Six
Striding through the council meeting room with its empty semi-circle of chairs reminded me of the first time I’d met Avery. Desmond had dragged me back here, holding my badge over me as a way to get me back into the fold and his life. I’d hated him for manipulating me—using his position as the department’s psychologist to pull me back to my place in the community—but if he hadn’t done it, we wouldn’t have solved the case and I wouldn’t have stopped the Order. Since then I’d forgiven him for being pushy. I’d been doing a lot of forgiving lately.
“Took you long enough,” a middle-aged balding guy said. He’d given me lip the first time, we’d met, too.
“Don’t be a d**k,” Avery snapped as he left the room. She ushered us over to her computer terminal. “I got through analyzing the footage
