Page 93 of The Secrets She Keeps

“No one wants your family hurt, Joy. Especially Luc,” Mac told her.

“Well, we don’t believe that one bit. Luc would walk right over us to protecthis side.You honestly think he’d have done anything to help Heather? Don’t be so naive. We certainly aren’t.” Joy turned back toward Daniel, missing Mac looking back at Heather again. “Heather is no longer your pawn, Commander Butthead McKellen. You’d better remember that. Now, I suggest everyone who is not staying in here tonight, head out. So…get…shoo. Mig, I’ll keep an eye on Hope. She can sleep there. I am not staying in the haunted room alone tonight.”

“Your mom is downstairs, talking to Cashlyn now. I’m sure she’ll be up in a minute,” Miguel told her, after Daniel returned to his post in the hallway.

“Cashie had to switch shifts to get off yesterday. Cashie’s here all night. Bonnie-mom will hover, like she always does. It’s how she…copes.” Joy said, fussing with the blanket over Hope, then the one over Heather. “Clinging to one another—it’s how we’ve made it through. I don’t think we’ll ever change that now. One Coleson, all Colesons. It really has meaning, you know?”

Yes, he supposed it did. And he would never forget how lucky they were to have each other.

63

Daniel knewGunnar was beyond pissed at him, as Miguel badgered Gunnar into taking a walk. Talking. He might very well have destroyed their friendship beyond repair at this point. Regrets were hard to ignore. He had misjudged.

The woman Gunnar loved could have paid the price for that. Gunnar would never forgive him that. Daniel would probably never forgive himself that either.

And then there was Heather.

That woman…hurt to even think about now.

He hadn’t ever viewed Heather as disposable. That was so far from the truth. But Mac had been clear—and that man had a mind like a razor, he wouldn’t have misheard—she thought Daniel was the enemy.

She feared him. Mac had said Daniel terrified her. Told Daniel to stay the hell away from her, no matter what. Or Mac would rip his head from his body. The other man had looked like he meant it too.

She was terrified.

That was the last thing he had ever wanted.

“Dan?” a voice said behind him. Daniel turned. Elliot stood there.

“Yeah?”

“I have a copy of the video. From…Heather. It’s not much, but it’s a good place to start. Madison is sending it to your phone. It’s going into evidence, but I’m locking access to it. I want to protect her privacy as much as I can. Bit like the closing the barn after the horses are all out, but I have to do something. We can watch it in here. Rafe arranged it with Vince. Dom’s already in there, but I thought you’d want to see.”

Jake was with him. He took Daniel’s chair outside Heather’s door. “I volunteered to do guard duty tonight. It was either me or Lake, and since…Heather’s family, well, I thought I was probably a better choice, considering.”

Daniel nodded. This was a damned clusterfuck, and it was his fault. And he didn’t have a clue how to make it right.

Thirty minutes later, he felt physically ill. At what Heather had said about him, in her most vulnerable moments. She truly believed he would use her that way. Believed that she didn’t matter.

Especially to him.

“Am I like that?” he asked Elliot, one of his closest friends on earth. One of the few he thought really knew him. “Do people really think I am that kind of bastard?”

Like his father.

His father was that kind of bastard. Daniel had always known that. His father didn’t care about anyone other than himself.

“I don’t know.” Elliot rewound the video. “Do I think you are intense and determined to finish this, yes? Do I think you deliberately made a decision that you knew would put her in harm’s way? Hell no. I think you made a mistake, but I’m not sure I wouldn’t have made the same decisions considering youroptions. But convincing her of that, especially coming on the heels of her suspension and what Stillman’s crew did?—”

“It makes her sick to even look at me.” Daniel couldn’t put into words how that made him feel right now. “I never wanted to hurt her. Ever.”

Elliot was silent for a long moment. “I know you have a thing for her, Dan. It’s been rather hard to miss for someone who knows you well. What she said probably hurts on multiple levels. Whether you want to admit it or not.”

A thing? He wouldn’t call it that. He’d found the woman fascinating from the moment she had smirked at him, standing there next to Elliot in Daniel’s office. At first, he’d thought she was Zoey. Until he looked closer. He had been looking at Heather ever since.

Yet looking at him literally sickened her. “Why her? Why did you bring her to Major Crimes?”

“She was the second pick, after Lake. And she had the skills I wanted. I didn’t realize who she was until Eastman. Nothing more complicated than that. I don’t regret it. And if I hadn’t put her in Major Crimes—she was still on her way here. After seeing her personnel jacket, I wanted her here. She is one of the best. Or…she was.”

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