular breaks, Roman could tell Elenie was hanging on by a thread, though she looked composed on the surface. The unreadable expression that masked her thoughts was back in place. He admired it as much as he loathed it.
It took the best part of the day to get all the details on record.
She sat upright and still as Detective Belltower and Special Agent Dorsey grilled her over and over on the movements, connections, and business dealings of each Dax family member. She gave a detailed description of the transaction at the Flint lockup and a stabbing pain jabbed through Roman’s temple at the danger she’d been in without him knowing.
Dorsey disclosed that the firearm Elenie had given Roman had been positively linked to multiple crimes involving the same suspect—a dealer in the Saginaw area. The data recovery device was being examined. Elenie focused on their words with absolute concentration, the public defender chipping in to explain anything she was unsure of. Belltower was thorough, kind, and respectful, Dorsey calm and professional beside him. Roman knew neither of them had missed the faint tremors in Elenie’s hands or the fatigue darkening her eyes to charcoal.
She kept those eyes mainly on either the detective or the special agent. Yes, she flicked them briefly to Roman each time he interjected a question, but mostly she avoided looking his way at all. Elenie had put up some sky-high walls around herself and he hated every single inch of them.
Dorsey finally brought the interview to an end.
“Frank Dax and Dean Dax have been charged with possession and distribution of illegal narcotics and will be remanded in custody. Further charges will likely follow relating to the firearm.”
Elenie looked dazed. “And Ty?”
Roman took that one.
“Unclear at the moment. He’s still being held in Pine Springs, but we’ll know more later.”
Belltower sat back in his chair.
“I’m sorry it took us this much time to coordinate our facts. I know the special agent will be adding her thanks separately but I would like to express my appreciation for the information you’ve provided so far that will help us with this case. Every division of my police department is committed to targeting the drivers of crime within our community. It’s often dangerous work, but they have chosen this line of policing and are dedicated to getting results. You, however, have made a difficult choice with the same goal in mind. I don’t underestimate how hard that must have been.”
He offered her a genuine smile and Elenie gave a small, contained nod in acknowledgment.
Dorsey straightened her notepad.
“While we’ve been conducting this interview, your mother has been brought into the precinct for questioning. I can authorize five minutes under supervision if you’d like to see her.”
Elenie wavered. She looked both fragile and yet immensely strong. Roman ached for her.
“Yes, please. I’d appreciate just a few minutes,”
she said finally.
The public defender exchanged some quiet words with Elenie, gave her shoulder a squeeze and left.
“I’ll see you when you’re done,”
Dorsey said, gathering up her paperwork.
Belltower led them to the holding cells. Guy-rope taut, Roman followed in Elenie’s footsteps. Desperate to touch her, everything in him wanted to grasp Elenie’s fingers in his own, professionalism be damned, but her arms were folded tightly around her body and she didn’t give so much as a glance over her shoulder.
The custody officer handed over his keys to the detective. Unlocking one of the cell doors, Belltower gestured to Elenie and Roman to step inside, giving them a little respectful distance.
Athena perched on a bunk, her back against the wall, watchful eyes swiveled to the door. In skin-tight jeans and a chunky knit sweater, she looked disconcertingly mall-ready but the tendons in her neck were taut and her fingers twitched, drumming on the mattress.
“Mom.”
Elenie’s voice cracked slightly on the single word and Roman felt the echo in his chest. She was shaking so hard, the hem of her skirt juddered against the backs of her knees.
“Are we getting out of here?”
Athena dropped both feet to the floor, ignoring Roman and the detective completely. Her nostrils flared and she plucked at her sleeves.
“I—”
Elenie stuttered on her reply.
“I’m not sure they’re done with you yet.”
Athena’s pupils darted over Elenie’s face, her brows arcing, and Roman saw the moment of reckoning hit her like a storm burst.
“You’ve done this. I don’t know how, but you have.”
Her lips clamped so firmly they drained of color. Something fearful crawled across her expression.
“You need to undo it,”
she hissed.
“Even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
Elenie shook her head.
“Get. My. Husband. Out. Of. Jail.”
“No.”
Roman saw Elenie swallow. Athena curled her fingers so tightly into her palms that her nails would have punctured the skin if she hadn’t bitten them all short.
“I need him,” she said.
“We can manage without Frank. I’ll help you. We can do it together.”
It was agony to hear Elenie beg.
Athena studied her with wild eyes and she let out a burst of panic-roughened laughter.
