Bria pressed her lips together, and anger sparked in her eyes—more anger than I’d ever seen her show before. “I have been using the law, and it’s gotten me nowhere. Every time I get the slightest bit of evidence on Benson, either it disappears, or he manages to tap-dance his way around it. I feel like Sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill, just to have it roll down and flatten me time and time again. I’m tired of it.”
She shook her head. “Maybe I should just give up on the law. Do things the way you always do them. At least I’d get some results then, even if I’d rather see Benson rotting in prison than in the ground.”
“You say that now, but you don’t really mean it. I know you don’t.”
Bria let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah. Because Gin always knows best, right?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Forget it,” she muttered. “You wouldn’t understand anyway.”
But I could read between the lines and hear exactly what she wasn’t saying. Bria was pissed at me, Xavier, Finn, and everyone else who wasn’t helping her in her vendetta against Benson. I knew all about vendettas. Knew how they could pull you down a rabbit hole that you could have a very hard time clawing your way out of again. Knew how they could consume you. Knew how they could eat you up inside until there was nothing left but your need for revenge and then the hollow ache that remained behind should you ever actually achieve your goal. I didn’t want Bria to end up like that.
I didn’t want her to end up like me.
But I didn’t know how to help her either. Not with this. Not without coming across like a complete hypocrite.
“Look,” I said. “Be calm, be smart, and keep working on Benson, just like Xavier said. You know that he’s the one pushing Burn. Sooner or later, he’ll make a mistake, and you’ll find some way to nail him. I have faith in you.”
“He already made a mistake when he killed Troy and Catalina saw him do it,” she said. “I have her statement, which is exactly what I need to nail him.”
“And he knows that you have a witness. The second he figures out it’s Catalina, he’ll kill her. You know he will.”
Bria gave me a cold look, not even bothering to acknowledge my words with some of her own. I’d always thought that my sister had the flat cop stare down pat, but she’d never used it to its full effect on me—until now.
“Forget about Catalina for a second. I can’t believe that you aren’t foaming at the mouth to go after Benson yourself,” she sniped. “Especially after what he did to Roslyn.”
I sighed. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I get tired too?”
“And what would you have to get tired about?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The blood, the bodies, the sneak attacks, constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering when the next moron is going to try to kill me,” I snapped back. “And do you know what the worst part is?”
She didn’t bother to answer.
“Knowing that I have to be vigilant, that I have to be on my guard every single minute of every single day for the rest of my life,” I snarled. “I have to be prepared. I have to be ready—always. But the people who want to kill me? They just have to get lucky once, for one measly second, and it’s lights out for me. So forgive me for trying to get out of one situation without some bloodshed today.”
Bria looked at me, anger still pinching her face, before she glanced at Finn, who was making yet another mojito.
“You’ve been awfully quiet through all of this. Don’t tell me that the great Finnegan Lane doesn’t have something to say.” Her voice took on a mocking note.
Finn looked back and forth between Bria and me. He shook his head, not wanting to take sides. I didn’t blame him. No one was going to win this argument.
Bria snorted in disgust before turning her attention back to me. “Well, do you know what I’m tired of, Gin? The fact that you never trust me to do my job.”
“You’re a good cop. I’ve never said otherwise.”
“No, but you don’t think that I can protect Catalina from Benson,” she accused. “You’ve definitely said that.”
“Only because Benson won’t fight fair. You know he has other cops on his payroll, cops who will sell you out to him in a heartbeat.”
“And you don’t think I can handle them or Benson. Not like you can.”
“No,” I said, my voice as soft as hers was loud. “Not like I can.”
Bria gave me another disgusted look. She opened her mouth, but her phone started ringing, saving us both from whatever harsh thing she’d been about to say. She pulled it out of her jeans pocket and looked at the screen. Her mouth twisted.
“Well, duty calls,” she said, holding the phone up to her ear. “Detective Coolidge.”
Then my baby sister whirled around and stormed out of Northern Aggression without another word.
14
Finn drained the rest of his mojito, grabbed his jacket, and mumbled something about checking in with his contacts, since he was still digging into several things for me, including Catalina, where her money was coming from, and the two mystery women from the Pork Pit. I slugged down my own gin and tonic in response. Finn squeezed my shoulder, and then we both left the club. Neither one of us was in the mood for conversation right now.
I walked over to the alley where I’d parked my car, got in, and started driving, trying to clear my head.
I wound up in the mountains above Ashland, in a park that was part of the Bone Mountain Nature Preserve, sitting on top of a blue fiberglass picnic table and staring out at the sweeping view of the rocky slopes. And I wasn’t alone. Several couples were picnicking at the other tables, while others stood behind the stone wall that cordoned off the grassy park from the steep drop, their cameras click-click-clicking away as they snapped shots of the glorious mix of red, orange, and yellow leaves that painted the mountainsides.
The last time I’d been here, the police had been using the park as a staging area so they could hike up to the camp where Harley Grimes, his sister, Hazel, and their gang of miscreants had lived before the Deveraux sisters and I had killed them. I thought about that day at Jo-Jo’s salon, when Bria had said she wanted to talk to me about something right before Grimes and his men had stormed inside. I’d been so distracted by rescuing Sophia that I’d forgotten all about my own sister. I should have remembered that Bria had been trying to tell me something. I should have asked her about it after things had calmed down.