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He meant to say to the police, but he didn’t. Because he personalized these cases.
“Because Carillo is a cop and she doesn’t trust the system. She feared he would get visitation and either take her kids or turn them against her. He’s sadistic and cruel. She has no family—her mother’s dead, father lives out of state and she hasn’t talked to him in years, grandparents are dead, no siblings. She had friends, until Carillo. She had a job, until Carillo. She believes that only by disappearing will she live.”
“And he knows you helped her.”
“He can’t surprise me because now that I know he knows, I’m prepared.”
“A man like this—he’ll come after you.”
“I hope he does.”
“Dammit, Margo!” Rick glanced around to make sure no one heard him. He lowered his voice. “Margo, listen to me—you are tough and capable and I’d bet on you any day of the week in a fair fight. But a man with a badge who hurts his wife isn’t going to play fair when you screw with him.”
I was doubly glad I hadn’t told Rick about the break-in.
Rick continued. “He needs to be fired.”
“Good luck with that,” I said.
“I have resources. I can get Annie into a safe shelter, get her a good lawyer—your aunt, she’s taken cases like this pro bono.”
“Annie isn’t coming back. I can’t reach her. I don’t have her number, don’t know where she is.”
“It’s the kids—someone reports the kids and we’ll have to go and make sure they’re okay, put it in the system. He’ll know where they are, can still get to them. She needs to testify. I know it’s hard, but—”
“Not going to happen. She left the state.” I winced. I hadn’t meant to say that, but Rick probably suspected I knew more about Annie’s whereabouts than I’d admitted to him.
He stared at me. “You gave her money, didn’t you?”
I didn’t answer. He knew me, and I didn’t want to argue with him about my finances.
“Rick, I got this. Thank you—I mean it—for helping me.”
“Does Jack know?”
I shook my head.
“He needs to know.”
“No, he doesn’t. Look,” I added before he could argue with me, “if I get any sense that Carillo is going to do something rash, I’ll talk to Jack. Right now, there is nothing against Carillo. I’ll find something. Because you and I both know that his wife isn’t the only one he hurt.”
“I’ll look at his record.”
“You don’t—” The look on his face had me stopping mid-sentence. “Okay. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Double for you.”
I rose, turned to leave, then looked back over my shoulder. “Tell Sam I said hi.”
He nodded, but didn’t say anything.
I left. Samantha Devlin was our third fundamental problem. Rick’s thirteen-year-old daughter had come to me three months ago for help with a cyberbully. She hadn’t wanted to tell her dad, and I hadn’t told him. I had mistakenly believed because Rick and I were on a more serious spin in our on-again, off-again relationship that he trusted me with his daughter.
He found out and told me that I wasn’t her mother and had no right to keep something like a cyberbully from him. It hurt. He was partly right—I should have told him, or pushed Sam to tell him what was going on. But I had been a thirteen-year-old girl and there were some things that thirteen-year-old girls were not comfortable telling their fathers—especially a first kiss and the subsequent rumors and lies that followed online. He was right—but what he said cut deep. I love Sam. And Rick cut her out of my life.
Some things Rick and I could overcome.
Some things, we couldn’t.
