So many things not said, so many truths buried in the details. “Their killer’s the one you were accused of beating?”

“I did beat him.”

“Did your superiors cover it up?” She wouldn’t blame them if they -had—-because sometimes, the law didn’t work; sometimes, lines had to be crossed.

“No. He refused to testify.” Will’s smile was grim. “Apparently, he found God two months into his time on remand, right as the inquiry began. He called me, said he deserved what I’d done to him and he not only wouldn’t be cooperating with the inquiry, he was recanting his statement about police brutality and blaming his injuries on a bar fight earlier that night. I told him I didn’t need the fucking favor.”

Will’s jaw worked. “I was ready to walk into the inquiry and say I did it. Only reason I hadn’t already done that was because the prosecution team on the rapes was worried it’d bring my credibility into question, give the defense a way to attack my work on the case.”

He released a harsh exhale. “In the end, I never had to talk to the inquiry board. My superior officer got the entire thing dismissed for lack of evidence. The official letter came this week, closed the book on the whole thing.

“No one much argued with the -decision—-turns out rapists who carve up their elderly victims, then murder -three--year--old boys aren’t popular with anyone. Even the media barely reported on it. Nobody asked me what it felt like to know I owed my continued career to a murdering rapist.”

She got it, saw why he was in Golden Cove. “Alcohol? Drugs?”

“I almost beat up another asshole, then another. My partners had to hold me back. You can work out the rest.”

Anahera had the niggling feeling she was forgetting to ask something important, but the shape of it stayed frustratingly out of her reach. And since she understood about nightmares and about not wanting to look back, she took Will’s lead and dropped the subject. “I think Siobhan would’ve made a good murderer.”

Will’s fingers eased on the black of the steering wheel. “Most people wouldn’t think so.”

“That’s exactly why she’d be a good one. She’s cold, ruthless, but she looks the part of the rich old lady. No one would ever suspect her.” Pausing, she looked out at the blackness beyond; they were well out of civilization and in the heart of an unforgiving landscape that offered no second chances. “Have you looked into her dating or marital history?” She returned her attention to the cop who told no lies but didn’t tell her everything all the same. “Any suspicious disappearances or deaths?”

Will’s grin was a sudden thing; it changed his whole face. “Never married, -self--made woman. Tough as granite.”

“And with a strange sense of morality,” Anahera said. “She balked at murder, but a suspicious disappearance didn’t even register on her radar.”

A smoky ballad poured out of the radio as the night grew darker around them, the singer’s voice husky and soulful.

Anahera’s skin rippled with a sudden cold. “This was the song we danced to at our wedding.” Will didn’t care about her and Edward and maybe that was why she could tell him. “I wore a long white dress that I used all my savings to buy and he wore a tuxedo. We got married in a small hotel ballroom decorated like a winter wonderland, with thirty of Edward’s family and friends who’d flown over, and my closest friends, in attendance.” She’d had no family by then, no one she acknowledged anyway. “And we danced to this song.”

It had been a fairy tale come to life, one against which Anahera’s battered and scarred spirit had no defense. “Have you ever been married?”

“Came close once, but then Alfie and Daniella were murdered, and I wasn’t quite right in the head for a while. She couldn’t handle it. I don’t blame her for that. She didn’t sign up for a messed--up cop who was placed on administrative leave while the inquiry ran its course.”

“What happened to in sickness and in health?”

“We hadn’t taken any vows yet. And we all have our breaking points.”

“Yes.”

“What’s yours?”

But Anahera shook her head. “Enough confessions in the dark, cop. You keep my secrets and I’ll keep -yours—-but let’s not pretend that we’re anything but two broken people who happened to run into each other.” There was nothing else, no strong foundation on which to build.

“No,” Will said, his eyes on the dark beyond the windshield. “But I’m still going to ask if you want me to come in tonight.”

Anahera hadn’t yet decided on an answer by the time he brought the SUV to a stop in front of her cabin. Then the high beams of his headlights picked up the figure slumped on the porch, and the question was moot.

Getting out, they ran over to find a chilled Nikau drunk off his ass and slurring his words. “Saw her today,” he mumbled as Will hauled him into the cabin and Anahera got to work starting the fire. “Wearing emeralds. Guess pounamu wasn’t enough for her.”

He kept on rambling about his ex--wife while Anahera got the fire going and Will wrestled the mostly empty bottle of whiskey from his hand. Giving the bottle to Anahera, Will told her to get rid of what alcohol remained. Anahera had no compunction in pouring it down the sink. If Nikau had wanted to save his expensive whiskey, he shouldn’t have come drinking on her porch.