The Last Lie Told (Finley O’Sullivan, #1)(22)

If the chief wanted the case dissected, the new guy would want to repeat all the interviews. Go over all the reports and lack of evidence. Finley wasn’t looking forward to walking that road again, but if it helped prove the truth, she would walk across broken glass. But it wouldn’t. Throwing her story at another detective wasn’t going to change the steps he or she chose to take either. Especially a new detective who would want to impress the boss.

The chief and the DA were convinced Finley’s theory about the man who had her husband killed was just another facet of her breakdown. So she’d stopped trying to convince them.

“Eric Houser,” Matt said. “He’s new to Metro. Word is, he’s top notch.”

“Fresh eyes can’t hurt,” she offered less than enthusiastically.

“We both know what they’re doing, Fin.”

They wanted her off the Legard case. What better way than to attack her credibility?

“The shooting at the convenience store was mentioned as well,” Matt went on.

Of course it was. She took a breath, thought through her response. Whatever else Briggs and Lawrence suspected, they couldn’t know the parts she had kept to herself.

No one did. Not even Matt.

“I’ll try really hard not to give them any more ammunition,” she said, annoyed the words were even necessary. She was not the bad guy here! Damn it.

But was she still one of the good guys?

Finley squeezed her eyes shut for a second to force the idea away.

“I want you to tread very carefully going forward, Fin,” Matt said softly—too softly. “Something is out of bounds here, and I’m not privy to whatever the hell it is. What I can say is that I don’t like it. I don’t trust it.”

Trust in the system was something she had lost after Derrick’s murder. When she’d finally started to recall parts of that night, her statements had been dismissed. It hadn’t taken her long to understand what was happening. No one wanted her conclusions to be the truth. So Finley had stopped trying.

She suspected the DA, the chief, maybe even the mayor wanted her to fade quietly into the sunset. She was a thorn of some sort in their collective sides.

“I’m not asking you to walk around on eggshells forever,” Matt urged. “Just until I have a handle on what’s going down.”

“I can do that,” she agreed without actually agreeing at all. The truth was, she could do it . . . but would she? This was her life, and her husband who had been murdered. She wasn’t going to play disinterested or oblivious. Never in a million years would she pretend to not understand the big picture.

Matt searched her eyes as if he desperately wanted to see what she was thinking. “Briggs made a mistake. He should have recognized your vulnerability.”

There he went, talking too softly again. As if she were too fragile for what needed to be said. “I was the one who had something to prove. That I was fine. Derrick was dead, but I was fine.”

Her friend shook his head. “He didn’t care. Briggs only wanted to win, no matter the cost, and he knew you could do it.”

Except she hadn’t.

“Then he let you take the fall.”

“I didn’t leave him a lot of choice. I flipped out.” She wasn’t going to lie to herself or to Matt on the subject. In the end, her former boss had done what he had to do to save face—to protect his organization.

“Say what you will,” Matt countered, “but he should never have put you on that high-pressure case after what happened. It was too soon. He knew better.”

“Whatever.” She shook off the memories. “I’m on this case. End of story.”

Matt exhaled a big breath. “You will be under scrutiny. More so than ever. You have your own way of doing things, Fin, and I’ve always appreciated your abilities. What’s more, you’re very, very good at what you do. But between Derrick’s murder case and this Legard thing . . .” He shook his head. “That’s a lot of pressure and a hell of a lot of eyes on you.”

She smiled despite her frustration. Couldn’t help herself. He was the kind of friend who came along once in a lifetime if a person was lucky. Trustworthy, dependable, and caring. The Judge had expected Finley and Matt to end up together. She’d had the wedding and their whole lives planned before they hit puberty. But it never happened. Best friends. They’d never been anything else. Not a kiss, not even a close encounter. Certainly, being married to Matt would have been easy. They were exactly alike. All work and very little play. Focused. Content to be so.

Honestly, she had expected to be alone for the rest of her life . . . until Derrick.

Why in the world was Matt alone?

Good question. She frowned, stared at her friend. “Why aren’t you married? If I could fall in love and end up in matrimonial bliss, why haven’t you?”

“Is that what we’re doing now? Shifting the focus to me?” He tossed his drink cup into the lunch box and studied her as if she’d just punched him.

“I’m serious. You’re handsome, charming—you have money and a prestigious job. I know you date. Why are you still single?”

He laughed. “You may not know everything you think you know.”

She was the one shaking her head now. “Don’t you dare try that with me. If you’d met someone, I would know. You need to slow down and let yourself have a life. We’re not getting any younger, you know.”