“You can’t help me—you can’t give me any of the things he does. I don’t need you. I need Frank!”
“Mom—”
Athena reared back, a fleck of spit bubbling at the corner of her mouth.
“I don’t want to hear it! I can’t believe you would do this to us.”
“I didn’t do this to us.”
Her mother wasn’t listening. All reasoning had fled.
“I gave up everything for you! You’ve been a burden to me from the day you were born. All I wanted was the chance to live my own goddamn life.”
“You can live your own life now. Start again. Tell them what you know about Frank and wipe the slate clean.”
Athena scoffed.
“I love him. You don’t turn on people you love.”
Elenie flinched.
“What about me, Mom? Where do we go from here?”
Roman cataloged the array of expressions that chased each other across Athena’s face. Fear, fury, confusion, dread. She was on the edge, near a meltdown, far weaker than her daughter. There was a moment when she wavered. Then her eyes hardened, her mouth twisted, and she stepped away.
“You are nothing to me.”
Each word was a bullet.
“I’m done with you.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Elenie’s voice was a whisper.
Athena lifted her chin. “I do.”
Elenie searched her mother’s face during the silent standoff that followed. Time dragged its feet through the tangible hostility. Eventually, she nodded.
“I’m done too.”
Her dignity sent splinters through Roman’s heart.
“Goodbye, Mom.”
In the doorway, Belltower stepped aside. She walked past him and out of the door without looking back.
Roman took a few long strides further into the cell. Fury pounding in his bloodstream, he itched to wrap his hands around Athena’s scrawny neck.
“You’ve made the wrong choice. I don’t care where you go or what you do now, but don’t even think of trying to have any further contact with Elenie. You’ve screwed with her enough. Unless she reaches out to you, you will leave her alone. Or I swear you’ll regret it.”
The words were low and deadly, danger radiating from him like a forcefield.
Athena broke eye contact first. Roman turned away, finding grim satisfaction in the sound of the cell door closing behind him as he left. Belltower turned the key. Grateful for the support the detective had shown Elenie in his own absence, Roman offered him a handshake.
He paced outside while waiting for Elenie to be processed and released. Self-disgust blistered his throat at having let her down so badly, pain for her pain twisted his insides. The presence of Deputy Chief Shawn Booth in the parking lot, leaning against the hood of Dorsey’s car, had Roman grinding his teeth even as he crossed the asphalt.
Booth took a leisurely sip from a takeout coffee cup and lifted a cavalier shoulder.
“She came good in the end, eh? I had my doubts for a while. The data extracted from Dax’s phone is pure gold.”
A red mist spread through Roman’s chest, the image of Elenie—shattered, frozen, and alone in the cell—branded on his mind.
He stalked closer.
“You left her in the system all night. Where were your flags? Her backup? We trusted you had it under control.”
His eyes blazed from Booth to Dorsey and back again.
“Christ, Martinez, if I cut my shuteye short every time a CI got locked up, I’d never get my eight hours in.”
The chief deputy actually smirked.
Dorsey’s lips curled with distaste, though she didn’t speak.
Composure shredding, Roman clenched his fists.
“I had to hear she’d been arrested from my own fucking deputy. Neither of you called me.”
“We don’t answer to you,”
Booth bit back. Dorsey tried to speak, but the chief deputy talked over her.
“And Elenie Dax isn’t new to spending time in police custody. It’s practically ingrained in her DNA.”
He couldn’t have picked a more inflammatory comment to make. Roman, his rage begging for an outlet, had him pinned against the car before he’d finished speaking. Knuckles bone white, Roman was seconds from plowing his fist into the chief deputy’s face.
“You hit me and I’ll fucking bury you,”
snarled Booth.
“No, you won’t,”
Dorsey snapped.
“You are out of order.”
She turned to Roman.
“Elenie did well. I know what it cost her.”
“She’s a fucking star.”
His voice was a deadly growl.
He loomed over Booth for another minute, before unpeeling his fingers from the chief deputy’s shirtfront with reluctance. Booth swiped a hand over the sheen on his top lip.
Dorsey’s eyes flicked over Roman’s shoulder.
“Someone needs you.”
He turned. Elenie stood on the steps of the police precinct, looking a little lost and smaller than he’d ever seen her.
His fucking star.
“I’ll be in touch,”
Dorsey said.
Roman didn’t hear her. He was already walking away. He forgot Booth. Nothing else was important.
Only Elenie mattered.