“Waiting for you.”
“How—Why—”
“That innocent little librarian routine might work on your friends, but it doesn’t work on me.”
She scoffed and started shoveling female paraphernalia back into her bag. “I don’t have an innocent little librarian routine.”
“Did you tell Naomi and Lina that you were coming?”
“No. But—”
“Did you tell Nash or Knox?”
She stopped shoveling. Her chin jutted out.
“No,” she said.
“You went behind everyone’s backs because you decided you knew better than everyone else. Not the best way to begin your partnership.”
Judging from her expression, she knew I was right and wasn’t happy about it.
“Are you going to lecture me to death or leave me alone so I can continue to fuck everything up?” She tried to angrily exit the vehicle only to be held back by her seat belt.
I reached across her and released it. “Neither. Let’s go.”
“No freaking way, Lucifer. I’m not letting you go in there. You’ll scare this poor woman out of her wits with your disapproving death glare.”
“You’re not going in there without me,” I said succinctly.
“Yes, I am,” she spat. She turned away from me and tried to wrestle her bag across the seat.
“Leave it. You can’t take it in with you,” I said as I pulled out my phone.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Calling Naomi.” My thumb hovered over the Call button.
“Damn it!”
“Did you just stomp your foot?” I asked. Sloane’s comfort with expressing anger had always intrigued me. But I guess one was free to express their anger when one could control it.
“I was picturing your foot under mine,” she shot back.
“Either I go in there with you, or you turn around and drive home. Those are your only two choices.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at me. Her gaze slid to the prison entrance. Her lips pursed.
“You wouldn’t make it,” I advised.
She dropped her arms and fisted her hands at her sides. “Fine. You can come in. But you can’t glare or growl or roll your eyes. And definitely no speaking.”
“May I breathe?”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t,” she said.
“We’re supposed to be in the midst of a truce,” I pointed out.
“What truce involves you ambushing me in the parking lot of a women’s correctional facility?”
She had a very small, practically insignificant point. “If I had called you to discuss this, would you have even answered?” I already knew the answer.
“Probably not,” she admitted.
“Then let’s deal with the situation at hand. I’m going in there with you. End of story,” I snapped.
“Gee, maybe try to turn down the charm there, Master of the Universe. You might dazzle this woman into a faint.”
I shut the door of her Jeep and gestured toward the front of the prison. “Let’s go.”
We crossed the asphalt side by side, heading toward the monstrous monument of security. Earth-brown sandstone and concrete formed the towering facility walls beyond the double barbed wire fences.
Women in beige jumpsuits huddled in groups in the dismal yard. The asphalt inside the fences was crumbling, dead weeds poking up through the cracks.
Sloane stopped suddenly on the sidewalk. “Why are you here?” she asked again.
“You already asked me that,” I reminded her.
She shook her head, sending that thick, blond ponytail swinging. “Fine. It’s Wednesday. Why aren’t you ruling the corporate world? And you can’t stand me, so what does it matter to you if I screw up this partnership with my friends? I’d think you’d be happy to watch me crash and burn.”
“If you manage to make a mess of things, there’s a chance you could be essentially setting your friends’ money on fire. More importantly, there’s a woman behind those walls who might suffer because of it.”
She closed her eyes and took a breath. “You’ve buried and forgotten so many things, I just assumed you were over that as well.”
She was wrong. I’d buried and forgotten nothing. Instead, I’d used it all as fuel.
“There are some things we never get over. Some things we hide from the light,” I said, patting my pocket only to remember I’d left my cigarette in the car.
Sloane lifted her gaze to the heavy gray clouds and wrinkled her nose. Her stud was a pale pink today. “I take it you used your creepy spy network to dig into Mary Louise’s case,” she guessed.