One More Night with You Read Free Page A

nothing short of excellence. We won’t have our championship pissed on by a damn addict. Do what you have to do to get the information we need, then put it in our hands. It’s simple.”
    â€œActually, no, it’s not. What makes you believe it’d be simple? The team put your daughter through one hell of a rite of passage last year. I have neither the time nor the interest in experiencing that just for kicks.”
    The man pulled a note from his billfold, scribbled something with a heavy hand then pushed it across the table to her. Joey’s mouth dropped open and a piece of pretzel bread tumbled out.
    â€œGod help us, she’s an Eliza Doolittle,” Tem murmured woefully, but Joey was too shaken by the figure scrawled in front of her to react to the insult.
    â€œThat kind of money isn’t for a just for kicks job,” Marshall said. “As a thank-you and a gesture of goodwill, we’ve arranged for a substantial donation to the city as well as the Good Samaritans of Nevada. That’s the certified prevention and treatment agency assisting us. Everything is aboveboard.”
    â€œThen why would I be compensated?”
    Ozzie said, “You’re taking an unpaid leave of absence from ODC while you’re working the Slayers job. Your income’s got to come from someplace.”
    They’d thought of everything, as though the decision had been made but consulting her was a pesky formality.
    â€œAnd if I say no?”
    Marshall and Tem’s expressions dimmed, and Ozzie stood. “Come with me to the bar, Joey. I want a different drink and ain’t keen on drinking alone.”
    â€œSo you’re going to have peanuts with it?” she quipped, though she was pushing back her chair and reaching for the walking stick.
    To the Blues, Ozzie asked, “Are you sure you want this one? She’s got an attitude that’ll raise your blood pressure. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it.”
    Joining him in the lounge, Joey weakly cuffed her supervisor on the arm. “Your high blood pressure has more to do with sports super-fandom and a salt-heavy diet than it does with me, Ozzie.”
    â€œEh, you’re probably right.” He signaled to the bartender and ordered them each a custom cocktail. “But so what, Joey? Take the assignment.”
    â€œAre you eager to be rid of me for a while?”
    â€œThat’s a bullshit thing to say. You’re competent. More than that, to be honest. That synthetic drug case we just wrapped up—your research was brilliant. You came to us with impeccable credentials, stellar recommendations—”
    â€œAnd three legs,” she added, raising the stick.
    â€œThe sooner you stop thinking of it that way, the happier you’ll be. Guarantee it. Until then, you need a new challenge, something away from the desk. What the Blues want you to do for them, that’s a taste of what you’re used to. Going undercover, breathing in all that risk and action.”
    â€œDeceiving folks,” she whispered, finding his amber eyes sympathetic. Could she truly convey to anyone that a career in DEA had been both heaven and hell? “Lying about who I am. Earning trust in order to twist it into a weapon.”
    â€œIt was all to serve a greater good.”
    The relationships she’d severed, the victims she couldn’t save, the men she’d come to for sex but had hurt eventually—and the man who’d devastated her—they’d all been casualties. On the other side of that was all the destruction she’d helped prevent and the frail comfort of knowing she was true to her duty to the law and fulfilled an allegiance to a country that depended on the loyalty of its soldiers.
    Years of protecting and serving America, empty days highlighted by the immeasurable sacrifices she’d made to hunt criminals, had brought her here—vulnerable and relying on a