Reid
Sullivan stopped outside an empty meeting room and opened the door.
“In,” she said, with a jerk of her chin.
This room was smaller than the deposition room. A table with a couple of chairs, no window. Sullivan shut the door behind them.
For a moment she only looked at him.
Reid stood with his jacket folded over one arm. He could still see Maya in the doorway, the shock on her face. He’d spoken the truth.
I know my wife.
“I thought you were panicking,” Sullivan said slowly, “when you first came into my office and told me your wife was framed.”
“I was.”
“I thought you couldn’t live with what you had done.”
“I couldn’t.”
“When you hit Cross in the office, I thought you had completely lost perspective.”
He had lost many things. Perspective had been the one thing he’d gained.
Sullivan narrowed her eyes. “But in there,” she said, “Cross had every advantage. He’s a well-respected accountant who was donating his time and skill to a charity. And he was the one who uncovered the discrepancies.”
Reid’s jaw tightened. Julian Cross hadn’t uncovered the discrepancies—he’d caused them.
“And yet, he used sex,” Sullivan said. “Not process, not access logs, not any facts of the case. He chose to accuse a woman of hitting on him.” She rolled her eyes. “As if that’s a crime.”
Sullivan pulled out a stack of documents and shuffled through them. Reid’s own work, his analysis of Julian’s means, motive and opportunity.
She exhaled through her nose. “I see it now.”
Reid reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out the warrant paperwork.
Sullivan’s mouth dropped open. “You’ve been walking around with this?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ, Lawson.” She took the pen from the clip on her folder. “Next time, don’t screw up in the first place.”
Her pen scratched across the authorization page and Sullivan pushed it back toward him.
Reid’s hand closed around the warrant.
“Lawson?”
He looked up at her.
“Go arrest that fucker.”
Of course Julian Cross lived in a building like this. Fresh flowers were displayed in a glass vase the size of a small child. Low cream sofas arranged around a coffee table. There was a doorman, a concierge desk, and a lobby with marble floors.
Wilson looked around slowly. “Nice place.”
Reid paced the seating area, the authorized warrant folded inside his jacket, and watched the doors.
He thought about whether punching Julian again could be considered a reasonable amount of force.
Diane narrowed her eyes at him. “You all right?”
“I’m not going to hit him,” Reid said, too fast, and Brian snorted.
Diane raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t ask that.”
Maya’s wrists flashed in Reid’s mind. The click of metal.
His hands flexed at his side.
Then Julian Cross stepped through the doors.
There were cracks forming in his usual polished demeanor. His hair was out of place and he was gripping his phone so tightly his knuckles had gone white.
He strode toward the elevator until he saw Reid. He stopped.
For a moment, Julian just stood there, frozen. Something flashed in his face, fear. Reid was watching the moment a man realized the exit he'd been counting on wasn't there.
So this was why his colleagues liked arresting people.
This moment.
Diane stepped away from the sofa and Wilson moved in from the side. Brian straightened up from where he was leaning on the concierge desk.
Julian glanced around at his neighbors, the concierge.
“You don’t need to do this here,” he said, desperately. “Why don’t I arrange to come in for an interview? We can make an appointment.”
Reid ignored him. He stepped forward and pulled out the warrant. “Julian Cross.”
Julian’s eyes dropped to the paper in Reid’s hand. He went pale.
“You’re under arrest.”
Julian’s gaze flicked from Reid to the other agents flanking him, to the concierge desk, to the elevators. Reid almost hoped he tried to run.
But there was nowhere for him to go. He watched as Julian’s shoulders dropped, accepting the situation.
“Turn around,” Reid said.
Julian turned and Reid stepped in behind him.
He was close enough to smell Julian’s cologne, close enough to see the sweat on the side of his neck.
Reid took hold of his wrist.
He remembered the sound of the cuffs when he closed them around his wife’s wrists. The public disgrace he had made of her life.
Reid closed the first cuff around Julian’s wrist.
Metal clicked and Julian flinched.
He took Julian’s other wrist. This one came less easily. Julian’s fingers curled, hand flexing.
Reid brought his wrists together at the small of his back and closed the second cuff with a click.
Julian turned his head just enough to look back at Reid.
“She’ll never forgive you,” he said.
Reid didn’t care about that right now. He was putting the right person in handcuffs at last. "That's between me and my wife,” he said, calmly.
He put one hand on Julian's cuffed wrists and the other at his upper arm, making him walk. "You have your own problems.”
Julian’s shoulders stiffened as they passed his neighbors. Reid leaned in. “Keep walking,” he murmured.
The right man was in handcuffs.
Reid kept his grip steady all the way to the car.