Blood Shadows

Book 1: Blackthorn

by Lindsay J. Pryor

Genres: General Fiction; Fantasy Romance; Paranormal Romance

Synopsis

Gifted with the ability to read the shadows of "third species" beings, Caitlin Parish is the Vampire Control Unit's most powerful agent. Despite that, her mission to hunt down Kane Malloy-a master vampire-comes with a death wish. Many have tried, but few have survived.



For Caitlin, tracking Kane is about more than just professional reputation. With her parents both mysteriously killed seven years apart to the day, Caitlin knows that without Kane's help, she is next.



She has four days to make a deal with the wicked, the irresistible, the treacherous Kane Malloy. The vampire who despises everything she stands for. Or die.



Contains mature themes.

Release date: November 20, 2012

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

Something was wrong.

Partially shielded behind her umbrella, Caitlin watched Kane Malloy from across the street, her fingers loosely entwined in her colleague Morgan’s as they feigned a lovers’ kiss goodnight.

‘We’re going to lose him,’ she whispered into her earpiece. ‘If we don’t move now, he’s going to be gone.’

‘Hold your position,’ Max replied. ‘Not all exits are secure. We still have too many unmarked alleys behind those buildings.’

Max had promised her he wouldn’t interfere, had assured her it was her case, damn it. Since he’d realised it might actually happen, she might actually succeed, it had all changed. If she lost this one opportunity…

‘How much longer?’ she asked.

‘Eight minutes.’

Caitlin’s eyes narrowed on her target as he stood outside the club. Both of the honey-trap girls with him were trying to outdo each other with suggestive body language so shameless she was starting to question just how focused on the job they actually were. But if Kane was falling for it, he would have had them by now. Instead he was stalling, using them as a shield to check out the street. And that meant one thing: the vampire was on to them.

‘Max, I’m telling you—’

‘And I’m telling you to hang back, Parish. You don’t have enough backup.’

Caitlin exhaled tersely. She glanced at Morgan frowning down at her before turning her attention back across the street. Caitlin Parish knew everything possible for any human being to know about Kane Malloy. In the six years she’d been with the Vampire Control Unit, the latter four had been tracking him. But it wasn’t only the countless unsubstantiated offences that frustrated her, or the inconclusiveness of some of his most heinous crimes – it was the fact that everyone knew his name and feared it, everyone knew his reputation and so reported nothing and, above all, everyone believed him untouchable.

Everyone except her.

Ever since her first day, when she’d seen the picture of him in prime position on the ‘Wanted’ board, she knew she had to take the case – even more so when she saw the smirks around the table when she’d requested it. From old and experienced to talented and ruthless, they’d all had a go at bringing down Kane Malloy. And she’d seen it in their eyes – no twenty-three-year-old slip of a girl newly in position was going to outdo them, seventh sense or no seventh sense.

She’d had everything to prove in the years since then, not least that she wasn’t as vulnerable and fragile as her physical appearance portrayed. Despite her extensive qualifications, she knew she’d never have landed the job if it hadn’t been for her gift. The VCU was the dark, murky corner of law enforcement where life experience was more defensible than any piece of academic paper. Penetrating the deadly streets of vampire-infested Blackthorn required a physical, intellectual and emotional mindset reserved only for the elite. Over half the district’s less fearful population were openly expressive of their views about VCU interference. To them, her unit was just another in a long line responsible for keeping vampires in their place – contained and forgotten in the over-populated, over-polluted, dense urban mass that humankind had abandoned along with its promises of better provision one day. Resentment was rife. So was retaliation.

History dictated she should never have passed the application stage. But lucky for her, shadow readers were too invaluable for them to turn her down. Her innate ability to delve into the soul-substituted shadow of the vampire, lycan or any of the other third species was too vital to her unit. Her sensitivity to the pulse of the detainees – an open door to every act, thought and emotion – secured a conviction every time, another case closed. The fact it could all be done in the relatively safe confines of the interrogation room was the step in she needed.

But Caitlin never had any intention of playing safe. Ever since she'd been a young girl, she had wanted only one thing – to be a tracker, out there on the field, in the thick of it, just like her father. And being the one to finally capture Kane Malloy would not only seal her career and silence every critic who had underestimated her, capturing Kane would at long last get her up close and personal with the vampire himself. Then she’d get what she really wanted: truths hidden deep in his master-vampire shadow – not least what had slaughtered her parents.

