Sunset Bridge by Emilie Richards Page A

left without a word to me. You left, after all our years together, and you didn’t even tell me where you were going. I had no way to contact you and settle this.”
    “I got every message you left with my parents. The fact that I didn’t call should have told you something.”
    “You know what it told me, Mags? That you were the same old Maggie Gray. Communication’s never been your strong point. You’re the only one who knows what’s right, and you don’t see any reason to share that with the rest of us. You quit your job in a blaze of self-righteous glory, and the rest of us, who stood firm so we could change the system from the inside out…? We weren’t worth a conversation.”
    “A conversation? You had plenty of conversations about what was going on, Felo—but not with me. With your best friend. You and Alvaro found plenty to talk about. And Alvaro had plenty of reasons to tell you to stay out of the whole mess and leave me twisting in the wind by myself.”
    “Alvaro?”
    Felo never got loud when he got angry. He’d grown up in a family of shouters and learned early that the only way to be heard was to speak so softly that everyone else had to stop and listen. Now his voice was as soft as a cobra’s hiss.
    She tilted her head to examine him. “Most relationships have two people. Ours had three, maybe more. Alvaro was one of them. Remember your boyhood friend, the one who’s slated to be one of the richest men in Miami if he continues along the track he’s walking now?”
    “Alvaro had nothing to do with anything.”
    “No? I heard you on the phone discussing this with him. More than once.”
    “He’s my friend from way back, and an ex-cop. We were partners before he quit the force. I talk to him about a lot of things.”
    “He’s also a friend of Paul Smythe and Jorge Famosa.”
    Famosa was the drug lord Maggie had so diligently collected evidence against. Jorge, Alvaro and Felo had grown up in the same neighborhood, and while Jorge chose a life of crime, Alvaro and Felo had gone to the police academy, served together and were bonded in a way only men in a job like the one they had chosen ever could be. Bonded forever, with little room for the women they worked with—or loved.
    To her knowledge, Felo had never had any connection with Jorge as an adult, but Alvaro and Jorge often attended the same parties and had mutual friends. Alvaro had come up more than once in her investigation—so frequently, in fact, that she had considered taking herself off the case. But Felo had never listened to any of her suspicions.
    Surprisingly, Felo didn’t defend his former partner or himself. He put the half-empty bottle down on the nearest counter, then faced her. “Maybe more?”
    She shook her head to show she didn’t understand.
    “You said our relationship had three people in it, maybe more. What did you mean?”
    She debated whether to answer. She wished that part hadn’t slipped out. Yet wasn’t that one of their problems? The very charm that had so attracted her had attracted other women, as well. And Felo loved women. Particularly women who needed him, the way Maggie never had.
    “All those late nights, Felo. You think I didn’t notice? You think I didn’t see the…intimacy in the way you treated other women on the force and in the neighborhood? How many sinks or windows did you fix on our block? How many times did you sit in on interviews at the station house, just to be helpful? How many drinks did you have with how many women?”
    A muscle worked in his jaw, and his expression hardened, but he didn’t answer right away. He just considered the question, the way he might have considered a menacing reptile in the swamp.
    “How long were you suspicious?” he asked at last. “How long did you silently accuse me of being unfaithful?”
    “That would be hard to say.”
    “So what set off the big explosion? The one I never even heard until now?”
    She realized there was nothing to hide.