Page 85 of Claimed By the Deputies

Lucas takes it, frowning as he briefly flips through the paperwork. “Of course. I take it our little pop in visit to the Terrazzo got you and Mr. Spring worried and now you’re covering your tracks.”

“Unless you are charging my client with a crime, I would advise against you or any of your deputies harassing him going forward,” Nesbitt says.

“Doing his due diligence. Isn’t that cute.” Patterson snickers as she reaches for the file, perusing it with genuine amusement. “Oh, look at that, they even stapled the credit card receipts to the top of each page so we wouldn’t lose any of them.”

Trevor never takes his eyes off me, and I am finding it hard to breathe. I haven’t been this close to this man in a very long time.

“I’ve missed you,” he says.

“I have not missed you,” I bluntly reply.

“For your client’s sake,” Lucas cuts in, talking directly to Nesbitt, “he’d better keep his distance from Tassia.”

“From his wife, you mean,” the lawyer replies.

“Ex-wife,” Lucas and I reply at the same time.

Trevor chuckles. “Let me put it in layman’s terms so everyone here can understand. I’ve just provided you with solid alibis for whatever crime you thought about pinning on me. If the sheriff’s department, or the DEA, for that matter, keep hounding me after this, I will have no choice but to file harassment complaints and a sizable lawsuit against both government entities.”

“I can’t wait to demolish you in court, then,” Patterson quips.

“Dream on, Agent. You have nothing.” Trevor glances my way again. “You’ll wake up soon enough and remember where you belong, baby. Spoiler alert—it’s not here.”

“It’s definitely not anywhere near you,” I hiss.

He reaches out gently, but I slap his hand away with such rage it shocks even him. His eyes turn cold and black. The anger of rejection is the one thing he could never cope with.

I might have just set him off.

Lucas steps between us. “Mr. Callaghan, Mr. Nesbitt, I strongly suggest you get the fuck out of my station before someone does something they might regret.”

“Have a good day,” Nesbitt mumbles, then follows a sullen Trevor out of the bullpen, the other deputies and staff members staring at us with a mixture of concern and confusion.

I don’t begin breathing properly again until they’ve left the building.

Lucas stays close to my side, one hand gently resting on the small of my back. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“You were right about him,” Patterson says. “He’s a cocky son of a bitch, and he’s got a trump card somewhere up his sleeve, otherwise he’d never have been this bold.”

The fact that Trevor waltzed into the sheriff’s station tells me he’s becoming more brazen. He was too calm, too confident. I didn’t get a whiff of fear from him, just frayed nerves from Nesbitt, but that kind of jitter is typical of a lawyer who’s used to representing less complicated clients.

Trevor is a big fish, and I still can’t figure out when or how it happened.

Just as I still can’t figure out how I’m going to put him back in prison.

“I thinkI’m going to head back to New York City for a little while,” Patterson muses as she stares at the white board. “Timothy Jackson was following a lead on his own. Whether it got him killed or not, we’ll never know unless we follow it, too.”

“I haven’t been able to reach Callaghan’s PO,” Lucas replies.

“Neither have I. Something is extremely fishy about that. I was thinking I could track down his parole officer and possibly even have a word with the parole board. Someone made that decision against some pretty concerning facts in Callaghan’s file. I need to understand what happened.”

Lucas nods in agreement.

The more they talk, the harder it is for me to follow the conversation. My mind keeps spiraling into a fearful storm. Trevor came here. He saw me. And I have a feeling he’ll never let me go. I’m worried I won’t be safe anywhere.

“Tassia?” Lucas pulls me out of my thoughts.

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