Free Final Words by Teri Thackston Page A

had.
    “I lied because I love you, Emma and because I hated to see
you hurting.” He tilted his head as he looked up at her, his expression a
combination of boyish hope and a cad’s confidence. “Honey, you wanted to
believe me. You wanted to believe in our marriage.”
    The truth in his words had her face heating. “I wanted to
believe in myself too and you took that away from me.”
    “I don’t blame you for still being angry.” Moving back at
last, he clasped his hands behind his back. But the gleam in his eyes belied
his almost penitent stance. “I was a rat and I don’t deserve you. But I do
worry about you, especially since your accident.”
    Holding the pen against her aching ribs, she glared at him. “I’m
fine. And I’m very busy, so if you don’t mind…”
    Alan leaned forward again, resting both palms flat on the
top of her desk. “I still love you, Emma.”
    It hurt but she maintained eye contact with him. “You should
have thought of that before you cheated on me.”
    The smile in his eyes melted into something softer as he
focused on her lips. “I wish you would believe that I’ve changed my ways. Oh,
baby, I want to kiss you.”
    Feeling the weight of his gaze upon her lips again, Emma
remembered their last kiss—remembered how she could smell the woman he’d made
out with less than twenty minutes earlier—and her spine went rigid. “Go away,
Alan.”
    He blinked as if he didn’t understand. “But you love me too.”
    “Your infidelity killed my love.”
    Shadows flashed through his eyes and he slammed one fist
against the desk. “It takes two to ruin a marriage, Emma!”
    Emma’s entire body trembled but not with old passion or
guilt or any sense of loss. This was fury. “Go away now, Alan, or I will call Security.”
    Hands raised, he backed away from the desk, his manner
suddenly contrite again, his face relaxing into a pleasant expression that didn’t
fool her for a second. “I’m going. We’ll talk again later.”
    She reached for her telephone. “Alan—”
    “I’ll call you.”
    As she started to call building security, Alan slipped out
the door. Still shaking, Emma hung up the phone and fumbled her way back into
her chair. Lowering her face into her hands, she gave in to tears for the first
time since her accident.
    * * * * *
    “Do you see him?” Charlie murmured over the radio.
    “Not yet,” Jason whispered back. He crouched between two
trash dumpsters in the shadow of an old warehouse on Dowling Street. Clouds
deepened the night, weighing down the summer air. Scents of old oil, grease and
rust hung in the humidity and the only sound came from the waves lapping in the
bay.
    Jason knew that inside the dark warehouse at his back at
least ten men gathered. So far Jaime Campanero had not joined them. But Jason’s
system of snitches had revealed that the illegal alien was a regular visitor to
this weekly distribution by one of the city’s smaller drug suppliers.
    Leaning back against the cool concrete wall, Jason waited.
He and his team were here partly because Emma St. Clair had suggested that
Amalia Campanero had a brother. He imagined she’d be pleased when he told her
they’d found the man.
    Scowling at the distracting image of Emma smiling, he tried
to focus on the moment. Narrowing his eyes, he visually canvassed the street.
The dozen men he and Charlie had brought along were invisible. Tonight’s raid
would be a piece of cake.
    If only Jaime Campanero would show up.
    Something scuttled through the garbage strewn along the base
of the building. Dank, the atmosphere weighed on him. He considered how Ty had
been standing in an alley like this one when he’d been gunned down. He’d lain
there alone, bleeding in the muck and garbage for a long time before a waitress
from the club had found him during her cigarette break. Of the thirty-two
customers and staff in the club that night, Chief Hosken had interviewed only a
fraction of those that Jason had talked to