Kane was core to her vengeance and, moreover, core to her survival.

Either that or she was about to make the biggest mistake of what could be the last night of her life.

‘Time’s ticking, Max.’

‘Six more minutes, Parish.’

She closed her eyes for a moment before staring back across the rain-soaked street, compelling herself to obey her boss’s order. But when Kane exhaled one final steady stream of smoke into the night air, when he smiled assuredly to himself as he threw his cigarette to the ground, Caitlin knew he may as well have flipped up his middle finger and slid her perfectly manicured plan down onto it.

‘No,’ she hissed.

Before Max had time to question her exclamation, before Morgan had time to restrain her, she’d stepped off the kerb. She pounded through the puddles, Kane already disappearing back into the club.

‘Parish, get back into position!’ Max warned. ‘Do not go in there. I repeat, do not go in there.’

‘We lose him now, we lose him for good,’ Caitlin declared. ‘And I am not going to let that happen.’

‘You have insufficient backup. I repeat: insufficient backup.’

But Caitlin ignored his warnings as she followed every gut instinct she had, every moment of tracking experience she had gained hunting vampires over the years.

‘Damn it, Caitlin, that’s an order!’ Max barked. ‘There are too many people in there, too much interference. I’ll lose you.’

‘But I’m not going to lose him,’ she said, flashing her badge to ward off the bouncer who stepped in front of her.

She couldn’t lose him, not now.

‘He will have worked out the side exits are manned,’ she added. ‘He’s going to head up to the roof. Focus the team up there. I’ll drive him up or take him out before then.’ She reached inside her jacket to flick the latch off the tranquiliser gun.

‘Parish, you are in contempt of my orders. Get out of there now or face suspension!’

But the adrenaline took over, her heart pounding, her throat dry.

Two years of proving herself more than capable as a tracker, two further years compiling the Malloy case before finally taking over as lead, twenty months of intense planning and it was finally coming to this – a last-minute, poorly executed scuffle to detain him. But there was no way she was going to let him slip through her fingers, because if she did, it would be over. Now he knew they were on to him he’d be gone into the ether – gone from her jurisdiction, gone from her life.

And she wasn’t going to let that happen.

Couldn’t let that happen.

Tonight she would finally look Kane Malloy in those painfully cruel yet enticingly seductive navy-blue eyes and tonight he would look right back into hers. The thought terrified and exhilarated her, both emotions exacerbated by the buzz of the club. The pounding of the trance music evoked her blood to pump, the mass of milling, gyrating bodies making the room surge, the air thick with the scent of dry ice, smoke, alcohol, sweat.

Too many times she’d gazed into those penetrating eyes on paper, eyes framed with thick lashes as dark as his cropped hair. Too many times she’d dwelled on that sensual, masculine mouth as she pored over files at her desk until the early hours, paperwork spread across the lounge of her tiny apartment – yet another night alone in front of the TV.

And on too many occasions, when the darkness was all-encompassing, when the rain tapped lightly against the windowpanes, she’d find her mind wandering to what their first encounter would be like. Sometimes he would visit her in her dreams when her subconscious took over, when the deep dark fantasies she suppressed were allowed free rein. She would wake at times beaded in perspiration, other times soaked in sensual heat.

Caitlin refocused and pressed on through the crowds, knowing there were three exits he could choose from but only one that led up to the roof.

Senses overwhelmed, ears ringing, she burst through the doors and into the corridor. The volume of the music evaporated slowly with the increased distance as she marched ahead through the stragglers, turning left down a dimmer, more isolated corridor.

‘Caitlin, listen to me, damn it!’ Max commanded, a faint crackle telling her the depth of the building was already causing connection problems. ‘You cannot face him alone. Do not face him alone.’

‘This is my case, Max,’ she said, every sense on full alert as she glanced warily over her shoulder before assessing the corridor ahead again. Reaching into her jacket pocket, she pulled out her gun, holding it poised and ready, loaded with enough sedatives to knock out four Great Whites if she let off enough rounds. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

‘You sure as hell better, Caitlin,’ Max warned, his stepfather tone finally overriding his role as her boss. ‘Brovin and Morgan are coming in behind you. Be careful. You know how…’ The crackle developed to a buzz so piercing she was forced to pull the earpiece out, lower her guard and strike position for a split second.

