Everyone quieted, and Gavin couldn’t help but think of his time with Sera the night before. He never spoke of his father’s death. It was something he’d gone to grief counseling for, addressed and then moved on. It never went away, and he wasn’t trying to fool himself that it would, but he deliberately kept that part of his life separate. And instead, chose to honor his father in a way that was both meaningful to him and filled him with purpose.
Yet he had told Sera.
Was it because they were having a baby? Or because she’d experienced the horror of Darius’s death, too?
He’d considered all those reasons, but it was only as he walked into his apartment around three that morning that he’d finally accepted the truth. He had wanted Sera to know. He wanted her to understand that part of himself.
It was only after he’d told her that the real panic had set in.
Would she pity him? Or worse, would she think less of his police work, believing it was a vendetta of some sort instead of his calling in life?
Only she hadn’t reacted that way at all.
She’d said please. And she’d told him she’d like to know more.
It was a level of compassion and understanding he’d never felt before. And, perhaps, he admitted to himself, he might have felt it more often if he let people into that area of his life. If he shared who he was with the people who cared about him the most.
Jayden certainly was going to need that understanding in the coming weeks and months. And Kerrigan, Wyatt and the whole rest of the Harbor team had shown themselves to be his brothers and sisters in arms from the first.
Would telling them be so bad?
He considered it as he took in those same faces he trusted implicitly, all solemn as they stood before their captain. And he vowed to think about how he could be different. How he could show up differently for all of them.
Captain Reed’s assured voice complemented that thought as he began to speak.
“As you all know, one of our own lost a loved one last night to an as-yet-still unknown shooter.”
Captain Reed caught everyone up on the investigation to date, and even though most everyone knew the basics of what had happened the night before, the room was eerily silent.
“The team has already put calls into every business on the block to secure street cameras as soon as everyone opens. The bar has cooperated and already provided footage from their sidewalk cams.”
“Which proved to be a dead end,” Arlo said dryly from where he stood beside the captain. “The shooter stayed in the shadows, and as far as we can tell from some vague footage at a distance, they were masked to avoid easy detection.”
When Captain Reed only nodded and turned the room over to Arlo, the detective shared all he’d managed to uncover.
Gavin looked at his friend—Kerrigan’s comments about thirty-six hours without sleep looked pretty spot-on. Arlo’s face was wan, his normal robust look drawn and pinched with fatigue. If he also knew his friend, the man wasn’t going to rest until he had a suspect in custody. It was then that Gavin hatched a plan.
He and Sera had made considerable progress on their task force work. There was no reason he couldn’t devote more time to the investigation, supporting Arlo and figuring out what the shooter was after.
Because he was increasingly certain Sera was right. They were the object of the shooter’s attention.
He had no idea why. Nor did he have any clue why Darius ended up being the target.
He hadn’t had a chance to run it past Arlo yet, but Gavin wanted to share his ideas with their smaller group and see what everyone thought. At minimum, he wanted to get these jumbled, roiling emotions out and see if anyone else could make sense of what he felt much too close to.
Because with the exception of Wyatt, they’d all been together last night.
So what was the motive for killing Darius?
Around 5:00 a.m., after tossing and turning all night, Sera decided to spend the day in the office. It would give Gavin some much-needed space with his fellow officers, all while burying herself in work. She was still processing what had happened the night before and knew that she’d be climbing the walls by ten if she attempted to work from home.
Which made Gavin’s text message asking her to come over to the precinct and meet in “their conference room” about fifteen minutes after she got to her desk something of a surprise.
Had they had a break in the case this soon?
Anxious to know the answer and desperately hoping that they had, in fact, caught the monster who’d killed Darius, she’d quickly packed up what she’d just unpacked at her desk to head out.
And came face-to-face with David.
“Where’s the fire?” Her DA smiled, his impeccable bearing practically regal even this early in the morning.
“Oh, David! Hello! I’m sorry to rush out, but I have to run to a quick meeting—” She nearly fumbled over her words, stopping herself at the last minute before giving the explanation for where she was going.
His smile was indulgent, and Sera had no idea why she’d had the weird premonition to say nothing. Yet even now, with a few beats to consider it, she still wasn’t inclined to tell him where she was going.
“A meeting? Why’d you even bother coming in?”
“I thought I’d get ahead of a bit of work before going to my meeting. The task force is amazing, but I’m definitely juggling a few things.”
His eyebrows slashed hard over brown eyes so dark they were nearly black. “It’s not too much, is it?”
“No, no, of course not.”
If she hadn’t had such a strange reaction to the whole conversation, she’d have likely been a bit more eloquent, but finally she landed on something that wasn’t a fabrication. “I’ve been a little under the weather these past few weeks, and I’ve fallen a bit behind on some of my case reading I typically catch up on in the evenings. I figured I’d try powering through with fresh eyes.”
“If you’re sure?”
“Of course.” She nearly had the urge to push past him before stopping herself. A few extra minutes wasn’t going to make or break her meeting with Gavin, and her boss did deserve her time.
