I wanted to tell Keira that she’d been caught, but I knew it’d only make her worry. If Jennings planned on reprimanding her, it was going to happen whether I told her or not. Packing away the end of my lunch, I felt a strange urge to go after Jennings. Even if she did relish making my job difficult, I couldn’t help but feel bad. I wanted to apologise for Keira, and for myself for laughing.

Leaving the break room and hurrying down the corridor, I made my way to her office, knocking gently on the door before stepping inside. What I saw when I entered made me wish I’d waited for her to call me in, because Jennings was sitting at her desk, dabbing tears from her eyes with a handkerchief. Her gaze widened when she took me in, and several moments of the most uncomfortable silence I’d ever felt fell between us. The woman had feelings. This thought unsettled me.

“I, uh, I’m sorry, ma’am. Excuse me,” I said, and turned to leave.

“Don’t you dare,” said Jennings. “You just had the gall to burst into my office unannounced, so now you can stay and say your piece. I presume you have some sort of speech to make?”

“That’s not why I….”

“Then why did you?” Jennings snapped, and I startled a little.

“I don’t really know. I just wanted to apologise, I suppose, for what Keira was doing, and for laughing. Mostly for the laughing. You don’t deserve that kind of behaviour, and it’s unprofessional on our part.”

Well, maybe she did deserve it just a little, but I wasn’t going to say that to her face.

“Unprofessional behaviour from you is no great surprise, Sheehan. Christ, look at your father.”

I gave her a funny look. “My dad might not be the most pleasant man in the world, but he’s hardly unprofessional.”

Jennings only snorted and dabbed once more at her eyes before tossing her hankie aside. I narrowed my gaze. “What’s the deal with you two anyway?”

She glanced up in surprise. “Pardon?”

“You hate my dad like he murdered your grandmother or something. Why?”

Jennings straightened in her seat. “You have no business asking such questions. Now get back to work.”

“No, I want to know. I’ve never done anything to you, yet you treat me like I’m a piece of dirt on the end of your boot. I deserve to be told the reason.”

A silence fell, and Jennings eyed me shrewdly. “How’s your mother these days?”

Her question seemed a little random, but I answered anyway. “Um, she’s fine.”

“I’ll bet she is,” Jennings muttered, and I wasn’t sure why, but there was something in her tone that I found curious. It was jealousy with a hint of resentment…. Oh, hell no. Suddenly, everything fell into place, and to be honest, it made me feel a little queasy.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, gaping at her in disbelief. “No way.”

“What are you prattling about?”

“You and my dad.”

Jennings frowned. “Me and your dad, what? Bloody hell, finish you sentences, Sheehan, you’re not a toddler.”

“You and my dad had a thing, didn’t you? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

She stared, her blue eyes cutting into me like a knife, and all at once I knew it was true. My dad had an affair with Jennings. I felt like I’d just stepped over the threshold and into the twilight zone.

“Your father is a spineless coward,” said Jennings, her voice sober. “He is the worst decision I’ve ever made.”

“Spineless?” My brow furrowed.

“Spineless,” Jennings repeated. “Do you know that I was once beaten so badly by the members of an organised crime ring your father and I were investigating that I almost lost my life? Thugs broke into my home and attacked me, and when your father showed up and ran them off, he refused to give evidence or identify my attackers, because it would result in people discovering that we were conducting an affair. He allowed those men to walk free in order to save his reputation and keep his marriage intact.”

My gut churned again, this time for a very different reason. I wanted to think she was lying, but she had no reason to, and her story didn’t sound made up. In fact, the longer I contemplated it, the more it sounded exactly like something my dad would do.

“Go on, tell me I’m lying,” said Jennings, folding her arms across her chest defensively.

“I believe you,” I whispered, and her eyes flared in shock. A moment passed between us, and I didn’t know what to say. In the end, I went with a simple, “I’m sorry that happened to you. And I’m sorry my dad is spineless coward.”

Because he was. And even though Jennings was no ray of sunshine, no woman deserved to be treated like he’d treated her. She lifted her chin, and we shared a moment of eye contact. Finally, she nodded her acceptance of my apology, and I turned and left her office.

***

By the time I got home from work that evening, I felt emotionally drained. I couldn’t stop thinking about Jennings and my dad, could barely get my head around it, really. He’d cheated on my mum with her, and then did something so abhorrent as to abandon her when she needed him most. At long last, her treatment of me all these years made sense. Hell, if I was Jennings, I’d hate me, too.

The flat was empty when I went inside, and I remembered that Alexis had an afternoon modelling job to go to. Dropping my keys on the coffee table, I pushed open the door to my bedroom and got a fright to see a man sitting at the end of my bed. Jumping back, my hand went to my baton, which, since I was still in full uniform, was resting in its holster. It took a second for my pulse to slow down.