"Fine, though he still doesn't understand why you don't want him to come and visit anymore."
Her tremulous sigh reminded him that they had this discussion nearly every time he came up. "Maybe in the fall."
"That's what you said about summer."
She shook her head. "Look, it's bad enough you feeling like you have to come here and check up on me. There's no need for Brandon to go out of his way, too."
Shaking his head, Wyatt wondered if she really felt that way, if she didn't know that Brandon, probably a couple of years her junior, had feelings for her. I
Perhaps she did. And perhaps that was why she'd asked the other man to stop visiting altogether at around the same time she'd asked Wyatt to come up no more than once a month. Lily, it seemed, didn't want anyone to have feelings for her.
Not that she had ever been ungrateful. In the first few weeks after Wyatt and Brandon had rescued her from the bastard who'd held her captive, she'd been able to do almost nothing but thank them. Since then, though, as her body had healed, her heart had developed thick scar tissue, too. She no longer thanked him. He only hoped it was not because she was no longer glad they had found her and saved her life.
"So are you guys still called the Black CATs because nobody has the nerve to call you black sheep to your face?"
It was his turn to smile slightly. "Some things never change. Besides, we've decided we like the name."
"I assume you're still stuck in those crappy offices on the fourth floor that should be used as supply closets?"
He nodded in acknowledgment but lifted an ironic brow. "Which you, especially, should concede is not an entirely bad thing. It's much easier to fly under the radar when we're so far out of view of everyone else."
Her jaw tightened and her cheeks flushed. "I'm sorry."
He waved a hand in disregard.
"I mean it." She dropped the onion onto a cutting board, reached for a large, wicked-looking knife, and started to chop. Quick, hard, efficient. She had been practicing.
He shifted uncomfortably, not liking the flash of images shooting through his mind. Ugly ones. Bloody ones.
Could you? Could you really?
No. Impossible.
"On top of everything you did for me, saving my life, getting me medical care, letting me live here, faking my death…"
Shaking his head, he replied, "That, I did not do. Nobody faked your death, Lily. Not you, not I."
"You know what I mean."
"Yes, but remember, you committed no crime in not coming forward to correct the mistaken impression that you died. Filed no false life insurance claims, made no illegal moves at all. It was not your fault you were declared dead while you were…" He cleared his throat, unable to go there, even in his thoughts, not wanting to think about what she'd been going through while he and the rest of the team had been fruitlessly waiting for her body to wash up somewhere. "I repeat: You've done nothing illegal."
"I know. But I'm still sorry." Defiance and anger dimmed the warmth of the apology. "You caught the blame for it, didn't you? For what they all think happened to me?"
Wyatt merely stared, wondering how she could know that.
"Damn, it's unfair. It was nobody's fault but my own. You warned me to let the Lovesprettyboys case go."
Yes, he had, not liking what her obsession with an Internet phantom was doing to her. They had discovered the pedophile while researching a sick online site called Satan's Playground, where sadists and monsters gathered and enacted their ugliest fantasies. From the moment Lily had seen Lovesprettyboys' avatar, and the kind of revolting online games he liked to play, she had been determined to find the man before he could play those games in real life. Even after Satan's Playground had been shut down, after the rest of the team had moved on to other cases, having caught the serial killer who had been using the site to air videos of his brutal murders, Lily hadn't been able to let go of the need to do something.
"I should never have ridden along."
"You were supposed to be protected," he said, the words hard to push from his tight jaw. The whole thing still infuriated him. "Anspaugh should have kept you safe."
She rolled her eyes. "Anspaugh. The jerk. What did he get, a promotion?"
Special Agent Tom Anspaugh, who'd allowed Lily to help in his investigation without Wyatt's knowledge, had definitely not gotten a promotion. In fact, he'd been busted down so low, it was surprising he had remained with the bureau. "Quite the opposite. And you're lucky he doesn't know you're alive, because he holds you responsible for his disgrace."
"Oh, nice, blame the dead chick."
His lips quirked a little.
"Something tells me, though, that he's not the only one who got blamed."
No, he wasn't. Though Wyatt hadn't gotten slapped quite as hard as Anspaugh, he'd definitely taken a hit. But again, he had to wonder how Lily could know that. It wasn't as if Wyatt had raised his voice in Crandall's office when he'd gotten called on the carpet. Their heated conversation couldn't have been heard from beyond the walls of the DD's office, to be then whispered about, for, perhaps, Brandon to repeat to Lily.
"It doesn't matter."
Lily's fingers tightened around the handle, whitening under the nails. Then she tossed the knife down, turned to the cabinet, and retrieved two wineglasses. "After everything you've done, all the cases you've cleared, I can't believe they still treat you the way they do."
Watching her uncork a bottle of Merlot, Wyatt remained silent, not really wanting to talk about it. He'd long since come to accept that his career with the FBI would halt right where he was. His title would never be higher than supervisory special agent and some would never trust him. All because he'd seen some ugly, illegal activities going on and he'd done something about it.
Whistle-blowers, it seemed, were never promoted. Only shoved into the Cyber Division, where he'd never worked, and handed a new CAT that had been so narrowly defined, everyone had expected it to fail.
"Is Deputy Director Crandall still trying to drive you out by any means, fair or foul?"
Wyatt reached for the full wineglass she extended, and glanced at the ruby red liquid. Swirling it around, he didn't answer at first, not wanting her to see his reaction. "What do you mean?"
He was stalling. There had been nothing subtle about that query; she'd come at the matter head-on. The question remained: How did she know Deputy Director Crandall was trying to drive him out? Oh, certainly everyone in the bureau knew the DD hadn't been happy about the embarrassing scandal that had ensued after Wyatt had reported the evidence manipulation going on at the FBI crime lab. Especially because one of the agents implicated had recently been promoted to a position directly under Crandall. What made it worse was that high-level agent-Jack Eddington, now cooling his heels in federal prison-had once been Wyatt's good friend and mentor.
The way Lily had worded the question, it was almost as if she knew the deputy director truly hated his guts. That the vengeful man's actions had been personal, more than professional. Having his own office implicated in the crime-lab investigation had made Crandall his enemy for life, and he would have loved to fire Wyatt if he could.
He couldn't. Wyatt had too many friends in high places. Very high. He had a number of powerful supporters, the admiration of media figures who knew him and saw him as one of the few honest men in the FBI. No, Crandall couldn't force Wyatt out.
He could, however, try to get Wyatt to go on his own. And he'd done everything from criticizing him to reprimanding him to accomplish that goal.