Skin Deep (Station Seventeen #1)(44)
“You volunteer for extra cases outside of the unit.” Up went one hand, ticking off each point, finger by finger. “You’ve never turned down overtime. Not even on Christmas. You’re at the precinct when your partners are blowing off steam together, and even on the rare occasion you do go to the Crooked Angel with them, you’re always a step removed—even with Hollister, and he’s your partner. You think I don’t see that? That the rest of the unit doesn’t see it too? Hell, they don’t even know about Marisol. They don’t know a damned thing about you.”
Isabella’s shoulders met the back of her chair with a soft thump. “I’m private with everyone. It’s not personal.”
“Except this job is personal,” Sinclair said. “We do more than just punch the clock together. We have to trust each other in life and death situations every day. You keep Maxwell, Hale, Hollister, and Capelli at arm’s length, and they feel it.”
“So, what?” She managed to push the question past the shock bursting through her chest, but only just. “You think they don’t trust me?”
“No, Isabella.” Sinclair shook his head. “I think you don’t trust them.”
The words sent a good, sharp kick all the way through her, and oh, it hurt. But her defenses swiftly locked down over the ache, covering it up with the reminder of why she could not, under any circumstances, let her partners, her boss, or anyone else get too close. If they got close, Isabella would care about them, and they would care about her in return.
And the last person who’d been close, who’d cared for her and trusted her, had been tortured and murdered, lost in the blink of an eye even though the pain would last until she took her dying breath.
Going through that again wasn’t an option.
Which meant letting anyone in—letting them close enough to really know her, to know them in return—simply couldn’t happen.
Folding her hands over the forms on her desk, she tucked her shoulders in tight and opened her mouth to kill this conversation, once and for all. “If I didn’t trust the people in this unit, I wouldn’t so much as direct traffic with any of them. Just because I don’t want to sit around the campfire and share all my feelings and hug it out with my partners doesn’t mean I don’t trust them, or that I’m not a good cop.”
Just like that, the chilly edges of Sinclair’s stare came winging back as he pushed himself out of the chair to stand in front of her, his stance just as unyielding as her own.
“It doesn’t mean you’re okay, either. Now do me a favor and go home. And take that box back to the evidence locker on your way out.”
* * *
Isabella took a deep breath of crisp nighttime air, sending a glance over the shadowed city block in front of her. The four-inch heels she’d had to buy specifically for this party pinched at her toes, but she anchored them into place on the sidewalk. Using her throwaway cell phone as a guise, she did a covert scan of her surroundings while she pretended to check her voicemail messages.
No people on either side of the street. No suspicious sounds raising her hackles.
Nothing standing between her and the intel she needed except for two city blocks and the word of a drug-dealing john.
Isabella tucked her cell phone into the miniscule clutch designed to hold it and little else, forcing her feet into a steady stride. She’d quadruple-checked her reflection in the tiny pop-down mirror on the Mustang’s visor, the gold-tinged light doing damn little to soften the smoky gray eyeliner and shimmery copper-colored lipstick that had taken her far too much time and energy to apply. Everything was in place, from her micro-mini halter dress to the small but lethal two-inch ceramic blade she’d tucked behind the lining of the belt around her waist. She had to admit, she’d been a little surprised not to have gotten a last-minute “you’re not still thinking of doing this, are you?” phone call from Kellan. But since she also hadn’t gotten a last-minute “get your ass in my office right now” demand from Sinclair, Isabella had to assume Walker had washed his hands of both her and her recon mission.
Which was really for the best, because between the reluctant drug dealer she was going to have to rely on and the high-level security she was going to have to get past in order to talk to one of these girls, she had one hell of a task in front of her tonight.
Isabella’s heels clipped out a smooth rhythm over the concrete as she walked the pair of city blocks to her meet-up spot with Marcus. Although she had come up with an airtight plan before she’d even cut him loose from his park bench last Friday night, there were still variables that couldn’t be predicted, the first of which was whether or not he’d make good on his end of the deal. Just because she’d promised Marcus she wouldn’t sleep, eat, or stop relentlessly searching for him in addition to making that nine-one-one call if he ditched her didn’t mean he’d actually do the smart thing and show up.
The sight of him standing beneath the street light across from the glittering high rise of the Metropolitan was enough to make her pulse pitch with relief.
“Marcus.” Isabella kept her voice utterly neutral, her first cover-up of what would probably be hundreds tonight. “Good of you to show.”
“Damn, girl.” Danny’s brows shot up, an appreciative leer mixing in with the unease that lurked in his expression. “You look—”