That was all it took.

He appeared from behind her.

His movements were swift and accurate: snatching the gun from her hand, in the same instant he forced her face-first up against the wall, her earpiece hitting the ground.

She caught her breath, pressed her palms and knee to the wall in preparation to push back but his hard body was already against hers, his power reminding her that the strength she had in spirit was absolutely no match for the supposedly three hundred-year-old six-foot vampire who had her pinned to the wall as easily as he would a sheet of paper. And as she felt the tip of her own gun press below her ribs, she knew all four shots of the potent sedative, too powerful for the human body, would end it all for her.

Just like that.

But instead of firing, his soft lips brushed her ear, the arrogant upward curl of those enticing bow lips as clear in her mind as if he were facing her. He tutted playfully, his low rasp raking beneath her skin. ‘A little girl doing a man’s job – bound to end in tears.’

Caitlin clenched her fists. Brovin and Morgan had to be less than a minute away. She had to stall him. Her instinct was to try to reach back and catch his wrist. All she needed was her fingers on his pulse point and she’d finally know those dark recesses that no expert could reach – information she so desperately needed. But she knew she wouldn’t have enough time to wait for that painfully slow vampire heartbeat, even if she was in a position to get to him. There was only one way she was going to get the time with him that she wanted and needed.

‘Kane Malloy, I’m detaining you under section 3.4 of the Vampire Disciplinary Clause…’

He laughed, deep, guttural, terse. ‘You’re detaining me?’

‘On twenty-one alleged accounts of crimes against members of the third species including your own, thirty-two against humans…’

‘Delusional as well as reckless. Are you seriously the best they’ve got?’

‘It’s over, Kane.’

‘You breathe too fast to be convincing,’ he goaded.

‘You don’t breathe enough to judge me.’

He exhaled curtly. Panic jolted through her as he deftly unclasped the belt threaded through her jeans. To her disgust, for the first time on any tracking operation, she froze.

Kill her? Yes, of course the thought had crossed her mind. No matter how unbelievable or surreal it seemed, she had known it was a possibility. But rape? With her colleagues closing in there was no way even Kane would have the arrogance to attempt it in the minutes, maybe even seconds he had left.

But this was Kane. And if he wanted to leave a message for the VCU, a dead and violated tracker would ring loud and clear.

The fact she'd even got this close would be insult too much for his ego.

She snapped back a breath as he yanked her belt through the loops. And as his heel cracked the buckle, destroying the only way the VCU could locate her, she knew it was about to get worse.

Her phone followed next, removed from her back pocket by his stealthy fingers.

‘You’re lucky you serve a purpose,’ he said, combing her hair back over her shoulder.

Her heart pounded painfully. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You’re the one who’s obsessed with me – what do you think?’

As he traced the back of his cool fingers tenderly down her exposed neck, a caress more sensual than she would have thought possible for someone with such renowned brutality, Caitlin held her breath. She was stunned by her own involuntary arousal, suppressing it with every iota of conviction she had.

‘I think you’d better walk away,’ she said, battling to get her focus back on the job. ‘Or give yourself up.’

‘Not going to happen, Caitlin.’ Pressing the tranquiliser gun tighter into her side, Kane made her wince, his reputation restored. ‘Question is, are you going to walk out of here co-operatively or am I going to have to carry you?’

The girl may have flinched when he’d pushed the gun deeper into her flesh, but she hadn’t made a sound. He’d already seen her in action enough, heard enough to know she was used to keeping a brave face. She wasn’t about to let that slip now. Instead, Caitlin’s fingers coiled against the wall, her knuckles pale, her body tensed in anticipation of the shot.

‘I’m flattered you’re giving me an option,’ she said, turning her head towards him, ‘considering your usual tack.’

Kane couldn’t help but smile. Controlling her body had been easy, but controlling her mind was going to be a whole other challenge.

This was worth the lingering moment.

He leaned closer, one arm above her head as he slid the gun slowly and coaxingly over the inward curve of her waist and down her hip. ‘Is that what keeps you warm at night in that empty bed of yours, Caitlin – thinking you know me?’

She frowned, clearly using all her willpower not to flinch. ‘I know this is where it ends for you.’

