“Okay then.” He relaxed against the back of his rust-pocked chair, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and crossed his ankles, one square-toed Dingo boot sliding over the other. With a low sigh of frustration, Emmett nodded. Am I missing anything important-aside from the fact that Purcell is a sadistic sonuvabitch?” “Don’t remember that particular conversation,” he muttered. Seeing the perplexed frown on Emmett’s face, Merri felt twin stabs of guilt and sympathy.Įmmett’s reddish brows knitted together. No wonder that asshole claimed to know so much about Baptiste. “Funny how being on the receiving end changes your perspective,” Merri said.
But you’re right I always found ways to justify everything I did for the SB.” “I’ve had more than a few sleepless nights thinking about the things I’d done and why.
So I kept telling myself, anyway.” He trailed a hand through his short, ginger-spice hair. “Cleaning up the messes other agencies created, making sure the truth- harmful truth-was hidden, altered, or erased in the country’s best interests. “True dat,” Emmett drawled, his Louisiana roots curling through his voice. It was our motherfucking job-even if we didn’t always like it.” Hell, you and me? We’ve both played parts in some dark and dirty cover-ups. “And as for your question? There’s a way to justify almost anything, Em. “They programmed Baptiste, so maybe they programmed others too.” “They did a helluva lot more than that,” Merri said, resting her black suede-jacketed back against the door. “How can they justify a program like Bad Seed? Twisting children into sociopaths just to study them?” “He was a kid,” Emmett finished quietly as she turned back around. And not just because Baptiste is a True Blood, but because-” “The first time I viewed those files, I wanted to find the bastards behind the project and tear them apart, even if it meant I ended up heart-shot, staked, and burned. From the moment he was born.” Merri closed the door, twisting the deadbolt into place with a solid tunk, then rattling the chain into its slot. He rubbed his hands wearily over his beard-shadowed face. “Truth, sistah,” Emmett Thibodaux replied, clicking the file closed and swiveling around in the rickety metal folding chair to face her. Smelled anger peppering his anise and fresh ice scent. She eyed her partner’s tensed shoulders, his tight jaw. “Goddamn, Em, are you looking at those files again?” Merri questioned. A boy who Slept with a dead little girl’s plushie orca hidden beneath his pillow.Ī shattered boy fighting to hold himself together. She halted, her gaze caught by the image paused on her partner’s laptop-a teenaged Dante Baptiste in wet, blood-spattered scrubs promising violence with a scorching twist of a smile and a flipped-up middle finger.Ī boy coiled and knotted with guilt, with a grief he didn’t dare voice or show-if he even knew how. Shadow branch field agent Merri Goodnight keyed open the door and stepped into the motel room, cool air laden with the scent of rain and the spiced perfume of the clove cigarette she’d just smoked swirling in behind her.
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