Easing her jacket aside to assess the outward curve of the small of her back, the pertness of her behind, he whispered against her ear, ‘Tell me, what’s it like being the token psychic on the big boys’ team? Someone have an equal opportunities box to tick, did they? Or was someone promised the prising open of those slender thighs?’

She scowled. ‘You can go to hell, Kane. And I’m going to put you there.’

Cornered and still fighting. He could almost like her if she wasn’t a tracker, if she wasn’t who she was. But the VCU and their sanctimonious ways irritated the hell out him, interfering in things that were none of their concern whilst they hid behind their masks of respectability. And with her mind admirably but insultingly still focused on the job, coupled with her naivety, Caitlin Parish was already presenting a lethal concoction that was threatening his self-control. Self-control that was brittle enough from finally being able to touch her, let alone sensing her potency. Her years of abstinence had clearly made her precious shadow-reader soul as untouchable as if she’d been celibate all her life. Still, challenge was good.

‘Now that sounded like you meant it,’ he said.

‘There’s no way out, Kane. Just pull the trigger or give yourself up.’

Releasing the gun from her side, he flipped her around and pinned both her hands above her head with one of his.

Her eyes flared as she snapped back a breath, their eyes meeting for the first time.

Hers were captivatingly bright, their milky-coffee colour beautifully offset by her flawless pale skin. Her shoulder-length sandy-brown hair was still damp and tousled from the rain, its unruliness suiting her. From a distance she could be mistaken for unassuming, but up close she was pretty. Her features were delicate, her full lips enticing – lips that under any other circumstance he would already have been tasting. And from the sudden dilation of her pupils, the flush in her cheeks, he wasn’t alone in liking what he saw.

It was a shame. Another place, another time, she had enough feistiness to keep it interesting until he chose to exhaust her, playfully and cruelly manipulating the resilience indicative of her kind. Because the more self-controlled they were, the more pleasurable it was. And this girl oozed restraint.

But this was no time to play. This was about preserving her until it was time to drain her body, mind and spirit. This was about toying with her slowly and excruciatingly until she made that fatal choice of letting him in, allowing him access to that otherwise inaccessible soul.

He raked the tranquilizer gun teasingly down her chest, along the top of her jeans, now sitting loose on her slender hips, over the inviting hint of bare flesh, the subtle curve of her toned stomach. Hitching the waistband down just a little further, his gaze lingered tauntingly on the cream lace band of her underwear before meeting her eyes again. ‘Are you calling my bluff, Caitlin?’

Her chest heaved beneath her T-shirt, her defiant gaze fixed with steely determination on his. Her curt breaths were enticingly sexy, her pulse racing, her warm body trembling.

‘Or maybe you’re just stalling until the real agents show up?’ he added.

Caitlin’s eyes narrowed in indignation. ‘I’ll repeat: Kane Malloy, I’m detaining you on twenty-one alleged accounts of crimes against members of the third species, including your own, thirty-two against humans, crimes of the third, second and first degree. You will be detained until further notice whereon you will undertake questioning through which a confession is recommended. Should you elect not to confess, your shadow will be read. If you are subsequently found guilty of any charges, your reticence will automatically qualify you for a more severe sentence.’

The girl was unbelievable. Hauled up against a wall and still reading him his rights. Taming her for the sheer pleasure of it really would have made for an interesting couple of nights.

‘You don’t do submissive well, do you, Caitlin?’

‘I don’t do submissive at all.’

He leaned closer, his mouth hovering less than an inch from hers, her erratic breath evocative against his lips. She recoiled tight against the wall, forging whatever distance she could. To taunt her further, he nudged her thighs apart, keeping them that way with one of his. The panic in her eyes was further confirmation of what he’d guessed from her reaction when he’d unclasped her belt: Caitlin was way out of her depth coming after him. And if the stakes hadn’t been so high, he’d already be proving it.

‘Tell me you’ve never fantasised about this moment,’ he said, revealing just enough of his incisors to goad her.

Her pulse raced as she floundered under his scrutiny. ‘I have,’ she said breathily. ‘Only I’d already lodged a stake in your dysfunctional heart. Now are you going to pull that trigger or am I supposed to stand here all night until you work out how to use it?’

He laughed tersely, but then he saw something in her eyes. There was uneasiness there – an uneasiness that wasn’t attributed to VCU agents used to staring into the eyes of vampires for a living. She clearly knew he wasn’t an ordinary vampire. And if she’d known that beforehand, her actions in pursuing him were far more than just reckless, they were insulting.

But restraint was a necessity, and the echoes of two sets of footsteps fast approaching from the main corridor told him time was short.

Taking both her hands in one of his, he turned her around again, tucking her against him as he raised the tranquiliser gun to the brighter light of the main corridor ahead. ‘Looks like we have company,’ he whispered against her ear. ‘Make a noise and I’ll do more than send them to sleep.’

As soon as they appeared, Kane let off a single shot.

Neither agent saw it coming.

His shot pierced the first agent cleanly in the chest.

But something also pierced Kane. Pierced him in the palm of his shooting hand. Something that threw him off balance, weakening his hold on the gun as paralytic pins and needles swarmed his fingers, his wrist and his elbow.

The second agent took the opportunity and shot Kane twice in the shoulder.

But Kane’s world was already turning black.

He didn’t even have time to curse.

Caitlin’s breath misted the office window as she gazed out across the headquarters’ floodlit grounds. The smattering of rain obscured Lowtown’s cityscape, Blackthorn nothing more than a blackened mass beyond the distant border.

The radiator warmed her thigh through her jeans, as she nervously bit the thumbnail she had jammed between her teeth. Vampires hunted more in the rain. Rain meant hoods up, umbrellas up, deficiency of sound, lowered eyes. Rain disorientated and distracted people, making the kill or capture so much easier. Even there in Lowtown, rainy nights were busy nights. Busy nights when you weren’t suspended pending a full investigation.

She mindlessly rubbed her neck where he’d caressed her. All those years studying him and none of it had prepared her for the lethal spark behind those navy-blue eyes. Eyes that only seven hours before had confirmed her deepest fears, her deepest hopes. The truth of what he was had glimmered through that compelling self-assured gaze. Kane Malloy was indeed a dual feeder, a master vampire: a rare archaic strain of vampirism believed to have slipped into extinction in place of the weaker but more prevalent singular-blood feeders. And deep in the shadowy recess of his absent soul, every last remaining truth about his species lay concealed.

Or at least it would be concealed until she got into that interrogation room, which is exactly where she needed to be instead of wasting time waiting on others to decide her fate.

She pulled away herself from the window, glanced down at her watch for the ninth time in ten minutes and wandered over to her desk to find the last of her caffeine tablets.

‘Caitlin,’ Mark called from behind, ‘you’re wanted.’ He looked as sullen and tired as the rest of the team but there was something more. He cocked his head towards the corridor. ‘Max’s office. Now.’

Her stomach flipped. With leaden legs, Caitlin walked past the disdainful looks of her male colleagues and headed a few doors down the corridor. She steadied her breathing and composed herself before opening the door.

Her stepfather stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, his hands cradled behind his back. As he turned to face her, his lips were taut, his eyes grave.

And behind the dominating conference table, folder neatly opened in front of him, sat Xavier Carter, chief of both the Third Species Control Division, of which the VCU was a component, and the Third Species Intervention Division. His (usually elusive) presence was enough to tell her something had gone horribly wrong.

Xavier stood, indicated for her to move to the seat opposite his, his wrinkled grey eyes observant, intrigued. ‘Agent Parish. It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard much about you.’ He held out a hand across the table.

‘Just in the last few hours I bet.’

Xavier smiled as he shook her hand once, firm, businesslike, and indicated for her to sit. ‘On the contrary. Your work hasn’t gone unnoticed. Your name has been put forward for some rather significant achievement awards at next year’s ceremony.’

‘I don’t do this for personal accolade, Mr Carter.’

He smiled again but just a hint this time. ‘Your dedication hasn’t gone unnoticed.’

She eased her chair under the table, perched on the edge, her hands concealed in her lap so they couldn’t see the tremor.

‘Which is why I’m sure your temporary suspension has come as quite a shock to you,’ he added. ‘I can see it has caused you some distress.’

She glimpsed across at Max as he took his seat beside Xavier, in full official role mode. She wouldn’t expect anything less. Wouldn’t want anything less. In this room, under these circumstances, Max wasn’t her stepfather, he was her boss.

‘Max warned me of the consequence if I proceeded with my course of action,’ she responded. ‘I chose to ignore it.’

‘So you agree with the suspension?’

‘Absolutely not.’

Max shot her a warning glare as Xavier lifted his eyes from the paperwork. ‘You appear very resolute in your conviction,’ Xavier remarked.

‘I have a job to do, Mr Carter. My job is to track and detain vampires who breach the code of conduct established by the Global Council. Kane Malloy has proven elusive for far too long. As soon as I sensed that he was going to abscond, I proceeded to locate him and detain him. That’s what I’m paid to do.’

‘You are also part of a team, Agent Parish. You moved directly against my orders,’ Max reminded her. ‘You went in there unprepared and unsupported. You put yourself at risk as well as Morgan and Brovin. You’re lucky they turned up when they did.’

‘I hear Morgan’s doing fine.’

‘You’re fortunate Malloy only got one round in him.’

‘I was handling it.’

‘And if they hadn’t intervened when they did?’ Max asked.

‘Morgan wouldn’t have got shot,’ she finished. ‘Just me.’

Max opened the package in front of him, took out the plastic bag, placing the gun it contained on the table between them.

Her gun.

Her heart thudded uncomfortably as Max slid it towards her, displeasure clear in his eyes.

‘Who made this for you?’ he asked.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Illegal customisation of VCU property? Yes, Agent Parish, it matters. The lab tells me the release pin was not only loaded with sedative but also a hefty dose of hemlock – an illegal weapon and an illegal substance. Who designed it?’

Caitlin lowered her gaze.

‘Agent Parish?’ Max persisted.

She sighed and reluctantly looked back at him. ‘I did.’

‘You?’

‘I wanted a backup plan.’

He picked the gun up, held it by the barrel and squeezed the trigger. The pin sprang through the back of the grip with a powerful stab, hitting the air instead of the flesh of his palm as it was designed to – what it had succeeded in doing with Kane. ‘So anyone with pressure different to yours activates this and that goes straight into their bloodstream.’

She shrugged. ‘Worked didn’t it?’

Max placed the gun back on the table, unable to mask the disapproval and disappointment in his eyes as he leaned back in his chair.

‘Tell me again what happened,’ Xavier said, drawing her attention back to him.

‘Like I said in my statement and in every interview since then, when I saw Kane Malloy re-enter the building, I pursued him. I worked out that he was most likely to head up to the roof where he would be able to cross several buildings and enter any one of them to escape. There is a single corridor leading to the roof so I chose that one. I proceeded several metres and turned down a darker corridor when interference in my earpiece caused me to momentarily lower my guard. He came up behind me, took my gun and pinned me up against the wall. I advised him of his rights and suggested he give himself up. As I was disarmed, but knew Brovin and Morgan were not far behind, I resolved to keep him occupied for as long as possible. Malloy heard Brovin and Morgan approach, shot Morgan, thus activating the pin in my gun, releasing the hemlock and sedative, the former temporarily paralysing his hand and arm. Brovin immediately counter-shot Malloy twice in the shoulder. Malloy was unconscious within seconds.’

There was a momentary silence. Max and Xavier exchanged glances, adding to Caitlin’s unease. She clenched her hands to stop herself from demanding they just spit it out. If they had a point, she wished they’d just make it.

Max leaned forward again. ‘I last spoke to you at 10:27 p.m.’

‘Okay.’

‘Brovin reported having taken Malloy down at 10:31.’

‘So?’

Max’s eyes were riddled with suspicion. ‘Four minutes to read him his rights?’

‘If you say so.’

‘And what did Kane say to you?’

‘Very little.’

‘In four minutes?’

‘Time flew.’

‘Agent Parish,’ Xavier cut in. ‘You’re the only member of this division, let alone this unit, who has ever got that close to Malloy and survived. I’m sure you understand we want to know why.’

Because he had a purpose for her and one that clearly required her to be alive for the time being. ‘He was interrupted.’

‘Four minutes later, yes. It would have taken him a split second to kill you,’ Max said.

‘I’d have been no use as a hostage then, would I?’

Max narrowed his eyes. ‘Why would he need a hostage when he could have outrun you? All of you? Instead he held back, followed you down that corridor, subsequently increasing his risk of getting caught.’

‘What do you want me to say? I took a chance and it paid off.’

‘A chance that could have got you killed,’ Max reminded her.

‘It was a snap decision.’

‘No, Caitlin. You knew before you started last night that you weren’t going to let him go. Your gun is proof of that.’

‘This is my case,’ she said, me